In “White elephant,” I speculated about the fate of White Oaks Mall in a future in which bricks-and-mortar retailing seems doomed by the internet. Jordan Weissman — who looks younger than some of the store displays at WOM – tells us in a recent Atlantic post not to worry. “The investment bankers at Piper Jaffray […]
Second Thoughts
Posted inOpinion
Haunted house
Republican Kirk Dillard recently raised the issue of which kind of family ought to be living in the Executive Mansion in Springfield. It is a question we ventilated in in 2009. (“Life in the Big House.) Clearly, it was not a question on the minds of the two most recent occupants of the house. Mr. Blagojevich […]
Posted inOpinion
Seeing is believing
In “Happier endings,” I pointed out that a lot of people make decisions about end-of-life care that are not fully informed. Jonathan Rauch, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and at the National Journal, gave us a fascinating report in the former magazine on work going on at Harvard University Medical School that tries to […]
Posted inOpinion
Community schools: For extra credit
Recently I banged the drum on behalf of so-called community or full-service schools as a way to provide learners with a wider array of help and to provide taxpayers with a better return on their investment in school buildings that sit idle two-thirds of the time. Want to learn more? I found Joy Dryfoos’s 2002 […]
Posted inOpinion
Near collapse
Steve Benen commented on the May 23 collapse of that interstate highway in Washington state so I wouldn’t have to again. (See my Daring to imagine the future from 2010.) Benen was reacting to a post at Business Insider by Joel Weisenthal pointing out that public construction spending in the U.S. has reached a 20-year […]
Posted inOpinion
When corner stores aren’t on the corner
There’s more that might said about the design of the new Country Market supermarket at 2nd and Carpenter – isn’t there always? Steve Patterson, a St. Louis architect and author of the blog, UrbanDesignSTL, criticized it for its failure to provide safe pathways across its park lot to the front door for people approaching the store […]
Posted inOpinion
We don’t need no steenking regulations!
The press is filled with pension talk, but other recent news reminds us that cutting a too-generous COL adjustment is not the worst way that governments can screw workers. Turns out that the plant manufacturing highly explosive anhydrous ammonia which blew up in west Texas, killing 14 and injuring more than 200, was equipped with […]
Posted inOpinion
A little knowledge…..No. 1 of a series
Back on April 30, the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is one of the most reliable and most interesting of the organizations tracking public thinking on health care, issued a new poll result. Fewer than six in 10 of the American adults asked knew that “Obamacare” – the Affordable Care Act signed into law on March […]
Posted inOpinion
Getting soaked
I paid a visit to one my old haunts the other day, thanks to the internet. I learned that two blocks in the heart of the business district of Multnomah Village, in Portland, Oregon’s southwest side, is getting spruced up. In addition to the usual street furniture and wider sidewalks, Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services […]
Posted inOpinion
Down the rabbit hole with the feds
A while back I griped about the failure of federal prosecutors to seek criminal charges against bankers and others who perpetrate financial crimes. The Economist of May 4 reminds us that in Britain not one senior banker has faced criminal charges relating to the failure of his institution. In this country the Federal Deposit Insurance […]
Posted inOpinion
Miracle worker
District 186 school superintendent Dr. Walter Milton leaves Springfield having disappointed a lot of people. (See Board games, Feb. 28, 2013.) The new District 186 board met May 3 with parents and other community members to discuss what each wanted in a new superintendent, which opinions will guide the search for candidates. Fair-minded critics have to ask, […]
Posted inOpinion
Fundamental issues
I have written before (here, here, here and here) about health care – an important topic in a town like Springfield in which the health racket industry in all its manifestations is the top employer. I take it up again here to vent about the now-famous (among wonks) study of Medicaid outcomes in Oregon – […]
