“‘Super-agency’ falls flat in burbs”

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Of course suburban mayors would lambast the idea of a truly regional transportation agency — folding together NIPC, CATS, the RTA service boards, and maybe the tollway authority. The current system benefits the suburbs greatly by larding up Metra, creating patronage jobs at ISTHA, and maintaining the pro-highways, pro-burbs attitude on transportation spending over at CATS — all while short-changing the city. CTA carries seven out of eight transit riders within the region, but gets only two-thirds of the regional transit operating subsidies (this despite high city sales tax rates).

Granted, the various agencies are doing a marginally better job of at least pretending to talk to one another these days, but the regional status quo continues to promote highway and railroad sprawl while remaining too sensitive to backroom political machinations like patronage hires or the “special request” projects that CATS designates for funds — the Hastert Highway, the Lipinski Trolley, etc.

Second city for Urinetown

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A tiny off-Loop theater troupe called Cardiff Giant went under in Chicago, got resurrected in NYC, and then hit it huge with Urinetown.

As with Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses,” the success of “Urinetown” is firm evidence that the kind of original work that goes on here in storefronts (even unlicensed storefronts) every season is the same kind of work that wins major awards elsewhere and is hailed in New York as revolutionary even 10 years after its Chicago creation. And yet had “Urinetown” become a fringe Chicago musical — which it was inches away from becoming — it likely would have run here for a month and then sunk without a trace in a city that still seems woefully unable to propel its homegrown properties to national prominence and longevity — unless those artists involved ship out for the coasts and start all over.

“Morally bankrupt” GM

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GM fights back against Hummer ridicule with a new ad that eerily embodies exactly what’s most loathsome about the things: their owners’ self-righteous egomania, and desire to lord said egomania over everyone else.

“Of course, some will love the shameless Hummer kid and his take-no-prisoners, win-at-all-costs individualism. Not coincidentally, these are the sort of people who buy Hummers. It would make no sense for the company to aim this spot at folks craving a quiet, go-along-get-along image, because those people aren’t buying 40-ton cars. The Hummer kid is a me-first kid, and the Hummer is without doubt a me-first vehicle… The ad also lets the Hummer buyer spin his purchase as an act of clever outsiderism, recasting his inner bully as a scrappy underdog.” Slate

Behind the times

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Mr. Welch: There’s “anticool…”
Ms. Lazarus: It’s a defensive strategy by the leading-edge culture against the mainstream appropriation of cool.
Mr. Welch:: There’s a reappraisal of things traditionally deemed uncool: trucker hats, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller High Life beers, heavy-metal music.
Ms. Lazarus: We’ve seen a resurgence in what we call ironic pastimes: camping, lawn bowling, knitting.

Trucker hats? PBR? Knitting? And these guys call themselves trend-spotters in 2003?

Pork parade

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Oh boy! The ostensibly Republican-led House has gotten back into big government mode with a transportation spending bill (yes, everyone’s favorite flavor of pork) that proposes to spend 50% more money than the administration’s bill, with vague assurances that “we’ll find the money.” Says Don Young (R-AK), “the Lord will take care of us one way or another” when it comes to finding $375 billion lying around.