another good reason to choose organics or grow your own

Freshness and convenience have always been good reasons for growing your own fruits and vegetables. The food safety issues of recent years, such as e. coli and other types of contamination have given me a bit more motivation.

The recent EPA approval of this toxic pesticide is yet another reason to consider buying organic or growing your own, as well as being a good illustration of why the EPA under Shrub is an absolute mockery of the agency's stated purpose.

adventures in temporary living arrangements

Two interesting takes on temporary living arrangements:

Mark Lives in IKEA

professionally homeless

two unusual art shows

For a slightly different vision of life in Chicago, check out an exhibition of anti-car and pro-bicycle sculpture, paintings, and photography created by participants of Chicago Critical Mass. THIS WEEK! Friday January 11, 5-9pm: Art Show Opening Party at Mercury Cafe, 1505 W. Chicago Ave.

Check out the other anti-car Art show in town: Pedestrian Hell, at Efebos Café, 1640 S. Blue Island Ave. (312-633-9212). January 25 – March 6, 2008.

burning the midnight oil

Peter Garrett of Australia's Midnight Oil has taken his activism to the next level - from rock to legislation. After previous attempts, he was elected to the Australian Parliament and has been appointed environment minister by the new Prime Minister.

I hope that the U.S. elections in 2008 will bring us a change that is similarly positive for the environment. It can't get much worse than Shrub.

1/20 is coming

The latest CTA doomsday is fast approaching now that the holiday are past. If you haven't checked out the service cut list on the CTA web site, it has changed since the previous round. The northwest side and north side along the lake are the biggest losers. Many NW side routes will be cut, and all the Lake Shore Drive express buses (which have very heavy ridership) will be gone. 81 of 154 bus routes will be gone (52.5%). Looks like all the proposed changes are now on the bus side of the equation, as they do not show any trains on the service cut list.

For the fare side of the picture, click here. It continues the trend towards incentives to switch to the Chicago Card or Chicago Card Plus.

For more info from CTA, click here.

Meanwhile, Pace has their own list of proposed cuts, mostly evening (after 7 p.m.) and weekend service and not a lot of route eliminations. What does that mean around here? ALL evening service on the 349 Western and 352 Halsted buses would be cut.

Metra is proposing either a 5 percent or 10 percent fare increase, plus the elimination of the $5 weekend pass (to be replaced by a $7 all-day fare good for travel on either weekend day. They have already been making some cuts which are invisible to anyone but regular riders, reducing the number of open cars and conductors on some off-peak trains. If the system doesn't get additional funding, off-peak service cuts would be proposed in 2009. For more detail, click here (large PDF).

To put in your $0.02 worth yet again, click here. Bug the governor. Bug your legislators, mayor, and aldermen. Geez, I really hate that we're in this position yet again, after our train wreck of a state government has failed us for the umpteenth time in this critical issue.

shadow

iguana drop

news of the weird from Florida

Happy new year from outer space

A bit of video fun. Photos by NASA. Speakers on. Enjoy the ride! TGIF.

amusing commute story

Back to work after the second 4-day weekend in a row... Ah, I could get used to this. For those of you who haven't run across the Home Improvement Ninja blog in your internet travels, here's an
amusing commute story to take some of the pain out of our collective return to work.

walking Halsted

Recently a couple of urban adventurers decided to explore Chicago in a different way - seeing it up close, on foot, walking Halsted St. from one end to the other. For pictures, click here. I've done similar explorations by bike. I give these guys extra points for doing it on foot.