Actually, Sue and I have been giving each other the same bug for the last 3 weeks. As soon as one of us starts to get better, we have a replapse and our temps spike and the whole cough/sneeze/runny nose thing starts all over.

I’ve almost been over the damn thing twice. It’s something that happens every spring for some reason - Feb-March. No matter what we do, we can’t shake the damn thing.

Anyway, the last few mornings I can barely drag myself around to do my work - no time for the blog. Hopefully, things will get back to normal this week.

ed.

In a previous youthful incarnation, I was a reporter and eventually a manager for a major publisher. At that time, which was not really all that long ago, even the smaller dailies had semblances of bureaus and all had beat reporters. Those have disappeared.

I don’t dispute the motive you attributed to Herbert. I agree that if his goal is to promote Jesse Jackson, Jr., that also is fine. Where I find the problem, even though he writes opinion, is when he misrepresents (perhaps unintentionally, which makes it evenw worse in a way) basic facts.

Like it or not, we are a media-driven society. People assume what they read and hear to be an accurate summary of facts. While even desks and beat reporters got things wrong, at least there was a possiblity the editors would catch it. That is the past. We can bitch all we want about how the American people have been dumbed down, but unless they have access to accurate information we can’t totally fault them. Yes, they would do independent research in a perfect world but they no longer have the time.

Herbert’s readers probably were convinced the Chicago area needs a third airport and this all well and good. I wish your letter would be published, or another like it to illuminate them, but it won’t be. That’s where the bad motive lies.

There would have to be an annual budget with a built in growth of 12% each year to account for some overruns and new “arrangements”, with a 5-year boost of 50% to catch up the arrears. All told, a magnificent project for the Machine–oh! and Chicago, eventually…

y’know, there might be some real merit to that. As Mr.M noted, the political scene in Illinois is corrupt, and almost certainly will stay that way. By creating a specific centeralized “graft project”, you’d essentially have a graft budget so a reasonable expendature could be incorporated into the state’s finances, and hopefully by creating a specific feeding trough the pols would be encouraged to stop grafting other projects. It could be like “heroin parks” for politicians. And since the project is something nobody actually wants built, there would be no negative consequenes when it never gets finished.

I’m smelling a winner, here.

The problem with O’Hare is most often weather, which Peotone will do nothing to improve.