As is often the case, the seed for this column was sown in the comments following my treatise on PCDES or Parent-Driven Child-Entitlement Syndrome. That’s what I love the most about Patch—the insistent and unflinching reader feedback! But while it was refreshing to see so many of you agree with me and share similar stories, I was surprised by the ardor of those few who veered off course to attack teachers—and particularly their salaries. I realize anti-educator fervor is in favor these days, but I also think this undercurrent of contempt tends to sweep away more than just teachers. Most of …

I’ve gotta stop reading that Chicago Tribune op-ed page because it’s making me crazy. There was a time when, of the five newspapers arriving daily on my driveway, the Trib would be the first freed from its overstretched plastic prison. Now the Sun-Times is No. 1. And here’s one of the reasons for that top-five shift. In a Nov. 18 editorial, the Tribune tackled the touchy topic of Internet sales tax by coming out in support of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s “Marketplace Fairness Act,” which mandates attaching sales tax to every Internet purchase. Considering individual states’ prior boondoggle-ish …

As I was pondering the positive effects of the Occupy Wall Street protests, another local news story caught my eye. The two events may appear to be disparate, but if you consider some interesting parallels, I think they actually complement each other quite well. Essentially what I’m saying is, I think it’s time for an “Occupy the Catholic Church” movement. Of course, whenever I broach this touchy subject, all kinds of cross-wearing folk come out of the woodwork to accuse me of Catholic bashing and being anti-church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s start with those nine years (…

It always amazes me how a non sequitur sentence in a column can set off some overly sensitive, surly and snooty comments. To wit, in my recent Patch piece concerning the city of Chicago’s rabid revenue raising ruses, I uttered this simple, but obvious truth: “The smart people live in the suburbs for a reason.” And after they got a suburbanite to read the column to them, those Second City citizens shrieked and howled almost as if I'd said that Starbucks stopped serving Iced Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas. (Chicagoans drink some rather strange things.) So now we know why they call it the “…

As I perused my way through Patchdom this week, I was surprised to see we haven’t conducted a west suburban poll on the merits of the Occupy Wall Street movement. You already can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an East Coast Patch survey on the subject. Since I’d never want us to be considered behind a bunch of teeth-clenched-while-they-talk elitist New Englanders, I think it’s time we far-more-sophisticated-west-suburban folk wade in on this burgeoning protest movement. Of course, no Patch poll would be complete without me doing my darndest to skew the results in the specific direction. …

I refuse to set foot in the city of Chicago. Even if it means having to endure a decade long yearning to gaze upon that Wrigley Field ivy, I won’t do it. That’s how serious I am. I may miss the Lyric and long to see Mr. Muti and his crew, but they, the Planetarium and the Field Museum will just have to get along without me. My aversion to the “City that Works” started with the installation of 200 red-light camera intersections, most of which have seen their yellow light times reduced to the legal three-second minimum—or less! It continued with privatized street parking rates that make the …

Upon reading the recent Tribune article headline lamenting the slow demise of cursive in the suburban classroom, I thought, “What! Are they crazy?” As fond as I am of four-letter words, why would anyone want to encourage Schieshser Elementary children to drop the F-bomb? But when my wife overheard me mumbling something about schools teaching our children to curse, she exclaimed, “Not cursing! Cursive! Cursive is the form of manuscript handwriting you’ve never been able to cope with!” “Oh! That’s very different,” I said, “Nevermind.” All Emily Litella references aside, as soon as my wife …

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did! It wasn’t bad enough that their former director absconded with nearly half a million dollars. It wasn't bad enought that the board members, who failed to implement any kind of oversight, spent another $2.5 million just to determine how he did it. Then they refused to resign until Springfield threatened their sponsors with political death. And once those incompetent board members were finally forced out, the inept Metra management folks actually had the nerve to announce, “By the way. We’ve been borrowing money from our capital fund to …

Internet anonymity needs to go, and it needs to go now! Last week, I called Samantha Liss to determine the content of a reader response she’d removed from my column. Comments that don’t make the cut are typically the wackiest ones, and I was hoping to have a good laugh with our esteemed Glen Ellyn Patch editor. Samantha echoed the lament of so many Patch editors who aren’t sure exactly when to pull that delete trigger. Get too crazy and you kill the conversation. But a too laissez-faire approach can lead to a few nameless loudmouths dominating the debate, which can cause a mass exodus of …

When we aren’t discussing road biking or running, my good friend Rob Kelley and I frequently end up talking about our children. It’s what boring middle-aged white men do. But what makes our ongoing discussion so fascinating is that Rob has two young girls, while I have two boys. And those conversations almost always end with the same old line, “Thank God I have boys.” Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a daughter. It’s just that, given a choice between the challenges of parenting boys or girls, it’s no contest. I’ll take the boys every time. I know raising sons is no picnic, but what this …

In yet another of their “the sky is falling” school pieces, the Aug. 31 Chicago Tribune headline blared “Public H.S. grads struggle at college”! The report went on to describe how Chicago-area students who generally got B's in high school weren’t faring nearly as well at Illinois state universities. To prove their point, the newspaper included all sorts of tables showing the disparity between high school and college grades. Since they only included the best and worst cases, I pulled out the data for all of our Patchland high schools and sorted it by the best state college grade point average …

All that whooping and hollering you just heard was me! I couldn’t help but get a little excited over Houston, TX, removing every last one of its 70 red-light cameras. Despite a despicable legal attack and being outspent 10-to-1, a citizen’s group started by two brothers got the removal measure on the ballot and then prevailed. Not one to admit defeat, the camera company tried a last-ditch legal end run and, when the city council wouldn’t buckle, sued Houston for $25 million. It’s all about safety, isn’t it! That second round of loud applause you heard was also me. After calling every single …

In a case of timing even worse than the unpaid-child-support allegations levied against outspoken Congressman Joe Walsh, Illinois Tollway Authority officials just announced that they will virtually double tolls. That’s right! I-PASS rates will jump from 40 cents to 75 cents, depending on which booth you're at, while cash customers will be hit up for a buck and a half! Has anyone told them we’re in the midst of a recession? Though tollway spokesperson Joelle McGinnis passed my e-mail questions along to the appropriate director, they refused to respond. But we already know what their rationale …

It’s a rare feat for one of our illustrious Patchland institutions to come out on top of a national ranking. Actually, in this case, it’s not so rare. This sanctum of higher learning was No. 1 in 2009 and it generally finishes in the top 10! Yes! Once again, the Princeton Review named Wheaton College the country's least tolerant university toward gay and lesbian students. Why do I suddenly feel like issuing a Colbert-esque “We’re No. 1”? Of course, we should try to keep this semi-rare honor in perspective. After all, the award was issued by a "Review" from an utterly mediocre educational …

Soon after we learned of 40-year-old Elmhurst resident Amy Martich’s death in the the New York Nautica Triathlon, Elmhurst Patch Editor Karen Chadra and I had a brief e-mail exchange on the seeming randomness of life. There’s something very unsettling about a triathlete dying during a race. And for some indeterminate reason, this particular “randomness” always seems to rear its ugly head just as the sun starts sinking a bit lower in the summer sky. It started with a 29-year-old Glen Ellyn man who was killed when his motorcycle collided with a Schaumburg semi at Irving Park Road and Mitchell …

I know you’re not supposed to go back to the same journalistic well too often, but I just couldn’t resist this one! While our illustrious Metra Board was busy defending the indefensible in their director-absconds-with-a-half-a-million-dollars fiasco, they were utterly bungling the budget, too! Let’s review, class! Metra Executive Director Phil Pagano made off with $475,000 in unauthorized vacation pay and later committed suicide when cornered. Despite this travesty occurring on their watch, former Metra Board members Arlene Mulder, Caryl Van Overmeiren and others tried to tell us they were …

There are times I really don’t like being right. In a February two-part Geneva Patch series on Borders bookstore’s first round of closings, I predicted the rest of their chain would close within two years. Not even I thought they only had six months! Reuters reported that, due to lack of interest from prospective buyers, Borders had canceled an auction and instead will sell their remaining inventory to liquidators. That means 400 more stores will disappear and 11,000 employees will join the ranks of the unemployed at a time when jobs aren’t easy to come by. Also according to Reuters, “less …

“But, Jeff! Why should I give a bleep about the Metra Board or who serves on it? I don’t even use Metra!” Well, dear reader, that answer is simple. Metra is far from a private company. Whether you choose to ride those commuter trains or not, you’re footing a full 40 percent of their bottom line. And if that board fails do its job, as we’ve so recently seen, you may as well just throw a couple of your paychecks into that backyard Weber barbecue. That board’s complete incapacity to implement any kind of reasonable oversight set the stage for former Executive Director Phil Pagano to abscond with…

Maybe it’s me, but aren’t we hearing about a lot more bicycle-car accidents than usual this year? Perhaps our $4 a gallon petrol prices have driven some frugal folks back to their bikes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this excellent Gina Kelly column has more commuters tackling that trip on two wheels. Last November, this accident occurred at Ogden and Malden Avenues in Hinsdale and this June 5 Geneva bike-car crash scared the bejesus out me. No one wants to end their ride under a car tire! Search “bicycle accident” on the Tribune’s website and the list of resulting articles is way too long. …

The comments connected to my June 3 Patch piece on the need for deeper local school board budget cuts made for a terrific conversation. (I have the smartest readers!) And here's the contention that sparked the interesting online debate: “Catholic schools … work with 30 students per classroom, spend half of what public schools spend per pupil … Yet their students consistently test better than their public counterparts.”  Some readers argued, since private schools aren’t mandated to create programs for special needs and non-English-speaking students, they do a better job by default. Others said…