Fuck Rahm Emanuel

A more precise title for this essay might have been, "Fuck Rahm Emanuel's Snake-Oil Arguments for Being Able to Stay on the Ballot for Mayor of Chicago, and Fuck the Board of Election's Willingness to Swallow Those Snake-Oil Arguments Down Without Gagging." More precise, but too wordy. Effective titles benefit from economy of language.

I am not going to belabor the reasons Rahm Emanuel will make a lousy mayor. But I could. I could detail how, as a Congressional representative, Emanuel helped push through NAFTA and other trade policies that sucked thousands of jobs out of cities like Chicago. I could outline how, as an investment banker, he worked to inflate the housing bubble that subsequently burst and wrecked the US economy. I could highlight his aggressive support for privatization, a form of legalized thievery where public assets are sold off to private interests at fire-sale prices. I could note his contempt for public education, for organized labor, or point to his recent dismissal of the Democratic party's entire liberal base as "fucking retards."

And by the way, when I say Emanuel will make a lousy mayor, I am not playing prophet. Anyone with common sense can already see the fix is in. Rahm Emanuel will be the next mayor of Chicago. Not because he is the brightest or most qualified. Not because he has the grandest vision or the best ideas. Rahm Emanuel will become the next mayor of Chicago because he because he possesses, in abundance, the only political currency that really matters: clout. Rahm Emanuel is the Democratic party's Most Effective Fundraiser, a title he's earned over the years by consistently giving corporate America what it wants. In this country, elections may be won, but candidacies are bought. All it takes is a glance at the size of Emanuel's war chest to know his opponents don't stand a chance.

But, as I said, that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is how the hell Rahm Emanuel managed to convince the board of elections he is even eligible to run. Let me start by referencing the statute that has kicked up all the fuss:

(65 ILCS 5/3.1-10-5)

Sec. 3.1-10-5. Qualifications; elective office

(a) A person is not eligible for an elective municipal office unless that person is a qualified elector and has resided in the municipality at least one year next preceding the election or appointment, except as provided in subsection (c) of Section 3.1 -25-75, Section 5-2-2, or Section 5-2-11.

The emphasis, of course, is mine. The double emphasis--the bold atop the italics--is to draw attention to the word "resided." This is important, because the arguments Emanuel's legal team advanced in his defense turned on the meaning of that single word.

The linchpin of Emanuel's case is that while he may have physically relocated to Washington D.C. when he became Obama's chief of staff, he never ceased being a legal resident of Illinois. While living in D.C., Emanuel continued to pay Illinois taxes. He remained a registered Illinois voter. He never sold his Ravenswood home, but instead rented it out in anticipation of his eventual return. All of which is perfectly true.

And all of which is perfectly irrelevant.

The statute does not say a prospective candidate must maintain legal residency in the state for at least one year prior to running for office. The statute says a prospective candidate must have resided in the state for at least one year prior to running for office. Residency is a legal status. It may be satisfied in the ways Emanuel's legal team outlined. But resided is a verb. It denotes an action taken, or omitted. It is perfectly possible--and in fact, common--for legal residents of a state not to reside there. The requirement set forth by the statute couldn't be clearer, couldn't be any less ambiguous.

As if to underline the distinction between having legal residency and having actually resided, the statute lays out one specific circumstance--just one!-- in which one's physical absence from the state in the year prior to running for office may be excused: military service. That is the only exception the statute permits. Serving as the president's chief of staff doesn't cut it. Maybe it should, but it doesn't. If someone wants to change the rule, let them try and change it. That is perfectly reasonable. What is not reasonable is to allow Rahm Emanuel to simply break the rule because--well, because he's Rahm Emanuel.

Make no mistake. Were Rahm Emanuel a Republican or a third-party candidate, or even a Democrat without so much clout, he would have been knocked off the ballot immediately. No question about it. By trying to obscure the difference between legal residency and actually residing, Emanuel has revealed himself to be a snake oil salesman. By having swallowed that crap instead of puking it back in his face, the board of election has revealed itself to be utterly corrupt.

http://law.onecle.com/illinois/65ilcs5/3.1-10-5.htmlp://

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The Ho Tavern

7318 N. Rogers

Chicago, IL 60626

R.I.P

19?? - October 11th, 2010

Thanks for the memories, old girl. You'll be missed.

The Myth of Bureaucracy

During a period of prolonged unemployment, the only resource one enjoys in abundance is time.

I lost my job in 2007. I worked for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), a state agency charged with regulating insurance companies, currency exchanges, state-chartered banks, real-estate brokers, and host of professionals ranging from physicians to security guards. It was a dull job. Dull, but reasonably well-compensated. It also gave me a privileged vantage point into the inner workings of state government. Because I find myself with time on my hands, I've decided to take this opportunity to debunk a few widely-held myths about state government.

Myth: The state is inefficient because it is overly centralized.

Fact: The state is inefficient because it is not centralized enough.

Many people reading this statement are probably scratching their heads right now, so let me explain.

State agencies come into being as a result of laws being passed by the state legislature. There is no point in passing a law unless an agency exists to enforce it. So, a new act is passed in Springfield and--presto!--a new agency needs to be organized.

The state grows agencies the way people in South Texas build houses. In South Texas, when a new child is born to a family, or when an aged abuelita moves into the home, father and sons build a new room onto an existing house. Rooms are added as the need arises, instead of conforming to some overall plan. Over time, houses built this way come to look awkward and ungainly. They may still serve their basic function; however, they appear unsightly from the street, and their interiors become difficult for strangers to navigate successfully.

The state has the same problem. The term, "State of Illinois" is in fact a fiction, an umbrella term used to refer to a scattering of totally disconnected agencies. Each agencies has its own policies and procedures, its own traditions and internal culture. No one from any one agency has any idea what any other agency is doing. No one is ever told who regulates what. There is no integration of any kind. It is this lack of centralized integration that makes navigating the state such a headache for its citizens.

Myth: The state is overstaffed with unneeded patronage workers.

Fact: This is not so much a myth as a gross exaggeration. There is a certain amount of bloat in the system, but it exists overwhelmingly at the top of the hierarchy, not at the bottom. At ground level, where state employees interact directly with the public, there is a massive, chronic staffing shortage.

For example, say you have an auto accident and your insurance company refuses to pay. IDFPR has exactly four people whose job it is to take your complaint. That is, four people in the entire state. Think about how many people live in Illinois, then think about how common disputes with insurance companies are. You get the picture.

Myth: State employees are lazy, surly, and rude because their union makes it impossible to fire them.

Fact: State employees can be, and sometimes are, fired. To say otherwise is pure hyperbole. Being covered by a union contract simply means state workers have to be fired for cause, rather than at the whim of a supervisor. Union employees can be fired, but only at the end of a clearly defined grievance process. In many countries, this is the norm. The United States is unusual in that the overwhelming majority of workers here are employed "at-will."

In an at-will employment situation, an employees are entitled to quit their jobs at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. Needless to say, this is not much of a "right" as far as employees are concerned. However, the rules of at-will employment also allow employers to fire employees at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. If an employee feels he or she was fired unjustly, they must prove the firing was unjust in a court of law. Employers carry no such burden; their right to fire is honored automatically while the case is being adjudicated. Since many employees lack the time, money, and legal savvy to take on their employers in court, the "at will" employment relationship gives employers near-dictatorial power over their workforce.

Because unions in the US are so weak, with so few workers covered by union contracts, American employers (and most workers) see the at-will employment relationship as normal and natural. They don't question it. American employers are so accustomed to totally controlling their workforce, they tend to regard any other arrangement as an outrageous infringement on their rights. In fact, however, at-will employment is no more or less "natural" than other other arrangement. It is simply one of many possible models for employer-employee relationships, one that heavily favors the rights of employers.

As far as the accusations of rudeness and laziness go, my co-workers at the state were the same mixed bag of people you'd expect to find in any workplace. Some were surly and lazy; some were energetic and helpful. I think people who find all state workers incompetent or unhelpful have fallen prey prey to a phenomenon psychologists call confirmation bias. Simply stated, confirmation bias is our tendency to interpret new experiences in ways that confirm what we already believe.

For more than a generation, US political culture has been permeated by right-wing, pseudo-populist, anti-government propaganda. This propaganda campaign has been so successful most Americans now accept its key tropes as "common sense." For example, most people accept, axiomatically, the notion that government can't do anything right. Many also accept the corollary to this belief: that everything can be, and should be, run like a business. After marinating for 25+ years in a stew of neoliberal orthodoxy, is it surprising we often regard the boorish man at the DMV as typical, while forgetting all about the pleasant woman at the Social Security administration? When a clerk at Walgreen's treats us rudely, we don't blame it on the fact he or she work for a for-profit company. However, when we get similar treatment at a public agency, the experience immediately activates our stereotype of the sluggish government bureaucrat.

That said, I will concede the point that some government workers could be a lot nicer and more helpful than they are. Why the rude behavior? That leads me to my next, and last, point.

Myth: The state has plenty of money; they just need to tighten their belt more.

Fact: One of the most shocking discoveries I made while working at the state was how utterly impoverished it is. Illinois ranks fifth in the nation in terms of its population size, yet has one of the lowest state income-tax rates (3%). What this means, at ground level, is that most state workers cannot possibly do their jobs effectively. Whatever their level of commitment, they simply lack the resources.

I already cited the example of IDFPR's staffing shortages. I can give others. For example, investigators at the Illinois Human Rights Commission have to pay travel and other expenses out of pocket; reimbursement by the state can take three months to four months. Meanwhile investigators need to travel every week. This means they are always behind financially. Their employer, the state, always owes them money. The state is so poor, it requires its own employees to subsidize its day-to-day operations.

As a result of these and other problems arising from the chronic lack of resources, we have a state system heavy with demoralized, dispirited, disgruntled employees. When one's job seems hopeless, not caring becomes a rational response. Is it any wonder some of them become rude and indifferent?

The Queen of Rogers Park

You won't find the Queen sipping white wine at the Red Line,
or hear her voice float on a note strummed from the stage at the Heartland Café.
She doesn't take her morning coffee at Charmer's, or nibble cheese at Taste.
These places are just her painted face,
Her press-on nails, Her push-up bras, Her cans of spray-on tan.
They are the dress She wears to the ball,
the delicate china She pulls from the cupboard
when delicate company calls.

The real Queen is One Tough Chick with a scar on her lip
who steps out at night with a baggie of weed pressed beneath her breast.
She gots strong hands, stone knuckles. She can make fists when she wants to.
She'll press her belly against yours at the back of some dark bar, pull away,
and punch a tooth clean out your head. Then she'll wipe blood from your lips with her own and fix you with a gaze that says, "Baby, I'm sorry. Forgive me."

She drinks draft at the Ho, where old timers go
to tend friendships and feuds born on schoolyards.
Where the poker still pays and the bands don’t play, and
regulars still smoke

because they’re regulars,
because they’re family,
because they’re home,
and stash their ash in tiny tins
emptied of tiny cough drops.

Her knees settle on fresh rose petals strewn
before votive velas burning in a sidewalk shrine on Rogers,
built by the strong brown hands of Luís, el Jalisqueño, en honor de su apá.
(te extraño, mi apá,
ya no luches más,
que te cuiden los ángeles,
que descanses en paz)
Llegaron juntos, de mojado, quince años atrás.

She roosts in the rafters of St. Henry's Church and
sails down Devon nestled in the back seat of Sanjay Patel’s cab
to the gates of Rosehill, where She stands guard beside the sad-eyed stone angels
who forever keep, but never judge, the grateful and ungrateful dead.

No Lies

You can do just about anything else.
Kiss me and kick me,
Praise me and punch me,
Thank me and throttle me,
Caress me and curse me,
Grace and aggrieve me.
Go ahead. You choose.
Light up my life or shit in my shoes?
Bring your best and your worst to this party, baby, and stand them on the rail.
Chances are I'll swallow both down, wipe my lips, smile, and come back for more.
But lie to me just once, and this thing we do is done. Dead. Gone.
And no kidding.

Ramblings of a Literate Barfly

Morning at Cafe Ennui.

As I write these words, a snowy-haired black man wearing a kippa hobbles past my table, ragged tassels of a prayer shawl dangling beneath the bottom of his coal-gray sweatshirt. Knees locked, he plods painfully towards the service counter, hips lurching forward and back as he shifts his weight from side to side. The barrista, a teenage Mexican with a bald head and neat goatee, stares at him blankly. The old man reaches the counter, steadies himself with one hand. He plunges the other into his right front pocket, hauls out a fistful of change, and dumps it out next to the cash register. Eyes narrowed, he jabs at his loot with a gnarled index finger, plucking one coin after another out of the main pile and sliding it across the counter towards the barrista. He stops when he has counted out exactly one dollar and eighty-eight cents.

"One small coffee, please, " the old black Jew says.

I decided to start visiting coffee shops exactly one week after I decided to stop visiting taverns. I decided to stop visiting taverns because I had, by the age of twenty-eight, become a red-faced, bleary-eyed, heavy-gutted, chain-smoking, beer-swilling, shot-slamming, front-lawn napping, broad-daylight back-alley pissing, obnoxious loudmouth drunk. Which was a shame, because I really liked taverns.

My love of taverns was not synonymous with my lust for alcohol. Think about it: no one goes to a bar for the booze. Had it been all about the ethanol, I could have gotten loaded just as easily sitting around in my apartment. Plus, I could have done it cheaper. And in my underwear.

But instead, I sat around in taverns. And I sat around in taverns for the only reason anyone does: to be around other people. Other drunk people, sure, but so what? The important thing was I was a social drunk, a sociable drunk. A sociable drunk could be many things. I was, by turns, a happy drunk or a sad drunk, a loud drunk or a quiet drunk, a clever drunk or a stupid drunk, a witty drunk or a rambling drunk, a smiling drunk or a scowling drunk, a patient drunk or a fed-up drunk, a friendly drunk or even (but only rarely) a mean drunk. But so long as I was willing to pull my clothes on and trudge down to the nearest tavern, so long as I remained a sociable drunk, I would never be a lonely drunk. And lonely drunks were the only drunks who scared me.

For a moment, the barrista just stares at the scattering of coins the old man has pushed towards him. Then he uses his own index finger to count them again, plucking one at a time from the counter into his waiting palm. He is almost through counting whem he stops and frowns.

"Hey," the barrista says. "This one's Canadian."

The old man doesn't seem to hear him. He just stands with his eyes closed, fingers drumming the counter. His head bobs up and down slightly, as if to music.

"Sir," the barrista says, louder this time. "Did you hear me? I said this coin is no good."
The old man's eyes pop open. "What?"

The barrista holds the offending coin up between two fingers. "This coin is from Canada. It's no good. You gotta give me another quarter."

The old man grunts. He scans his main pile of change for a long time. Sweat is begins to glaze his forehead. "You said a quarter, right?"

"Yeah, a quarter. Twenty-five cents."

The old man stares, stares. He fishes a rumpled white handkercheif from his back pocket and wipes his mouth. The barrista doesn't speak or move. Finally, the old man pushes another coin in the barrista's direction.

"Okay," the kid says. He takes the quarter, turns around, fills a paper cup to the brim with hot coffee.

By the time he turns back around the old man has pocketed the remainder his change.

"Thank you." the old man says.

The kid nods.

The old Jew settles himself at the nearest table, carefully setting the steaming cup down in front of him. For nearly a minute, he just sits there, stone still and mute, eyes squeezed shut as if aginst some inner pain. But then his body begins to rock back and forth, gently. His lips begin to move, and the old man begins to pray.

In his 1993 novel Trainspotting, Irvine Walsh's protagonist, Marc Renton, lays out exactly what the general public fails to grasp about addiction: "People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it."

The "it" Renton is referring to is heroin, but the same holds true for booze. And make no mistake: the pleasure of it as every bit as real as the misery.

It has been raining all day. I squat in the alley outside Durland's tavern, back pressed against the damp brick wall. I am wild drunk and trying to light a cigarette. Trying and failing. A Marlboro Red dangles between my lips. Left hand cupped above it to shield it from the pattering rain. Right hand flick-flick-flicks away at a cheap lighter that spits sparks but brings forth no flame.

I don't see Tonya walking towards me. Don't hear her footfalls splashing through tiny puddles that glisten, like uncut jewels, beneath the sickly glare of the overhead streetlamp. The only sign of her presence, in that split second before she touches me, is a subtle tingling along my neck as atoms brush past, shifting away from the space she suddenly fills. That, and a breath of lavender perfume.

Then her cool palm against my cheek, fingernails tracing a line in the tender flesh below my jaw. She guides me to my feet, slips her hands beneath my shirt, digs into my shoulders with her nails.

She is drunk as I am. Eyes bloody red, her lips slightly parted, lower jaw slack. She kisses me. Our lips press together and my tongue slips past hers and she rakes my back, painfully. I plunge my hands into her hair, rain-drenched, slick and black as ravens' wings...

Is anything in life so exciting as a really great kiss? Had someone asked me before that day, I would have made a list. Now, I can only think of one thing: a really great kiss you weren't expecting.

And you just don't that many really great kisses in coffee shops.