The Triumph hog plant has been hanging fire for 5 years or so. Current Mayor John Thodos said, “This project is already four or five years old, so if anyone has patience, I do.” Thodos came in as Mayor, displacing Jose “Joe” Moreno in a race that saw many discrepancies at a ward level and, I have no doubt, would have shown even more discrepancies had the recount been done city-wide. As the 1st Ward candidate who paid for a recount and has written about the really astonishing irregularities that occurred in just one small ward (i.e., voters who did not exist…but whose addresses were the residences of employees of then-Democratic County Chairman John Gianulis; 3 people in a booth at once; dying people signing absentee ballots that they knew nothing about; actual miscounting of the absentee ballots, proven during a paid-for recount), it has been with some interest that I have watched the progress (or lack thereof) in the city of East Moline since that election.

Most, if not all, of the plans that Mayor Moreno had laid out for the city, which included a downtown Farmers’ Market area among others and a “Revitalize East Moline” committee of leaders in the area, but did not include a giant hog plant that would slaughter 16,000 hogs a day, were buried when Mayor Thodos’ ascended to the throne.   Mayor Thodos recently tried to run (unsuccessfully) for a different county-wide office, so it is clear that he viewed the Mayor’s office only as a stepping-stone in his political career.

Under Mayor Thodos, East Moline has been left “out of the loop,” the Loop being the all-Quad City bus loop. The downtown has continued to deteriorate and businesses have continued to flee. Representative Phil Hare (D, IL) says that “There is 25% unemployment in the building trades right now, and this (Triumph plant) would put at least 600 people to work on construction.  We shouldn’t summarily thumb our nose at these jobs because of something that potentially might happen.  We can act out of fear again or we can act out of trying to improve our economy.” Those of us reading about the impending hog plant might also add, “or we can act intelligently, but in the best long-term interests of the community.”

This last sentiment regarding remediating any odor or groundwater problems the plant creates seems valid and admirable, but there are many who are less enthused…like those who live in East Moline near the plant or those who know the ins-and-outs of giant hog confinement plants, which are growing in number and size. It’s a bit like the BP Gulf Disaster. Wouldn’t an ounce of prevention have been worth a pound of the not-that-successful cure we’ve seen for the past many months?

 In 1980, U.S. hog and farm operations, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, numbered 666,550. As of 2009, there were only 71,450 as small family farmers were gobbled up by large hog confinement operations.  There were 30,000 Illinois hog and pig farming operations in 1980, but the numbers declined with each passing decade, to approximately half that number in 1990 (15,300) to 5,100 in 2000 to only 2,900 in 2007. A drop from 30,000 operations to less than 3,000 in under 30 years is not only astounding, it is over a 90% drop in the old-fashioned family farm(s) of my youth.

Representative Phil Hare, aware of the opposition of some in the community who do not want the hog plant in their back yard, did say, “I would not support the facility for a minute if I thought we were going to have environmental problems.  Triumph is not getting a pass here.  Should any environmental degradation occur, immediate remediation would be necessary.” This sounds admirable, but the fact is that, if a gigantic hog processing plant is placed close to East Moline, factory hog  farms of the same scale cannot be far behind. This is proven by the statistics of our own U.S. Department of Agriculture, just cited. The number of hogs or pigs, per farm, in thousands, has been consistently rising, moving up from fewer than 500 hogs per facility to numbers of 2,000 or more in the years since 1992.

There are knowledgeable opponents, like Jerry Neff, chairman of the local Sierra Club, who say, “It’s a huge plant being built on a wetland and a flood plain that could end up flooding nearby homes.” Max Muller of the Environment Illinois non-profit advocacy group says, “The facility will increase demand for food animals that will probably be met by factory farms in Illinois.  We already have all sorts of environmental problems from factory farms, including manure spills into waterways and odor issues.  Until we clean up regulation of factory farm pollution, we don’t want to be furthering demand for the products from them.”

Triumph is a Missouri-based processor which pays approximately $12.10 an hour, which amounts to approximately $25,100 a year in annual salary, according to spokesman Pat Lilly, who says that construction on the hotly-debated plant could start this spring.

81% of all U.S. hogs are raised in facilities that house 2000+ animals. The toll to small operators and the small family farm has been catastrophic.  To further demonstrate that the plant and the animals (and the problems?) are coming, Triumph officials, who did not agree to be interviewed for the  “Tribune” story, confirmed that they already have contracts with suppliers for hogs to be raised in confinement facilities and raised specifically to be slaughtered at the controversial East Moline plant.

This particular Triumph plant would slaughter 16,000 hogs a day, but taxpayers in the area were asked for millions in local tax breaks. The tax breaks required unanimous approval by 5 local city councils and there was one hold-out back in 2005. Just months later, now-disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich resuscitated the project with an economic package worth $16 million (while defaulting on a promise to the Silvis Schools to provide $11.4 million for a new school.)

By 2007, Triumph had purchased 116 acres of land in East Moline on which to build. East Moline applied for a $4.8 million economic development grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce, for water and sewer construction on the site. The company is still eligible for the state’s $16 million package, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, but the department would neither confirm nor deny whether it was discussing this funding with the company, and Triumph Foods was not talking.

Foes of the Triumph meat processing plant’s location in East Moline of the Illinois Quad Cities include Art Norris, who is a former hog farmer. He described the treatment of animals raised in such facilities as “inhumane” and said the staggering amount of feces created by hogs and the number of plants already discharging into the Rock River are signs that the plant will do the damage that Representative Hare says the city of East Moline would then have to take steps to remediate. No “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” thinking here; just “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Norris continues, “Triumph has already said that a lot of this meat will be going to Japan, so they get the meat and we get the waste the plant leaves behind.” It should be noted that Norris has been dubbed the Quad Cities’ Waterkeeper by a national advocacy group aimed at protecting waterways from pollution.

The fact is that large plants like the one proposed for East Moline by Triumph attract undocumented workers who are more vulnerable to unfair labor practices. These undocumented workers strain social services, including medical and educational facilities. The poorest city in the state of Iowa (Columbus Junction) is one where a huge meat processing plant is located, quite near Iowa City, and the University has found it necessary to take a mobile bus approach to providing any kind of medical services to the poor workers who staff the plant and have no medical benefits for themselves or their children. I attended a meeting about diagnosing ADD and ADHD in such children of workers, as well as providing pap smears and other routine health care to the impoverished workers, who often do not speak English as their native language.

Even more stunning than the indifference to those in the community who have pointed to hog confinement plants, with their large lagoons of manure, as unattractive and dangerous to the ground water of the area is the feeling that, as Bill Wundram phrases it, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?” Yes, somebody is here and cares, but there seems to be little interest in listening to those who are not quite as convinced that “a job is a job is a job” is the right philosophy. With 25% unemployment in the building trades, 600 people needed to build such a behemoth of a plant, and jobs for workers available thereafter (albeit jobs without benefits that attract only hourly workers and yield a very low annual salary), is the benefit to the community worth the cost? Do those who live near the plant want the odor and constant traffic of incoming animals on trucks? What do you think?

For opponents of the plant, there are only 2 bright spots: 1) Triumph has not yet applied for the permits it needs from the Illinois EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and that could take months if not years to process, and (2) On the horizon is a new concept, designed to save the family farmer. This new concept involves a traveling mobile slaughter unit (cost: $250,000 or more for start-up of each), which is being championed by Kim Snyder of Kankakee.  She says, “If we can get this going, I see it growing very, very quickly.” She markets her own meat via www.faithsfarm.com and supplies the Park Grill at Millennium Park in Chicago with its meat.

Adds Snyder, who says the mobile slaughterhouses are safer and travel with an inspector, there are only about 20 mobile slaughter units for poultry and half a dozen for cattle around the country now. But, says Arion Thiboumery of Ames (ISU), “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for this.  In large plants, the animals go by real fast.  This is much smaller; so it’s slower and many people say it’s safer.” Steve Skelton of Kentucky State University says, “It’s made a big difference for farmers. They’re making money again.”  Snyder, who is pioneering the idea of the mobile slaughterhouse says, “How cool would it be for a chef or just for anyone to walk out here and choose an animal, then have it slaughtered and pretty much ready to go?”

For those of us who find the concept of slaughtering animals something we only want to know about in the abstract, it’s not that cool, but the idea of bringing consumers closer to control of the food they are consuming is not only healthy but appealing.  Since the mobile slaughter houses process only 5 cows a day, not only safety for the workers but safety for the food would be pluses for the concept.

I remember visiting my hometown of Independence, Iowa when a large hog confinement plant in the fields nearby made the air so redolent that your eyes stung and you had to stay indoors. The more affluent residents of this cottage town for Waterloo/Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids were not amused that their expensive summer homes were almost unusable as a result of the hog stench, and the problem was addressed and no longer exists. Here we are, in East Moline (and the Quad Cities, in general) attempting to go down the same road that others have traveled with horrible results.

As someone who was invited to tour the Triumph plant (full disclosure; the invitation was actually extended to my husband, and I would have gone along, had we been available), I can only imagine how vast a difference exists between a large facillity like Triumph’s proposed plant and a small mobile slaughterhouse option.

I am unconvinced that there won’t be unpleasant side-effects for the Quad City community, including odor, strain on social service agencies and schools, an uptick in violent crime, and a generally undesirable reputation that will adhere to the town, just as the presence of the mental health facility did for years. (And I grew up in a town with a mental health institute, one of 4 in the state of Iowa, so I know how “reputation” of  a town hangs on for years.)

I’m also a realist and aware that “money talks and bullshit walks.” Americans, over a lifetime, consume 21,000 animals and, while houses and cars cost fourteen times what they did 50 years ago, the price of chicken hasn’t even doubled, thanks to the efficiency (if not the humanity) of factory poultry farms. We eat 150 times as many chickens a year as we did 80 years ago. (All  poultry facts courtesy of “Life” by Joel Stein in the August 23, 2010 issue of “Time” magazine on pp. 51-52.)

Still, I think some investigation into the intentions of Triumph should be made now, before those EPA permits are applied for and those of us in the Quad Cities, especially East Moline, Illinois, are all awash in sewage sludge.

• “He is so unscrupulous that his lack of principle gives him the appearance of audacity.”
• “Insufferable”
• “Small-minded”
• “Unprincipled”
• “Maybe his bad record is a help to him…It is so bad, it is unbelievable.  When the truth is told, people say it cannot be so, and that there must be a vicious reason behind the telling of it.” (Chicago Tribune editorial about this governor.)
• “The great game of politics is played everywhere, but nowhere with greater zest than in the state of Illinois.” (“Time” magazine article about this governor).
• First Governor of Illinois to be arrested while in office.
• “Is the worst governor the state ever had.  We believe he is the worst governor any state ever had.  He has contaminated everything with which he has come in contact in politics.” (Editorial from the Chicago Tribune)

So, who are we talking about here?

The question is valid, because, at this point, the book begins to outline how the governor of Jim Ridings’ book “did wickedly, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously embezzle and fraudulently convert to his own use” more than a million dollars in state money when he was Illinois treasurer in 1904, prior to becoming Governor of Illinois, a post he held from 1921 to 1929.

When arrested, this Governor refused to surrender to authorities for nearly 3 weeks, claiming that the doctrine of separation of powers protected him from arrest. He threatened to use the National Guard to place Springfield under martial law to protect him.

Prosecutors said the accused Governor had deposited millions into a fictitious bank to defraud the state out of interest payments, and that he had operated a money-laundering scheme. The defense maintained that the governor didn’t really know what was being done in his name and was the victim of his mean-spirited political foes. This Governor considered the Chicago Tribune to be chief among his “political foes,” as a current website about the governor and his family says, “The Chicago Tribune championed a cause against the Governor which impressed upon him the importance of hometown newspaper(s).”

I know you have all been reading this and thinking that the scoundrel’s name was Rod Blagojevich.

In reality, Rod Blagojevich was the second Governor of Illinois to be arrested while in office. The first was Lennington Small, a Republican from Kankakee whose offspring went on to found the Small Newspaper Group, and the SNG website says, “He established the integrity of the business through personal example.”

[After the list of charges above, I’m almost afraid to consider what that might have meant.]

Lennington Small, when brought to trial, was acquitted, but a juror and two Chicago mobsters were later indicted on charges that the jury had been bribed. Small, upon his acquittal and subsequent re-election bid (!), commuted the sentences of two other mobsters who had been jailed for refusing to cooperate with the grand jury investigating the circumstances of Lennington Small’s acquittal. It should be noted that Lennington Small lost a civil lawsuit and was forced to repay the state of Illinois $650,000. But he wasn’t impeached and—will wonders never cease—even won that second term in office.

Lennington Small died in 1936. His name was largely forgotten until his great grandson, Stephen Small, then 40, died after being buried alive in a botched kidnapping attempt in 1987.

The Small Newspaper Group began in 1913 with “The Daily Republican” in Kankakee (one of three newspapers in the town) and went on to acquire The Daily Times in Ottawa (1955); the LaPorte Herald-Argus (LaPorte, Indiana, 1964); the Daily Dispatch in Moline (1969); The Leader (Iowa Quad Cities) in 1978, (which has now ceased operations, although the SMG website does not note this); Star Publication weeklies in the south Chicago suburbs (1975-1995); SNG group prints 80,000 to 105,000 copies of “USA Today” in Kankakee (1983 to the present); “Family Weekly” magazine, which later became “USA Weekend”,  was sold to CBS in 1980; Rochester “Post-Bulletin” (1977), the largest afternoon daily in the state of Minnesota; “Times-Press” in Streator, IL (1980; current Daily Dispatch publisher Roger Ruthhart came to Moline from Streator); Palisadian Post in California (1981); The Rock Island Argus from the Potter family, “one of the state’s oldest continuously published newspapers” in Rock Island, IL (1995), which also ceased operations in the recent past; and, in 1969, brothers Len and Burrell divided the family’s holdings in print and broadcast properties, with Len taking the newspapers and Burrell inheriting such properties as WKAN,  in existence since 1947.

The SNG (Small Newspaper Group) website says of Governor Lennington Small, “The Governor is best-known for the 7,000 miles of hard roads he built in Illinois and for his support of the State Fair.”

Perhaps author Jim Ridings, who has written Len Small- Governors and Gangsters, a 342-page book about the “worst governor ever” would suggest other things for which Governor Small might be remembered, such as setting the bar so low that it took 90 years for someone (Rod Blagojevich) to lower it further.

SOURCES:  SNG (Small Newspaper Group) official website; “The Worst Illinois Governor?” by Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, Wed., July 21, p. 21; “Len Small: Governors and Gangsters,” self-published by Jim Ridings (342 pp., 2009).

Moline, Illinois, June 25, 2010

As a first-time event, the crowd seemed to sufficient to call the experiment, sponsored by Budweiser, Hiland Toyota and Cumulus Broadcasting a success. Websites for the various groups proclaim them to be the “best tribute bands” for the artists represented, and, having stayed to see each of the four, I can attest that the Mick Jagger impersonator had Mick down (I’ve seen the real Rolling Stones 12 times). They were proclaimed by Las Vegas experts to be the “best” tribute band at imitating the Rolling Stones and perform under the name “Satisfaction.” I’ve seen another tribute band in Chicago with a much-older version of Mick at the microphone. This imitator, who took the stage wearing a white jacket, (which he soon took off in the heat), would represent Jagger of about 15 years ago. The Keith Richards look-alike had the hair down, but also Keith of 15 years ago, as the hair now is more white than black. It also appeared that the Keith Richards clone was playing bass guitar, not lead guitar, which is not the way it works onstage for the real deal.

The set list for the Stones impersonators also covered most of the songs any Stones fan would want to hear, for example: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Under My Thumb,” “Hey, You, Get Offa’ My Cloud,” “Time Is On My Side,” “Paint It Black,” “Tumblin’ Down,” “Shattered,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Start Me Up,” and “Brown Sugar.” Unfortunately, the promoters put the Stones on first, and the crowd was sparse at 5:15 p.m. I can say without equivocation that they were my favorite group, but that the others present seemed to prefer the “AC/DC” group from Winnipeg, Canada, who did throw themselves into the show with abandon. At one point, the lead guitar was carried into the crowd on the shoulders of another member of the band. I think that was about the point in time when some audience members, an older crowd generally, started dropping like flies and an ambulance was called.

The Aerosmith band (pictured with article), who perform under the name “Toys in the Attic,” taken from one of the real band’s first albums, had a relatively good Steven Tyler impersonator (not the lips, but the mannerisms), but the Steve Perry guitarist, while very proficient, merely had hair (and lots of it.)

By the time “Bon Jovi” (Bed of Roses) took the stage, with the faux Steven Tyler performing some songs with them, we were ready to pack it in. The Jon Bon Jovi impersonator bears very little resemblance to the real deal (way too short). Plus, the first 4 songs the group sang were not immediately recognizable Bon Jovi hits (and I’m a fan, with July 31 tickets to the REAL Bon Jovi’s Chicago Soldier Field concert). This may have been due to fake Steven Tyler’s presence onstage, while “Jon” played keyboards in the background. The ½ hour wait that fans had endured also cooled off the white-hot enthusiasm that “AC/DC” (aka “Hell’s Bells”) had generated. (Too bad I only knew “All Night Long” and “Highway to Hell” from that heavy metal group.)

I felt sorry for the Stones, who got the shafted in being made to go first, which the announcer kept attributing to the bands having been staged in the order they first began. Ideally, Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses,” (much softer pop rock), would have kicked off the night, to be followed by the heavier (and louder) rockers. I think my ears were bleeding after “AC/DC.” We were about 2 feet from the speakers and the volume ramped up a great deal between the Aerosmith guys from Nashville (a 14-hour drive, they said) and the AC/DC performers from Winnipeg.

One complaint, from me was the message I got (via e-mail) the day before the event that made it sound as though I would “save” $4 by buying my tickets online, which I then did. The tickets “at the door” were $12, it said, whereas buying them online in advance they were $10. I bit, and I ended up paying $34 because of a $5.50 “handling fee” for EACH ticket, plus taxes that added to the final total, so my $10 ticket became a $15 ticket and, instead of saving $4, it cost me $10 MORE than if I had just showed up at the venue.

I told the “will call” people in charge of handing out the tickets that I felt this constituted false advertising of a sort; the unconcerned man behind the table said, “Well, you could have canceled out on the computer near the end.” True enough, but why send me the promotional e-mail at all, when it ends up costing you $10 MORE if you take advantage of what was billed as a “cost-saving” measure (which I unwisely did)? All I got for my comment was a long lecture about Ticketmaster. The only way this would have been a “good” deal was if I were traveling from a long away (I wasn’t) and wanted to make absolutely sure I got in. As it was, I learned a lesson about not paying attention to the marketing messages from iwireless Center in Moline.

Otherwise, a fun way to spend an absolutely gorgeous evening, with $3 bratwurst and hot dogs and $5 for a hamburger basket with chips, which was certainly reasonable. You did need to take your own lawn chairs (we did) and the sound from the huge speakers carried for at least 5 blocks.

Another such joint program was one in business management, which had 900 inmates participate in the most recent round of classes. These classes seem to have been offered on-site, as 19 instructors were being displaced, but those instructors were told they could bid for other prison education jobs.

The fact is that ex-convicts are actively recruited for entrance into Eastern Iowa Community College in the Iowa Quad Cities, for example. At least one such community college cited in this article—Southeastern Illinois—has announced that it is halting its prison education programs because the state of Illinois is so late in reimbursing the institution for the work it has previously provided.

The article went on to say, “Community colleges provide many different classes for inmates, ranging from automotive repair to horticulture.” I can attest to this, having taught primarily students who were enrolled in automotive repair, HVAC programs, culinary arts programs or sign language.

The problem I perceived was that instructors were never provided any information about the enrolled ex-convict’s presence in their class. I realize that privacy issues and privacy policies (that often out-rule common sense) have come to dominate on the community college front, but it seems that the instructor, at least, should have the right to know that a student enrolled in his or her class has just been released from prison. This needn’t be knowledge the entire class possesses, but the instructor deserves to know.

This past history of violence, in some cases, can become a very real problem for the instructor and/or for the rest of the class, as it did for me when I had just such an ex-convict who enrolled (late) in one of my classes. I only found out that he was an ex-convict because he told me, in great detail, about the robbery he had committed. Among other problems this individual faced, he was an alcoholic with a device affixed to his vehicle to monitor his driving because of a DUI citation.

My class taught students how to put together a resume and how to interview for a job, skills that would certainly be beneficial for anyone and no less useful for ex-convicts. After my class had met four times, this particular student came straggling into the office, and I was pointed out as the instructor.

I sat down and attempted to fill him in on all missed work (we only met about 28 times, so 4 absences was quite a lot of missed time for a “late” enrollment). He talked non-stop about robbing his father’s place of employment after-hours, justifying the theft by saying he only wanted the money to go visit his mother in Florida, who had abandoned him when he was eight.

Those sad stories aside, he shared the news of his young daughter, (whom, I later learned, he used to blow into his DUI device so that he could drive drunk to class.) It seems it was her birthday that day. I tried very hard to be encouraging and sympathetic to both this student and others whom I learned, only by accident, were ex-convicts and enrolled in my classes.

The DUI student only came to class once. We were working on resumes in a room that I had reserved which was to have a computer for each student, but there had been some sort of screw-up and we were assigned to a room where the computers were specially designed for a court-reporting class and did not work for “regular” computer work. This student sat in the back of the room being loud and unruly and his blue language caused 3 other class members to come to me and complain after class (I was up front at the blackboard, trying to give instructions while he was drowning out the instruction and using “f” bombs every other word.)

After that, we never again saw the student in the class. I set about arranging the interviews I always arranged with my former Chamber of Commerce contacts, (some of whom at the local auto plazas actually gave jobs to the students they interviewed.) The interview was approximately ½ of the student’s grade, but the missing ex-convict had never returned to class to find out when he was assigned to be interviewed (interviews were also filmed for later critique.)

When it came time to “write a memo,” the class and I wrote a very bland memo that simply said “To:  John Doe. From: (my name). Re: Your Interview.” It then filled in the time, day and date of the arranged interview, noting that the interview was 50% of the student’s grade.

The student-in-question, the ex-convict who had been recruited by an African American administrator known as the administration’s “hatchet woman,”a very unpleasant lady with a bald spot the size of a dinner plate and the personality of a piranha…rather than viewing the informative memo(s) as doing Mr. DUI a favor in trying to salvage his grade, said that he had lodged a complaint that he had been sent the memo(s). The hatchet woman, (who bore a grudge against me for the alleged sins of my successor at the Sylvan Learning Center I had sold 2 years previously, whom she felt did not do a good enough job with her niece for a sum of money that she paid) was complained to.

For my part, the student in question showed up again only on the day of the final as it was ending (having missed the interview and all other classes and having only been seen once, in person), entered my classroom (no security at all in the entire building, but a sign posted by the copy machine that read “If you are assaulted, call the Sheriff,” with a phone number) and threatened to kill me. He reeked of booze, and his fellow classmates told me that, thanks to his young daughter, he would have her breathe into his DUI device so that he could drive to campus each morning.

The bell was ringing just as the ex-convict’s threat came, and all of us, me included, exited to the busy hallways ASAP, although it was well-known that no security personnel existed to assist any of us, student or teacher.

For my part, I  tried to remain calm and I suggested to the ex-convict that we both go to the Dean’s office together to discuss his concerns. I already had a meeting scheduled about an hour after this to discuss whether it was “ethical” to be required to turn over my Final Exam, in advance, to the various assigned “tutors” for these students, many of whom could not read or could not read at the level necessary for college instruction.

It had come to my attention that the entire exam was being spoon-fed to some of the students by some of the tutors (not all, but some), and the regular students in my class—-kids fresh out of high school, not fresh out of prison—were justifiably upset that they didn’t get this unfair “break.”

As luck would have it, the drunk ex-convict’s advisor was in the hallway, saw him, and escorted him from the building, thereby sparing me a knifing, beating or worse. I spent the rest of the semester trying to find out if that student was still on campus and was coming back, had been expelled, what? No one would tell me (the instructor) what disciplinary action (if any) had been taken against the ex-convict in the auto body repair program. I was told to just drop it.

Despite some serious PTSD from the death threat that day, I did keep my appointment one hour later, where the large African-American administrator poked her finger into my chest and back-marched me around an office in full view of several other college employees (the tutors), who apparently felt that a death threat to an instructor from a student who had never attended class was justified, while a memo that he needed to be present for a scheduled interview that was 50% of his grade was not.

I am sympathetic to the many government-sponsored programs to assist ex-convicts who are leaving prison and need further training to find jobs, and so is the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group that has raised red flags about cuts to prison education programs. However, I am more sympathetic to the “regular, normal” students and teachers in that community college who are never ever given even so much as a private “heads up” to the danger(s) that may lurk within their classroom.

Ask yourself how you’d feel if you were either (a) one of the regular, normal 18-year-old high school graduates sitting next to such ex-cons, not being given the “tutor” treatment that involved advance knowledge of all test questions on a test and/or the threat the seatmate next to you could potentially pose (especially if drunk at the time) (b) the instructor, fending off death threats from a drunk ex-convict who wanders into your classroom for only the second time all year.

And, last but not least, when do “privacy laws” allow for some protection for that instructor and those students, and what gives an out-of-control administrator the right to physically assault (poking with one’s finger is assault) a hard-working professor with the highest satisfaction marks of any on the faculty, simply because her niece didn’t do well in a reading improvement program that that individual had set up 20 years previously but had not been affiliated with for over 4 years?

Some further investigation of the effects of these government-sponsored classes should be made. Are these students really “college competent?” Is their reading level up to the standards that college work…even junior college work…requires?

Following the near-assault by a student and the actual assault, verbal and physical, by an administrator, I went to the office to take the sign that said, “If you are assault, call the Sheriff” as proof of the lax security, and….surprise!…it had been taken down. (There were still no security officers employed for the rest of that year, but we had the number that might have helped us get help taken from us.) I’ve been told that now this college employs security guards, but I don’t know if that is true. I do know that the Illinois institution that it most resembles in this area has always had a security force, and I was very surprised to learn that the Iowa one did not think that the expense was justified. In my own case, since I could never get a straight answer as to what had been done with the ex-convict student, I had volunteer male members of my class (who asked me, unbidden) escort me to and from my automobile for the rest of the semester. This begged the question of my brand-new car sitting in the parking lot all day, potential prey to a guy with major-league problems and a possible unjustified grudge.

This is why I am not that crushed to hear that the computer and business management classes paid for by government dollars for ex-convicts may be diminishing. Our tax dollars at work, Folks. The inmates now run the asylum a lot of places.

First up at 10 a.m. will be Chicago author Lawrence Santoro. Larry is a multiple Bram Stoker nominee and frequently called upon to record other authors’ works. He will read from his new novel Just North of Nowhere immediately after Mary Ellen Chamberlin’s opening remarks to the 40 Midwestern authors assembled.

Following Larry’s presentation will be Cindy Puck, who will talk about “Teens and Money” at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Eight-year-old Anna Shammus of Riverdale Heights, who has written 8 books, will follow Cindy,  reading from her works and answering questions until 11:15.

There will be a short break for AV set-up, from approximately 11:20 to 11:30 a.m.

At 11:35 a.m. local author Connie (Corcoran) Wilson, recent winner of the David R. Collins’ Writing Award at the Midwest Writing Center’s March 20^th banquet, will present professionally made trailers of her most recent books, including the three-book trilogy set along Route 66 (Ghostly Tales of Route 66, Vols I through III, www.ghostlytalesofroute66.com) , the short story collection Hellfire & Damnation and her first novel Out of Time (www.outoftimethenovel.com).

At noon,  the 40 participants at this first Quad City Book Fair event, some from as far away as Oklahoma, will be welcomed by local politicians, including  Mayor Bill Gluba of Davenport and State Representative Jim Lykum.

Karen Craft will follow the dignitaries with her presentation on “Animal Communication” from 12:15 to approximately 12:30 p.m.

At 12:30, the three student winners of the Midwest Writing Center’s essay contest will read their winning 500-word essays on the topic, “My Favorite Book and Why.”

A 40-minute lunch break will follow Ms. Craft’s presentation, from ten minutes of one until 1:30 p.m. (Box lunches will be available inside the RME).

At 1:30 p.m., Muscatine native and author of the graphic novel Road to Perdition Max Allan Collins will speak about writing collaborations. Mr. Collins and his wife have collaborated on several books, and Mr. Collins also was involved in the Dick Tracy comic strip narrative. Collins has been a frequent presenter at the Midwest Writing Center’s summer workshop and at other conferences throughout the nation.

Another well-known author who will be present throughout the day, signing her books at the Barnes & Noble table, is children’s book author, Jill Esbaum, author of Ste-e-e-e-eamboat A-comin’! and Stink Soup.

Cartoonist Steve Lackey will give a 15-minute presentation on cartooning from 2:15 to 2:30 p.m., after which live music begins onstage at Mojo’s Cafe within the River Music Experience and continues until 4:30 p.m,  the end of the book fair day.

KUUL radio will be outside the River Music Experience, broadcasting live for three hours in the morning and awarding prizes.  Within the RME throughout the day there will be interactive activities for children and adults, alike, with prizes awarded every 15 minutes.

Stop by and meet the 40 authors present for the Quad City Book Fair, being held at the same time as the Beaux Arts Fair in downtown Davenport. When the shopping for jewelry and pottery and other crafts takes its toll, come to the River Music Experience at 2^nd and Main, pull up a chair, meet the 40 Midwestern authors present and enjoy.

According to the Channel 5 news in Nashville (my5@newschannel5.com0 and the newspaper the Tennessean, there is a tornado watch for most of southwest Tennessee until 6 p.m. Six inches of rain fell Saturday night, and another 4 inches is expected by late Saturday. At 4:45 p.m., rain was still falling.

All high school proms were being canceled. There were 88 reports of road accidents and 30 people reported being stranded in their homes or cars. I40 in southwest Tennessee was shut down and I40 was shut down at the 59-mile marker on Saturday morning.

In the photo to the left, the black car belonged to a friend of my daughter’s and was parked in the Belmont University parking lot in Nashville. It was totaled.

In Memphis, the Interstate was closed. Franklin, where many rich and powerful stars reside (Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, et. al.) was flooded. The Nashville Sounds baseball game was canceled.

This photo was taken by a friend from his window.

Tornado warnings had been issued for southeast Davidson County, eastern Williamson county, northern Rutherford, and western Wilson County. The Tennessee Department of Transportation canceled all roadwork on I440.

Another friend sent the picture below of her Nashville front yard under water. (Good thing the daughter lives on the third floor; many of her friends have 3 inches of water in their basements!)

Message: My front yard! Totally freaked out.

Among the cuts being contemplated, according to Enrique’s Community Update and the Chicago Sun Times article of 3/16/2010 by Rosalind Rossi (www.suntimes.com/news/education), anticipated cutbacks include most assistant Principal positions, a number of clerks, and a moratorium on non-varsity sports. There would also be no full-day kindergarten, no early childhood classes and no mandated transportation to magnet schools or charter schools.

The proposed cuts include $398 million in central office and citywide cuts and 3,200 teaching positions, with 600 non-teaching positions also scheduled to be cut. Another 1,900 jobs would open up due to resignations and retirements. Most central office employees would also take 15 furlough days (as they did this year) and there would be a pay freeze.

There would be $27 million cut in non-mandatory transportation to magnet or charter schools and $17 million in cuts to enrichment and after-school programs.  The system would attempt to cover the deficit by drawing down $240 million from the system’s reserve fund and there would be a –18% reduction to charter and contract schools in per student spending.

The Chicago Teachers’ Union is due a projected 4% raise next year, which would amount to +$169 million in additional spending.  Teachers’ Union spokesperson Rosemarie Genova of the CTU (Chicago Teachers’ Union) said, “If this is a negotiating ploy, there will be no negotiation in the press.”

Next year, pension demands on the TRS (Teachers’ Retirement System) are slated to jump from $308 million to $587 million as a result of the aging of the teaching force and retirements of veteran teaching staff. The TRS system in Illinois is generally considered the third-best teachers’ pension system in the nation.

The speaker was a Davenport native who specializes in “ghost writing” of books for celebrities, and his “90 Minutes in Heaven” book has been on the New York Times Best-Seller list for quite some time. (His table displayed many, many titles and I was given a copy of his latest book.) “Cece,” as those who introduced him referred to him, was an engaging speaker, and then the MWC began giving awards to various individuals.

There is always one “surprise” award given. Last time I attended, in fact, I paid for my collaborator’s ticket because I feared he would not be present, otherwise, and he was to be that year’s winner. I was contacted and asked to get hm to come, so I bought his ticket (although not that of his girlfriend Cindy, who is now Mrs. Mike McCarty). He was very pleased and surprised to receive the award and my husband and I (who were sitting with him and his girlfriend at his table) were happy for him.

This year, I was just settling in and enjoying the speeches and awards (especially the LeClaire writing award winner who had the unenviable task of awarding herself the honor from her club) when writer emeritus Julie Jensen began reading the credentials of this year’s “surprise” winner. At first, it sounded very normal and could have been anyone in the room, as many of us attended the University of Iowa and Western Illinois University, but when it mentioned Berkeley, running for office, starting 2 businesses (Sylvan Learning Center and Prometric Testing Center) and the names of the books I have written (Training the Teacher As A Champion; Hellfire & Damnation; Ghostly Tales of Route 66, Volumes I, II and III, Out of Time, Both Sides Now and my (just purchased for publication) nonfiction book Classic Cinema of the ’70s: It Came from the ’70s, I was suddenly aware that I might have to stand and receive this unexpected award….a beautiful clock in burled walnut with engraving…a really nice (and useful) award.

My mind raced: whom should I thank? What should I say?

I have always liked the quote, “If brevity is the soul of wit, I intend to be hilarious,” so I ripped that off and then said, “I’d thank my English teachers, but they’re all dead.” Afer that, of course, my husband needed thanking, especially since he hadn’t wanted to go at all, as his brother was in town from St. Louis with his wife and our son and wife and twin girls were in town, all to celebrate his birthday the next day (March 21). He really wanted to be watching March Madness with our family, but I had bought the tickets before we knew they were coming to town to help him celebrate a milestone birthday. I thanked Mike McCarty “for pushing me into fiction,” which was not my original metier, and I “plugged” the Quad City Book Fair, which is to be held May 8th, and for which I am handling Marketing and Fundraising duties.

Long story short: it was a lovely night, a lovely award, and one additional QCBF participant signed up, after I mentioned the event, which will be held the same weekend as the Beaux Arts Fair in downtown Davenport. We will be inside the River Music Experience and using the stage at Mojo’s for presentations throughout the day. I just hope that, between setting up tables, handling programming and marketing and fundraising and (also) having to give a presentation of my own,  I survive.

It was a memorable weekend.

Ray was testifying before Congress about the sticking pedal on certain Toyota models, a number of which have been recalled by the company for fixing. The problem seemed to be that Ray was not speaking officially…or he didn’t think that he was, at the time he was testifying…but the man-in-the-street heard Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, telling them to quit driving their Toyotas and drive immediately to the nearest Toyota dealership for a fix of the problem. (Oh, oh.)

In Ray’s defense, he corrected himself within 2 hours and admitted he had “misspoken,” but the harm was done. In Florida, where I am now, various channels had Floridians from all walks of life saying things like, “How will I get home from work?” (I’m not making this up, Folks. One of the interview subjects actually told the reporter this, with a very worried look.)

I am the proud owner of 2 Toyota Prius vehicles (I’ve written on this subject on AC before). I also owned a third, which is now in my son’s possession in Chicago. Of course, currently I’m not in Illinois, where my green Prius (the grasshopper) is sitting in the garage, waiting for me to make the final five payments to say that I own it. But I can assure you that I would not be panicking at the thought of driving that car home from work (if I had work to drive home from, that is.)

I read, elsewhere, that the co-founder of Apple says that his Prius will automatically escalate up to 97 mph when he uses his cruise control. [My answer to that would be, “Don’t use the cruise control.”]

Where has common sense gone in all the hoopla over the really unfortunate, although isolated, incidents involving (some) Toyota vehicles? The Lexus accident that precipitated the recall (of floor mats, initially) was truly horrifying, and it did take an inordinate amount of time for Toyota to own up to the fact that there was something going on with their vehicles, but things seem to be getting out of hand.

As I type this, I’m watching a satirical take-off on “American Idol’s” auditions on Jimmy Kimmel.  I watched the young man talk about how his father was eaten by an alligator (leg shown sticking out of alligator’s mouth) and, on the way home from the funeral service, someone threw a bucket at his mother from a bridge overpass as she drove underneath in a convertible. She had to be buried with the bucket on her head. (Okay…questionable taste and graphic there, but it was Jimmy Kimmel, not me.)

Given the panic that a simple misstatement by our current Secretary of Transportation (Ray LaHood) caused on February 3^rd after his inadvertent remark before Congress, the Toyota Tempest caused by Ray’s remark today (not the need for a fix for a real problem, but the foot-in-mouth comment) is ripe for a “Saturday Night Live” skit. I can see it now:

First, a shot of LaHood telling people not to drive their Toyota vehicles, but to take them immediately to dealerships.

Next, a shot of hordes of screaming villagers jamming the entrances to Toyota dealerships, nationwide, demanding the chip or floor mat or whatever it is that is supposed to end this madness, and demanding it RIGHT NOW! Maybe some of them could be carrying torches. Or, failing that, discarded rubber floor mats.

Next, a scene depicting those wusses who are still at work as the hour grows late, sitting there staring timidly at their parked Toyota vehicles but too afraid to climb in and drive 3 blocks home.

I’m obviously watching too much television while on vacation in the Sunshine State, where a shark ate a surfer today. (New Smyrna Beach is “the shark bite capital of the United States.”) To quote David Letterman, “Hep me! Hep me! I been hip-no-tized!”  watching this Toyota Tempest play out on television.

 And, Ray: I mean no disrespect. You’re doing a great job. Just get us that railroad paralleling I-80 (Chicago to the Quad Cities to Des Moines) and all is forgiven. I’ll even ask “Saturday Night Live” to call off the skit.