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* Jerry Owens dies, former school board president, reporter

* Windmill idea generates worry over noise, blight

Lane, the school district’s attorney, said Americans also complained when the first telephone poles were driven into the ground at the beginning of the 20th Century.

* Video: City Desk with Andy McKenna…part 1…part 2

* Tribune Editorial: After Hastert

* Hastert retirement brings a change to IL-14th

* Schoenburg: Rep. Shimkus may have opponent

* Update on race to replace LaHood

* Senate GOP hopefuls gear up

* Editorial: Cheaters never win, unless they drive the Illinois tollway

* Editorial: The road to teen driver reforms

* TY Fahner: Chicago lawyer enjoyed roles in government

* Clarence Page: Many of us tune out opposing viewpoints

Almost 20 years ago, sociologist David Knoke at the University of Minnesota found that you can predict someone’s politics with great certainty if his or her closest two or three friends all lean in one political direction.

“The more homogeneous that someone’s personal networks are,” Knoke told me in a recent interview, “the more likely they share the partisanship of other people.”

* Spinning Illinois’ job numbers

While there was a growth of 1,600 jobs in manufacturing from June to July, employment in that sector is down 2,200 from July 2006. Manufacturing employment is down more than 200,000 jobs since the turn of the century, said Manufacturers Association spokesman Jim Nelson. He said the association doesn’t see the June-to-July numbers as the start of a trend, at least not yet.

* New law gives bicyclists some room to maneuver

* Editorial: Bottled water tax no way to fill up city coffers

* CPS pushes first day attendance; more here

* Will Co. development hits the wall

City managers from Joliet to Frankfort are tightening their budgets to account for revenue losses — ranging from $600,000 to $2 million — because of an expected drop in residential building permits this year to the lowest level since 1991. The cities’ fees for park districts and water and sewer usage also have seen anemic growth.

posted by Paul Richardson
Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 7:30 am

Comments

Raw job numbers on a month to month basis mean absolutely nothing. Seasonal employment occurs. It is better to look at same month, year by year.

THe writer indicates we are down on that basis and hugely down since 2000 or 2001, whenever the century turned.

Comment by Truthful James Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 10:10 am
The Illinois Tollway’s accounting practices are very much creative and should be examined by an independent group. Meaning not someone picked by Governor Blagojevich, Illinois Tollway’s Brian McPartlin or their Board of Directors.
The people running the Illinois Tollway since 2002 should not be taken at their word. There is much more being covered up, one only needs to start digging deeper and asking direct questions.

Comment by Foxes watching the Hen House Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 10:20 am
I am having a little trouble understanding why Chicago parents need “incentives” to get their children to school on the first day. I haven’t read that this is a problem in the rest of the state.

Perhaps Chicagoans are so used to having government money poured on them that they no longer value education…having concluded that you can make a great living without one.

Comment by Cassandra Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 1:12 pm
There are now two generations of some Chicagoans (and elsewhere) who no longer believe that education is an economic or social good.

They have been passed through the system and been unprepared for the world of commerce. Children having children and living in substandard public housing with their peers, scrabbling out a public assistance existence.

But it all started out with the schools.

We have just about run out of grandparents who did believe that this is the land of opportunity.

Before we let one illegal alien stay in thsi country, we had best attempt to provide jobs at market clearing wages and encourage movement to where there is employment, instead of contributing to the political system which needs their votes in place.

The growers scream that they can not harvest without the low paid illegals. Of course not, not at the wages they choose to pay. I doubt anywone has seen them attempt to pay more and recruit our people in Chicago and Waukegan and East St. Louis.

Those migrant wages subsidize low prices to the consumer, who make up for the true price of labor with his taxes to support the existing welfare system and the additional social costs of the illegal aliens.

WE have an additional segment of the population who are the best judges of the quality of our public school systems and cry out for vouchers and school choice for their kids

The political machine turns them down flat and continues to subsidize a failing system for the sake of reelection.

Cassandra, you see a educational lethargy mired in methodology when we need to be able to provide the necessary output to compete in the 21st Century world economy.

Comment by Truthful James Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 1:38 pm
This whole “first day of school rally” thing baffles me. I cannot imagine a parent not counting down the days until their children went back to school.

Why does CPS “push” first day attendance? When I was growing up, I could not imagine being attendance on the first day being anything less than 100%. And what is the deal with the bribes for required behavior, i.e. attendance?

Are we becoming a Third World country? I hope not.

When I was in high school, they kept you until you were 16 and, if you didn’t want to be there, you were gone. Most of those kids were disruptive anyway and interfered with the students who wanted to learn.

Comment by Mrs. Crabapple Monday, Aug 20, 07 @ 2:10 pm