Not since Chancellorsville have so many rebel soldiers fallen in battle. Across the U.S., statues and other memorials to Confederate heroes from the Civil War are being driven from their pedestals, decried as symbols of a white supremacist creed that has come to be regarded as odious. The problem of whether and how to honor […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
More on statues limitations
In a recent blog post about the recent agitations about Confederate statues, I cited disapprovingly the opinion of economist and gadlfly Tyler Cowen. Cowen offered a fuller explication of his position in a recent column for Bloomberg News. In it he says in part, “I wouldn’t mind having a statute of limitations for public statues […]
Posted inOpinion
Iconoclasm 101
About those Confederate statues, which I write about in my new column: Tyler Cowen, a critic of some influence these days, praised Baltimore’s mayor who decided to remove that city’s confederate statutes in the dead of night without warning. Wrote Cowen: his statue removal was done suddenly, without democratic input for the final decision to […]
Posted inOpinion
A rural future from the past?
I have been observing the population decline in Illinois’ rural parts for decades now. (See “Devoid of life” from July 14, 2011.) In the current issue of Illinois Issues magazine, Norman Walzer and Brian Harger, senior research scholar and research associate respectively at the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University provide their own perspective. It is not encouraging reading. […]
Posted inOpinion
A matter of perspective
Springfieldians are always trying to get above themselves. As I noted in “Seeking the scenic in central Illinois” (Aug. 19, 2010), something must be seen to be scenic, and seeing the landscape in a flat land requires the breadth of perspective that verticality affords. One of the charms promised by the Rauner-backed North Mansion Y-Block […]
Posted inOpinion
The company he keeps
Kevin Drum today lists the CEOs who have quit Trump’s manufacturing council in disgust over his thinly-disguised support for the Charlotteville neo-Nazis. Ten have left so far; still on the council is the pride of Peoria, Caterpillar’s Doug Oberhelman. “If there’s a single name left on this list by the end of the day,” adds […]
Posted inOpinion
A book a-borning?
In my recent column about the need for a proper environmental history of Illinois, “Oh, for a Thucydides of the prairie,” I noted that several excellent recent works, while not environmental histories per se, are informed by consciousness of the role that environment played in history. One I mentioned in Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, […]
Posted inOpinion
In the boring summer time
It’s summer, when spouses (usually women, but not always) show up in ERs seemingly catatonic because their mates have begun talking, again, about the Cub curse or the Cardinal way. Baseball itself is not inherently boring, even if it is mystifying to the non-fan. The game, like tour cycling, cricket or government, is one of […]
Posted inOpinion
It’s only fair
Sooner or later, every rookie reporter must face the ugly facts: Somewhere, sometime, there will be a school board meeting she will have to cover. A veteran opinion monger like me faces a similar dilemma. As he seeks to meet readers’ demands for wisdom on a deadline, he must occasionally write about education funding. The […]
Posted inOpinion
Wobbly stool
Anyone who cares about Springfield should read Bruce Rushton’s recent dispatch on the parlous economic prospects for the capital city. (See “Sobering statistics”July 27, 2017.) Basically, of the three legs that prop up the local economy – government, medical care and retailing – two are distinctly wobbly. I do not envy those local policy-makers who […]
Posted inOpinion
Agency problems
As I write this the weather is, as my grandmother used to say, sultry. Central Illinois is not on the Gulf coast, but Gulf air is in central Illinois much of the year. The damp heat typical of summer hereabouts is another of the South’s curses on Illinois. But while we got that region’s politics […]
Posted inOpinion
Unholy matrimony
A few afterthoughts occasioned by my column “On not doing wrong.” To the unbeliever, the particular opprobrium with which Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki regards gay marriage is puzzling. Our Bruce Rushton has quoted critics who note that Paprocki has not refused funerals for men and women who have lived together before marriage, anyone who has used birth control, anyone […]
