Letter to the Editor
Sometimes we find a pearl of wisdom in an unlikely spot. Ed Dunphy, a familiar name in the Illinois ag community, often told an amusing story that offers this. He has been gone for a number of years, but his story is worth repeating.
Read More•October 23, 2019•
By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist
I muse widely, yet my knowledge base in quite narrow. So, I could sure use help from thoughtful readers who know more than I about the topics below, which I am beginning to explore for possible essays. If you have informed thoughts and links to good sources, please email at jnowlan3@gmail.com.
First: There will be war-like conflicts in the future, and the U.S. won’t be spared, as we have been in the past. As drones and cyber conflict replace much of the boots-on-the-ground-warfare, the first thing to go down in any major future dust-up would likely be our electric power grid.
Would apocalyptic chaos ensue on the streets? Would a nation like ours be brought to its knees, just like big corporations that make huge ransomware payoffs to hackers, to get their systems back up and running?
Could Americans benefit from “civil defense” training, or would it be useless? How would you and your family fare if you were without electricity for several weeks? Should every family buy a small gas-powered generator to keep the lights on, and a supply of food and water? Read More
•October 9, 2019•
By Jim Nowlan
NP guest columnist
Illinois higher education is in disarray as a result of an exodus of students from our state, uncertain state funding, declining high school graduation numbers, excess capacity, and the seeming implosion of several state universities.
Background. Three-quarters of a million of our citizens enroll each year at the state’s 12 public university campuses, 48 community college districts (with many campuses) and 110 private non-profit and for-profit institutions of post-secondary learning. In addition, our major research universities such at the University of Illinois in Urbana and Chicago pump out top engineers and scientists, who generate patents and startups. Strong higher education is critical to our state’s future.
In 2000, a national group that knows about such things declared Illinois to have the best higher education offerings among the states for quality and affordability. No longer.
Because of reduced state spending for higher ed in recent years, Illinois’ public universities and colleges jacked up their tuition, making our in-state student costs among the highest in the nation. Read More
•October 2, 2019•
By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist
In response to a recent essay of mine about our state’s parlous load of debt and unfunded obligations, a reader asked: Why so much red ink? The answer lies in an unsavory stew of human nature; our state’s political tradition of careerist politicians, and the political self-admonition of “not on my watch.”
When I was a graduate student decades ago, I recall a seminar with political psychologist Harold Lasswell. He said that people who enter political life have, generally speaking, an even stronger desire than folks in other pursuits to be approved of, liked. It’s human nature, of course, but accentuated.
Second, in Illinois somewhat more than in most states, many people who enter politics do so with the objective of making political life their primary pursuit. This has been true in both Chicago politics as well as in hard-scrabble, deep southern Illinois. From Houses Speaker Mike Madigan and Alderman Ed Burke in Chicago to former Secretary of State Paul Powell in tiny Vienna, elected officials have gotten rich through politics.
So, elected officials have a strong need to do things for voters (spend money on them) and not do things to them (increase taxes to pay for the spending). Read More
•August 28, 2019•
By Mike Brothers
I was 16 years old when John Matthews took a gang of us to the drive in to see Easy Rider.
As he put on his parking lights and headed toward the back row of the Starlite driving his 1965 Chevelle we didn’t know what to expect from this movie.
Some of the elders at Fuzzie’s Cue and Grill told us we needed to see this movie with motorcycles so we were here.
Not only John and me, but four other people who made their way across the cemetery over the back fence of the drive in joined us.
Last Friday, Peter Fonda died at 79.
Back then he was better known as Wyatt at the helm of the Captain America chopper in a quest for freedom.
He and riding partner Billy, Dennis Hopper, having made a bunch of money from a drug sale, set off across America. Read More
•June 26, 2019•
By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois
Independent pharmacies that serve Medicaid patients in small communities in Illinois will soon start receiving additional payments from the state.
The Department of Healthcare and Family Services confirmed Monday that it has begun implementing a program lawmakers established in 2018 known as the Critical Access Care Pharmacy Program, which provides up to $10 million a year in additional reimbursements for independent, brick and mortar pharmacies located in counties with fewer than 50,000 people.
Under the program, qualifying pharmacies receive quarterly payments from the state, based on the number of prescriptions they fill that are reimbursed by the state’s Medicaid program.
A spokesperson for DHFS said Monday the agency does not have data reflecting how many Illinois pharmacies qualify for the program.
The program was included as part of the budget package that lawmakers approved during the 2018 session. It will be funded for a second year in the budget that takes effect July 1. Read More
•June 12, 2019•
By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist
Democratic Gov. J. B. Pritzker and the Legislature have gambled on a new direction for Illinois. The dramatic new course seeks to turn our state from a government mired in conflict, impasse and perennial deficits to that of big picture thinking, and big spending.
The two primary enactments this past month were a capital construction bill of breathtaking dimensions and a path toward significant higher income taxes to be imposed on the top 3 percent of earners.
The effects of the construction program for both transportation projects and vertical ones such as university laboratories and repairs will be felt almost immediately. An increase of 19 cents per gallon in gas taxes goes into effect July 1, along with sharp increases in licenses for drivers and their auto plates, as well as other fees.
Revenues from new casinos, sports betting, and more video terminals, always uncertain, are to pay for the university labs and other brick-and-mortar projects. I believe gambling revenue is fool’s gold and has been since the 1980s, when the lottery was sold as the solution to our school funding problems.
The possible income tax increases require us to vote in the November 2020 election on the issue of authorizing graduated, as opposed to the present flat, rates. If three-fifths of voters casting ballots on the issue say Yes, then rates on those with incomes above $250,000 will go as high as 7.99 percent, from the present 4.95 percent. Read More
•April 10, 2019•
By Harry Reynolds
Reynoldsharry1943.gmail.com
One of the obligations of a parent is to make their children eat things they hate. Where and when this sadistic practice emerged, no one really knows. Rare is a victory gained for a serving of broccoli.
The readers of this fine, non-fake newspaper, being of a high degree of intelligence and well-read, saturated in philosophy, science, mathematics, physics and President Donald Trump’s tweets, readily understand the impact of spit peas on history.
Historians believe the Roman Emperor Nero was driven mad when his daughter, Claudia Augusta bombarded his porridge with peas. He was so incensed that he bought a fiddle and set Rome on fire. This set off a chain of events which led to his demise.
In 1982, in his second year, our pugnacious son began spitting peas. My wife, similarly, bullheaded, resorted to subterfuge. She hid them in his mashed potatoes, which he ate readily enough, but nary a pea made it to his gullet. Read More
Measure would head off lawsuit in Douglas County
•April 10, 2019•
By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois
The Illinois Senate has passed and sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker a bill aimed at resolving a conflict in eastern Illinois over which unit of local government has authority to control zoning for wind farms.
House Bill 2298 provides that only a county may enact zoning regulations for wind farms in the rural parts of a county, outside the zoning jurisdiction of incorporated cities, even in counties that don’t have countywide zoning regulations.
The bill is aimed at Douglas County, where a Houston-based company, EDP Renewables North America LLC, plans build a 200-megawatt wind farm, known as the Harvest Ridge Wind Farm.
Douglas County is one of the few counties in Illinois that does not have a general countywide zoning system, but does have specific regulations for wind farms. Read More
Bill’s sponsor says current age limit of 14 in Illinois ‘overly restrictive’
•April 10, 2019•
By Grant Morgan
Capitol News Illinois
Illinois is one step closer to lowering from 14 to 12 the age at which a child may legally be left at home alone.
The bill, HB 2334, passed the House with a vote of 111-1 on Wednesday.
The bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Joe Sosnowski of Rockford, said the current law – the strictest in the nation for more than 25 years – was a legislative overreaction to a case from 1992, when a St. Charles couple left their 9- and 4-year-old children at home to vacation in Mexico.
Sosnowski said lowering the age to 12 would give parents more flexibility in deciding when their children are mature enough to be left at home alone or unsupervised. Read More