Friday, February 29, 2008

Smoke In

I'd be a lot more impressed if Mr. Hemminghaus had done this before the ban passed. IF you don't like the ban, start working to get it overturned. Vote against and campaign against any elected official that voted in favor of it The only reason the smoking ban got passed was that those in favor of it worked harder and lobbied better than those against it.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Varsity sequel

The Southern reports: Varsity Theatre gets new lease on life:
"A ceremonial signing has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday in Room 103 at city hall. Members of The [Jackson County] Stage Company will unlock theater doors and take a peak after the signing."

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

King steet?

What do you think of renaming Mill Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Street? Allison Petty reports on this possibility in the DE.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Rosetta Stone Closing

Got this email announcing the closing of Rosetta Stone Bookstore. It appears everything is 10% off through the last day, so if you need a book, help 'em pay some bills.

After 13 years of serving the community, Rosetta Stone Bookstore will be closing its doors on February 29th.
There are many reasons for the closure, but it comes down to the fact that sales are just too low. There have been many, many days where we've had one, two, or no sales. I have been working two - sometimes three - part-time jobs and still just barely scraping by. Even with the partnership with Tropicana Vintage Clothing, we are not making enough to pay our basic bills, and we have many, many debts to pay off. After this month, I'm hoping to get a full-time job.
We'll have all our magazines on display until the 29th, so please stop by & pick up a copy so you can fill out a subscription card. I know a lot of them would appreciate it, especially the smaller zines, who are also struggling in these tough economic times.
I hope that you continue to support Carbondale's independent businesses, including the Book Worm and Book World. I'm sure they would appreciate your business.
If you're an artist/author/musician and have items on consignment here, please come pick them up. If you can't make it in by Feb. 29th, please let us know (before the 29th).
Please stop by and show your support in these last few days. While we can't afford to have a big sale, everything is 10% off! We would really appreciate your support!
Thanks for everything you've done!
Jessica & Paula Bradshaw
Rosetta Stone Bookstore
Inside Tropicana Vintage Clothing
Just off the square downtown
(212 North Washington Street, Rear)
Carbondale, IL 62901

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

City Council Meeting

Sounds like last Tuesday's City Council meeting was pretty interesting, given that it ran over three hours. You can listen to all three hours here. This weeks Carbondale Times does a good job of covering the highlights with a handy graph showing which community organizations got how much, how much each organization had asked for and how much each one got last year.

Most organizations got the same or a little more than last year. The I Can Read really pushed it, asking for $100,000 in finding and getting about $25,000. Big losers were the NAACP, which lost free rent at the Hayes Center because it did not provide a contract to the city specifying what services it provides to the city and Attucks Community Services, which lost both free rent and additional funding due to dodgy handling of past payroll taxes and subsequent trouble with the IRS, plus some falsified numbers on previous funding applications.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Branch Pick Up

According to the Southern, it looks like starting the 25, the city will be picking up branches that fell off during last week's ice storm:

During the week of February 25, 2008, the City of Carbondale Public Works Department will provide a free pick up service of tree limbs fallen by the recent winter storm. The schedule for the pick up service will be one day after a resident’s normal trash day. The City requests that residents follow these guidelines in setting out the storm debris:

The debris should be set at curbside and not block sidewalks and streets.

Tree limbs should be cut to a maximum of eight (8) feet in length and be less than eight (8) inches in diameter.

Please call the Office of Maintenance and Environmental Services at 457-3275 regarding any questions about this free service.

C
ouldn't find any announcement of this on the city's website. You'd think an announcement like this would be more prominently placed. Glad to see it's being done, esp. since Cape Girardeau announced a similar program last week.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

G-Rod on the air

As a special edition of the public television series Illinois Lawmakers, the WSIU Public Television stations, WSIU TV 8/DT 40 and WUSI TV 16/DT 19, will provide live coverage of Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget and State of the State Address to a joint session of the Illinois General Assembly tomorrow, Wednesday, February 20 beginning at 12:00 noon.

A repeat broadcast is scheduled to air at 10:30pm. Anchored by WSIU TV producer and veteran statehouse reporter, Jak Tichenor, Illinois Lawmakers will cover the speech in its entirety and provide reaction from leading members of the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives.

The WSIU Radio stations of WSIU 91.9 FM, WUSI 90.3 FM, and WVSI 88.9 FM also will carry the address live at noon via Illinois Public Radio.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Bar Business Hurting

According to this article in today's Southern, the smoking ban has really hurt bar business in Carbondale. PKs is down 30%, The Cellar is down 20% and Mugsy McGuire's had it's worst January in 10 years. Other bars outside Carbondale are reporting similar figures. It appears that the lack of smoking means that smokers only come in for an hour or so instead of the 3-4 hours they used to spend. In addition, the expected non-smokers aren't coming in to replace the vanished smokers.

It's going to take six months to a year for customer behavior to change and reflect the new smoking situation. The question is, are the bars financially strong enough to hold on until this happens?

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Saturday, February 16, 2008

SIUC Shooter Response Guidelines

Took a little digging around SIU's website to find them but here're the official guidelines for what to do if there's a shooter rampage on campus like at Northern Illinois or Virginia Tech.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

How Can We Miss You...

.. if you won't go away? Ex-coach Jerry Kill is suing SIUC for holding him to the terms of his contract. According to the article, Kill still had 3 years on his contract as head football coach at SIUC, when he took the coaching spot at Northern Illinois. His SIUC contract requires him to pay the university a third of a year's salary if he takes another position before the contract expires. The university calls it liquidated damages to cover costs associated with replacing him, he says it's an illegal penalty because the contract had no provision for him accepting another coaching position.

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Zacc is Back

Jazz fans may remember the Zacc Harris, who played guitar for Joe Liberto's Mercy combo, and his own band Broken Grass. Well Zacc is Back, playing tonight at Tres and Saturday at Hangar 9.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Power Out

Over 20,000 people are without power as of about 3 p.m. this afternoon. According to WSIU, El Dorado is completely without power, as is most of Metropolis.

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Weather Tonight

Drive carefully if you're out tonight. Though there have only been about 7 accidents in Carbondale proper, there roads will probably refreeze tonight,making driving really hazardous.

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School Closings

Here's the most recent list of school closings for tomorrow Feb. 13.

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Bucky's Dome

After sitting dormant for over a year, (since summer of '06), the Bucky's Dome Blog is active again. Hopefully, this means renewed activity on fundrasing and getting the dome designated a National Historic landmark (not that they haven't been, it's just been awfully quiet.

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Bald Knob Cross

Not C'dale exactly, but this is pretty sad.

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Friday, February 8, 2008

Cool City?

Here's the DE's report on the Cool City meeting last might. As Greener Than Thou noted in her post, Mayor Cole equates recycling with emissions reduction:

"There is no way to change everything," said Cole. "It's a gradual process of making improvements in specific errors."

He said city officials are looking at the idea of expanding recycling programs and have applied for state grants to cover the cost of other programs.

Cole said there is no way to determine a definite price on a movement like this.

No mention of the electric cars, though. Here's the Southern's report on the same meeting. Apparently enacting core to reduce emissions is micromanaging the citizenry though:

Some in the audience suggested city hall take a more proactive approach and begin mandating tougher environmental practices, an idea Cole said could begin a slippery slope toward micromanaging the citizenry.

Resident Judy Ashby was among those calling for tougher local standards and disagreed with Cole.

"I think we can mandate them," Ashby said. "There is a city council who makes decisions. So make a decision and act on it."

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Brad, the "Cool" Mayor?

I attended Brad Cole's report on the Mayor's Cool Cities organization last night. It was instructive. Now I know why he wants 4,000 more people to move to the city of Carbondale. Apparently, 30,000 population makes the magic number of a respectable mayor.

He spent a lot of time talking about recycling, which is important for the environment, but doesn't have a lot to do with carbon dioxide reduction. He talked about starting to think about trying to someday switch to electric cars, which would be good. A couple of people pointed out, though, that as Yoda says, "There is no try, there is only do". Well, they didn't actually quote Yoda, but that was the gist of their comments. He didn't want to commit beyond "try".

I tried to point out that it is hard to reduce automobile emissions when you are busy building along the roads out of town, so that we have sprawl from Carbondale to Murphysboro and Marion, forcing people to drive to get to their doctor's appointments, or other stores.

He didn't seem to understand the concept of building a walkable city, and not allowing zoning changes encouraging urban sprawl. Was this feigned puzzlement or genuine bafflement? Either is worrisome. Surely part of the mayors' initiative to stop global warming is a commitment to reducing car use! Is the mayor ignoring that part?

Maybe it's because mayors of cities below 30,000 don't understand responsible city planning.
You can look at the mayors of Murphysboro and Marion and see that.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Jerry Costello on FutureGen

Here's an email from Rep. Costello regarding the cancellation of the FutureGen project:

I wanted to drop you a note to update you on legislative issues that may be of interest.

Last week, in a stunning reversal, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman formally announced that the Bush administration was abandoning the FutureGen clean coal power plant project, almost five years to the day that President Bush announced his signature energy proposal. As proposed, FutureGen was to be a public/private partnership to build a 275-megawatt prototype power plant with emissions equal to those of natural gas, focusing on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies that store carbon dioxide underground. The project is widely viewed as extremely important for the future of coal, our nation’s energy independence and good environmental stewardship.

In December, after a lengthy selection process, the FutureGen Alliance of Energy Companies, the private consortium selected to work with the Department of Energy (DOE), named Mattoon, Illinois, as the site for the project, based largely on the geologic makeup of the area. Two of the four finalist sites were located in the President’s home state, Texas. The DOE has already spent at least $13 million on the project, but instead plans to “restructure” its CCS research.

This decision is incredibly disappointing, and represents politics at its worst. It is hard to believe that this decision would have been made if the final site was in Texas. To start over now is a tremendous waste of time and money. The DOE’s restructured plan will delay this critical research by at least three years.

The Illinois Congressional delegation has spent the last five years working with state and local officials, the Alliance, and the DOE to develop this project, and we will continue to look for ways to press forward, because this is a matter of great importance to Illinois and the nation. The House Science Committee, of which I am a senior member, will hold hearings to analyze the specifics of this decision. Despite this setback, developing the best possible clean coal technologies will remain one of my highest priorities.

You are invited to sign up for future electronic newsletters. Please feel free to forward this message to friends and neighbors you think might be interested in this issue.

Sincerely,

Jerry F. Costello
12th District of Illinois

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Oakland Ave. to MLK Ave.

There's a group at SIU working to get a Carbondale street renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. Looks like the plan is to get USG behind it, then either approach City Council with the proposal with USG's support or circulate a petition among the residents and churches (of which there are a surprising number) on Oakland before approaching council. You can read the DE articles here and here. While I'm not adverse to naming something for King (maybe Friendship Park down on Mill Street?), the changes you'd have to make renaming Oakland would be pretty extensive.

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Does Your Vote Count?

The Friday film at Muddy Media at 214 N. Washington is called Stealing America: Vote by Vote. It's about the 2004 election and will be shown at 7pm, with discussion to follow.

Interesting that we can now have elections lasting 18 months, and never have a corporate media discussion of the private machines that we are voting on, just endless discussions of tears, haircuts and smackdowns.

New Main Street Promo

Carbondale Main Street, with the Historic Town Square Coalition, has a new way to enjoy every day errands during these cold winter months. A new promotional card featuring twelve of the Town Square businesses has been released.

Make a purchase and get your card stamped at each of the businesses, and turn the card into any of the establishments when you are done. You will be entered into a monthly drawing for a $10 gift certificate to one of the twelve participating businesses.

This is a great way to start out the new year, supporting your local merchants! Salons, coffee shops, restaurants and retail stores are featured; there is certainly something for everyone in Downtown Carbondale!

For more information on this or other Carbondale Main Street projects, please contact Meghan Cole at 529-8040. We look forward to hearing from you, and we’ll see you downtown!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Primary Election results

Here're the results of the national primaries. Haven't been able to find a good source for local results yet.

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Monday, February 4, 2008

Campaign Activity

So far, with the except of Ron Paul's supporters, primary activity has been limited to signs and a visit by a Green Party candidate about a month ago. I saw a couple of Paul supporters holding signs and waving a flag in front of his office along East Main this afternoon. A few Obama '08 signs have cropped up, no Clinton signs and the Obama signs are vastly outnumbered by the, yet again, Ron Paul signs. No other Republicans have shown any interest in this area.

In the race for 5th District Appellate Court judge, Wexstten signs have been all over the place, with nary a one for Clark.

As usual, WSIU radio will cover national and local races as they come in.

Edited to add: And as usual, WSIU cut off their local campaign coverage at 10:30 and switched from national campaign coverage to classical music at 11 p.m. Phooey.

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Sunday, February 3, 2008

Chris Wissmann on the Election

In his latest column for the Nightlife, Chris Wissmann writes on why he likes Obama, but wants you to vote for Kucinich if you're a Democrat and why you shouldn't vote for Ron Paul if you're a Republican. You can read some of the selections from the Ron Paul newsletters Wissmann refers to here and here.

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