LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Help save Galesburg

— Bumper sticker of the week: Annoy a Republican — Defend the Constitution.

— Quote of the week: “There are some similarities, of course, between Iraq and Vietnam. Death is terrible.” George W. Bush (April 19, 2007)

— Management by Fear: Corporate America, both profit and non-profit, has adopted Bush’s Management by Fear theory. Keep the employee fearful for his or her job. That will control them. Or at least, so they theorize. If you screw up, or speak up, or don’t pucker up, well, you’ll see. I’ve never seen such a poor excuse for managers in my life. They’ve gone for so long without any challenges that they forgot, there is no company. The company is an illusion, and management is its boss. We are the company. Once employees get back to understanding this, the ledgers will get balanced. Until then, don’t bend over.

— Help save Galesburg:

• We could sell our first-born into slavery. That might save us some money on the brick streets.

• The city council could start holding bake sales on the city hall stair-steps. Every Saturday morning. Maybe start about 6:30am or so. They could try to make enough to replace the revenue they give away in TIF districts and Enterprise Zones.

• How about a toll on every train that passes through Galesburg? Sort of an “annoyance tax.”

• For each percentage of population we lose each year, that same percent has to be eliminated from the city administration. We could call this an accountability clause.

• How about trimming our own trees hanging over AmerenIP wires? I definitely could do as good a job.

• I think we should pay more for our water. How about $10 a gallon? That would be a revenue maker.

• Real estate taxes are cheap compared to New York and Chicago. Another barely tapped revenue source.

• If all else fails, I’d go with prostitution and gambling. Look what it did for Vegas.

— When brick streets become more important than helping people keep their homes, you come to understand just how far down the evolutionary ladder we have slid.

— The government still don’t get it: Al Qaeda is not an enemy you can kill or make disappear. It is a state of mind. It consists of being poor, humiliated, and living in utter and complete despair and hopelessness. At that point, talking someone into killing themselves for the cause becomes easy. It has to do with mainly us, Americans, unwilling to share the wealth. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

— Some questions about Galesburg:

• What political party did our town hero, Carl Sandburg, belong to?

• Was the town square ever a square?

• W.C. Fields once played the Orpheum. After the show, he was seen leaving the bar at the Hotel Custer with a local woman. Do you know who it was?

• If the inventor of the Ferris Wheel was from Galesburg, why do we have a street called Losey?

• If St. Mary was built for Catholics, and Cottage for Protestants, where did non-believers go?

• Our founding fathers were prohibitionists. When exactly did they lose control?

• Galesburg was at one time a strong union town. Why were we doing so much better then?

— Happy Summer Solstice. Remember not to run your air conditioner this summer. AmerenIP has warned us about high electrical rates. “Sweat for AmerenIP.” Sounds catchy. Or how about “AmerenIP Causes a Stink.”