Obama and the Pastor (no, not that one)

So, I was just reading this article on AOL:

[headline] Obama's Pick for Invocation Under Fire
[first graph] In a move that's infuriated some rights activists and other supporters, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen an evangelical minister opposed to same-sex marriage to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

Has it really come to this? Already? "Activists" are up in arms because someone (a minister) with a point-of-view with which they disagree is going to say a prayer at Obama's inauguration. Really?

I voted for Mr. Obama because I believed him to be thoughtful, balanced, fair and bi-partisan to a certain extent. This choice--as well as a few of his cabinet choices--bolsters my belief in his sense of wanting to include people from all walks of life in his administration, his inner-circle and his contacts in general.

We voted for "change," right? I suppose we could have elected a Democrat who did nothing but toe the party line, but isn't that what we've done for generations up till now? I'm probably not a fan of Pastor Warren (I'm a Catholic Democrat after all) but I'm open to the idea of listening to him and others with different points of view. And I'm open to supporting a new President who will think and behave differently than our previous leaders. He'll make mistakes to be sure; but if he didn't, he wouldn't be trying very hard.

What's the worst that could happen if we listen to a prayer delivered by a pastor who's very popular (apparently) with a bunch of folks? So what if he supported Prop 8? It doesn't mean that Mr. Obama supports Prop 8 or anything like it. It just means he chose a popular pastor to deliver a prayer.

By the way, I can't recall listening to a single pastor, minister or priest with whom I've agreed on every single thing. In fact, I'd guess that I disagree with most pastors/ministers/priests on a lot of very basic, everyday things. And let's face it: These guys (most of them are guys) would be out of business fast if they delivered only the sermons or homilies that people wanted to hear.

But I digress ...

Do we really want another president with a "with-us-or-against-us" attitude on every single thing? I don't.

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Old and Young.

This evening, I sat at the kitchen table with my youngest son, who is 22 months old. Also at the table was one of his Grandmas--my dad's wife Becky--and her own mother, Granny, who is living with some stage of demensia, possibly Alzheimers disease. Three of the four of us were coloring with crayons.

I watched my son use his crayon in mad fashion all over the page and, occasionally, I helped him out. And Becky was trying to get Granny interested in the project. Becky used a pink crayon on the page and handed the crayon to Granny and asked her to color also. Granny tried for many minutes to figure out what to do with the crayon. She was frustrated with this project.

After Becky demonstrated the process several times, and repeatedly handed the crayon to her mother saying "color," Granny finally took the crayon and tried to spell the word "color" on the page.

I was struck by how similar--and how different--my and Becky's lives must be at this point. We both spend a big part of our days teaching, instructing, encouraging and physically helping someone along. But while I can look forward to my own children picking up new skills and becoming more and more independent, Becky is likely to see the opposite effect. She spends a majority of her day physically caring for her own mother, who now is living in a convalescent home in which she does not receive much, if any, individual attention or care.

Last month's bill for Granny's shared room in the convalescent center was more than $5,200. Something is very wrong with this system.

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Being a Mom Can Be Painful. Really.

So, have you heard about the latest group of "offendeds?"

Once again, I'm bemused by the many people in the world who seem to find themselves offended by anything said by anybody. Mostly I try to dismiss these perpetual victims out of hand. But I ran across this article today about a group of baby-wearing moms who are highly offended because Motrin (a pain reliever) dared to suggest that wearing a baby in a sling/carrier could be painful for the mom. Duh!

I've got two kids. I love them more than anything in the world. Anything.

I tried to wear both of them in two different types of baby-carriers. Thank God neither of them wanted anything to do with it, b/c it was the most uncomfortable, painful thing going. There were a few people who told me I must "be doing it wrong," or that I "didn't buy the right" carrier.

Gee, it couldn't possibly be the fact that I had 20 lbs. of baby strapped to my torso, could it?

These were the same folks who'd "tsk-tsk" me for having no desire or inclination to breast feed, or let the kids sleep in my bed, or for wanting to go back to work as soon as I possibly could after maternity leave. In my experience, every one of the baby-wearing, breast-feeding, co-sleeping, attachment-parenting people who surmised that I just wasn't wearing my baby correctly also were the same people whose entire self-image was based upon being a mother and nothing else.

Guess what? Sometimes being a parent is no fun at all. Sometimes it stinks. Literally. Sometimes it hurts. Also literally. So to pretend that being an earth-mother is just one glorious experience after another--and to organize a boycott against Motrin for stating the obvious (strapping on an extra 20 lbs. might hurt your back)--well, methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Disclosure: I will take ibuprofen for almost anything--it is a miracle drug. While I am sufficiently offended by the price of a bottle of Motrin to buy the generic equivalent, I am not offended enough to campaign against Motrin. Between working, raising children and trying desperately to keep my garbage cans poop-free, it's just easier to give Motrin a pass and get on with my life.

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First Responders

One of the best things about my north-facing window here at work is the ability to hear and see the city-sights/sounds on the street six floors below.

Several times a year, new recruits from the Chicago Police Department or the Chicago Fire Department run as a group down Fulton Street (today, it was the guys from the CFD). Usually they're shouting or chanting something in unison, military-style. I always hear them when they're about half-a-block away, so I have time to get to my window and watch them running by.


Several years ago, it was a pleasant amusement for a single woman. Now, I'm thinking that my three-year-old son would find the whole thing really, really cool because they're all wearing matching shirts and they're usually followed by a squad car or a fire department car.

Funny how things change. :-)

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Observations for Friday

Super Cool
The deposit feature at the new ATMs at the brand new Chase bank branch at 330 N. Des Plaines. Just insert your paper check into a feeder slot in the new ATM. Within seconds, an image of your check appears on the screen with a message: Your deposit amount is $154.99. Correct? No need to fill out an envelope or even use the keypad to tell the machine how much you're depositing. Why didn't someone think of this before?

Not-So-Cool
Seen for sale at the new Jewel grocery store at 330 N. Des Plaines: Potted Norfolk Pines bedecked with Christmas decorations. I'm as big a Christmas freak as anyone, but really ... it's the first week of November, people.

Also Not Cool
The fact that I popped out of the office at lunch without my cell phone. I could have supplied photos of both of the abovementioned items, which would have made this post a lot more interesting.

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What is News? (And why isn't it what I think it should be?)

I think this is something that everyone thinks from time to time. Especially with the proliferation of media outlets: it seems any flunky can get his own talk show and any soap box is good enough to televise.

This morning, I was having a discussion about what constitutes news with someone who thinks it strange that the Chicago papers gave front page treatment to the deteriorating economy pre-election; now that the election is over, the Chicago papers are running front page stories about President-elect Obama's family members and his choice of advisors.

When I was in journalism school, more than 20 years ago, one of the first things we learned were the five things that constituted “news.”

Timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest were the five. And the stories that meet those five criteria will vary depending upon the media outlet, the location, the readership, etc. Proximity is a big one: meaning a story that is either geographically “close” to the readers or a story that has special significance for most of the readers of a publication.

So, for the Chicago papers and Chicago readers, the Obama girls and the Obama cabinet positions meet all five of the standards for a local audience, most of whom are not c-level execs. Many of them probably fall into the 250,000 people who showed up downtown on Tuesday. Hence, the front page treatment of Malia and Sasha and Rahm.

However, today's Wall Street Journal’s above-the-fold headlines are these:

“Global Push to Beat Economic Downturn”
“Hedge Fund Selling Puts New Stress on Market”
“A Snowblower Maker Braces For Slump’s Blizzard of Woe”

Those articles meet the five criteria for the WSJ readers, many of whom are c-level execs or business-owners, people who are definitely interested in the economy before anything else.

None of this implies that coverage is impartial in any media outlet. The days of any media outlet being impartial are over. Every publication writes for its own readers; and we, as readers, seek out the publications that please us, interest us or meet our own standards, and we read them. It’s called custom publishing, baby.

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A Great Day

It's a great day. A fresh start.

The scene at Grant Park was beautiful, at least from my vantage point (in bed watching TV).

The overwhelming majority of the crowd downtown was peaceful and happy; thankfully not in an "in-your-face" kind of way. (An aside: As the mother of two toddlers, I was surprised at how many parents seemed glad to stand outside for hours and hours, late at night, with their sleepy children in tow. Not in a million years, I say.)

The election was called early (by 10 p.m. CST) and there was no doubt about the legitimacy of the outcome. Refreshing.

And best of all, my husband and all the other police officers and public safety personnel made it home safely.

Our popular new president and his beautiful family have their work cut out for them. (Another aside: After Obama's speech last night, I couldn't help but feel really, really happy for Joe Biden and his family.)

Every one of us will need to sacrifice something to put our nation on the upswing again. I hope President Obama specifically asks us for that sacrifice and lets us know exactly how we can help. And I sincerely hope we participate, step up and take ownership of this process, knowing that it won't be easy and it may not be fun and it will probably get worse before it gets better.

But it must be done.

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Just Plain Stupid

What follows is a true story about how the city of Chicago, or at least the 35th ward, managed to screw up the democratic process for hundreds of people on the most-anticipated election day in decades.

It all began more than three weeks ago.

On October 12, the "NO PARKING from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m." signs were posted on Palmer Blvd between Kedzie on the west and Sacramento on the East. The parking ban was in effect weekdays from Oct. 14-17, so that the badly pockmarked, potholed Palmer Blvd could be resurfaced.



For three days, hundreds of residents had to find somewhere else to park when they arrived home from work in the afternoons. Unless, of course, they wanted to get out of bed at 5:50 the following morning to move their car before the tow trucks arrived. (Click the image above for a better view ... everywhere there is a green line is where no one in the neighborhood could park for the better part of a month.)

Not the end of the world, and worth it if the street is resurfaced. Right?

Well ... things are just never that simple in Chicago. From Oct. 14 to Oct. 17, the road crews completed only the first step--grinding up the old surface, leaving the boulevard looking even more unsightly (but actually easier to drive upon).

The following Monday, Oct. 20, the signs were updated: "NO PARKING from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 21-24." So, another week when residents had to relocate their automobiles, sometimes blocks away from their homes. A lot of fun when you have two small children and all of their gear to transport from car to house.

Here's the great part: nothing was accomplished that week. Nothing. The street crews and their equipment NEVER SHOWED UP. So we were all displaced for absolutely no reason at all.

Guess what happened next? Yes, you're catching on. New, updated signs went up the following week, indicating there was no parking on the boulevard through November 6.

And it gets better.

The street crews actually resurfaced the westbound side of Palmer on Thurs/Fri last week. They began resurfacing the eastbound side today. Great, right?

Except for the fact that a major polling place (St. Sylvester school) sits at the corner of Palmer and Sacramento. Now, not only is there no parking available for residents, there is no parking available for people who will show up to vote. And--here's another kicker-- the side streets (Albany and Whipple) that are normally accessible to/from eastbound Palmer today are blocked off with orange cones and tape with steamrollers doing their thing. So, even if voters want to park on a side street, good luck with that.

When I left for work today at 8 a.m. it was already a clusterfu*k. People circling the block, backing up in the middle of streets, making U-turns, etc., to no avail.

Thanks Chicago. Thanks Alderman Colon.

You had nearly four weeks to complete the most basic of city services, and you choose ELECTION DAY to resurface a major street in front of a polling place, while blocking access to/from the side streets. During that time, there was at least a six-day stretch in which NOTHING happened. Job well done.

There's so many other ways this could have happened. Here are some ideas:

1. How about moving the parking ban from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. or 8 a.m? That way, residents can park in front of their homes at night and can get up at a decent hour to move their vehicles.

2. How about displacing people only when you know work will actually happen? Seriously, why was there a parking ban for a week when absolutely nothing happened?

3. How about resurfacing a street in front of a polling place ANY DAY BUT ELECTION DAY?

Sheesh!

Don't even get me started on the disgrace that is Palmer Square Park.

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Officer Friendly

Patrick and I are at the kids' school every day for drop-off and pick-up. But we make an effort to be there for other occasions. Like field trips, or holiday programs. Or safety week.

During safety week, the kids learn about ways to stay safe: everything from not touching a stove to what to do if there's a fire to not going anywhere with strangers.



























This is the second year that Patrick has visited the classroom of ODS, decked out in his police uniform (he's a detective, so we rarely see him in the uniform), riot helmet and bulletproof vest. In addition to the firearm, he's armed with coloring books that instruct the kids about various dangers they should avoid.

He has a great time doing it, and ODS is WAY excited when his dad shows up at school as Officer Friendly.

Officer Friendly will be in uniform for real this week: On Tuesday, Barack Obama scheduled an election-night rally in Grant Park and invited 65,000 people. Which might have been OK, except the mayor then went on TV and invited, like, the REST OF THE WORLD to attend.

Nevermind that the police are undermanned in this city; nevermind that our murder rate just shot past NYC and Los Angeles this year; nevermind that--the last we heard--there won't even be portable toilets available at this shindig. Yes. The best thing to do is encourage everyone, everyone, to converge downtown on a weeknight when Mr. Obama will not even make an appearance until 11 p.m. at the earliest. Great idea.

So on Tuesday, his day off, Officer Friendly will be working in uniform, at night, downtown. Everyone, please be careful.

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Halloween 2008

This year, my kids are old enough to understand that Halloween is a holiday of sorts. ODS (oldest dear son) has had a firefighter uniform for a couple of months now. He wore it to school for a field trip to a fire station, he wears it all the time at home (sometimes just the helmet, sometimes the whole thing) and he wore it to school again on Friday for Halloween.

















But the best part of Halloween, for him, was comparing helmets with a real Chicago fire captain (a friend of Patrick's) after school. What a kick!

YDS liked his Elmo costume, but it's too woolly to wear when it's 70 degrees outside. He wore the headpiece for a while, but abandoned the whole idea after a couple hours at school. He's not the clothes-horse his brother is anyway.

















Outside of the outfits, they got VERY possessive about their own candy housed in brown paper sacks they got at school. Enough to make YDS completely break down in a fit of anger and frustration when Grampa tried to look in the sack.

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Keywords for Life

What are your keywords?

I've spent the better part of the last few days brainstorming keywords for the www.imaginepub.com website in an effort to boost our search engine optimization, or SEO. It's part of the way that search engines, such as Google, find a website and list it/rank it.

The whole point of keyword selection is to think about how your customers or your audience would search for products, services or information that you provide. Sound easy? Not so much. You're faced with the fact that a lot of other companies already may have optimized their own websites around keywords/phrases that you'd like to use.

To use a fishing analogy: You cast a wide net; then you dump out most of the fish that may belong to someone else or are too small to keep anyway.

Then, you work with what's left: Keywords that accurately describe your offering, which also are not used by a bunch of your competitors, which also happen to be words/phrases that your potential customers actually search on.

I'm totally into this project.

But I started thinking: what would my own keywords be? Michelle O'Hagan's keywords?

What would yours be?

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Viral Marketing - Don't Vote

I just came across this video. Titled Please Don’t Vote - Tell 5 Friends, its content is clever, funny, urgent and--best of all--relevant. It also contains no fewer than three calls to action.

It is the definition of viral marketing.

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So. Wrong.

A really, really pregnant Amy Pohler raps with the best. And shoots a moose.

All the mavericks in the house, put your hands up.
All the plumbers in the house, pull your pants up.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/39808/saturday-night-live-update-palin-rap

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From Wrigleyville to Logan Square

The second-to-last sentence of my last post, Mister Manners, may have given you the idea that I don't enjoy living in Chicago. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In fact, when I met Patrick, I was one of those Chicago transplants who was still--five years after moving here--giddy-infatuated with our fair city. I did what most young(ish) people do when they move here: I got an apartment in Wrigleyville, bought a bicycle to ride by the lake, left my car parked on the street and rode the el to my job downtown. At the time it all was very exotic: City Life.

I'm a big fan of city life, probably because I grew up in the south, where big cities still are viewed with suspicion by a lot of folks who think it's weird that so many people would want to be in such close physical proximity to other people who don't look or act anything like them. And I always thought they were weird for wanting to live on giant pieces of land with so much space between them and other people who looked and acted exactly like them.

You can keep Los Angeles; San Francisco is beautiful; St. Louis is nondescript; and Miami is too humid. But more than once in my life, I thought I'd move to New York. I thought New York was my favorite city until I moved to Chicago.

Like most new residents, and all the tourists, I marveled at how clean Chicago is, how efficient it is, how it "works." And that is true much of the time ... if you're downtown, or near downtown. However, if you venture a little further west and north away from the tourists, you'll discover neighborhoods of people, residents who've lived in Chicago their entire lives.

And guess what? Everything is not shiny and clean. Lifetime residents of Chicago know that many things don't really "work" they way they're supposed to. Corruption in city government is rampant and--worse--incompetence is standard operating procedure. I have friends (also transplants) who defend this situation by way of explaining that corruption is a fact of life in every city government and incompetence is a way of life for some people. That may be true to a certain extent. But in Chicago, the corruption and the incompetence are in, your, face.

And this causes lifetime residents to view the rest of us ("blow-ins" is how Patrick refers to us) as a giant pain-in-the-ass. Lakefront liberals who are so damned impressed with the flower-boxes and wrought iron fences downtown that we enable and even promote the current corrupted condition by continuing to vote for the very people who are doing the corrupting. And after nine years here, I'm coming around to that line of thought.

I still love Chicago for all the reasons I loved it when I moved here nine years ago. The architecture. The lake. The neighborhoods. The food. The culture. The shopping. The attitude. The people. And I absolutely wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But my enthusiasm now is tempered by the fact that I'm a permanent resident, with a family to raise and property taxes to pay. I see things I didn't see before, when securing a parking space in Wrigleyville on game-days was my biggest concern.

To be continued. :-)

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Mister Manners

It's been really difficult to keep my political thoughts to myself this election year; but for the most part, I have.

First: My husband and I agree to disagree on many things political, and that's O.K. Interesting, even. And 99% of the time, we are polite and civil about it.

Second: The older I get, and the more my own life changes (having a couple of kids will do that to you), the more my own views--about politics and what's important--evolve. And that's a good thing, I think.

Third: I came really, really close this year to wanting to vote for a Republican.

Mike Huckabee, to be exact. I'm from Arkansas, and so is he and, for me, he's a known quantity. He's not Baptist-scary to me at all (and those people really freak me out) and I actually think he's quite funny. But mostly, I found him to be a thoughtful, measured speaker, a moderate, centrist-Republican who can speak and behave like a grown-up (as opposed to a smart-aleck, with-us-or-against-us frat boy). Ahem.

And that is exactly the same quality I admire and like about Mr. Obama. Sure, I've lived in Chicago for the last nine years, but that doesn't really color my views about him because, honestly, I knew very little about him before this election season.

I'm just tired of angry and snippy and snide and sarcastic. All around. We have enough problems as a country and as individuals, and we don't need a leader who comes in on day-one angry at half the world. I'm just tired of it.

I want to be inspired. I want someone who makes me want to follow him. I want someone optimistic about our country and our future. And I want someone who can disagree with others in a civilized, even gentlemanly, way. I want someone with manners.

In this age of dust-ups and bared souls and hearts-on-sleeves, manners may seem quaint; but we forget the real purpose of manners.

We use good manners in order to make other people feel comfortable, not to make ourselves look good. Therefore, people who don't use manners in their language or their actions really don't show any consideration for others around them. They make people uncomfortable. And I've had enough of that. It hasn't gotten us anywhere and it's time to try something else.

I'm ready to take a chance and trust someone that perhaps I know little about. What I do know about Mr. Obama doesn't scare me. It inspires me and makes me feel like someone in this world is worth getting excited about.

There, I did it. It's very doubtful I'll speak of national politics again in this space.

But the City of Chicago pisses me off almost every week. Stay tuned.

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Promises

Right behind Patrick and my kids and my job, chocolate is one of my favorite things. Especially dark chocolate. Or semi-sweet chocolate. Especially chocolate made by Dove.

Dove chocolate has a smooth, creamy consistency; almost like eating a stick of real butter (nope, I haven't done that). Dove makes these little, harmless lumps of chocolate called "Promises." When I need a fix, I can just pop one or five into my mouth and feel satisfied.

The only interesting thing about Promises is that when you unwrap each lump of silky-smooth chocolate, there is a pithy saying written on the inside of the foil. Something meant to assuage any guilt you may feel for indulging in such a practice as eating chocolate all day at work.

Recent pithy sayings:

"Make the most of today."
"Put your feet up and unwind."

And my favorite:

"Don't judge others or yourself."

What a load of CRAP. I'll never stop eating Promises, never, unless the doc tells me they cause some dread disease, and then it's probably too late anyway. But, seriously: "Don't judge others or yourself"???

Shame needs to make a comeback, people. Watch 10 minutes of daytime television (Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, The View) and you'll know I'm right. For wa-a-ay too long, everybody's been telling everybody else that anything anyone does is OK.

And it's not.

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On Ceiling Fans and Looking Like Crap

No matter your feelings about our Presidential candidates, this one is kinda funny. According to a recent post on "The Swamp," a blog from the Tribune's Washington bureau, Mr. Obama was knocking on doors in Holland, Ohio, "making his way through a neighborhood of modest ranch and split-level homes."

Having a presidential candidate knock on your door (when you're actually at home) might be akin to having Nielsen Media Research ask you to install a meter on your TV. It happens to people all the time, but it doesn't happen to me.

Anyhoo, it turns out that Sue Sekel, a 43-year old healthcare worker dressed for a day of Sunday housecleaning, opened her front door to discover Mr. Obama on her doorstep.

Later, Ms. Sekel told reporters it was "the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens."

What woman doesn't relate to this? It was your big moment, and you weren't wearing mascara. Or a brassiere. Or shoes. Or whatever. I love Sue Sekel for putting it all in perspective.

Because really, what's more memorable ... having a meaningful conversation with (perhaps) the next President of the United States, or the feeling of a missed opportunity to wow the guy? ;-)

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Anticipation

Even though we have precious little summer weather here in Chicago, and even though the first crisp breath of autumn weather means full-blown winter might be less than a month away, I still love fall. The feeling of anticipation is one I recognize and fully enjoy every year, but I rarely analyze it.

So this morning, my two young sons were piled into the back seat of my car and I drove them to preschool, as I have nearly every day since each of them was 3 months old.

My oldest son, who now is 3 years old, was dressed head-to-toe as a firefighter. (There was even an under-the-helmet head-scarf and fire-engine underpants involved.) He and 19 classmates were off to a firehouse today for a field trip, and ODS (oldest dear son) was about as into this outing as anyone could be.

When I was a kid, fall signified field trips, school plays, new clothes and lots of holiday breaks from school. For most of my adult life (before kids), fall meant new clothes, sitting in bars drinking and watching sports, enjoying the smells and sights and sounds outdoors, and radiators that hissed and clanked for the first few days of operation.

And Thanksgiving--I always went home for Christmas, but Thanksgiving was a great excuse to spend four uninterrupted days with my best friends: cooking, drinking, watching TV and generally doing nothing productive while feeling not the slightest bit of guilt.

And now, with two kids, I get to enjoy most of the aforementioned and more. Well, not so much the drinking or hanging out with friends; and our condo doesn't have radiators, much to my chagrin.

Still, fall signifies so many possibilities right around the corner: Patrick and I attend field trips with our sons; we help them choose Halloween costumes. We will attempt trick-or-treating with our boys for the first time this year.

Thanksgiving no longer is four days of slothful behavior but it is a few days with a big family who knows how to dress a TurDuckIn.

Fall is Notre Dame football. (Other schools have football teams, too.)

In an election year, we all have a chance to stage an autumn do-over, and that's cool.

And even though it really bugs me that their preschool stages a Winter Musical instead of a holiday-themed (religious or not) gala, the boys still get to be on stage, singing and shaking it for the cameras.

Of course, Christmas takes on a whole new dimension for parents with kids young enough to really, really believe in Santa and reindeer and The Grinch.

Fall rocks.

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