Here's the question: If eliminating the Davenport City Council's Thursday-afternoon standing-committee meetings is a positive change for Davenport citizens, then why all the hush and rush?

It was the Gisswold v. Connecticut case in 1965 that struck down state laws prohibiting married couples from using birth control; the law was ruled unconstitutional because it violated marital privacy, a right protected by the Constitution.

For months, most Statehouse observers have predicted a battle royale between the state's three top Democrats: Governor Rod Blagojevich, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Senate President Emil Jones.

The three men haven't been getting along, and the relationships between Madigan and Blagojevich, and between Madigan and Jones, are particularly strained. So far, Jones and Blagojevich are doing okay together, but that could change in a heartbeat if Blagojevich and Jones tangle over school funding. Jones wants a lot of money for schools, but Blagojevich refuses to raise taxes.

On August 4, 2005, the publisher of the River Cities' Reader, the Quad-City Times city-hall reporter, and an Argus/Dispatch journalist strategically positioned themselves outside the doors of City Hall, just as the city attorney unlocked them at 6 p.m., allowing the media through, then re-locking the doors behind them. They had finally gained entrance to the elusive "Governance Committee" meetings.

Senate President Emil Jones talked for several minutes during a media availability the other day about his war theories.

Among other things, Jones recalled how Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounded his desk during the United Nations debate over whether to allow China into the organization. Khrushchev failed to persuade the international body to admit his fellow Communist nation, but, as Jones said, not long afterwards China detonated a nuclear bomb in the atmosphere and the UN quickly relented, bringing China in and forcing Taiwan out.

It was the Gisswold v. Connecticut case in 1965 that struck down state laws prohibiting married couples from using birth control; the law was ruled unconstitutional because it violated marital privacy, a right protected by the Constitution.

The article "Buildings That Breathe" makes some great points overall, but the homesteading movement is not dead, and not just in California. (See River Cities' Reader Issue 616, January 17-23, 2007.) There are many alternative building/energy conferences one can go to in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois focusing on straw-bale construction, log construction, and alternative heating/energy for the cabin set. There are many publications that cater to the modern homesteader.

My grandmother tells the story of when she met John F. Kennedy.

It was back in 1959, as Kennedy was still gearing up for his presidential run. Grandma and my grandfather, an active Teamsters Union member and a Democratic precinct committeeman in Kankakee, traveled to Chicago for a labor event featuring JFK.

Kennedy, the story goes, was working the room, and when he made it over to my grandparents he put his arm around my grandmother, kissed her on the cheek, and told my grandfather that he had a "beautiful wife."

Grandma swooned, of course, and decades later when I asked her how she reacted, she joked that she didn't wash that kissed spot on her face for two weeks. To this day, you can't say a bad word about JFK in front of Grandma for fear of risking the evil eye.

There are three significant positions to be filled in Davenport's economic development in the near-future: City Director for Economic and Community Director, Director for DavenportOne, and Director for Quad Cities Development Group.

Talk about the opportunity of a lifetime! Here is a chance to enact real change in Davenport, considered by some to be the flagship of the Quad Cities. Those who will influence our new hires will either see the path or they won't - the path being to hire individuals with genuine leadership skills that are foundationally inclusive, versus the exclusive policy that has dominated economic development in Davenport for so long.

You'd think that Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, who is forever being touted as one of the smartest politicians in Illinois history, would have realized long ago that Barack Obama was immensely popular and needed to be treated differently than others. Yet it wasn't until last week that Madigan finally offered a public bow to the man widely considered to be a top-tier candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2008 and who has a rock star's ability to turn grown men and women into giddy teenagers.

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