Monthly Archives: February 2006

Abortion, Capital Punishment

Morales morass highlights mixed messages

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I was morbidly amused while listening to NPR this morning. They have been following the story of Michael Morales, a man in California who was convicted of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl, Terri Winchell, in 1981. He is on death row and was supposed to be executed a couple of nights ago.

But there have been complications. California first couldn’t find any anesthesiologists who would make Morales unconscious so he could receive his lethal injection. Then, when given the okay by the court to kill him using sodium pentothol only, they couldn’t find a licensed medical professional willing to do it. They complained it violated the Hippocratic Oath, “first, do no harm.”

This amuses me because there’s another story in the news right now that has to do with so-called “partial-birth abortion.” Pro-choice advocates prefer to call the procedure by its medical name, “D&X,” or “dialation and extraction.” It was a procedure thought up by two doctors — one from Ohio, and the other from (you guessed it) California.

So, it seems that a perfect solution to the Michael Morales problem would be to get an abortionist — perhaps the co-inventer of D&X himself — to perform the execution. After all, if they can end human life at its most innocent and vulnerable state, what should stop them from ending the life of a murderer/rapist who has been tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers?

But if that doesn’t work, I have a backup plan. They can always starve him to death.

You may remember that when Terri Schiavo was still alive and they wanted to remove her feeding tube, there were several experts who said that, not only is starvation not painful, there’s instead a feeling of euphoria one experiences as the bodily systems shut down. I remember reading with disbelief this description in the Journal Star, wondering if all those starving people in Africa were feeling this “euphoria,” too.

But hey, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the evolution/intelligent-design debate, it’s that you don’t ever question state-endorsed science. Such science is the only true truth in the western world. So if science says you feel euphoric while starving, then by golly you feel euphoric while starving, and don’t give me any lip. And in a country where we’re more concerned about rapists and murderers having as painless an execution as possible (too bad Morales didn’t extend the same courtesy to his victim), what could be more painless than the euphoria one feels while one’s body wastes away?

One of the anti-death-penalty advocates interviewed by NPR called capital punishment “immoral.” Yet isn’t there something morally askew about a country that so easily assuages its conscience when it comes to killing the unborn and the infirm, yet has a moral crisis about executing murderers?

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Council Roundup: Boring

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Hey, not every meeting can be filled with exciting and/or controversial issues worthy of blogging. Tonight’s meeting was a pretty big yawn. They are looking at the city’s health insurance benefits, trying to determine if they’re comparable with other municipalities. Riveting.

The Heart of Peoria Commission received council support to ask for $500,000 in federal funds from the Economic Development Initiatives Program. These funds would be used for infrastructure improvements in the Warehouse District, marketing for the Heart of Peoria Plan area, and possibly the establishment of a design studio. Basically, passage of this tonight means that they’ll send a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin asking for the money. It passed unanimously.

The last thing on the agenda was approving an ordinance that prohibits people under 21 years old from serving alcoholic beverages. Gary Sandberg clarified that this would still allow under-age wait staff at restaurants to deliver alcoholic beverages to tables. It passed unanimously.

Barbara Van Auken mentioned that some Bradley students are going to be doing their senior project on improving the Sheridan-Loucks business corridor. That will actually be pretty cool. I’d like to see some updating along that stretch — and attracting some new businesses. It’s a nice area.

And finally, the only mildly-exciting moment was when Michael Langley addressed the council and got into a little sparring match with Patrick Nichting that Mayor Ardis had to break up. That was entertaining.

I don’t want to depress you, but it will be another whole week before we get to have another fun-filled evening in council chambers.

Blogosphere, Ray LaHood

Newt for Bloggers

I’m back from my trip.  While I was gone, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal.  I used to get the WSJ home-delivered about ten years ago or so, but then my paperboy (paperman?) went psycho so I cancelled my subscription and started taking the Journal Star instead.  But that’s another story.

On the opinion page of the weekend edition, Brian Carney interviewed Newt Gingrich (remember him?).  Gingrich, of course, was Speaker of the House for a while, starting in 1994 when the Republicans regained a majority.  The whole interview was good, but I was particularly interested in the former Speaker’s comments on blogging:

“…either the House and Senate Republicans are going to move substantially in the next few months or they’re going to run a very real risk of losing the fall election.”

So what does “Substantial movement” look like? …First, the things they can do, such as cutting down on earmarks and pork-barrel spending. “They should change the House rules so that any conference report that comes back is automatically filed on the Thomas system [the Web site where congressional actions are logged and made pulicly available] and is not voted on for 72 hours so that every blogger in the country can go in and read it. That would immediately cut down on the most outrageous stuff because you wouldn’t be able to pass it.”

I like that idea.  Notice, he doesn’t say so the media can go in and read it.  It’s so bloggers can read it.  He sees bloggers as a potential source for reform in this country if only they were given access to these conference reports.  I think he’s absolutely right.

Let’s all write to Ray LaHood and ask him to request this change to the House rules.  He’s a big supporter of earmarks as long as the process is “transparent,” right?  So he should be a big proponent of this idea.

I’m not holding my breath.  Methinks the lobbyists prefer opacity.

Campaign Rhetoric

How to write a political ad

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I’ve been watching the ads on TV being run by Illinois gubernatorial candidates, and I think I’ve figured out what it takes to write good copy for these things:

  1. Be as vague as possible. Problems are complex, and people have short attention spans, so steer clear of anything resembling a specific suggestion. In fact, if you can get away with saying only, “Me good, them bad,” just leave it at that.
  2. Passionately embrace outcomes only a comic-book villain would oppose. For instance, say you’re for “better schools,” “balancing the budget,” and “clean water.” This will set you apart from the other candidates who, I assume, are the Joker and the Riddler.
  3. Remember, a picture says a thousand lies. Show lots of pictures of yourself spending quality time with your family; that will give your family something to watch while you’re out on the road the next several months shilling for campaign contributions and brokering endorsement deals. And be sure to include the election-winning illusion that you’re spending your mornings in public schools reading to children because you’ve devoted your life to volunteerism.
  4. Attack your opponent’s record — but more importantly, attack his motives. It’s much easier to win against a corrupt political insider with lust for power than someone who’s simply pursuing a different path to the same goals as you. When talking about your opponent(s), always be sure to show unflattering pictures of them in black and white with an ominous musical underscore. Cynicism and ad hominem attacks are the road to victory.
  5. Finally, point people to your website, which has the same empty rhetoric as your political ad. This is where you can really put your doublespeak skills to work. An actual, complete quote from one candidate’s website explaining her commitment to leadership: “In every area of State government and especially in the Governor’s office, this State’s high standing for competence and leadership has suffered during the last three years.” The funny thing? This candidate works in state government.

And everyone wonders why voter turnout is so low.

Heart of Peoria Plan, Museum Block, Peoria Civic Center

Hotel misplaced?

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The Journal Star reports that the Civic Center Authority will be deciding today whether to “enter into land negotiations with an unidentified developer” to build a hotel adjacent to the Civic Center.

Isn’t there already a hotel near the Civic Center called the Hotel Pere Marquette?  Granted, it’s not immediately adjoining, but do they really think that the extra block is driving convention-goers away?  I mean, everyone went apoplectic at the threat of an Embassy Suites going up right across the river.  If convention guests are willing to commute from across the river, it doesn’t look like proximity is the main problem.

I’m guessing the Pere was looking forward to the Civic Center expansion.  More events at the Civic Center means more guests at the hotel.  Only now, if the Civic Center Authority approves this development, all those extra guests will be going to the new Civic Center hotel.

Of course, that’s capitalism, so more power to them.  Still, I can’t help but think this hotel is misplaced.  Wouldn’t it be better, say, down on Museum Square?  You know, like the Heart of Peoria Plan suggested?

Huh (*shakes head*). The Heart of Peoria Plan . . . how passé.

City Council, Peoria Police

Where’s the scorn for enforcement of handicapped parking?

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Remember how radio personalities, city council members, and office water-cooler gatherers laughed and scorned the Peoria police for their enforcement of jaywalkers just a few days ago?  Oh, how ridiculous, they said.  That law is dumb, they scoffed.  The police should be focusing on real crime instead of just trying to score some easy income from fines.

Where was all that scorn when this story came out about handicapped parking?

Peoria hiked its fine from $200 to $350 and also launched a crackdown dubbed “Operation Helping Hands.”

A parking enforcement officer was assigned to randomly check handicapped spaces throughout the city and issue tickets, and police officers were instructed to step up enforcement in their districts.

An organized crackdown?  Higher fines?  An officer specifically assigned to do nothing but “randomly check handicapped spaces throughout the city and issue tickets”?  Where are all the armchair police chiefs decrying this waste of department resources?  Is this really more important than all that “real crime” they were castigated for not fighting just a few days ago?  Why didn’t Councilman Morris have anything to say about the “heavy-handedness” of upping the fine to $350?  Doesn’t he think the police should just hand out warnings to handicapped-parking scofflaws?  Why didn’t Councilman Sandberg point out that able-bodied people often use their handicapped relative’s placards so they can park close, and then argue that this loophole invalidates the whole system?

See, people really do think that ordinances are worthy of being enforced, even though they’re not “real crime” and aren’t always foolproof — they just don’t want the police to enforce ordinances they don’t like.  That’s understandable for radio personalities and water-cooler loiterers, but the city council should have stood up for the police like Barbara Van Auken did a week ago.  In fact, I think several council members owe the police an apology for castigating them for doing their job.

Peoria Disposal Company, Peoria Park District

The Park District, the aquifer, and the other side of the story

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There are always two sides to every story, so today we’ll look at PDC’s side of the aquifer question. Here to defend PDC is a surprise advocate: the Peoria Park District.

The mission statement of the Peoria Park District is “To enrich life in our community through stewardship of the environment and through provision of quality recreation and leisure opportunities.” One definition of “stewardship” is “caring for land and associated resources and passing healthy ecosystems to future generations.”

Imagine my surprise when I happened upon this letter from the Park District urging approval of PDC’s landfill expansion. The letter states, in part, “We have served PDC as a supplier over the past several years. It is crucial for the PDC siting application to be approved . . . The economic impact to our organization may be substantial if we cannot count on PDC’s business due to the closure of the PDC No. 1 landfill.”

That raises a couple of questions in my mind. First of all, what is the Park District supplying to PDC? And secondly, why are they in favor of the expansion? I called the park district to ask and got to speak with none other than Parks Director Bonnie Noble herself.

She was an unapologetic advocate for the landfill expansion. In response to my initial question about what the Park District supplies PDC, she said that when they were building the Riverplex, PDC helped them remove and dispose of some underground storage tanks, plus they handle waste from the zoo. Also, PDC provides all the waste receptacles and clean-up for riverfront events.

She went on to state why she wholeheartedly supports the expansion. She feels there is a lot of misinformation being spread by opponents of the landfill. For instance, she disputes the contention that the landfill is located over the Sankoty aquifer. It’s actually over the “Shelbyville outwash,” she contends. I can’t find any independent verification of that, but I’m not a geologist, of course. However, PDC’s application does make a similar distinction:

The Lower Sand [of the local geology] is a side-valley outwash facies of the Sankoty Formation. It is an immature, poorly-sorted, brown, fluvial sand that was deposited by local tributary streams that discharged from the west into the ancestral Mississippi River Valley. The side-vally outwash facies should not be confused with the Sankoty Sand. The Sankoty Sand is a mature, well-sorted, fluvial sand that was deposited directly by the ancestral Mississippi River. The sand grains of the Sankoty Sand are distinctly-pink and uniformly of pure quartz composition . . . The sedimentary bedrock forms an impermeable hydrogeologic basement. The existing PDC No. 1 landfill and the proposed landfill expansion are or will be constructed in the Upper Till. Perched groundwater is discontinuously present in isolated sand lenses within the Upper Till.

The implication seems to be that this “side-valley outwash facies” is a separate entity from the Sankoty aquifer. This portion of PDC’s application is certified by two Illinois-licensed professional geologists who conclude after considerable analysis, “the proposed expansion is favorably designed and located to prevent any adverse impact on the groundwater.”

I hope they’re right.

Noble also took issue with calling the waste PDC received “toxic.” She felt that calling it “toxic waste” played on people’s emotions, and that a more appropriate name would be “hazardous waste.” I won’t argue with her on opponents’ transparent effort to play on people’s emotions. But I don’t think it’s overstating the point to describe this waste as “toxic.” The EPA describes the chemicals PDC takes in as “toxic,” so I have to disagree with Noble on that point.

So, how do I feel about it now? Well, my previous post on this topic was predicated on the belief that the landfill expansion was going to be over the Sankoty, and I was concerned about the increased risk to our drinking water. If the expansion is not over the Sankoty and there is no increased risk, then I guess my primary concern has been answered.

On the other hand, I’m never going to have warm-fuzzy feelings about hazardous waste. And I’m never going to be pleased that we’re accepting this waste from ten other states. But until I hear expert testimony from the other side — say, another licensed geologist or two — I can’t very well just dismiss the opinions of the geologists in PDC’s application.

Overall, I’m in agreement with other commenters who advocate attacking this problem from the supply-side. How can we avoid producing toxic waste in the first place? And what can be done to recycle it instead of burying it? Those are the questions we need to be asking so we can find an ultimate solution to our toxic waste problems.

And I still think it’s weird that the Park District advocates expanding a toxic-waste landfill. Isn’t that kind of like a vegetarian advocating the expansion of Alwan & Sons Meat Company?