Since its inception, PublicWatchdog has tried mightily to keep its attention, ideas and comments focused on the local governments based in Park Ridge: The City of Park Ridge, Elementary School District 64, High School District 207, and the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District.

One reason for that is because there’s more than enough going on with Park Ridge-based government to keep us busy.  Another reason is that we don’t have the ability or the interest to deal with bigger governmental units like Crook County or the malodorous State of Illinois.

But today we’re making an exception, compliments of Park Ridge’s own Springfield emissary, state Sen. Dan Kotowski.

We think that Sen. Dan, personally, is a fine fellow.  But when he’s wearing his “politician’s” suit, which is most of the time, he exhibits a split personality that is as puzzling as it is disturbing.

Kotowski has been our state senator for six years, during which time Illinois’ finances have gone from bad to worse to just plain gawd-awful despite the 67% Illinois income tax hike, for which Sen. Dan provided the deciding vote.  That’s not all Kotowski’s doing, of course.  He has had plenty of help from his fellow senators and state representatives who handle the state’s finances worse than an 8-year old manning a sidewalk card-table lemonade stand for the first time.

But what won Sen. Dan this first-ever Watchdog extra-territorial post is a letter he recently sent to a number of his constituents about the state legislature’s abject failure – once again – to enact meaningful public-sector pension reform.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Sen. Dan is a Culligan…uh, we mean Cullerton…man: he shills for the uber-modest pension “reform” plan of Senate president John Cullerton, which ostensibly is competing for support with the more aggressive reform plan proposed by Illinois’ prince of darkness himself, ol’ number 666, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Frankly, this “competition” between Madigan and Cullerton seems about as legit as professional wrestling.  But guys like Sen. Dan are paid to act like it’s real and thereby convince the rest of us: a Cullerton-controlled political fund has given Sen. Dan over $300,000, which might explain the spring in his step when Cullerton says “Jump!”  So he’s doing his best to whack that turnbuckle and sell Cullerton’s Atomic Drop “reform” to voters the way Vern Gagne used to sell his “Sleeper” hold; and, more recently, Rick Flair peddled his “Figure-Four Leglock.”

Hence, his letter, in which Sen. Dan proclaims his desire for pension reform that “protects working men and women.”  But only one class of “working men and women.”

That’s because the pension “reform” Sen. Dan advocates isn’t intended to protect the vast majority of “working men and women” who toil in the private sector.  It’s intended to protect only public sector employees when they are no longer working (i.e., retired), which for many public sector employees can start in their mid-to-late 50s.  Not surprisingly, this reform is intended to “protect” retirement income levels – which are guaranteed by the Illinois Constitution and, hence, the taxpayers – that substantially exceed what many/most private sector workers will be drawing from Social Security and their non-guaranteed 401(k)s combined.

Sen. Dan claims “a strong record of doing just that” – with the “that” presumably being  protecting public sector employees and retirees.

How?  He doesn’t really say.  But a safe bet would be: by an irresponsible combination of fleecing the taxpayers and driving our once-prosperous State even further toward bankruptcy, its slide to the rock bottom of all 50 states being achieved during Sen. Dan’s six years in office.

Sen. Dan’s letter says that an unidentified pension reform bill (which, by process of elimination, must be Madigan’s House bill) will “punish hard working men and women” like teachers, asphalt patchers, police and firefighters – the implication being that those public employees work harder than their private-sector counterparts, while at the same time having “devoted their lives” to nobler pursuits than the rest of us in the private sector.

Sen. Dan brags about voting to “send a pension reform bill before a bipartisan conference committee” comprised of 10 legislators – chaired by union-cozy Sen. Kwame Raoul (D. Chi.), whose chief claim to fame is that he was appointed to the seat Barack Obama vacated in order to claim his U.S. Senate seat back in 2004 – that “will reconcile policy differences between the House and the Senate.”

Really, Senator?  Really?

He closes his letter by expressing confidence in “passing fair and meaningful pension reform.”  But “fair and meaningful” for whom?  For all those taxpayers who aren’t now, never were, and never will be public employees?

We think not.

Then again, what should we expect from someone who has received contributions reportedly totaling over $200,000 from five public employee unions?

Illinois’ public pension system, if not poorly-conceived, has been obscenely mis-managed and grossly under-funded by a bi-partisan collection of Democrat (Blagojevich) and Republican (Thompson, Edgar & Ryan) governors and legislators, with the acquiesence of public-sector unions content in the knowledge that the Illinois constitutional guaranty of pension benefits ensures that such benefits will be paid, no matter how high taxes need to be raised.

Nevertheless, many public-sector retirees – especially those who retired years ago when public sector salaries were a mere fraction of the lucrative wages paid today – need and deserve to have their pensions protected.  Many of them earned less in wages while actually working (even adjusted for inflation) than many/most of their more-recently retired peers now receive in pension benefits.

If Sen. Dan and his Springfield cronies were concerned primarily about protecting the pension benefits of those older retirees, we might have a little more respect for the arguments made in his letter.  But that doesn’t appear to be the case with either Madigan’s or Cullerton’s “reform” bill.

They seem to want a one-size-fits-all “reform” that perpetuates the current unsustainable system of tying pensions to out-of-control public employee compensation – thereby promoting perversions such as (according to Open the Books.com): 47 Illinois village managers earning higher compensation (and, therefore, higher pensions) than every governor of the 50 states, including Gov. Pat Quinn; park district administrators earning more than the State Director of Parks; and “spikes” in teacher and administrator salaries (including those in the high-five and six figure range) the last few years before retirement, solely to jack-up their retirement benefits.

That must be what Sen. Dan means by “fair and meaningful reform”: “fair” to the public-sector employees while providing a “meaningful” hit to the taxpayers’ wallets.

Welcome to Sen. Dan’s public sector v. private sector politics of division.

To read or post comments, click on title.

At the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., a Spartan king and 300 of his personal bodyguards sacrificed their lives to delay the advance of a massive Persian army and to cover the retreat of more than 3,000 of their non-Spartan allies.  As reported by the historian Herodotus, that heroic effort led to an epitaph at the battle site which translates as:

“Stranger, go tell the Spartans that here we are buried, obedient to their orders.”

That heroism, sense of duty and sacrifice first recorded so long ago helped save Greece, the threshold of democracy, from conquest.  And it is typical of so many soldiers who have given their lives for their countries, many of them young Americans like the soldier whose story was first told in a letter to the editor of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate for Memorial Day 2000 by Park Ridge resident Joseph C. “Jay” Hirst – himself a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Silver Star recipient as a Ranger in Vietnam.  That story is reprinted here with Jay’s permission:

*           *           *

It seems that about every other year, I am compelled to submit a letter regarding Memorial Day and what it means to this Vietnam veteran.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a young man named Ken Wedman, who served his country all too well so long ago. With your indulgence, let me tell you of another, John Wasilow, who also deserves our thanks and remembrance every Memorial Day.

John was from South Carolina. Couldn’t understand most of what he had to say, and John had problems finding a niche in the squad.

Tried him out as a radio operator, his accent doomed that effort. Tried him as a rifleman, but he couldn’t shoot straight. Figured what he couldn’t hit with a rifle, he could with a grenade launcher. Made John a grenadier.

John humped that launcher, his ruck and about 50 grenades all over II Corps without ever a complaint. “Ironman” became his nickname.

On a late November night, at the beginning of the monsoons, in Binh Dinh province, Ironman saved my life.

Moving along a narrow bank near the Bong Son River (just below silhouette framing), the NVA opened up on my squad. While we caught a lucky break that the slope of the bank provided cover from the small-arms fire, it was going to be only a matter of minutes before the grenades or, worse yet, mortars came in.

My RTO was calling for air support when suddenly, from my right, grenades are flying out at an incredible rate.

Ironman!

With the resulting slacking of NVA fire, we moved rapidly to the wood line 200 feet away. I looked back to see Wasilow running to, and setting up, a new position toward our rear. Didn’t think much more about it at the time.

We held at the woods, with two missing men, and called in air support. A gunship that responded put the NVA forces at more than 60, and a Mike Strike Force Company from across the river caught them. The KIA count was 16 NVA.

But, John was dead.

His initial rate of fire from a weapon less than desirable in a close-range firefight had lifted the NVA fire enough to allow the squad an escape from certain disaster with the additional loss of only one wounded “booner” (infantryman). Wasilow had been hit at least four times, yet his bandoleer was empty.  He died after firing his last grenade.

John could have laid wounded and may have survived.  He didn’t have to get up wounded and put himself at peril again as the squad sought safety, but he did.

Ironman was aptly named.

We did all the paperwork to nominate Wasilow for the DSC. To this date, I don’t know if it happened.

Like I said, John didn’t have to do what he did. But he did, and I am alive today because of it.

Memorial Day is his day, Kenny’s day, and the day of all the veterans like these two. I remember them almost every day. Because of them, I have a son, the love of a wife, and a life. You can begin, I hope, to see and understand my gratitude.

The least we Americans can do is give them their day, their deserved honor, and our heartfelt thanks. God knows I do.

*           *           *

To truly “celebrate” Memorial Day, one stop every American should make before firing up the grill or cracking open the cooler is at a cemetery.  Any cemetery will do – just look for the little American flags, planted each Memorial Day by various veterans’ organizations out of their own sense of honor and duty, which mark the graves of veterans.

Take a moment to note the service of each of those veterans whose graves you come across.

Take a little more time and, with a little luck and a quick calculation, you’ll probably find at least one grave of an American soldier actually killed in action.  When you do, remember Abraham Lincoln’s stirring invocation – at Gettysburg in 1863 – of  “these honored dead” who “gave the last full measure of devotion” so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

And then offer a heartfelt “thanks” for their ultimate sacrifice.

Robert J. Trizna

Editor and publisher

To read or post a comment, click on title.

This Monday (May 6) night, the new City Council will be sworn in.  And when the smoke clears, for the first time in 18 years Ald. Rich DiPietro will not be sitting at The Horseshoe.

DiPietro did not seek re-election on April 9, and will be replaced by Nick Milissis.

It was all the way back in 1995 that Rich first took his seat in the Council Chambers.  The mayor back then was Ron Wietecha, each ward still had two aldermen, and the City was still in pretty much the same shape as former mayor Marty Butler had left it after his 18 years in the big chair, prior to his being appointed state senator in 1991 following Bob Kustra’s election to the post of Lieutenant Governor.

From the moment he took his seat on the Council, Rich and I rarely agreed on any controversial issue.

I never could understand what appeared to be his unwavering support for Wietecha’s obsessive/compulsive, spare no expense, all-O’Hare-all-the-time agenda.  That obsession led not only to years of neglect of Park Ridge infrastructure but also to the City’s flush-down-the-sewer $650,000 “investment” in a proposed Peotone airport.  Rich also endorsed both Wietecha’s thwarted effort to build a new $20 million library, and his ill-conceived/worse-executed Uptown TIF that Wietecha successor Mike Marous made a reality – and which has proved to be a multi-million dollar financial albatross that is now projected to hang around the taxpayers’ neck for years to come.

But we really crossed swords over Rich’s equally-unwavering support of mayor Howard Frimark, perhaps Park Ridge’s all-time political bottom-feeder and opportunist.  Rich was on-board with Frimark’s closed-session efforts to cut sweetheart deals to owners of land on which Frimark wanted to build a new $20 million police station, and he voted in favor of Frimark’s legally-meaningless “condemnation” of then-Ald. Dave Schmidt for actually upholding the Illinois Open Meetings Act and blowing the whistle on Frimark’s closed-session wheeling and dealing.

How Rich’s legacy of Council service will be viewed likely will not be known for a number of years, probably not until the Uptown TIF expires and its full effect on Park Ridge can be assessed.   It remains bewildering, however, that after 18 years of watching and listening to Rich and watching his Council votes, I can honestly say that I have no idea of what his overarching philosophy of City government might be.

Yet notwithstanding the upbraiding regularly administered to him on this blog, Rich remained unfailingly cordial and gentlemanly in person.

Which brings us to the point of this post: praising the “real” Rich DiPietro.

If you want to learn about the real Rich, you can start by reading Denise Fletcher’s Park Ridge Journal article dated August 15, 2012.

There you’ll find out that he has been married to his wife, Kathy, for 50 years – a truly “golden” achievement burnished even brighter by the fact they were high school sweethearts who married so young they couldn’t legally share a champagne toast at their own wedding.  Theirs is a Romeo and Juliet story without the tragic ending, and his role in that story speaks more to his character than any of his Council votes.

Not only did Rich and Kathy raise seven children of their own but, during the 1970s, they served as temporary foster parents to 22 infants until Catholic Charities could place them with adoptive parents.  That’s another kind of “walking the walk” that doesn’t show up in the Council’s meeting minutes or on its meeting videos, but is far more meaningful in the long run.

Rich has been in the printing business all his adult life, having started his own shop in 1981 and evolving it into a printing and graphic arts service provider now known as CrossTech Communications, with its own building on Jefferson Street just a block west of the Ogilvie Transportation Center.  He’s what used to be called a self-made man – except that I suspect Rich is too modest to claim that kind of credit for himself.

From all outward appearances and everything I have heard from those who know him far better than I, Rich has lived an exemplary private life and has more than earned whatever good fortune awaits him in his retirement from public life – including 24 grandchildren on whom he is reported to dote more than a little bit.

Rich DiPietro is one of the finest men ever to sit at The Horseshoe.  That should be his continuing legacy to this community, and that is what this post celebrates.

Ave atque vale, Rich!

Robert J. Trizna

Editor, publisher, chief cook and bottle washer

To read or post comments, click on title.

Another year – and 103 more PublicWatchdog posts – has passed.  So it’s time to take a brief look back and a brief look forward.

The year 2012 began with our questioning  whether then-city manager Jim Hock would raise his game in response to the City Council’s demand that he start earning his approximately $215,000 annual compensation.  He didn’t, and he was gone before mid-year.  But the City’s taxpayers are still holding the bag for his defaulted interest-free home loan, which former mayor Howard Frimark and then-and-now City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill conspired to subordinate to a bank loan Hock also took out for less than half the amount of the City’s loan, all without even telling the Council. 

Whether Mayor Schmidt and the Council learned anything from that wasteful exercise remains to be seen.  It also remains to be seen whether Hock’s replacement, Acting City Manager Shawn Hamilton, can raise his game enough to lose the “Acting” but still retain the rest of the title when his contract runs out this Spring. 

And with number-cruncher extraordinaire Allison Stutts having left the City’s finances in the hands of newcomer Kent Oliven, we hope he and Hamilton have the common sense and the work ethic needed to stick with Stutts’ battle-tested budget playbook rather than start cutting corners on what appears to have become the best budget process the City has employed in at least 20 years.

At the beginning of 2012 we also called for open-session contract negotiations between our local governments and the various employee unions, with special mention of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s then-upcoming teacher negotiations.  The idea would be to have all such negotiations occurring in meetings open to the public, and broadcast/videotaped for viewing by those citizens who were not able to attend in person.  That way, the public could judge for itself who was being unreasonable in their demands or offers.

Not surprisingly, that didn’t occur for any of the negotiations conducted last year.  Worse yet, the D-64 negotiating team of Board president John Heyde and member Pat Fioretto agreed to a new contract that continued the D-64 practice of actually requiring secret, closed-session contract negotiations.  Chalk up yet another bargaining coup for the Park Ridge Education Association, a/k/a the teachers union. 

Last year saw the closing of the Park Ridge Youth Campus up in the City’s 1st Ward.  A local institution for over a century, in recent years it had become a continuous source of police calls related to resident runaways and physical altercations between residents.  Come April, the voters will have a chance to decide whether to borrow and spend over $13 million to turn that 11+-acre parcel into a park and recreation complex – or leave it available to private developers, most likely for single-family residential.

We also look forward to this April’s local elections because of all the contested races, including: 

• for City of Park Ridge mayor, Mayor Dave Schmidt and challenger Larry Ryles;
• for 2nd Ward alderman, Nicholas Milissis and George Korovilas;
• for 4th Ward alderman, Roger Shubert and Jane Johnson;
• for 6th Ward alderman, Ald. Marc Mazzuca and Vincent LaVecchia;
• for Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 School Board, incumbent Scott Zimmerman and newcomers Terry Cameron, Vicki Lee, Dathan Paterno, Benjamin Seib and Rick Van Roeyen vying for four seats;
• for Maine Township High School District 207 Board, incumbents Eldon Burk, Eric Leys, Margaret McGrath and Carla Owen vying with newcomers Mary Childers, Jin Lee, Jeffrey Spero and Sean Story for five seats; and
• for Park Ridge Recreation and Park District Board, incumbents Rick Biagi, Richard Brandt, Steven Hunst and Stephen Vile vying with challengers James Phillips and Joan Bende for four seats.

Our hope for these elections is that the candidates will take their campaigns seriously and actively engage each other in substantive debates not only on the issues but also on their individual philosophies of local government – instead of hiding behind vague pronouncements, warm-and-fuzzy promises, and outright dishonesty about the costs of those promises.

Unfortunately, the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District will be giving the taxpayers only one referendum (a binding one, for $13 million, on the Youth Campus park and recreation plan) in April instead of two (the second being an advisory one, for the $7.1 million Centennial outdoor pool project), but only because it legally can’t get away with giving us none at all.  That display of contempt will earn this Park Board the dubious distinction of being the first in 20 years to do a major multi-million dollar project without seeking the advice of the voters via referendum.

Nevertheless, our hope for 2013 is that all members of this community – individuals, businesses, community groups, etc. – strive to become more self-reliant and less dependent on local government (a/k/a, the taxpayers) to solve their problems.  In that regard we close this post with two quotes from the late longshoreman/public intellectual (and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner) Eric Hoffer:

“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities”; and “The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”

Happy New Year!

To read or post comments, click on title.

The following is a 2007 letter to the editor of our local newspapers, by Park Ridge resident Joseph “Jay” Hirst.  It speaks volumes about the essence of military service that most of us never have experienced, but that we honor and celebrate today; and we thank the author for permission to republish it here. 

*          *          *

As Veterans Day approaches each year, it typically causes me to pause and consider my service in the Army, particularly my time in Vietnam.  However, unlike previous Veterans Days, the approach of this date has caused me to spend significantly more time in contemplation than I normally have done in the past.   

Moreover, I know why.  For me, this Veterans Day represents a significant anniversary.   

On November 11, 1967, elements of my unit (including me), Company C of the 75^th Rangers, was sent into the highlands to be attached to and support the 173^rd Airborne Brigade in securing a hill not quite 3,000 feet high (875 meters).  What is so hard for me to believe sometimes is that what was barely-out-of-high-school back then is, for me, now 40 years ago.    

For those next 12 days, Hill 875 became a battleground unlike any other in Vietnam as the 66^th Regiment of the North Vietnamese Army – with its Chinese advisors – stood their ground and fought a battle of trenches and fortified bunkers more like World War I or II than Vietnam.  The network of tunnels used by the NVA throughout the area made any semblance of a “front” frustratingly fluid.

With the 2/503d Battalion of the 173^rd leading the way, we initiated the final push for the top of the hill on November 19^th.  Over the next 5 days the 173^rd lost 279 souls killed in action, suffered over 900 wounded, and reported 33 MIA’s.

Can you imagine the outcry and uproar if those casualty numbers were reported out of Iraq today?

On the morning of Thanksgiving Day 1967, “The Hill” was finally taken in a cold steady monsoonal downpour made worse by the devastated terrain, the despair over the losses experienced, and just pure exhaustion.  Thanksgiving dinner that last day was one of the most miserable meals I ever ate.  

I was alive, in large part because of the heroism of Carlos Lozada.  Carlos, despite being out-manned and out-flanked, was able to maintain a rate of machine gun fire that disrupted an attack of superior forces set to overrun our sector, enabling the rest of us to withdraw with five of our severely wounded.  The attack had broken off when “Moose” and I went back up the slope the last time, where we found Carlos mortally wounded.

Despite the medic’s best efforts, Carlos died before he could be medi-vac’ed. 

PFC Carlos Lozada was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions that day, a richly deserved honor.  I wish I could say that I knew Carlos well and for a longer period, but in truth I knew him barely more than a week.  He came across as an ordinary kid from the Bronx who ultimately made a most extraordinary and selfless sacrifice.  And because of the extraordinary acts of this ordinary man, today – 40 years later – I still am able to say how proud I am to have even briefly served with him.

Forty years is a long time and the Vietnam of then is now a long way away.  Yet sometimes, when I close my eyes in quiet reflection, those events happened but a moment ago.

I think I am like most other veterans, with their own tales to tell and their own memories to share or keep to themselves as they choose. Like most other veterans, I must admit that some of those memories are painful, some humorous, some happy and others melancholy. That is why I personally think the Canadians calling their 11^th of November “A Day of Remembrance” is so appropriate.  

On the 11^th of this month, Veterans Day, if you are related to a veteran, know a veteran, or even see a veteran, please take a moment from your busy life and thank them for their service to our country.  Some of these veterans are still kids, freshly home from the Middle East, while others of us served a long time ago.  And a quickly diminishing few even longer ago.  They all richly deserve credit for what they did, are doing, and will continue to do so Americans like you and I – our children and grandchildren – can have the opportunity to do what we do and be what we are.

However, if you do not happen to know or see a “Vet”, I offer an alternative – pause for a moment to reflect on PFC Carlos Lozada’s ultimate sacrifice for his unit and the “troopers” of a very proud Brigade.   

To all my fellow “Vets” – Thank you for your service and your personal investment in what makes this country so unique in this world. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

Today we’re doing something we’ve never done before: publishing a post that involves politics and government beyond the Park Ridge community.  Actually, it involves our entire State of Illinois.

We’re encouraging you to vote against long-time Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, Michael Madigan.

Madigan has been Speaker since 1983 – that’s right, 1983 – except for 1995-96, when Republicans briefly became the majority party in the House and that majority voted Republican Lee Daniels the Speaker.   As Speaker, Madigan effectively controls everything that goes on in the General Assembly, including what legislation comes up for a vote on the floor of the Illinois House.  That means that his fingerprints are on every piece of legislation that has passed the House during 27 of the last 29 years.

During those 27 years our state has spiraled downward from prosperity to the brink of bankruptcy.  Our pension system has become the most underfunded in the nation.  Our infrastructure has been terribly neglected.  Our bonds are approaching “junk” status.  Even our state motto, “Land of Lincoln,” has become a sad joke, with Illinois recognized as a perennial contender for the mythical national championship of public corruption – to the point where our most valuable public official for the past decade was U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

All of those dubious “achievements” have been accomplished on Madigan’s watch, with his hands on the levers of power.  And that’s why Madigan must go if we hope to ever start turning this train-wreck of a state around.

Now, we’re not naïve enough to suggest that just getting rid of Madigan will magically accomplish such a turn-around.  Madigan hasn’t tanked this state all by himself.  He has been ably assisted in his profligate and corrupt endeavors by Republican governors like “Big Jim” Thompson, “Slim Jim” Edgar, and George “No. 16627-424” Ryan.  In many respects, those three officials governed as despicably and destructively as Madigan.

But only Madigan’s tenure encompassed and survived theirs.  And only Madigan remains in Springfield today, more powerful and wily than ever.

Madigan’s name, however, won’t be on our ballots.  He’s on the ballot in another legislative district, one in which he’s been elected and re-elected since 1971 – that’s right, 1971!  He’s such a lock in that district that its voters will be trying  to cast votes for him years after his demise.

So the only way to strip Madigan of his Speaker’s power and his control over Springfield is to deprive him of the votes he needs to remain Speaker.   And the only way that can be done is by electing enough Republicans to the House that they gain a majority and vote for someone other than Madigan as Speaker.

Thanks to the 2011 Madigan/Democrat-controlled redistricting, Park Ridge was cut into parts of 3 House districts.  In the new District 15, there is no Republican candidate.  But in the new District 20, the Republican candidate is incumbent Michael McAuliffe; and in the new District 55, the Republican candidate is Park Ridge’s own Susan Sweeney.  So a vote for Democrat Bruce Randazzo in Dist. 20, or for Democrat Marty Moylan in Dist. 55, is in reality a vote to keep Madigan the Speaker, and to continue business-as-usual in Springfield.

Some voters might not want to vote for these Republican candidates because of their stances on abortion, guns, school funding, pension reform, or various other issues.  That’s all well and good if those voters truly believe that preserving abortion on demand, or further restricting gun ownership, or banning school vouchers, or preserving guaranteed defined benefit pensions and COLAs for government retirees, is more important than the state’s economic solvency.

And we hope those voters remember to tell that to their kids and grandkids when those kids and grandkids ask what their pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-voucher, pro-pension parents and grandparents did to stop Illinois from becoming the kind of place where those younger generations can’t afford to, or don’t even want to, live and raise their own families.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Whether you believe that Labor Day was the idea of Peter J. McGuire of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, or of machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York Matthew Maguire, there is no disagreement that in 1894 the day was institutionalized as a federal holiday. 

And ever since, Labor Day has been celebrated as a tribute to American workers and the achievements of their labor unions, including: the reduction of the work-week from the customary 7 days to 5 days; the reduction of the work day from the customary 12 hours to 8 hours; the prohibition against child labor; increased safety in the workplace; the establishment of unemployment insurance; the creation of social security; and the enactment of the minimum wage. 

Those watershed benefits were achieved by men like William Sylvis (Iron Molders), Eugene Debs (American Railway Union), Samuel Gompers (Cigar Workers/AFL), John L. Lewis (United Mine Workers/CIO), Walter Reuther (United Automobile Workers), George Meany (AFL-CIO), Cesar Chavez (United Farm Workers).   Most of those men and their followers endured bitter public criticism, as well as private and governmental threats to their personal freedom and safety.

Notably, all of them were trade or industrial unionists in the private sector.  And their achievements helped create the American middle class and make the United States the most productive nation in the world.

But over the past 30 years private sector trade and industrial union membership has eroded.  Despite the vast majority of workers still being employed in the private sector, union membership in that sector has eroded to the point where only 7.2 million of its workers are union members, while 7.6 million public sector employees belong to unions.  Union membership in the public sector is reported at 37% of all such employees, 5 times the rate of private sector workers.

Notwithstanding that dramatic rise of public sector union membership, however, none of the society-wide breakthroughs achieved by those earlier union leaders has been produced by their public sector, union-lite counterparts.   Instead, public sector union leaders seem content to ride the gravy train derived from both the freedom from market forces that is inherent in most government employment, and from colluding with craven and corrupt politicians to obtain compensation and benefits not available in the uber-competitive private sector.  At the same time, the middle class has shrunk substantially.

So on this Labor Day 2012 we remember those trade unionists of the past whose achievements created an economic reality that was good for the entire country.  And we echo the cautionary words of pro-labor New York governor Andrew Cuomo:   

“I respect the state workers and I respect their unions, but we simply can’t afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.” 

To read or post comments, click on title.

We still haven’t found a better depiction of how challenging, difficult and dangerous the vote for independence was for our Founders than this scene from the 2008 HBO 7-part “John Adams” series:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvpZxMfKaU

The signers of the Declaration of Independence also effectively signed their own death warrants, risking their lives, their families and their fortunes for the freedom to enjoy the inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

As we celebrate this world-changing action and document, we should stop a moment and think what we have done, what we are doing, and what we still can do to prove ourselves worthy heirs to the Republic these truly remarkable men – farmers, merchants, physicians, lawyers, judges, educators and even a minister – gave us 236 years ago.

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Everybody knows we live in the most corrupt state in the country, and in the most corrupt county in that most corrupt state.  

It took a long time, and a lot of elections of inept and corrupt candidates, to get that way.  And the only way it’s ever going to improve is through a lot more elections, but of competent, honest, public-spirited candidates instead.

We can’t expect the U.S. Attorney to muck out these stables all by himself.  The current guy – clearly the most tenacious and apolitical one we’ve had in at least 30 years – won’t be around forever; and criminal investigations, prosecutions and convictions of corrupt officials take a lot of time and money.  Even when those prosecutions are successful and the crooks go to jail, that still leaves a lot of public offices manned by incompetent mopes who are easy marks for the next generation of corrupt opportunists.

Voting is the only remedy for this situation, although we must realize that significant change won’t happen overnight. 

But unless enough people vote, even if that means sometimes voting for the “lesser of two evils,” it won’t happen at all. 

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It originally was known as “Armistice Day” because November 11 was the day in 1918 that Germany signed the armistice treaty ending World War I, the “War to End All Wars.”  Unfortunately, World War II and the Korean War proved that wrong, and by 1954 Congress decided to change the name to Veterans Day.

No matter one’s personal political stripe, we all owe a debt of gratitude to our military veterans.  And with the United States waging war continuously since March 2003 using Reservists as well as “regular” enlisted men/women, there are far more “veterans” among us than we might realize – in addition to those vets of WW II, Korea and Vietnam.  Some are Purple Heart recipients for having been wounded.  Some of them have been honored with bronze and silver stars for the special distinction with which they served.

Every one of them who has actually seen combat, however, also carries the scars of battle.  Some are very visible, others not at all.  But as author Jose Narosky quotably noted: “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”   

Today politicians will give speeches, and those are necessary to ensure that we recognize and remember the service and the sacrifice inherent in military service.  But speeches aren’t nearly enough, especially for those who have returned from service significantly diminished, depleted or impaired.

Although we often disagree with Sen. Dick Durbin on public policy matters, he is spot-on when he says: “We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.” That’s especially true for those veterans whose disability arises from actually having been placed in harm’s way in the defense of this country.  We, as a nation, owe them the best care this country can reasonably provide to restore them, as much as possible, to the condition and functionality of which they were robbed on the battlefield.

And those of us who did not serve must do our best to ensure that they get it.

That’s our debt of honor.

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