JUST LIKE IN THE BIG CITY You can’t be too careful these days.
That, presumably, is why the State
Journal-Register now requires visitors to wear photo ID cards made on the
spot. Like albatrosses, they’re worn around the neck. Employees have to wear them, too. No sneaking
over to the ad department to steal leftover doughnuts and box
lunches meant for clients. The badges are colored on the basis of
the bearer’s job title. Reporters wear blue, billing clerks
wear green, and so on; every floor of the building has a
corresponding color assigned to it. “This helps employees
identify who should and should not be in their areas,” says Terry Claypool,
information services operations manager and chief hall monitor,
according to a press release issued by the company that sold the SJ-R the ID
equipment. Claypool says there are good reasons for
having this newfangled security doohickey stuff besides the fact
that the publisher wanted it. “For instance, if we had a
fire, we would know there are five visitors in the building,”
he says. Fortunately, the building is made of brick.
No word on how it might fare in a tornado, though. NO LICENSE TO LIE Last month we told you the Illinois General
Assembly was considering a bill that would make it a crime to wear
fake military medals. On Monday, that bill passed both houses
unanimously. Now another piece of legislation is pending
that would punish anyone who tries to obtain or renew one of
Illinois’ 15 special military license plates with a phony
claim of a medal or active-duty service. Drafted by Secretary of
State Jesse White, this bill would impose a mandatory fine of at least
$1,000 on anyone caught making fraudulent claims for the purposes
of driving while impersonating a war hero. Nathan Maddox,
White’s senior legal advisor, says that this bill is
White’s response to the case of a Marengo alderman who
fraudulently obtained Purple Heart and Ex-POW plates and the case
of Joe Wilkins, the former University of Illinois at Springfield prof
who in 2000 persuaded White to create special Silver Star plates.
Wilkins was issued Silver Star plates with the number 1. Five years
later, White ordered him to surrender those plates (along with a
set indicating multiple Purple Heart medals) after an Illinois Times investigation
revealed that Wilkins had submitted fraudulent documents to obtain
the plates [see Dusty Rhodes, “Precious medals,” March
31, 2005]. The secretary of state’s office now
checks all such applications against government records. So far, no
one has been caught filing a fraudulent claim. “It’s a relatively rare offense,
but it’s a serious offense, and we want to make sure it never
happens again,” Maddox says. I THINK I’LL NEVER SEE . . . The recent tornadoes took out ugly signs and
billboards all around Springfield — but also felled many of
the old trees that give the city character and beauty. That means
it’s a good time to dig a hole and plant a tree. On Saturday,
starting at 9 a.m., volunteers with Springfield Green — Mayor
Tim Davlin’s beautification posse — will be handing out
free trees at the Chatham Road and the Dirksen Parkway Shop
’n Save stores. The baby trees were donated by the local
President Abraham Lincoln Arboretum, the National Arbor Day
Foundation, and the National Wild Turkey Federation. No word on
whether there’ll be Wild Turkey at the giveaway. LIKE CLOCKWORK
We threw out our calendars long ago. With
Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the job, there’s no need for a traditional
Julian to know what day of the week it is. If it’s a weekday, you can be sure that
the governor’s office will issue at least one press release,
even if absolutely nothing is happening. Asian carp swimming in
state waters? Horrors — alert the media! Seat belts save
lives? Who’da thunk it? Get it on every reporter’s fax
machine and the guv’s official Web site! Don’t think Blago is hip to the latest
acronyms? Check out the February release headlined “Governor
Blagojevich’s BASHUA Project Joins Forces with Hip-Hop
Superstar TWISTA to Stop the Spread of HIV/AIDS Among African
American Youth.”
Whew. All you have to do is look through the
press-release archives on the governor’s Web site, paid for
by Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, agnostics, and
anyone else who lives in this state and pays taxes. Any gap of two
days represents a weekend, which is why Cap City was shocked
— shocked! — on March 25, when Blago’s crew issued
yet another in a long-ignored stream. March 25 was a Saturday. Yet here came a
press release from the guv, urging state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka to
get behind a ban on assault weapons. Last time we checked, Topinka
didn’t have a vote in the Legislature — she has all the
power to ban assault weapons that we do to stop these accursed
press releases — or, for that matter, all the power Blago has
to persuade the president to veto the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
(which, of course, didn’t stop the governor from issuing a
press release that included the letter he allegedly wrote to a no
doubt attentive Republican commander in chief). Electioneering at taxpayer expense? You be
the judge. Treasurer Topinka, by contrast, routinely
goes two weeks or more before issuing a press release at taxpayer
expense. When she does, the subject generally something like how
tornado victims can apply for low-interest loans — not a
single Asian-carp-cum-seat-belts-assault-weapons-ban in the bunch. FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Something doesn’t quite add up:
Nationwide, 30 percent of poor kids under the age of 5 and 15
percent of all adolescents are either overweight or obese. In
Sangamon County, however, one in four poor kids is at risk of going
to bed hungry — that according to data collected by Central
Illinois Food Bank pantries, says pediatrician Dr. Eric Bleyer, speaking
at a National Doctors’ Day event last week at
Springfield’s Union Baptist Church.
This article appears in Apr 6-12, 2006.
