January 25th, 2008
I urged Mayor Larry Morrissey and Ald. Frank Beach to keep a close watch on the COLICM, site of a major league fracas last weekend. They sure did. The city sent the SWAT team of inspectors into the place and condemnd it for electrical and safety code violations. And the mayor, who is also the liquor commissioner, yanked the joint’s license because he says it was not transfered from the old owner to the new.
The city’s swift action against COLICM, has sent a strong signal to nightclub owners to run a clean, safe and above board operation. Or, in the words of Talking Heads: This ain’t no party, this aint no disco, this ain’t no foolin’ around.
January 25th, 2008
The economic stimulus package deal agreed to by President Bush and the Democratic leaders of Congress won’t have an immediate impact because it’s going to take the bureaucracies of Washington months to calculate the tax rebates.
They’ll have to write the self-congratulatory letters from Bush, Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, get the envelopes stuffed and mailed by the United States Postal Service and into our mailboxes.
That should happen sometime in August, September or, who knows, October? That would be in time to make us feel good about our government in the last few weeks before the November election.
If they really wanted to stimulate the economy, Herb Allen of Main Street Financial Group in Rockford has a suggestion: just reduce the payroll tax. They could do it immediately. It would pump billions into general circulation overnight.
No letters or checks required.
Herb is logical and smart. (Full disclosure: He’d better be smart. He is the guy who invests my money.) It makes perfect sense to do the simplest thing that has the most immediate impact.
But politicians aren’t like Dr. Herb. The first thing they think about is themselves and their re-election chances. Or, in the case of “W,” his legacy.
Politicians like to make it look like they’re doing something, while in reality they won’t do anything. In our fractured republic, politicians like to keep the problems going so they can continue to blame the other guys for blocking progress. That’s the way they get re-elected.
So, they’ll send out cheery letters that tell us how responsible they are, along with the checks that won’t do anything to stimulate the economy.
Ain’t that America, Mr. Mellenkamp?
January 25th, 2008
I am happy to admit this: I had no idea who Heath Ledger was until he died.
This is an addition to my earlier post on Heath Ledger, which has attracted several comments. I’m not terribly familiar with most Hollywood movies these days because they’re not very good. I’m not in the demographic the movie makers are trying to reach, and they’re succeeding in not reaching me.
Our newspaper, the Rockford Register Star, has “Movie Man” Will Pfeifer,  who has a blog, and who writes about movies and pop culture in the paper. It’s his specialty, and Will is very good at what he does. My blog is a political thing.
