Alternative-health-care provider

1. Palmer Clinics

2. Harvey Jack Chiropractic

3. Genesis Continuing Care

Fitness club

1. YMCA

2. Gold's Gym

3. Ultimate Fitness

Flower shop

1. Flowerama

2. Hy-Vee

3. K'nees

Place to buy cool home accessories/furnishings

1. American Furniture

2. Pier 1 Imports

Local blues band

1. Ellis Kell Band

2. Electric Leroy

3. Shane Johnson

Local country band

1. Dani Lynn Howe Band

2. Jim the Mule

3. A Fifth of Country

Local jazz band

1. Josh Duffee & His Orchestra

1. The Tritones Jazz Ensemble

3. Craig Bentley Jazz Trio

Local rock band

1. Crossroads

Passenger rail to the Quad Cities is part of a larger discussion about how a community moves its people. While our transportation policy most often focuses on how to move automobiles from one place to another, alternative transportation has frequently been ignored.

That's shifting. An aging population, traffic congestion, air-travel hassles, high fuel prices, and concern about global warming have all sparked renewed interest in mass-transit options such as passenger rail (getting from city to city) and commuter rail (transportation within a city).

Both Democrats and Republicans are doing harm to society by invoking religion, author Susan Jacoby argued in a November 29 lecture at Augustana College.

Jacoby's lecture, "Whose God, Whose Trust? Religion, Secularism, & American Patriotism," offered a historical perspective on what she called the "great American paradox" - the separation of church and state. She said that the conflict between secularism and religion is at an all-time high, and that both liberals and conservatives cross a moral boundary when using religious rhetoric to influence the general public or public policy.