Peoria Pundit

I’ve heard enough (anything at all seems too much) about pregnant teenagers and flag pins. Let’s talk about the issues.
According to Time magazine, this is what John McCain and Barak Obama have to say on particular issues.

First up on the block is the only other thing in life that is cetain, besides death – TAXES.
What have the candidates said about this issue?

McCain said he would:
• Keep taxes low and cut them where he could.
• Double the child tax exemption from $3,500 to $7,000.
• Cut the business tax rate to help American companies compete and keep jobs from moving overseas.

Obama said he would:
• Cut taxes “for 95 percent of all working families.”
• “Eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses” and start-ups “that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.”
• Advocate “a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.”
• “Stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas” and “start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.”

Anon E. Mouse Analysis:
Mr. McCain offers up, perhaps, the only actual objective “promise” out of the convention oratory. Doubling the Child Tax Exemption from $3,500 to $7,000. Keeping taxes low is important to many folks who look at the difference between the gross and net numbers son their paychecks every week and want to cry. Please tell me how you are going to make sure that your new tax breaks for corporations are going to keep jobs in the USA and not just line pockets of the big shots that sit on the Board of Directors.

Mr. Obama*, at least in this analysis, offers up rhetoric. What does he mean when he says “95% of all working families”? This sounds great but please define “working family.” Also, please define “small business.” Please cite examples of the tax code you wish to change – especially examples of those that seem to be written by lobbyists. I have no doubt they exist, but it just sounds awfully vague.

*I know my criticisms appear a bit one-sided. On this subject, I believe they are warranted. As this series progresses, you should see that I criticize both candidates for being vague or having nothing to say at all on some subjects.

Coming up next: Education

The Peoria Police Vice Unit has not updated their pictures of prostitutes and johns since January. According to the PPD Vice site:

All photos and information will automatically be removed 1 year from the date of arrest. This section will be updated on an as needed basis for as long as this information remains a useful tool to the citizens of Peoria.

Maybe there is no longer a problem with prostitution and pandering in Peoria. Perhaps this program has run its course and is no longer “a useful tool.” However, in a letter from Chief of Police Settingsgaard to the PJStar and posted on the PPD website,a s well, the Chief calls posting the pictures of prostitutes and johns on the web “a good idea and we will pursue it vigorously. We will pursue it because it is the right thing to do and because we were sworn to protect; not to protect criminals from the consequences of the illegal behavior but rather to protect the victims who suffer from those criminals.”

Whatever the case may be, the PPD either needs to update the site at least monthly or take it down.

Today was my day off, and the weather was sorta nice, so I made the trek downhill to have some pushcart fare for lunch.

I managed to catch the tail end of the day’s “Arts in Education”  presentation at the Peoria County Courthouse plaza. I got to hear a gaggle of sixs and seven-year-olds students sing.

The song?  “It Takes a Village at Valeska Hinton.”

I don’t mean to be rude of insulting to the kids at the Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Education Center or their parents. They sang wonderfully, and their parents and family members were so proud.

But seriously, I kept thinking of kids at some Soviet collective being trotted out to sing about the wisdom of the latest Five Year Plan.

I’m not going to comment about the authenticity of this alleged African proverb (there’s NO evidence this originated in Africa) or the fact it’s generally used to promote the sort of cradle to crave social spending programs that make families less responsible for raising kids than taxpayers (i.e. the villagers who pay the bills).

If you’ve ever heard District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton talk about Valeska Hinton, it’s clear he thinks it is the pinnacle of education success. He wanted the school that was to replace Glen Oak School to be a mirror of Valeska Hinton, even down to how it looked.

The parents and neighbors just wanted a neighborhood school. They liked the education their kids were getting because they were involved, in part because they could walk to school to pick up their kids, chat with teachers and volunteer. Neighborhood schools let them be the sort involved parents that virtually ever teacher and administrator has ever told me is the greatest single indicator a child will succeed academically.

But Ken Hinton didn’t get his way. The Peoria Park District wouldn’t let District 150 build  the new school where he wanted. That frustrated Hinton, and he vowed to screw over the villagers in the East Bluff by denying them any school. But in the end, District 150 was forced by public opinion to hold public hearings. They would get two new schools to replace the four that D150 marked for closure. One would be on the East Bluff, the other would be in the valley.

Their neighborhood schools were saved, and the villagers were happy.

Now, Ken Hinton managed to convince his school board — not that I imagine there was a lot of arm twisting needed for this compliant pack of sheep — to cut 45 minutes of instructional time from every district primary school, and two teachers from each school will be, essentially gutting art and music.

The villagers are almost universally opposed. Seriously, I have not spoken to any single person who doesn’t depend on Ken Hinton’s goodwill for a paycheck who thinks this is a good thing.

But Hinton, still frustrated at not getting his way with Glen Oak School, is digging in his heels. He’s the king of this village, and by God, no stupid, ignorant villagers are going to tell him what do it.

The only thing he wants from villagers is their tax money. Other than that, they can pound sand.

“It takes a village” means the king makes the rules, the villagers pay their taxes and show up to hear their children sing about the glory of the village.

And it’s going to stay this way until the villagers make a change.

MSNBC: MSNBC – A call for limits on children’s food ads

Responding to an explosion in ads for food that targets children, a consumer group Wednesday proposed nutrition-based limits on marketing aimed at kids that would halt ads for sugary snacks and fatty foods.

Suggested guidelines from the Center for Science in the Public Interest would restrict ads to those drinks made mostly from juice or without added sugars, and those foods low in fat, added sugars and salt.

“The problem with food marketing these days is that it almost exclusively is used to encourage children to eat unhealthy foods,” said Margo Wootan, the center’s director of nutrition.

Here we go again. The food Nazis want to limit people’s free speech rights in order to promote their favorite cause. Just because it’s commercial speech, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t not speech — and needs to be protected.

People, we can run nothing put ads for fresh veggies on Saturday mornimg television, kids are still going to want to eat sweet, salty junk. The taste buds do not lie.

And I’m not aware of many poor defenseless children who make their families weekly grocery store purchases. In other words: It’s parents’ responsibility. And I don’t want to hear that it’s too hard and that you can’t control your own children. Stop looking for the government to babysit everyone’s kids because you are too stupid and/or lazy to do the job yourself.

There’s a blog titled, I kid you not, called "This blog is full of crap." It’s not the brightest marketing move in history.

But the guy has been posting articles about the need for some sort of standard policy about blog payola.

And what is blog payola? Well, "payola" is easy enough to define. Dictionary.com says that it is: "Bribery of an influential person in exchange for the promotion of a
product or service, such that of disc jockeys for the promotion of
records."

So it follows that blog payola is when bloggers get free stuff in exchange for positive mentions on their blog.

I can see certain Big Cheese bloggers taking freebees in exchange for glowing reviews of their products, like computers, digital cameras and the like, You know, stuff that bloggers and the people who read blogs might buy.

There’s a blogger out there who keeps getting books. Which he never reads. He gives them away to the first person who asks.

Which is a good thing. One of my journalism professors at Eastern Illinois University once made a ton of enemies in his own profession for writing an investigative piece about book reviewers who were making money selling their freebies.

As a reult, the idea that journalists shouldn’t be taking stuff from the people they write about is pretty deeply imprinted into my nearly senile and calcified brain.

Now, don’t get me wrong. if I’m walking down the street and someone if handing out free stuff, I’ll take it. Provided the stuff is something the law allows me to possess, and if the giver doesn’t expect anything in return.

But infortunately, I used to be a journalist. And one of the things they taught us at journalism school is that payola is bad. There was a whole chapter in our text book and everything.

And even though I have sworn a mighty and terrible oath to never practice journalism again, that early brainwashing took.

So, imagine my quandry (gee, I’ve used "quandry" three times in the last two days) the time I took an assignment from the River City Times to report on Peoria’s growing Mexican population.

I visited one of the businesses that had grown to serve this growing population, La Mexicana restaurant. I knew about this place before I started writing the story. It serves great food, and although it is kinda small (it’s  located in the former Dairy Queen on Northeast Jefferson, for crying out loud).

So, I went in with Alex Eguia-Lis, another Peoria blogger and a buddy of mine, who is a native of Mexico and a friend of owner, Jose Espanza. Alex would translate, if necessary. Well, of course, we had lunch as we waited for a chance to interview him.

After it was all over, I have a full stomach and a full notebook.

I reached into my wallet to pay for my meal and Alex gently shook his head. Mr. Espanza was picking up the check. I started to object, but I followed Alex’s lead.

Alex said outside the restaurant that had I insisted on paying, Mr. Espanza would have taken it as an insult. And the freebie was more for Alex’s benefit, he said, because he brought new customers into the place.

Well, I can’t let this guy pay for my meal beause I’m writing a story, That’s not ethical, I replied.

Just overtip the next time you eat there, Alex said.

And that was my plan. I mean, c’mon. Even if I was the kinda guy who took freebies from the people I write about, I wouldn’t take stuff from a guy who probably works 80 hours a week, or more, behind a hot stove in a tiny, little diner.

When the issue came out, I returned to La Mexicana  with a handful of copies. They all seemed happy and I ordered lunch. Not only was the food great, Mr. Espanza placed a big heaping plate of fried ice cream on my plate.

Uh-oh.

I should have known what was coming. He refused to let me pay. I put up a fight, but I didn’t argue too much, because I didn’t want to insult the guy.

I called Alex and asked him that the next time he was in there, puh-lease tell Mr. Espanza that I have to be allowed to pay for my own meals.

It’s been more than a month, and I’m jonesing for some soft-shelled steak tacos. And I miss his smiling, always-friendly staff.

But I’m afraid to go in there.

Damn you, ethics! Damn you!

WEEK: No Violation.

School board president Aaron Schock and Harrison principal Aurthur Perkins did not break District 150 ethics policies.

That decision late Thursday afternoon from the Peoria School Board of Education Ethics Commission.

Community activist Ernestine Jackson filed two complaints against Schock and Perkins in October.

First she alleged Perkins’ TV commercial ad endorsing Schock for State Representative broke policy and second, a picture in the Illinois Reader of Shock with students at Harrison Primary School was also a violation.

Ethic board member George Burdette said, ”We considered all the information provided by Mrs. Jackson. The commission concluded that these issues were not covered by ethics policy or relevant to original complaint, unanimous decision of ethics commission…complaint is denied.”

First of all, Ernestine Jackson, wife of local NAACP president Donald Jackson, is an old friend of my father. And, Don represented my father and his co-workers against their former employer, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

So I will try to be a little gentle here, for these reasons and because I respect their efforts on the behalf of black people and the community in general.

I just find it completely insane that Mrs. Jackson filed an ethics complaint that essentially took the position that this person — who happened to be black — had no businesses participating in the electoral process. It just doesn’t make sense, except when viewed as a way to get back at Schock for helping to dumb Kay Royster as superintendent of Peoria School District 150.

It should be the role of the NAACP to defend these rights.

My nephew Neil mailed me a reply to a post about 2nd Amendment rights.

"If you combine the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Australia you’ll get a population roughly the size of the United States. We had 32,000 gun deaths last year. They had 112. Do you think it’s because Americans are more homicidal by nature? Or do you think it’s because those guys have gun control laws?"

He didn’t take kindly to my suggestion that if he would feel safer living in these places, he might consider moving. So I sent him this more serious reply:

"The 2nd Amendment isn’t about hunting rights. It’s about protecting civil liberties. It’s about protecting your liberties.

"Germany was a fascist state whose citizens did not have the power to fight back. Same thing with Japan. France, Sweden and Denmark were conquered by these same Germans and Japanese. Great Britain and Australia — while staunch allies and deserving of every ounce of my respect today — needed us to save them from Germany and Japan.

"Today, all of these nations you mentioned needed out help[ to provide their bulk of their defense against lawyer and more threatening neighbors. Even today, while Russia isn’t officially Communist, events in Ukraine show us that Russia still nurtures ambitions of Empire.

"And let us look at other peace-loving nations that deprive citizens the right to own firearms: China. Vietnam, Cuba.

"Neil, it’s obvious that you enjoy the benefits of living in the most powerful and most free nation on Earth. You have no first-hand comparison to any other situation. You cannot conceive of America of being anything but powerful and free. You don’t realize that this state of existence did not come about by accident. It came about by design.

"Forget the revisionist history you learned from left-leaning teachers at high school and Duke University. Our Founding Fathers were not a bunch of rich guys just out to avoid their taxes. They were well-read men, dedicated to establishing a nation that would work for the long haul. They studied the political scientists of their day. The studied the histories or ancient Rome and Greece. Our nation is the culmination of more than a century of Enlightenment ideals put to use.

"They set up a nation on a foundation with three pillars: Freedom of Speech and the Press, the Right to Self Government and the Right of People to Own the Means to Revolt. The writings of our founding fathers makes it clear that they wanted us to have the power to do so, and that they considered it likely this may need to happen. I think they would be surprised there hasn’t been more of it, frankly.

"Should any of these pillars fall, Democracy cannot stand. What good is the power of free speech and the power to elect our own leaders if the citizens do not have the means to insist should the government decide to do away with elections and newspapers?

"And you cannot tell me that generals and demagogues have not sit around, sipping brandy, discussing how wonderful it would be indeed without those pesky reporters and the need to run for re-election all the damn time.

"There is a word for people who do not have the means to fight back. That word is ’serf.’ If you want to be a surf, that’s fine. Feel free to enjoy the freedom you do. even though you are letting others do your fighting for you.

"We’ve lasted for more than 200 years. Let’s not assume that we will last for another 200 simply through inertia."

Don’t spank little Neil too hard people. Pity him. He learned liberal group think from his mother, and his expensive East Coast education cemented his mind that way.

NOTE: I am temporarily turning off comments on this post. Some regular commenters need to learn to play nice. No, I’m not going to repeat the comment that offended me, and I’m not leaving this post open for cheap shots at other commenters, whose words I have deleted.

People: Grow the Hell up. Learn to behave between now and when I get back from work, OK?

The feature article is an interview I did with Rev. Timothy Criss,
Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy and two residents of the neighborhood
where many of the dead and missing women were last seen.
It was obvious that the law enforcement community and the black
community see this thing from different angles. Both of them are right
and both of them are wrong. But they both seem to be working together
despite these differences and the hurt feelings and mistrust.

My two cents about this mess is that the cops aren’t and weren’t as unconcerned as a lot of people assumed they were. Nor were they as
concerned as they would have been had the race and economic status of
the victims been different.

But then, the same thing could be said about the white community
here in Peoria. Face it, this is not huge concern for most white people
and most people who don’t have much to do with Peoria south of the
bluffs.

That needs to change.

The new River City Times is available at the following locations:

Alwan Brothers
Bella Mani
Bradley University
Buffalo Wild Wings
Carrigan’s
Co-op Records
Cub Foods
Don’s Musicland
Eagles Nest
Echo Valley Meats
Elmore’s Musical Warehouse
Exhibit A Gallery
Firehouse Bar & Grill
Grandpa John’s Rib Shack
Holiday Inn Brandywine
Holiday Inn City Center
Illinois Central College
Jenerations
JJ Ryan’s
Jubilee Foods
Kroger
Mulligans
One World Coffee
P.S. Nice Tan
Schnucks Foods
Shell Gas Stations
Speedway Gas
Thorton’s East Peoria
Tomcat’s Back Alley

… and many others.

Journal Star: Families march through downtown.

Tamika Donelson marched through Downtown Peoria on Thursday because she wants people to know that her mother was a loving and caring person.

Her mother, Wanda Jackson, was found dead March 21, 2001, and is the first of 10 dead or missing women who share a similar profile.

Jackson was the mother of nine children and several grandchildren, Donelson said. She was a "happy spirit" and spent as much time as she could with her children.

People in Peoria are aware of these dead women, but they have a negative image that they are "not good people and not loved," Donelson said

"That is not the case," stated Donelson, pointing to the people gathered to remember the missing and dead. These are their family members who love them very much, she said.

About 30 people marched from the George Washington Carver Center, 710 W. Third St., to the Peoria County Courthouse in order to raise awareness of the case. A few cars passing the group standing at the corner of Adams and Main streets honked in support, and some passersby stopped to join as the group grew to more than 40 people by the march’s conclusion.

I was at the march, and reporter Tom McKenzie’s account is an accurate one.

I was disappointed in the fact that of the 40 or so people who eventually were among the marchers, about five were white.

Part of this may be due to the fact that this march didn’t get a whole lot of advance publicity. I found out about it the day before. But I would be lying to say that white Peorians feel the same ownership of this problem as do black Peorians.

That’s a shame, and its an attitude that needs to be corrected.

Does anyone think that the problems of drug abuse and prostitution are on;y black problems, because they are practices in neighborhoods with large black populations? Who do you think are buying the drugs and the services of the women addicted to these drugs?
 

Journal Star: Posters will warn of lottery scam.

Several Pekin area residents have been victimized by the telephone promise of large winnings from a Canadian lottery.

"When those people go to that location to wire money, that is the last possible point where we can try to prevent this crime," [former Pekin Police officer Dean] Bacon said.

Bacon, who is also the coordinator for Operation Senior Security with the Center for Prevention of Abuse, said the poster also will be displayed at banks in the Tri-County Area.

 

"I came up with it because I was searching for something else . . . something more on how we can prevent this," Bacon said. "Its taken a lot of money from people."

Bacon said the campaign is being funded by Western Union.

 

Bacon said the scam has hit elderly women in Pekin, Eureka, Farmington and Washington.

Let’s take a poll: People who target elderly people for these scams should be:

A. Covered in peanut better, tied to a post and fed to flesh eating hogs.

B. Lowered by pulley, feet first, into the blades of a jet turbine.

C. Forced to watch a "Family Matters"/"Full open by tooth pics, ala "A Clockwork Orange."

D. A & B, but not C, because C is too cruel.