Second Thoughts

 In a piece in the April 7 Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, drew attention to revelations in a new book that ought to interest Illinoisans. Judith Miller, you might recall, is the veteran New York Times reporter caught up in the trial of former Dick Cheney chief […]

The other day I wrote about Rockford state senator Dave Syverson’s proposal to ensure that Illinois lawmakers  know more about the economic effects of their decisions by requiring newly elected legislators, aldermen and county board members to take an eight-hour community college-level economics course every two years. This course would be prepared by business advocacy organizations. […]

 Readers interested in learning more about the Morton D. Barker paperweight collection I wrote about this week can do so at the Illinois State Museum’s web exhibit at http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/barker/ See also also the book The Morton D. Barker Paperweight Collection by Ellen Schaller Penwell and George N. Kulles, which was published for the Illinois State Museum by the […]

Over at Vox, Sarah Kiff reminds us that the Affordable Care Act is now five years old. Better known as Obamacare, the legislation has accomplished more and cost less than even it supporters expected.   However, a new poll conducted for Vox shows that 83 percent of Americans still hold the same opinions on the […]

 People love to feed the ducks, as happens every day where the Jacksonville Branch of Spring Creek enters Washington Park. People don’t love ducks, however, judgig by what they feed these animals.   The usual gift is bread, but Britain’s Canal and River Trust warns that white bread in particular is no better for ducks […]

Reading about the reactions from around Illinois to the cuts in state programs proposed by Gov. Scrooge, I was reminded of this passage from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.  Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public […]

Alert readers of the news will have noted the kerfuffle about the salaries being paid by Illinois’ new governor to his  senior staff, in particular the 100 Gs being paid to equip Mrs. R with a chief of staff to help her discharge her non-existent duties.  Like most news of this sort, it isn’t very […]

In “Underground movements” (Nov. 12, 2009) I took a nearly serious look at the problem of what to do with human remains on a planet becoming short of both space and resources.   Donating healthy organs is a crude recycling scheme, but its effect on the larger problem is minuscule, and in any event, what […]

 Yes, I do go on a bit about the library of Illinois history whose future is at stake in the wrangling over who runs the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. I believe that the fate of the library matters because history matters – history that is of a certain kind, or rather, […]

While researching my recent column on the State of Illinois’ historical library (see “An overdue policy on the library”) I made (or rather renewed) my acquaintance with John Francis Snyder. As recalled by Roger D. Bridges, the struggle in the 1890s and into the early 1900s to set up and run that library was dominated […]

 In my recent column titled “An overdue policy on the library,” I quoted from a very interesting article about the history of Illinois’ history library, Roger D. Bridges’ “The Origins and Early Years of the Illinois State Historical Society” (Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Apr., 1975), pp. 98-120). That […]

 Wise heads at the statehouse have been scratched as observers try to make sense of the antagonistic stances taken by Illinois’ new governor. One explanation is that he is uninterested in actually governing Illinois, but is positioning himself as a Republican Presidential contender four years from now.  Evidence accumulates that, for GOP voters, what matters […]