Friday, July 13, 2012
Let's follow the European example and make drinking any amount and driving illegal!
Do me a favor. Go to your local Patch website and type “DUI” in the search field. Astonishing isn’t it? But the irony is, because it’s the most often reported story, we don’t pay much attention until someone with a relatively high profile gets nabbed. Somehow, we’ve gotten to the point were the inevitability of drunken driving has become a given. And I’m just as guilty as everyone else. It took the recent Patch news story on the Batavia girls high school softball coach who resigned as a result of a DUI charge to make me seriously start thinking about this persistent problem. It brought back one my frequent conversations with former Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti, who made a very interesting point about our cultural mindset. He …
Friday, July 6, 2012
Though he's better than John Kass (but who isn't?), Tribune columnist John Keilman got it all wrong when he said the self-esteem glut is more imagined than real.
So I stared in stunned silence as I read page two of the June 26 Chicago Tribune. As if John Kass and his coma-inducing compositions weren’t bad enough, now they’re rotating other columnists though that space on his off days. Of course, my first thought was, how the heck can you tell he’s taking a day off? Just run an empty space and people will think they read his column anyway. So I was grateful for the respite until I read that hard-hitting page 2 piece on one reporter’s obsession with her front lawn. And Robert McCormick and Mike Royko are spinning in their graves as we speak. But the column that really frosted my cookies was the aforementioned piece by John Keilman, who ignored his New Age-inspired higher self when he waded in on the …
Friday, June 29, 2012
With all the suffering in the world, the story of a bullied bus monitor is the one that grabs our attention—and our wallets?
If I’d known I could’ve turned your taunts, jeers, epithets, insults, barbs, mockery and general derision into gold, I would have headed down that yellow brick road years ago. Those of you who also read my Monday and Wednesday Geneva Patch columns know that, just in the last couple a months worth of comments, I’ve been called a “jerk,” labeled a liberal, suggested as being gay, been told I’m terribly insecure, had my intelligence repeatedly questioned, was criticized for being intemperate (that one’s probably true), and virtually accused of beating small children. My response to all that bleep has generally been, “And I love you, too.” But apparently, what I should’ve done is had my wife whip out her cell phone, record a video of me …
Friday, June 22, 2012
So stop it! From Batavia to Clarendon Hills, Western Springs to Lisle, Patchland folks are as guilty as anybody in Washington.
Bill Maher recently came up with one of the most brilliant comedic commentary bits I’ve ever seen. You can watch it yourself here forearmed with the knowledge that the language (no F-bombs) might not be for everyone. Maher essentially answered has-been rocker Ted Nugent’s assertion that President Obama leads a “vile, evil America-hating administration that’s wiping its (bleep) with the Constitution.” “If Obama were as radical as they claim,” Maher replied, “here’s what he would’ve already done. Pulled the troops out of Afghanistan, given us Medicare for all, ended the drug war, cut the defense budget in half, and turned Dick Cheney over to The Hague.” Maher went on to point out that the president had cut taxes and presided over the …
Friday, June 15, 2012
The hard truth is that your kid is probably average, will never be a soccer star—and two grand and a "premier" program won't turn him into Pele.
Massachusetts English teacher David McCullough stole a bit of my thunder when he told the Wellesley High School class of 2012 they weren’t special—nine times—during his commencement speech. As you might imagine, the mere thought of their progeny being blisteringly average sent a boatload of over-indulgent parents into an immediate and uncontrollable tizzy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last seven years, it’s that calling out self-absorbed people is always a fascinating proposition. Not that that’ll ever stop me. So even though our sage speaker hit the nail squarely on the head, the tack we’ll be taking is more along the lines of Barnum’s “sucker” or, to paraphrase Mencken, no one ever went broke underestimating the narcissism of…
Friday, June 8, 2012
The nanny state is coming to get us, whether we like it or not!
So I called Wheaton Mayor Michael Gresk and asked him the question we’ve all been dying to ask: Considering Illinois’ infamous fourth-place ranking in the national childhood obesity race, would he consider following in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s draconian footsteps by endeavoring to ban supersize soft drinks? I’m sure you’ve all heard about our infamous Gotham City head honcho who, in order to gain a slim foothold in the battle of the bulge, proposed a ban on any restaurant or movie-theater soda container larger than 16 ounces. My first thought was, just because they can’t say “supersize it,” how’s that gonna stop 'em from ordering two—or three? I’m convinced it’s that kind of logical thinking that keeps me from becoming a …
Friday, June 1, 2012
Here are six steps to winning a local elected office.
In April, we discussed the most effective ways of fighting city hall. Those strategies included coming prepared, following Robert’s Rules, and sticking to your game plan as well as the facts. The gotcha game, which is most certainly in vogue, almost never works. In May, we discussed the city hall that truly needed fighting: DuPage County. Between Sheriff John Zaruba’s ride alongs, County Board Chair Dan Cronin’s sister’s patronage plum, and a judge who thinks it’s appropriate to aim an SUV at a 13-year-old jogger, one could certainly argue that it’s a target-rich environment. But now it’s June, and inspired by a Downers Grove Patch Dan F. post-column comment, we’re gonna talk about what might well be the most effective way of changing …
Friday, May 25, 2012
Here are Jeff's seven pieces of "blunt" but kind advice, as he would deliver it in a graduation speech.
I know they say you’re not supposed to go back to the well too often, but despite writing something similar for Geneva Patch a scant year ago, it’s time to take another whack at the apple. Call me overly sentimental if you must, but I can’t help but be swept away by the possibilities that always seem float along on these late-spring breezes. You see, every time I come across one of those ubiquitous “Home of a [Fill-in-the-High-School Here] Graduate” signs, it reminds me of the young men and women who will soon be blessed with their first real opportunity to embrace their future lives. There certainly is something magical about the age of majority, isn’t there? Now, typically (believe it or not) I tend toward the positives in these …
Friday, May 18, 2012
Ah! But my esteemed Kane Countians get to take the week off!
My fine Kane County compatriots! You’ve done well. Political perfection may be a pipe dream, but I have to say that things are looking a little better out here because of your recent voting proclivities. The sheriff who thought he was king is long gone and Pat Perez has done a phenomenal job in his place. In fact, he has done so well that I’ve been encouraging him to consider a third term. You might want to do the same thing. Once stripped of her County Board cronies, Chairman Karen McConnaughay fled for Springfield faster than a Rush Limbaugh advertiser jumped ship. She’ll do far less damage down there and fit in perfectly with that group of ineffectual state senators. You saw right through Cathy Hurlbutt’s court clerk makeover attempt, …
Friday, May 11, 2012
Now they're going to turn freeways into tollways! It's a socialist plot!
When former Metra Executive Director Phil Pagano absconded with half-a-million dollars and jumped in front of one of his own trains when he was cornered, I thought Patchland would sit up and take notice. When Metra was caught robbing its capital fund to pay operating expenses, an unsustainable practice that led to a 25 percent rate hike, I thought local folks would start scouring their garages for their torches and pitchforks. When, despite a lengthy history of financial shenanigans, the Illinois Tollway Authority doubled tolls, I thought my column on that topic would incite my Tea Party brethren and sistren into storming that Springfield castle. So, as you might imagine, I’ve been a wee bit disappointed that the best you all could muster …
Rhonda Fuller
12:02 pm on Saturday, September 22, 2012
Isn't that "profiling"? more ›