Remember a day when people became politicians to help their nation? Not line their pockets and their friends pockets?²

Talk about taking the country back, I’d like to take the government away from those who would destroy it. The entire point of having a civilization is to collectivize responsibility, ideally with consent of the governed. Disaster relief, maintaing sewage systems, roads, educating our kids, parks, and so on, paid for with voluntarily collected taxes from all of us. The government should be responsible for more than just fielding a military and monitoring women’s uteruses. 

I Doubt That Is True

David Sirota writes:

It all suggests that the anti-government zeitgeist in America has become so powerful that public officials now feel compelled to downplay the public sector for fear of being tarred and feathered as a socialist, a Marxist or an opportunist unduly “politicizing” a tragedy.

Of course, avoiding a discussion of the government’s role at times like these is, unto itself, a politicized decision — one promoting the illusion that we don’t need government. And no matter how much anti-government conservatives deny it, that is an illusion.

Think about it: When you find yourself riveted by disaster response coverage on television, what you are really watching underneath all the graphics and breathless punditry is footage of government in action.

Think about it: Whether dealing with a hurricane on the East Coast, a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas or a tornado in Oklahoma, government remains the best, most powerful and most reliable defender against and responder to large-scale emergencies.

Think about it: For every headline-grabbing story of a private citizen rescuing another individual, there are scores of never-told stories of police officers, firefighters, first responders, public school teachers, government-created warning systems, public hospitals and emergency management agencies saving hundreds of lives and/or rebuilding whole communities. Those stories, in fact, are rarely told because for all the petulant anti-government whining that dominates American politics, we’ve come to so expect such a strong public sector response that it’s barely even considered newsworthy.

That expectation, by the way, is not something to lament.

(click here to continue reading There’s no substitute for government disaster relief – Salon.com.)

Steve Benen adds:

It’s worth emphasizing that there may not be a fight over disaster relief because a congressional bill may ultimately be unnecessary — FEMA has not yet exhausted its reserves.

But if a funding bill is necessary, there appears to be little appetite for another political fight like the last one.

Here’s hoping we’ll see a return to traditional American norms when it comes to post-disaster aid. For generations, Congress didn’t fight over offsets in the wake of a crisis, it simply moved to help American communities in their time of need. That changed after Republicans took control of the House in 2010, but given GOP reactions yesterday, we may be seeing the first signs that the party is rethinking the utility of its posture.

(click here to continue reading Steering clear of another disaster-relief fight – The Maddow Blog.)

Division Street Bridge

We’ve written for years about America’s politicians puzzling reluctance to invest in infrastructure repair. Instead of forcing ExxonMobil or General Electric or Apple to pay taxes, Washington diddles, and the infrastructure continues to decay. I guess if a bridge collapsed outside of Tulsa, perhaps some of our nation’s D grade bridges could get repaired. Well, at least those in that state. Maybe if the bridge that collapsed was in Virginia, the government might pay attention. Or not. 

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, Illinois’s Report Card Grade is a D+, although our bridges are a C+. 

• 2,311 of the 26,514 bridges in Illinois (8.7%) are considered structurally deficient.
• 1,976 of the 26,514 bridges in Illinois (7.5%) are considered functionally obsolete.
• Illinois received $115.8 million from the Federal Highway Bridge Fund in FY2011.

How’s your state rank?

1. remember the Hurrican Sandy relief fiasco? The Republicans do
2. Ok, this probably rarely happened, even in the “ole” days

Welcome to the 21st century, Illinois! Of course, there won’t be a place like Venice Beach anywhere in Chicago, at least for a few years…

Illinois has come within a signature of becoming the 19th state to allow marijuana use for medical purposes.

On Friday, the state Senate voted 35-21 to approve a medical marijuana measure, which now will head for Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk.

…

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized marijuana use for medicinal purposes. California did so in 1996, when the state’s voters approved Proposition 215.

 

(click here to continue reading Illinois Senate approves bill to legalize medical marijuana – chicagotribune.com.)

Keith Richards – Drug Free America

And the details:

Under the proposal, a four-year trial program would be created to allow doctors to prescribe patients no more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. To qualify, patients must have one of 42 serious or chronic conditions listed in the bill — including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and HIV — and an established relationship with a doctor.

They would undergo fingerprinting and a criminal background check and would be issued a registration ID card. Marijuana use would be banned in public, in vehicles, around minors and near school grounds. Property owners would have the ability to ban marijuana use on their grounds.

Patients could not legally grow marijuana, and would have to buy it from one of 60 dispensing centers across Illinois. The state would license 22 growers, one for every state police district.

If Pat Quinn wants to be re-elected, he should sign this bill quickly.

I can’t say I often enjoy staying in hotels, usually because if I’m staying in one, I’m on a business trip, and am stressed out by it. Jacob Tomsky, a hotel lifer, has come up with ten small tidbits to make your stay more pleasant, including this one:

6. NEVER, EVER PAY FOR THE MINIBAR.

Minibars. Most people are appalled at the prices. However, you never have to pay for the items in the minibar. Why not? Minibar charges are, without question, the most disputed charges on any bill. That is because the process for applying those charges is horribly inexact. Keystroke errors, delays in restocking, double stocking, and hundreds of other missteps make minibar charges the most voided item. Even before guests can manage to get through half of the “I never had those items” sentence, I have already removed the charges and am now simply waiting for them to wrap up the overly zealous denial so we can both move on with our lives.

(click here to continue reading 10 Hotel Secrets from Behind the Front Desk | Mental Floss.)

SoHo Hotel

and this one:

7. BOOK ON A DISCOUNT SITE, GET A DISCOUNT EXPERIENCE.

Reservations made through Internet discount sites are almost always slated for our worst rooms. Does this seem unfair? First of all, we earn the slimmest profit from these reservations. And honestly, those guests didn’t really choose our property based on quality; they chose based on value. We were at the top of a list sorted by price. But the guest behind them in line, the one with a heavy $500 rate, she selected this hotel. When she comes to New York, she goes to our website to see what’s available. Since we have no reason to assume Internet guests will ever book with us again, unless our discount is presented to them, it truly makes business sense to save our best rooms for guests who book of their own volition.

Low Key Lobby

Continuous Recording in Progress 

This does not make me warm and fuzzy…

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (PDF) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

 

(click here to continue reading Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform | Threat Level | Wired.com.)

I imagine that if people hear of this proposed plan, there will be bipartisan, vehement objection to it. 

I’ve never had the opportunity to use a Bloomberg terminal, but this seems like a fairly large and systemic breach of trust. If I was a corporation with a contract with Bloomberg, I’d seriously look into canceling it, or at least not renewing without financial concessions.

The company confirmed that reporters at Bloomberg News, the journalism arm of Bloomberg L.P., had for years used the company’s terminals to monitor when subscribers had logged onto the service and to find out what types of functions, like the news wire, corporate bond trades or an equities index, they had looked at. Bloomberg terminals, which cost an average of more than $20,000 a year, are found in nearly every banking and trading company.

Bloomberg said the functions that allowed journalists to monitor subscribers were a mistake and were promptly disabled after Goldman Sachs complained that a Bloomberg reporter had, while inquiring about a partner’s employment status, pointed out that the partner had not logged onto his Bloomberg terminal lately.

The incident led to broader concerns about the line at Bloomberg between its lucrative terminal business and the hypercompetitive newsroom, threatening to undermine the credibility of both. In a secretive world that thrives on opacity, traders and financial firms jealously guard every speck of information about their activity to avoid tipping their hand on their trades and investments.

“On Wall Street, anonymity is critically important. Secrecy and the ability to cover one’s tracks is paramount,” said Michael J. Driscoll, a former senior trader at Bear Stearns who now teaches at Adelphi University. He added: “If Bloomberg reporters crossed that line, that’s an issue.”

 

…In the early 1990s, when Bloomberg L.P. had just started to build its news division, reporters were encouraged to leverage the terminals as a way to get a leg up on the competition, said several former employees who would discuss practices only anonymously. Reporters often went on sales calls to talk to banks and hedge funds about the news division to help the company sell terminals. The practice became much less pervasive as Bloomberg became an established news outlet, although many Bloomberg veterans still consider the news division solely a means to sell more terminals.

(click here to continue reading Privacy Breach on Bloomberg’s Data Terminals – NYTimes.com.)

Eyeing John Marshall Law School

more from Zachary Seward:

Bloomberg LP is in damage-control mode. Some of its largest customers have publicly accused the firm’s journalists of snooping on their usage of Bloomberg terminals, the firm’s wildly profitable information service for investors.

 …

Every Bloomberg terminal customer knows you just need to tap twice on the greenbutton in the top-left corner of the keyboard in order to chat with a customer service representative. Fewer of them are aware that the transcripts of those conversations are stored by the company and could be viewed by any employee.

Several former Bloomberg employees say colleagues would look upchat transcripts of famous customers, like Alan Greenspan, for amusement on slow workdays. The transcripts were typically mundane and hardly incriminating, but who wouldn’t enjoy watching a former US Federal Reserve chairman struggle to use a computer? And, in theory, the substance of someone’s query to customer service could reveal specific information that he’s interested in, tipping off a reporter to a story.

It’s common for companies to keep logs of their interactions with customers. What makes Bloomberg different is that any employee, including journalists, could access those logs through thefunction on their terminals. Trippet said that access was revoked from journalists.

(click here to continue reading What Bloomberg employees can see when they snoop on customers – Quartz.)

Electric Eye

and worse of all, Bloomberg knew about it a while ago, but didn’t think it a problem, as Buzzfeed reports:

Executives at the financial information company Bloomberg have known about journalists using the company’s terminals to spy on clients at least since September 2011 — more than a year before the practice turned into a scandal that threatens the company’s relationships with its clients. That month, Erik Schatzker, an anchor at Bloomberg TV and host of “Market Makers,” was reprimanded for making on-air comments about using terminal data to track the activities of at least one story subject, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. One source said the matter was a very big deal internally but was handled quietly.

…

Editorially, this information was seen as so benign that surfacing it was an open practice, if not openly encouraged. Internally, reporters are taught to “harness the power of the terminal” to mine for stories, one former newsroom source said. Bloomberg reporters can see the aggregate number of readers for a specific story, but cannot identify the individual readers.
Indeed, not unlike at some other digital media companies, sources said half of the annual bonus for Bloomberg reporters is based in part on story views, so seeing which stories are gaining traction among readers is valuable in helping reporters determine what to chase. According to the former newsroom source, reporters pitch a lot of what Bloomberg calls “people movers” stories (i.e., a Morgan Stanley banker being hired by UBS) because they get a lot of traction among clients.

(click here to continue reading Bloomberg Execs Knew Journalists Were Tracking Clients In 2011.)

Based on courtroom transcripts, Densmore works up a cautionary tale of the ugly collision of art and money. Densmore writes that the opposing legal team attacked his character and labeled him un-American and a communist for not taking the Cadillac deal. "They tried to convince the jury I was an eco-terrorist because I am involved with a handful of peaceful, credible environmental organizations," said Densmore, who was once arrested with Bonnie Raitt for protesting the cutting down of old-growth trees. "I couldn’t believe some of things I heard them say. I felt betrayed, hurt and very alone. . . Now, you can probably google my name and al Qaeda will come up. Great, let’s go to Abu Ghraib! It was really disturbing." During the trial, several musicians  –including Raitt, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Tom Petty, Tom Waits and Randy Newman – all showed support for Densmore.

Via:
The Doors’ John Densmore Talks About the Band’s Ugly Feud | Music News | Rolling Stone
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My photo was used to illustrate this post

Photo By Seth Anderson Steppenwolf was founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It relocated in 1980 to it’s current location and has become a Tony Award-winning theatre company. Modern plays with excellent local actors.

click here to keep reading :
Steppenwolf Theatre Company | In Chicago

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My photo was used to illustrate this post

Photo By Seth Anderson “Blackbird is one of the finest restaurants in the country” – Chicago Tribune. Sophisticated, earthy food in a modern, sleek setting. Owner of a Michelin star.

click here to keep reading :
Blackbird In Chicago

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A Mansion in Lincoln Park, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Richard Parrillo’s place.

”It got away from me, but it’s a labor of love for my wife,” insurance tycoon Richard Parrillo says of his wife, Michaela, who is overseeing the painstaking design and construction of the mammoth home, reportedly costing $40 million, on Burling Street (their property takes up seven city lots)
The lavish French-style mansion will feature an outdoor iron pavilion acquired from an Atlanta estate sale, a chandelier by Argentine ironworker Jose Thenee, a Louis XIII fireplace in the wine-tasting room and a drive court with loose gravel imported from France.

“It’s finer gravel and crunches a certain way when you walk on it,” explains Chicago architectural consultant and interior designer Anthony Michael, who declines to talk prices on such lavish finishing touches.

We were able to figure out that the chandelier alone cost $35,000.

Ms. Parrillo, a Francophile, also requested imported French marble for the floors and triple-vaulted ceilings inspired by the stables of Versailles.

via Crains

Also:

Topping the list in the 2011 tax year was insurance magnate Richard Parrillo, who paid nearly $246,780 last year on a new 15,533-square-foot limestone mansion in Lincoln Park

via

Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in April 2013.

I was fighting off a few illnesses¹, plus my birthday, plus general slackitude. C’est la vie.

Without additional blah-blah, here are my personal favorites processed in April, 2013.

Constitution of the United States

Hail To The Thief Redux

Byrrh
I have only had this once, at the bar at Arami while waiting for my table. I’m going to find a bottle of my own eventually.

Drink to the Men Who Protect You and I

While Your Traces Disappear
I’ve mentioned this photo before. I made myself a 16″ x 20″ print mounted on bamboo from The Darkroom. Turned out nice.

Peel Back the Sky

Your Arms Were Shaking
I wonder how many photos of the West Loop at sunset I’ve taken? A lot, I’m sure.

My first ever Vesper
James Bond doesn’t have the best taste in cocktails. Martinis should really be shaken, not stirred, so he got that right, but vodka and martini are two words that should never be joined in the same sentence.

Each Has His Burden
Lovely white birch in front of the lovely Bahá’í Temple in Wilmette.

We Have Never Been Very Pure
Manhattan Beach, LA. I’ve mentioned this photo before. I should make a print of it too.

Feel of rain in the face
Manhattan Beach, LA.

Birthday Pie
I wasn’t kidding, I did have a birthday this month. Cherry pie, of course.

Pinhole Self Portrait Circa 1994 I scanned this recently, unfortunately, the print is fairly damaged. Some friend of a friend who was a grad student at the ARTIC back in the mid-90s built the pinhole out of a coffee can, and brought a flash. I just posed.

Trust In Your Calling

Science Won’t Change You

Take A Walk Through The Land of Shadows

An Approximation of the Anticipation

A Harmony Not Rarefied

1. yes, plural

East Pilsen

not including the interstate itself, presumedly.

Click to emiggen

River West

Click to embiggen

My photo was used to illustrate this post

In 2012 we witnessed the retirement of the Space Shuttle as well as the near-death spiral of BlackBerry.  Obsolescence has occurred throughout time and will continue to occur.  Specifically in regards to software and technology, obsolescence is a serious issue that subconsciously motivates every product development cycle.  How does a company retain customers for their existing core competencies, while venturing into progressive product development for the years ahead? …Image: swanksalot/Flickr

click here to keep reading :
How to Combat Tech Obsolescence | Innovation Insights | Wired

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