I have called you children
I have called you son
What is there to answer
If I’m the only one
Morning comes in Paradise
Morning comes in light
Still I must obey
Still I must invite

If there’s anything to say
If there’s anything to do
I there’s any other way
I’d do anything for you

I was dressed in embarassment
I was dressed in white
If you had a part of me
Will you take your time
Even if I come back
Even if I die
Is there some idea
To replace my life

Like a father to impress
Like a mother’s mourning dress
If we ever make a mess 
I’ll do anything for you

I have called you preacher
I have called you son
If you have a father
Or if you haven’t one
I’ll do anything for you
I’ll do anything for you
I’ll do anything for you
I’ll do anything for you
I’ll do anything for you

I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you

A friend of mine died last week.  Claire Nelson, to me, was this really cool Creative Writing/Computer Science major who helped convince me to major in the former and had an impeccable sense of style.  Claire was an amazeballs (mostly-fiction) writer all around, although she didn’t think much of her poetry (I did).

She and I weren’t terribly close, but there was a semester we hung out a lot, and we went to brunch once or twice my senior year at Oberlin.  We had many mutual friends and I think mutually admired one another.  We made each other laugh in Pam Alexander’s poetry workshop in 2010. She was a year younger than me.  I remember her stories about Buenos Aires and Patagonia.  I was jealous of her for going to USC for graduate school, which was actually the substance of the last Facebook messages we exchanged, six months ago.

Claire died of a blood clot in her lung two Sundays ago, not even a year after she graduated from Oberlin.  I find the harshness of this reality to be especially painful not because I am an optimist whose worldview is challenged by her unfair and unearned death, but because I am a pessimist and a hypochondriac even on my best days, and a senseless ending of a very lovely life seems to confirm my worst fears about human existence.  I’m waiting for that to be proven wrong, because it just can’t be right, but reading the postings of her parents on Facebook, it only makes less and less sense, not more.  Claire shouldn’t have died, plain and simple.  Death was undeserved, as usual.  I am completely terrified by the reminder that we are all completely at fate’s mercy.  I’m humbled by the knowledge that had our lives been reversed, at this moment, Claire would be writing something infinitely more beautiful and complex about the fragility of life than I, with my schmaltz and sentimentalism, can muster, even in grief.  I’d like to write her something worthy of her talent, her warm presence, her sweetness, but I can’t.  She could have; she did.  But it wasn’t enough.  I can’t believe all the things I’ll never read of hers because she is dead at 22; I say without hyperbole that I really expected Claire Nelson to become a famous writer before we were thirty.  I wholly expected her success to come before mine, and that it would be greater.  I wonder if there will ever be a time when her boyfriend and family might let her friends read some of the writing she may have written recently.  I wonder if there is anything they can publish.  I hope they do, but really, that wish is for something more tangible than her writing, something unnameable, that we can’t get back. 

I haven’t been able to express this to concerned coworkers, old friends here in Chicago who didn’t know Claire, or even to my family.  What is there to say?  She should be alive and she isn’t.  The pain we, her friends, are feeling is legitimate, but it is dwarfed by the agony of her parents and brother, who belong in the thoughts and prayers of everyone, even the atheists.  I can’t imagine, because I don’t want to.  It doesn’t help them and it will not help me to do so.  Claire, I wish you were here.  Someone left this song on your Facebook wall this week, dedicated to your father and mother.  I am reading your old Facebook notes.  If we could will you back, we would.

projecttile:

ANTARCTICA

BY HOPE REHAK

If I slipped inside the wall calendar of Antarctica, the bitter blue gloss on the photograph for May, which is penguins, would coat my skin. Brittle lacquer makes a finer sheen than sweat. June will be icebergs again, because it never gets warmer anyway. These…

thirstforsalt:

Dashboard for the Illinois General Assembly

Which of these things is not like the others?

• Murderers who are domestic abusers, 
• rapists who assault as a group,
• people who use phones or the internet to “conspire” about felonies/misdemeanors (that they may or may not actually carry out)

Lawmakers in Chicago have stoked a media and popular panic about “flash mobs” organized through social media.  SB1005 adds the last bullet to this list of offenses so heinous that a judge can sentence someone to more than the maximum allowable sentence for such a crime.  This bill has flown through the legislature and is being heard on the House floor TOMORROW MORNING AT 8AM!  Filing a witness slip IN OPPOSITION is the only way to show you do not support felony sentences for people organizing “flash mobs” on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

*******

Short version of the bill:

If you conspire to get other people to do something illegal with you, we have a set punishment for your offense.  (In Illinois 2 people committing a felony or misdemeanor together or disturbing the peace is called “mob action” — you plus one friend).  

If you USE THE INTERNET or ELECTRONICS to conspire to get them to do the same bad thing with you…we need to be able to punish you MORE than people who conspired in person (in a boardroom?). 

**********

Having passed the Senate, this bill will be heard in a House committee at 8AM TOMORROW.  

You can USE THE ELECTRONIC INTERNET to fill out a slip registering the fact that you think it’s a dumb idea here:

http://my.ilga.gov/WitnessSlip/Create/70709?committeeHearingId=10982&LegislationId=70709&HCommittees5%2F14%2F2013-page=1&committeeid=0&chamber=H&nodays=7&_=1367961186911

For lawyery types who want to read the bill: 

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09800SB1005eng&GA=98&SessionId=85&DocTypeId=SB&LegID=70709&DocNum=1005&GAID=12&Session=

Summary of relevant section:

(c) The following factors may be considered by the court as reasons to impose an extended term sentence under Section 5-8-2 (730 ILCS 5/5-8-2) upon any offender for the listed offenses:




(1) [first-degree murder, if the defendant committed another serious felony within the 10 previous years]

(1.5) [first-degree murder, if the defendant previously committed domestic violence or violated an order of protection against the murder victim]

(2) [second-degree murder/manslaughter/reckless homicide, if the defendant killed multiple people]

(3) [rape/sexual assault, if the assault was done by multiple perpetrators]

(4) [rape/sexual assault, if the victim is under 18]

(5) [illegal gun/knife/weapons charges, if the defendant is in a gang]

(6)  [illegal gun/knife/weapons charges, if the weapon is disguised]

(7) [drug/meth manufacturing or explosives charges, if first responders are killed or injured]

(8) [new section:

15        (8) When the defendant is convicted of attempted mob16    action, solicitation to commit mob action, or conspiracy to17    commit mob action under Section 8-1, 8-2, or 8-4 of the18    Criminal Code of 2012, where the criminal object is a19    violation of Section 25-1 of the Criminal Code of 2012, and20    an electronic communication is used in the commission of21    the offense. For the purposes of this paragraph (8),22    "electronic communication" shall have the meaning provided23    in Section 26.5-0.1 of the Criminal Code of 2012.

Here is the section in question:

(720 ILCS 5/25-1) (from Ch. 38, par. 25-1) 
    Sec. 25-1. Mob action. 
    (a) A person commits mob action when he or she engages in any of the following: 
        (1) the knowing or reckless use of force or violence 

    

disturbing the public peace by 2 or more persons acting together and without authority of law;

        (2) the knowing assembly of 2 or more persons with

    

the intent to commit or facilitate the commission of a felony or misdemeanor; or

        (3) the knowing assembly of 2 or more persons,

 

without authority of law, for the purpose of doing violence to the person or property of anyone supposed to have been guilty of a violation of the law, or for the purpose of exercising correctional powers or regulative powers over any person by violence.

    (b) Sentence.
        (1) Mob action in violation of paragraph (1) of

    

subsection (a) is a Class 4 felony.

        (2) Mob action in violation of paragraphs (2) and (3)

    

of subsection (a) is a Class C misdemeanor.

        (3) A participant in a mob action that by violence

    

inflicts injury to the person or property of another commits a Class 4 felony.

        (4) A participant in a mob action who does not

    

withdraw when commanded to do so by a peace officer commits a Class A misdemeanor.

        (5) In addition to any other sentence that may be

 

imposed, a court shall order any person convicted of mob action to perform community service for not less than 30 and not more than 120 hours, if community service is available in the jurisdiction and is funded and approved by the county board of the county where the offense was committed. In addition, whenever any person is placed on supervision for an alleged offense under this Section, the supervision shall be conditioned upon the performance of the community service. This paragraph does not apply when the court imposes a sentence of incarceration.

(Source: P.A. 96-710, eff. 1-1-10; 97-1108, eff. 1-1-13.)

thosepaperscut:

thirstforsalt:

notmadeforme:

Unhappy Bat Mitzvah Guest

Blue Chiffon Dress | Size 10 | Nordstrom Rack

hey guyz check out my new blog and submit!

I went shopping yesterday and I’m so mad I didn’t take pictures of the crappy clothes I tried on!!

SUBMIT TO THIS.

It’s okay, my friend!  There will be future opportunities, I have no doubt!

1. Fight against the proposed CPS School closures. Community members and local organizations are packing meetings citywide to express their opposition to closing more schools in already devastated …

Let’s talk for a minute about a hypothetical mayor of a hypothetical city.  Let’s say this city is one of the largest in the United States—top three.  Let’s say this mayor won because he had a national reputation for being a huge asshole who “gets things done” through the power of his massively outsized ego, his “old boy” network, and his own millions of dollars—outspending the opposition by some ridiculous margin, as politicians in an oligarchy tend to do.  Let’s pretend this city is situated in a nation only nominally a democracy, where everyone knows and understands that the political machine is run entirely by the wealthy, and that the underclasses have virtually no say in what happens to them or their children, and the vast majority of those at a disadvantage in this society (which is itself the majority) is either too oppressed or deluded to challenge the system in any substantive way.

Now let’s talk about another person in this mayor’s city.  This man is a member of the working middle class.  He chooses to toil in a public servant position that is at the low end of the pay scale for his education, skill, and experience, but has the benefits traditionally given to public workers choosing to work for a common good rather than private industry.  The private sector crashes, causing the Second Great Depression referred to in the corporate-run media as a mere recession.  Soon, private workers who made more money in their more precarious jobs turn on public sector workers for having the benefits they themselves used to consider too meager to sway them from their more lucrative careers in finance, business, law, etc.  Once their jobs are less certain, they see the relative solidity of public work as a threat to their image of themselves as having made the better choices.  But public work has only been a more solid institution because it works in the interest of the common people, who will always outnumber the millionaires and billionaires for whom everyone else effectively labors.

This public worker watches as his profession is dismantled, bit by bit, his benefits rescinded and outright done away with, all under the pretense of the state being at fault for what is universally acknowledged to be a massive swindling of the national (and international) economy by private hedge funds, banks, firms, and money managers so blinded by greed that they destroyed the fabric of the system that made it possible for them to ascend to the heights of the ultra-rich.  Politicians and the media insist that state and federal debt must be the burden of the middle and working classes: pensions, healthcare, public education, welfare services, etc. are gutted at the altar of debt reduction, while CEOs continue to make, on average, 720% more than the average workers for the same company per annum.  Everyone suffers from the misguided belief that his or her suffering is his or her fault, and everyone continues to suffer, financially and personally, as individuals instead of examining the commonality and intersectionality of their suffering, and its root cause.

Public outcry comes but is silenced.  Revolution does not arrive in a timely manner.  In the meantime, the line between the ultra-wealthy who back politicians exclusively concerned with maintaining the status quo and the ultra-wealthy who become politicians themselves continues to blur.  The mayor from our previous example is elected handily by a populace either romanced by the corporate media or too exhausted to care enough to research whether this man has their best interests in mind.  He quickly slashes jobs, schools, and services in the poorest areas of the city, potentially converting a vital metropolis into yet another Rust Belt city, all while preaching a gospel of Reaganomics that finally erases all semblance of differentiation of his party from the opposition.  The two parties maintain a false front of qualitative disagreement while forcing the constituency into a shell game of choosing the party that best represents their interests, when in reality, neither do.

Now let’s say the public worker ascends to a volunteer position within his profession’s union: unpaid, few benefits, but a position in which the worker feels as if he has a say in the many issues of his workplace.  Let’s say he is an elected member of an elected board comprised of his fellow public workers.

The mayor from our first example has made no secret of his plan to change this board from an elected, public body into one appointed exclusively by him.  Boards of mayor-appointed individuals represent the interests of that mayor and those who helped him buy the previous election.  They are not representative of the city’s populace and the city’s populace has no say in who is appointed; the appointed board barely makes a pretense of having anyone but their own interests and the interests of the mayor in mind when making decisions that impact the economic ecosystem of this city in crisis.

Now let’s say, hypothetically, that these two people chance to meet at a third party function.  The public worker approaches the mayor in a casual, friendly manner, unsure of whether he will be greeted by indifference or enmity, unaware even if the mayor knows who he is or what and whom it is he represents.  The mayor greets him by first name; the public worker is taken aback.  The mayor makes a comment intimating that he will be taking over the board on which the public worker serves in the near future, effectively spitting in the face of not only the worker but, let’s be honest, the entire system of representative democracy on which the nation is predicated. Why say that to him now?  The mayor knows full well the powerlessness workers feel under his administration.

The answer is emasculation.  The answer is that this person in power, like many of his ilk both now and in history, delights in the feeling of domination his office grants him over the people he ostensibly serves.  The answer is that maybe politicians aren’t the people with their constituency’s best interests at heart, but actually sociopathic Napoleons determined to make everyone living under their rule feel like indentured servants rather than a community with a voice or the people who in fact put them in that position of power to begin with.  Maybe these politicians feel this way because elections are no longer determined by the voice of the common people but by the 1%, the super-PACs, the wealthiest dilettantes of contemporary politics who at best don’t understand the issues facing the rest of the population and at worst actively seek to further repress them.  Politicians no longer make even the barest, most nominal acquiescence to constituency, democracy, the working class.  In the United States of America of 2013, they know they no longer have to.

Question: When is a Chicago elementary school with 23 kids in a classroom not considered by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to be an “underutilized” school?

Answer: When it’s his kids’ school.

(via awaitingmyownsurprise)

Rally and March to Stop CPS School Closings