All the News That Fits Our Bent

Can't let this one go by

2010-09-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

The University of Hannibal.

Oh yeah.

Personally, I think "The University of Jesus Christ at Hannibal" would have been better. Then there would have been opportunity for unlimited branch campuses.

Going on the Shelf

2010-06-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

I am putting this blog on hiatus for a while. I have taken a new job that is going to occupy my attention completely for the next six to twelve months at least, and I simply won't have the time to think about "All the News." I'm not saying I will never pick up the thread again, but I really don't know when it will be....so a few words of at least temporary valediction.

I started this blog four years ago with the idea of doing a little media criticism and having a little fun. I have done both, and although my postings have never been regular, I hope they have been regularly enjoyable or thought-provoking or both.

For the past year, I have been living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a city of 55,000 in a county of 108,000, and thus a good city to compare to Quincy -- a bit larger and with a bit more economic vibrancy, but similar in many ways. And let me just say, reading the Bowling Green Daily News for a year has made me appreciate the Quincy Herald-Whig a lot more. The Whig is better designed; it has better photography; and it covers local politics, schools, and law enforcement with more regularity and thoroughness. Those of you who thought that the wheezings of Oliver North and Walter Williams were the nadir of editorial commentary should take a look at the Daily News's lineup -- North and Williams would be right-of-center moderates in that crowd.

Oh, the Whig has its shortcomings, and I have gleefully pointed them out over the last few years. Its copy editing has been spotty -- I think personnel turnover had a lot to do with that -- and its "build more roads" editorial drumbeat gets tiresome (in a time when state and national governments are running gigantic deficits, is it really wise to push ahead with four-laning Highway 36?). I too get tired of the GREDF-worship, although not to the mouth-foaming degree that other bloggers do. While in Bowling Green, I have appreciated the Daily News's locally written, genuinely credible book, restaurant, and movie reviews. That's an area where the Whig falls short. The Daily News also regularly publishes the Health Department's restaurant inspection reports, with scores, and includes the sale price on its real estate transfers, so that consumers can tell for themselves how the market is doing instead of having to rely on the vested-interest comments of the real estate association. But overall, the Herald-Whig is a local paper that Quincyans should appreciate. It does a pretty good job with a staff that is smaller than it should be.

I used a pseudonym when I started the blog because I have friends and professional acquaintances among the local media, and I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable around me, knowing that I was making critical and occasionally snide comments about their work. Stepping out from behind the curtain (thin as it was), let me just commend those people who are on the front lines of news production -- whether they work for the Whig, Quincynews.org, WGEM, KHQA, the Courier-Post, WTAD, or the other various outlets. Keeping people informed is a thankless, unending job, and in today's media world it has become less economically secure. Yet they persist, not because it pays well, Lord knows, but because they love what they do and they recognize its importance. They compete (usually fairly); they squabble (sometimes justifiably); but collectively they engage in an enterprise that is critical to our successful functioning as a society. My hat would be off to you if I were wearing one.

Quincy was my home for seventeen years, and I cherish the idea that it might someday be my home again. I love the town and many people in it. It too has its faults (smug provincialism, resistance to outsiders, and racial tone-deafness are three that I would mention), but all localities have their faults. Quincy has been the scene of the happiest moments of my life so far, and I thank it for that. Best wishes to you all.

Steve Wiegenstein

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

I am pausing today to think about the uncle I never met, Mike Wiegenstein, lost in the vicinity of the Indonesian island of Morotai aboard USS Seawolf (SS-197) with 61 of his shipmates and 17 Army passengers, October 4, 1944. Seawolf received 13 battle stars during its years of service, and my uncle served aboard it from its first embarkation in the autumn of 1940.

Pausing and reflecting and praying that humanity may someday find the means to avoid such sacrifices again.

My Morning What-the

2010-05-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

"The Quincy Public Library’s monthly Foreign Flicks series will continue this month with a Russian film" . . . "The film title can be found on the library website, www.quincylibrary.org, or by calling 223-1309, ext. 207."

Oh, come on, you sly librarians. Just a hint? One little hint?

SPOILER ALERT!

It's "The Italian."

And here I thought that it was going to be a dirty word or double entendre that kept them from putting in the paper. Or maybe it is....hm....is "the Italian" a euphemism for something? "Come on, baby, let's do the Italian!" "Hey, get your Italian out of my face!" "My first wife was mean, but boy, what an Italian she had."

Things to Love

2010-04-20T06:24:00.001-07:00

1. A weird photo of a college freshman in a green bodysuit interrupting an evangelist named Bro at the University of Missouri, posted without explanation on page 3.

2. Efforts to have Quincy named a "Fiber City." I see definite cross-promotion possibilities with All-Bran here.

3. An enormous photo of the pollen-gorged stamens of a flowering crab. Hey, those are sexual organs, people! I thought this was a family paper.

Yeah, That Ought to Work

2010-04-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

"Missouri would assert its sovereignty and reject various federal policies under a proposed constitutional amendment given preliminary approval Wednesday by the state House."

On second thought, maybe they should ask Jefferson Davis how that idea went over last time it was tried.

That open forum wasn't so scary, now was it?

2010-04-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

From QuincyNews.org:

"Jeff Kerkhoff talked about Grover Cleveland's impact on the country as president and Vince Shaw complained about the length of time it is taking the R.L. Brink Company to finish work being done on Oak Street."

Hot topics both.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

2010-04-05T07:40:00.001-07:00

Opening Day today. I mean the real Opening Day, the one in which all teams are playing, not yesterday's fake one, which was just for the East Coast media market.

I'm glad to see the Cubs under new management, although I'm a Cardinal fan. The best years of that rivalry have always been when both teams are true contenders. I don't expect that to happen this year, but the Cubs should get better down the road. And who knows? After all, the Cards were picked to come in third last year. So the Cubs may surprise.

Don't bother me between 12:10 and 3 or so today.

Oh yeah, that code-sharing agreement

2010-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it was so hard to get.

Great Lakes Airlines, are you bankrupt yet?

Hm, just checked their website....apparently not yet. Still providing unreliable service and canceled flights across the American West. The only cities they "serve" that come anywhere near the Great Lakes, though, are Manistee and Ironwood, Michigan, and Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Criminy, it's only 80 miles from Rhinelander to Ironwood. Who on earth would fly that route?

Scam artists.

Coincidence or Extraterrestrial Evidence?

2010-03-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

HRH executive John Grossmeier = Big Love's Selma Green. Eerie.

Good Work

2010-03-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

An excellent, sober, detailed, factual analysis of the financial problems in the Quincy Public Schools in today's Whig.

That's what good local journalism looks like.

Free Speech

2010-03-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

1. "Major John Spring said if the public is given free rein to speak on a regular basis at council meetings, he feels the city might have to step up its security in case any threatening remarks or actions emerge."

Doggone dangerous citizens. Shouldn't the dreadful Kirkwood, Mo., incident from a couple of years ago have alerted the city to step up its security already? Security at public meetings is very important whether the citizens get to speak or not. The speaking issue is a red herring. If there isn't adequate security at council meetings by now, the city has been shamefully remiss.

2. "Spring also said the city might need to consider incorporating some technology into its live telecasts to allow a short delay before the meeting gets broadcast. This would give city officials a chance to bleep out any inappropriate or slanderous comments."

Surely someone will point out to them that censoring the broadcast of comments at the council meeting arguably puts the city in a worse legal position regarding slanderous comments than not censoring them? Because then you're making content-based decisions.

3. "City Clerk Jenny Hayden said one of her concerns involves giving the public
until noon Monday to sign up. She said this could conflict with the city’s requirement to have its agenda posted at least 48 hours in advance. She said if a speaker wants to talk about something on the agenda, that request needs to be publicized in advance."

Nonsense. Put on the agenda as item #20 or whatever, "Public Comments." There. It's on the agenda.

4. “I think the names are irrelevant,” said Alderman Steve Duesterhaus, D-2. “I don’t care who comes to address the council. It’s the content (that is most mportant). If you don’t know what the content is, you don’t know if it’s appropriate or proper, and you leave it up to the chair to have to decide whether it is or not.”

See #2 above. While it may arguably be legal to discriminate against speakers based on the anticipated content of what they are going to say, it's a public relations disaster, and it goes against the fundamental idea of a democracy, which is that citizens need to have the right to be heard by their elected representatives.

Who gets to decide what's "appropriate" or "proper"? This is one of the most ridiculous pieces of stonewalling that the city government has engaged in.

Creative problem-solving

2010-03-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

Problem: You're an East Texas college football coach (A & M - Commerce), and two of your players have been arrested on drug charges. Worse yet, a story about the arrest is on the front page of the college newspaper.

Solution: After practice, have the team go around to the racks and steal every copy of the newspaper. Problem solved!

Icing on the cake: Tell the campus police, "I am proud of my players for doing that. This was the best team building exercise we have ever done."

Bonus quote: The athletic director, having heard that the newspapers had been stolen, immediately suspected the coach of organizing the activity because he "didn't think they were smart enough to do this on their own."

Working My Way Through the Logic

2010-03-03T09:28:00.001-08:00

OK, I can see that the downtown parking lots need fixing up.

OK, I can see that having better parking lots would make for a nicer downtown.

But a special taxing district that would last for 23 years? Seems to me that the solution is much larger than the problem. Why not just fix the parking lots?

Hm, maybe it's the fact that creating a TIF would give the city the right to acquire property either through purchase or through eminent domain (page 16)? So that the downtown can be reshaped according to the vision of the city planning department, rather than through the choices of the people who actually own property down there? Or does that sound too paranoid? And why the odd boundaries on the map? Three corners of 8th and Maine are blighted but the fourth corner isn't? And only half of the block on the south side of Maine between 8th and 9th is blighted -- cross the alley and you're in the "unblighted" half?

The downtown is in dire need of rejuvenation, that is for sure. But if I was a property owner in the proposed TIF district, I'd be looking to get out before the city decided I was "unsuitable" and told me to fix up or sell.

Hmm.....let's see......

2010-03-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

The school district needs to cut another $2 million.

Well, it's going to cost $750,000 to fix the turf at Flinn Stadium, so they say. So I'm guessing that not doing that is a good starting place.

But if they don't fix the turf....where will the football team play? How about nowhere?

Canceling that program would save tons of money in salaries, travel costs, equipment, maintenance, etc.

To keep a balance going between sports and arts, an equal amount should be cut from the music/theater/drama department.

There. That's a start.

Sign of the Times

2010-02-26T03:57:00.000-08:00

In the Dark Ages, it was considered poor form for employees to write letters to the editor. Such a practice raised objectivity questions, and besides, the letters column was for "regular folks." If you wanted to express an opinion -- that's what the editorials and columns were for.

I guess that taboo has been lifted. Now we cross-promote everywhere, not just in house ads and the usual fluff pieces about QNI-sponsored events down at the QNI Center, but in "letters to the editor" as well.

Blogging is for old people, Pew report finds

2010-02-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 4, 2010

(02-03) 13:00 PST -- Teenagers and young adults spent less time blogging during the past three years as social networks like Facebook became more popular, according to a Pew Research Center study released Wednesday.

Full article is here.

Wise words from the creator of Calvin & Hobbes

2010-02-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

Bill Watterson, creator of the beloved "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip, recently gave his first interview since 1989, to a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, thus avoiding becoming the next J.D. Salinger, at least for now.

One exchange:

Q: Readers became friends with your characters, so understandably, they grieved -- and are still grieving -- when the strip ended. What would you like to tell them?

A: This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say.

It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

I've never regretted stopping when I did.

May editors across the country think about what Mr. Watterson said here, and ask themselves, "Why am I still running old 'Peanuts' strips, more than ten years after Charles Schulz retired it? Or 'Blondie,' nearly 30 years after the death of Chic Young?" And on and on and on.

Same question, second verse

2010-01-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Whig article sampling public reaction to State of Union speech: Person quoted in article says Obama claimed "unemployment would be 'twice as bad' without actions taken in 2009."

Obama: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed."

The Whig source's paraphrasing of Obama's claim is off by roughly 13 million people. [Corrected my math from an earlier version of this entry.]

Did the Whig have an obligation to correct the person's understandable but obvious misstatement? I think so.

Reflections on the State of the Union Address

2010-01-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Overall, I thought it was a good speech....a little too laundry-listy in the middle, but otherwise well focused.

I enjoyed watching the Supreme Court members in the front rows squirm when Obama called them out on their recent decision. Alito wanted to pull a Joe Wilson but managed to salvage his dignity by just mouthing something nasty instead of hollering it out.

Obama has obviously mastered the piece of advice that the Virginian gave to Trampas: When you call somebody a name, smile when you say it.

What were those shiny gizmos on the counter between him and the VP & Pelosi? Art? The one in front of Pelosi looked like a model roller coaster, or a silvery version of one of those bead threading toys you see in the doctor's office. The one in front of Biden looked like a very ornate highball glass.

The speech seemed aimed more at Congress than at the general public. Not sure if a speech is what Obama needs to deal with Congress. The train wreck of health care reform could have been avoided with some better legislative strategy. For all his reputation as a legislative genius, Rahm Emanuel appears to have accomplished very little to get Congress to follow the President's lead. Either Obama has been unwilling to get into the trenches and work toward what he wants to see Congress accomplish, or the strategy his team has chosen was a poor one. Either way, what he needs now is not standing at a lectern giving a speech, but better retail politics with members of Congress.

Signs of the apocalypse

2010-01-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

"The Quincy School Board voted unanimously Wednesday."

I need to go sit down. I'm feeling dizzy.

Thanks

2010-01-15T06:45:00.000-08:00

. . . to anonymous commenters #2 and 3 on my last post for their reflections on my question. Yes, the traditional journalistic instinct is to let "[truth] and falsehood grapple," but I am not sure if that precept should still govern. As anonymous commenter #1 demonstrated, the online model favors flippant remarks with little or no regard for truth. I fear that we are being overwhelmed by that model, in which the clever bullshitter wins out over the dull truth-teller in the attention-deficit world of the Web. Witness, for example, the decline in Quincy's blogs and discussion boards, and the rise of the tweet as the dominant mode of online communication. There is no place on Twitter for nuance or detailed examination.

Thus I look at the print media through different eyes today. It seems to me that if the print media have a future, it has to be in complete, utter devotion to accuracy at every turn. Think about the difference between a letter to the editor and an anonymous comment, for example. A letter to the editor is a document of some length, often composed in several sittings, to which the author must attach a name. It is a part of the public record. An anonymous comment is often a single sentence or less, tossed off in a moment, and with no personal accountability. The letter I referred to in my previous post was written by someone with a serious idea, a suggestion to be taken up by the public, and an invitation to reply. I wonder if the newspaper didn't owe it to her (and to us) to make sure her claims were correct and to give her the chance to revise her letter before it got printed.

The Internet's standards of accuracy are low indeed. I fear that the marketplace of ideas may turn out like most of the other marketplaces in our current economy: the fast, cheap and shoddy thrive, while the careful and well-crafted suffer. If the print media don't have a demonstrably better product to offer than their online competitors, the quality of our public discourse is in serious trouble. So I am starting to doubt a lot of the received wisdom that has governed print journalism for so many years.

Conundrum

2010-01-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

A letter in today's Whig claimed that of the members of the County Board, 16 live within the city limits, with the implication that this is a problem. A cursory glance at the membership list indicates to me that of the 16, only 9 actually live in the city limits while the other 7 have Quincy postal addresses but live outside the city limits. I may be a bit off on this count because I didn't stop to look up every single address to check whether it's inside.

My question is: does the editorial page staff of the Whig have any obligation to double-check fact claims by letter writers, or should they just print letters even if they have apparent errors?

Amusing Untruth of the Day

2010-01-11T04:15:00.000-08:00

From Jeffrey Dean, an author who unblushingly describes himself as "an authority on teens and teen culture":

"The revenue of the pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and EarthLink."

Uh, no, it's not. By a factor of oh, maybe a thousand.

And how the heck did EarthLink get in there? Oh well, he's an authority, so I guess he must know something I don't.

Not to be too snarky,

2010-01-11T03:15:00.000-08:00

But you'd think the City of Quincy Arts Awards could come up with something better to give its recipients than a painting by a high school student.

Come on, a gift certificate or something.

Hey Tookie

2009-12-31T06:08:00.001-08:00

I tried to comment on your post but got a message that comments were restricted to "team members." Anyway, here's what I was going to say:

I think your advice is admirable. City government practices have been frozen into their current form for way too long. The claim that bidding out garbage & recycling pickup to private contractors could put the city in danger "five years or more down the road" once all its trucks & equipment were sold was just utter nonsense.

In times of economic difficulty, people either change their past practices or they hunker down and hope troubles don't find them. Guess which option is best?

The OTHER Stimulus Package

2009-12-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

How many times has someone said to you, "I would love to [retire, switch jobs, start my own business, etc., etc.], but I have to keep my health insurance"? I hear this statement every six months or so.

My fearless forecast: Once the health insurance reform plan is enacted, the next 18 months to two years will see a breaking up of many of those glaciers. Once people realize they can take financial risks without running the ultimate risk (losing insurance, bankrupting their family with medical bills), we will see an eruption of entrepreneurial activity, retirement pursuits, and people pursuing various long-delayed dreams.

All you young people who have been waiting for the old folks to move on so you could have a crack at the job world, take heart. Health insurance reform is going to have the unexpected consequence of giving you that opportunity.

One Question

2009-12-13T03:55:00.000-08:00

I have only one question for the guy who wrote to the Whig and the QPD regarding his treatment by the police department.

What was your BAC? Obviously you must have been over the limit, since you were convicted. Practically all drunk drivers think they are "in good control of their faculties and not posing a danger to anyone." If your BAC was .08 or barely over, I'll have a little sympathy. Over .10, sorry, pal, you deserved to be pulled over, cuffed, and taken to the station.

Funny how his protesting e-mails neglected to mention that significant little detail.

Oh crap, another 50

2009-11-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

Goodbye everyone. See you around sunrise.

The link.

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia

2009-11-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

Warning: Unless you have a day to kill, do not click the link. You will get sucked into endless bits of interesting trivia and will not emerge again until the sun has gone down, everyone has gone to bed, and you have carried your laptop into the bathroom so you don't have to stop reading.

You have been warned.

The link.

Favorite ad from the Whig today

2009-11-25T17:37:00.001-08:00

is the one of a turkey sitting on a toilet. Thanks to Tom Geise Plumbing for a concept I never really thought of before.

Today's Dilbert

2009-11-17T05:55:00.000-08:00

Reminds me of the Quincy media scene, for some weird reason.

Four towns get awards

2009-11-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

One is a finalist for the top prize of all.
One gets a first place.
Two get second places.

Guess which one gets the headline and the first six paragraphs after the lead?

Right, one of the second-place finishers.

That code-share agreement

2009-10-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

Wasn't so hard to get after all, now was it?

Cape Air's flight schedule seems insanely ambitious to me for a city where air service has been neglected for so long, but let's hope they can pull it off.

Common Cause

2009-10-29T14:50:00.001-07:00

Once in a while, an event happens that brings the vast majority of Americans together for a common purpose.

Such as rooting against the freakin' Yankees.

In Case You Were Wondering Whether Times Have Changed,

2009-10-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

Five regular folks expressed their opinions on the Whig's "Five Times Five" page today, and all of them said that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should be repealed.

Well, I'll Be Doggoned

2009-10-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

When I read the phrase "service in Micronesia commenced in 2004," I thought, no way, another weird editing lapse. But darned if that's not correct! Cape Air flies routes from Guam to Rota to Saipan. Can't connect directly from Quincy, but that's ok.

Hey, if they can keep ticket costs down and as a side benefit cut $250,000 out of the airport budget, I'm all for 'em.

Jump: Words Here

2009-10-21T10:20:00.001-07:00

Nah, why bother. Nobody reads the jump head anyway.

Fun Facts

2009-10-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

"The car crashed through a window measuring 9 feet 11 inches by 10 feet 7 inches on the Broadway side[.]"

OK, I appreciate the exactness of the measurement. I would have thought about this story much differently had the window been a full 10 feet wide.

Of all the ignoramuses that the H-W lets onto its editorial page,

2009-10-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time deciding whether Oliver North or Walter Williams is the worst. I gotta go with Williams because of his pretensions to intellectuality; North at least makes no bones about being a thickskull.

Today's Williams column features one source that is 12 years old, one that is 8 years old, and one new "source" from a right-wing foundation.

Worse yet, he's talking about a truly serious issue, one where I agree with him on most of his points. I just wish his work wasn't so lazy, sloppy, and politicized.

The thing I don't get about the planning kerfluffle

2009-10-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

...is that the number "68,277" keeps getting thrown around, and people talk about how the county needs to plan for growth. That 68,277 is from the 2000 census. The Census Bureau estimated the county's population at 66,897 in 2008, a decline of 1,380.

Shouldn't the county be planning how to deal with this decline in population instead? I should think that with an aging population and fewer people overall, they might be thinking about reallocations and reductions instead.

PR 101

2009-10-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

For you laypeople out there who don't know what the bloggers are all fussing about, here's some background.

Newsmakers and news organizations need each other. Newsmakers need the exposure, while news organizations need a constant flow of news releases, orchestrated events, and tips from newsmakers to fill their pages and airtime. It's a symbiotic relationship.

Newsmakers constantly send out news releases, typically marked "For Immediate Release," which means that news organizations can do with them whatever they want....trash them (the most common fate), run them as written (lazy but all too common, alas), use them as the basis for their own stories, combine them with other material, whatever.

Less often, newsmakers send out embargoed material...."media advisories" or "advance releases," with restrictions on their release. Sometimes the embargoed material is just a tip, not a story. Sometimes it has a specified release time. For example, let's say WIU is going to hold a press conference on Friday to announce that Chuck Scholz has been named its new football coach. It would probably send out an embargoed press kit, so that local media would know to be there, but with the understanding that they wouldn't release the information until after the news conference.

So what happens if the news organization violates that gentleman's agreement and goes ahead with embargoed material anyway?

Not much. The news organization gets a scoop for a day, or maybe a few hours. But your newsmaker is going to be really pissed off, because they were planning a nice orchestrated event and the news organization went and spoiled it. It happens now and then. To follow the above hypothetical example, if WGEM prematurely announced the naming of the new coach, it could claim to have scooped everyone else (even though everybody had the information already, but chose to honor the embargo). WIU would be royally pissed, because WGEM would have stepped on its carefully planned announcement with big muddy feet.

In the rare occasions when a news organization breaks an embargo, it can expect that the newsmaker will slap back....usually in the form of freezing out its reporters for a while. But that slapback never lasts long because (remember)....it's a symbiotic relationship. They need each other.

So that's what happened with Dick Durbin and WTAD/QNO. They shit on his embargo, and the senator's press person slapped back. You can expect it to last a few months, then they'll be back to normal again. It's a squabble inside the news nest, not a conspiracy, blacklist, or any of those other silly inflammatory labels.

Yeah, we have a problem

2009-10-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

October 2005 - Average paid circulation 26,727
October 2006 - Average paid circulation 26,639
October 2007 - Average paid circulation 24,183
October 2008 - Average paid circulation 19,805
October 2009 - Average paid circulation 18,882

For those of you keeping score at home, that's a 29 percent decline. Can't blame it on QuincyNews.org, either . . . it started before QNO appeared on the scene.

That's the world of newspapers these days.

Buried Treasure

2009-10-02T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody! A few years ago I buried a bag of gold coins about 20 feet deep. Dropped 'em down a well and then filled it up.

They're over in my neighbor's yard, right underneath the water feature with the little cupid.

Have at it!

Fun Map

2009-09-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

According to this map produced by the geographers at Kansas State, Western Illinois is one of the saintliest areas in the country.

The southeastern U.S., Arizona, and southern California are where the devils reside.

Silly but enjoyable. For a closer, county-by-county look, try here.

Milton, We Hardly Knew Ye

2009-09-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

. . . but as a lifelong Cardinals fan, I certainly appreciated your tantrums, mental mistakes, and failure to perform in the clutch.

Scales, on the other hand, has been fun to watch for the opposite reason. He appreciates being in the big leagues and tries hard to win at every moment. I actually felt bad for him when the ball popped out of his glove for a homer.

Bradley would have blamed the fence, blamed the fans, blamed his teammates, blamed the warning track, and on and on.

This year's 20 under 40

2009-09-19T05:50:00.000-07:00

... is a group much, much more deserving of recognition than last year's. It's almost as if last year's edition was a clearing of the throat, coughing out the usual suspects of the well connected, the old names, and the favors due to advertisers, in order to clear the way for this year's group of some really energetic, dedicated people who are making the Quincy area a better place to live.

It takes a lot of moxie . . .

2009-09-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

. . . to hire a lawyer to defend you on bad check charges and then bounce a check to him.

That Dangerous Socialist

2009-09-06T04:31:00.001-07:00

"...the President will talk directly to students across the country on the importance of taking responsibility for their education, challenging them to set goals and do everything they can to succeed."

Can't have him spreading his radical ideas to the impressionable minds of our children, now can we?

First 9/11 creepmuffin

2009-09-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

It's DDB Brazil, a branch of the worldwide ad agency....here's the story:

See for yourself.

Worrying in Advance

2009-09-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe I'm off the deep end a little bit, but there are a few things that really make my blood boil.

One is when national symbols are used in advertising. I cringe whenever I see the Statue of Liberty in an ad. I hate seeing those stupid cartoons of Washington and Lincoln in February, placed in the newspaper or on TV by people trying to sell furniture or soap or whatever. I even dislike it when the newspaper prints those paper flags in July, because I know a lot of them are going to get used improperly.

Add to that the creeping use of 9-11 for rhetorical advantage. Didn't mind when Rudy Giuliani brought it up all the time -- he was there. But I am starting to hear more and more use of it in the generic sense of any sort of national catastrophe. "This [name your controversial act] is our nine-eleven," that sort of thing.

There was only one 9-11, and God willing there will only be one. No piece of legislation, no act by some partisan, no policy decision, no nothing, should ever be compared to 9-11. Using mention of 9-11 to make a rhetorical point is sacrilege.

So as the somber date approaches, I will be watching for what I consider to be misappropriations of that event, and I will be pointing my finger in shame. I hope I don't have to do it.

Andy Borowitz's latest funny

2009-09-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

Watch your newspaper and see if Andy's prediction comes true....

Pointless 'Filler' Columns Abound
Lazy Columnists Pad Out Stories by Quoting Experts, Experts Say

In a phenomenon that occurs every year in the week before Labor Day, national columnists across America file pointless, content-free "filler" columns, enabling the lazy scribes to hit the beach earlier, according to observers who have been following this trend.

The "filler" columns are churned out in a matter of minutes with no loftier goal than meeting a deadline and filling up space -- meaning that columnists will often resort to using the same words or phrase again and again and again and again and again.

And rather than doing any original writing, the slothful columnists will rely on so-called "experts" to supply them with quotes to fill up space, experts say.

"They'll often quote people you've never heard of," says Harold Crimmins, an expert in the field of filler columns. "It's pretty shameless."

The typical "filler" column is often a reprint of a previously published column, but the writer will later plug in one cursory reference to current events, such as the health care reform controversy, to disguise this fact.

And in order to fill up space even faster, Crimmins says, the lazy beach-bound columnist will compose his summer "filler" columns with short paragraphs.

Many of these paragraphs will be as short as one sentence, he says.

"Or shorter," he adds.

There are other telltale signs a reader can look for in order to determine whether a writer has, in fact, filed a so-called "filler" column, according to Crimmins.

One of these is a tendency to repeat information that the reader has already read earlier in the article, with columnists even stooping to using the same quote twice.

"They'll often quote people you've never heard of," Crimmins says.

Another tip-off is if the column ends abruptly.

Let me see if I have this straight . . .

2009-08-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

There's a wind turbine out at the airport that is going to go into operation this fall, at a cost of $2 million, and it will generate 2,500 megawatts of electricity a year.

The pilot river turbine at L & D 21 is going to cost $6.6 million initially for the first phase. If that works out, 30 turbines will then be installed, with electricity coming online by 2015 or 2017. Total yield from the full project will be "up to" 15 megawatts.

Is that correct? Or are some of these numbers out of line?

Reg Ankrom's 43 Questions

2009-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Can be found here on Ed Husar's blog.

Seems to me that these are very reasonable questions that any business would be happy to discuss with the prospective investors in a multi-million dollar venture.

Seems to me that these questions should be discussed by the city with its investors, i.e., taxpayers, in full and complete detail.

Otherwise it's a pig in a poke.

Favorite Parody Story of the Week

2009-08-11T09:42:00.001-07:00

Can be found here.

Oh No!

2009-07-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

Our Soap Box Derby contestants have been eliminated! What on earth will we report on for the next month?

This is a catastrophe!

I don't get it

2009-07-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

Why mention that two of the plaintiffs in the Niekamp suit are African-American? What difference does that make? They're not all African-American, and it's not as though the school board dispute has had anything to do with racial issues. It's a very odd addition to the story.

And in the companion story, Niekamp is quoted as blaming the "defendents." Um, isn't he the defendant?

Both pieces seem produced and edited in haste.

The online story headline is another cutie, too: "Fourteen file Lawsuit filed to have Niekamp removed from Quincy School Board."

Slow down, guys, proofread and think.

All Is Well

2009-07-20T06:55:00.001-07:00

The eight-foot boa hissed a little upon capture but didn't bite anybody or eat any pets, as far as we know.

And the school board, after trying to coax Bud back into his cage with tasty treats, has gotten out the sticks and is going to whomp him into line.

Must Be Vacation Time

2009-06-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

That's all I can figure to explain the top two news stories on yesterday's local page:

Entire Starman family gets together for first time since 1978

and

River, the English settler, steals hearts as well as votes

One is not news, maybe an "On the Street" feature in a slow week. The other is not only not-news, but a Herald-Whig promotion.

Perhaps I should be glad that apparently nothing, nothing, nothing newsworthy at all is happening around our area.

The bonus, of course, is that the dog is an English setter, not a Pilgrim of Colonial days.

Quincyan arrested for hitting teen in head with golf club

2009-06-25T04:17:00.001-07:00

Insert Little People's Golf Tournament joke here.

Oh Dear Me

2009-06-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

"Local PBS station says $400,000 needed to stay on air.
"Only months after upgrading to digital broadcasts, the PBS affiliates serving West-Central Illinois are up against a funding crunch."

Gosh, I wonder who their director of fund-raising is.
Or maybe who is in charge of special projects and grants.

Ah, of course. People well known to our friends across the river for leading institutions into financial crisis.

The complicated subject of health care

2009-06-09T06:25:00.001-07:00

can be explained in 140 characters:

"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

Thanks, Senator Grassley, for your insights.

I'm pretty sure.....

2009-05-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

....that one of the photos in today's paper of the kids winning piano scholarships is not that of a sixth-grade boy.

Unless he got held back about 40 times and had a sex-change operation along the way.

It's Official

2009-05-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

Missouri drivers are better than Illinois drivers.

Missouri drivers ranked 15th on GMAC Insurance's 2009 National Drivers Test, while Illinois drivers came in 29th. The average score in Missouri was 79.3, with 12.1 percent failing; Illinois' average was 76.7, with 18.2 percent failing.

Of course, Illinois includes Chicago, so that's a handicap to start with.

BTW, for all you road hogs who bitched at me back in March for my comments on aggressive driving, my score was a 95. I missed one question because my response was overly cautious.

Here's the test.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

2009-05-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

That's what I want to know. Who will stop the rain?

Consider these incontrovertible facts. Barack Obama took office in January. John Spring was re-elected in April. Since the first of January, there has been more than ten inches of rain in Quincy. Ten inches!

Some would say Democrat/communist conspiracy, some would say mere coincidence. You be the judge, reader, but don't forget that sociopathic smile on Barack Obama's face as gas prices continue to rise and honest lawnmowing Americans are forced to return to the station to fill up their tanks again and again!

Gosh I Love Letters to the Editor

2009-05-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

"My concern with this president is he is charming. I worked in a mental health facility and the only people this charming were sociopaths."

I'd say something snarky but it's too easy.

Liked the Quincy Onion's do on the Dogwood Parade. Well done.

Passing Glances

2009-04-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

The demons of work have kept me away from the blog for several weeks now. Thank goodness, I hardly had a thought in my head to share anyway.

Always fun to read a good in-print catfight between the mayor's wife and the mayor's challenger's wife. Actually, I shouldn't say that it's always fun, because I've never read one before.

The Shriners have apparently pulled out of the Dogwood Parade because of the $26 per-unit charge. Guess every group of eight or twelve guys in a different miniaturized set of vehicles counts as a unit. I for one always dreaded the arrival of the Shriners....it meant that the parade would grind to a halt in front of me for 20 minutes or so while they did their figure-eights. Now......if only they can figure out how to make those commercial "floats" be something other than "let's shine up the company truck at the car wash & use it to throw Tootsie Rolls from." Then the parade might actually be less than two hours long. More bands, more bands!

Ouch

2009-04-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

The H-W got thoroughly scooped by its online competitor, QuincyNews.org, today in the breaking story about the state's attorney seeking an attorney general's opinion on the legality of Bud Niekamp's serving on two boards at once.

At first I thought, oh, too bad, the story broke too late for the Whig's print deadline -- but they'll have it on their website. Uh, no. Not only that, but QuincyNews's story was very well done, with a link to the relevant appeals court decision.

BTW, that appeals court decision is pretty darn unequivocal.

Post-Election Predictions

2009-04-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

1. The glimmers of unanimity that had made a few appearances on the Quincy School Board are a thing of the past. Look for more acrimony and contention. With the teachers' contract negotiations coming up, everybody's going to pre-emptively harden their positions, starting with the prevailing wage issue and heading toward a potential strike. Fasten your seat belts.

2. The dull rumblings you would hear from time to time about whether it's constitutional for Melvin J. Niekamp to hold two elected positions at the same time are going to rise in volume. It was a moot point when he was at the bottom end of 6-1 or 4-3 votes; but now that he will likely be on the upper end of some 4-3 votes, it becomes a critical issue. Wouldn't be surprised to see somebody sue.

3. The city council has not been a hotbed of partisanship. During the Scholz years, the mayor always took pains to keep both parties relatively happy. But with a 7-7 split, it's going to be tempting for the R's to force the mayor into a series of embarrassing tiebreakers on controversial issues -- if they can keep a united front, and that's a huge 'if.' But that's hardball politics, folks, and I'd say there's a good chance that's what we'll see. And if they have any sense, they'll groom an articulate person to speak for them on city matters, with an eye to pushing another few hundred votes their way in four years' time. Their candidate this time was by his own admission a terribly uncomfortable public speaker, and he got to within 800 votes.

Send in the Cons

2009-04-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Convicts? Convicts?

Yoo hoo, where are the convicts?

Mmmmmmm, ain't got none. Coupla shady characters, yep. Definitely some shady characters. Gotta give him that.

Mary Griffith gave Dave Bellis a good quizzing on the air Friday morning although she could stand to talk a little less herself. I did like the way she pressed him, though. That was good interviewing.

It's hard to decide sometimes how aggressively to question somebody who's not used to being interviewed and who's not especially verbal in the first place. But when one of them runs for office, the answer is...as aggressively as you need to in order to get your answer.

Spring on the other hand poses the opposite problem. He's an experienced politician and speaker, which helps to explain why he did not give a straightforward answer to several of the questions at the LWV's forum last night. Bellis is easy to nail, Spring impossible.

Say It Ain't So, Joe

2009-03-14T10:18:00.001-07:00

For the past two days, whenever I click on my link to the Joe Irvin blog, I've gotten a message saying that it's been discontinued! If true, this is dreadful news. That is one of the best Quincy blogs.

That sound in the distance is Brandon DeWilde calling.

Another thing I hate

2009-03-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Drivers who try to pass you as you're both coming down the entrance ramp to merge into traffic. Always happens in the merge lane, just when you need to be able to see behind yourself to tell if it's safe to merge -- and here comes Bonzo at 70, blocking your view. Hate to stereotype, but they're always males. Come on boys, NASCAR's only on the closed ovals, not on the interstate. Wait your turn, let the guy ahead of you merge, then merge yourself, and then pass.

Oh, the Humanity

2009-03-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

A guy in Washington punches McGruff the Crime Dog. A guy in Massachusetts punches Chuck E. Cheese.

Where will it all end? Where?

Highway Thoughts

2009-03-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have occasion to head north from Quincy on the Missouri side. And I rarely make that trip without seeing some raggedy-looking trash truck on its way to the LaGrange landfill.

Last week it was a BFI (excuse me, AWS) truck. Where there should have been a steel door on the back, or possibly one of those hydraulic squishers, there was just an empty square covered with a canvas sheet. Trash was bulging out around all the edges of the canvas, and occasionally a scrap of trash would work its way out, fluttering off to the edge of the road. I got out of its way fast, fearing that a corner of the canvas would give way and let fly a huge cascade of god knows what.

Today it was an unbelievably rusty City of Quincy Central Services truck. At least all four sides were intact, but it had a big tarp over its open top, and dust flew out behind it every time it hit a bump. Don't know what was inside.

If the folks in Lewis County ever hit a budget deficit, they should just park a sheriff's deputy on Highway 61 over by Route V and inspect every unsafe-looking truck that passes.

Question for the 'sphere

2009-02-17T12:55:00.001-08:00

OK, there is one Quincy practice that I have yet to figure out.

When I come to a stoplight, it often occurs that a car will be there, stopped a good 20 to 25 feet behind the white stop line at the intersection, and sometimes even behind the sensors implanted in the pavement.

Why the heck do some people stop their cars so far back from an intersection? I don't get it. It can't be fear of the lane-cutting left-turners (of which there are many), because I see people do this in the right lane as well as the left.

Gee thanks, AP

2009-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

The economic downturn isn't such a bad thing...it's "an opportunity to address concerns you and your partner ignored in the past"

and a chance for people to enjoy "more time with family and friends, learning new skills, focusing on their health and pursuing hobbies."

Gosh, maybe we should have recessions more often.

My ideas for how to spend any stimulus money that comes our way

2009-02-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

Upgrade and relocate the city's sewer treatment plant. Get it out of that prime spot between the bridges and make that space part of the continuous stretch of parkland along the riverfront. The benefits would be environmental (a modernized sewer system, and one less in danger of being flooded in our ever-more-common "100-year" floods), aesthetic, and recreational.

Really want to get serious about downtown redevelopment? Pick half a block in the downtown core (Fifth to Eighth, Maine to Broadway), buy out every building owner, and flatten. Then build a three-story, free, covered parking garage. Or if not free, permit merchants to validate parking. Can't be farther west than Third, because lazy Quincyans will not walk uphill. The north side of Maine between Sixth and Seventh looks like a good place to me, or Hampshire between Fifth and Sixth. Maybe the west half of the block on Maine between Seventh and Eighth.

Make sure that every street in the city – every street – has a sidewalk along at least one side. Make it easier for people to walk in their neighborhoods. Make it safer for kids to ride their bikes. And the heck with this business of a sidewalk that goes partway down a block, then stops, then starts again three houses down.

Convert to solar-powered and/or LED streetlights.

The Cheney Doctrine

2009-02-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Following Dick Cheney's lead from his interview this morning, let me just predict that horrible, horrible things are going to happen to some of you in the next few years, and that if they do, it's not going to be my fault in the least little bit, because I just warned you about them. So there.

And if they don't, you will have forgotten about this warning long ago anyway, ha ha.

Now That's My Kind of Freed Hostage

2009-02-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

From the Sunday Mail (U.K.) story about a hostage freed, along with the rest of the oil tanker's crew, when the ship's owners paid a two-million-pound ransom to Somali pirates:

"We had the chance to speak to a psychiatrist but we all went off and got drunk instead."

Story is here.

Note to editors of the 'Blueprint' section

2009-02-02T12:28:00.001-08:00

As the Daily Mail (U.K.) so aptly puts it:

Its a little difficult to place sometimes, but if itd never been invented our sentences wouldnt be so easy to read and wed all get confused because we wouldnt know who owned anything.

But the apostrophe is obviously just too challenging for some.

Health Care

2009-01-26T07:48:00.001-08:00

The best short article I've read in years about health care reform was Atul Gawande's in the January 26 edition of the New Yorker.

You can find it here.

Some highlights:

"Every industrialized nation in the world except the United States has a national system that guarantees affordable health care for all its citizens. Nearly all have been popular and successful. But each has taken a drastically different form, and the reason has rarely been ideology. Rather, each country has built on its own history, however imperfect, unusual, and untidy."

"Yes, American health care is an appallingly patched-together ship, with rotting timbers, water leaking in, mercenaries on board, and fifteen per cent of the passengers thrown over the rails just to keep it afloat. But hundreds of millions of people depend on it. The system provides more than thirty-five million hospital stays a year, sixty-four million surgical procedures, nine hundred million office visits, three and a half billion prescriptions. It represents a sixth of our economy. There is no dry-docking health care for a few months, or even for an afternoon, while we rebuild it. Grand plans admit no possibility of mistakes or failures, or the chance to learn from them. If we get things wrong, people will die. This doesn’t mean that ambitious reform is beyond us. But we have to start with what we have."

Thanks, Governor,

2009-01-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

for giving me the best belly laugh I've had in weeks . . .

"Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, charged with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama, considered offering it to talk show star Oprah Winfrey." (Reuters)

Well Deserved

2009-01-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

The "Unsung Hero" honor to Josh Houchins, host of WGEM-AM's morning sports show, is richly deserved. A more resilient, upbeat, determined soul is hard to imagine. And his show is funny, too.

Ho Hum, Another Poll

2009-01-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

As the man says on the "Whaddaya Know" quiz (which, by the way, I miss from WQUB on Saturday mornings, although "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" is funnier -- just want to have my cake and eat it too, I guess):

"Ambiguous, poorly worded, or misleading questions are par for the course. Listeners who are sticklers for the truth should get their own shows."

Bad questions = useless results.

Some Other Museum Ideas

2009-01-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

How about a Missouri Drivers' Linear Park? Down the left lane of Broadway with a speed limit of 20.

The Grumpy Herald-Whig Letters to the Editor Writers' Hall of Fame.

The Monthly Tort Fund Circus of Litigation.

Peculiarities

2009-01-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

The QU sports information department apparently doesn't think its women's basketball players are athletes . . . the Whig's mugshots have them all in street clothes.

When the team wins by 23, it's hard to make an interesting story, so one resorts to all kinds of pseudo-literary devices, like transcribng the comments of an elderly fan and noting that the coach's pen scooted out onto the floor. Didn't work.

The Prevailing Wage

2009-01-05T06:16:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to the Quincy School Board for pursuing answers on the prevailing wage question. It's pretty clear to all that the "prevailing wage" is a fiction designed to keep wages high on public projects. The Illinois Department of Labor's complicity in maintaining this fiction needs to be challenged.

If ever there was a court fight that deserved to be undertaken using taxpayers' money, this is it. It's unfortunate that the school boards' association and the NFIB were too chicken-hearted to put their money where their mouth was and back the school board in challenging the procedure.

The Freedom of Information request should be pursued. And if that request doesn't provide the answers the board needs, then it's time for Adams County to opt out of the Department of Labor's prevailing wage and set its own, as the law allows.

Rod, Roland, and the Rest

2009-01-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

A few thoughts:

1. Rod's got a good lawyer. Every couple of days he throws up a new line of attack to confuse everyone, and as soon as the dust settles and people get back to remembering Rod's egregious behavior he throws up a new one. The best defense is a good offense.

2. Why wouldn't Roland accept the appointment? It's his only remaining chance to be a senator, and God knows he's tried often enough. Besides, he left some room on his tombstone for another couple of lines of chiseling.

3. If public opinion mattered, the appointment of Roland would be a terrific p.r. stunt on Rod's part. Shows he's still on the job, puts everybody on the defensive, etc. But unfortunately, the only people that matter right now are the Illinois legislators, and they've already got the tar hot and the feathers fluffed. So playing to the grandstand is beside the point.

An exception

2009-01-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

My general policy is to go to local retailers whenever possible and avoid chain establishments. But I found myself at Ruby Tuesday on New Year's Eve, and I have to say . . . if there's a better salad bar in town, I've not seen it.

Jack the Ripper? What the hell?

2008-12-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

. . . . 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....

2008-12-21T05:29:00.001-08:00

...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

2008-12-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-12-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

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,

2008-12-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

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

Public Service

2008-12-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-12-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

"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 . . .

2008-12-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Budget Balancing

2008-11-29T04:49:00.000-08:00

Many woeful remarks this morning about the closing of state parks and historic sites.

The cuts are fine with me -- when you're $2 billion in the hole, you've got to start cutting and cutting fast. Too bad he didn't do more.

And of course the governor is grandstanding. He's always grandstanding. But so is the legislature; apparently striking poses is part of their job description.

The sooner they get started making real cuts in the budget, the better. Sad to say, neither seems willing to confront the state's budget problems the way a businessperson would: when your income doesn't match your expenses, you either raise income or reduce expenses, or both. Closing a few parks isn't going to reduce expenses $2 billion.

The Road of Excess

2008-11-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Somebody complained a while back that I don't blog enough. Fair enough.

Fact is, I'm handicapped on that score. I don't hate the city government, I'm not obsessed with any particular topic, and I don't believe in posting my private thoughts for all to see. So I'm not a very good candidate to be a blogger in the first place.

Since I started blogging, several other blogs have gotten into the media-watch game, and because the beating of dead horses has never appealed to me, I do less media criticism than I used to.

I do enjoy reading blogs, though . . . I figure that of every five entries I read, one will be interesting. So if one out of every five entries I write is interesting in return, I've given back.