A Knight in Dragonland

Hey, I still live here … on the weekends, at least.
So, from the Daily Times Weekend edition:
* CityLink now has hourly routes between Pekin & Peoria for only $1. Covenient & affordable public transportation … now there’s a novel concept! Kudos to the City of Pekin and CityLink for making this happen.
* The [...]

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Probably the most controversial local issue around Pekin lately is the recently implemented impound ordinance. The financial success of this ordinance over the first three months of its existence is described here, and the Times editorial board discusses the issue here.
Like the Times editors, I have mixed thoughts about the ordinance. I can [...]

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Congratulations to the 88 Pekin High School students who were honored on Friday morning as Illinois State Scholars and Prairie State Scholars.
What I don’t understand is why the Pekin Times article had to demean adolescents in general at the same time it was congratulating these particular students:
Rare as it is to find a sizable group [...]

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Ed Emmons, chronic curmudgeon of the Pekin Daily Times editorial page, has entered the blogosphere. For those who aren’t familiar with Ed’s work, he’s a frequent writer of letters to the editor in the local paper. From the complaints on his blog, we’d see even more of his letters if many weren’t rejected [...]

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Interesting idea for a board editorial, Pekin Times.
Do I hear an echo?

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The top story in today’s Pekin Daily Times announces “Smoking Ban Taxes Downtown Litter Control.”
That is incorrect.
Litter-bug smokers who selfishly and irresponsibly believe that the world is their ashtray tax downtown litter control.  Don’t blame this problem on the smoking ban.

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Did any of you read this column on the editorial page of today’s Pekin Times?
My take: Michael Noyes sure has a bloated opinion of himself. According to Michael Noyes, he’s the “man in black”, graciously taking upon himself the unpopular parental role, crusading against those big government types who want to steal hard-earned money [...]

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Jake Grys is the star attraction on the front page of the Lifestyles section in the weekend Pekin Daily Times. The big picture of Jake laughing on his bedroom floor is fantastic, but unfortunately not available online.
It’s a great story about Jake and the big-hearted Grys family, and hopefully it will bring even more [...]

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Yet another letter to the editor from Jim Mangan graced the pages of the weekend edition of the Daily Times. Apparently Mr. Mangan was upset by some comments made by outgoing Mayor Frank Mackaman regarding the duties of elected officials.
I’ve been ignoring Mangan lately, but this letter really struck me with the level of [...]

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From the staff editorial in the weekend edition (April 7-8) of the Daily Times (bold emphasis mine):
At this time, it should be apparent the progress toward consolidation that a November 2006 referendum told the two districts to work toward is stalled. The reason: Pekin schools and feeder districts have unique situations that make us [...]

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This time, Mangan is having visions of thought police. Ohh lord …
From my point of view, Rick Wade’s March 20 column simply called for honesty and civility on the editorial page when writing letters addressing the upcoming election. This is advice that Wade should apply to himself in his blog behavior, but [...]

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Michelle Teheux wrote a nice editorial in the March 7 edition of the Times (the link is broken … I’m not sure why) highlighting my situation. Thanks, Michelle … you could have warned me you were doing that! Now I’m REALLY out.
I’d like to give some additional hat tips to some other bloggers [...]

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The new Daily Times weekend edition contains a board editorial objecting to Jim Mangan’s “no tax” demands on mayoral and city council candidates.
First, they challenged Mangan’s claims to represent a larger group of citizens:
[...] no others in that group have emerged from the shadows to identify themselves, much as no other member of the consolidation [...]

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OK, Rick. You vigorously defended your paper against my suggestion that it might be acting as Jim Mangan’s mouthpiece a little too much.
But now … page 1, lead article … “Citizens challenge candidates.”
For one thing, that title is misleading. I read the article several times to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, [...]

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Is blogization a word?  Well, it is now.
The Times weekend edition has a staff editorial about opening up their web edition for comments.  This feature has been in place for a month or two now, but I guess they wanted to draw attention to it in the print edition.  I found the following comment interesting:
Many [...]

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