Writing on the Wall

Springfield-based newspaper State Journal-Register has created some “fucking golden” ringtones from your phone drawn from Blagojevich audio recordings.

When the transcripts started coming out, I said I’d go as far as to pay money for all the transcripts in an audio book format. Then I found out they were being freely released. SCORE!

The SJ-R releases are bleeped, though, which kinda ruins it. The original tapes are not.

Sidenote- the MP3s are credited as “FBI featuring Rod Blagojevich”. Sounds like a great, topical band name to me.

Uncertain Economy?

How does the bottoming economy effect business’ ‘green’ plans, whether real or perceived? There is no concise answer; many experts offer different opinions.

In an interview with TIME Magaazine, Paul Maeder of Highland Capital, a venture capital firm built around green investments, warns that, “The […] industry is at risk because of a real lack of access to capital.” An article from the Associated Press in October warned that the recent downturn in the economy would, “at the very least, […] push back when […] reductions would have to start.”

Michael Klare of the Huffington Post can even seen a upside. He writes, “The good news is that economic hard times will cause people to drive less, fly less, and otherwise consume less energy, thus lowering expectations for greenhouse-gas emissions.”

This belief may be off-set by recent fluctuations in the cost of transportation. The price of oil has seen a rapid plunge from a record high of $137 a barrel to as low as nearly $50 a barrel. The recent deflation of gas prices in recent months has some experts worried that the nation will ‘forget’ about the necessity of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels.

With the price of oil dropping so fast, some worry that investment in alternative sources of energy may be discouraged, as the perceived necessity of them slowly dissipates. However, the long term savings aspect is one that has been played up to emphasize the necessity of greening industry despite tough economic times.

Emily Smith of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, in an interview with the Republican American, warns that, “It’s not just about today. It’s about the future, and reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is not only better for the environment but cheaper in the long run.”

In The End

There is little doubt that this ‘green’ phenomenon is more than just a temporary trend. In increasingly dark and desperate times, it should be of no surprise that not every company is honest in its attempts to better the environment and our planet. While bodies like the FTC and independent watchdog groups provide some barriers of honesty, the responsibility of determining what is truly ‘good’ for the environment ultimately rests with the consumer.

Greenwashing

The word is ‘greenwash; and business watchdog group CorpWatch defines it as, “phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment.” The phrase is so popular, it was included in a recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Hamish McLennan, CEO of ad agency Y&R, warns companies of the danger of greenwashing. They have “got to show that there’s substance behind what you say. Otherwise, it could backfire.”

TerraChoice, an environmental marketing agency, has established the “six sins of greenwashing,” a by-no-means-definitive but still useful checklist of the most common flaws in greenwashing advertising.

TerraChoice conducted a survey in 2007 of products that laid claim to being environmentally friendly.

The results of the study were damning. Only one of the 1,018 products examined did not break any of the sins.

TerraChoice CEO Scot Case explained the phenomenon of greenwashing in an October interview with CBS News, “It’s just something that the marketing department created rather than a legitimate marketing claim.”

This past summer, the Federal Trade Commision conducted two workshops focusing on overhauling its “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims,” often referred to as the “Green Guide.” The guide has existed since 1998 and serves as legal means to enforce and ensure honesty in advertising.

“A lot of it is done with images; pictures of trees, the globe, kids, kids ON the globe,” explains Leonard Gordon, Director of the Northeast Regional Office of the FTC. “It’s not a simple problem, and it’s probably not going to have a simple solution.”

The FTC expects to release a new edition of its Green Guide by the end of 2009. Can consumers wait that long?

The Good

Wal-Mart is one of the few companies that has actually found increased business in these tough economic times. While the stingy company is not known for its friendliness (complaints frequently revolve around it driving local businesses to close and its distaste for unions are relatively well-known), it has found economic sense and cents in adopting green policies to cut business costs.

Wal-Mart is the single largest private consumer of electricity in the United States and aims to raise energy efficiency at existing stores by 20 percent by 2012. By 2015, the company plans to have doubled the fuel efficiency of its shipping vehicles.

The company has also built several prototype stores tailored to energy efficiency. The latest, in Las Vegas, reportedly uses 45 percent less energy then a typical Wal-Mart store. The Vegas location is specially tailored for the desert climate, “to better align our stores with the communities we serve,” according to vice president of Prototype and New Format Development, Charles Zimmerman.

In 2005, company CEO and President Lee Scott hired Conservation International, a nonprofit group more known for working with indigenous people to protect their lands, to assist Wal-Mart in adopting sustainable practices. Wal-Mart has even gone as far as bringing none other than the tree hugging poster boy himself, Al Gore, into the mix to deliver a motivational message to Wal-Mart corporate headquarters.

Worst of the Worst

Is a company reworking their logo logo and then spending $200 million in an advertising campaign enough to convince consumers that they too are eco-friendly?

British Petroleum – BP dominated the headlines in the dog days of summer in 2007 when Indiana regulators awarded this company a permit to increase the amount of ammonia it dumps into Lake Michigan by 35 percent. While the amounts were still under the federal guidelines, it caused an uproar among Illinois politicians and citizens.

In 2007, BP agreed to pay fines and restitutions totalling $370 million. The fines were the result of a fatal explosion in Texas, crude oil leaking from pipelines in Alaska and fraud and propane price manipulation, according to a 2007 document from the Department of Justice.

Exxon Mobil – Oil mega-giant distributed funds to 39 lobbying groups of the “climate denial industry,” according to a report in the Guardian. These groups attempt to downplay the notion that our climate is changing as a result of human activity. In Exxon Mobil’s defense, the company cut funding in 2008.

General Electric – GE launched a $90 million public relations campaign entitled “Ecomagination.” The campaign focuses on many of the elements that Leonard Gordon discussed. Happy elephants, walking trees and young children are but some of the imagery found in commercials and on the campaign’s website.

Just a few weeks after the launch of its Ecomagination campaign, GE was fighting Congress, trying to delay a clean-up operation in the Hudson River. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007 that as GE was prepping lawyers and lobbyists to weaken rules regarding pollution generated by trains and the nation’s railroads, while still in the midst of its strong Ecomagination marketing campaign.

This is by no means an accusation of guilt or negligence, merely an attempt to shed light on what may be otherwise misleading marketing.

All it took was a former Vice President standing in front of a projection screen, armed with a simple slideshow and describing one little ‘inconvenient truth,’ to spark a rebirth in the nation’s environmental conscious.

Armed with hard facts and a compelling story, Al Gore’s award-winning documentary made the effects of global warming a dinner table topic of conversation not only across America, but across the globe. No longer were environmentally conscious people stereotyped and generalized as ‘hippies’ and ‘tree huggers’. Environmentalism was suddenly injected into mainstream culture.

The discussion quickly evolved to a form that was sure to grab attention of consumer-minded Americans; not just how to save the environment, but how to save money.

Businesses small and large quickly jumped on the “green marketing” bandwagon. From light bulbs and power generation to household cleaners and automobiles, Al Gore’s phenomenon seems to be not so much a trend as it is our new way of living.

Green marketing is the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits, as described by About.com.

In an age where consumers are slowly coming to distrust and even despise “dirty” companies like Exxon Mobil, entire consulting firms have popped up based solely around crafting a “green” image for a company. But if the past is any indication, consumers cannot rely on the word of a company alone.

Susan Ward, a small business writer for About.com, outlines the keys to successful green marketing. Her very first point outlined is to be honest with the consumer. She explains that, “Being genuine means that that you are actually doing what you claim to be doing in your green marketing campaign.”

There is no doubt that green marketing has quickly become a profitable business.

“Green has gone mainstream,” explains Adam Adamson, author of the book BrandSimple in an interview with USA Today. “Research shows many folks will pay more for eco-friendly goods or services.”

For most, if not all, companies, greening their business plan is a matter of dollars and cents. The business practice has become so popular, it has its own term: greenwashing.

This article originally appeared in the September 12, 2008 edition of the Lewis Flyer. It was my first published article.

1,460 pounds. That is the amount of waste generated by an average American citizen in one year. Accounting for Lewis University’s student body, that translates to 5,531,940 pounds of trash each year.

Going green can come off as just one more pop culture catch phrase that doesn’t mean much to the average person. Celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently converted his famed Hummers to run on biodiesel fuel, and Edward Norton, who is working to bring solar power to low-income housing, are leading the charge to ‘go green’. Unfortunately, converting your juggernaut SUV to run on vegetable oil or installing solar panels on your dorm are not exactly feasible solutions for Lewis University students.

There are countless practical ideas for the ordinary college student to reduce their carbon footprint. It is not uncommon to see students at the library printing out dozens of pages off a computer, only to use a few sheets. By printing only necessary information or copying into a notebook (they probably aren’t being used enough anyway), paper consumption would be reduced dramatically. Indeed, many professors have switched to issuing hand-outs and syllabuses over the internet instead of making photocopies.

Fluorescent light bulbs, which use 75 percent less energy, are quickly rising in popularity. Something as simple as switching off a light or unplugging electronics when not in use will not only help to conserve energy, but it will reduce monthly electricity bills.

It’s not all just light bulbs and electricity. “I have reduced my personal weekly garbage to a simple plastic bag,” says Professor Lee Witkowski, a teacher of Environmental Sciences at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.

Scattered across campus are several recycling stations for students to discard empty can and water bottles. Of course, that water bottle’s life span can be extended simply by taking it home and filling it back up. All-natural cleaning agents, from pet shampoo to laundry detergent, are far more affordable than in the past.

The pressure to reduce environmental impact does not rest solely on the students. The administration of Lewis University should keep an environmentally-sound ethic for all future building projects and renovations. Green roofs are gardens located on the top of buildings and have recently become popular in Chicago. They serve to reflect heat from the building, cool the surrounding air, and scrub the oxygen we breathe. By making use of triple paned windows and natural sunlight to illuminate rooms, heating and electricity prices can be reduced.

“People will not receive awards for going green,” Witkowski declares. “Satisfaction will come from simply doing it. That’s the motivation.”

Above all, Witkowski says, “It is a belief. The American people must think global and act local.”  Going green is not as simple as using energy efficient light bulbs, or using less paper. Proper education and a change in beliefs are required to truly ‘go green’. Always remember that the power is yours!

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Tips you may not have thought of:

• Carpool! Traveling in groups reduces the number of vehicles on the road. Not only will this cut down on pollution, it will also make traffic more bearable.
• Combine destinations into one trip. Instead of waiting until tonight to run to Target, stop there on your way home from school.
• Tossing your water bottle in the recycling bin is good. Taking it home to use for another day is better.
• Soaking crumpled newspaper pages in an equal mixture of water and white vinegar makes for an excellent window cleaning agent.
• Invest in an organic reusable bag for grocery shopping.
• Keeping your car tires at the proper inflation will reduce fuel consumption.
• Open your windows! The Environmental Protection Agency reports that indoor air is up to 90 percent more polluted than outdoor.

This article was originally published in the September 26, 2008 issue of the Lewis Flyer.

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The Lewis University Rugby Club have put on their striped jerseys in anticipation of the fall season. The team of 20 has been busy practicing on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Chicago Blaze’s nearby field in Lemont and is set to face off against other local clubs as well as nearby universities like Illinois State in the weeks ahead.

“The real thing that is important is our spring session,” said Ryan Bulfin, a graduate assistant for television operations and is in charge of the Rugby Club at Lewis. “We will be officially recognized by CARFU – the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union – where we’ll play against other schools.” Northwestern, Loyala and DePaul are just a few of the other schools that make up the CARFU.

“We wanted to organize the fall season as recruiting and training,” Bulfin explained. The Club only has the bare minimum number of members needed to field a team. “We are just making the cut. It is tough because we are pretty new.”

The team certainly understands the tough task waiting ahead on the field. “We’re playing against schools that have had rugby traditions for years. We are [the underdogs] but it is a good undertaking. I really want to get a proud rugby tradition started at Lewis, and so do the other guys on the team,” Bulfin explained.

The Rugby Club is in the midst of recruiting and is open to all male students, resident or commuter. Bulfin was quick to emphasize that no experience was needed.

“It doesn’t matter how big you are. I’m a skinny guy. People should understand that position-wise you are matched up against someone your size.”

The small size of the club has created many playing opportunities. “Everyone gets to play. No one sits out, everyone gets great playing time,” Bulfin said.

“It’s a good outlet for people who want to do something physical, it’s good exercise. There’s really no better way to get in shape,” said Bulfin.

But beyond serving as a way to keep up one’s health, Bulfin pointed out the social aspects of the game. “Rugby is a very social game. After each game guys get together, congratulate each other on a game well played, make some new friends, and then we grill and have some fun. There’s some great comradery.”

Students interested in the Rugby Club should send an e-mail to bulfinry@lewisu.edu or find the ‘Lewis University Rugby’ Facebook group.

This article was originally published in the November 2, 2007 issue of the Lewis Flyer.

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Generally, cold weather and high wind speeds is a real mood killer for an outdoor concert. How did The Pulse, Lewis University’s student programming board, cope? By moving the concert inside. Duh. Chicago-based act Company of Thieves was scheduled to perform at Lewis’ outdoor pavilion, but inclement weather pushed the concert indoors to the Field House. Accompanying Company of Thieves was a single opening act, Lewis University’s own Get Well Brian.

Get Well Brian had only been in existence for two weeks before taking the stage. While this was noticeable in the impromptu lyric sheets written in a spiral notebook held up by the real Brian, the band exhibited a surprising level of confidence in their performance. Freshman vocalist Caitlyn Stoeckley, no stranger to performing on stage, provided a strong lead to guitarist Stephen Santowski’s rhythm guitar. The potential was there, and it is only a matter of time until they surface again on the scopes of the Lewis music scene.

Company of Thieves provided the unbridled enthusiasm and energy that seemed more accustomed to a national act headlining at the Allstate Arena than a local band performing at a local university’s recreation center. It was not uncommon to see a member of the band twisted and contorted while sprawling themselves across the stage in a pose that would leave a Cirque du Soleil performer in envy. Frontwoman and lead vocalist Genevieve Schatz’s ability to dance about the stage without so much as a quiver or crack in her voice serves as a further tribute to Company of Thieves’ already-honed performance ability.

Listed as ‘rock / indie / other’ on their MySpace page, Company of Thieves certainly deliver elements of all three with a strong emphasis on the ‘other’. The band’s post-rock roots were noticeable in the guitar technique, but was far from being the distinguishing factor. What drove the band’s sound was their blend of guitar effects and riffs, a strong jazz-influenced bass line rife with presence, and independent albeit soothing vocal melody.

Stage presence is far from the only factor governing the success of a band’s performance. Company of Thieves’ lyrics were delivered with a strong sense of emotion and importance as Schatz’s voice explodes across the gym. Her seemingly effortless method of singing, swaying, and tambourine-playing was almost hypnotic, serving as yet another underlying sign of the raw potential in Company of Thieves. The band’s lyrics, written by Schatz and guitarist Marc Walloch, are not overly complicated or complex. As Schatz said while introducing a song, “I wrote this about a really crazy dream I had one night.”

This concert was The Pulse’s first. Although it did not go off without a hitch (I was told stories of a literally last-minute trip to Ikea to buy stage lighting), The Pulse managed to bring a little flavor and excitement to campus that Friday night. Certainly a preview of good things to come.

This article was originally published in the November 7, 2008 issue of the Lewis Flyer.

It goes without saying that most, if not all, college-aged women are intimately familiar with the 1980′s classic Dirty Dancing. It also goes without saying that any college-aged man who has ever attempted to woo a woman has also seen it. Us men have had to put up with “nobody puts baby in the corner”, “The Time Of My Life” and countless requests/demands to take dancing classes in order to hopelessly emulate the movie.

Dirty Dancing has come to Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre in the form of a musical that tries to stay true to the original but ultimately loses some of the timeless 80′s charm that made the original such a classic. All of her favorite songs will be here, along with a few extra songs.

The Good

• Amanda Leigh Cobb plays Frances “Baby” Houseman, the lead role. She will easily live up to the expectations set by Jennifer Grey in the original movie and, at times, easily surpasses her.
• The music. Say what you will about the movie itself, the music WAS good. I found myself tapping along and swaying my shoulders more than once through the performance. Maybe not as much as some of the middle aged women who had one too many margaritas
• The dancing. While it definitely was not as ‘dirty’ as in the original movie, it was pretty breathtaking. Choreographer Kate Champion did a very good job of translating the passion and enthusiasm of the movie onto the stage.
• The Cadillac Palace Theatre is an absolutely beautiful venue in a beautiful part of town. There is not a single bad seat in the entire house and generally the sound is very good as well.

The Bad

• Josef Brown is NO Patrick Swayze. The Australian native just looks old and awkward next to the petite Amanda Leigh Cobb. While his rippling eight pack might have been enough to distract the legions of swooning women in the audience, I found myself unimpressed with his stiff-as-a-board performance. Maybe he was too busy trying to hide that Australian accent of his.
• The play ran probably twenty minutes too long; I found myself looking at my cell phone more than once, wondering how soon the intermission/ending would come. There were a few songs and scenes that added nothing to the plot and could have easily been dropped. A scene set at night around the campfire talking about Freedom Riders and civil rights leaders springs to mind.
• I understand that this is a musical angled 100% at women but when the commercials say “It will have you out of your seats dancing in the aisle”, they really mean it. The show I saw was largely made up of groups of women of all ages. This, combined with a full service bar before the show and during admission, lead to some laughable if not distracting moments.

The Verdict

If you are a woman and/or a fan of the original, you should go see this. If you are a guy looking to score some karma points with your girlfriend or are trying to woo a lady, this musical is a (relatively) cheap path to success.

3/5

Three Patrick Swayzes up

Dirty Dancing in Chicago runs through January of 2009. Tickets begin at $27.50 and can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Perspective matters. There is one facet of the gulf oil spill that really puts it into context, but I haven’t seen anyone else mention this.

In his testimony before a House subcommittee, BP CEO Tony Hayward is on record as saying there could be 2 billion gallons of oil left in the well. 2 billion gallons of oil that could flood the Gulf of Mexico if it isn’t stopped.

There are 42 gallons to a barrel. My shady-at-best math skills tell me that is around 47 million barrels of oil sitting down there.

The United States consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil. A day. It takes this country 2.4 days to consume the amount of oil that is left down there.

Estimations vary about how much has spilled out so far. The official Department of Energy estimate is 35,000 barrels a day, or 1,845,681 barrels since this whole shindig started.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the total oil leaked so far is the equivalent to 2.3 hours of the USA’s oil consumption.

I could ramble on about cutting energy consumption, yadda yadda yadda. But I won’t. Just look at the numbers. Think about it for a while.

I’m by no means a sports blogger (for that I turn to the ever-classy Tremendous Upside Potential) but I think today is a special occasion.

So that’s it. The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the ticker tape is being swept up, Daley was roundly boo’d, and Patrick Kane is on Day One of a three month bender.

Look out, ladies. Patrick Kane is coming for you. (Sun-Times Media)

If you’ve listened to any Chicago sports radio or sat in a bar in the last few weeks, you’ll have noticed the grown men bitching and moaning (as grown men who are passionate about sports tend to do) about the Blackhawks Bandwagon.

Disclaimer on my Fan Status: I never cared about hockey when I was a kid. I started having a mild interest after the Hawks’ Winter Classic game at Wrigley Field, and it’s solidified since then. Way before you liked them, let me assure you.

Yeah, there has been a huge surge in Blackhawks-related Facebook posts in the last two weeks of the playoffs. And no doubt there is a huge jump in Blackhawk memorabilia sales (I don’t own any Blackhawk attire). Is this bandwagoning? Hell yes it is. But to what extent?

Here’s a handy graph of Google searches for “Blackhawks”

And what kind of journalist would I be if I didn’t examine the shit out of Twitter?

The Internet hunger for the Blackhawks really kicked off towards the end of April, right as the first round was wrapping up. My verdict is, the official Blackhawks Bandwagon Status (BBS) cutoff date is the start of the playoffs. If you liked them before the playoffs, you are one of us. After, one of them.

I’m generalizing, of course. Some will argue you aren’t a true Blackhawks fan unless you stuck by them when ESPN rated them the worst franchise in sports circa 2004.

So here’s my real point: Toss all this ‘bandwagon’ bullshit out the window. Anyone that started liking the ‘Hawks after June 9 is… not even a bandwagon fan. Lets be honest. The Blackhawks were a non-entity in this city before 2007. Bitching and arguing about bandwagon fans in relation to the Hawks is like arguing you were a true Diamondbacks fan in their ‘drawing board stage’ in 1997. It just makes you look like a huge boner.

In three years, the Blackhawks have gone from Chicago Fire nobody status to a city phenomenon. It wasn’t just winning the Stanley Cup that did it (the Fire can attest to that). It was the new management (duh), adding real team personalities, a huge publicity blitz and, oh yeah, getting your games on TV.

It’s too early to be talking about next year (and I sure as hell am not the person to be talking about that). Ticker tape is probably still falling in the city. My gut instinct tells me next year’s Blackhawks will be just as good. The start of a dynasty? Who cares.

Chicago is now a hockey town, a Blackhawks town, and it sure as hell wasn’t before. We can’t throw the ‘bandwagon’ label around until this team/dynasty falls apart and gets rebuilt in a decade. Then you can say “Yeah, I was a fan of the Hawks before Kaner’s knees blew out in the 2013 season!”

I bet “Chelsea Dagger” will still be stuck in your head, though.

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