River Cities’ Reader publisher Todd McGreevy talks with WQUD GM Aaron Dail and his homie, Gary, re recent highlights, both online and within Issue N° 1015. If you’re a dog owner, you’ll definitely want to give it your attention. To whit:

Dogs Need Donated Blood, Too

Kathleen McCarthy writes about a little-known need: Dogs need donors, too. Mind you, your dog may not be entirely happy about the whole experience of donating her vino — the environment, the phlebotomists, and, of course, the extraction — but Doggie-Heaven help her if she ever requires a transfusion! To find out how you can get your dog to donate — after, of course, you’ve used whatever word-prompts or treat-rewards to get the message across that the bitch will be donating — check out the story, and call Maddy Thompson, Managing Director of The Doggy Blood Bank, at (563) 344-9599.

Please, Animal Shelters Need Essential Stuff Now (Insert Tail Wagging Here)

McCarthy expands upon how lovers of animals — including cats — can help them the most. There is a list of essential items that you can donate, and a list of places that could use them. Remember: The life you save might be your pet’s.

In Praise of the Simple Life: My Lifelong Friendship with Nora Sue Miller

Gail Heninger writes about her lifelong correspondence with, and occasional visits to, Nora Sue Miller, an Indiana Amish woman. Recently, Miller and her family undertook to visit Heninger at her home in Bettendorf, leading to a superb camera-phone snapshot profile of the meeting of the clans by McGreevy. (Really. It’s worthy of National Geographic. Touching, anthropological, and aesthetically breathtaking. Wait, is that the Pulitzer Committee at your door, Todd?) Heninger provides some well-earned insight into the Amish way of life that outsiders might not have known — like, if you get to know them like Miller did, they will stop calling you “English”?

Illinois SB853 Extends Several Statutory Sunsets Into 2024

Rich Miller’s column answers McGreevy’s question, “Can Illinois be even more complicated?” with the response, “Surely — but not necessarily in an intelligent way.” Case in point: Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson went to Springfield in May 2017 to promote SB1722, a criminal penalty-enhancement bill that would cut crime drastically in Chicago. By how much, they asked, ever so pensively? Why, by half the current estimates, Super Johnson informed them. And how long would it take, they asked, eyes widening in excitement? Why, within three years, if not the one, Johnson replied, all avuncular-like. You can probably guess how that worked out. Dail makes an intriguing case for removing Chicago from the rest of Illinois and shooting it off into the cold recesses of space — and then, perhaps, the state will be better off. SB853, an omnibus bill, which would sunset many provisions, including those of SB1722, has thus far not gone anywhere within the Illinois Assembly. McGreevy mentions what Miller overlooked, which is “the really poor protections of the Second Amendment in Illinois”: Strengthening concealed-carry laws could conceivably be more effective a crime-deterrent than any of Johnson’s fantasies to date. Then again, that hasn’t been pushed at all in the Assembly. If you’re among the Illinois’d, you might want to call your Congressperson and get their stances on these boondoggles.

US Government Actors Increasingly Going Rogue: Senator Grassley’s Recent Demand Letter to US DOJ and FBI

McCarthy writes about Iowa Senator Charles “Chuck” Grassley’s full-court press on the Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray to get them to release all records and relevant data on that most inept of crime families, the Bidens. These branches have until 17 November to fulfill this request; and the clock is ticking. There are a number of different ways to view Sen Grassley’s letter: Partisan hack-work of the highest order; a simple plea for fair play, given the intensity of scrutiny under which Donald Trump had operated during his presidency; or, as McGreevy points out, Grassley’s assertion that “the abolitionists that want to change the popular elections to proportionate representation, they enjoin a ‘majority should rule’ principle in defiance of a ‘liberty for all’ principle. They don’t accept that our federal government was not designed to rule; it was designed to assure self-determination by preventing tyrannical rule by monarch or a slim majority, which is the downside of pure democracy.” To McGreevy’s ears, Grassley nailed it, inasmuch as Grassley may be as sick as McGreevy is of hearing the United States of America defined as a “democracy,” as in “pure democracy,” rather than what it is, a republic, helmed by elected representatives, as the founding documents made plain. “Democracy” isn’t mentioned in any of those documents, as the term was understood at the time as leading inevitably to ochlocracy, or mob rule. It’s the little things that really make Life interesting, you know?

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