Second Thoughts

 In my recent column about the need for a proper environmental history of Illinois, “Oh, for a Thucydides of the prairie,” I noted that several excellent recent works, while not environmental histories per se, are informed by consciousness of the role that environment played in history. One I mentioned in Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, […]

Anyone who cares about Springfield should read Bruce Rushton’s recent dispatch on the parlous economic prospects for the capital city. (See “Sobering statistics”July 27, 2017.) Basically, of the three legs that prop up the local economy – government, medical care and retailing – two are distinctly wobbly. I do not envy those local policy-makers who […]

A few afterthoughts occasioned by my column “On not doing wrong.” To the unbeliever, the particular opprobrium with which Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki regards gay marriage is puzzling.  Our Bruce Rushton has quoted critics who note that Paprocki has not refused funerals for men and women who have lived together before marriage, anyone who has used birth control, anyone […]

In “Underground movements” I discussed some novels new solutions to the very old problem of how to dispose of human remains. The same question has been vexing New York Times commentator Richard Conniff. In a piece titled “This is how I want to be dead,” Conniff brings us up to date on woodland cemeteries or . which use […]

The English novelist Christopher Fowler ruminates to good effect in this blog post about George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Orwell could never have predicted Trump. The fall of real authority came with the willing participant of the people. Few authors would imagine that citizens would deliberately vote themselves out of better living standards and less freedom. […]

Some further thoughts that I couldn’t squeeze into this week’s column on higher education. It is amazing how many of the men and women now honored as great Illinoisans managed to become so without benefit of formal instruction. Lincoln apprenticed as a lawyer. Most lawyers did back then. Debate continues about how good a background […]

This week in my Dyspepsiana column I lament that, for all his talk about structural reforms in Illnoius’ system of public higher education, Bruce Rauner has no idea what needs to be to really change it for the better. Which is why I was intrigued by the recent conversation between Ben Sasse, the junior senator […]

Jordan Weissman of Slate sums up Republican senators’ proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act.   Medicaid is America’s largest health insurance program by enrollment. It covers 62 million Americans—almost as many as Medicare and the entire individual market combined. It helps the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and—thanks to Obamacare’s expansion of it, which Republicans […]

 A pleasant surprise today — a box full of copies of my new book, fresh from the printer.  After some 40 years, the thrill of seeing one’s name in print has faded, but I confess that opening a box — I thought it was from Amazon — felt a bit like Christmas Eve when I […]

Chicago Highlands’ 5th hole. Photo from Golf Advisor This week I wrote about golf, more specifically about golf courses in and around Illinois. Among them are Chicago Highlands in suburban Westchester and Chicago’s Harborside International. Also of interest is “Tee Time,” the two-page review of golf’s past in Springfield in Springfield Entertainment: A Pictorial History […]

 As I discuss at length in “Park-ing problems,” the Rauner-backed North Mansion Y-Block Development Group NFP has proposed to fill the vacant Y block with a block-square park whose main features would be a 12-story clocktower/observation deck and a “wonderwall,” similar to the video tower in Chicago’s Millennium Park. These features have been talked about […]

 Will Baumol died on May 4. He is the economist who conceived of the concept of “cost disease.” An  interesting man and an important thinker. He is obituarized here and his ideas are discussed here, here and here. Briefly put, Baumol argued that costs rise to provide government services  because of productivity gains in other […]