Liberal Minded

The Sun-Times gets school reform right in this editorial:

There are lots of ways to improve failing schools. Charters are one way, but so is investing in traditional schools by offering smaller class sizes, better teachers, financial incentives for teachers and a longer school year.

There is no single solution. Pretending otherwise is just as harmful as pretending that scores have gone up miraculously when we know they have not.

[h/t CapitolFaxBlog]

I was happy to see all the ads in the buses and El's for the 'Young Chicago Republican' Event that took place on Monday. It's always nice to see them supporting public transportation in this way.

The write-up of the event from the Huffington Post had something that caught my eye.

First:

You are not alone. That was the message for the estimated 700 Chicago Republicans who packed into the Cubby Bear in Wrigleyville Monday night for an open bar, like-minded people and the feeling that for once they belonged in a city long considered hostile territory. [emphasis added]

Then:

The summer membership event was the culmination of a month-long, $40,000 marketing effort intended to organize and energize young Republicans in Chicago as the party looks to rebound from its shellacking in 2008. [emphasis added]

That's something like $57 a person! At this rate, if they wanted to open up the tent and reach out to the entire state, they'd need to come up with close to $737 million.

Panelists discussed policy issues, like health care reform, and how progressives should balance values, priorities and political strategy at the Hideout.

Arline Welty of the Active Transportation Alliance asks an interesting question:

"What does it mean when major urban planning decisions are made without consideration for effects on land use and travel behavior?"

Here's what it means: We've had a family picnic since time immemorial in a part of Lincoln Park near the Lake which we used to call the "Addison Rocks" (north part of Belmont Harbor). The last time we had this was two years ago.

In order to get to this part of the park, there's an access road that wings by the Bird Sanctuary and Archery Range on one side and the Belmont Yacht Club on the other.

At the opening of this access road, two years ago, we noticed that a private company "Amano" had set up a booth and was collecting $8 ($10 now) for parking. Everyone had to pay -- except for members of the Yacht Club who are just waved through as if they owned the place.

Even this would be okay, if they had planted the booth in front of a parking lot. Instead again, it's at the opening of the access road, right off the Drive. If, according to them, all the parking places are taken, that's it: you can't get in. No park for you.

The problem is, my parents and the parents of my friends are all in their upper 70s and 80s. One parent of a friend of mine had just undergone hip replacement surgery and was on a walker. The person at the Booth refused to let the car holding this parent in -- not to park the car but simply to drop the parent off a bit closer to where we were.

You want to know what it means "when major urban planning decisions are made without consideration for effects on land use and travel behavior"?

It means forcing an 80-year-old on a walker to walk the equivalent of several blocks in order to join us. It means they had to do this on what previously had been a public road in a public park but which now for all intents and purposes, has been turned into a private driveway for the Belmont Yacht Club.

That's what it means. But don't believe me. Just go down there on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

So apparently, some in the media are up in arms about Nico Pitney from Huffington Post knowing he'd have an opportunity to ask the president a question at the press conference yesterday.

Steve Benen quotes one pissed off WaPo journalist who used words such as "arranged," "prepackaged," "preplanned," and "planted."

Paul Krugman encourages us to resist the temptation to define down 'centrists' and 'moderates'.

The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by "centrist" Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around "centrist," by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.

I love it how on NPR, Mara Liasson keeps calling the Blue Dogs who are against the Public Option, 'Moderates'.

She did it again this morning. Someone should tell her that 'moderate' is halfway or in the middle of where the American people stand -- not where conservative Dems leave off and even more conservative GOPers begin.

Who knew? From Bloomberg:

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy probably will emerge from the recession by September, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said.

"I would not be surprised if the official end of the U.S. recession ends up being, in retrospect, dated sometime this summer," he said in a lecture today at the London School of Economics. "Things seem to be getting worse more slowly. There’s some reason to think that we’re stabilizing."

U.S. stocks erased an earlier decline after Krugman made his comments....

[Emphasis added.]

My thought upon reading this article on the fallout from the parking meter 'snafu' was, did anyone have a schedule of anticipated price hikes?

I'm not talking five or ten years out -- I'm talking five or ten weeks. Did anyone know if and by how much fees would be raised within that short amount of time?

This kind of short-term information would have been useful in assessing just how lousy an idea this deal was.

Given the example of the parking lots in Grant Park, I think such an analysis would have been the first thing I would have asked for.

It's not that I disagree with anything in this editorial from the Chicago Tribune. It's just that I get the impression they knew they had to come up with something but couldn't quite find anything particularly original to say:

President Barack Obama came to the heart of the Arab world on Thursday to explain America and its aims to Muslims across the globe. This was The Speech. The long-promised, long-awaited moment that the new president -- drawing on his father's Islamic heritage -- would begin to change unflattering perceptions of America in the Islamic world.

I'm not even sure whether this rates as "commentary". It's more just a summary of platitudes. Meanwhile, here's what the New York Times has to say:

When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

When we listen to the New York Times, we recognize a newspaper with something to say.

Now back to the Chicago Tribune. You almost feel sorry for the editors as they flail about looking for a way to end the piece. Here's what they come up with:

Obama's carefully modulated speech pleased many people in precincts of the Middle East. But the difficult decisions he will have to make about the U.S. role in this troubled part of the world almost guarantee that he will have to anger somebody -- maybe everybody -- there.

Um, thud. Can I have fries with that banality?

Meanwhile, once again, the New York Times:

Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better.

Sometimes words do matter. As a city we deserve better from our newspaper(s). Can the New York Times please set up shop here?