Illinois has long been content to be a C-minus kind of state. That’s about the grade the 2010 census gave the state for its performance during the Oughts, when the number of people living in Illinois grew by only 3.3 percent while the nation as a whole increased its numbers by 9.7 percent. The performance […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Mr. Bureaucracy
The life of an opinion-monger is filled with idle moments that more diligent commentators spend in study and reflection. I prefer to wonder rather than ponder. And one of the things I wonder about is, Why aren’t there more songs about government? I wanted songs that are about the process of government, not the effects. […]
Posted inOpinion
Put voters on trial next
At last, we have a verdict on the governor. Within hours of its announcement, deliberations began in the press to decide the guilt or innocence of the people who elected him twice as Illinois’s chief executive officer. The verdict? The voters are guilty of apathy, ignorance, scandal fatigue and an insensitivity to manipulation that rivals […]
Posted inOpinion
Tangible rights
As I write, the jury is still out on Rod Blagojevich. The coming verdict in his second trial for behaving like an Illinois governor will settle for now the question of his criminal culpability. Other questions of perhaps more moment to Illinois are likely to remain unaddressed, much less answered. Blagojevich was tried a second […]
Posted inOpinion
A heavy health care burden
On a recent pleasure trip to San Francisco, I took a ride on one of the many historic streetcars that ply that city’s waterfront. Car 1058 is one of the kinds of cars that made up the fleets of such big-city transit agencies as Chicago’s CTA and the old St. Louis Public Service Co. I […]
Posted inOpinion
Driving the east side mad
Road crews, I see, will be spending the summer making the intersection of Dirksen Parkway and Clear Lake Avenue safe for the out of sorts. It’s been years since I’ve driven through it on a regular basis, but apparently at rush hours that spot is more congested than a legislative calendar in May. No wonder. […]
Posted inOpinion
No stickers
I will not be able to take Western religions seriously until they explain the sand burr. The plant’s very existence suggests that the universe is a creation of malevolent design. Even devout Christians come close to agreeing with me. While enjoying a balmy day, one believer writes, “And I thought, Father, this is so amazing, […]
Posted inOpinion
Taking to the streets
A people’s willingness to walk determines the shape of their towns – and their towns have a lot to do in determining the shape of the people who live in them. University of Tennessee researchers strapped pedometers on 1,136 American adults of various ages living in different kinds of places and compared the results to […]
Posted inOpinion
Give and take
Our lives and our politics are dominated by money, yet our thinking about the most basic number of them all – how much we earn – doesn’t add up. You’d think that people would at least know how much they are paid on the job, but most people underestimate how much they are compensated by […]
Posted inOpinion
All history is personal
The Sangamon County Historical Society turns 50 years old this year. Judged by such new initiatives as a Web-based encyclopedia of area history, the Society is – it pains me to say this – more spry than most of its members who, like me, were already well out of diapers when the Society was founded […]
Posted inOpinion
Betting the farm
Central Illinois farmland doesn’t usually return a fat harvest until the fall. These days it’s doing so all year long. Sales prices for prime farm acreage around Springfield rose roughly one fifth in 2010, to as much as $9,000 an acre for the best stuff, and they’re still rising. That’s faster than since the 1970s, […]
Posted inOpinion
Celebrating success
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s modern pharaoh, and his two sons were “detained” in mid-April for questioning about corruption and abuse of power by Egyptian prosecutors. No one knows how much the longtime Egyptian strongman and his family have skimmed from the Egyptian economy during his rule. Estimates of $40-$70 billion appear absurdly high, but even $5 […]
