Robert Kagan’s hypothesis of irreconcilable differences between the EU and USA has merit, says Stephen Holmes, but only because it cuts both ways: well-policed Europe only conceives of civil solutions to conflict, whereas militarized America only thinks of bombs. (Or maybe just West Texas only thinks of bombs.) On another note, war proponents often claim that Hussein is “like Hitler.” But not even Texans have yet suggested war as a way to liberate the people of Zimbabwe from a dictator who just declared himself “Hitler ten-fold.”
States slash, feds pork it up
The administration just asked for $75 billion for just one month of war. States are in crisis: Oregon hacked a month off its school year, turned thousands of felons out onto the streets, and cut off lifesaving medication to heart patients and schizophrenics; California state officials are seriously considering shuttering universities; Illinois and Massachusetts schools have laid off teachers. The House budget resolution cuts, over the next nine years, over $100 billion for healthcare for poor Americans, nearly $20 billion in food aid for poor Americans, and even $14 billion from veterans’ benefits. And yet the Senate might approve George W. Bush’s budget resolution tomorrow, slashing the average millionaire’s taxes by $100,000 a year while doing nothing (nothing! I would get
Chicago’s desegregation failure
20 years after signing a desegregation consent decree, whites and blacks in Chicago Public Schools are just as segregated as before. And it’s not for lack of trying: magnet school admissions are tilted in favor of whites and against blacks. Rather, continued white flight and other demographic changes have changed the city in the meantime.
20 March 2003
“This is not PlayStation… this is innocent people being killed.” Andrew Refshauge, deputy premier of New South Wales
20 March 2003
“There are many good reasons to get rid of Saddam,” Mr. Randall said. “But when did the events of Sept. 11 get transformed into going to war with Iraq? Why war with this one country, right now? I can’t figure out how we got to this point.” NYT. There are more ruthless, more evil, more heavily armed, more America-hating, more Islamist dictators. So why this? Why us? Why now?
19 March 2003
“the developers need to pay attention to design. Their consulting architect is James Loewenberg, whose work is now in the city’s cross-hairs because of negative reactions to his new buildings in River North. The project will test City Hall’s stated will to hold developers to higher architectural standards.” Sun-Times
SUVs steal public space
From the Project for Public Spaces. Critical Mass steals that public space back.
Guest Editorial
SUVs: Stealing the Public Wealth
by David Burwell
“SUVs are so over!” shouts a recent car ad. This is a remarkable claim, especially from a competing car company. Yet, it rings true. With Arianna Huffington linking SUVs to the financing of terrorists in her Detroit Project; evangelical Christians linking them to ecological destruction in their “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign; and even the U.S. Department of Transportation after them for being more (not less) dangerous than average cars due to their tendency to rollover, these are not good times for Detroit’s biggest money-maker.
Roads should honor and dignify people, not diminish them.
What’s going on? It is possible that a subtle but hugely significant shift in America’s collective unconscious is underway fostered by Detroit’s own ad campaigns. These ads imply that SUV purchasers actually own the road, something all of us pay for through our taxes and which are clearly part of the public realm.
Continue reading
12 March 2003
HOPE VI was an idea with much promise, but it, like most other redevelopment programs, was doomed by underfunding and cynical implementation. Case in point: the wholesale relocation and abandonment of Chicago’s public housing families, driven by the politically expedient need to sweep deep-seated social ills under the rug. Of course, those same expediencies got us into this mess in the first place.
10 March 2003
No, one cannot buy happiness on an individual basis (at least without reducing overall happiness), but it may be possible for societies to collectively decide upon policies that promote overall happiness.
28 February 2003
Alex Star, the editor of the fondly remembered Lingua Franca (oh, how its passing left a hole in my life), is back with Ideas, a reinvented Sunday magazine for the Globe. But although some story ideas are strong, it (as well as the Times’ Arts & Ideas or the features in the Chronicle) suffers from newspaper brevity.
Selfish car alarms
“Noise [car] alarms are basically designed, so far as we can tell, to annoy your neighbors.” — Kim Hazelbaker, senior vice president, Highway Loss Data Institute, an insurance-industry think tank. “[T]he alarms’ most corrosive effect is on the essential urban virtue of civility. Cities-where millions of people from dramatically different backgrounds live densely packed together-require countless acts of mutual adjustment and reciprocal decency in order to flourish. Car alarms send a message directly counter to such civility. “People who place such alarms in their vehicles show the ultimate in selfishness: a willingness to invade the space of their fellow citizens with a raucous noise that says, ‘I care about my car and couldn’t care less about your ears,’ argues anti-noise activist Dave Pickell.” — Brian C. Anderson in City Journal, Winter ’01.
Chicago politics is disappearing
Voter turnout in Chicago municipal elections declined 58% from 1987 to 2003, from 1.1 million votes to 462,605. Votes for Black candidates dropped from 591,881 to 99,554, or 83%.
Two ideas for improving turnout: (a) move elections from midwinter. Weekend elections elsewhere work well, but in any case February has the worst of Chicago’s weather. (b) Instead of 50 racially gerrymandered single-member wards, try a less parochial system: say, 10 compact (measured by perimeter/area), four-member districts. Geographically diffuse minorities would get more representation, the tyranny of local majorities would be reduced, and individual aldermen’s power over local decisions would be weakened — possibly resulting in more equitably distributed services (as city staff take control) and reducing corruption.
west north 