Vote for Eb!

I have carefully avoided writing about politics here; there are a million blogs with that stuff, and I think there's more to life than politics. That being said...

Meaghan's father Eb (Moran) was an alderman here in Evanston for 18 years, winning 5 elections along the way before retiring last year. He had the reputation of being detail-oriented and independent, not especially concerned if he was the only one voting for or against a certain proposal -- he did what he thought was right. That included being in favor of the downtown "tower" project, a mini-skyscraper that a very vocal group of residents opposed with yard signs, letters to the editor, online petitions, rallies, etc. Ah, Evanston.

He decided to run for State Representative late last year, and is now in a 5-person race for the Democratic nomination. The February 2nd primary is effectively the final election, as the Republican party here is practically non-existent, and the November election will be just a formality.

Meaghan's helping with the campaign, and it's been fun to see some of the retail politics at work: nominating petitions, yard signs, t-shirts, meet-and-greets, and the debates. These get pretty detailed treatment from the two local weekly papers, the Evanston Review and the Evanston Roundtable.

The debate coverage is what got me interested in the race, especially in reading how clueless many of the candidates seemed on Illinois' economic woes. Eb was the only one who emphasized the importance of controlling the growth in state government spending, recognizing that just taxing "the rich" more wasn't going to work any better in Illinois than it's working in California. (And it didn't hurt that he's the only pro-life candidate in the race, although that's sure to cost him Democratic primary votes.)

So I agreed to put my formidable rhetorical skills (!) to work for the campaign, and wrote a letter to the editors of the two local papers in support of Eb.

Interestingly the candidate with the most visibility and funding, young Patrick Keenan-Devlin, was in a campaign finance kerfuffle over the weekend. It came to light that more than half of his impressive $117,000 raised from July through December came from a single source: the public employees union AFSCME or its members. They might not be predisposed to state spending restraint, to put it gently.

The letter came together pretty quickly, like these posts usually do, as I tried to balance being forceful and persuasive, being interesting, and being civil. Some of the harder-hitting lines I had to leave out, knowing they could keep a letter from being published:

• "But don't blame [young opponent] for this relationship; that's like blaming the hammer for its relationship to the carpenter. It's just a tool."
• "[Young opponent] seems to look uncomfortable in all his campaign pictures. I suppose you would, too, if you had a union arm up your keister, making your mouth move and your arms flap together."

The finished product is given below -- I had to edit it down to under 250 words, as what I submitted originally was a little longer. I'm hoping it'll run in one or both papers this Thursday. And for those of you here in the 18th district, Democrat or Republican, get out and vote for Eb next Tuesday!

Pat

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Dear Editor:

The 18th District state representative race has been interesting, especially given Illinois' economic state:

-Over the last 10 years the state government's spending has increased significantly faster than revenue

-Illinois is ranked 48th in job creation nationwide over that period, and in fact has fewer jobs than 10 years ago

-The state is ranked 46th in the nation in favorable litigation climate for business

-Our economic outlook overall is ranked 44th

That's not a pretty picture, but it's a clear one. Yet most of the candidates have stressed the need to raise taxes, and one of the kids in the race was recently quoted on his intention to advance "progressive spending priorities". Swell. I'm guessing that doesn't mean reducing the rate of state government spending increases, or improving the business climate to encourage private sector job growth.

One candidate has pledged not to raise taxes, but instead to rein in spending in Springfield: Eb Moran. He's the only candidate to have held elective office and been responsible for balancing spending desires against revenue constraints. He's not carrying the baggage of endorsements from groups that have a stake in continuing the George Ryan – Rod Blagojevich - Michael Madigan approach to state government. Saying "No" takes practice, and is even harder if you've promised a lot of "Yeses" to a lot of special interest groups already.

I encourage you to vote for Eb Moran on February 2nd, and send a voice of fiscal reason to Springfield.

Patrick Harrigan

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Life, The Universe, and Everything

Cosmology is the study of the origin and nature of the universe, and (in some definitions) humanity's place in it. You'd certainly impress people if you introduced yourself as a cosmologist, despite the annoyance of being occasionally mistaken for a cosmetologist.

A work from a college philosophy class has stuck with me for years: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man". Teilhard was a French Jesuit, a paleontologist (he took part in the discovery of Peking Man), and a philosopher/cosmologist. His work got him in trouble with the Vatican, although as time passes it seems like it's regaining a little favor. My course teacher was Fr. Garth Hallett, who probably wanted to stick up for a fellow Jesuit.

I'll have another sip of philosophy juice (tonight's flavor: Jameson!) and share the crux of it, or at least the crux of what I absorbed and/or retained:

1. Consider the milliseconds after the Big Bang, about 14 billion years ago. Subatomic particles started organizing into atoms of greater and greater size and complexity. That transformation still takes place inside stars, via nuclear reactions, but the complexity has peaked -- stars keep making the same mix of atoms, with a maximum atomic weight around 250, as they have for billions of years.

2. But - at some point some atoms organized into molecules, and these increased in size and complexity over time. Interestingly the most complex molecules (DNA) weren't made from the most complex atoms -- instead it's the relatively simple carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen atoms. They were better at combining with each other to create complexity at a higher (molecular) level. It's probably fair to call this process chemical evolution.

3. Evolution of molecules plateaued as well, but continued on a higher level: from DNA to genes, and then up to groups of genes (chromosomes). From there it was on to cells and to groups of cells, i.e. multicellular organisms.

4. Evolution of organisms has continued for billions of years, with humans appearing millions of years ago, and homo sapiens (Latin for "knowing man") arriving at the party about 200,000 years ago. One could make many arguments for humans being the pinnacle of the evolution of organisms, despite our rap music, Larry the Cable Guy, and microwave burritos.

Notice the pattern: atoms "evolved" into greater complexity, but then it was groups of atoms (molecules) that took over. Groups of molecules eventually begat cells, which led to groups of cells working together. So where does it go from here, with people as the highest multicellular organisms? Obviously to groups of people, i.e. organizations. These are formed in myriad ways, and thrive or perish based on how effective they are -- at getting food, fending off disease or external hostile threats (other organizations?), and preventing harmful internal conflict. Families led to tribes led to states/nations, and wham-o, there's a guy walking on the moon -- an inconceivable accomplishment for an individual alone.

Teilhard argued that complexity = "consciousness", with the evolution of man being a giant leap in this area. (This continuum of consciousness from rocks to frogs to people is part of what got him into trouble with the Church.) He died in 1955, but I don't think he'd have been a bit surprised by the internet, with the connections between people around the world leading to some kind of global consciousness ("noosphere"), if you think about it. Right now in some small town in India a guy is posting part of his life story online, while a girl is playing online chess with an old man in Los Angeles, while someone else is checking orders from Brazil for his company's product. How quickly we take it all for granted, and yet these individual social tendrils lead to a connected world.

I won't get into the really tricky part of what we're evolving towards, except that Teilhard called it the "Omega Point", and it has philosophical and theological implications I don't understand the half of. He tried very hard as a Christian and a scientist to keep the whole thing consistent with current teaching in each arena, and to bring it all together; that's probably why it still resonates.

So if you're at a cocktail party and someone cites the fact that humans and chimps share 95% of the same DNA, as if that made us less special, you can chime in (if you're feeling playful) that we share 100% of the same chemical elements, too. Your statement will be just as true and just as fatuous, but you'll know why, thanks to your new friend Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Pat

Elvis: Coda

The sad, slightly shocking news after a nice Christmas break is that we had to put Elvis to sleep yesterday.

He'd been out of sorts for about a week -- the Wednesday before Christmas he ate a bunch of Christmas cookies from the kitchen counter while we were out, so for a few days we thought that was the cause. He went from his usual hyperactive happiness to lethargy, just laying on his favorite chair for the whole day. Given his history I started to suspect he'd eaten some object along with the cookies, even though he wasn't showing the typical "Oops, I guess I shouldn't have" GI symptoms. He wasn't throwing up, but he wouldn't eat anything.

The vet up in Lake Geneva (we spent last week there) examined him on Wednesday and did some quick blood work; everything looked OK, so she gave him a couple of GI meds and asked that we bring him back in a couple of days if he didn't rally.

Yesterday morning Elvis couldn't even stand, let alone walk, and looked to be in obvious pain. I decided to cut our vacation a day short and get him in to our regular vet (and good friend), Dr. Scott Jones at the Northbrook Animal Clinic.

Scott did x-rays looking for some obstruction, but instead found numerous tumors throughout Elvis's lungs. He indicated a) these were secondary tumors, with an unknown primary somewhere, b) there was no possible chemical treatment, and c) he didn't think Elvis would survive any possible surgery, given his condition. That left an easy decision, however sad and shocking. Scott took care of everything after that.

So Elvis gave us nine joyful, exasperating, heartwarming, hyperkinetic, goofy years, and we thank him for that. And I also thank Dr. Jones for rescuing him so many times in the past, and the Friends of Elvis who've been doing the weekday walks this last year and a half. I hope you enjoyed his energetic company as much as we did.

I won't offer up any obvious parallels or deep thoughts here. We'll miss him, but we'll be fine.

Pat