Volume 1 Issue 10

Action
Alert

On October 31st, 2005 at 10:00 a.m., the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) began changing the locks on management offices within the Cabrini Rowhouse complex. CHA gave the Cabrini Green Rowhouse Tenant Management Council written notice that they will not being renewing the Resident Management Company’s (RMC) contract with the CHA. The Rowhouse RMC has executed their CHA contract in good faith and there are no legitimate grounds for CHA’s choice not to renew the contract.

Cabrini Green residents have a right to manage the Rowhouse property themselves.

Call the CHA’s Chairperson, Sharon Gist Gilliam, and the CEO, Terry Peterson, and tell them you support residents managing the Rowhouse property!

When you call do the following:
1) Give your name
2) State that you support the Resident Management Company for the Cabrini Green Rowhouses.
3) Tell them you want the Resident Management Company’s contract renewed.
4) Tell them why.

Here are some talking points for why the contract should be renewed:

• Residents have the right to manage the Cabrini Rowhouse property.

• The Cabrini Rowhouse Resident Management Company has effectively managed the property and is fully equip to continue managing the property.

• The Cabrini Rowhouse Resident Management Company has managed the property excellently, as evidenced by the numerous fiscal audits they passed and the lack of any criminal indictments.

• The Cabrini Rowhouse Resident Management Company has helped make the Rowhouses a better place to live and should be allowed to continue doing so.
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CHA can be reached at 312-742-7272 (Executive Offices) between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Additionally, please call Duane Bailey, CHA Operations Manager, at 312-741-6000

Thank you for helping us ensure that the Rowhouse Management continues to be responsive to the needs of residents!

Time for a CHOKin'

Forget the fact that a princess represents a hierarchical system designed to oppress the masses, forget that Cinderella is not a particularly feminist fairy tale in the first place, forgive and forget all of that. She is still a revolutionary, a masked (or shoed) infiltrator into the system – or at least, she was:

These days, she rarely wears anything but a sumptuous ball gown, prefers the company of fellow royals, shops at a glass slipper boutique, and encourages her young charges to primp for hours at her top-selling Magical Talking Vanity ($69.99).

Alida Allison, a professor at the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature at San Diego State University, said the rebranded Cinderella inverts the original fairy tale. "The beauty and material possession competition fostered by the consumer Cinderella campaign contradicts the folkloric message that a princess is someone who merits ascendancy, not just someone who can afford it," she said. -NY Times

Cinderelli, Cinderelli – you’ve been CHOKED. Shame on you.

Letter to the Editor

Everyone is someone else’s bastard. Myself included. We all have folks we dislike. We all have people that tear out our nerves and use them to string a ukulele. But you have got to give them the love that is the basic right of every human being. That doesn’t mean you have to like em’. Doesn’t mean you have to adopt some crazy new age philosophy, doesn’t even mean you can’t shoot them if you absolutely have to. But you have got to recognize their humanity. Even the boss who needs a beat down is human being.

On that note, another of the basic human rights is the imperative right to mess with another human being(s). In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is a necessity to cause people some form of discomfort on a daily basis. We are the master’s of each other’s complacency. Don’t be afraid to shake it up, mess it up, cajole it a little. One does not need to be mean or belittling to question. Take, for example my brother, who thinks that health care is not human right. When I question him, I try to be as blunt as possible. Does he think its okay for only those who can afford the avian flu vaccination to survive a pandemic? If he does, then why does he want poor people to die? And finally, how can I tell the poor folks in his neighborhood that he wishes they were dead. This might make him feel uncomfortable – but discomfort is a part of life. And, I still have the basic love for him that is every human beings right.