News Progress

•November 21, 2018•

By Dann Gire
Film critic of the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald

Maybe Illinois has produced so many cool movies because it offers such a vastly diverse spectrum of locations to tell highly visual stories.
Or maybe our state has pumped out impressive pictures because the Illinois Film Office and Chicago Film Office cut through red tape for appreciative filmmakers.
Or, maybe Illinois seals those deals with its attractive 30-percent tax credit on film production costs. (Being the only state in the union with a diversity provision as part of its tax credits can’t hurt.)
Many local scenes turn up in iconic Illinois-filmed motion pictures such as “The Blues Brothers,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Home Alone,” “The Breakfast Club” and “The Fugitive.” Here are eight others filmed at locations across the state that are worth a special mention, too. Read More

•November 14, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

As a result of the election Tuesday, Democrats are totally—I mean totally—in charge of Illinois government. Governor-elect J. B. Pritzker won a resounding victory and his party achieved more than 3/5ths majorities in both the House and Senate. And the Illinois Supreme Court continues to have a Democratic majority, as has been the case continuously since 1962.
This offers an unusual opportunity in Illinois for voters to place credit or blame, with some clarity, over the coming four years with one political party.
For most of the past half century, Illinois government has been divided, with Republicans often holding the governorship and Dems one or both chambers of the legislature. Even when Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches under Blagojevich and Quinn (2002-2014), these governors were often at odds with their legislative leaders.
In contrast, under parliamentary governments (think Canada and the United Kingdom), government is unified. Those nations do not have separate executives and legislatures; the chief executive (prime minister) is selected from within the party that controls the legislative branch (parliament).
So, it is easier for voters to assess blame or credit in parliamentary systems, as it will be in Illinois over the coming term of governor-elect Pritzker. Read More

CLAY JACKSON, HERALD & REVIEW
Great War Living History Enthusiast Ian Houghton talks about Britain’s involvement in World War I during the World War I Encampment at Monticello Railway Museum on Aug. 19, 2017. The event, sponsored by the Monticello Railway Museum and the Illinois State Military Museum, signified the departure of Illinois Army National Guard troops to Camp Logan, Texas, for mobilization training from September to October 1917.

•November 7, 2018•

By Tony Reid
Of the Herald & Review

Artie Bennett, a Marine from Clinton, was cut down by a hail of bullets 100 years ago in a far-flung foreign field, giving his life for his country in America’s first global war.
A letter home from a fellow soldier said Bennett, 18, had been attacking a machine gun nest as the Marines fought, successfully, to stem a German advance threatening the French capital of Paris in June 1918, the last summer of World War I.
The fallen Marine had lingered for an hour before dying, one of the first casualties from Illinois. The letter honoring him, typed by fellow Marine Pvt. John W. Olsen, read: “He passed away quietly, without a complaint, and was laid to rest near where he fell.”
Immaculately tended American cemeteries in France, and faded memorials at home, are among the few tangible reminders of the “Great War” that began on July 28, 1914, and ended, after 18 million soldiers and civilians had died on all sides, with an armistice that went into effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918. Read More

•October 31, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

This is the seventh and final column on “What the next Illinois governor and legislature must do.”
In an old cartoon, Pogo surveyed the world around him and declared: We have discovered the enemy—and it is us! So it may be in Illinois. We are so glum about our fiscal, tax, political and corruption problems that many of my friends have given up on Illinois. And their dour attitude is infectious.
We all need a strong dose of Norman Vincent Peale’s power of positive thinking, which can also be infectious.
First, we are not alone in our travails. Many states face big problems. Coastal states are being hammered by more frequent and more ferocious storms. Texas and the Southwest are ever more beastly hot and desperately parched, wondering where their next drop will come from. California has not only punishing taxes but also housing prices that are pushing many out of that state.
Yet some states with big problems thrive. Minnesota has an individual income tax top marginal rate that is twice that of our tax: 9.85 percent versus our 4.95 rate. And winters that can be brutal. Yet Minnesota has a healthy, growing economy and increasing population.
For most of our state’s history, our great strengths—location in the middle of the country, dense networks of interstate highways and railroads, the nation’s leading airport for domestic and international connections, an incredibly vibrant central-city Chicago, copious surface and underground water supplies, and much higher than typical percentages of population with bachelor’s and advanced degrees—have made Illinois a leader among the states in innovation and wealth. Read More

•October 24, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Much of Downstate Illinois (the vast 94-county region outside the 8 metro-Chicago counties) appears to be dying.
Recently at mid-day, I went out onto the three-block main street of my county-seat town—and there wasn’t a solitary auto on the streets of my once-lively little burg!
Mid-size cities like Peoria and Decatur have also been hurt, by the flight of flagship corporate offices to Chicagoland. Several downstate public universities have seen enrollments implode, their host communities twisting in the wind.
The population loss that Illinois suffered in recent years is almost wholly from Downstate.
Our state is one of interdependent regions. The suburbs wouldn’t exist were it not for Chicago. And Chicago wouldn’t exist absent the 19th Century synergies with Downstate (and the Midwest), which sent its corn and hogs to Chicago, and then to the East.
Today, however, metropolitan Chicago has to prop up Downstate schools, universities, parks and social services. Chicagoland sends much more in taxes to Springfield than it gets back in services. Downstate takes the rest.
We’re better than that, Downstate. We don’t want to be a drag on Illinois.
But where and how to start, if we want over time to rebuild our region? Read More