•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

•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 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

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

•April 3, 2019•

By Evelyn Burtcheard
for the News Progress

Each spring Dad would take on the job of breaking two to four head of horses for other farmers. He would use our team of Molly and Queen to break the young horses to work in the fields.
Dad would hitch the new horse next to Queen who was a big, unflappable strawberry roan horse that knew what her job was and did it well. She would brook no nonsense from any other horse young or old.
As her name stated she was the Queen. The young horses would try to pull away, ahead, back just about anything except go straight forward with no fuss. Queen would put up with their antics for a while, then she would start by laying her ears back and threatening to bite. If the young horse did not heed her warnings, then the next threat would become a promise, and she would bite, usually on the neck. A few of these encounters and the young horse began to work as it was supposed to.
Once in a while Molly would act as though she had gone senile, and Queen would put her in her place. Dad always said Queen was worth any two horses on the farm. Read More