Mayor wants to sell off recycling program

After selling off the skyway and municipal parking meters the Mayor wants to sell the city's blue bag recycling program. Next Up: Water.

From Chicago Now:

Facing mounting criticism over a painfully slow roll out of blue cart recycling, reports say that "Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne is working on a plan to privatize recycling to shave as much as $40 million off the $60 million annual cost."

+ The BI are pretty much against selling off public assets but we think the city's recycling program is ineffective and is a wasteful greenwashing campaign. Blue bagging is bullshit. Lets do the right thing and retire the blue bag program and come up with a better solution instead.

Danger! Coal Fired Power Plant just Two Miles Away!

Local artists and the Chicago Rain Forest Action Network posted warning signs over many locations on the south side including this one on Morgan St near 32nd Place.

We found this information at the Just Seeds Blog:

RAN Chicago teamed up with local artists to raise public attention to the Fisk and Crawford coal-powered plants on Chicago's near south side that have been poisoning the air for decades. Both Plants are located in highly populated neighborhoods - primarily Latino neighborhoods - and have operated with outdated equipment and safety standards that has made Chicago one of the worst cities for air quality in the US. Exposure to these plants has led to an average of 40 deaths a year and high rates of asthma and other upper respiratory ailments. The kicker is that these plants do not even benefit Chicago residents. Most of the power produced is sold on the open grid to Ohio and Pennsylvania while community residents (not to mention the ozone layer) suffers, while company execs get rich.

Local groups - LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization), PERRO (Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization), RAN Chicago, and others are calling for the plants to be closed and for the end of burning fossil fuels as an energy source.

http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2010/06/warning_signs_awareness_campai.html

An Accident at 31st and Halsted

Today we passed by this wreck at the corner of 31st and Halsted by the 9th district police station. An officer at the scene wanted to arrest me because she said that it was illegal to take photos of accident scenes. I told Officer Williams, that if what she was saying was true then it seems unconstitutional to me. She replied that it was illegal because of Nine Eleven and wondered if i was going to post the images to facebook or twitter! I guess blogger counts!

VFW Post 5079 At 3202 S May