Sunday

A picture similar to this one may have been posted in an earlier entry from a previous year.  This is an aerial view of the minor league park located on the riverfront in downtown Davenport...from this morning's edition of the QC Times.  (From the shadows, this pic must have been snapped around midday on Saturday.)  After the 1993 flood took the ballpark out of commission for the entire Summer, they came up with a series of earthen and gated dikes that keep the water off of the field.

I think that they have a temporary, elevated walkway that they can install from the lower right of the photo so that fans can get to the stadium.  With the waters expected to recede by Thursday, I'm not sure of the plan for this year.  Seems like a lot of work for just a few days of use.  Then again, the city maintenance corps may not have that much else to do but flood control this week.

A couple of other local rivers, the Rock in Illinois and the Wapsipinicon in Iowa, are also well out of their banks.  The Wapsi has shut down one of our regular bike routes for the DeWitt ride.  This happens almost every year, and the detour can go on for a week or two.  A few years back, the flood on the Wapsi was bad enough to require substantial shoulder repair and we were re-routed for several weeks.  Mother Nature gets a little testy this time of year.

Moving on...

I tend to buy the DM Register on my travel days to get the day's NYT crossword.  I did that last week beginning on Wednesday (before finding out that my flight was cancelled).  The paper itself doesn't take long to read as the national news is just wire-fed stuff, and their Sports page has become a non-starter.  I'll usually scan the OpEd page for content before jumping to the crossword, knowing that most of the columns will be against my right-leaning grain.

The Wednesday or Thursday paper had another proto-typical "tax the rich" guest viewpoint written by a professor from Iowa City.  Shock!  Out of curiosity today, I checked to see if the column had generated any Comments, and read the handful that had been posted, all but one responder being a supporter of the professor's thesis.  What I found to be of more interest was that the professor's column was essentially a counter-claim to an earlier submission by a consultant who had posited that taxing the rich was the easy-out for politicians and the public because they didn't have to pay the increased levy.  The author of the earlier piece happened to be a former partner at a major public accounting firm in Davenport (and Des Moines, I think), with whom I have had a few business dealings over the years.

I took the step to read the article by the accountant, and the more lengthy array of Comments that had been posted to that guest editorial.  The Comments, not surprisingly, generally disputed the accountant's positions.  What continues to amaze me is the willingness of the electorate to accept the concept that "fair share" means more for the high end, and zero for an increasing proportion of the lower half of eligible taxpayers.  And that higher taxes will not impact the business decisions by these "1 percenter's".  Its always easier to spend other people's money.

Pretty sure that I'm not saying anything new here. 

Now off to mow my yard for the first time of the year.

BCOT