On July 16, 2003, American Airlines announced the elimination of its daily flight schedule from the Quad City International Airport to St. Louis effective November 1, 2003. While my initial reaction to this announcement, albeit premature, was "devastating," there is much more to the story.

Last Tuesday was a public-relations nightmare for Governor Rod Blagojevich, but he did manage to avert a complete PR meltdown with a last-minute deal. A few months after freezing wages of nonunion state workers and deducting 4 percent from their checks to pay for their pension contributions, a month after vetoing pay raises for legislators and judges, two weeks after he unilaterally slashed the operations budgets of two statewide constitutional officers, and the same day that Latino legislators slammed him for breaking his promise about not cutting funds for social programs, the Chicago Tribune reported that the governor had given pay raises to some of his employees.

A $6-million annual state program to help at-risk high-school students graduate and find jobs has been vetoed out of existence by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The program appears to be worthwhile, and the governor has never really explained why he wanted to kill it, other than he wants to "streamline" and "consolidate" the state's job-training efforts.

As a dedicated jazz and blues lover and supporter, I wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the outstanding support the River Cities' Reader provided for the 19th Annual Mississippi Valley Blues Festival held in LeClaire Park in Davenport from July 3 through 5.