Yom Kippur. The day of atonement in the Jewish religion.
As quickly as that, in Chicago the leaves have turned. Although it is an 80 degree day, there is no question that it is Fall. The temperature drops into the 60s as soon as the sun is gone.
Harley and Matthew run the Chicago marathon tomorrow. I don’t. It is becoming a tradition for them to head for McCormick Place on Friday after school to pick up their bibs and explore the Expo. Then we meet up in Chinatown at Lee Wing Wah. Old school Chinese. Moo Shoo pork, Mongolian beef, Kung Pao chicken, and shrimp, crab and squid in a glistening corn starch sauce ladled over crispy browned noodles. Tsing Tao to wash it down and to toast a successful run.
I’ve received calls from two of our district’s schools to come and talk with teachers and bring everyone up to speed on what I know about prospects and changes to Senate Bill 512, the pension killer. I hope to get to all of them in the next few weeks.
The General Assembly veto session starts October 25th. They will just have a few days. So this is the time to make calls and send emails. I did the tour of schools last Spring and ended up speaking to several hundred teachers.
We need to do as much between now and the legislative adjournment.
Which leads me to remind every teacher, and all the rest of the 99%, that there will be four, count ’em, four demonstrations at four different locations in the Loop on Monday at 4PM as part of #occupyChicago. Teachers will be meeting at La Salle and Jackson, home of some of Chicago’s 1%, and then march on the Board of Education. Then it’s on to the Art Institute where some of Chicago’s main corporate greeders are meeting.
1,000 Jews gather at Wall Street to #occupyYomKippur.
Latest from Liberty Plaza near Wall Street:
When new media activist Daniel Sieradski, a.k.a. the Orthodox Anarchist, a.k.a. @mobius1ski , suggested having an ad hoc Kol Nidre minyan on Wall Street, in solidarity with the Occupied Wall Street movement, he wondered if he would succeed in attracting 20 participants (an egalitarian minyan of 10 men and 10 women).
To his amazement, over 1,000 Jews of all ages and backgrounds, from secular to observant, showed up for an exhilarating experience which, judging from the tweets (hashtag: #OccupyYomKippur), had many people feeling as though they were practically levitating. Several friends told me it was an incredibly moving experience.
#occupywallstreet has led to an explosion of graphics.
Here is a new photo site from the 99%.
Fred Klonsky 
Hello – I just wanted to let you & all of your follwers know that the CPS email system is down. Not the administrators email system or any other administrative portion of their web sites, just the teacher email. It seems like they just shut it off. My username & password are unrecognized completely. I guess they had sent out a notice to principals that there was going to be an interruption this weekend, but remember the Track E schools are on Fall Intersession and many of those teachers & principals are probably not as dilligent at checking their email during this time. In my opinion, this was done on purpose in order to make it impossible for the thousnds of CPS employees to be able to have easy contact with each other concering the protest marches this Monday. I know it’s their site, but come on, chickenshits. Now I’m for sure going to be there to march on their asses.