Archive for July, 2009
July 31st, 2009
According to Politico, a new poll shows that 58 percent of Republicans either don’t believe President Barack Obama is a citizen or aren’t sure.
I asked U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, for his take on the president’s status, and here is is reply:
“Numerous claims have been made that President Barack Obama does not meet the qualifications needed to be President because he is not a natural born citizen. I have no reason to believe that he is not a natural born citizen based on the fact that on October 31, 2008, the Hawaiian Health Department verified the authenticity of President-elect Obama’s birth certificate, and the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal that challenged Mr. Obama’s claim of being a natural born U.S. citizen. Other lower courts have also similarly disposed of these suits.”
July 30th, 2009
Somebody ought to be fired over this. Way back in 2007, the Rockford region reached agreement on a railroad line from Rockford to Chicago to be home to Amtrak trains.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Il., officials of Illinois Dept. of Transportation, leaders of the R-MAP planning group, and other city and county leaders came together at Rockford College in the spring of 207 and agreed on the CN line that both Amtrak and IDOT said was best. That line goes through Genoa in Dekalb County. IDOT and Amtrak said this was cheaper and faster than other routes it studied. It also said the line had the most potential for ridership growth.
So, that became the consensus line. But gremlins were in the work. Gremlins in this case are planners who, because they never have to actually build anything, tend to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
These folks, and Belvidere Mayor Fred Brereton as well, want the Amtrak train to go though Belvidere on the Union Pacific. R-MAP changed the agreed plan, telling IDOT that there was community agreement on the Belvidere line.
They did this not because of Amtrak — they don’t really care about Amtrak. They want to bring commuter trains here, and run them on the Belvidere line. They figure Amtrak can pay for the track upgrades, which can be used later for commuter trains.
Only thing was, they didn’t bother to tell Genoa and Dekalb County. Those folks found about the change by reading it in the
paper. And they are not happy. Now, Amtrak and IDOT are flummoxed.
I originally favored the CN line for important reasons. First, it’s the fastest possible line. Second, it’s cheaper to do because the tracks are in better shape. Third, who says we can only have trains on one line?
And the fourth reason is that commuter trains for Rockford and Belvidere are years, perhaps decades away. I do not believe voters will approve a sales tax referendum to finance commuter trains, and that’s the only realistic way to pay for the operating costs.
Meanwhile, we could have Amtrak up and running quickly for no local tax dollars. That, in turn, would get people used to the idea of having passenger trains, meaning they’d be more likely to support commuter rail in the future.
I believe in doing what’s good.What’s perfect will never get done.
July 27th, 2009
Uh, oh. There’s a cancer growing in the charter school movement — unionization. The teachers unions are on the march and they’re organizing charter schools, including three of 12 schools operated by Chicago International Charter School, which has the School Board’s OK to set up a school in Rockford.
What’s special about public charter schools is that they have longer hours and a longer school year than the regular public schools. They operate outside teachers union contracts.
The unions are moving in on the charter schools now, says this piece in The New York Times, and if they succeed in organizing them, there’s really no point in having charter schools. They’ll be just another version of union schools. Who needs that?
July 24th, 2009
One question I have for the “birthers,” who are stoked by black helicopter websites into believing passionately that Barack Obama cannot be president because they say he wasn’t born in the U.S. :
When Obama was born in 1961, his birth announcement was published in two, Honolulu newspapers. I have never read one of these “birthers” deal with the birth announcements.
But I know what they’ll say: How can you trust anything you read the mainstream, government controlled, liberal, socialist media?
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Obama’s presidency. I think his energy and health care policies would have a punishing effect on American business at a time when we need to re-energize manufacturing.
Obsessing over where the man was born — he was born in the U.S.A. — is a pointless exercise in paranoia based, I believe strongly, on some Americans’ inability to accept that fact that the people elected a black man to the highest office in the land.
Concentrate on the policy debate, not insane paranoid theories stoked for money on the World Wide Weird.
July 24th, 2009
Be forewarned, Rockford School Board: The president of the United States is making a serious push for education reform, and that includes charter schools. When I say “serious push,” I mean the threat of withholding federal funds if districts don’t embrace the president’s idea of reform embodied by Sec. of Education Arne Duncan, who is Chicago’s former schools CEO and a big proponent of charter schools.
The president spoke to The Washington Post.
July 23rd, 2009
Maybe President Obama is just under a lot of stress lately, but his off-hand remark about Prof. Henry Gates’ incident with the Cambridge, Mass. police was, well, stupid. He admitted he didn’t know the details and then said the police acted stupidly.
Sgt. Crowley, who was alone, was responding to a 9-1-1 call that stated a break-in was in progress. So that’s what he thinks his happening. Read the police report , the facts of which Gates hasn’t disputed.
Now comes more information on Crowley, namely that he is an expert at teaching officers about racial profiling at the academy. He also administered mouth to mouth resuscitation to Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, who collapsed during practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a cop at the time.
It seems to me that President Obama should have said something like this: “Skip Gates is a friend, and I respect his work greatly. I realize police were responding to a call of a break in in progress. ,Local officials in Cambridge are looking into all the details of this incident, and it’s not prudent of me to comment further at this time.”
July 22nd, 2009
I attended a two-hour meeting Tuesday of the mayor’s “ad hoc” committee to study entertainment venue funding. Actually it should be called the “in hock” committee, because I learned the Redevelopment Fund is maxed out.
The answer is not to raise taxes first, the answer is to streamline operations among the various organizations involved, RAEDC, RACVB, On The Waterfront and others.
Chairman Mike Dunn had some good points. If the convention and visitors bureau is spending 50 percent of its efforts promoting the Rockford Park District, shouldn’t the district contribute some money? Instead, the city of Rockford gives the hotel-motel-restaurant-adult beverage tax receipts to the visitors bureau, which uses it to promote many out-of-Rockford activities.
Regionalism , Dunn says, seems to mean that Rockford provides the money, and everyone else enjoys the benefits.
That clearly is going to change.
July 20th, 2009
Saturday was an unusually cold day in northern Illinois, but rail fans saw a sight to warm their hearts: the reappearance of the famed steam engine SP 4449 in Rochelle. The engine, manufactured in 1941, was among the last mainline steam locomotives to be built. The 4449 and others like her used to haul “Daylight” passenger trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Southern Pacific.
In 1958, she was retired and put on display in a Portland, Oregon park. In 1976 she saw service again, pulling the American Freedom Train in our nation’s bicentennial year. She went through Rochelle that year and up to the Rockford airport, where the train was on display. The coaches featured exhibits about our nation’s founding.
For that tour, the 4449 wore red, white and blue colors.
Now back in the colors of her “Daylight” years, she made a rare appearance Saturday on the BNSF mainline in Illinois, pulling a special train that originated in Seattle, stopped in Minneapolis-St. Paul, then headed to Chicago and Michigan, returning via Milwaukee.
These pictures were taken by my friend Dave Lindberg, a transportation buff who works at Chicago Rockford International Airport. He and I scouted locations for good pictures, because we determined we did not want to be among the 500 or so people who had gathered in Rochelle’s railroad park to see the train, which went through shortly after 5 p.m.
So, we found a nearly deserted crossing on Elva Road, just outside Steward. In the background you see the ethanol plant on the south edge of Rochelle. Only four or five super-dedicated rail fans had discovered it. The train featured a full length dome car and “beaver-tail” observation car, both formerly of The Milwaukee Road.
Although a true steam engine, the 4449’s boiler has always been heated by burning fuel oil, as were many of the late-model Western steam engines. That makes it easier to operate today than a coal burner, because getting a load of coal delivered to a railroad siding is well-nigh impossible. Enjoy the pictures, and thanks, Dave for taking them.
For more information on the nonprofit organization that operates the engine, go to: “Friends of the SP 4449″
July 16th, 2009
State Rep. Dave Winters, R-Shirland, is a pilot, and to get to and from Springfield he flies a two-seat, one propeller plane. This week, though, he landed at Springfield’s airport on a wing and a prayer when his plane’s alternator quit.
See the video here from Capitol Fax
July 16th, 2009
I don’t know why Chicagoans are upset about the Sears Tower changing names. It’s now Willis Tower, and the Willis company is moving in with 500 jobs. That’s quite a commitment, compared to Sears, which beat retreat to Hoffman Estates in 1992 thanks to a $160 million donation by the taxpayers of Illinois.
So although the name of the building has been Sears Tower since it opened in 1974, there’s been no Sears presence since 1992. It’s time to welcome Willis Tower and its 500 jobs and say good riddance to Sears Tower. Maybe they could rename a water tower in Hoffman Estates the “Sears Water Tower.”
I’m still angry about subsidizing Sears’ move to the ‘burbs with my tax dollars.
I usually am in favor of keeping historic names, but people move on. Everyone insisted they’d never shop at “Macy’s” after they bought Marshall Field’s and changed the name. But they do, even though they don’t make the Frango mints in the building anymore — I think they get them from Pennsylvania.
U.S. Cellular Field? Today we call it The Cel, or da Cel, and people have forgotten the old “Comiskey Park.” Times change.
o
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