The Grassroots Collaborative issued a report last week looking at mainstream print media coverage of the Living Wage Ordinance that was passed by the City Council and subsequently vetoed in 2006. The research was done in conjunction with the Community Media Workshop and media researchers.
3. Balance was lacking in presentation of problems and solutions, or framing.
Essentially, the Collaborative argues that the policy ramification of the Living Wage Ordinance was reduced to the typical power-politics analysis of "unions versus business", ignoring the deeper issues of the effect of low-wage jobs in poor and minority communities, and disregarding the opinions of supporters of the Living Wage Ordinance where they did not fit into the pre-defined (by Mayoral forces) narrative.
The most troubling fact revealed by the study was that while 75% of those quoted in the articles surveyed were businesspeople or politicians, only 6% were community residents.
Hey! Mechanics contributor and co-founder of the conservative satirical blog The Talking Mirror , Conor McCarthy, was featured in the Sun-Times yesterday! Look at that grin on Conor. Attaboy!
Do not sit in the seat of mockers," one Talking Mirror critic wrote, quoting Psalms 1, after Woodyard dared to mock contemporary worship music. "I never like this kind of humor when it's applied to the church or to the work [of the] Holy Spirit."
Mechanics listened in to hear what the experts had to say about the health care (or lack thereof) that inmates receive in prison. The short answer: it doesn't look pretty and the problem stems from the same hurdles free citizens face in receiving proper health care. Here are some highlights as to why health conditions in prisons are so poor:
Puisis: In 48 states, convicted persons can't vote. In 33 states, if you're on parole you can't vote. And in 28 states, if you're on probation you can't vote. That totals about 13 percent of African Americans and about 5.3 million people are disenfranchised. So indeed, this a closed society that has not many alternatives to pressure politicians to make choices. Because prisons are closed, it's tough for them to make movement. In addition, there's very little sympathy for inmates. So the first question is whether a shrinking budget actually affects medical care for inmates? The answer is 'Yes, it does.' And there's not a lot that can be done about it. The prison population wasn't always as high as it is today. America incarcerates at a higher rate than any country in the world. I just want to put in some historical context to keep it local:
In 1975, the Cook County Department of Corrections was formed by the merger of the House of Corrections and the Cook County Jail. The combined population of that jail in 1980 was 3,800 people. So for half a century, the population of the jail increased by 200. Well, over the next 20 years - and I was at the jail during some of that time - the population of the jail increased from 3,800 people to over 11,000. That's a 189 percent increase. At the same time, over the past 30 years, the population of jails in America has increased over 500 percent. Now, we have 2.3 million people incarcerated and many millions more either on parole or probation. So that's a significant number of people who are disenfranchised. That explosion in jail population has meant that the existing population has to be cared for in the older facilities that existed. What's that meant practically is that many of the clinics and medical facilities in jails are really in...rooms that were not meant for their intended purposes. These are not meant to be healthcare facilities. So sometimes, you'll walk into a clinic, and it's an old property room. In the Cook County Jail, the inmates' center was a property room and it wasn't meant to accommodate those kinds of activities and it doesn't have the necessary plumbing, etc.
I want to state unequivocally that federal intervention really is, in my opinion, responsible for improvement in health care for last 30 years. And it's only through that intervention that medical care in this population has improved. So what is the solution? Should we have mass incarceration forever? I would prefer not to incarcerate at all...there's no question that federal intervention is going to be the primary mover to improved inmate health care. We are faced with an increasing inmate population based on drug laws and mandatory drug sentencing that has resulted in huge population swelling. But we can change it and it doesn't have to go through the federal courts [if we] can go through laws that change the way we incarcerate people.
I've been posting on Merge all morning about the possibility of moving Guantánamo Bay terror detainees to to the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois but this next bit deserves an entire blogpost all its own:
Illinois GOP lawmakers will try to force Congress to vote on a provision requiring the White House to study the potential impact that transferring alleged terror detainees to a prison in their state would have on Chicago's O'Hare airport and the Willis (Sears) Tower before such a transfer would happen.
A handful of the state's congressional delegation took to the mics on Monday morning in Chicago, where Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) announced his intention to amend the upcoming supplemental appropriations bill.
Here, I'll make Kirk's life easier and predict the result of the study right now: The. Prisoners. Who. Will. Be. Locked. In. A. Maximum. Security. Prison. Will. Not. Endanger. Any. Tall. Buildings. Or. Airports. Anywhere.
To reiterate the points I made earlier. Nobody has escaped from a maximum security prison. Ever. These detainees won't be any different. And because they'll be locked up in a maximum security jail they won't have anything to damage a major building or airport with.
But you know what? Kirk probably knows that too. What he's betting is that the rest of us don't know that and are so gullible that we wouldn't make the connection between prison and imprisonment.
Perhaps during the last few months of campaign season attacking Democrats advocates by saying bringing terrorists to a maximum security prison in Illinois of which no inmate has ever escaped might fly but right now, in this economy, I predict that Congressman Mark Kirk and Co.'s claim that by transferring Gitmo prisoners to the Thomson maximum security prison in Illinois will mean endangering Americans and letting the terrorists into "America's heartland" will fall flat. Strangely enough, Rich Miller rounds up all the facts and is still skeptical:
Prisons bring in revenue by employing people to build the prison and run it and I'm not just talking about security. Prisons need people to do the laundry, people to cook the food, people to drive trucks in and out of the facility and a whole bunch of other things. It's a stimulating. That's all in addition to the people who actually build the prison.
Nobody has ever escaped from a maximum security prison. Ever.
Again, let me stress, these terrorists won't be taking that seat next to you at the local bar. They will be in a maximum security prison of which nobody has ever escaped. There is no security concern that these terrorists will escape. Hell, I've got a hunch that they'll even be more secure there than in Cuba.
Also, there are already terrorists in American prisons, 340 to be precise. Surprise!
As Miller notes, the locals actually SUPPORT bringing the terrorists to the Thomson prison.
Well, I'm not skeptical. So not only is Kirk endangering his candidacy by making an attack that is largely false, it's also famously false. People are aware of what the real story is which makes Kirk look like a partisan liar.
Mark Kirk is trying to walk a thin line here. He doesn't want to be Scozzafavaed but he doesn't want to come off as too conservative either. Take this excellent piece by Mike O'Brien (a former classmate of mine) in The Hill. O'Brien reports that Kirk is criticizing the "Pelosi healthcare bill" on its policy, not its ideology. That's enough to make a moderate Democrat in Illinois pause. A Republican who's actually criticizing the bill because of what it does and not because of who proposed it? Well maybe I'll take a listen. Kirk also keeps his conservative cred by criticizing the bill at all. Problem is, Kirk's criticism is so ridiculous, what he's really doing is just pandering to the base:
Kirk outlined core elements of Republicans' health reform proposals in the address, arguing that the healthcare bill passed a week ago by the House would do little to reform the system, and result in higher taxes.
What about reducing prices? What about insuring millions of Americans? What about stopping insurers from rejecting consumers based on preconditions? That's all nothing?
"Chicago Matters has provided the most rare form of new reporting - in-depth coverage of events from multiple points of view," said Elizabeth Richter, vice president of marketing and communications for the Trust, in a press release. "Chicago Matters has served the community well. The Trust is now looking at how to leverage our limited resources to work with those fulfilling core needs of our community in a time of crisis."
Reached by email, WBEZ Managing Editor Sally Eisele said, "Our commitment to public affairs reporting remains the same but obviously, I'm disappointed by this development. Chicago Matters is the type of journalism many of people in this community right now are concerned about saving. The end of this highly acclaimed series means the end of one of the most important local journalism projects in the region. For 19 years, Chicago Matters has been a forum for the exploration of key community issues through in-depth, insightful reporting across multiple platforms. Work produced for the series has won dozens of awards, including a Peabody award -- one of the highest honors in broadcast journalism."
The Trust isn't pulling out of funding media entirely. It has provided grants for "Arts Beat" on WTTW, Chicago Public Radio's Campaign for a Sound Future and Vocalo.org, and the Chicago Public Library's Chicago Vision Project in the past two years. It also just awarded $500,000 in grants to 12 organizations, including Gapers Block, to spur growth and innovation in the city's media landscape.
The Trust is also partnering with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to develop a set of regional indicators to track the health of Chicagoland across a wide spectrum of measurements.
It's interesting to me that the end of the Chicago Matters series occurs just as the public affairs journalism arena is heating up. The newly launched Chicago Current and soon-to-launch Chicago News Cooperative are newcomers to the field -- both might have been fine new additions to the Chicago Matters partnership, possibly breathing new energy into the series as it looks ahead to its twentieth year. Instead the participating media outlets will be left to go it alone, now with fewer funds to produce journalism that in some years was only being done as part of Chicago Matters.
Well while I'm sure many may admire his stance in favor of the public option for health care reform, what hurts this celebration is that he took a US Senate appointment from Rod Blagojevich.
Jan Lorenc immigrated from a small town in southern Poland to Chicago's south side in 1962. Despite his young age--8 years old--he remembers living behind the Iron Curtain and suddenly finding himself in a new place where his first memory is riding in a pink Cadillac convertible.
Lorenc is now a successful designer in Atlanta, running a 31-year-old business that he founded in Chicago in 1978. He's also my dad.
As the world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this week, I spoke to my dad about his memories of living in a country with one-party rule, moving to the United States, and watching Soviet tyranny dissolve.
Call me a cynic but I don't think there'll be much of a consequence if staunch liberals oppose a healthcare reform bill with the Stupak Amendment. That's what Congresswoman JanSchakowsky is doing and also what my new Congressman Mike Quigley is doing. It's a noble effort but really, the liberals in the House and the Senate are the ones who are in the worst position for attention getting. Are they really going to oppose a very progressive healthcare reform bill because it doesn't allow for abortion funding? Is it that much of a surprise that such a compromise exists?
I mean yes, it'd be really nice if the final bill didn't limit abortion funding but who's going to bend over backwards to accommodate Schakowsky? When push comes to shove is she really going to vote against a bill like this with its many other liberal attributes? I doubt it.
It's progressives' big chance to make a difference (although not as big of one as they and I would like). Withholding their vote on a very although not completely progressive bill would also likely endanger them with their liberal constituents.
And I suspect they know this as well. They just need to make a bit of a show so that their liberal voters know they aren't totally okay with such the bill as it is.
Politico lists Illinois as one of a ten states that could lose a senate seat to the opposition party in 2010:
While Democrats failed in their efforts to woo state Attorney General Lisa Madigan into the race, Republicans scored a major recruiting coup when they signed up Rep. Mark Kirk, a mammoth fundraiser known for his success in holding a tough suburban Chicago House seat. Both sides agree that Kirk will make the race for a Democratic seat competitive. Democrats, meanwhile, have struggled to find a candidate they are comfortable with -- state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic primary field, though his background in banking may provide fodder for opponents.
have to say that sounds...plainly... false to me. There are some states where President Obama's coattails aren't long enough to cover the Democrats in the senate and the house and even though Illinois politics is famous for corruption (often among Democrats) there's no way Mark Kirk who --is a moderate candidate only because every once in a while he'll say something on, say diplomacy, or Sarah Palin, that doesn't quite match up with the party line or the Democrats-- will gather enough support to take Burris's senate seat.
It's true that Alexi Giannoulias does have some questionable business ties but they're hardly enough to take him down IF he gets the nomination and I'm not convinced he will. It's still early and there's no reason to say Hoffman is out just yet.
Members of Greenpeace recently uploaded a video on YouTube that shows activists fighting for climate action across cities in the U.S., including St. Louis, Raleigh, Chicago, Baltimore and L.A. Activists marched in support of International Day of Climate Action, held October 24, where environmentally-minded individuals gathered at key spots in cities worldwide to support the need for an international climate treaty and to raise awareness about climate change. In Chicago, dozens of activists gathered around the Fisk Generating Station at 1111 W. Cermak Rd. in Pilsen. The coal-fired plant is one of the worst polluters in Chicago.
At least watch the video until it hits our fair city (around the 2:01 mark) -- you'll hear activists ask how Obama's energy and global warming plan could let a coal-powered factory like Fisk, which is proven to contribute to the neighborhood's asthma problem, stay open. "Chicago claims to be a green city even though we have two coal-power plants located in predominately Latino neighborhoods," activist Moises Moreno, of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, says in the video. "The coal factories, we feel, haven't been held accountable for the violations they've committed."
According to a Greenpeace rep, photos and videos from these events were delivered recently to delegates in Barcelona at the final UN Climate meeting. Activists are hoping their message is heard before critical discussions begin next month in Copenhagen.
Rumors are going around that Todd Stroger's petition signatures are so fraught with error that he could lose his place on the primary ballot.
With news of Danny Davis dropping out today (assuming he would stay dropped out should the remarkable happen and Stroger actually get knocked off the ballot), that could potentially boil the race down to Hyde Park Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Courts Clerk Dorothy Brown, and Water Reclamation District Chair Terry O'Brien.
Preckwinkle got the top position on the ballot. If Stroger is knocked out, Preckwinkle would have to be the frontrunner for the job, particularly if the Mayor is in fact going to lend her outright or behind the scenes support (as has been supposed). While Brown gets elected County-wide (with little challenge) and O'Brien is the sole white dude, Alderman Preckwinkle has the "independent" credibility with none of O'Brien's contractor problems.
Should Stroger get knocked out--and really, this would be a bombshell--I think Toni Preckwinkle has to be considered the prohibitive favorite. The question would be--behind whom would the Stroger organization line up? And would Davis jump back in (that's a timing issue, as well)?
Interesting stuff--personally, I thought Preckwinkle was the favorite since the mysterious timing of the Community Benefits Agreement on the Olympics/Announcement for Board Presidency/Sneed rumor about Daley support for Preckwinkle stuff. She has the right mix of smarts, reformist appeal to contrast with Stroger with the advantage of still having connections to heavy hitter pols and appealing to parts of the South Side African-American primary electorate.
UPDATE: Thanks commenters! I can't believe its already the 9th. Indeed, today, not next Monday, was the deadline for withdrawal. Davis is out for good.
Danny Davis will announce this morning that he would seek reelection for his 7th District Congressional seat. Davis' announcement didn't come with any endorsement, but he did say that at least part of his reasoning was not wanting to split the black vote among four black challengers.
