News Progress

•December 27, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

The Illinois Monument at the Kennesaw Mountain Civil War battlefield north of Atlanta is a rather nondescript vertical block of marble.

The monument stands atop Cheatham’s Hill, which the soldiers of the 85th and 125th Illinois Regiments almost but never quite reached on June 26, 1864. The marker commemorates the courage and cohesiveness of the men who came within 30 feet of the almost impregnable Confederate earthen parapets above the sharp rise.

Each holiday season I visit my sister’s family, who live near the park, outside Marietta, GA. And each year I am drawn back to Cheatham’s Hill.

I stand at the top of the hill, looking down from the dug earthen defenses, still evident. I wonder in awe how men could have marched in formation up the hill, sure to absorb a crippling fusillade from rifles stuck through the slits of space between the earth works and the braced logs atop.  Read More

•December 13, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I attended a spiffy wedding (cruel and unusual punishment) in Dallas this past Saturday, at a park on the Texas State Fairgrounds. After the reception, at a dinner table for eight with Dallas executives, both male and female, we played the “Where are you from; what do you do?” game.

I said, “From Illinois, was in politics and government much of my life.” I could swear I saw at least a couple of grimaces, and one noted the corruption in Illinois’ government. I could sense around the table all had their perceptions of Illinois—and they weren’t good.

Very briefly, I told them about all that we have in Illinois, the hard-to-beat infrastructure, the booming Loop in downtown Chicago and, to get in a dig, all the bounteous water we have. “Oh, guess I didn’t know that,” responded one of them.

And they don’t “know” that. They and all of us live largely in a world of perceptions, all having probably a grain of truth or more, but certainly not the whole, or even correct, picture. Read More

•December 6, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Years ago I co-taught a college-credit course at the state prison in Galesburg. I can still hear the metal doors slamming behind me as I was processed in each time. Staff and inmates all looked grim, all the time. Gangs ran the place. It was scary.

Downtown at the Amtrak station, passengers would cast furtive glances each morning at the several young men in the same grey sweats and tennies, carrying pitiful small bags with their belongings.

We knew who they were, and they knew we knew. Passengers kept their distance. Welcome back to society, boys.

This past week, I visited the Kewanee Life Skills Re-Entry Center, also in central Illinois, opened this past February in a former juvenile justice facility. Warden Anthony Williams tells me it is the only facility in the country focused on intensive efforts to transition inmates, all at medium to high risk of reoffending, back into society with real skills for doing so.

They are going to come out one way or another, Williams says. “Our mission is to cut down the number who come back to prison.” In Illinois, 45 percent do so within three years. Read More

•November 22, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

What do we do in Illinois when there is basically nothing we can do about policies most of us want changed?

Three such come immediately to mind: redistricting, term limits and our public pension albatross.

The Illinois Supreme Court has twice rejected recent efforts by citizens to put on the ballot a proposal to take redistricting away from lawmakers and give the job to an independent commission.

This, so that Democratic House speaker Mike Madigan can no longer gerrymander districts. A friend of mine toted up the votes in 2014 and found that 50.5 percent of the voters statewide voted Democratic in House elections, yet that party garnered 60 percent of the House seats. (By the way, Republicans majorities in many other states do the same thing.) Read More

•November 15, 2017•

By Erin Valentine
NP Guest Columnist

There’s nothing like a shopping day with friends.

Karen, Becky and I went on our first two outings this fall, thanks to a Facebook promotion for a road trip to shops in Warrensburg, Normal, Champaign, Taylorville and Springfield.

Five shops in five weeks to get our card punched at each stop for the chance to win $500. We had from Sept. 30-Nov. 4 to make our stops.

We began at The Perfect Pair in Warrensburg, then on to Clinton for lunch at LaTeaDa tea room. Then to Beyond Normal (Normal) and to Texture Home in Champaign. We correctly estimated that one day was too much for all five stops. So the second trip found us headed to Taylorville to Dear Yesteryear, then to Springfield to Recycled Cottage to turn in our cards, and lunch at Incredibly Delicious.

So far, none of us has received the winner’s call. Read More