JT’s not usually a basketball fan, but this year with Loyola-Chicago in the mix he cannot wait to see the Ramblers play. JT appreciates the athletic ability of the teams and their finesse, but what he really likes is to see an unheard of team stomp the national media favorites, one after another. Saturday when JT finally got to tune in, Loyola-Chicago was 24 points ahead of Kansas State and the poor Wildcats, even with the help of the television announcers, could not do any thing to close the gap.
The winning difference has to be the Rambler’s spiritual leader, Sister Jean (Dolores-Schmidt), a 98-year-old nun who holds a prayer session in the locker room before each game. Leading a prayer is evidently much more effective than taking a knee before the National Anthem. And, with a 98-year old leading the team, don’t you just know every nursing home in the nation is supporting Loyola. That’s a lot of non-traditional basketball fans who know how to pray.
JT can not wait to hear what the American Civil Liberties Union will have to say about an “elderly” as being what amounts to a mascot. If Loyola wins or not, the team certainly has made this year’s March Madness more interesting…. It also emphasizes the need for the public to think for itself, rather than being blindly led by the media. JT thinks we may have this voting thing all wrong.
For years we have operated under the goal of making it easier for the voter. Well, that just doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference. Last weekend for example, the City’s 10-year public safety tax renewal, that generates just over $1.3 million a year, drew the attention of only 676 voters out of roughly 11,000 eligible voters.
A 6.2 percent voter turnout is horrendous…but that’s not the worst part. With 24 precincts open, there was a minimum of three workers at each precinct. Now, we realize there may be some duplication of duties at Precincts (say there’s a Precinct A added). The total cost for all those election-day workers could be between $12,000 and $20,000. Now that sounds like a waste of taxpayer dollars! That’s not taking into account the cost of having workers on Saturday at the Clerk of Court or the Registrar of Voters Offices. At least five precincts had no voters all day and two others only had one voter.
JT thinks there’s a real easy solution. That’s to have one election day a year. Make it in November because that’s the Presidential election month. Don’t like that idea? Well here’s another one… move the voting precincts to Wal-Mart, grocery stores and liquor stores since those seem to be the busiest places on weekends. Just kidding…sort of.
There are three things that are certain though…we’ve got too many voting precincts… too many elections….and too many people who don’t give a flip.
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JT sure does like driving on the newly overlaid South Drive. Wasn’t it done quickly? He’s glad they didn’t put up those bright yellow dividers like they did the turning lanes from near Dairy Queen to Kyser Avenue. Initially they put up about 75 of those yellow markers. Have you looked lately to see how many are still standing? When JT looked earlier this week less than a dozen were still standing. Doesn’t speak too well about our driving abilities does it? Then again maybe it does.
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JT was up early on Wednesday and saw the lights at Turpin Stadium on. Upon review, it was the football team already at practice at 5:30 a.m. Which reminds JT, the Demons, under new Head Coach Brad Laird, will have their first official scrimmage of spring training tomorrow night at 7 p.m.