Friends, Romans, Countrymen...
The City...
I'm all about the whole idea of supporting The Municipality.
I am a proud citizen, conscientious of the fact that society at large is comprised of the contributions of individual citizens.
To dismiss the workings of The Municipality is to dismiss my own contributions. I enjoy the use of public streets, the finest water delivery systems in the world, etc, etc.
From a Nat'l Geo article:
...Many believe the biggest flash-point is the Middle East with its desert climate, shrinking aquifers, staggering rates of population growth, and tradition of settling differences by fighting.
“Many of the wars of this [20th] century were about oil,” World Bank Vice President Ismail Serageldin once observed, “but the wars of the next century will be about water.”
No country is so dependent on a single lifeline as Egypt is on the Nile-the source of which lies several countries to the south. Eighty percent of Iraq’s water originates outside its borders. Turkey controls most of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, the twin rivers upon which both Syria and Iraq depend.
...While water shortages are proving an annoyance to Israeli citizens, they are angering the Palestinians. At one point Palestinian officials in Hebron-hardest-hit of the West Bank cities-limited households to running water only twice per month.
Back to the point:
Why does Chicago want to charge me an 'online convenience fee' of $1.75 for my lic. plate renewal...there's nothing convenient about that! Let's see....either get out a pen and write a check and spend a stamp...or pay a 'fee' to use a computerized system that is saving them the trouble of handling another piece of mail which is subjected to the possibility of human error among other potentially costly handling expenditures (paperwork for God's sake)...
I think I should be charging them a convenience fee for using the online system ! (but wait, I'm not going to use the online system after all!...oh well)
I'm all about the whole idea of supporting The Municipality.
I am a proud citizen, conscientious of the fact that society at large is comprised of the contributions of individual citizens.
To dismiss the workings of The Municipality is to dismiss my own contributions. I enjoy the use of public streets, the finest water delivery systems in the world, etc, etc.
From a Nat'l Geo article:
...Many believe the biggest flash-point is the Middle East with its desert climate, shrinking aquifers, staggering rates of population growth, and tradition of settling differences by fighting.
“Many of the wars of this [20th] century were about oil,” World Bank Vice President Ismail Serageldin once observed, “but the wars of the next century will be about water.”
No country is so dependent on a single lifeline as Egypt is on the Nile-the source of which lies several countries to the south. Eighty percent of Iraq’s water originates outside its borders. Turkey controls most of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, the twin rivers upon which both Syria and Iraq depend.
...While water shortages are proving an annoyance to Israeli citizens, they are angering the Palestinians. At one point Palestinian officials in Hebron-hardest-hit of the West Bank cities-limited households to running water only twice per month.
Back to the point:
Why does Chicago want to charge me an 'online convenience fee' of $1.75 for my lic. plate renewal...there's nothing convenient about that! Let's see....either get out a pen and write a check and spend a stamp...or pay a 'fee' to use a computerized system that is saving them the trouble of handling another piece of mail which is subjected to the possibility of human error among other potentially costly handling expenditures (paperwork for God's sake)...
I think I should be charging them a convenience fee for using the online system ! (but wait, I'm not going to use the online system after all!...oh well)