The Picnic

An uninspiring day

The usual shit, which was particularly tough to palette due to the thundersnow. The blizzard of 2011 kept us home the past two days, and it felt quite nice to me. No strangers, no stress, free from inhibitions. But today we returned to carry on with public life at work and more inane shit.

And so I moped ...

ixx. man with experience

... everything was clear with bright blues and greens. the album "ease down the road" by will oldham rolled the man to a smooth stop at ashland and pratt. suddenly, while signaling a turn and proceeding right--smack! from this surprising incident he could only distinguish a sudden movement, and from his left periphery, a flash of red and dark color.

it was the right triangle. then a loud crash into the car. he jammed the car into park. "shit," he said and hesitated. he leaped from the car to see a boy lying in the street next to a twelve-speed bike. the boy gave a painful moan. anxiety stricken the man. A heightened sense of awareness seized the man, and at that moment a dark face in a van bumping gangsta rap passed by, disturbingly slow.

the man experienced a moment of clarity. finally, coming to his senses, he asked the boy if he was all right.

"are you all right?"
"i shouldna been goin' tha fass," the boy admitted, rubbing his leg.
"are you okay," asked the man.

the man put the tall bike on the grass and helped the boy, leaving him by the street curb. the man told the boy to go home, then unblocked traffic and headed home himself.

xviii. boy and man survive collision

he was going downhill. cleaving the air as he did urged him to go faster. the bike was twice his size. he hovered in a right triangle over the top tube--his back, a hypotenuse.

it was a bright clear day. albert was soaking it up as he turned onto ashland ...

xvii.

This morning, dreaming of eating skittles and raisins while smiling and talking to someone, I awoke with my cheek in a puddle of drool. It was 11 o'clock.

Finding work sucks. I quit grad school. Now I'm looking for a job. Jobless, without a master's.

Three months ago I quit my job as a media planner, working on a major retail account, and decided to matriculate at a prestigious j-school.

I quickly found myself writing on deadline, getting story ideas and talking to people. It was all very exciting. I learned about landmark court cases for libel and privacy torts that constitute law and ethics in journalism. I learned how to edit and include numbers in my writing:

Of 1,500 graduates with college debt, 48 percent cite feelings of anxiety or sleeplessness as an effect, according to a 2006 AllianceBernstein L.P. press release.

The rate of return on a master's of journalism degree is not worth it, I concluded. In a beleaguered news industry and an unforgiving lifestyle, continuing could have been disastrous!

I chose family. Ironically, fate has left me vulnerable.

xvi.

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, both grassroots organizations for social justice, have earned their stripes by forcing action on Crawford and Fisk generating stations to clean up or shut down.

Dorian Breuer, director of PERRO, told about a family who lived a half-block from the Fisk plant and had four asthmatic kids—one on a respirator. He hopes to team with a UIC chemistry professor to have students conduct field studies on ground samples around Fisk.

Samuel Villasenor, the “clean power” campaign organizer at LIVEJO, recalls from memory at least six to seven adults with new onset asthma who acquired it after moving to the Little Village neighborhood.

The amended Clean Air Act of 1990 has improved air quality since by mandating clean-up projects and imposing fines for breaching quality-control limits set by the U.S. EPA. In 2006 the H. Kramer and Co. brass foundry in Pilsen was hit with a $10,000 fine and a $500,000 clean-up project imposed by the EPA.

In November 2007 Mayor Daley introduced the Climate Action Plan, a program aimed at modernizing residential and commercial buildings to reduce energy use.

According to Ald. Manuel Flores, the Department of Environment is currently conducting an analysis on the impact carbon emissions have on health. The report is scheduled for release in mid-2008.

The U.S. EPA passed legislation recently to lower ozone-emission controls even more: Since 1980, ozone levels have dropped 21 percent as EPA, states and local governments have worked together to improve the quality of the nation’s air, according to a March 12th press release.

But environmental activists want it harder on urban-situated facilities.

EPA standards provide a flat-level basis, though when considering location, urban settings need lower emission standards to account for population density, according to Breuer.

“We’re also being affected by a myriad of other social ills like education and health care,” Breuer said.

“We need a stick-and-carrot approach” to developing a better partnership for sustainable energy between business and government, said Ald. Flores, a member of the Committee on Energy, Environmental Protection and Public Utilities.

“The stick is missing,” the alderman added; that stick is government.

xv.

In 2007 Chicago rolled out its Blue Cart recycling pilot program, replacing the widely criticized blue bag program for 80,000 residences in seven wards. The results are good, but citywide expansion is slow going.

The Blue Cart goal in 2008 is to expand to 80,000 additional residences, though no official statement will be made until the city budget has been approved.

“[Blue cart recycling] is a success in the seven wards, but . . . it hasn’t expanded fast enough,” said Betsy Vandercook, former Chicago Recycling Coalition board president, who in April 2006 co-authored the most recent “White Paper” report that advocated for residential curbside source-separated recycling.

According to the report, the blue bag program yields less than 10 percent of recycled products from the waste stream.

“It is pretty obvious that blue bag recycling doesn’t work,” said Katy Groves, a Logan Square resident. “The bags break, and I can’t find them at the stores where I shop.”

On the other hand, Chicago’s Blue Cart program generated about 18 percent total recycling, including yard waste, from roughly 99,600 tons of refuse collected last year, according to the 2007 results released by the city in December.

Ald. Flores (1st ward) disseminated Blue Cart information through e-mails, city and 1st ward websites, literature available in the office, and “recycling block captains,” who volunteer for the city to inform neighbors with questions about blue cart recycling, according to Raymond Valadez, the alderman’s chief of staff.

It takes time for people to learn how to sort recyclables, but it’s a simple learning curve, Valadez said.

But during a budget crunch there are other government services that come before recycling initiatives, according to Matt Smith, a spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

“Since Sept. 11 there is not a lot of money for all government services,” Smith said.

Indeed, the cost efficiency and recycling method of blue carts compared with blue bags have not justified citywide expansion. The 2007 Blue Cart results “are good, but not staggering,” Smith said.

Although 15 new drop-off recycling sites were also introduced with the pilot program, residents still are confused about Chicago’s municipal recycling process, according to Vandercook.

Awareness is a problem, said Vandercook, who believes that Chicago’s piecemeal effort for blue cart recycling hampers its ability to broadcast public service announcements about best practices for recycling in Chicago.

“We got a confused city here,” Vandercook said.

When asked by beginners how to recycle in Chicago, Vandercook’s advice may vary: It depends upon where a person lives, if it’s a high-rise or a single-family home, if the person owns a car. People fall into different subsets that require different recycling procedures because Chicago’s recycling system is mixed up, she mentioned.

Smith argues that blue bag recycling suffers from a “perception issue,” not a pragmatic one.

“Any environmentalist that tells you [source-separated recycling] will pay off is not accurate,” Smith charged. “Whether it’s a green cart, purple cart or plaid cart, it doesn’t matter if people aren’t participating.”