Millennium Park

Millennium Park is no doubt one of the most beautiful places in Chicago but was it worth the millions of dollars spent on it? The simple answer is NO.  Tourism is not guaranteed thing. With hard times in the recession less people are taking vacations to other places. Sure people from other countries may take a vacation but let’s go see Millennium Park. Nope lets go see California or the Statue of Liberty in New York. Face it Chicago will probably never be on par with the states against the ocean when we are landlocked in the middle of the United States.

The cost of the park far outweighs the beauty that it leaves the residents with. They throw  concerts there and they have the ice rink there in the winter. But really let’s put ground cover over the parking garage and cover that with grass and sand to absorb the water and lets build a giant fish skeleton. This was a huge waste of money on their part. The money could have been spent on much better things like transportation. They want to raise out IPASS rates because they need more money. But all the money that went towards Millennium Park could have went towards our infrastructure.

If we were to fix our transportation and increase the flow of traffic in and out of the city. Possibly get the individual pod system working in a big city we could save the hassle of traffic jams and waiting for express trains and we can just go to where we need to go in minutes. Widening our highways we can push our supposed deadlock timeline back several years and make our city one of a kind. No traffic jams, we could become a punctual city putting us on the map in the world.

Speaker Teachers Union

                During last week’s class we had a guest speaker that was a part of the teachers union. He discussed several of the points I was wondering about charter schools. Such as how most charter schools can fire teachers at will based on performance. After seeing the movie I thought this was a good idea but then he explained to us, what criteria do we go off of? You can’t really make criteria that everyone can follow. You may make a certain percentage of kids having to pass. But this in no way reflects the kids who are not going to pass. Usually because they do not want to be in school. I met plenty of kids that were like this. They were smart enough to pass their classes but they didn’t want to be there. They only tried in automotive and P.E.

                The other one is taking a bonus and getting paid more in return they have to abide by this system and they can be fired almost at will. Doing this would coincide with the earlier example. How can you analyze all the teachers the exact same and have their separate teaching styles be evaluated the same? It is simple, you can’t.

                So the question is being a modern country with money why do we not value education like other countries? Is there anything we can do that would be able to change our system that most people would agree with? The main group we have to please would be the teachers meaning we have to please the union. This is never easy to do; they usually want the extreme side of one end of the contract. Not that this is wrong but they usually threaten strike. Most unions do this at times, such as the construction union last year. Can anyone think of a compromise that they could agree on?

Racial Segregation

                 I believe that the city still has racial segregation I believe because of how Chicago was built in the past. Chicago has traditionally been built upon segregation and immigration. They have always had people separated from others. The politicians did not want certain where they lived, so the made property values higher there and did not necessary want people of a non-white descent. Let’s face it America was very strong on racism in the past, technically our country was found on it, the South relied on slavery for everything. Their economy was based on this and the North is the first to have changed that, resulting in the Civil War dividing the country.

                Politicians have always been racist with setting voting lines strategically so other races cannot have a majority vote so they can stay in power and by also creating laws that affect only certain people. Such as the voting laws that forbade men from voting if their father’s father did not vote. They knew this would only target certain people and did this for their benefit. So I believe that politicians are inherently racist and they do this so that that may stay in power. But how can we dismantle the segregation that exists. It will not be easy but I believe it can be done.

                The only conceivable way that I can see this happening is a COMPLETE transformation of not only the state but also federal government system. The racism is inherently present regardless of the time and place. But the odds of convincing everyone in power to completely redo the system that they have in place and control, would never happen. Do you think that the people in power would ever agree to give up power to let everyone be equal?