Jack the Ripper? What the hell?

What was that weird stuff about the origin of "carol" in the Christmas Eve story? Doesn't anybody down there have a dictionary? All it takes is a glance in our dictionary friend to see that "carol" meaning "Christmas hymn" dates back to 1502 and probably earlier and first appeared as a musical term in English in the 1300s or earlier. OK, so it was identified as an "urban legend" in the story, but do we print urban legends as fact these days?

Wondering

. . . . how the stock market meltdown is going to affect -- or not affect -- the building of the big Salvation Army community center downtown.

Seeing as how the Danforth Foundation recently announced that it wasn't going to be able to make the $50 million it had pledged for work around the St. Louis Arch. I'm sure a lot of foundations are having to reassess the amount and rate of their giving.

Nice work all around....

...Ebbing to act quickly on the stadium seat deal.

...The OLC Board to say, "wait a minute, we can't afford that."

...Local businesses to step up and pledge.

Good work by all.

Department of Doublespeak Department

"KHQA Clarification

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 4:04 p.m.

KHQA TV wishes to offer clarification regarding a story that appeared last month on our website ConnectTristates.com. The story, which discussed the appointment of a replacement for President Elect Obama’in the U.S. Senate, became the subject of much discussion on talk radio and on blog sites Wednesday.

The story housed in our website archive was on the morning of November 5, 2008. It suggested that a meeting was scheduled later that day between President Elect Obama and Illinois Governor Blagojevich. KHQA has no knowledge that any meeting ever took place. Governor Blagojevich did appear at a news conference in Chicago on that date."

I think what they're trying to say is that in November, they reported something as fact without doing even a teeny shred of actual reporting. Ooopsie.

Stability Amid Turmoil

Odd thing about the lead story in Sunday's paper, which asserted that the local Sears & Bergner's "are definitely — as far as we understand — not on any list of doing poorly or losing money. They’re
making money.” This despite the bleak news for their national owners.

The odd thing was that all the people quoted in the story were employed by the Quincy Mall or its parent corporation. No comments from the managers of the Sears or Bergner's stores, or from anybody else associated with Sears or Bergner's, for that matter.

Predictions are always risky,

. . . but I think I know who's going to win the "Illinois Scumbag of the Year" award for 2008.

Public Service

Nice job by Ann Pierceall to inform us in her column that those red boxes around town are not affiliated with any charity and have no local connection. I had a sneaky feeling about those things. If you want to help local people, the Bucket Blitz for the Salvation Army is coming up soon.

Hey, wait a minute!

"Nine Illinois Secretary of State employees face suspension without pay because they looked up President-elect Barack Obama’s street address in state records, officials said Thursday.

“It’s a violation of our policy to be looking up records inappropriately,” said Dave Druker, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jesse White.

Curiosity motivated the employees to look up Obama’s South Side address, Druker said. The Secret Service was involved in the investigation, he said."

Property ownership records are public records. Maybe I can fault the employees for goofing off during work, but there is no such thing as looking up records inappropriately. They're public. Period.

I've got an idea . . .

Based on Page 1A and 9A (local section front page).

Instead of suing the loony guy and then selling off his buildings to pay the fines for not cleaning them up, why not have them declared historic landmarks? Then they would have to be kept in their current grubhole status because they would be important pieces of Quincy history, the city would have some more archictectural landmarks to add to its brochures, and everybody would be happy.