Policy killed politics. Politics is what made government effective. Politics responds to people's needs. Policy is the pathway to power.
The goof who first said, "There ought to be a Law" opened the door to government for Progressives. Progressives entered that smoke filled room and immediately went shopping for judges to get smoking banned; the rest is government that pads the few and pounds the rest.
Witness this swell photo of Armani clad CTA Brahmin ( appointed, n'cest pas) Forrest Claypool standing on the platform for a CTA L Train, clad in his Progressive Work Clothes. Shucks, he's just like folks.
However, folks seem to scan for the train in the correct general direction that the train will take.
Working Folks are about to get another world-class, transcendent, post-racial screwing, from Goo-goo Progressive Forrest Claypool.
Fifteen minutes of paid “coffee time” before the start of each shift. Twenty-minute paid bathroom breaks for customer assistants with easy access to washrooms. Paid lunch breaks for CTA rail operators and Sunday bus drivers. Paying workers convicted of drunk driving to do nothing for 180 days while they appeal and attempt to get their driving privileges back. Starting the clock on emergency overtime when employees get the phone call at home instead of when they arrive at work.
Those are some of the CTA work rules that CTA President Forrest Claypool wants to change in order to fill a $277 million shortfall in the CTA budget without raising fares or cutting service.
Yeah, taking a leak is killing this City. Thus, always the way of reform. It does not matter that policies begun by people like Frank Kruesi and continued by Forrest - people who have absolutely no working experience in the field of transportation -and deals cut to make a few people rich and not a bathroom break has crippled the Chicago Transit Systems. Did we really beg for accordion buses? Green buses? Faux Parisian benches?
Forrest Claypool never drove a bus, or a train. I doubt if Forrest Claypool has ever been on the business end of a janitor's broom, mop, or brush. I'd venture to offer that, Forrest Claypool does not drop by CVS, Jewel-Osco, or other fine venues to purchase a CTA Red Pass at a modest $85.00 good for a full month of rides anywhere in Chicagoland.
I have one in my wallet. In fact, I ride the CTA in order to ease my carbon-footprint off of Mother Earth's back and to save a few shekles. I generally get on the 5:06 Bus at 104th & Western to 79th Street Terminal and grab and east bound ( Red Line) to 79th & Morgan and legendary Leo High School.
I have never seen Forrest, or Rahm on that run. They keep different hours.
I am a working stiff. A College and Graduate school degree'd mope. I ride the bus with a Mr. Duckworth ( 'Duckie') a Coast Guard Veteran who works at Calumet Harbor, Vanessa, a cook at Perspectives ( formerly Calumet H.S.) and Bertina, a nurse at Jackson Park Hospital. We are very happy with the working men and women at the wheel who not only safely and promptly get us to work, but also maintain command presence and authority over drunks, crack-pipe artists, thugs and idiots. They (Bus and Train drivers) are in harm's way, all day and every day, and do not wear Kevlar.
Driving in Chicago traffic is a bitch and a half on a good day; driving a bus is a labor fit for Greek Gods. God Bless Our CTA Folks!
Sorry for your looming troubles, folks.
Then there is the Goo-goo appointee - Forrest Claypool who gets conveniently slotted into an elective spot when someone dies and his opponent is in an iron-lung, or more commonly appointed to a six figure salary. Forrest Claypool is the Rula Lenska of Chicago*. One always wonders - "What exactly did he/she do?" Rula was the sexy Limey broad who did Clairol commercials staged in what was supposed to be a theatrical dressing room. Forrest Claypool bounces from Parks, to Staffs, to Hospitals, to Boards, to Executive Suites.
The guy can't keep a job.
Forrest is a Goo-goo Brahmin - that is a life-long sinecure - he is a professional 'Ain't He Great-er' and therefore will always collect a huge paycheck.
American Labor, like the Democratic Party has snuggled up to the Goo-goos for forty year. Why? God only knows. Unions are now learning what Old Time Ward pros have known all along. Goo-goos ( Mike Quigley, Pat Quinn, Forrest Lenska, Deb Shore, Sheila Simon, Quentin Young, Dawn Clark Netsch, Ralph Martire, Terry Cosgrove, and always hilarious Jan Schakowsky) are not friends of working people.
When a Goo-goo, Reformer, Progressive, Activist, Mobilizer, or glue-sniffer gets power, grab your ankles, make sure you have a good athletic mouthpiece firmly fitted between your uppers and lowers, and wait for the screwing of the Ages!
*"
Who the hell is Rula Lenska?" The question was first asked on the air by Detroit TV News Anchorman Don Lark, then echoed in print by Washington Post Columnist Roger Rosenblatt. She is, as many TV watchers know, a glamorous redhead who appears regularly in commercials for Alberto VO5 hair spray. She tosses her long locks, identifies herself as R-u-ula Lenz-z-zka and speaks of herself as though she were a famous actress. But, as the newscaster asked, who is she?
Chicago Adman David Lewis knows the answer, and he is telling everyone who will listen: Rula Lenska is the 31-year-old daughter of a Polish émigré count and lives in London. She was featured as a rock singer in the British TV series Rock Follies and as a character in a never released film, Queen Kong. What fascinated Lewis, who had nothing to do with the hair spray commercials, was this obscure actress's hopeful pretense of being a famous star. As a lark, he founded the Rula Lenska Fan Club—and soon found that some 600 other people were ready to join the cult.
In London, "The Fair One," as she is known to her U.S. fans, confesses to be "stunned and astonished" by her unexpected fame but more preoccupied with the imminent birth of her first child. Lewis urged fans to "name the nipper." The winners: Octavia and Llewellyn.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920557,00.html#ixzz1aCK9sxop
