We The People – Corporation are People?

Over the past three fiscal years, corporate income taxes fell to only 1.2% of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to the Treasury Department. In the 1960s, it was 4%.

Read the full article here. For more fun reading, check out Al’s contrarian business blog, Tell It To Al.

• CMAP (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning)
• Cook County Board of Ethics
• Cook County Commission on Women’s Issues
• Cook County Human Rights Commission
• Metra (Commuter Rail Board of Commuter Division of RTA)
• Regional Transportation Authority

Check out the website for the complete listing with links to details:  http://blog.cookcountygov.com/appointments/

Message from Cook County Board President Preckwinkle:

Our democracy is built on the idea of participatory government.  One of the best ways you can participate is by serving on a county board or commission.  These groups of people just like you or I oversee and advise county elected officials, agencies, and departments on a wide range of vital issues.  Take a few minutes to find a board or commission you’re interested in serving on. . . .  or if you know where you’d like to serve, click to nominate yourself.

It’s up to you to take the first step towards promoting open, honest and effective government.

Thank you,

PBS Need to Know: Crisis Mapping

May 13, 2011 Alison Stewart

There are now 6.8 billion people on the planet. And about 5 billion cell phones.
This extraordinary ability to connect has turned a modern convenience into a lifeline through a system called crisis mapping. It first gained prominence after the earthquake in Haiti, when people used their cell phones to send text messages to a centralized response team. Since then, crisis mapping has been used to help victims in emergency zones following the tornadoes in the Midwest, the earthquake in Japan and the unrest in the Middle East.

Today, there are world-wide network of volunteers in more than 50 countries creating maps of crises around the world, using a system that incorporates the lessons learned in Haiti.

In my first official duty as the new Editor of Progress Illinois (after filling out the office paperwork), I’m signing on to greet you, the readers, with a quick look at the kind of website I’m dreaming this can be. Hopefully, as I do this, we can get to know each other a bit better.

Progress Illinois may be small, but we have a crucial job: to trumpet the stories others miss, or correct nuances that go unnoticed. I think back to the early days of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign against public unions in Wisconsin, and how virtually every media outlet characterized Walker’s moves as “cost-cutting measures.” This went on for a seeming eternity before they realized—by golly!—that Walker was out to strip public unions of their collective bargaining rights. Few reporters since have bothered to explore Walker’s barely-masked agenda to castrate unions as a way of shoring up the state’s Republican power base. But I digress.

This brings me to another crucial distinction of Progress Illinois: We may be progressive, but we’re also committed to civility and fairness. I will never apologize for forceful coverage and op-eds on issues ranging from unemployment to political maneuvering and scandal. But we’ll always back up what we say with solid reporting, well-reasoned arguments and a decided lack of shrill name-calling.

The loss of civility in public discourse saddens me. Just this morning I picked up a book by Bernard Goldberg, who on the one hand touts his journalistic cred as a winner of “the most prestigious award in broadcast journalism,” yet attacks the parents of Paris Hilton in his book “110 People Who Are Screwing Up America” like this:

Read the the complete article:   “Words of Welcome”

Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) continues to advocate for a more transparent redistricting process which allows for Illinois residents to have input during the once-in-a-decade process of drawing new state House, Senate and Congressional district lines.
This week, the U.S. Census bureau is expected to delivered detailed headcount data on Illinois residents, and this information will be used by the state’s majority Democrats to draw new district borders. A bill awaiting action by Gov. Pat Quinn would require lawmakers to hold a token number of public hearings during the map-drawing process, but it doesn’t guarantee that the public will have any meaningful opportunity to watchdog and participate in the process.

ICPR’s Cindi Canary wrote a letter to governor Pat Quinn urging him to take an active position on the redistricting issue that favors the honest and fair representation of the voters of Illinois:

“When proposed maps are being considered in the House and Senate, current state law does not require any extraordinary effort be made to allow for public participation. The map legislation could be approved after only receiving the cursory committee hearing, often with little advance notice, and be rushed to your desk.
Should there be inadequate public involvement, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform urges you to make good use of the 60-day period given to you for consideration of legislation passed by the General Assembly. Even though not required by law, we hope you will take the maps to every corner of Illinois and give Illinoisans an opportunity to learn more about the proposed new district lines and react to the proposals. The mapmakers could be invited to explain the maps and tell local voters why they chose those particular district boundaries. Illinois citizens in all areas of the state could be given sufficient advance notice to attend hearings at convenient times and locations and be given a chance to express their opinions before you take final action.”

On ICPR website at http://www.ilcampaign.org/redistricting-letter-to-quinn
You can download and read Cindi’s entire letter (PDF).
You can download a sample letter that you can personalize and send to Gov. Quinn (PDF).

Just a few days ago, I received an email from the Obama administration patting itself on the back for its accomplishments and asking me to add a laudatory letter of how I had personally seen the good work that Obama’s administration had done.

Yes, there have been improvements under Obama. But, as a supporter and voter for Obama, I am sorely disappointed in Obama and the Democratic party. I feel that they were too timid in their actions.

We continue to see the middle class shrinking as the money continues to be sucked up to those who already have too much of our country’s wealth. The recent tax cut lauded by the Obama administration, while giving a sop to the middle class, continues and accelerates the drain upward.

The Republican party won the House; 90% + of the American people lost.

There also has been a continuation of the horrible violations of human rights in the name of “security.” I have a poster on my wall that quotes Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Here is my letter:

Subject: Re: Herb, what story will you share?

Mr. President,

In response to your email asking me to share a story of Progress, I will share the story of a fellow American who has spent the last 7 months in solitary confinement without a trial, merely suspected of a crime.  The crime is irrelevant since he has been yet to be tried.  He has been denied the right to communicate with anyone, even his lawyer.  He has been denied a pillow or sheets or blanket on his bed.  He has been denied the ability to exercise.

Many people, including me, consider solitary confinement TORTURE, yet the United States government is holding Bradley Manning in a brig in Virginia.

The United Nations is considering investigating this.

What happened to the Constitutional rights of American citizens?  Is it now a selective privilege that can be withdrawn at the pleasure of the government?  Do you forfeit your rights as a citizen when you are in the military?

As President and commander-in-chief, you have the power to correct this evil.

Is it PROGRESS when we engage in acts of torture, something you vowed to end?

Shalom

Herb Best

“It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

An English economist named William Stanley Jevons hit upon this principle in 1865, and the subsequent decades have proved him right.  Services that were once luxuries, like air conditioning, have become commonplace. Nations still mired in poverty, like China and India, are building vast roadways. As our use of energy becomes more efficient, we don’t consume less – we consume more. Are enforced limits on consumption the only way to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and its dire environmental effects? Read more in this fascinating article by John Cassidy in the December13, 2010 edition of The New Yorker (abstract linked below).

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_owen#ixzz1ALfpPxdn