Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, January 3,2013

Arts of the patron

What Mary Lee Leahy did and didn’t change

Mary Lee Leahy died Dec. 12, after a busy life working for good causes as an attorney and public servant. Perhaps unfairly, she is remembered mainly as a Holy Warrior against patronage in public emplo

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, December 27,2012

Pilgrim’s progress

Dave Brubeck made jazz cool

By James Krohe Jr.

I hear you’re mad about BrubeckI like your eyes, I like him tooHe’s an artist, a pioneerWe’ve got to have some music on the new frontier– “New Frontier” by Donald F

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, December 20,2012

Lousy socialists

Can CWLP be managed for the people’s benefit?

By James Krohe Jr.

“The word ‘socialism,’” said Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld in a speech 115 years ago, “is used as a term of derision only by the ignorant or the servile.” Sp

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, December 13,2012

Go east, young man!

Mike Madigan goes exploring in Azerbaijan

By James Krohe Jr.

I don’t know about you, but I love to hear people talk about their interesting trips to foreign places. You learn the most interesting things. What fun it would be therefore to sit down with Mik

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, December 6,2012

Crowdsourcing presidential choice

Why did America’s densest places vote Obama?

By James Krohe Jr.

Remember Election Night? All those colored maps on TV, intended to make clear what a jumble of numbers could not. But the maps, unlike the numbers, did not add up. Such massive swaths of red on the ma

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, November 29,2012

Flatland into flatscapes

Scenic paintings of the central Illinois landscape. Really.

By James Krohe Jr.

Earlier this year, a young English woman named Jennifer Bradley undertook, with friends, to run across the U.S. in 80 days. She thus became the first British woman (we are told) to cross the country o

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Wednesday, November 21,2012

Draining the pool

Does a residency rule make sense?

By James Krohe Jr.

Making one’s address a condition of employment is one of those latent viruses that reside in the American body politic, and which flares up in full-blown symptoms every few decades. Residency re

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, November 15,2012

Diagnosing the cost disease

Why government costs can’t go down

By James Krohe Jr.

Find a cure for Baumol’s Disease and you will be hailed as the benefactor of millions, even though the only people it harms are politicians. Baumol’s Disease strikes the body politic, spec

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, November 8,2012

They’re b-a-a-a-c-k

A cougar is spotted in Morgan County

By James Krohe Jr.

Everybody read about it – a high-tech hunter got video evidence that confirmed the presence in a Morgan County woods of an adult cougar, only the fourth known to have been sighted in Illinois si

Illinois - James Krohe Jr | Thursday, November 1,2012

The perils of premature morality

George McGovern and the hope of 1972

By James Krohe Jr.

A lot of people, I suppose, thought that George McGovern had died a long time ago when they heard in October that he had passed away. Some of them could even have put a date on his demise – elec