Archive for April, 2008
April 21st, 2008
Something called the Tri-State Alliance had a big meeting in Freeport on Monday. They talked about transportation topics, such as building that “Glacier Shadow Pass” US 20 freeway from Freeport to Galena.
It’s now a $1 billion project. It’s been planned in various forms since before World War II. And it will never be built.
Better to do a major re-think and do what the much smarter state of Wisconsin does — build modest, two-lane bypasses around Galena, Stockton, Elizabeth, etc.
Anyone who hasn’t been on 20 for a few years should know that IDOT widened and put in passing lanes on the hilly parts, and it’s just not that bad.
Traffic patterns simply have changed over the years. Yes, I know the state of Iowa has made US 20 a four lane all the way to Fort Dodge, but 20 miles west of Dubuque at about Dyersville it’s so empty you can land planes on it.
I travelled US 20 from downtown Chicago to Yellowstone National park back in 2004, and there’s just not a lot of traffic on it for one, very good reason : It doesn’t connect major cities. After Rockford, the cities get smaller and smaller.
April 21st, 2008
As the crucial Pennsylvania Democratic primary fast approaches, conventional wisdom has Barck Obama losing to Hillary Clinton. In fact, Obama is trying to dampen expectations that he possibly could win, saying that he expects she will triumph. A big Hillary win — 10 points or more — puts her back in serious contention for the Demo nomination. If she wins by , say, 2 percent, it’s a wash.
If by some chance occurance, Obama wins — and I don’t expect he will — Hillary will be under tremendous pressure to give up the ghost, although she won’t. With the Clintons, it’s not about the Democratic Party, or about the country.
It’s all about them.
Meanwhile, John McCain is looking more and more presidential as the Dems form a circle and shoot inward.
April 18th, 2008
I did meet Friday with Ald. Frank Beach, R-10th, about the CVS planned for State & Alpine. He says the new drugstore will be built at the back of the property, whereas the current building, the old Alpine School, is at the front of the intersection. He said the result will be better visibility and possibly a wider turn lane for vehicles going around the corner from Alpine to State. I asked about increased traffic at an already clogged intersection, and Beach drew some diagrams on napkin, and they featured a couple of right turn only entrances and exits. To ease pressure on the busy crossroads, Beach wants to build a relief road south of State Street from Fairview to Alpine. The new road could also give the city a good reason to reshape the acres of unused blacktop parking lots behind the stores, as they no doubt contribute to flooding in the Keith Creek. They’re also might ugly.
April 17th, 2008
Good news on the progress of the new, $100 million U.S. courthouse, to be built in downtown Rockford.
Rich Carter, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, tells me that “the General Services Administration says everything is moving forward as scheduled. They are still amid the bidding process and plan to start awarding bids in early May. Groundbreaking is scheduled for late May and we are still finalizing the date for the ceremony.
“Also, GSA is getting a high rate of local participation in the bidding process. More than 70 percent of the bids are coming from within the 815 area code.”
That’s good news for local construction workers and local firms who will be getting a piece of the action on this $100 million project.
Thanks to Manzullo and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, for working diligently for a decade on this project.
April 17th, 2008
The Rockford Fire Department isn’t in the news much. And as I remind firefighters and division chiefs who wonder why that is, I say, “be thankful. You’re not in the paper because you’re not news. That means you’re not doing anything wrong.”
Which brings me to today’s retirement announcement by Fire Chief Bill Robertson. He turned 62 today, and figured that was a good time to go out at the top of his game. He’ll still be on the job until June.
Robertson began his career in 1972, under chief Wayne Swanson, back when the RFD was strictly a fire-fighting outfit. In 1976, the department added ambulance service, and today, that’s most of what the firefighters do.
At one time Bill Robertson headed of the firefighters union, which showed his leadership ability, and he rose through the ranks to be named chief 17 years ago, when Bill Baylor retired.
Bill Robertson has been a tireless public servant who combined people skills with technical knowledge to build a first-rate fire and ambulance department that is a crown jewel among public services.
Bill, you kept Rockford safe and secure. Godspeed and I hope your brother Jim beats you at golf!
Chuck
April 16th, 2008
My Tuesday column about the Walgreens proposed for Main and Auburn brought a call from a reader who wanted to know, what about the CVS planned for Alpine and State? Won’t that just add cars to an already stressed intersection? I’ll try to find out Friday when I meet with Ald. Frank Beach, R-10th ward.
April 16th, 2008
Hillary may have Elton John’s endorsement, but The Boss has come out for Obama. Bruce Springsteen, who wrote “Born In the U.S.A.,” a song about a dying Midwestern industrial city, said “over here on E-Street we’re proud to support Obama for president.
Obama forces hope the New Jersey-bred Springsteen’s backing will help him win blue collar white male voters in Pennsylvania this Tuesday.
April 15th, 2008
This column by Bob Herbert in The New York Times
makes a good point about the kerfuffle generated by Barack Obama’s recent comments about small town Pennsylvanians — that they’re bitter because their jobs have disappeared and because of that sad fact, they cling to guns ‘n’ God and fear of immigrants.
Obama’s words were patently untrue about small town America. I know because in 2004 and 2006 I took long trips for the Register Star, talking at some length to voters in small town America (and in big city America.) People were concerned about their future in the small towns, especially because the young people were moving to the big cities. But folks seemed happy with their lives. Really, folks in small towns and big cities are about the same. They don’t cling to religion, they embrace their faith. Gun ownership is as much a part of small town culture as it is in the cities and suburbs.
And most people are concerned about the influx of illegal immigrants. But they’re not panicking over it. Their key concern is the word “illegal,” not immigrant.
On Monday, though, Obama was right in saying that while his original words were clumsy, people are cynical because every four years politicians come around and promise to bring them good jobs, then when the election’s over, they vanish and nothing changes.
The people in a tizzy over Obama’s “bitter” remarks were never going to vote for a black man anyway. That seems to be Herbert’s point.
There is a lot of coded racism oozing out of white America just about now. Consider what U.S Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky, had to say about Obama: “I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” Davis said. “He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”
For those of you who don’t see the significance of a white man using the word “boy” to describe a 46-year old black man, I’ll explain. “Boy” was a commonly used word by whites in pre-1960s America, used as a polite form of the “n” word to demean black men, letting them know their place in the scheme of things, which was far, far below that of whites.
“Boy” was used prolifically, in advertisements running in major magazines, on the radio, and in popular music. One Glenn Miller tune from the early 1940s says, “Pardon me, boy, is that the Chatanooga Choo Choo? Track 29! Boy you can give me a shine.”
Rep. Davis has apologized, but he still has his head up the wrong decade.
Another incident comes to mind. When the Rockford School Board fired controversial Jefferson High School Principal Dr. Kenneth Jackson last week, it was a topic on local radio talk shows. I’m not going to get into why the board fired Jackson — it was a 7-0 vote.
Rather, I’ll talk about the disturbing reaction of white callers to those radio shows. They were positively gleeful that the dreaded Jackson was shown the door. They were filled with rage, they made tawdry jokes about the man, they danced on his grave.
One talk show host primed the anti-Jackson pump, but truth be told, the callers didn’t need goading. That’s what modern racism looks like in the Forest City. Sure, it’s dressed up in code talk that starts with “I don’t care whether you’re white, black, green, or purple,” but whenever someone says that, you can be sure that race is exactly what they care about.
April 14th, 2008
Lately I’ve been becoming convinced that the law governing this world is the law of unintended consequences. In 2006 and into 2007 I was an enthusiast for ethanol and biodiesel fuel. I saw it as a way to wean the US for foreign oil and help farmers and the entire Ag-business chain make money.
I sure as heck didn’t figure that the result of planting all that corn and soybeans to put into cars instead of people, would be food riots. But that’s what happened.
Food costs are rising at alarming rates.The US and the EU are growing corn and soybeans for fuel instead of food. Meanwhile, the Chinese are becoming wealthy and can afford to eat meat. So even more corn is being used to feed to cattle for Chinese consumption. How big is their middle class? About 300 million, which is the same as the entire US population. And that’s not even one fourth of the Chinese population, let alone Tibet, which I wish China would do.
A UN commissioner told the European Union that ethanol is a crime against humanity. Of course the EU rejected that, because it is counting on ethanol as a way to meet emissions criteria under the international climate treaty to reduce greenhouse gases.
Read the story here from Yahoo News
One alternative might be wind energy. Of course, that kills birds, we’re told, and creates visual pollution. Nevertheless, Texas oilman T Boone Pickens is investing in wind farms in a big-as-Texas way. Check the story out from The Guardian:
April 12th, 2008
Barack Obama has this habit of confronting realities in ways that , while true, hit people in the solar plexus. His speech on race was one example.
And last Sunday in San Francisco, speaking to a relatively small group of, well, San Franciscans, Obama said he’s observed that people in small town Pennsylvania are frustrated and strained by the lack of jobs, which have been disappearing for 25 years. He said such people often “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” because they’ve lost their sense of well-being from an earlier time when a stable economy ensured peace of mind.
Well, Hillary Clinton pounced on that statement, and I hear that small town Pennsylvanians may be in a media-induced tither.
However, while Obama’s choice of words was clumsy, there is truth in what he said. The floor has been cut out of the economy in much of what once was middle class America. The uneasiness is palpable. People cling to those things that are more fundamental. For some, it’s their faith, for others its guns, for some, the only way to explain what went wrong is the influx of illegal immigrants — it’s their fault.
If I had written Obama’s speech, I would have said it this way:
“As I’ve crisscrossed Pennsylvania, and many other states, I’ve noticed something disturbing. Through no fault of their own, the people who make this country run are being put upon at every level. Their jobs have been sent offshore. And the replacement jobs? If you can find one it doesn’t pay the cost of gas to get to work. Their health insurance plan is cutting back on the care they get while raising the price of premiums they and their employers pay. They wonder what they did to get in this mess. The truth is, they did nothing wrong. They were sold out by their own government, which created the policies that reward companies to send jobs overseas and let foreign companies dump cheap products here, while we can’t export our goods to them..
This can make you bitter. And I’ve seen it on the campaign trail. People cling to the things that don’t change, chief among them, their faith in God, which historially has sustained people in times both good and bad. But sometimes cling to other things, such as guns to make them feel secure, or they try to explain what’s happening to them by blaming illegal immigrants. And this didn’t have to happen. This country had plenty of jobs and prosperity to go around, jobs that create economic well being among families, communities, states, and the nation. And that’s what we’ve got to rebuild — a stable economy built on jobs that you can raise a family on.”
Obama didn’t say that. But I think that’s what he meant.
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