25 Oct 2000

Schools Face Fallout From Low Wages

By Jeff Ignatius
The Bettendorf school district is in the second year of a three-year early retirement program, designed to cut costs and balance the age and experience levels of what had been a graying teaching corps. The early-retirement incentives are working, but the departure of a large number of teachers brings with it one serious challenge: finding the people to replace them.
17 Oct 2000

City Considering Condemning Elderly Couple's Land for Library

By Jeff Ignatius
The City of Davenport doesn't own the land on which it would like to build a new west-end library, and the owner of the farmstead - an elderly couple - has said it is unwilling to sell. But city leaders haven't given up on the property yet and are still considering condemning a portion of it.
17 Oct 2000

Make a Date with Einstein's Sister

By Jeff Ignatius
There might be nothing more difficult in rock music than crafting a good pop song. Except to make a couple albums full of them. Pop songs are so tricky because they need to sound effortless and ebullient while being catchy and tight – and that requires hard work, which makes effortless and ebullient all that more difficult.
10 Oct 2000

Out of Thin Air

By Jeff Ignatius
I ask Carter Brown where he wants to take his Lazer Vaudeville troupe. "Australia," he says. I clarify the question: artistically. He thinks for a moment and says that he and his two collaborators have been working on a piece that is as much about percussion as it is juggling, "actually creating music" with the objects being juggled and a sound processor.
10 Oct 2000

Big Rock, and Its Less-than-Bright Kid Brother

By Jeff Ignatius
You remember rock, don’t you? That arena sound that required no hair spray, no leather, no preening, no showy solos, no attitude? The only things you needed were guitar, drums, bass, and a singer. That’s exactly what the local band Blue Ash Ink has on its self-titled, self-released album.
03 Oct 2000

RDA Hopes for Boost from New Boat

By Jeff Ignatius
Last week's Davenport City Council approval of an agreement with the Isle of Capri Casino sets the stage for a new riverboat casino opening next year - and possibly more money for community projects. "We're just happy we can move forward," said Mary Ellen Chamberlin, president of the Riverboat Development Authority (RDA).
03 Oct 2000

Qwest Squeezes Internet Providers

By Jeff Ignatius
It was meant to be a bonus for consumers - faster Internet connections at the same price - but some people got significantly less than they were promised, and a few local Internet providers aren't happy about it, either.
27 Sep 2000

Is Crime Back?

By Jeff Ignatius
The refrain has gotten pretty old, to the point that most people react with indifference. Crime is down. Crime falls even more. Crime drops again. That's true nationwide, in Illinois and Iowa, and in the Quad Cities.
27 Sep 2000

Sentry Deal Raises Questions on Incentives

By Jeff Ignatius
The Davenport City Council last week tentatively approved a $3.7 million incentive package for Sentry Insurance to relocate from Moline, claiming that without the deal the company might have left the Quad Cities altogether.
27 Sep 2000

Intensity Rescues Progressive Rock From Itself

By Jeff Ignatius
Progressive rock has never been cool. It has sometimes been respected, but those periods have been fleeting and hastily apologized for. The genre had many practitioners in the early 1970s, bands unafraid of releasing 30-minute pieces (they can’t properly be called songs) rife with self-indulgence and pomposity.

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