June 3, 2015

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest
Columnist

I worry about weak job growth in Illinois, which has been slower in recent decades than in the nation as a whole as well as in the rest of the Midwest.
Our state still has to recover about a quarter million jobs just to get back to where we were in 2000, while the nation has surged far beyond 2000 numbers.
Illinois did add 51,000 jobs in 2014, yet job numbers in Texas jumped last year by a whopping 458,000—and a majority of the Texas jobs are good-paying ones, not the minimum wage kind, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Recently the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity asked the consuls general of our 10 largest trading partner nations to provide their perspectives on what our state has going for—and against—us when it comes to economic growth. Read More

Re. to: Cherry Picking Scripture

I appreciated the letter to editor the other day concerning the remarks on “homosexuality.” However, I was disappointed in that there was no mention of some specifics relative to “some local churches” in his critical remarks. He used a “blanket” approach to speak ill of “some local churches” and their accentuation of immoral behavior, but these same “local churches” seemed to have failed to accomplish other, more positive things in the community. Again, we are not told wherein some specific church (or churches) has failed. He remarked, “Instead of focusing on lending a helping hand to those in need, they choose to use divisive and destructive rhetoric that perpetuates hatred and animosity. Why is that?”
It is most unfortunate that in both of his critical remarks (above) he offers no illustrations. Evidently, he wanted to just throw a “blanket” over the issue and hope others would agree and say, “Yeah! That’s right! You are all hypocrites!” He would get much further in a conversation of this sort if he was specific in his concerns. Read More