Last week I didn’t want to write another rant about corporate moochers any more than you probably wanted to read one, but as long as these kinds of deals keep getting proposed, we will have to keep ranting. I mentioned in that column my view that Archer Daniels Midland, or ADM as the firm prefers […]
Second Thoughts
Posted inOpinion
A little knowledge…No. 4 in a series
A recent NYT/CBS poll that found that 54% of American voters “disapprove” of the way Barack Obama is handling the deficit left Slate’s David Weigel puzzled. “What are voters reacting to, exactly? Can it be the size of the deficit? That wouldn’t make sense, as the deficit is down 35 percent from this time last […]
Posted inOpinion
Fast company
In “Unplugged,” I reported that the city of Chattanooga was planning to piggy-back a municipally owned fiber optic cable network on its public electrical utility. As the Washington Post reported the other day, it’s going very well, thank you. The city now operates some 8,000 miles of fiber for 56,000 commercial and residential internet customers. […]
Posted inOpinion
The Baffler
The University of Illinois tells us that enrollment for the fall term at its Urbana campus is nearly 43,400 students, the most in the school’s history, thanks in part to the second-largest number ever of incoming freshmen. That’s progress for the university. Whether it will mean progress for all those freshmen is another question, writes […]
Posted inOpinion
Southern pride
“The people of Southern Illinois will be extremely pleased with who my running mate is,” said State Sen. Kirk Dillard when he announced who would run with him as he campaigns for the governorship in the Republican primary. She is Rep. Jil Tracy of Quincy, who was born in Carbondale, lived in Anna, and took […]
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More about learning-by-doing
In “Do by learning” (Aug. 15, 2013), I examined the case for providing alternatives to college prep as a path to a high school diploma. Among the pieces I drew upon for that column was Alex Tabarrok’s “Tuning In to Dropping Out “ in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. I described, […]
Posted inOpinion
The profit motive
A year ago I ventured an opinion about one of the chronic ailments suffered by U.S. health care — expensive, ineffectual or unnecessary treatments that are partly a result of incentives built into our perverse system of paying for such things. (See Just what the doctor ordered, August 23,2012.) On August 19 Tyler Cowen pointed to […]
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Shereikis remembered
There is a new stone bench on the UIS campus dedicated to the late Rich Shereikis, a founding faculty member of UIS’s predecessor school and a long-time contributor to IT. (See “The right combination of sensibilities,” April 11, 2013.) The bench adorns the berm where West Lake Drive meets the campus ring road. The spot, […]
Posted inOpinion
Here comes the neighborhood
Back in 2011 I chastised Springfield officials for the city’s failure to take steps necessary to slow the rot that has been spreading through east side housing for years. Having damned officials then, it is only fair that I praise them now. The manager of the city’s building department recently announced that 63 dilapidated buildings […]
Posted inOpinion
Why cities die, continued
If you enjoy the grisly autopsy scenes in your favorite cop drama, you might like to poke about a bitin the corpse of the City of Detroyt, as I did in Dancing around the issue from the Aug. 8, 2013 paper. Since that piece appeared, J. Eric Wise added to the discussion in this City […]
Posted inOpinion
Readings for extra credit
My piece about whether collegiate athletes ought to be paid (see ”Throwing in the towel,” Aug. 1, 2013 was merely a course-summary version of a complex argument. Readers interested in learning more about that argument might find these interesting: “The Shame of College Sports” by Taylor Branch. Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 2011 “College sports reform needed, […]
Posted inOpinion
Fighting financial felons
In “Short arm of the law” I addressed the failure of federal prosecutors to go after financial criminals with the same zeal they show in pursuing political insiders. “Why do not our protectors seek to return us to the day when businesspeople made and traded things rather than stealing what others made?” I asked. “The […]
