Excerpts of editorials from Illinois newspapers

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THIS WEEK’S EDITORIALS:

September 12, 2014

The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle

Missed chance at football rivalry

There’s been a lot of fanfare regarding the non-conference opponents that Northern Illinois’ football team will be facing in the years to come.

Boston College, Nebraska, Ohio State, Iowa - it’s an impressive list of names, but there’s one school that is conspicuously absent.

So, why won’t the University of Illinois square off against NIU on the gridiron? Afraid they’ll lose, perhaps?

It almost seems to us as though the Illini are ducking the Huskies, who for the past few years have laid an indisputable claim to being the best college football team in Illinois.

Other Big Ten teams have stepped up - and been beaten - by the Huskies. So why isn’t Illinois on the schedule?

Here’s the fact, the current standing of the two programs aside: Illinois has two public universities that are members of the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision, and they almost never play each other.

Their last meeting came in 2010, when the Illini held off the Huskies, 28-22, at Memorial Stadium in Champaign.

This is a tremendous waste of a potential rivalry game that could draw a lot of fans to the stadium of either team.

The crowd of 41,139 that saw Northern Illinois top Northwestern at Ryan Field last week is proof of that. That was about 2,000 more fans than the Wildcats’ average home crowd in 2013, and 7,000 more than showed up to see the ’Cats take on California the week before.

It was also more than the 38,561 people who saw Illinois come back to beat Western Kentucky earlier that afternoon.

If Illinois’ officials don’t feel that the 24,000-seat Huskie Stadium facilities are big enough for them, perhaps the two teams could play at Soldier Field every other year. Both schools have plenty of alumni in the Chicago area.

A look around at the teams in the Big Ten this season shows that a trend of declining football performance in the conference is continuing. Talent is leaving the Midwest for warmer climes and domes that host teams in the SEC, among others.

Creating another “big game” for Illinois’ college football programs could be one more incentive to persuade players to come to Illinois schools after high school.

It would certainly be entertaining for fans, who no doubt would rather watch Illinois play NIU than see the Illini take on Youngstown State, or the Huskies face Presbyterian (that’s a school in South Carolina).

So let’s get a state series together. Both of these schools are publicly funded, and an annual Illinois vs. NIU football game is one the public would like to see.

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September 12, 2014

The (Champaign) News-Gazette

Slugging it out

The two major gubernatorial candidates don’t have much nice to say about each other.

When two powerful people covet the same prize, it’s inevitable that the competition will turn to personal conflict.

That’s why political campaigns often not only are hard-fought but personally ugly.

Consider the joint appearance Gov. Pat Quinn and his Republican opponent Bruce Rauner made this week before the Chicago Tribune editorial board. They debated the issues. But each also found time to make negative comments about the other’s character.

“You’ve made a fortune off the misfortune of vulnerable human beings and workers and consumers,” Quinn told Rauner.

“The only difference between Pat Quinn and Rod Blagojevich is the hair,” said Rauner, referring to the Quinn running mate and now-imprisoned former governor.

Quinn, of course, is a highly experienced veteran in politics, building a reputation as populist fearlessly taking on entrenched interests. So attacking Rauner, a wealthy and highly successful businessman, is right up his alley.

At the same time, Rauner has shown that he can not only take it but also dish it out. Rauner may be new to politics, but he’s obviously a quick learner when it comes to running for office.

Unfortunately, what’s often lost in all the personal vitriol, accentuated by many millions of dollars in negative advertising, is an honest discussion of important issues.

There are eight weeks left in this political marathon to elect the next governor. So it’s time for people to start paying attention, and the first thing they can do is take all the political advertising with a few hundred grains of salt.

Prospective voters should either ignore the vituperation or accept it for what it really is - an entertaining, but unimportant, by-product of the democratic process.

As for the candidate themselves, they should try to generate a little less heat and a little more light.

But don’t expect much movement on that front

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September 11, 2014

The (Springfield) State Journal-Register

Don’t ask why domestic violence victims stay; ask how to help

Disturbing video footage of now ex-Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice punching and knocking out his then-fiancee in an elevator has ignited a renewed nationwide awareness of domestic violence.

It should come as no surprise that such violence is a daily occurrence in Springfield and Sangamon County. Police reports and court records often tell the story.

What might come as a surprise are the uncomfortable details about what goes on behind closed doors and the lengths some people will go to wield control over their spouses or partners - and how often they claim they do it out of love.

Take, for example, a report from Aug. 27, when Springfield police were sent to a home where a man beat up his 30-year-old pregnant girlfriend because she received a text message from an unknown number in the wee hours of the morning. He punched her in the face repeatedly, threw her to the ground, and got behind her and choked her until she could not breathe.

After he let the woman go, he took her cell phone and smashed it on the ground. When she asked him why he was doing this to her while she was pregnant, he responded, “Because I love you.”

When the woman later recounted the story to police officers, the boyfriend tried to call her, then texted her, “You’re going to get me arrested for domestic battery. That’s OK, I’ll bond out and you’ll lose Section 8.”

He now faces criminal charges in connection with the attack.

But do you see it? Right there, in a few simple passages from a standard police report, are all of the common reasons why domestic violence occurs and why it’s difficult for some women to flee abusive relationships - love, jealousy, anger, despair, loyalty, threats, money and uncertainty.

The Rice controversy and subsequent questions by the public about why his now-wife would stay by his side and defend him yielded two powerful Twitter hashtags: #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft. Women all over the world, in 140 characters or less, told powerful and sometimes heartbreaking stories about why they stayed with their abusers or eventually left them.

Domestic violence is complicated, and it looks different in every relationship. But it merits an ongoing conversation in the United States and in Illinois about awareness, prevention and consequences.

In August, Gov. Pat Quinn signed “Diane’s Law,” which allows judges to order risk assessments for abusers as a condition of bail and electronic GPS surveillance of those charged with domestic violence to keep tabs on them and enforce the conditions of restraining orders.

The original legislation was sponsored by Rep. Barbara Wheeler, R-Crystal Lake, and Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry. The law is named after Diane Kephart, a 61-year-old suburban Chicago woman who was killed by her former boyfriend in 2013 three days after renewing an order of protection against him.

Statistics show that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between 15 and 44 - more common than automobile crashes, muggings and sexual assaults combined. Every 15 seconds a woman in the United States is beaten by a current or former partner.

Common signs that a person is abusive: jealousy and suspicion, isolation, a need for control, unfair expectations about the relationship, assigning blame to others for problems in the relationship, extreme sensitivity and blowing things out of proportion.

In Springfield, victims can turn to the Sojourn Shelter, which provides an emergency refuge, counseling and other help for women and children fleeing domestic violence.

For everyone else, remember that the most important question to ask a victim of domestic abuse is not why they stayed or why they left. It’s what you can do to help them.