World Thought Food Chicago

Dinner last night with Brian Reilly, Ron Thomas, Don Samuelson, Danielle Wood, urban and community planners, organizers, leaders. Good Korean food (Jin Ju) in Andersonville and plenty of food for thought…

• Western hemisphere population, US/Europe has less than 1 billion humans. Asian side has more than 5 billion. The two biggest untapped resources caches on the planet are Siberia and SE Asia. Do the math on who’s in charge here.
• An older couple in Korea say they worked like crazy to send their kids to the best schools in the world… in the US. The kids came here, got their degrees and went home to live and work and make babies. Now they’re doing like their parents… working like crazy to send kids to the best schools in the world… in China. That is where their kids’ (and most all kids) future will be focused and grounded. This China story seems simultaneously cliche and boggle.
• US trade used to run east-west, especially on trains that hub through Chicago. Today, trade runs north-south. Detroit is new hub at base of the St. Lawrence, offloading onto trucks that run north and south. Also, goods manufactured in north central Mexico are just 3 hours from both oceans.
• Chicago as center of regional economy that includes Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, Peoria, Rockford, Urbana, Indianapolis, Southbend, Gary. Growth is in collar, defined by academic/population centers around, but close to, the World Class city. Functional “Chicago” now includes territory in four states.
• Falling behind… Chicago never had a rust-belt-style collapse and hasn’t had to ‘pull itself together’ with all kinds of people and orgs really collaborating, coalescing… perhaps hasn’t happened since after the Great Fire in 1870s. We have a history of social political opposition-based organizing, resistance, neighborhood divisions, segregation, strong business and political bosses, and the like. All of which leaves us behind in developing virtual and community networks needed to thrive in a post-command/control world.
• Us v. them, democratic v. republican, city v. suburbs, market v. community, for-profit v. not-for-profit, east v. west… all oppositional constructs that are quickly becoming as obsolete as USA v. USSR. As Dalai Lama says, war is obsolete… and so are all of these other turf battlings. Might “Illinois” and “USA” also be made obsolete faster than we think, a la Arthur Andersen? The decision won’t be made by us, but likely made for us, as it was for Andersen employees. That’s the way illusion of control works, I guess.
• Good news is that we have Peace Corps alums connecting in “Friends of (insert country)” groups with experience and contacts in 130 or so countries. The Pentagon is actually full of folks who know quite a bit about health, healing, nation- and community-building. We just haven’t been advertising that lately.
• It seems that most people around the world consider Bush un-elected, and therefore haven’t assigned to the American people full responsibility for what his adminstration has been doing. November is seen as major moment of accountability, when We The People will finally and unavoidably confess to being with him or against him.
• Finally, Ron turned me on to Fran Peavey and her global grassroots work on Strategic Questions. Some resources links posted here. I think I’ll be posting more on Strategic Questions as I learn my way into that practice.
• Seems there are some promising info tech access programs, teaching HUD residents how to access the web, here in Chicago, too.

With a dinner like this, there’s not much need or time for breakfast this morning. World Thought Food Chicago.