Year in Review

Also known as the "people are on vacation and nothing much is really happening" issue. I almost never read year-in-review stuff.

Odd, though, that Quincy's loss of reliable air service didn't make the top stories of 2007 in the H-W.

Great photo of Kaz Attai on the front of the City/County section.

A common error in the photo caption of the house-of-the-week article....a "row of columns" is singular, not plural.

Doing the Math

Let's see.....100,000 people have signed the guest book at Villa Kathrine over the last 20 years. That's about 5,000 a year, or an average of 13-14 a day.

Wonder how many of them are Quincyans or residents of the local region?

I'd say the critic has a point.

On the other hand, the Villa is a fantastic landmark that deserves preservation and promotion. But having a visitor center at a major intersection by the interstate...say, where 96 crosses the interstate, or somewhere near the Broadway interchange....makes a lot more sense.

Other Letters

While I'm on the subject of letters to the editor.....

The other letter in yesterday's Whig was equally if not more interesting than the latest board member soundoff. The last time I was at the QHS Vespers, I wondered then how the music department people got away with having such a blatantly religious event as a school activity, with school employees, on school grounds. I found the overt religiosity of the evening quite offensive, knowing that my tax dollars were at work engaging in a sectarian celebration....especially since I could look at the stage and see Jewish kids, Muslim kids, Hindu kids, all required to perform as part of their music classes. Boy, talk about having to sing King Alpha's song in a strange land! Now I know how they get away with it.....they just do. And they assume no one would risk the wrath of all those faithful school music alums by complaining or filing a lawsuit.

There isn't even a pretense of making it a "holiday" concert by including any songs about Hanukkah. There are a few secular Christmas songs, of course, but the whole evening is overwhelmingly a Christian celebration. It's offensive.

Too Good to Last

I knew it was too good to last....we went one day, one frickin' day, with no letter from a school board member in the paper. Then yesterday went and spoiled the chance for two days in a row.

UMR has a good post on this subject. Board members need to remember that criticizing each other in public just poisons the atmosphere for future meetings and for future board members.

It's a simple thing called "class."

What did you learn in school today?

Fun times at the board meeting last night.

The School Music guy loses his grip. The supe declares that he has been slandered. The tax rate is either going to go down, or up, or stay the same. The minority decides to argue its case in the letters to the editor column.

I don't know all the members of the school board, but I know a few of 'em. The ones I know are not wicked conspirators, or child-haters, or slaves to special interests, or dupes. They are decent people who thought they could do some good, and yeah, there's the ego boost of winning an election in there too.

The rhetoric around this issue has gotten entirely out of hand. People on all sides need to remember that it's possible to disagree respectfully.

Breaking News

I have to admit that I have had little interest in this Schuster murder case in California, despite the local connections. Still, it was nice to see the Herald-Whig use its website to break a news story after the paper had already gone to print. Maybe they'll start doing that more, and the H-W's website will become useful.

The Governor Has Been Busy

......watching every episode of "Hannah Montana."

Man, this stuff is just too easy.

I'm surprised

.....that none of the local bloggers have offered a take on the school district's plan to ask for a tax hike. There's some comment in Quincy Forums, but that's all.

I guess part of the problem is that the story in Saturday's paper was pretty complicated and for once didn't help clarify the issues. It got bogged down in the specifics of the numbers, which require an abacus and a crystal ball to figure out. Not until paragraph 10....after the jump to Page 2....do we get to the bottom line: if the measure passes, the overall tax rate would go up by around 10 cents per hundred dollars assessed valuation. Newspapers being objective, the writer could not say what is on everyone's mind: "If by some bizarre act of God the measure passes......"

Also, I suppose everybody has already had their say on the Quincy schools in the various blogs. Kind of like those male elk on Animal Planet....after you've clashed antlers for half a day, you lose your enthusiasm for clashing them any more.

When the alternative plan is to take a "leap of faith," it's hard to know what the School Board can do. Take its lumps and then start laying people off, I guess.

Great News!

Bob Slattery has agreed to be my attorney and I didn't even have to ask him! What a guy. By the way, I have agreed to be your psychic.....I know you wanted me to. I'll send you my bill next week.

In other news, the Highway Department is going to signalize 36th and Payson. Now excuse me while I go bowlize some soup. Maybe I'll cream cheeseize a roll while I'm at it.

Odd Omission

The Department of Health and Human Services had to release its list of poor-performing nursing homes late last week, after it was about to be leaked. I checked press coverage, and very few news outlets published the list or even a link to the list. Obviously there's the local-angle factor...if one of the homes isn't in your town, why publish the list? But also HHS was not very forthcoming with it....you can't find the list on the HHS website without doing a lot of hunting.

BTW, three of the homes are in Missouri (Florissant, KC, and Columbia), one is in Iowa (Burlington) and one in Illinois (Forest Park). Here's the link:


http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/Downloads/SFFList.pdf