DIG DOWN TO REPAIR THE COUNTRY ROADS. The Transportationist picks up a Virginia proposal to turn a section of Interstate 95 into a toll road. The project description identifies shunpike routes, at least one of which is likely to be pounded to pieces by trucks should tolling go into effect. Other segments of Interstate 95 -- it's built in a thickly settled part of the country with few parallelling expressways -- are already toll roads. Virginia's proposal, however, appears to be a way of taxing interstate commerce. That's little different from Illinois doing so with its Chicago-centric tollways. If you're headed from Milwaukee to St. Louis or Indianapolis to Minneapolis you can avoid some or all of the toll roads, but if you're headed from Wisconsin to Indiana or Iowa to Michigan you're stuck.

THE ESSENCE OF SPEED AND ELEGANCE. A Toyota Avalon commercial (via Streetfire) positions the car as the best option when a classy train is unavailable to take you to town.

2011 Toyota Avalon Train TV commercial

A company based in Japan, home of the original bullet trains, shows potential buyers a classy train that looks a lot like this.


The 1939 Hiawatha was the fastest thing on rails, and arguably the most elegant of the streamliners.

I GENERALLY GRIPE ABOUT ACRONYMS. I'll make an exception when an honors student in computational software describes his project as Human Electronic Music Instruction Overlay, because you can almost sing the title to the opening bars of Schumann's Rhenish Symphony.

AT THE BASE OF CAPITOL HILL. The proposed faster train service from Chicago to the Twin Cities via Madison envisioned a Madison station near the airport, which would be a weak location for a station if the service gets provided in increments, with Chicago to Madison being set up first. The latest revision to the proposal has trains terminating near the Monona Terrace complex. (Underground parking that close to a lake??) Isthmus columnist Marc Eisen (via Political Environment) sees the rail corridor as providing greater prosperity on the east side of Madison. Ultimately, though, a single train line linking Chicago with the Twin Cities and throwing in a reversal of direction in Madison is, in chasing two hares, going to catch neither.

THE CONSTRUCTED RIGHT OF PHILOSOPHER-KINGS. Blogs for Industry proposes an explanation of why academicians tend to be court intellectuals for expanded government.

American central planning will elevate people like us to the nomenklatura of planners. Roosevelt, after all, drew many of the New Deal team from Academia, and the idea of the "Best and the Brightest" running the country has been part of the post-JFK view of the Democratic party. Many of my friends have been giddy about the science backgrounds of some of the appointments, especially Steve Chu at Energy, but also the biologists who advise Obama on science.

The court intellectuals, however, often fail to make the best case for their work. Sometimes, the Philosopher King Himself also fails.

[Our President's] dripping condescension is easily missed by those who share his view of the protests and the protesters. And the way the crowd of supporters laughed along amplifies the image of out-of-touch elites who think they know better than you.

Second, his background of being from Chicago doesn't help. Face it, Chicago conjures misallocation of resources and magnified corruption a lot more than, say, the good government reputations of Wisconsin or Minnesota.

But the reaction is not even close to being just about the President. The Tea Partiers look at the stimulus and the bailouts and see misallocation of resources and magnification of corruption there as well. Incompetent reporting of "jobs saved or created" didn't help. Nor did the way health care was passed, regardless of its actual merits or lack thereof.

That's relatively tame. Legal Insurrection is more blunt.

WHY THE FOURTH TURNING HAPPENS. A Victor Davis Hanson article in National Review correctly specifies the dynamics.

An entire generation nursed on socialism as a birthright — with no direct memory of the hardship of the Depression, World War II, the postwar rebuilding, or the fault lines from left-right violence in Spain, Italy, and Greece — will very soon be “asked” to give much of it up. As the statist economy goes, so too will go much of the European posturing about state-subsidized radical environmentalism, pooh-poohing of Islamic radicalism, and holding up of the bogeyman of American imperialism. Those were always pipe-dream ideologies of an affluent and subsidized populace. They are certainly luxuries beyond the means of a far poorer, far angrier citizenry that now must live in the unkind world.

It is when those who have not had the opportunity to experience the past that they are condemned to repeat it. Some long-wave models of financial cycles propose a similar dynamic.

AMID THE CONTROVERSY, MISPLACED PRIORITIES. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin criticized the Highland Park school board for taking the girl's basketball team out of a holiday tournament in Arizona. A current and former player did a segment on Sean Hannity's TV show. Betsy's Page raises some questions about the board's decision.

In all the give-and-take about the board's decision, everybody takes it as routine that a high school girl's basketball team makes a trip out of state to play in a holiday tournament. I don't care that the players are selling a lot of cookies to raise money for the trip. I do care that the high schools are letting the sports crowd out the academics. Will Highland Park be sending the science club to Cape Canaveral for the final Shuttle launch, or the math club to Madison's Grand Integrator competition?

TEACH AS IF YOU MIGHT BE PREPARING TOMORROW'S LEADERS. You probably are. I sometimes say that Northern Illinois University students have to work twice as hard as people at Harvard do to achieve half the recognition, but fortunately, that is not difficult. A Rate Your Students gripe makes the same point, if indirectly.

Letter U students were sent into the world lacking degree-related skills. The students were hired by employers with expectations that were NOT met. It happened too often and too long. Now the employers have come to know what to expect from a Letter U grad. As a result, these companies do not hire from Letter U. Or if they do, they do not hire Letter U students for the jobs that there degrees should entail. To many Letter U grads (undergraduate AND GRADUATE) are working as Administrative Assistants.

Because Letter U has history, the students aren’t always aware of the Letter U’s current reputation among other employers (although some of the alumni are, and they are NOT happy.) So the students don’t realize that their degree that isn’t going to get them as far as they may think (unless they work for Company G.) Because education IS an investment, and an EXPENSIVE investment, I think it’s a damn shame when it doesn’t enhance a student’s career options.

I used to think that a University was defined by its instructors, its programs, and/or its mission. But I’ve come to the realization that a University is actually defined by its GRADUATES. And every time we pass someone that doesn’t deserve to pass, or we graduate someone that doesn’t have the skills and knowledge expected for the degree we GAVE them, we weaken the reputation of ALL of our graduates. And we do a LONG-TERM, and expensive, disservice to those students who have actually earned their grades and their degree.

Letter U and Company G refer respectively to a (possibly invented) highly regarded university and major employer for which a Letter U degree is a ticket to employment.

THE ADVANTAGE OF A RETRACTABLE ROOF. Wednesday was a good day to disappear and take in two baseball games.


Wisconsin-Milwaukee invited Northern Illinois to be the visiting team in a Miller Park game. Here is how Northern Illinois sports information described it.

Just like another team with a shade of red before them did, the Northern Illinois Huskies defeated a Milwaukee baseball team under a closed roof at Miller Park Wednesday. With the help of back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning and a strong effort on the mound by Jake Hermsen, NIU took down the Milwaukee Panthers 5-3 at Miller Park, home of Major League Baseball's Milwaukee Brewers.

After watching the Atlanta Braves take a 9-2 noon contest over the Brewers, the Huskies (20-28) and Panthers (23-21) took the field 45 minutes later. In its third game in a professional stadium this season, NIU improved to 2-1 in pro parks with its first win in as many tries at Miller Park and second in as many attempts against the Panthers this season.

Alex Jones hit an inside-the-park home run and Jordin Hood followed with a get up, get up to the UWM bullpen. There were probably more Northern Illinois fans than UWM fans at the game. Although a UWM player also homered, Bernie Brewer was not available to slide for him.

WHEN DO YOU COUNT A STATE AS VISITED? USA Today columnist Craig Wilson considers some criteria. I cannot count Alaska on any criterion, unless flying over it counts. I have passed through Idaho and Oregon on trains without disembarking, stepped off of trains and made purchases in the station in Montana and North Dakota, and used highway rest areas in South Carolina and Alabama (call it a little payback for the cradle of secession and hosting the first national capital of rebellion.) By any criterion, I can count the other 43 plus the District of Columbia.

I have a similar quandary for countries. I have passed through Wales on trains, stepped off a train in France and changed trains (with a purchase of bratwurst and magazines) in Germany and changed planes in Tokyo without ever leaving the transit lounge.

WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS' BABES? A Rosemont gentlemans' club holds a Sarah Palin look-alike contest. The Chicago Tribune has pictures that might not be safe for work.

A CRUEL WAY TO LEAVE. Train crews can survive collisions with automobiles or with pedestrians. Walking away from the nightmares is more difficult. Chicago's Metra has an extensive safety program, including poster contests for grade schoolers. The winners have their artwork on the weekend passes.

Metra authorities, in their efforts to help focus public awareness on accidental deaths and suicides involving trains, provided the Tribune with records and wide access to train crews and safety officials.The railroad spent more than $1 million this year on an expanded safety campaign in the media as well as at schools and other institutions in the communities.

"A good deal of money is spent on the Operation Lifesaver program each year, and I'm concerned that we're not making a big enough impact," says Metra Chairman Jeffrey Ladd. "I don't know how we get the message across more effectively."

Last year, an Operation Lifesaver representative went to 8th-grader Kelly Nelson's school. "We addressed 276 children about not crossing over tracks and to listen and look for trains," says Metra executive director Philip Pagano. "We went back to the school this year too."

That's the same Philip Pagano who, rather than go to a meeting at which he faced discipline for misappropriation of funds, stood in front of a train.

Despite the locomotive's squealing brakes and piercing air horn, Pagano stood firm in the middle of the tracks. He looked the engineer right in the eye.

He was killed instantly.

At the scene, authorities found Pagano's wallet and a copy of Metra's procedures for a service disruption after a suicide, sources said.

He also left an apparent suicide note at his Crystal Lake home, McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren said.

"I'm shocked at the whole thing," said Doug Davidson, an official with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. "He would definitely know the impact it would have on the engineer and others on the train. You question whether he was making a conscious statement to the world."

Send your condolences to Mr Pagano's family, and spare a moment to wish the unnamed train engineer well.

WILDCAT TRADITION. This season, the Milwaukee Hamilton softball team is making noise in the City Conference.

LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING. Jack Bauer gets the information out of one of President Logan's Russian colleagues by performing an emergency tracheotomy. He got his hands on the Russian by exploiting the usual GRU counterintelligence procedures. Now comes a conversation in which President Logan will spill his guts, perhaps not voluntarily.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN. The Overhead Wire offers a challenge to foes of light rail transit whose objection is to the visual pollution of the catenary.


The picture is from the light rail lines of Turin, Italy.

It's called, spot the wires. Sure are ruining this nature scene for everyone!

One of the comments to the posts recalls a complaint I saw somewhere, possibly in the print version of The New Electric Railway Journal, about the propensity of light rail systems to install heavy catenary as if a Japanese bullet train or a GG-1 was going to roll into National City or South Hills.

Directly-suspended trolley wire, however, was standard practice on U. S. streetcar lines. Herewith the West Allis branch of Route 10 in Milwaukee, with an inbound car about to cross Blue Mound Road. The car is on what was once the interurban line into Milwaukee, and Miller Park will someday be constructed behind the photographer's right shoulder.


But directly suspended trolley wire need not mean urban boulevard lines operating at low speeds, as in Turin, or on those bits of Route 10 that ran alongside the Menomonee River Parkway in Wauwatosa or at roadside and on the old interurban route in West Allis.


We are at Racine, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1958. This is a particularly difficult part of the North Shore Line, as it is uphill both ways out of Racine station, and the nearest substations, at some distance, will be straining as a 'Liner and three heavy steels get under way at the same time.

HE STOOD THERE LIKE THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. Remembering Ernie Harwell's description of a called third strike.

THE INERTIA IS NOT IN THE DRIVE TRAIN. Nailed to Newmark's Door is an excerpt from Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic (reviewed here).

SUVs are hugely costly to society. Because they are long and sluggish, they spend much more time getting rolling from a stop at a red light. This is one reason that our city traffic has slowed down. SUV drivers sit higher from the optical rush of the road so they are more likely to speed (just as you wouldn’t have a strong sensation of speed in an airplane 1000′ above the ground, though the airplane is moving at 4X the speed of a car). SUV drivers in at least two countries studied are less likely to wear seatbelts, more likely to be talking on a mobile phone, and less likely to have both hands on the wheel. They crash constantly and are statistically less safe than a minivan that is lighter weight. . . .

Any dinghy sailor can tell you that a little bit of engine is frequently an attempt to compensate for a lack of seamanship. Per corollary ...

DISTURBING THE PEACE PROCESS. President Nixon Logan's notion of detente includes planting his own Soviet mole in the counter-terrorism unit. The Soviets' own mole, Natasha Fatale, had a hush-a-boom squirreled away, but she couldn't keel moose Jack Bauer before he keeled her. Now the GRU, the CTU, and quite possibly the Council on Foreign Relations, or whoever those secretive ruling class dudes are, are all chasing Jack Bauer. Somehow enough characters have to survive to make the movie possible. Or perhaps Agent Walker is really Kenny, or she learned how to fake death from her cousin.

THE PRICE OF A POSITIONAL ARMS RACE.

The Northern Star reported details of coaches' salaries and contracts as their final investigative report of the year. The reporting is of the just-the-facts variety. It's up to readers to make invidious comparisons about coaching salaries compared to faculty and staff salaries. The Cold Spring Shops position is that coaches cannot expect to do any better on average than professors, taking relative risk, tenure policies, and the large reserve army of hopeful coaches riding blocking sleds at the likes of East Millpond Township High in New Hampshire, and that knowledge of the opportunity cost of the sports programs is desirable. Readers are free to evaluate those opportunity costs for themselves. The article reports on provisions in coaching contracts for voluntary separations by the coaches.

Another change produced by the extension came in the “Termination by Employee,” section of the original contract.

[Head football coach Jerry] Kill’s original contract stated that if he resigned his position of NIU’s head football coach to assume a coaching position at another university, his buyout would be the remaining salary owed to him by the university. In the extension, this buyout was changed to a tier system.

“I think what we were trying to do there is if you’re going to give a person more time here, and they’re very successful, you don’t want there to be a disincentive for them,” [athletic director Jeff] Compher said. “They’re going to have other opportunities.”

If Kills resigns from NIU prior to the conclusion of the 2009-10 or 2010-11 academic year there must be a one-time payment of $500,000. If Kill resigns prior to the conclusion of the 2011-12, 2012-13 or 2013-14 season a one-time payment of $400,000 must be made. Finally, if Kill resigns prior to the conclusion of the 2014-15 season a one-time payment of $300,000 must be made.

This buyout is different if Kill assumes a position with an NFL team.

If Kills resigns from NIU prior to the conclusion of the 2009-10 or 2010-11 academic year there must be a one-time payment of $200,000. If Kill resigns prior to the conclusion of the 2011-12, 2012-13 or 2013-14 season a one-time payment of $150,000 must be made. Finally, if Kill resigns prior to the conclusion of the 2014-15 season a one-time payment of $100,000 must be made.

I recall theoretical research from years ago making the case for golden parachutes for failed managers, as a way of mitigating the damage such a manager could cause by fighting his termination while continuing to fail as a manager. But a separation bonus for being raided by another university, or a smaller separation bonus for being raided by the pros? The first-order effect of that provision is for the raiding team to lower its offer. Or am I missing something? The same day this story broke, women's basketball coach Carol Owens resigned.

Citing a need for more balance in her life, Northern Illinois women’s basketball coach Carol Owens resigned on Thursday.

“I want to focus more on my personal life, and what those things are, I feel like they’re private,” Owens said. “They’re things that I hold dear to my heart.”

Owens said she would take a break from coaching to reflect and stop putting things off in her personal life that she felt like she had put on the back-burner in her five seasons at NIU. She said her health is fine.

“There’s no worries there, but I am getting older,” Owens said.

I've frequently noted that Corporate America's usual bargain, we'll pay you a lot and suck out all your time, is one that requires the sanction of the victim, and that people with talent can roll that bargain back by refusing to play. Or perhaps, taking a page from the coaches' playbook, and insisting on a "Termination by Employee" clause. Ms Owens, however, has the right idea. When it stops being fun, it's time to walk away, positional prestige or not.

PERHAPS THE DEAN OF STUDENTS IS NOW THE CRUISE DIRECTOR. I believe the dean at Anonymous Community suggested that job description. But how else characterize the apparent endorsement of the Campus Carnival by the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management? (There's something Freudian in that title, but I'll exploit it later.)

Northern Illinois University invented homecoming. Are we now the first university to offer a semester-end carnival?

The weather wasn't as fine as yesterday's forecast anticipated, and relatively few people were on the midway at midafternoon.


A few older and more adventurous riders gave the Zipper a workout.


The Dragon Coaster, well, a junior version of a ride with a famous name, entertained the younger set.


Sometimes you'll see the tots going no-hands on this ride.