Northwest Herald Editorial Board John Rung, Dan McCaleb, Jason Schaumburg, Kevin Lyons, Jon Styf, John Sahly, Val Katzenstein
OPINIONS WEDNESDAY NWHerald.com
OUR VIEW
September 3, 2014 Northwest Herald Section A • Page 7
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SKETCH VIEW
Regular fumigation required More than five years ago, when Illinois was embroiled in the Gov. Rod Blagojevich impeachment process, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn boiled his solution to the corruption scandal down to one word: fumigate. “We have to fumigate state government,” Quinn told a Chicago civic luncheon in late 2008. “We need to fumigate state government,” Quinn told reporters on a different occasion. And, after Blagojevich was For the record booted and Quinn took office in late Perhaps Gov. Pat Quinn could January 2009, the have avoided the whole IDOT word popped up mess if he had done a better again. job “fumigating” state govern“We’re going to ment five years ago. start to fumigate state government from top to bottom to make sure it has no corruption,” Quinn said at a Capitol news conference. The dictionary says that fumigate means to apply the fumes of certain chemicals to an area to disinfect it or to rid it of vermin. You know, like how the pest-control man walks the hallways, rooms and exteriors of a building, spraying to kill the bugs. The word came to mind as more details broke about political hiring in the Quinn administration, specifically the Illinois Department of Transportation. The Office of the Executive Inspector General issued an investigative report last month stating that anti-patronage hiring rules were circumvented at IDOT over the past decade. In all, 255 people were improperly hired to midlevel “staff assistant” positions. And the report stated the process accelerated in 2010 and 2011 – after Quinn took office. Any administration is allowed to hire political cronies when jobs involve policymaking or confidential information. But the jobs filled at IDOT were reclassified to make them appear to be exempt from normal hiring rules, even though the duties for some jobs involved only mowing lawns and answering phones. The report stated no evidence was found that Quinn knew of the hiring shenanigans. IDOT’s acting secretary, Erica Borggren, announced the layoff of 58 remaining workers hired as staff assistants, and that the job title would be discontinued. But IDOT’s former secretary, Ann Schneider, who resigned in June, said the “vast majority” of candidates that IDOT hired were recommended by Quinn’s office, and she felt pressured to hire them. That’s a natural reaction. How many subordinates, when asked by the boss to take a particular action, say no? Quinn, of course, is up for election in November. His Republican opponent, Bruce Rauner, leaped at the opportunity to criticize his Democratic opponent. Quinn and his staff should simply stop recommending candidates for jobs at IDOT or anywhere else in state government. That would relieve the pressure on various departments to hire certain people because the governor recommended them. Merit alone should then be the deciding factor. Perhaps Quinn could have avoided the whole IDOT mess if he had done a better job “fumigating” state government five years ago. He also should learn a lesson from the pestcontrol man. You can’t fumigate just once and then forget it. You’ve got to spray on a regular basis to keep those annoying bugs from coming back.
ANOTHER VIEW
Getting cold shoulder “We’re using a very strong four-letter word to describe this winter, which is C-O-L-D. It’s going to be very cold,” Farmers’ Almanac Managing Editor Sandi Duncan told The Associated Press. “The Almanac,” AP reported, “is also describing the coming winter as ‘piercing cold’ and ‘biting cold.’ ” Just a guess, you say. They could be completely off-base. Except that story was written last August, about the Almanac’s predictions for last winter. So it might be worth paying attention to the predictions for the coming winter that the Farmers’ Almanac released last month. Using its secret recipe for long-range forecasts, the 198-year-old Almanac warns that things will be colder and wetter than normal this winter. “Shivery and shovelry are back,” Duncan told the Associated Press. That sentence is not only ominous but hard to say. The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Indiana)
THE FIRST
AMENDMENT
IT’S YOUR WRITE Voting for Anderson To the Editor: With each encounter with Dennis Anderson, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 14th District, I come away more firmly convinced that he is the right person to represent this district. Anderson not only has a grasp of the issues, but he has a way of working with people that only can contribute to a more positive atmosphere in Washington. He has the ability to work with people, even those people with whom he might disagree. He knows the value of compromise, a dirty word for many, and a skill badly lacking in the person who currently “represents” this district, Randy Hultgren. We need representatives who are willing to reach across the aisle in a spirit of bipartisanship because a Congress so badly divided cannot serve the American people nor the needs of this district. Anderson is intelligent, thoughtful and principled; he is a good listener. While one person cannot change the entire climate of the House of Representatives,
Anderson provides the best choice to take a step in that direction. I believe his leadership and people skills will make a positive contribution in Congress. I will cast my vote for Dennis on Nov. 4, and I challenge Hultgren to have the courage to debate with Anderson on the issues.
HOW TO SOUND OFF We welcome original letters on public issues. Letters must include the author’s full name, home address and day and evening telephone numbers. We limit letters to 250 words and one published letter every 30 days. All letters are subject to editing
for length and clarity at the sole discretion of the editor. Submit letters by: • Email: letters@nwherald.com • Mail: Northwest Herald “It’s Your Write” Box 250 Crystal Lake, IL 60039-0250
Toni Weaver McHenry
Bleachers solution To the Editor: Instead of wasting all kinds of court time and enriching lawyers at taxpayer expense, here’s an uncomplicated way to solve the Crystal Lake South bleacher issue. District 155 immediately should offer to purchase the four or five homes directly affected by the privacy invading structure. Pay the homeowners two, three or four times the assessed values. Whatever it takes to assuage hurt feelings and repair damaged relationships. The city then agrees to drop all zoning violation charges and puts in place a permanent variance. District 155 then, at its convenience,
can resell these properties to new homeowners who will know (and see) up front what they’re buying. Until the properties sell, District 155’s superintendent and other administrators should reside in these homes as part of their compensation package, reminding them to consider their neighbors when making huge changes to the neighborhood. Russ Henning McHenry
Misinformed choice To the Editor: In response to Dave Sippel’s letter (“Make informed choice,” Aug. 19), there was a bit of what I feel was misinformation. God always has kept His end
of the bargain and never has changed. It was mentioned that Job’s situation was because of a bet between God and the devil. That is a huge stretch. God never promised a perfect, easy life – see John 16:33 – but He does promise everlasting life. I’m not sure which Bible the writer references, but I have yet to find a version in which Jesus is angry with a leper for asking to be healed in the book of Mark. God created us with free will and ability to make our own choice, and He also sent His son to take our sins to the cross so we could live eternally with Him in heaven. For me, that’s an easy choice. Brian Bremer Huntley
‘Finding Your Roots’ with Louis Gates Jr. From 1948 to 1961, there was a show called “This Is Your Life,” hosted by Ralph Edwards. In it, an unsuspecting celebrity was lured to a place by a friend or family member where Edwards would surprise them. People from the celebrity’s past would then come out one by one and tell stories of the celebrity’s early life. A modern-day version of that program is “Finding Your Roots,” the latest in a brilliant series about race, identity and heritage hosted by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Scheduled to air Sept. 23 through Nov. 25 on PBS. Check your local listings.) In the aftermath of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and renewed calls for a serious “conversation” about race, which always seems to end up with the races talking over one another, Gates’ program travels a different road. It is exceptional TV and again demonstrates what can be when the medium lives up to its full potential. While his earlier series dealt mainly with the roots of famous
VIEWS Cal Thomas African-Americans, in some cases tracing them back to slave ancestors, this latest series is more of a potpourri. In the first episode we meet horror novelist Stephen King, actor Courtney B. Vance and Canadian actress-singer Gloria Reuben. King’s father walked out on his family when Stephen was 2 and never returned. Vance’s father committed suicide, and Courtney was brought up in a foster home. Reuben’s father was 78 years old when she was born. When he died he took the secret of his ancestry with him, but not for good. Using genealogy and in some cases DNA, Gates helps each of them to discover family history they never knew. In the second episode (Sept. 30), Gates features three highly successful athletes: tennis great Billie Jean King, New York
Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and women’s basketball hall of famer Rebecca Lobo. Jeter, who is the son of an African-American father and Irish mother, is astonished to learn his ancestors included slaves who were “owned” by a white man named James Jeter. “The story of America,” noted Gates, “is a patchwork of stories like these.” This is why racism is so incredibly stupid. To hate someone because of race – or any other attribute for that matter – is to hate, if not one’s self, then one’s ancestors. We are all “mixed.” There are no “purebred humans.” Like wildflowers, we can be seen in many different hues, shapes and origins. Gates said some scientists believe that great athletes such as King, Jeter and Lobo inherit certain traits in their DNA, giving them advantages others don’t have. While he doesn’t deny the role of DNA, he concludes with something more profound: “The source of their greatness was not simply in their DNA, but also in
the values that their ancestors passed down to them, even in ways they had never known.” Isn’t the passing down of immutable values something that has been lost in our “tolerant” culture? Doesn’t their loss explain the cause of so much social turmoil? “Finding Your Roots” should be assigned homework for every child. It also should be watched by adults because it contains the essence of a healing balm that could, if we let it, repair some of the damage caused by the way we look at ourselves and other people. We aren’t – or shouldn’t be – defined by race, gender, class, politics or anything else. A common humanity is what separates us from plants and animals. It should not separate us from each other. • Cal Thomas’ latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” is available in bookstores now. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribune. com.
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