Full-body scanners at ORD

Here's what's coming to O'Hare Airport: full-body scanners.

Just imagine this sign:

"Attention. Please step onto the rubber mat. Remove shoes and all clothing. Wait for TSA's signal to walk slowly through the scanner. Then dress and proceed to your gate. Have a nice day."

Fed. Twitter rules - illegal?

Today's Associated Press (AP) article in the Northwest Herald is a highly edited version of the entire AP article. A lengthy article can be viewed at www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=29&sid=1905505

I agree with that part of the Federal pronouncement that jurors should not add to their knowledge of a case through media and other information resources. Jurors are so admonished at the beginning of trials.

But they are also apparently barred from social media - period!

From the AP article: "You may not use any electronic device or media" in connection with the case, the recommended federal instructions admonish. They also bar visits to "any Internet chat room, blog, or website such as Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter."

If this means that a juror cannot go to Facebook or the others for non-trial information or correspondence, then the Federal rules are wrong. If that's what they mean, then this invades freedom of speech, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

If jurors inadvertently come across anything pertaining to the trial, then they should immediately leave that site or message. The ethical thing to do would be to report it to the judge and explain any very limited exposure they had to someone's comment. Merely seeing the name of a person involved in a case and ceasing access should not endanger their status on the jury.

In the same way as should a family member, co-worker, neighbor or another person begin to mention the trial, the jury member must immediately interrupt and excuse himself from that conversation.

Does anyone know more about the Federal bar against Facebook/Twitter, etc.?

Hey, buddy, can you spare me a million?

Dorr Township is sitting on $1,000,000 that could be rebated "to them what paid it in." Will it refund it? And will it refund to the taxpayers all at once or dole it out in small pieces over a period of years, so that the taxpayers don't feel like they have really gotten anything back at all?

Voters have given a thumbs-down to plans to re-locate the Dorr Township office, currently located at 140 Newell Street in Woodstock.

One plan was to move the Township office to the location of the township highway district garage on Davis Road, between Route 47 and Dean Street. Doing that would put it even more out of sight (and out of mind?) than its current location.

How many miles of roads does Dorr Township maintain? According to today's article in the Northwest Herald, 35 miles. As the cities and villages in Dorr Township spread their boundaries, the road maintenance obligation of the Township shrinks. Now it's only 35 miles. What is the estimate for 2020 and 2030?

Are townships in Illinois a dinosaur that doesn't yet know it's extinct? What meaningful services does a township really provide, and what is its budget? Maybe townships served an important function in a rural area, but are they worth maintaining and supporting financially today?

Couldn't road maintenance functions be transferred to the County?

Couldn't Assessor duties be transferred to the County and consolidated into one County Assessors office, instead of there being 17 Assessors in the County, one for each township?

Bob Anderson has a lot to say about townships, and hopefully he'll have a website or blog up and running one of these days (nudge, nudge).

Wrong-number message; what do you do?

What do you do, when you listen to a message on your answering machine or voice-mail, and you know the message was not intended for you? Do you just delete it, or do you call the person back to let him know that he left the message at the wrong number?

Yesterday I was gone all day and, when I returned home, there was a message from a man whose name I did not recognize. He was trying to reach a government agency about an important matter, and someone had furnished my home number as that agency's fax number.

Just a couple of weeks ago I received calls for two County offices, after callers found my home number listed on some website (surely, not the website for those offices).

I could tell from yesterday's message that the caller needed to know that he had not reached the agency he was trying hard to contact, so I called him back. For reasons not necessary to describe here, I had to call four times to reach him. After we connected, I could tell that it was worth it to try to help him.

When Harvest Moon Restaurant opened on the Woodstock Square, their phone number was one digit off from my first home number in Woodstock. The Old English script on their cards caused the "1" in their phone number to be misread for a "7", and callers reached me. I lost track of the number of calls I received for the restaurant. If I answered, I just gave the caller the correct number. If the caller had left a message regarding reservations, I just called Harvest Moon and relayed the number of diners and the time at which the restaurant should expect them.

Hey, it's a small town! And they thanked me by inviting me to dinner one night. It was a fine restaurant, and I was sorry to see it change ownership and then, later, close.

New Woodstock junkyard?

I've been watching the growing number of cars right off Route 47, just north of Jack Franks' office, on the south side of the RR tracks. Take a look, next time you drive by.

A new sign announces Marco Auto Mechanic. Last week, before the new sign was installed, I called the Woodstock Code Enforcement officer to ask what the heck was going on over there. Over the week-end, I learned.

It apparently is a new auto repair business but, from the looks of the number of cars parked against the RR embankment, it looks more like a branch of Route 14 Auto Parts junkyard.

Maybe it is time for Woodstock to license businesses. The City probably has no way to control what a legal business does on its property. There is no way that a brand new business could attract owners of all those cars that are in need of repair. Does Marco own them? Where did they come from?

I think Gavers on Lake Avenue now has a challenger for First Place for the trashiest-looking business in town. Gavers cleaned up the side of the business facing Lake Avenue a while back, but these pick-ups, loaded with junk parts, have been there for months.

Kind of makes me wonder whether the hands of our good Code Enforcement Officer, Donovan Day, have been tied up in terms of enforcement.

Video-recording City Council meetings?

In a recent survey, I asked the question, "Should Woodstock City Council meetings be broadcast by Comcast or streamed on the web?"

Many thanks to the 80 readers who participated in this survey. The results were:

Yes - 38 (47%)
No - 19 (24%)
Don't care - 23 (29%)

Now to go shopping for a videocamera with a good microphone (and also a dash-mount).

Tobacco sting survey

In a recent survey I asked the following question, “Should police use minors in tobacco or alcohol stings?”

Many thanks to the 94 readers who responded.

Yes – 58 (62%)
No – 34 (36%)
Not sure – 2 (2%)