Kathrina Malik’s Neighborhood

This cooling tower to me looks like a nuclear plant, but apparently it is actually coal-fired.  Overlooks US 12 in Michigan City, Indiana, very near the state line.

Not my photo, but I have seen the same view.  When you are driving east from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the power plant is all you see as you pull into town, framed perfectly by the trees next to the highway.

I wonder how much those houses would rent for?

Democracy, I think, is a wonderful thing.  We "ordinary people," not only the sons and daughters of the privileged and wealthy, are able to attain official positions of some influence if we work hard enough, are smart enough--and, of course, are willing to accept a lower salary than is offered on, say, Wall Street or much of Corporate America.

I am trying to think who is the "most important" person I ever met personally.  Probably it is Bob Dole, once the Senate Majority Leader and both a Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential nominee.  I interviewed him in connection with a governmental report; he was gracious and helpful.

Dole was an "ordinary person," too: during the Great Depression, his parents moved the family into the basement of their home and rented out the other floors.  He also suffered injuries during the Second World War; I recall that we shook hands with our lefts.

The Robert J. Dole Institute at the University of Kansas was created to promote the spirit of bi-partisanship.  

Good for Bob Dole, and good for my son-in-law.  And I am proud, too, to once have been a part of the governmental process, the machinery of democracy.

--litter, of course.
--large windfarms (as discussed)
--suburban/rural "sprawl" (ditto)
--traffic congestion, especially truck traffic
--actually, in a lot of ways, big cities (which I used to enjoy; my wife can't stand them now, either, and she grew up in New Jersey!)

Here's another thing I saw sprouting in the cornfields (in addition to housing developments).  Wind farms, they are called.

Some farmers had signs in their lawn protesting, but others obviously have sold land for this purpose.  Apparently each windmill takes 1-3 acres.  I saw dozens in southern DeKalb County (IL), but none in adjacent Lee County, on the roads I followed.

The company involved is apparently based in Florida.  One woman I spoke with said that they would rather have their wind-farms in Wyoming, but there is some problem apparently with transmission over that great a distance.  (Which doesn't sound right to me, but that is what she said).

In principle, wind power (and solar power) sound ecologically fine.  In practice, it sure is ugly!  But, when it is on a ridge line in the eastern mountains, and visible in every direction for many miles, it is even worse!

And in some places there have been problems from killing birds.

On the other hand, I guess farmers are having trouble making a living with crops alone.  

I do wish our new house had a solar panel on the roof.  Really, I think it should be required.  

But on the other hand, I am glad there are no wind turbines nearby.  Having a high former landfill is bad enough!  And traffic, traffic is pretty bad, too.

Obama's memorial tribute to the fallen troops at Fort Hood (video)

The area I drove through last weekend, in north-central Illinois, has a lot of housing construction going on what had until recently been farmland--and some of the best agricultural land in the world.  In many cases, the buildings are at the edge of tiny rural communities, communities that now seem to be becoming (very distant!) suburbs.  

Really, I was shocked to see it.  All we are talking about is houses, fairly big ones, very close together:  no parks, schools, shops, no public transportation.  No trees.  It isn't a town, it isn't a city, and it isn't what a suburb used to be either.  What is it?  What will it become in 40 or 50 years?

There are quite a lot of efforts at farmland preservation.  But my most recent drives in the country suggest that, thus far, they are not accomplishing a great deal.  A couple conversations I had indicated that farmers are having a tough time making a living--although an earlier one, out in western Nebraska, suggested that some had done very well because of the ethanol boom when the price of gas was so high.

I don't have much direct contact, although I do try to shop at farmers markets (now all closed up for the season in this area).  That is a very small step, but one of the few I know how to take.  I have contributed to Farm Aid; probably I ought to be donating more.

This photo was taken near Cortland IL, which had a population of about 2,066 in the 2000 census, but had grown to nearly 4,000 by 2007, when a special census was conducted.  It was first incorporated in 1865, and is located fairly near an access point to the Illinois Tollway, which I assume explains its growing popularity.

He had been on the phone for quite a while with a resident, a local citizen, who wanted the local government to do something about her neighbors.  They were sending death rays through the walls of her house that were turning her bones to plastic.  While she was wearing a protective hat made of tin foil, she wanted her nefarious neighbors to be stopped!  To send the police, to take some kind of action.

I remember feeling a bit shocked.  I thought that the energies of political leaders and professionals were spent trying to help make things better for the public and the community:  to patch the potholes, put out fires, build the parks, educate the children.  I had not considered that among the constituents were, quite literally, a certain number of certifiably crazy people.  Nut cases.  And that they could be just as outspoken and demanding as regular people--and perhaps even more so.

Now quite a lot of time has passed.  The nut cases have become more numerous, more vocal.  They have control of tv networks, publish many books and magazines, and have pretty much taken control of one of our two major political parties.  Their bones are still being turned to plastic, I guess--but now the liberal-socialist-Muslim Obama people are doing it!

PS--the other thing that was greatly feared in my youth was fluoridation of water supplies, which the John Birchers thought was some kind of communist plot.  But you don't hear much about that any more.  The Birchers do still exist, though, and among other things they are working to prevent one-world government and to get the U.S. out of the United Nations and build adherence to the Constitution.

Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment on the second floor of this small-town bank building (which previously was a general store).  It is in the community of Tampico Illinois, which has a population of somewhere around 772.  

That's according to the 2,000 census; we've got a new one coming up next year--which for some reason has excited great controversy in right-wing circles.  Rep. Michelle Bachmann is refusing to fill the form out, and TV commentator Glenn Beck might not fill out his either, but is fearful that if you don't, you won't be able to get a permit for a gun.  Bachmann thinks the information may also used to round people up and put them in internment camps.  All this is of course ridiculous, preposterous fear-mongering fantasizing, but it is in keeping with destructive spirit of present-day Republicanism.  If you can't beat them, then knock over the game board!

And of course one census worker has been killed, apparently for being a "government agent."  The word "fed" was written on his bound, naked body.  Were Bachmann and Beck complicit?  I don't think all the facts are out in this case.  Some theorize it was really suicide, apparently.

But, back in reality-land, there are ten questions on the 2010 form; filling it out takes about ten minutes, and you can see it if you want on-line now, but you can't fill it out there.  It comes in the mail.

As to privacy, I imagine Google knows a heck of a lot more about you than the Census Bureau does.

However, I doubt that the Reagan family itself resisted being counted.  Actually, I hope at least that they were proud to be counted as Americans.  Lots of Reagan's ideas and policies ended up hurting the country badly, but I don't doubt that he had a genuine love for the US.  And he should:  he was the product of an "opportunity story," just like Barack Obama is.  Start poor, rise high.

Anyhow, the reason the census exists is to provide a basis for the apportionment of representatives among the states, which is determined (in the House, but not the Senate) by population.  In more "modern" times, it also has a considerable influence on the flow of some types of federal financial aid, where population is an important allocational factor:  bigger states get more. It was provided for by Article I, Section II of the Constitution.  Originally it counted all free persons; excluded Indians not taxed; and did also include 3/5ths of "other" persons, which is to say, slaves.  That was, of course, a great compromise.  If slaves had been counted one-for-one, that would have increased the representation of the slave-holding states and probably encouraged the spread of slavery further.  (These are the facts behind the "liberal" myth that African-Americans' were considered to be only three-fifths of a person.  Even Condi Rice  has said her ancestors were only 3/5ths of a man).

Anyhow, Reagan was a small town boy, living in a number of different places in north-central Illinois.  There is a "boyhood home" in Tampico, and another (which is open to the public) in Dixon IL.  There is a "Ronald Reagan Trail" that you can drive; it begins in Tampico, and in the past two weekends, I have driven most of it.

I liked Tampico well enough to go there twice lately, but really, there isn't a place there to get a cup of coffee, other than the Casey's General Store.  However, at Halloween there was a little girl dressed as a pirate who wore a pirate ship hanging all around her.  That was definitely worth seeing, and probably I will go back sometime again.

I was surfing Rolfrazzi.Com.

First Random Photo:


Second Random Photo:
Third Random Photo:

And, just for fun: