This week will mark the 59^th anniversary of the Sesser Homecoming Rend Lake Days. Coinciding with that event will be the 50^th anniversary of “The Great Sesser Homecoming Ticket Heist.”

Let me explain.

As a kid growing up in Sesser the annual homecoming that was held in the city park in the third week of June, was always the highlight of the summer. My main goal through the months of April and May was to save as much money as I could mowing yards so I’d have a pocket full of cash when the James Jackson Shows and Rides rolled into town.

Actually, back then a ‘pocket full of cash’ might have amounted to $15 or $20 bucks but in those days it was a windfall. And knowing my enthusiasm my mom would always hand me three or four Eagle Stamp books a few days before the Homecoming – books that she now doubt had been saving for weeks. I would happily go redeem them – I think they were worth $1.50 apiece – and add the proceeds to my stash.

Also, every year when the ‘carnies’ rolled into town I would head to the Sesser City Park on my trusty bicycle where I was joined by an assortment of other knuckleheads. There, we would spend the entire day watching the workers assemble the assortment of rides while counting the minutes until the homecoming became alive with excitement.

One year, when I was 11 years old, we were at the park and we were all straddling our bicycles very near one of the small booths where ride tickets are sold. Noticing that no one was around one of my friends reached into the booth and grabbed an entire roll of carnival ride tickets. Looking back, there must have been 5,000 tickets on that roll.

As he headed out of the park with the stash shoved up under his shirt, for a reason to this day that I don’t understand, I tagged right along behind him. Much like the cowboys in the movies who rob a bank and then head to a safe house to divide the loot, we decided to ride our bikes to Sesser Lake, located a couple of miles southeast of town, to divvy up the cache of yellow ride tickets. To say that I had visions of endless Ferris wheel and tilt-a-whirl rides on my mind would have been an understatement. As a carnival junkie I had just hit the mother lode.

We realized quickly that we had far more tickets than we could use so we played like Robin Hood – steal from the rich and give to the poor — and began dispersing yellow ride tickets all over town. Soon the word spread in the kid community throughout Sesser and we had guys looking for us hoping to ‘score’ some of the hot (in more ways than one) tickets.

Everything was going along without a hitch until the day that the homecoming was scheduled to start. I headed to town that morning and was soon met by my accomplice who was frantic and talking a mile a minute. During times in the conversation when he was coherent he related that he overheard his parents talking about some ‘stolen ride tickets.’ He said the police had been notified and that the color of ride tickets had been changed to blue. According to his story, anybody with a yellow ticket would be arrested.

As I listened to him talk, and my 11-year-old mind surmised the situation, I realized that was my last day of freedom on Earth. I was certain that I would be sent to prison and celled up with a guy with tattoos, body odor and no teeth. Life as I knew it and enjoyed it would be over.

Actually, the thought of being arrested, sent to prison and branded as a thief paled in comparison to what I knew would happen if my dad found out. The thought of the police and sharing a cell with Bubba was one thing, but the thought of Bill Muir planting a boot in the seat of my pants was something else. For those of you who consider that child abuse, my dad would quickly tell you it was the most successful way he found to deal with a heathen child.

After a few minutes of remorse followed quickly by panic we decided that we still had time to try and round up the stolen tickets. We must have ridden our bikes 50 miles that day trying to recover those blasted yellow tickets and were successful finding everybody but one person. Only minutes before the rides were scheduled to start we found out that the one person we were looking for was already at the homecoming, so we made a frantic run for the park. We found him happily standing in line at the Ferris wheel with a yellow ticket clinched in his hand. We managed to get to him before he got to the ticket-taker, and in the process spared ourselves a lengthy prison sentence.

I plan to attend the Sesser Homecoming this weekend and enjoy one of those delicious barbeques and some roasted corn. And in the unlikely event that I decide to venture on one of the many carnival rides you can be certain that I will gladly pay for the ticket because I still vividly recall that harrowing June day 50 years ago when “The Great Sesser Homecoming Ticket Heist” scared me straight and quickly ended my life of crime.

Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military.

Here’s the link to the column at Real Clear Politics.

‘The red line of the unthinkable has been moved again.’

Those 10 poignant words by a psychologist discussing the massacre of 26 people – 20 of them six and seven-year-old children –  at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, sums up the world that we live in nowadays.

This event coupled with a never-ending 24-hour news loop on cable television prompts the same reaction that we have become accustomed to when there is yet another mass killing – revulsion, anger, fear, dread and the inevitable finger-pointing about why.

The bodies of the victims had not been identified on Friday before suggestions on how to prevent another mass shooting started.  Talking heads on television, people on message boards and of course politicians always looking to further their cause and re-election all had a variety of answers on how to make life in the 21st Century safe.

And of course passing tougher and more stringent gun control measures is as always at the top of the list. Others want to have an armed security guard at every school in America while some believe that arming school officials and teachers is the answer. Others say add prayer back to our schools and these horrific mass killings will stop.

While all these issues merit discussion I believe attempting to find an answer to what is happening in our country lies much deeper.

Let me explain.

Several years ago I wrote a series of columns about what I called the subtle erosion of America.  Certainly, this point of view will be looked at by some as simplistic because I’m from a generation that grew up before Columbine, West Paducah, Pearl and now Newtown.

The way this erosion works is a simple two-step process. You see, what once shocked us and made us gasp and recoil in horror now barely merits a raised eyebrow. What once was considered perverse and bizarre is now considered the norm. And what once was looked at as outlandish, unheard of and over-the-top is now considered to merely be routine.

And this has happened because a silent majority has failed to speak up and voice their opinion and take action when necessary.

The second step in this erosion takes place when every person that does have the courage to offer a differing view is quickly shouted down and labeled as judgmental, moralistic and bigoted … and, of course let’s not forget the pet word of those leading this erosion – intolerant. Not wanting to meet the wrath of this group, who by the way, might be the most intolerant and judgmental crowd that exists, most people do as they’re told and shut up.

And that’s allowed the erosion to take place, one small step at a time. The direct result of this erosion is that we are now a country where God has been booted from the courthouse, the schoolhouse and virtually every other aspect of life. After all, we’ve been told, we must be tolerant and not offend anybody.

Now, here we are in 2012 looking for reasons why a 20-year-old man who has no conscious or value of life could open fire at close range on a group of innocent babies. While all the arguments being tossed out might be symptoms of what is taking place the disease that is causing young men to kill at will I believe, is a cultural issue.

Consider this.

During this erosion we have allowed a culture where a generation of young people have embraced songs that talk about killing, rape and shooting police officers and its celebrated as freedom of expression.

We have allowed a culture of violent video games where people are massacred and slaughtered and these are then gobbled up by parents for their childrens’ entertainment and as a babysitter.  Again, freedom of expression.

We have allowed a culture where children think reality television is real, where teen pregnancy is glamorized, where a gangsta lifestyle is a goal for some and where 90-plus percent of what is on television is trash and not fit for any eyes, let alone the eyes of troubled young people.

We live in a culture where small children are routinely given anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs even though the effects of those drugs are many times violent, irrational and unpredictable behavior. We live in a culture where mental illness is still talked about in hushed tones and in many instances completely overlooked.  Out of sight … out of mind, right?  Well, out of sight that is until a mentally ill person opens fire in a first grade classroom.

In short, what shattered the tranquil setting of the small New England town of Newtown is a cultural issue caused by the erosion of America and no amount of gun control legislation or armed security guards can protect any of us from a deranged shooter hell-bent on killing.  Shootings in malls, movie theaters, crowded street corners and even churches is proof of that.  Ironically, the morning after the shooting I read a story in the Chicago Tribune with the headline: 10 people including four teens shot overnight on South Side.’  And Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the nation.

As a footnote, let me add that I think the prayer in school issue certainly adds irony to what has taken place in Newtown.  In my life I have watched as God was literally booted out of the schoolhouse by a small minority of people – part of the erosion of America group.  And again this erosion has taken place because the majority stood back and allowed it to happen.  And perhaps the Christian community is the most at fault because they have sat on their collective hands and ‘shut up’ as they were told.

But, isn’t it ironic that nearly every comment and every plea from everybody involved in the Newtown massacre has asked that the victims of this horrific and senseless act be remembered in prayers. I also found it interesting that when the crazed gunman was in the building that teachers and children turned to God and prayer to protect them and in the days since the killings there have been countless prayer vigils.  There used to be a saying that stated ‘there are no atheists in foxholes.’  I guess the 21st Century version of that is that ‘there are no atheists in schools and its OK to pray in the classroom when a deranged gunman is hunting for somebody to shoot.’

Gun control, armed guards, armed school administrators, prayer in schools and beefed up security are all items that merit attention but only after the cultural issue — the root of this problem — is addressed.  Because, if this is life in the 21st Century there is no place of safety that exists and God help us all.

If we continue on the path we are on, as horrific as it is to imagine, that ‘red line of the unthinkable’ will move again one day – because the erosion will continue and it will happen.

By Gay Bowlin, Manager

Farmers in Franklin County have been very busy this past week – finally we have nice DRY weather and corn has been planted.  Not everyone has all of their crops in but are on the downhill side of finishing up planting.

Gay Bowlin

Corn growers in Illinois and elsewhere are nearing the homestretch of their spring planting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says 84 percent of Illinois’ corn crop is now in the ground. That’s 11 percentage points above the average pace of the previous five years. Last year at this time, just two-thirds of the state’s crop had been planted. That’s because one of the wettest springs on record got farmers in many states off to the slowest start in decades.

Roughly 60 percent of Illinois’ corn crop already has emerged, up 15 percent from the five-year average and nearly twice the national rate.

Nationwide, nearly three-quarters of the corn crop is planted.

Negotiations on Illinois Farm Bureau’s (IFB) Covered Farm Vehicle legislation, SB 3398, have led to a compromise proposal.

The compromise would allow owners of trucks with class B or D license plates to have their truck designated as a Covered Farm Vehicle through the registration of that vehicle.  A $10 annual surcharge would be added, but only if the owner seeks to have his truck designated as a Covered Farm Vehicle.  The Secretary of State would provide a designation on the registration card identifying the truck as a Covered Farm Vehicle when pulling a farm plated trailer or an implement of husbandry.  This designation would signify to enforcement officers that the vehicle, when used in combination with a farm plated trailer or implement of husbandry, is a Covered Farm Vehicle.

SB 3398 would allow the smallest trucks—pickups and dualies—to qualify for the farm exemptions as larger trucks when pulling a farm plated trailer or implement of husbandry. However, it also preserves the small truck’s utility as a multi-use family vehicle because it does not limit the truck’s use to only farm transportation.  Currently in Illinois, these smaller trucks do not qualify for the exemptions because they typically do not have a farm plate.

The designation as a Covered Farm Vehicle provides several benefits for farmers. It provides consistency with the exemptions from trucking regulations allowed for larger trucks that carry farm plates, helping to minimize confusion. Farmers who have larger trucks with farm plates would not have to meet differing regulations simply to operate their smaller trucks pulling farm-plated trailers or implements of husbandry, as they do currently.

Farmers with smaller trucks designated as Covered Farm Vehicles would also be exempted from medical card requirements thus reducing costs for farmers.

The exemptions also eliminate hours of service restrictions for operators of trucks designated as Covered Farm Vehicles and eliminates the need for pre-trip and post-trip inspections of the vehicle. However, it is still a good idea to do those inspections.  This designation also extends the CDL exemption to employees of the farmer.  By doing so, the employee would also be exempted from drug and alcohol testing for operation of truck-trailer combinations over 26,001 pounds, again reducing costs by eliminating this potential expense.

Because these non-farm-plated trucks do not currently meet the definition of a Covered Farm Vehicle in Illinois regulations, this compromise provides needed regulatory certainty and the ability to avoid additional costs for Illinois farmers operating smaller trucks pulling farm plated trailers or implements of husbandry.

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.

Universities should be sharply focused on academic excellence and helping students develop the power to think.  Thinking and doing creates value.  And jobs follow like a “shadow on dry thirsty land.”  Employment will be a place of refuge for thought and action — not a guarantee or an accoutrement — contributing to the essence of a person when accompanied by the ability and freedom to work.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.”

— Jim Morrison —
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Invariably when someone comments about the current state of higher education and its seemingly pale performance evidenced in the production of junk degrees and graduates ill-prepared for work, the sneered response from my confederates is, “Oh, so the University exists to provide people jobs?”

Not for a nano-second.

Walter V. Wendler

However, if the university cannot produce people capable of performing valuable work, it has failed.  Higher education’s nanny complex is a fabrication of Mad Men caricatures trying to make institutions appear valuable.  When students learn to think, the power to perform and compete is not far behind. Work, not meal tickets, is the goal.

Good universities are economic engines because students graduate with ability. An open society operates through Smith’s “invisible hand of the marketplace.” People who can think and do in the pressure cooker of the market have social and economic value as their skills and abilities help create well-functioning communities. They can work.

Accepting the concept that an education is a guarantee of employability is a mistake and demeans the significance of ability and insight. A good education always leads to employability whether developed through Chaucer or commerce, philosophy or physics, engineering or sociology.  Thinking, productive people are a university’s currency.

Graduates running about waving a certificate claiming “I have an education!” may have been misled by the university, elected officials, ignorance or “Me” magazine. What the holder possesses is an increasingly expensive, heavily mortgaged document guaranteeing little or nothing — to everyone’s dismay — especially those poor souls racked with debt.

Universities, their leaders, and graduates, like football coaches, are judged by their record. A coach is not evaluated by the number of first downs, fumbles lost or recovered, yards gained or lost, the size of the stadium, the attendance records, or anything else related to the game.  It’s the won-lost record. (I want to say stupid but I don’t like that word.)  Performance clarity exists in universities, and the best indicator is an honest and willing appraisal of a progeny’s ability to work.

The Economist ran a story last week under the heading, “Is College Worth it?”  The top 10 universities when measured by return on investment from graduates over a 20-year period are without surprise.  They are the best academic institutions on the planet, some you haven’t heard of, and their graduates can think and do and perform work.

“It’s the jobs, stupid,” to borrow a bit from James Carville, Clinton’s main campaign adviser, who developed the “It’s the economy, stupid” mantra used to deny President George H.W. Bush a second term.

Likewise, the won-lost record for universities is jobs.  Not finagling statistics to create impressions, but the ultimate measure of value — meaningful work.  When students are challenged by adroit faculty who themselves produce knowledge and insight and share it with aspiring minds, graduates have an offering to make at the altar of the marketplace.

Students suffer when pabulum is tolerated and degrees are doled out like candy because people pay tuition. Intellectual perspective is not developed, adhered to, and nurtured.  Work is a far-off concept.   Universities fail because indoctrination to a blithely accepted mindset that the degree is a meal ticket prevails.

Proselytization perhaps, but not enduring education.

People with purposeful educational experiences buck the trend in the harsh light of the marketplace and in the quiet light of their daily lives. Numerous educators fear education, pandering to predisposition rather than seeing students as the future workers of a free society. Chaucer, physics, humanities, engineering, the arts, all have value when studied in earnest and results are worked for. The subject matter matters not, but working for any positive result has great value.

Effective universities create jobs because they create people who have the audacity to think clearly and freely. If at any time that free inquiry leads to socialization rather than insight and ability, the student and the university have failed.
Our universities need commitment to the development of thinking and doing capacity in graduates. The question of worth will answer itself in a shift from certified attendance to demonstrated ability.

Able workers win.

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

—  Abraham Lincoln  —

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Diversified Access – The student newspaper on the campus of Southern Illinois University, The Daily Egyptian, posted an editorial last week regarding the favored treatment of freshmen over transfer students regarding scholarships.  I concur with Kayli Plotner that more opportunities for financial aid should be granted to transfer students. The inertia to treat new students as prized citizens of the university is well intended but out of date. Diminished financial aid opportunities for transfer students come from within the university.  The tradition, bordering on arrogance, that community college students are inferior is unfounded.  Institutions that graduate half their students on time should use the looking glass to see incapability.  The face of reality is that transfer students, who have completed an Associate’s degree, graduate on time at a rate greater than native freshmen students.

Walter V. Wendler

Opening doors of support to students who have demonstrated the capacity for college-level work through the attainment of a two-year degree deserves greater attention from within the university community. According to the Chancellor’s office of the California Community Colleges, “Transfer students from the California Community Colleges to the University of California system currently account for 48 percent of UC’s bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

New Ideas – The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement, (sic) identified “The Top Five Roadblocks to Innovation in Higher Ed” in a post by Mike Scheuermann of Drexel University last week.  The lack of funding is driving institutions away from innovation, not towards it, he says. Universities seem to fear change.  Silos exist; guardedness stunts collaboration and people incongruously believe that something new will automatically bring innovation.

Distance education, reduced time to degrees, integrated community college articulation for seamless transfer,  transparency in degree value, employment potential and borrowing, weekend programs, and a host of other not so new, but very powerful ideas could help transform universities and simultaneously strengthen academic values. But, unfortunately, too many insiders find too many excuses to sustain business as usual, without regard for institutional ability to offer cogent educational opportunities to students. Again, we can’t blame bankers or politicians for this unfortunate circumstance. Rather, university personnel create resistance to change.

Multiple Approaches – Last week, the Huffington Post posted a report, “Fixing Higher Education Requires a Diversity of Assessments and Reforms.”  A group of faculty at Brevard College suggested adherence to the traditions of the university has not produced desired results:  11% of business leaders and 14% of the broader population “strongly agree” that graduates are well prepared for employment. Universities are failing at the most basic level — outsiders and insiders know it.  If the university was either a well-run business or a well-run academic organization, this would not be the case.

Regrettably, many campuses fear change even in the incremental manner suggested in the three scenarios above.  We should have liberty rather than hide-bound traditions regarding college students and their aspirations that haven’t existed in decades.   Insiders should embrace thoughtful, incremental change lest they become Lincoln’s “authors and finishers.”

These three forces — access, innovation, and diversity of approaches — suggest that a radical change is neither proposed nor needed. Rather approaches addressing the changing nature of our students, and the rising costs of our services, their necessity and value should be sought.   Tradition, in this case, chokes institutional purpose and life.

Our universities should heed young Lincoln’s wise counsel.  Pogo Possum did, and noted, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Joeann Dardeen remembered me when I called this week. I had bumped my head on a hanging light in her kitchen during our last visit and she still recalled it more than 16 years later.

Here’s the column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Political leadership reflects the dreams and nightmares of the electorate. Voter-sanctioned tolerance and expectations percolate into public leaders of every strain, including university presidents. For university leaders, moral authority or its lack, settles into the hearts, minds and souls of university students. And then some of those students become political leaders.

“I have a strong belief, nurtured no doubt by my own prejudices, that the central person in exercising moral leadership for the life and prosperity of any academic institution must be its president.”

— Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, STD, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame  —
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The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, reported the findings of a February poll — Illinois voters perceive “political corruption is the norm for both federal and state governments…”  It is a sad epidemic. At the state level, 53% believe corruption is very common.

Walter V. Wendler

Political leaders gather moral authority and ethical perspective at home, in houses of worship, in schools and at universities.  Ethical perspectives permeate all of us and are evidenced in behavior.  In Illinois, the now imprisoned Rod Blagojevich instituted an ethics test for all state employees.  He passed it.  He wanted test-proven moral leadership.  Evidently, behaviors carry more weight than test scores.
High ethical standards of elected officials are reflected in university leadership.  Conversely, moral bankruptcy begets moral bankruptcy.  Students are simmered in the university’s leadership broth, and truthfulness or disingenuousness boils out.  President Hesburgh was right.

Examples of ethically bereft university leadership abound.

At Chicago State University, “James Crowley, the university’s former senior legal counsel, had been awarded $2 million in punitive damages and $480,000 in back pay after a jury decided last month that he was fired in retaliation for reporting alleged misconduct by university president Wayne Watson and other top officials,”  according to the Chicago Tribune. Does this indicate guilt on anyone’s part?  At its absolute best, it looks terrible.
The University of Illinois’ former President Joe White and Chancellor of the flagship campus, Richard Herman, stepped away from their respective positions amid charges of politically motivated admissions favoritism. The next president, Michael Hogan, oversaw a brief and rocky tenure with a number of charges levied against him and his senior staff. True or not, who knows?  It certainly does not look good.

Illinois State University President Timothy Flanagan recently resigned after a term of seven months with a buyout package of $500,000 seemingly brought about by inappropriate behavior, according to the Chicago Tribune.  Right or wrong? Can’t say.
And, to our collective misfortune, there are many more examples in and out of state.

A 2011 Chronicle of Higher Education story, “How Educated are State Legislators,” by Scott Smallwood and Alex Richards, reports on the educational achievement of political leaders.  Through first-hand experience at universities, they learn about decision-making and leadership ethics. The vast majority of elected officials, 7,400 state lawmakers nationwide, attended public colleges and universities. Of the 535 U.S. Congressmen, only four have no higher education, three quarters of the U.S. senators have advanced degrees and half of them studied law.

The Chronicle reported the majority of the state legislators attended in-state universities, crystallized with this observation, “Overall, 75% of the state legislators who have gone to college have attended at least one institution in their home state.”

University leaders set ethical frameworks in every aspect of a free society including the statehouse. In case after case, the fingerprints of legislative processes are on university affairs.  If those machinations are corrupt, or even believed to be so, university leaders are accessories to malfeasance.
Expectations too high?  Not when presidents are the most highly compensated state employees in every state in the nation except for major sport coaches.   The public owns the right to high aspirations from university leaders. They pay for it.

President Hesburgh understood the mantle of leadership.  No one has more impact on university life, and therefore students, and therefore the hope and future of the republic than the president. Even a whiff of unethical behavior is offensive.  When a president hires a son or friend of a friend, pilfers intellectual property, influences scholarships or admissions for kin or supplicant, grants a contract to a political supporter or in any way does anything that undermines the impact of academic accomplishment and integrity, the institution is compromised — corrupted.
And the levy is the highest of all: diminished reputation.

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll, unfortunately, reflects people’s perceptions.  Presumed corruption is commonplace.
Students vote too — with their feet — and they have options.  The fortunate can select a private institution.  Some choose to leave the state, creating a negative impact on the state’s economy and the perceived quality of its universities. Students and families may see the infection of corruption from the statehouse into the schoolhouse, or vice versa, and say, “To hell with the whole mess.”

Not a good choice in the lot.  Our universities must do better in exercising moral authority and ethical responsibility in leadership.   Reverend Hesburgh, even with his “own prejudices,” was right in his conviction.