What a mess along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago -- blizzard followup

The biggest story besides the 20 plus inches that made Tuesday night's snow storm the third worst in Chicago history is the traffic jam that sits like an auto cemetery along the north stretch of Lake Short Drive. More than 1,000 cars were stuck on the drive as a result of building snow, accidents and waves from the lake.

Many motorists remained in their cars until their gas was exhausted, as long as 10 hours, though they were able to make their way over the medium fence and cement blocks to St. Joseph's hospital and other warming centers that did their best to help.

City tow trucks tried to slowly remove the one thousand abandoned cars but late into the night tonight, most remain stuck in the roof-high snow drifts that are making it near impossible to efficiently remove the cars.

Here is what AP reported in a sad testimony to the mounting confusion and problems:

Chicago - Dozens of motorists were stranded for over 10 hours on Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive after it was shut down as a blizzard battered the city. Although cars have been relocated from the roadway, there was no indication when the drive would reopen to traffic.

City officials said that 1,000 cars were stranded on the roadway overnight. 

City officials said if you abandoned your car on Lake Shore Drive, you can call 311 to try to locate it. All vehicles have been relocated to three city lakefront lots -- Wilson Ave., Belmont Ave. and Chicago Ave. -- plus one lot on Wells Street.  Drivers will be able to retrieve their cars for free.

City officials said early Wednesday that multiple lanes of cars and buses became stuck on the northbound lanes of the city's crucial thoroughfare because of abandoned vehicles, multiple accidents and generally poor traffic conditions.

I like the way they report that the cars are being removed to three lots, when they are really being removed to four lots. And if you abandoned your car on Lake Shore Drive, you can call 311 to "try to locate it."

Yikes. Lame duck Mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff Ray Orozco, the former Fire Department Chief, said he is responsible for the decision to keep Lake Shore Drive open.

But I ask, why wouldn't the city have kept Lake Shore Drive open? Can you imagine the complaints from whiny Chicagoans if they shut down Lake Shore Drive? It would have been worse than what happened.

Chicago and Orozco deserve credit for doing their best to help people who tried to get home Tuesday night. Are we going to blame Chicago for the blizzard/ They predicted that the blizzard would bring even more snow than actually hit the Chicagoland area. It's not like we were not prepared. But Chicagoans are sometimes the biggest babies if things don't go their way. They want Chicago to do everything for them and in fact Chicago did a lot providing help and doing their best to sort through a Lake Shore Drive auto cemetery mess.

It may take days for some of the motorists to find their cars on the three lots where they were moved, but that's all just a part of the blizzard. It's the way it is.

I don't think anyone has the right to blame Orozco or the city for doing their best, even if Lake SHore Drive remains a mess through -- my guess -- Friday and maybe in to the weekend. The motorists stuck on Lake Shore Drive made the choice to take Lake Short Drive home knowing the city was going to be slammed with a major storm at 3 PM -- it's not like we were not warned sufficiently. They were told and yet many including all those stuck on Lake Shore Drive did not leave work until after 4 pm.

It's just the way it is, a tragic story in a horrible blizzard.

But like I have already written, we live in Chicago and the winters here can be hell. Whether it is the worst snow storm or the region's third worst, it doesn't matter. We made the choice to live here so QUIT WHINING about the snow.

The real problem are the motorists and homeowners who selfishly care only about themselves, shoveling snow in to the street, trying to drive through two feet of snow and then are surprised when their car gets stuck in the middle of a neighborhood side street and then blocking that street and preventing city plows from clearing the snow.

And when the snow is plowed, where does it go? It has to go on the side of the street where the cars are parked and the motorists clean the snow off their cars pushing it back in to the street.

Can anyone really wonder why Chicagoans get in more fights over parking  spots in front of their homes reserved with chairs, pinochle tables and wine and cheese serving trays?

People should assume responsibility sometimes and quit always blaming government.

-- Ray Hanania

Let's be honest: Most Chicagoland residents LOVE heavy snow

I was there at 14 during the 1967 snow fall when we didn't have snow blowers and everything was done with a shovel. And in 1979, when the snowfall became the momentum to push out the Chicago Democratic Machine -- briefly -- and make way for a so-called reformer who turned out to be worse than the Machine. And then there was blizzard of 1999, which was bad but never as memorable as 1967 or 1979.

In 1967, we had a Georgian home on Chicago's Southeast Side on south Luella Avenue. We had a sidewalk in the front and the back. The snow piles were huge. I think it happened on a Thursday just before the weekend. The cars were covered in snow along the curbs. Snow plows didn't come through at all for a day. They focused on the main streets. It was family fun.

Nowadays with more people living in the suburbs with long and wide driveways and suburban governments that have little talent and no budget visions, homeowners have to have a snow blower. I was lucky this year. I did buy a motorized snow blower with a tall blower. The scoop is 20 inches tall and 18 inches wide. It replaced the small Toro snow blower that I had for some 20 years and gave to friend. It stillw orks and it's perfect for small driveways and sidewalks.

When we looked out the window this morning, the snow was 18 inches against the glass front door. The drifts had piled the snow three feet against the garage. It was deep. And the driveway is some70 feet long and 15 feet wide, it was covered in two feet of snow.

But it only took two hours to clear the snow. The streets are still a mess. An Orland Park snow plow went by about three hours before barely clearing anything, just a fast zip through. The plow drivers can be great people or jerks, some pushing the snow in front of your driveway on purpose. Most I've talked to are good but this morning the driver took a turn right in front of the house and pushed a wall of snow in front of the end of my driveway.

No Problem. I have a new snow blower.

And it was fun. Slicing through 18 to 24 inches of snow a few inches at a time and shooting the snow onto the grass area.

Let's face it. We love snow. Otherwise, why would we be living in Chicago?

It was fun to watch the news reports pre-empt regular programming to report on the snow. The focus is always on Chicago where there are always problems. But it was nice to see so many people helping each other.

I have no videos or film of the 1967 snow fall. We had a Bell and Howell black and white 35 mm camera, but that was always seen as something you used in the summer for record fun, not work that is fun.

But we took some videos of this year's snow fall which was predicted late on Monday and filled the public with apprehension and fear. Woodfield Mall announced on Tuesday that it would shut down and the Orland Park Mall shut down, too. Nearly every school closed.

This year I experienced the first ever thunder-snow blizzard. Last month, we had thunder and lightning during the snow blizzard. We had the same thing last night. Thunder and lightening. I'd never seen that before in my life. Never heard of it until this year.

Fascinating. Fun. I hope though that everyone did well and that people managed to live through this. As much as it can be fun, a blizzard can also be dangerous. I hope everyone did well and had help from neighbors if they needed it.

-- Ray Hanania

In push for Good Government, Better Government Association slams door on diversity and ethnic communities

BGA probe of Pappas office results in unintended casualties

The Better Government Association (BGA) recently did an investigation into the operations of Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. During the probe, they cited several instances they felt were improper appropriations of taxpayer dollars. One involved a driver who was budgeted under a department service, and another who was serving as a maid for both the office and the treasurer.

Click here to read the story.

But in their enthusiasm to expose "government waste," the BGA has turned the clock back on hundreds of thousands of minorities in Cook County who for years have been left out of the Cook County government system. In addition to the above complaints, the BGA also targeted a woman named Pat Michalski who served as the director of ethnic affairs for Pappas office.

Michalski was being paid to organize events in which ethnics and minorities were brought in to the county government office and engage the system.

For years, ethnics have been shut out of government, an issue that the BGA doesn't address. In fact, very few governments address the fact that most ethnic Americans in Cook County are locked out of the government system and therefore have no chance to obtain jobs or contracts for their work in their communities.

County Offices have been closed to ethnics like Arabs and others for years. They are not the traditional minorities like African Americans, Hispanics and Asians who have had entre to local government. So what Michalski was doing was actually a service not only to the ethnic communities left out of the system, but to governments like Cook County.

The most deprecating claim made by the BGA study was to describe Michalski's responsibility as a "party planner." It's easy to call receptions with ethnic groups parties and wastes of government funds but they are not. They are essential to bringing true diversity to local government and bringing ethnic groups traditionally left out of the circle into the circle.

This is not a slam at the BGA. But the BGA's report and their failure to recognize the importance of governments bringing ethnics and more diversity into government has hurt many ethnic groups and many members of the public who are shut out of government.

A final issue is this. Why is it alright for Mayor Daley to manage ethnic outreach, but not Maria Pappas the County Treasurer? Michalski worked for the late Mayor Harold Washington and Mayor Daley, too. She did ethnic outreach at both places. No one ever questioned what she was doing. Does it have to do with the target of the investigations? If so, that is a better government tragedy.

She also worked for former Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan doing ethnic outreach. No one ever questioned that work either.

Will we see similar stories on Daley's ethnic outreach, with claims that they are little more than political work? I don't think so.

It's really clear that the mainstream American news media cares little about the needs of ethnics in our society, ethnics who make up a large segment of our society. If the goal of the Better Government Association is to make government more accountable to the people, insuring that ALL the people are engaged would be a first step requirement.

-- Ray Hanania

Chicagoland Syndication: 01-07-11: Carol Moseley Braun Offers Chicago Hope

Carol Moseley Braun Offers Chicago Hope

By RAY HANANIA

I've covered every Chicago mayor from Daley the Boss to Daley the Son of Boss and I have to say my favorite has always been Harold Washington.

Washington had a real mission. For the rest, it's all been about power politics. Washington wanted to bring fairness and justice to many Chicagoans who were intentionally left out because of race.

With Mayor Daley stepping down and leaving the city in a financial mess, it reminds me of the disaster Chicago faced when Jane Byrne was thrown out of office with Fast Eddie Vrdolyak and Vrdolyak's corrupt circus.

No one reminds me of the enthusiasm that Chicago experienced when Washington won, defeating the Byrne Machine and the then-inexperienced young son of Boss, than Carol Moseley Braun.

I like Braun, and I like Miguel del Valle, too. But del Valle's challenge is to bring Hispanic voters together while appealing to blacks and whites. And Hispanic voters are divided, and their voter turnout levels are very low. And Mexican voters and Puerto Rican voters, the two largest Hispanic voting blocks, don't always see eye to eye.

Gery Chico comes from the Southwest Side, but so have most of Chicago's mayors since and including the first Daley. It really hasn't done the region any real good. And Rahm Emanuel is too divisive, bullying his way into power using former President Bill Clinton and his so-so record as President Obama's chief of staff. In addition, he dislikes Arabs and has shown a bias against them. More importantly, Emanuel can't bring Chicago together, though his non-Chicago money makes him a formidable force.

Braun - it's either Moseley-Braun or Braun - seems to offer Chicago the greatest hope, though already you've seen how racism against blacks in the media have rushed out of the closet to slander her solid reputation.

Of all the candidates, besides del Valle, Braun  brings the most government experience and that's exactly what Chicago needs. What Chicago doesn't need is a candidate like Emanuel who'll bring little more than a special-interest new Machine.

If it were up to me, the dream race will be Braun versus del Valle. But if Emanuel brings his power politics to Chicago, the city will be in a real mess.

I've met many politicians like Emanuel. It's all about them, not Chicago and not in bringing all communities together.

The question is, can white voters and Hispanic voters be the true loyal Democrats and elect a black candidate without making it about race? Blacks have been loyal for years. It's time to see how loyal the rest of Chicago's voters can finally be.

end

Commissioner Liz Gorman announces agreement between the Village of Orland Park and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County allowing for the widening of 143rd Street west of LaGrange Road

Commissioner Liz Gorman announces agreement between the Village of

Orland Park and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County

allowing for the widening of 143^rd Street west of LaGrange Road

Cook County Commissioner Elizabeth “Liz” Doody Gorman today announced that the Board of The Forest Preserve District of Cook County have given final approval for an agreement with the Village of Orland Park which will allow the widening of 143^rd Street.  The Forest Preserve will allow a permanent easement of 17 feet for a span of 1000 feet on the north side of  143^rd Street [approximately 1.5 acres] to Orland Park. 

This clears the way for 143^rd Street to be widened to five lanes – 2 in each direction with a left turn center lane from LaGrange Road to Wolf Road.  The Village will deed almost 14 acres to the Forest Preserve District:  10.9 acres of wetland near Wolf Road and 135^th Street; and a 3-acre parcel across the street from the wetlands.  At the same time, outstanding litigation between the Forest Preserve and Standard Bank and Trust has been settled resulting in the Forest Preserve purchasing approximately 52 acres of land adjacent to the land being deeded to the Forest Preserve from Orland Park.  The end result is that the Forest Preserve District will add almost 60 acres to its holdings.

Commissioner Gorman said “this is a win-win situation for all concerned.  The Forest Preserve District will increase its holdings with quality lands and the public will be able to travel a safer roadway along 143^rd Street.

“This widening project is saving the homes on the south side of 143^rd Street, as well as improving the quality of people’s  lives who both live and travel in the area.  It has been a priority since being elected Commissioner.  I am thrilled and forever grateful to the staff of the Forest Preserve District, Gallagher & Henry and my staff for the endless hours that we worked with Village Manager, Paul Grimes, and Planning Director, Bob Sullivan of Orland Park, to negotiate and finalize this important agreement.

“This is a fine example of what can be accomplished when governmental and civic organizations, such as the Friends of the Forest Preserve and other environmental groups, work together to the benefit of the common good.”

Extend Tax Cut for taxpayers earning under $500,000, but not for the super wealthy

Congress should extend the tax cuts ONLY for those people making under $500,000, and that is pushing it. It should not be extended for anyone making more than $250,000 but the hardline conservative Republicans who are holding their party hostage refuse to support the tax cuts. They want the tax cuts extended to everyone, including people making more than $250,000, more than $500,000 and more than even $1 million.

And they are trying to argue (falsely) that Democrats want to kill the tax cuts -- not saying they want to end the tax cuts for the super rich.

We know the conservative Republicans represent the super rich in this country and don't care about the poor. And this expected vote is a good indicator of how badly Republican control of the U.S. House will drag this country down. Although the morons on FOX Cable News think all Democrats and Liberals are worthless unAmerican and unpatriotic.

FOX Cable TV literally is pitching the conservative Republican propaganda. I woke up, turned on the TV and accidentally saw FOX Cable News with that racist Juan Williams, by the way, making $2 million a year as a FOX TV Commentator and realizing that he is in the pig pen with the rest of the Republican Hogs.

Pathetic.

Extend tax cuts. But raise taxes on the super rich.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Yalla Peace: Hanukka and Holidays at the Hanania household

Yalla Peace: Hanukka and Holidays at the Hanania household

By RAY HANANIA

12/01/2010 JERUSALEM POST

In recent years, as Hanukka and Christmas overlapped,

the holiday season became a minefield of decoration-related decisions.

Over the past few years, Hanukka, Christmas and the Id al-Adha all seemed to coincide. That made Arabs, Jews and Israelis happy. They saw it as a sign of better things to come. People were singing “Kumbaya.”

They were mixing words and phrases from each religion to create new “words of peace,” like “holiday treats for peace.” And they were offering trades to kickstart the stalled peace process: felafel for matza.

Arabs and Jews even tried writing Middle East peace songs together, until each side discovered that wasn’t easy either. Promises made in some of the choruses had been changed. Important words had been replaced. Some of the lyrics required side notes to explain what the original intent of the song was.

Pretty soon, everyone was singing a different tune. Like Middle East peace, we all know what the melody is but we just can’t get the words right.

MAKING PEOPLE believe in miracles may have been good for everyone else, but it wasn’t good in the Israeli-occupied Hanania household, where marriage has achieved what negotiations and even proximity talks have failed to do in the Middle East. It may have coincided for everyone else. But for my family, the holidays collided.

That Hanukka and Christmas both overlapped was a big problem. My wife, Alison, and I found ourselves in a cast iron battle over whose settlements – I mean decorations – would get the best locations in and around our house.

We fought over the front room coffee table. Do we put a menora or a crèche (Nativity scene)? Who gets to hang something on the front door? A Star of David or a picture of Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian flag? Both?

I discovered that Hanukka lights are more Jewish than Christian lights. The lights on her string decorations had shapes of dreidels, menorot, Stars of David and images of Binyamin Netanyahu.

Mine were little bulbs called “Italian lights.” What have the Italians ever done for peace anyway? She got to do something new every day with our son Aaron. Lighting one extra candle every night for eight days. I got to turn on a switch.

The lawn was a battleground too. I wanted to put up a big Santa Claus. You know, that chubby guy with the long, white beard that needs to be dyed, wearing an effeminate looking red suit with white fur. What does he really have to do with Christmas, I wonder? Although Jesus had a beard too, but it wasn’t bushy white.

She had a huge display of Jerusalem with a big sign quoting Ariel Sharon “indivisible capital for all eternity” that she said she wanted to keep there all year long. She got it free – after a small donation of $1,500 – from the Jewish United Fund.

Believe me, by the time we got through arguing over what went where, who got what and who started the Gaza war, we were beat, so tired we could barely enjoy the meal, the one moment when Arabs have an advantage over Israelis.

After all, Arabs may know how to build settlements and walls, barriers and murals, but Israelis can’t cook. They end up making our food and while we Arabs complain that they stole our culinary style, our humous and our Syrian – yes, Syrian – bread, the fact is deep down we prefer to have them serve us something.

THANK GOODNESS all that “signs from heaven” stuff has stopped. This year, Hanukka comes first and Christmas comes after.

She puts her stuff up and then I get to take it down and put up my stuff.

I then get to celebrate secular New Year and, afterward Orthodox New Year. My stuff goes up last and never gets taken down.

No “Kumbaya.” No pretending there are going to be any miracles of peace. No arguing over whose food is best or who owns what land.

One Christmas, Alison even stopped painting a green line through the house to designate what part was hers and what part was mine. She always said she would be fair in our marriage and we each get “half.” She gets 78 percent and I get 22.

But then I realized that her not painting the green line in our house was just an Israeli trick to make me forget where the 1949 armistice marriage agreement really was.

And I demanded that she paint it, but she still refuses till this day.

So this year, no fights over bells ringing or who gets to “deck” the Halls – the Halls, our neighbors, always hated it when we decked them when they came by, although the Halls are Jewish so I didn’t mind. No sighs pretending like there is going to be peace.

Just a lot of mistletoe, zaide’s sandwiches of corned beef, pastrami and chopped liver, and real happiness knowing we each get our turn. And I go last.

The writer is an award-winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. www.YallaPeace.com