Citizen Suburban Times Weekly 12-11-2019

Citizen Week of Dec. 11, 2019

| Vol. 3 | No. 18 | www.citizennewspapergroup.com

SUBURBAN TIMES WEEKLY

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office and reception area on the second floor of the Capitol in Springfield will undergo renovations. The renovations, which will be functional rather than cosmetic, are expected to cost $40,000 and will be paid for by Pritzker, according to a news release. Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki

GOVERNOR TO FOOT $40,000 BILL FOR CAPITOL OFFICE RENOVATIONS

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker is planning to spend $40,000 of his own money to renovate his State Capitol office next month, according to a news release distributed by his staff. SEE PAGE 2

POLITISCOPE 5 ways Trump and his supporters are using the same strategies as science deniers PAGE 2

TRAVEL

NEWS

Let Trends Guide Your 2020 Travel PAGE 4

Community Activist Needs Help Burying White Sox Fan PAGE 3

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2 | CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of Dec. 11, 2019

COMMUNITY

Governor to foot $40,000 bill for Capitol office renovations Work will be non-cosmetic, ‘functional’ in nature Continued from page 1

BY JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois Jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com

Springfield – Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker is planning to spend $40,000 of his own money to renovate his State Capitol office next month, according to a news release distributed by his staff.

Those changes will be mainly functional, however, with no major changes planned for the carpeting, wallpaper, furniture or other cosmetic areas.

According to Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker’s press secretary, the work will take place in the governor’s second-floor Capitol working office, as well as in the reception area outside of it. The renovations will include soundproofing in the office and installation of a partition

to make the reception area “more accessible to staff.” The work is expected to conclude before the end of the year.

The governor’s staff said the changes to the reception area, which is the public-facing office space visible through plate glass windows on the Capitol’s second floor, are temporary and can be easily removed at a future date.

According to a news release, the administration worked with the Architect of the

Capitol to ensure modifications “will not compromise the historical integrity of the office.”

The “ceremonial office” – an area which frequently hosts news conferences and is complete with a 1918 Robert Root painting of an 1858 debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas – will be unaffected by the renovations.

Pritzker’s office also said the work will be done by a union firm and union subcontractors.

POLITISCOPE

5 ways Trump and his supporters are using the same strategies as science deniers

BY LEE MCINTYRE

While watching the House impeachment hearings, I realized my two decades of research into why people ignore, reject or deny science had a political parallel.

From anti-evolutionists to anti-vaccine advocates, known as “anti-vaxxers,” climate change deniers to Flat Earthers, science deniers all follow a common pattern of faulty reasoning that allows them to reject what they don’t want to believe – and accept what they favor – based on a misunderstanding of how science deals with evidence.

As I’ve been watching the hearings, I’ve noticed that a number of characteristics of this type of reasoning are now being embraced

by President Donald Trump and his congressional supporters.

Characteristic acts There are five common tactics used by science deniers.

In 1998, brothers Mark and Chris Hoofnagle (a lawyer and a physiologist) wrote an early blog post about science denialism. That was followed by further work by econometrician Pascal Diethelm and public health scholar Martin McKee and cognitive scientists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky.

All identified the following factors as characteristic acts of science deniers: Believing in conspiracy theories; Relying on cherry-picked evidence; Relying on fake experts (and dismissal of actual experts); Committing logical errors; Setting impossible standards

Lee McIntyre

for what science should be able to deliver.

These elements are present when those who deny the Earth is round or who believe vaccines cause autism insist that there is a governmental cover-up of the real evidence on their topics. They can be seen when Ted Cruz tries to discredit climate change with talk about the anomalous world weather pattern in 1998 due to El Niño. And they’re evident when intelligent design theorists complain that evolution by natural selection still has not been proven.

Alternative reality Trump and his defenders in Congress echo this pattern. Even though Trump has firsthand knowledge of some of the facts under dispute – whereas his supporters may not – all seem to have bought in fully to the idea that the actual political situation is not the one pictured in the mainstream consensus of facts and evidence, but instead is based on an alternative reality.

Here are the five ways Trump and

his allies use the same strategies as science deniers: Conspiracy theories: During his questioning of Ambassador Bill Taylor and other witnesses at the impeachment hearings, Republican counsel Steve Castor repeatedly pursued a debunked conspiracy theory involving an alleged plot in which the Ukrainian government – and not the Russians – interfered with the 2016 presidential election because they were out to get the president.

Cherry-picking: Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that President Trump told him, “I want nothing from Ukraine. I want no quid pro quo.” Trump and his supporters focused on this statement as evidence of his innocence, despite the fact that in other testimony by Sondland that day, he said, “Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky…Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president.”

Discrediting experts: President Trump has repeatedly – and falsely – claimed that State Department and CIA employees such as Bill Taylor, George Kent, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman and others who have testified in the impeachment hearings are “Never Trumpers,” a term for Republicans who do not support Trump – and who therefore have no credibility. His supporters have latched onto this tactic. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said on Sept. 20, after the whistleblower www.citizennewspapergroup.com

complaint was made public: “It looks to me like another deep-state attack.”

Illogical reasoning: Trump supporters have claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky never complained that he felt pressured

by Trump to do the investigations into the Bidens that Trump sought.

Trump himself has described the July 25 conversation he had with Zelensky in which he asked for the investigations as “perfect.” But news reports have shown that Zelensky did in fact feel pressured, and analysts have pointed out that Zelensky would risk losing crucial U.S. support were he to anger Trump by saying that he felt pressured.

Double standard for opponents: Trump claimed that written testimony from the whistleblower was unacceptable, despite the fact that he himself had only given written testimony in the Mueller investigation. Some of his supporters seem to agree and have tried to compel the whistleblower’s in-person testimony.

Partisan logic What might be behind the similarities between Trump defenders and science deniers?

Perhaps, like science denial, all fact denial is basically the same.

All ideology supports the reflex to believe what you want to believe.

Scholars have studied the role of identity in shaping belief and concluded that sometimes even empirical beliefs can be tribal, reflecting what the other people on your team want you to believe.

Adherence to a belief is not always based on evidence.

The danger, of course, is that even

as new facts come in, people won’t change their minds. This is the direct opposite of good empirical reasoning.

It is the hallmark of science that beliefs should be based on evidence, and that people should be willing to change their beliefs based on new evidence. This means that people should be able to specify in advance what evidence, if it existed, would be sufficient to get them to change their minds.

But are Trump and his congressional supporters doing that?

Like science deniers, no amount of evidence seems sufficient to change their partisan beliefs that the phone call with Zelensky was proper and that Trump “did nothing wrong.”

Even when the facts are overwhelming, congressional Republicans seem, like science deniers, willing to contort their beliefs and torture their logic, to stick to the party line because that is who they are.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham recently put it, “I don’t care what anybody else says about the phone call …

The phone call, I’ve made up my own mind, is fine.”

In science, such behavior means that one is eventually read out of the profession – you’re not fired, your tenure isn’t revoked, but you’re no longer taken seriously anymore.

In politics, it is not yet clear what the consequences might be.

Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School.

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of Dec. 11, 2019

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NEWS

Community Activist Needs Help Burying White Sox Fan

BY WENDELL HUTSON Contributing Writer

After taking a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan to his first ball game at Guarantee Rate Field in August to celebrate his 112th birthday, Andrew Holmes now finds himself raising money to bury perhaps the oldest U.S. citizen.

CP Crawford died on Nov. 23, but his body still remains with Gatling’s Chapel Inc. until enough money is raised to bury him.

Andre LaNier, a spokesman for Gatling’s Chapel, said it would preserve Crawford’s body until money can be raised for a burial.

“We don’t expect this to linger on too long and we are working with Andrew Holmes to make this happen as quickly as possible,” said LaNier.

It is Holmes’ goal to raise enough money in the next two weeks.

“I’d say at least $9,000 needs to be raised to give him a proper burial,” said Holmes, a 59-year-old community activist from the South Side. “He did not want to be cremated, so while it’s cheaper than a burial, I want to honor his wishes.”

And rather than start an online fundraiser,

(from left) Andrew Holmes, a South Side community activist, surprised CP Crawford on his 112th birthday in August with tickets for him to attend his first Chicago White Sox game.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Andrew Holmes

Holmes instead is asking the public to make donations to the Andrew Holmes Foundation at Chase Bank.

“The account number for the foundation is 262602979 for anyone who simply wants to

transfer money from their bank account to the foundation,” added Holmes. “Mr. Crawford does not have any living relatives that I know about although I am still searching.

He was married before, but never had any biological children.”

However, Chase Bank officials said donations should not be made in cash.

“If someone wants to make a donation in person at a Chase branch, they should not bring cash, but a check,” said Brian Hanover, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., parent of Chase Bank. “Most banks do not accept cash donations for accounts setup for fundraisers and Chase is no different. Donations to the account could also be made via wire transfer, Zelle and QuickPay.” Crawford, a former sharecropper from Jackson, MS, moved to Chicago in 1925 and worked for several years at the Southland Oil Refinery and later at the Illinois Central Railroad, according to Holmes. Crawford died at the Tri-State Village Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Lansing where he had lived for years.

Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison (17th) donated $1,000 to the fundraiser, said Chris Provenzano, deputy chief of staff

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to Morrison.

“I can confirm that Commissioner Morrison has in fact donated $1,000 to this cause and hopes that others follow suit,” he said.

“The commissioner and Mr. Holmes have worked on community projects together in the past and have developed a friendship as a result.”

South Suburban Lansing is located in the 4th District and is represented by Cook County Commissioner Stanley Moore, whom Holmes said is also working with him to raise funds to celebrate Crawford’s life.

“Commissioner Moore is putting together a proclamation on behalf of my dear friend CP Crawford,” said Holmes. “He is well aware of what’s gong on and has been working with me every step.”

Crawford was a member of Holmes’ Club 100, a seniors group he started in 2012 to honor centenarians.

“This year, the group consists of 36 members and every year around May we gather at the Salvation Army on West 69th Street [in Englewood] to celebrate them,” said Holmes.

“It’s a beautiful site to see seniors, who have given so much of themselves to others, having a good old time.”

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ART SCENE

EXPO CHICAGO Announces 2020 Program Curators EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, recently announced program curators for the 2020 edition (September 24 – 27, 2020) returning to Navy Pier’s Festival Hall.

Showcasing large-scale sculpture, video, film and site-specific works throughout Festival Hall, the 2020 IN/SITU program will be curated by Marcella Beccaria, chief curator and curator of collections at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rivoli- Torino, Italy. Humberto Moro, deputy director and senior curator at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City has been selected to curate the 2020 EXPOSURE section, which highlights solo and two-artist presentations from galleries ten years and younger. Moro will curate a presentation focused on heralding emerging artists and exhibition programs, with council from the Selection Committee and exposition Directors.

“We are thrilled to be working alongside Marcella Beccaria, whose vision has contributed to shape one of the strongest museums in Europe. Her interdisciplinary approach will

lend a new perspective to our large-scale installation program, as well as Humberto Moro, whose highly- respected and rigorous approach with galleries in the US and Latin America will provide a unique understanding of what it means to exhibit within the expansive context of the Americas,” said EXPO CHICAGO Artistic Director Stephanie Cristello.

“Both appointments follow these exceptional curators’ inclusion in the exposition’s Curatorial Initiatives program, which continues to support our participating galleries through the only institutionally program-driven exposition of this scale in the United States.

Our 2020 Program Curators’ deep involvement will undoubtedly manifest an engaged program for our exhibitors and audience at the ninth edition of EXPO CHICAGO in September.”

Author of major publications, Beccaria developed and valorized the permanent collections at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including Anri Sala. AS YOU GO (2019); Yuri Ancarani. The Roots of

Violence (2019); Nalini Malani. The Rebellion of the Dead, in collaboration with Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); and Gilberto Zorio (2017).

Additional recent exhibitions include Marinella Senatore – The School of Narrative Dance, The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg (2019); From Clay to Algorithms.

Art and Technology, Intesa Sanpaolo-Gallerie d’Italia, Milan (2019); Heart of Darkness. Can art prevent mistakes?, OGR Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Torino (2019).

“My concept for the 2020 IN/SITU program is to explore artworks that can answer fundamental questions,” said Beccaria. “Can you imagine a world in which you need to prove you are a human and not a robot? As we know, this has indeed become our world. To prove we are human at the dawn of the third millennium, we need art more than ever—I am so pleased to be invited as the IN/SITU Curator, and use this opportunity as an open platform that can showcase some of the most significant work by international artists being made today within the context of Chicago.”

Beccaria follows the appointment 2019 IN/

SITU Curator Jacob Fabricius, artistic director of the Kunsthal Aarhaus in Denmark.

In addition to Moro’s role at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, he is Adjunct Curator at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, where he has organized solo exhibitions

by Glen Fogel, Mario Navarro, Oliver Laric, Liliana Porter, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Pia Camil, Mariana Castillo Deball, Tom Burr, Yang Fudong, FOS, AES+F, Mark Wallinger, Isaac Julien and Anna Maria Maiolino, among others.

“I’m thrilled to join EXPO CHICAGO as it is a global leading organization which has been a catalyst for the city at the same time that they have brought extraordinary art practices to the local community in a thoughtful way,” said Moro. “For EXPOSURE 2020, I’m excited to highlight the work of a diversity of identities, particularly by Latin American women, that are shaping the artistic discourse around the globe.”

Moro follows 2019 EXPOSURE Curator Naima J. Keith, vice president of education and public programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

TRAVEL

Let Trends Guide Your 2020 Travel Family Features - While there’s plenty to be said for taking the proverbial road less traveled, fellow tourists can provide a wealth of knowledge to help shape a vacation filled with lifelong memories.

Whether you expect your travel plans for 2020 to take you near or far, having a pulse on how and where others enjoy spending their travel time may help narrow down your options. Start planning your next getaway armed with the findings of a trend report compiled by vacation rental app and website Vrbo, especially when it comes to selecting a destination and your accommodations.

Unique Accommodations Traditional vacation home favorites like beach houses, cabins and condos still reign supreme, but adventurous American travelers are staying in some unusual options. In fact, 71% of millennial travelers said they would consider staying at a non-traditional vacation rental.

In addition to barns, castles and treehouses, properties on wheels and properties that float join the ranks of unusual accommodations travelers are booking. Travel demand for houseboats, yachts, RVs

and travel trailers is up 30% yearover-year.

Surf ’s Up Portugal’s reputation for affordability, primo surfing and sunshine-filled climate make the country a desirable place to explore.

That may explain why seaside locales in Portugal took three of the top five spots on the list of hottest international beach destinations for American travelers. Chania, Greece, took the top spot, followed by three Portuguese destinations: Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto and Lisbon. Catania, Italy, rounded out the top five.

For those seeking to stay stateside, four of Vrbo’s top five United States destinations this year are beaches, including: Gulf Shores, Alabama; Miramar and Rosemary Beach, Florida; Panama City Beach, Florida; and Maui, Hawaii.

Same-City Stays Rental demand data in Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta and a number of other urban destinations showed the single largest traveler origin market for each city was that same city. “‘Cele-cations,’ when people seek accommodations to host and spend

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

time with groups of family and friends for milestone events like weddings, birthdays and anniversaries, may be fueling the trend of people booking vacation homes in the same cities where they live,” said Melanie Fish, Vrbo travel expert.

Also high on the trend list: shortstay, drivable destinations located within 300 miles of home.

Up-and-Coming Destinations Their names may not be familiar to the masses, but each of the top emerging domestic vacation deswww.thechicagocitizen.com

tinations shares one thing in common: outdoor appeal. Places that appeal to families and other groups of travelers looking to explore the great outdoors are seeing a major surge over the past three years.

If an outdoor getaway is your ideal trip, consider destinations like Terlingua, Texas, located just a short distance from Big Bend National Park; Bella Vista, Arkansas, situated in the Ozarks near majestic lakes; Westport, Washington, surrounded by a bay to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west; Cherry Log,

Georgia, which sits in the heart of Chattahoochee National Forest; and Edisto Island, South Carolina, a charming beachside retreat 1 hour from Charleston.

“This is the third year in a row travelers’ desire to be outdoors has filled the up-and-coming destinations list,” Fish said. “Clearly, people want the comforts of a home away from home while soaking in scenery.”

Find the trends and accommodations that match your 2020 travel dreams at vrbo.com.

SOURCE: Vrbo

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of Dec. 11, 2019

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NEWS Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian and Best-Selling Author Doris Kearns Goodwin to Teach U.S. Presidential History and Leadership MasterClass recently announced that presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, will teach U.S. presidential history and leadership.

In her MasterClass, Goodwin will provide rich stories about some of our most significant presidents and discuss the essential leadership qualities they shared, including ambition for the greater good. She’ll also discuss how we can all be leaders in our communities through engaged citizenship.

Now available exclusively at MasterClass.

com, students can subscribe for unlimited access to all new and existing classes of 65+ instructors through the All-Access Pass.

MasterClass categories include leadership, cooking, photography, writing, performance, and much more.

Goodwin is a presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author. Her first book “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream” became a national best-seller and was followed by six additional, critically

acclaimed and award-winning books focused on Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Goodwin previously worked with Steven Spielberg on “Lincoln,” based in part on her book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” a biography President Barack Obama has cited as one of his favorite books and was said to have used it as a model for constructing his own cabinet.

INC: Higher Nut Consumption May Help Prevent Cognitive Decline in the Elderly A recent INC-funded study, published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, showed that a high intake of nuts may help protect the elderly from cognitive decline. A team of researchers examined whether a diet high in nuts might help protect against age-related cognitive decline over a three-year period.

Researchers found that, from 119 subjects, 38 participants experienced cognitive decline, 28 from the non-nut consumers group and 10 from the nut consumers group. Nut consumption estimated either by the dietary marker or by the urinary marker model was in both cases associated with lower cognitive decline.

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