What's the Point of the Chicago Teachers Union Walkout?

Public protest is an honored tradition in our democracy. From the American Revolution to Black Lives Matter, speaking out for fairness, justice and freedom is in our national character and protected under the First Amendment.

But protest without purpose can be counterproductive, leaving the public, the media and even the participants confused. That seems to be the case with the planned "strike" by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) on April 1.

The union's website talks about the governor, the mayor and "the 1 percent," "threats" to cut pensions, more funding for public education, higher wages for private sector workers, support services in schools and communities, higher taxes, smaller classes, a promise of no budget cuts, restrictions on charter schools and an elected school board.

It's unclear how the walkout makes any of these outcomes more likely.

The website acknowledges that many of the union's demands were met by Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) last contract offer but a union bargaining committee rejected the proposal citing lack of "trust." Instead they have chosen to strike.

Under state law, the union is technically not allowed to strike until the middle of May after a 105-day "fact-finding" period. But, the union's house of delegates voted 486 to 124 to authorize the walkout, regardless of whether it is legal. In a body that is often unanimous, it is notable that 20 percent of the delegates voted against it. Nevertheless, CTU President Karen Lewis declared the union "united."

But are they? The Tribune quotes teacher Jim Macchione (who also appears in the video above) asking:

"Is it really worth it? Is it going to make that much of a difference for your ultimate goal of getting more funding?"

In a blog post, another CTU member tried but failed to make sense of the CTU's decision.

DNAinfo, an online media outlet in Chicago, quotes several teachers opposing the strike who are fearful they could be kicked out of the union for crossing the picket-line. One teacher put it bluntly: "I think we are being used as pawns."

Meanwhile, the kids, who are already losing a day of learning because CPS can't pay its bills and has ordered furloughs, will now lose another. The parents of more than 300,000 students will also have to make accommodations.

CPS is arranging activities for kids at parks, libraries and schools. And, while there probably won't be much teaching and learning taking place, the students may take from the whole experience a few lessons about adult dysfunction.

On the other hand, they may see the day as an important civics lesson and a chance to voice their frustrations. Student protests have had an impact on education politics in cities like Newark and Boston recently, though it's not clear how much they were genuine expressions of student voice or whether they were put up to it by activists.

Attentive parents may also notice that, while their traditional public schools are closed on April 1, Chicago's 130 charter schools, including the 25 percent that are unionized, will be open, serving about 60,000 kids. The walkout may in fact fuel demand for more charter schools, which is one of the things the union is fighting.

It could also feed the agenda of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, who is openly encouraging CPS to consider declaring bankruptcy in order to get out from under teacher contracts and pension obligations and restructure debt.

Let's also remember that CTU President Karen Lewis faces a union election in May and despite her apparent desire to cut a deal with CPS and avoid a strike, Lewis is being pushed by hard-liners to take a tough stand. Maybe that's the point after all. Despite rhetoric about economic inequity and educational injustice, maybe this walkout is really just union politics.

If so, it will be a missed opportunity for labor and management to come together, pressure Springfield, and secure a real and lasting victory for Chicago.

Let's hope.

 
 
This blog post originally appeared at Education Post under the title What's the Point of the Chicago Teachers Union Walkout This Friday?

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The Stripped Word and Naked Girls

When I was asked to participate in a reading of my current book Goddess of Love Incarnate (the biography of stripteuse Lili St. Cyr) at the flagship salon of Naked Girls Reading in Chicago, I was intrigued. Naked Girls Reading sounded like a fabulous evening; naked beauties sitting around reading literature to a paid audience. What a novel idea for a literary salon. But which came first, the nudity or the literature?


(Michelle L'amour - photo by Don Spiro)


NGR was started by international burlesque artist Michelle L'amour and her husband Franky Vivid after an inspired afternoon at their home. Franky was admiring his well-read wife who happened to be reading in the all-together. Something clicked. Beauty. Naked. Literature. About a year later their salon commenced. The readings would be theme-based (my event is Goddesses, naturally) and the first was "courtesans." Many years later and NGR salons have sprouted up in Warsaw, Tasmania and Cape Town, just three of the 25 active chapters throughout the world.

In the 16th century those sensual Italians who, if not invented the salon certainly fostered it. Many countries eagerly took up the tradition, with the French perhaps the most well known today.
The word salon first appeared in France in 1664 (obviously the root being salone, or sala, an Italian word for a large room in which to receive guests). Before the end of the 17th century these gatherings were often held in the bedroom of the hostess, who usually lay in bed with friends and patrons surrounding her. In their research L'amour and Vivid kept "stumbling upon all this artwork throughout history depicting naked women reading." I'm assuming these were the very same hostesses above-mentioned, reclining in all their glory.

(Kiss night at Naked Girls Reading - Chicago)

Salons were held not only to amuse guests, but to cultivate the hostesses' taste and increase knowledge through readings and conversation. As the Roman poet Horace claimed the goal of poetry (writing, art, etc.) was "either to please or to educate." These hostesses, or salonnières, knew how to do both. The salon came of birth in a time of great change in the 17th Century, a time of advancement, ideas and the widening gulf between the classes. Often it was the only safe place to express and foster radical ideas.

Salons were a sort of casual "university for women in which women were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. Many ambitious women used the salon to pursue a form of higher education." (Research study, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, by Hannah Zundel, Sophie duPont, Emily Olsen and Marisa Rondinelli) This allowed women in a male-dominated society to safely share their opinions and their work, effectively having a very real influence on the world in which they lived; one of the only ways in which they could impact their world. Salons were in fact so influential it is believed the French Revolution was born in the salons of France, headed by forward-thinking women. Salons would also open the way for the women's movement.

The salon was mostly under the rule of the salonnière, a woman who not only encouraged writers and artists but supported them. It was rare for a playwright, poet or author to find success without the help of a salonnière and the society she invited to her home to introduce the artist and his work to.


The Marquise de Rambouillet in her Chambre Bleue

One early salonnière of note was Marquise de Rambouillet, Catherine de Vivonne. The Roman born beauty married at the age of 12, moved to Paris where, sometime around the 1620s she began to invite prominent guests and artists to join her in her chambre bleue, a small intimate room with blue walls where her royal and artistic friends could mingle together exchanging beliefs and carry on lively conversation. So powerful was the Marquise that her influential salon lasted nearly 50 years.

In the mid-1600s the multi-hyphenate (as in author and courtesan) Ninon de Lenclos supported both Molière and Voltaire along with playwright Racine. Of her many lovers was the French King's cousin. She was said to be brilliant with refined taste. It was at her hôtel (home) that Molière first read Tartuffe, before an exultant audience which included the Italian born composer, and master of the baroque style, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Racine. Tartuffe is considered to be the greatest comedy Molière ever wrote, scandalously attacking religious hypocrisy, banned by church and King Louis XIV.

The fiercely independent Ninon forswore marriage, dying at the age of 84 with great wealth, convinced she neither had a soul nor a need for one.


The Marquise du Deffand

In the 1700s the Marquise du Deffand hosted a salon in Paris that attracted and fostered scientists, writers, wits, and all who were of any consequence in the world of letters and in society. She too was a close friend of Voltaire.

Mme. du Deffand's distinction besides being one of the most brilliant women of her day was that of a cutting wit she used like a sword, slaying those in less command of the language in which she dealt. Born in the reign of Louis XIV, she witnessed the birth of the Enlightenment and died a few short years before heads began rolling on the Place de la Concorde. Like so many women of her time, du Deffand was married at an early age to a near stranger. Later she was said to have had an affair with Louis XV's cousin, Philippe II of Orleans. Ironically this mistress of royalty ran her salon in the Convent of St. Joseph in Paris. She influenced France's literati for nearly four decades.

Skipping forward several centuries we cannot leave out American-born, French-living writer Gertrude Stein who brought together Picasso, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thornton Wilder, to name just a fraction of talent she mentored. Her Saturday salon at 27 rue de Fleurus were formal, commencing in the evening, allowing Stein time to write during the day, uninterrupted by impromptu guests hoping for her mentorship. It was Stein's lover, Alice who took up the role of salonnière, attending to the wives and girlfriends of the geniuses clinging to Stein's skirts in a separate room away from the lesser minds assembled.

Distractions soon brought the death of the formal salon petering out by the 1940s; there would be WWII, radio, television. People would prefer to gather around their personal devices in the years to come. Exchanging of ideas happened over the internet.


NGR will be reading Goddess of Love Incarnate April 1st

Thus it is a pleasure and a relief to see the Naked Girl Readings thrive and grow in popularity, bringing together an exchange of ideas, fostering talent, with "actual feel-in-your-hand books." Brava Michelle L'amour. L'amour noted that after her first salon it was obvious something big had just happened, something spiritual. Emails started coming in from cities all over the country from ladies interested in starting their own literary evenings. The NGR salon are stripped, exposed, "intense vulnerable" says L'amour who cares little about her exposed body, but more about exposing feelings and ideas and a shared experience. And more importantly "Reading is sexy. Books are sexy," L'amour says. "You know that smell of a great old bookstore or of a library? It's a smell of knowledge, passion, creativity and excitement."

And with that . . . I hope to see you all April 1st at Studio L'amour in Chicago.

Naked Writers Writing? Author Zemeckis in celebration of Naked Girls Reading


April 1, 7:30 pm. 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 205, Chicago. Tickets and information http://ift.tt/NgyaHP

Leslie Zemeckis is the author of "Goddess of Love Incarnate; The Life of Stripteuse Lili St. Cyr" and "Behind the Burly Q", the definitive history of burlesque. She is the director, producer of the award-winning documentary Bound by Flesh, about Daisy and Violet Hilton of Sideshow fame. Her next project is a documentary on legendary tiger trainer Mabel Stark, out in 2016 and is currently writing her third biography on some influential women in burlesque. Zemeckis owns one of the largest collections of burlesque memorabilia. Follow her on instagram, twitter and facebook @lesliezemeckis, http://ift.tt/1SoCEhC

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Duckworth Launches 112-Day Campaign To Tie Kirk To Trump

Here are a few facts about Mark Kirk's election to the U.S. Senate in 2010:

• He defeated Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias by a slim margin of 1.6 percentage points; 59,220 votes among 3,704, 473 votes cast
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• Giannoulias throughout the campaign was dogged by the circumstances surrounding the April 2010 failure of his family's bank, Broadway Bank, where the candidate had been a senior loan officer before his election as treasurer
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• The Green Party candidate received 3.2 percent of the total vote (117,914 votes), at least some of which may have been protest votes against Giannoulias' candidacy
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• Kirk and Giannoulias were running to replace Roland Burris, who had inherited the Senate seat after accepting a controversial appointment from Rod Blagojevich following Blagojevich's arrest for, among other things, trying to sell the appointment to the highest bidder. Thus, public confidence in Democrats in this race already was impaired

That's a long way of saying that Kirk didn't exactly ascend to the U.S. Senate on a wave of popular support in 2010. He was helped considerably by questions, fair or unfair, about his opponent's business dealings and various other factors.

Which is why Kirk, perhaps more than any Republican candidate in the nation, has reason for concern if Donald Trump becomes the Republican presidential candidate. Historically, Democratic voter turnout is higher in Illinois in presidential election years.

Given Trump's polarizing effect -- not to mention the genuine fear he instills in many voters -- his presence atop the ballot on Election Day will provide even more incentive for Democrats to get to the polls.

No one is more acutely aware of this than Kirk's Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, whose campaign on Monday launched a blistering effort to tie Kirk to Trump in as unforgiving a fashion as possible.

In less than a minute, the video links Kirk's statement that he'd support Trump if Trump is the Republican nominee with many of the more ridiculous statements Trump has made during the campaign. Mexican rapists, John McCain not being a war hero because he was captured, comments about Fox's Megyn Kelly bleeding "from wherever," Obama being a foreign-born Muslim... all those statements are there, interspersed repeatedly with the same NBC5 Chicago interview in which Kirk says that he'd support Trump as the GOP nominee.

The video ends with the kicker title, "Kirk and Trump: Making America great?"

The video no doubt will galvanize the 557,000 Republican voters who helped Trump earn a solid victory in the March 15 primary. In all, 1.4 million Illinois Republicans cast ballots in the primary.

But Hillary Clinton received 1.02 million votes on the Democratic side, where the vote total was 2.02 million. There were a whole lot more Democratic voters out for the primary, and Kirk will need to win a good number of them -- as he did in 2010 -- to defeat Duckworth.

And if the prospect of beating back a Donald Trump presidency isn't incentive enough to give Democratic voters extra motivation, a new election law passed in the final weeks of Gov. Pat Quinn's administration will expand early voting and same-day voter registration for the November election. The changes are thought to benefit Democrats in getting out the vote.

The video kicks off a campaign called "112 Days of Trump," in which the Duckworth camp plans to count down the remaining days until the Republican National Convention in Cleveland "to highlight how the embarrassing duo of Trump & Kirk won't make America great again," says a press release.

The Washington Post this month reiterated its opinion that the Kirk re-election race was the No. 1 race to watch among all Senate incumbents. With the launch of his opponent's effort to portray him as just short of Trump's running mate, this race just got even more interesting -- and perhaps more challenging for the incumbent.



NEXT ARTICLE: Is the Chicago Teachers Union walkout legal?

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Anti-Trump Street Art Reminds Us There Is Still Some Good In This World

Street artists are fighting back against Donald Trump.

Various murals, stencils and posters depicting the GOP front-runner in assorted unflattering ways -- comparing him to Adolf Hitler, Donald Duck and a piece of poop, among other things -- have appeared on walls and sidewalks across the world in recent weeks.

Below, we've rounded up some of the notable pieces of public art critiquing Trump, from the scathing to the scatological.

Seen any anti-Trump street art? Email the image, location and artist's name to lee.moran@huffingtonpost.com.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.

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Belgian cyclist dies after heart attack

Belgian cyclist Daan Myngheer has died in hospital after suffering a heart attack over the weekend at the Criterium International race in Corsica

      

 

 

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USA Cycling hires Steve Blank to lead fundraising arm

USA Cycling has hired Steve Blank to lead its foundation, which is responsible for raising money from private donors to help fund national and Olympic teams and other endeavors

      

 

 

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A Voter's Work Is Never Done: An Electoral Autopsy

The general election can't get here fast enough. As exhausting as the season has been, what do voters need to do now?

More than a year ago, the Cook County medical examiner's autopsy revealed the true story of Laquan's death. Last week, an electoral autopsy revealed a vote of no confidence in government's performance in poor communities, as a new political chapter buried 7-term incumbent State Representative Ken Dunkin, and gave life to the historic ascendancy of Democratic nominee for Cook County State's Attorney, Kim Foxx.



Dunkin's "People over Politics" campaign boomeranged, severing and exposing itself for what it really was ---- a racialized and well-financed "Politics over People" campaign failure that used chicanery, and personality-vilifying to distract a majority African American electorate from focusing on draconian policies that stand to exacerbate the downtrodden condition of the many. Dark money can't buy an enlightened and engaged electorate. The voters called the campaign out: one that sold its constituency out by wrongfully assuming it could play them for stupid. Dunkin's lost was a wake-up call for the marginalizing few.

On the other hand, Laquan's killing fast became a rallying cry, as Foxx's "restoration of fairness and credibility" campaign became a white horse, antithetical to government misconduct, illegality and hypocrisy in marginalized communities of color.  Millennials fueled this spirit, as it also fueled them.  It ignited a movement, aided and abetted by a litany of local and national events magnifying government oppression.  Government tyranny can't mute the voices of the people forever.

Pundits harshly asserted Foxx won because of Laquan.

No. Laquan pulled bureaucratic corruption from under the rug of government secrecy.  Voters demanded more and better from a colluding group of agencies intentionally unresponsive to poor communities and riddled with ineptness. Foxx's nomination is a therefore, not a whereas; a consequence of government malfeasance exposed, not because of Laquan. 

The Dunkin and Foxx campaigns are flip sides of the same victory coin.  But not to be celebrated ad nauseam.

"I understand the excitement, but let us not get lost in the gravity of the work that is ahead of us," Foxx stated during her victory speech.

The marginalized have been here before.  Where, in the wake of victorious social and political battles, jubilance became a distraction from staying the course. As a result, today's marginalized are still fighting to win a war over the same ideals, beliefs, and legislation from yesteryear.

The Tortoise and the Hare reminds us that steady wins the race.  In the short-term, a movement can be like the hare; energetic, exciting, making things happen, and outpacing the lethargic nature of a tortoise-like campaign. But, in the long term, when movements bask too long in the afterglow of a one lap victory, a campaign with staying power wins the race, leaving the movement and its supporters behind, with a consolation prize of inspirational folklore, scratching their heads, asking, "What just happened?"

As Foxx faces a general election in November, the movement, the marginalized and those opposed to government corruption must stay the course. 

There are several mandatory steps.

1. Remain civically engaged. Government disregard of poor people was a match that lit a forest fire of protests in the form of countless marches, sit-ins, die-ins, and rallies. Global peace activist Helen Caldicott is right. "Sometimes it's appropriate to scream at them." Citizen participation brought attention to issues previously cast aside or ignored by the status quo. Staying the course requires consistently and unabashedly defining the issues, taking a position, and mobilizing support with and on behalf of the marginalized.

2. Focus on the "what" not the "who." It is more profitable for the marginalized to pay more attention to the policies a candidate supports, and less on the personality a candidate purports. Dunkin tried to distract voters from the policies endorsed by his benefactors by focusing on the personality of his opposition's donor, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, to no avail.  Voters saw through the campaign's trickery, focusing more on the regressive policies and the negative impact on their daily lives, including but not limited to the potential closing of the state's community colleges, universities, and social service provider agencies.

3. Vote your interest, not special interests. The ballot box is democracy's microphone for the marginalized. The more people access it, the louder the crescendos of opportunity, fairness, and equality become. On March 15, Cook County broke its early voting record.  Voter turnout for Chicago was over 50 percent. 26,000 voters registered. Exit polls showed African American turnout was 150 percent higher than 2014, and higher than normal in Latino communities.  In the wake of local organizations drawing attention to abusive government toward African Americans, Foxx won in areas where they were the largest population. And despite his attempt to convince the electorate otherwise, a vote for Dunkin was a vote for regressive policies hurting a majority of his constituents.

4. Hold elected officials accountable. Maintaining political pressure forces elected officials to comply with what's in the best interest of the electorate. Years after electing President Obama, pundits in the African American community, regret not holding him more accountable to addressing issues specific to the African American community. Caught in the rapture of the country's first black President, observers opined that marginalized communities gave Obama "a pass," relieving him of addressing the specific interests of the marginalized group of which he is a member.

For the marginalized to remain complacently satisfied with the status quo, and drunkenly jubilant over short-term victories, is a recipe for a repetitive and dizzying cycle of oppression. Long term victory requires the marginalized to confront two perpetual realities: The path never ends and the steps never cease.     

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