I have this shot on my Do-Over List once spring arrives.

2532 Harrison Street. The house my Great Grandfather built.

A construction team will demolish what remains of my great grandfather’s house today. It will be another victim to a storm that destroyed so much and took too many.

Today is a sad day for my family.

At the center of the school’s plaza is a cold-cast bronze work called High Expectations developed by the Friends of Community Public Art. The statue reflects Washington’s role as a magnet school.

I wish that my son would remain happy.  As a young boy, the complexities of adult life are alien to him.  He finds happiness in Pokémon cards and playing with his friends next door.  As he becomes aware of the struggle and strife awash in the world, let him not be bogged down.  Let his abundance of compassion focus his heart where God needs him and that it brings him peace.

I wish that people would create rather than destroy.  How much better would mankind be if we focused on innovation rather than habit?  I don’t believe our natural condition is to divide the spoils of life.  Rather, I believe that it is to improve our common condition.

Finally, I wish that I could forgive others as God forgives me.

Question: What are your three wishes?

How is it that our civilization, which rejects hanging and flogging and disemboweling, came to believe that caging vast numbers of people for decades is an acceptably humane sanction?

You can help but consider that question when strolling around the Joliet Correctional Center, the Charm School of Joliet.

The State of Illinois closed the Collins Street Prison in 2002 for budgetary reasons. What are the ethics of the growing number of American prisons now contracted out as for-profit businesses? Where is the social good of having as many prisoners as possible, housed as cheaply as possible?

Gopnik’s conclusion to “supply side criminology” is fascinating and telling.

Conservatives don’t like this view because it shows that being tough doesn’t help; liberals don’t like it because apparently being nice doesn’t help, either. Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry.

You can read his entire essay here.

The Collins Street Prison, as it is known locally, closed in 2002 because the building was out-dated and expensive to maintain. For a more comprehensive photographic history of the prison, click here.

Scout Sunday 2012 at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet

The National Catholic Committee on Scouting exists to utilize and ensure the constructive use of the program of the BSA as a viable form of youth ministry with Catholic youth of our nation. The Cathedral Parish participates in many NCCS programs. Most of our Scouts are working to earn various Religious Emblems this year.

The campus underwent a moderate expansion during 2005 when the old shop building was knocked down and a new building was erected in its place. A catwalk now connects the main building to the T&I building and allows students to cross unencumbered during inclement weather.

The building became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The church’s 2,000-pipe organ remains a functioning centerpiece after 100 years of service.

This porch is the where Texas Governor George W. Bush kicked off his Midwestern Whistle Stop Tour the day after accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination in August 2000.