A diverse crowd of protesters gathered at the corner of Brady and Locust streets in central Davenport today, unified in their contempt for last year's bailouts and this year's stimulus bill approved by Congress and signed by Obama last week. (The bill is the H.R.1—American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and can be read at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1/show.  The following story includes a 4 minute video log of interviews at the protest.)

Plucked from the bulletin board of George Condon's office in the Copley News Service Washington bureau are 21 pink index cards, each representing a completed chapter of "The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy ‘Duke' Cunningham, the Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught." The bureau's reporters broke the story of the California Republican's bribe-taking, and in the process won a Pulitzer for Copley and its flagship paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Quad Cities Mississippi River Project Office's new administration building was recently opened in Pleasant Valley, Iowa, near Lock and Dam 14. It is the largest project office in the Rock Island District and the largest U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presence in Iowa. The roughly $2-million facility will serve as the planning and operations center for 314 miles of the Mississippi River from Cassville, Wisconsin, to south of Hannibal, Missouri. It will be responsible for managing roughly 300 federal employees and more than 96,000 acres of federal land, including 55,000 acres of natural floodplain forest, 12 lock-and-dam sites, and 26 recreation sites.

The Quad Cities' lost a treasure on February 15, 2009 when community leader John Kiley died at the age of 58 years young.

On Wednesday February 18, his great friend Randy Richards soothed the full house at Sacred Heart Cathedral with an insightful eulogy -- seasoned appropriately with song lyrics from the soundtrack of Kiley's life.  Kiley touched too many souls to count in his career as a social activist, culture and music fan, marathon runner, United Way leader, teacher and most recently development director at the Catholic dioceses.  Richards deftly summarized the challenge with reconciling all that Kiley accomplished in his life, explaining that in his estimation, Kiley had to really be 108 years old to have achieved so much and touched so many people. He had in fact been lying to us about his age.

Especially poignant was Richards' call to prize and praise Kiley's life as well lived.
"Praised for his courage. For when courage goes, honesty is the next casualty and soon after we witness the death of integrity."

Our world needs more Kileys with his courage and integrity.  May we all recall Kiley's smile, laughter, words and deeds often in our own efforts to do what Kiley did every day -- make our community and world a better place to live.

Another of John's great friends, Victoria Navarro, shared her poem about John. It too elicited both tears and laughter and was equally as insightful about John Kiley and all the roles he played in our lives.

Richards' eulogy and Victoria's poem are both reprinted below, in their entirety, with the authors' permission.
In addition, Linda Cook authored a fine memorial to John Kiley, in her piece in the QCTimes.
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