10/28/2014
Best And Worst Run States
50-STATE SURVEY: THE CREAM OF THE CROP AND BOTTOM OF THE BARREL
An extensive survey of every state conducted by 24/7 Wall St. determines how well states are managed, examining their financial data, as well as the services they provide and their residents' standard of living. Here are the top five best- and worst-run states
10/27/2014
Urban Planning Blogs
Click this link to see a list of urban planning blogs:
http://3pikas.com/home/content/urban-planning-blogs-36-blogs-add-your-list
10/26/2014
Center For Disease Control - Fast Facts
CDC Fast Facts
- Founded in 1946
- Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia
- More than 15,000 employees in nearly 170 occupations
- Field staff assigned to all 50 states and more than 50 countries
CDC is our nation’s health protection agency, and our scientists and disease detectives work around
the world to track diseases, research outbreaks, and respond to emergencies of all kinds. CDC works with partners around the country and world to:
the world to track diseases, research outbreaks, and respond to emergencies of all kinds. CDC works with partners around the country and world to:
ALIGNING INTERSTATE ROAD INTERESTS
ALIGNING INTERSTATE ROAD INTERESTS
EWCRPC LINKS TOGETHER ILLINOIS AND INDIANA COMMUNITIES
FOR JOINT TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
by
Craig Hullinger, AICP and Chuck Eckenstahler, AICP
BACKGROUND
President Paul Lohmann of Beecher, Illinois summarizes the transportation conditions in one simple sentence, “it’s bad and getting worse.” What he describes is the increasing amount of cars and trucks using local east-west roads in their journey into or through Chicago. “This Indiana car and truck traffic is seeking faster and less congested alternatives to the I-65 and I-80/94 route from northern Indiana to downtown Chicago or the suburban interstate routes around Chicago,” according to Lohmann.
INVOLVEMENT OF EWCRPC
In 1994, nine Villages, Cities and Townships formed the Eastern Will County Regional Planning Council to address issues affecting member communities cooperatively. While the initial focus was on understanding the impact of the proposed new regional airport, these communities also identified several current non-airport problems needing intergovernmental solutions. Aligning streets and roads between Illinois and Indiana was an oblivious top priority.
Initial research quickly identified several important findings:
1. There was little, if any, productive discussions between the two State Transportation Departments on this matter,
2. The respective local transportation planning agencies while recognizing the problem and promoting long range plans that include routes that would alleviate the problems, little or no short-term planning was underway which would alleviate the current problems.
3. Local officials on both sides of the state line were expressing similar concern for action.
4. No organization for elected officials existed within the current transportation planning process that could coordinate solutions to transportation or other issues of concern between the two states.
The EWCRPC stepped into this void for its members’ filling the role of a facilitator for drawing together local officials along the 20-mile state line corridor from Lake Michigan south the Kankakee County. This 20-mile corridor has only six continuous “on-alignment“ roads connecting the two states and approximately twenty local roads between the two states with “offset’ alignments.
The objective of the EWCRPC study was simple, gain consensus for realignment of selected roads to serve as local road connectors between the two states. The EWCRPC believes a consensus between local government officials will show sufficient concern to prompt favorable actions by metropolitan transportation planning agencies and federal funding agencies.
Ken Kramer, Chair of the EWCRPC notes, “we have organized a local grass root’s effort to solve a serious traffic safety and congestion problem. Our goal of aligned interest of local governments from both stated in our area is a first. We believe we have started a process that will grow beyond this immediate issue and serve as an action body to address other issues of mutual concern in the future.”
For now Paul Lohmann waits, concerned about the traffic impact on Beecher since recently completed traffic count studies reported Route 1 traffic through the business district is greater than the traffic counts on divided four lane commercial roads serving other surrounding communities. Notes Lohmann, “besides our concern for safety, we worry that increased traffic will limit new commercial growth and seriously harm local business.”
About the authors
Chuck Eckenstahler (AICP & CED Retired), semi-retired in 2008 from a 35-year career as an active full-time municipal planning, economic development and real estate consultant. He helped originate and teaches economic development subjects in the Certificate in Economic Development Program offered by the Graduate School of Business at Purdue North Central, Westville, Indiana and also serves on the faculty of the Lowell Stahl Center for Commercial Real Estate Studies at Lewis University, Oakbrook Illinois. He can be contacted at pctecken@comcast.net or by phone at 219-861-2077.
LINKEDIN Profile - http://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckeckenstahler
Craig Hullinger AICP has 35 years of experience in economic development, city planning, and transportation planning. He is a Partner in the consulting firm of Ruyle Hullinger and Associates. He was formerly the Economic Development Director of Peoria, the Director of Land Use for Will County, and the Village Manager of Olympia Fields, Minooka, and University Park. He is member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a Vietnam Veteran, and is a retired Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. He can be contacted at Craighullinger@gmail.com or by phone at 309 634 5557.
10/22/2014
Boy Scout Law, Slogan, Motto, and Oath
I wrote this from memory. I think I have it right except I think I am missing something from the oath.
Pretty good principles to live by then and now.
The Twelve Points of the Scout Law
A Scout is:
Trustworthy
Loyal
Helpful
Friendly
Courteous
Kind
Obedient
Cheerful
Thrifty
Brave
Clean
and Reverent
Slogan
Do a good turn daily.
Motto
Be prepared.
Oath
On my honor I will do my best, to do my duty to God and my Country.
To obey the Scout law.
To help other people at all times.
To keep myself physically fit, mentally awake, and morally straight.
________________________
This is from the internet:
http://usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsoathlaw.asp
I had it mostly right, but they do have and Outdoor Code I don't remember at all. I hope it is something they came up since 1965.
Boy Scout Oath, Law,
Motto and Slogan
and the
Outdoor Code
Boy Scout Oath or Promise
On my honor, I will do my bestTo do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
Note that the Boy Scout Oath has traditionally been considered to have three promises. Those three promises are delineated by the semicolons in the Oath, which divide it into three clauses. The three promises of the Scout Oath are, therefore:
- Duty to God and country,
- Duty to other people, and
- Duty to self
Men and women of the past worked to make America great, and many gave their lives for their country. By being a good family member and a good citizen, by working for your country's good and obeying its laws, you do your duty to your country. Obeying the Scout Law means living by its 12 points.
DUTY TO OTHER PEOPLE: Many people need help. A cheery smile and a helping hand make life easier for others. By doing a Good Turn daily and helping when you're needed, you prove yourself a Scout and do your part to make this a better world.
DUTY TO SELF: Keeping yourself physically strong means taking care of your body. Eat the right foods and build your strength. Staying mentally awake means learn all you can, be curious, and ask questions. Being morally straight means to live your life with honesty, to be clean in your speech and actions, and to be a person of strong character.
Boy Scout Law
A Scout is:- Trustworthy,
- Loyal,
- Helpful,
- Friendly,
- Courteous,
- Kind,
- Obedient,
- Cheerful,
- Thrifty,
- Brave,
- Clean,
- and Reverent.
Boy Scout Motto
Be Prepared!Boy Scout Slogan
Do a Good Turn Daily!The Outdoor Code
As an American, I will do my best to -- Be clean in my outdoor manners
- Be careful with fire
- Be considerate in the outdoors, and
- Be conservation minded.
George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior
George Washington  "..and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great.." – Thomas Jefferson, about George Washington, 1814 Richard Brookhiser,Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996) pp. 130-131. | By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. The first English translation of the French rules appeared in 1640, and are ascribed to Francis Hawkins the twelve-year-old son of a doctor. Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly. It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find. The rules have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Fussy or not, they represent more than just manners. They are the small sacrifices that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together. These rules proclaim our respect for others and in turn give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem. Richard Brookhiser, in his book on Washington wrote that "all modern manners in the western world were originally aristocratic. Courtesy meant behavior appropriate to a court;chivalry comes from chevalier – a knight. Yet Washington was to dedicate himself to freeing America from a court's control. Could manners survive the operation? Without realizing it, the Jesuits who wrote them, and the young man who copied them, were outlining and absorbing a system of courtesy appropriate to equals and near-equals. When the company for whom the decent behavior was to be performed expanded to the nation, Washington was ready. Parson Weems got this right, when he wrote that it was 'no wonder every body honoured him who honoured every body.'" The Rules: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Click the link below to read more of the rules.
Funeral Streetcar
Before the automobile one of the ways you could travel toward your final resting place was by public transit. Dedicated funeral cars were added to the streetcar systems.
The funeral streetcar in Chicago conveniently went to the 111th St cemeteries in my old south side neighborhood, Mount Greenwood. The famous "Seven Holy Tombs" from John Powers novels are about Mount Greenwood, including "The Last Catholic in America" and "Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up".
According to Roy G. Benedict, "the Chicago funeral streetcars were built in 1910 by the G. C. Kuhlman Car Co. for the Calumet & South Chicago Railway Co. (C&SC) as numbers 1-2. The potential traffic was funerals originating in the C&SC territory -- South Chicago and the East Side, West Pullman, Roseland, etc. -- for burials at the cemeteries along 111th Street in the Mt. Greenwood district.
A track connection was made across the Rock Island main line at Washington Heights (103rd Street) to create a reasonable routing. The Chicago Surface Lines renumbered the cars Y301-Y302 but soon converted them to passenger cars 2857-2858. Once the streets were paved, motorized corteges became practicable. They had been funeral cars for less than ten years. As passenger cars they lasted more than another twenty years."
"Another city that did a brisk business in funeral trains was Chicago, where the ‘L’ took mourners accompanying caskets to cemetery station stops in specially designed funeral cars at a rate that reached 22 trips per week in 1907, according to a fascinating investigation by WBEZ. "
10/20/2014
Bird on a Floating Island
A little floating island floated up to our backyard.
And then a nice bird landed on the island.
A fine big bird.
10/19/2014
10/18/2014
Chicago Riverwalk
Chicago Riverwalk
10/10/2014
10/07/2014
Colonization - Expansion and Contraction Animation
Click to see an animation of the Colonization Expansion and Contraction.
The animation shows how slowly the United States was colonized by Europeans. For the first 200 years settlement was on a narrow sliver along the east coast. Eventually the population hit critical mass and the balance of the country was quickly overtaken.
I wrote something about the mixing of European, Native American, and African American groups in our early history, shown below:
 |
| Members of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877. Note the evidence of mixed European and African ancestry. L to R, Lochar Harjo, unidentified man, John McGilvry, Silas Jefferson or Hotulko miko (Chief of the Whirlwind). |
This view is partially incorrect. Murder and theft did occur but what happened in many cases is that whites and Indians intermarried and interbred. The second and third generation American often received European, Native American, and African genes. Continuing immigration of white settlers gradually increased the percentage of European contribution to the population. Our ancestors gradually forgot their origins and that they were part Native American.
The early settlers in the 1600's and 1700's were tough people immigrating to a difficult environment. There were many young men coming to the new world to make their fortune. They often came without wives or their wives died in childbirth. They did what was natural and what occurs whenever two population groups come together - they intermarried. Who did these settlers marry if not Native American women? I have it on good scientific authority that women are required for the creation of descendants.
When two populations come into contact they usually interact, socialize, and intermarry to form a new population group. This takes place in all countries. In North and South America there are a number of countries that proudly recognize their Native American roots. Mexico and Chile are two prominent examples. But Argentina and the US are examples of countries where large ongoing European immigration continued to dilute the original population mix.
Improved immunity from disease favored intermarriage. Children of Native Americans and immigrants would have better immunity to old and new world diseases.
Our history is full of conflicts and short wars between colonists and Native Americans. The wars get a lot of publicity and are a big part of our historical understanding of the past. But relatively few Native Americans and settlers killed in the Indian wars. For the most part they peacefully traded and interacted and intermarried.
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| Marriage of Pocahantas and John Rolfe |
Both my wife and I have family histories that indicate that one or more of our distant ancestors were Native American. And most of the known intermarriage would have occurred in the 1600 and 1700’s, when much of the European immigration were young men. And in the early years the population of the country was majority Native American.
Most of the social intercourse among Native Americans and colonists would have occurred at the edge of the colonial settlement. And this line very slowly moved west, allowing for many years of opportunities for trade, sexual intercourse, and marriage.
Disease also played a part. Europeans brought diseases which heavily impacted Native Americans who had no natural immunity to old world disease. And the Americas were the home of diseases for which Europeans had little native immunity. A person carrying both European and Native American genes had better immunity and a better chance of surviving and passing on his genes. The hardy survivors intermarried and passed on their immunities to their descendants.
Most people do not know their complete ethnic heritage back over 3 or 4 generations. There are roughly 10 generations back to pre colonial America. Ten generations equals 1024 forbears. Virtually no one knows the background or makeup of all of their 1024 ancestors.
I can only follow a dozen or so names back to the colonial era. Most of these were male lines who kept their last name. It is much more difficult to determine the ancestry of the women they married, who changed their name with each marriage. And some of them were probably Native American - more then my one known Native American ancestor.
In Mexico, for example, male ancestors are often of European descent while female ancestors were Native Americans. This follows the pattern of the conqueror, where the males with better technology and wealth successfully father the most children. The same situation prevailed in the US, but with ongoing waves of European immigration overwhelming the Native American contribution.
References
http://dna-explained.com/2012/12/18/proving-native-american-ancestry-using-dna/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/05/elizabeth_warren_says_she_s_1_32nd_native_american_how_many_people_have_that_heritage_.html
http://minglecity.com/group/knowledgeisking/forum/topics/black-native-americans-in-the
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/06/claim-they-have-native-american-blood.html