Bits and Pieces

Failing Inner City Schools

When a neighborhood school suffers from low attendance numbers, the school becomes too limited to work well for the remaining students. Such schools should be closed and their resources combined with the system to provide better education to the whole. School choice has helped create this issue. This is good for those students. The downside is evisceration of some local school buildings.

The answer is developing magnet schools throughout the city to accommodate students with specific interests and talents. Busing the kids is a must under this scenario. I see no other answer.

One answer for now is closing the underperforming schools. They are no longer viable and their resources must be shared back into the system to make better opportunities available to all the students in the system. This is not a neighborhood thing. It is a resource management issue that, when managed properly, will help education respond to the needs of the students and society.

Football Losses for Bears

Does it really matter whether the Bears win or lose? How much money is spent on this losing team? It has lost more games than it has won. This is true for its entire history as a team. If winning is so important, then do something about it. Otherwise, please leave it alone. Sports is not the be-all and end-all of modern day life. Jobs, food, education, careers, and social issues are. Not sports and their scores. I realize I'm in the minority here, but...

Challenger for Rauner 

Governor Rauner will have a primary challenger in Wheaton resident Jeanne Ives. She purports to be disgusted by the lack of accomplishments by our erstwhile governor. I agree Rauner has been nearly worthless in office. But replacing him with Ives is a larger mistake. Her conservatism is so vile and lopsided, it will make our broken state worse and lower its status to below junk bond rating. She is a government minimalist. She won’t be satisfied until all schools are private. All taxes will be minimized to fire, police and military. What she plans for roads, infrastructure and governance ala mode is anyone’s guess. This is a guess left well alone I think.

Quiet Fly Zone at Ohare

Economic development in the Chicago region has placed heavy bets on a dynamic and efficient regional airport. Ohare has the funding. It has the mission. Area residents, however, have always wished for a quieter Ohare. That will only come with quieter planes. Or a depression that avoids all planes operating in our region. Or maybe we should just move Ohare to an open area in neighboring farmlands, say 50 miles west of the city? But then, won’t that spur economic development there and away from Chicago and its suburbs?

Perhaps the residents near Ohare should sell their property to Ohare and allow it to prosper and grow in place. The residents will need to relocate of course; but I wonder; will they do so far away from plane traffic? Or will they remain nearby in spite of their complaints?

Morality Play or Abuse of Politics?

This is an ‘or’ question. Evidently morality in politics has already been decided. It is OK for elected officials to pander and dilly dally with sexual partners of choice (or abuse) because their votes and ideologies are more important to key decision makers. The president says so; and of course, he would know because of his own dilly dallying. Roy Moore is acceptable in trump’s eyes because the morality doesn’t matter; only the votes.

If that’s true, then what do we do with the cultural icons who make our symphonies and opera companies so excruciatingly wonderful? Or maybe the definition of ‘votes’ doesn’t extend that far?

December 11, 2017