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River Cities’ Reader publisher Todd McGreevy talks with Aaron Dail re the highlights of Issue N° 1007.

Link: Can Illinois Democrats Run Progressive Messages and Also Win Local Elections?

Rich Miller’s column about Illinois getting involved with school-board elections inspires talk of “politiopath” behavior. Would Governor JB Pritzker be comfortable with HIS kids being taught about LGBTQ issues in elementary school?

Link: All Eyes on the International Health Regulations Proposed Amendments

Kathleen McCarthy’s look at International Health Regulations (IHR), which go beyond sharing guidelines with other nations about potential health crises to proposing a binding dictate from the World Health Organization (WHO) for everyone to tow a single line. James Rogulski provides his Top Ten list of IHR amendments that need to be opposed.

Link: Buried Stories: Napoleon Bonaparte Buford (1807-1883)

Bruce Walters’s study of one of Chippiannock Cemetery’s most colorful — and, alas, neglected — occupant, Napoleon Bonaparte Buford. Buford came out of retirement in 1861, at the age of 54, to take command as Colonel of the 27^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and thereafter saw action at the Battle of Belmont. In Spring 1862, Buford commanded the Flotilla Brigade of the Army of the Mississippi during the Battle of Island Number Ten, which cost the Confederate Army its position on the River for the first time. After surviving the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863, Buford, now Brigadier General, settled into his position as commander of the District of East Arkansas, an area of the Confederate state controlled by the North. It is here where he did his most notable work, bringing to heel smugglers, guerrillas, and plantation-lessees; organizing a freedmen’s department of five-thousand men; and established an orphan asylum and an industrial school for liberated slaves. Buford won admiration for his willingness to prosecute dishonesty among his own subordinates.

Link: Mark Rouw and the Champion Trees of Iowa

Scott Carlson’s cover concerns Mark Rouw, who’s measured the tallest trees across Iowa, with photos. Blinding.

Link: The Everything Bagel, with Locks: Predicting the 2023 Academy Award Winners

Mike Schulz hopes to see fifteen of his predictions borne out at this year’s Oscars. It’s all in others’ hands now. . .

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River Cities’ Reader publisher Todd McGreevy talks with Aaron Dail and Enrique Sandoval re the highlights of Issue N° 1006, including Art at the Airport: Fun Reasons to Visit the Quad Cities Aiport While Not Enduring Security Theatre, featuring the works of James Eli Bowden, Matt Moyer, and Corrine Smith, on display now through 02/28.

Link: The Sixth Annual Fake News Awards by James Corbett of The Corbett Report: JC offers his nominations for the Dino Awards — “Dino” as in “dinosaur media” — and the stories from the past year that have since been revealed to be examples of deceptive reporting. Included is a 45-minute video JC provides on it that’s entertaining, elevating, and excruciating in its implications (The “E” Trifecta!).

Link: Who Knew about These Firsts? by Todd McGreevy, featuring a new cartoon of “Uncle Scam” by Ed Newmann, which is so good that it adorns the cover of the Reader‘s print edition. McGreevy has thrown down the gauntlet to readers for them to point out something — anything — by the US federal government that isn’t a scam. He also points out a number of “firsts” of history to which the Quad Cities provided a setting. One such would be. . .

Link: John Atanasoff, the father of the modern computer: Augustana College’s Wallenberg Hall will hold a screening of Birth of the Computer: The John Atanasoff Story on 02/23, 6PM. In the tech world, Atanasoff, who went to Iowa State College in Ames (now Iowa State University), is a hero because of the testimony he gave during a lawsuit about how he came up with the concepts behind the first computer, which resulted in the computer becoming public domain, and IBM was thus prevented from owning the patent. In his testimony, Atanasoff talked about driving two hours from Ames to Rock Island in 1936 to get a drink — Iowa was then a dry state; Illinois wasn’t; and he had his a-HA! moment in a local tavern, where he wrote out on the back of a bar napkin the concept of the computer.

Link: The World Comes to DC to Demand Biden Drop the Case Against Julian Assange by Kevin Gosztola, concerning the organized international opposition to the United States government’s extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, thirteen years after his data-dump (which, incidentally, he carefully vetted before dropping it). Pressure is being brought to bear on the Biden administration to drop its efforts against Assange; will it be enough to free JA from his Ecuadorean-embassy “fortress”?

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Cartoon: Teacher Leave Those Kids Alone, Ed Newman

Link: Noble Lies Are No Excuse for Ignoble Acts — Kathleen McCarthy marks the second anniversary of the January 6 debacle in Washington DC as an occasion in which Congressional committees have once again drawn and disseminated the wrong conclusions; observes the farcical House District 81 ballot-recount in Scott County; suggests the hand-counting of ballots may be worth the carpal-tunnel strain (if only to remove the suspicion of machine irregularities affecting electoral outcomes); and decries the ongoing degradation of the democratic dogmas — state and federal, personal and political — as a resistable phenomenon rather than the inevitable outcome of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Link: Petitioning for Redress of the Bamboozle — Todd McGreevy notes that January 6, 2021, was an historic moment, insofar as mass movements to petition the federal government for a redress of grievances have rarely been pitched in such numbers, and the one-tenth of the one-percent of potential bad actors on the scene that day shouldn’t have been the lede-line. (FYI: Did you know that, of the rights granted us in the Bill of Rights, the right to petition for a redress of grievances has never been adjudicated before the high courts?)

Link: Whiteside County Sheriff John F Booker’s Office Dispatch, January 11 — Sheriff Booker declares that he’s chosen to follow the Constitution rather than his state government’s recently-passed Protect Illinois Communities Act, which contravenes our Second-Amendment rights, and will therefore refuse to enforce PICA.

Link: 2022 Year in Music: The Year’s Top Albums from Local DJs and Musicians — The QCA’s DJs, musicians, and critics offer their lists of the best albums 2022 had to offer listeners.

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All Hail Elon, the New Twitter Lord and Champion of Free Speech: Five Reasons Elon Musk Is a Trojan Horse Not to Be Trusted

Julian Assange Rots in Prison Because He Spotlighted the Manipulative Bitch

The U.S. “Intelligence Community” Can’t Be Trusted to Police Itself: The People Need an Intelligence Ombudsman with No Conflicts of Interest

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Loren Thacher speaks with the New York native blues-rock musician Joe Bonamassa about his craft and his tools as well as his spot on an upcoming fall US tour as “the weak link” — and if that’s the case, then that is one powerful chain. Bonamassa will play Davenport’s Adler Theatre on November 9.

“Good Enough for B.B., Good Enough for Me”: Joe Bonamassa

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The Riffs Will Flow and Beer Will Spill at Wake Brewing’s Five-Year Anniversary Party: September 9 and 10

Top Five Domestic Tyranny Steps Enacted by the US Government After September 11, 2001

Railroad Merger Prompts Review of Local Noise Ordinances

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Reader publisher Todd McGreevy talks about the importance of print news now, more than ever, as well as the cultural importance of the local small press, in this interview with Aaron Dali, GM at WQUD FM 107.7, to commemorate the Reader’s 1,000-issue milestone.

Grand Reflection: A Thank-you Note Times a Thousand

Battling Civic Impotence for 1,000 Issues

Compromised Media Enables Regulatory Capture: The Power of the Pen and Printed Information Matters More Than Ever

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“If we don’t have press freedom, if we don’t have the freedom to whistleblow on the powers that be, on the people that are supposedly protecting our rights, like [Julian Assange] did, then it’s going to be a dark day if he goes down,” says Reader publisher Todd McGreevy in this interview with Aaron Dali, GM at WQUD FM 107.7. 

Time for a Reality Reset: Either Trust but Verify, or Don’t Trust but Verify

Mexico President to Raise Assange Case in July Meeting with Biden

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“Show some courage, don’t just go with the herd every time on everything because you are afraid the herd is going to push you out if you do,” says Aaron Dali, GM at WQUD FM 107.7 in this interview with Reader publisher Todd McGreevy. 

Political Expediency Is Not Political Courage

CapitolFax.com Crowdsourced Questions 

2022 Rock Island County Sheriff Primary Election Questionnaire

Crowdsourcing Critical Questions for Rock Island County Primary Candidates

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Bison Bridge Webinar Recording and Related Info 

Questions for Scott County Board of Supervisors Primary Candidates