We're busy as always this week, bringing in a number of bands that will be playing this week's Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. The sessions that we'll be recording here in Rock Island include visits by Candle, Bear Country, The New Year, The Icy Demons, Jennifer O'Connor, Secret Machines, The Dutchess & the Duke, the Prairie Spies, Ani DiFranco, and Supergrass.

On Wednesday, July 23, a team of cyclists participating in the "Journey of Hope" will arrive in Davenport as part of a nine-week, 4,000-mile cycling event across the country to raise funds and awareness for people with disabilities. The team expects to arrive in the afternoon and then have dinner and a friendship visit, with details to be determined, at 4:30 p.m. The Journey of Hope is a program of Push America, the national philanthropy of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, which raises funds and awareness for people with disabilities. The Journey of Hope team consists of men from Pi Kappa Phi chapters across the country. The team will cycle an average of 75 miles per day, beginning in San Francisco and ending in Washington, DC, on August 16. For more information about this event or more on Push America's summer programs, contact Adam Phillips at (704) 504-2400 extension 160 or visit (http://www.pushamerica.org).

Thrift used to be a virtue in America. In Asia, thrift remains a way of life - for example, it is estimated that the average Chinese family's thrift rate is 30 to 40 percent - which helps explain the rapid growth rates there.

Last month Governor Rod Blagojevich proclaimed that the Illinois House absolutely, positively, without a doubt had to pass the Senate-approved pension-obligation bond deal, a special-funds sweep, and the entire capital-construction package or he'd have to slash the state budget right down to the bone. Much suffering would result, the governor warned, unless the House complied with every one of his directives.