On Midwest Week, the Illinois General Assembly begins working on new maps for Congressional and legislative districts. But it’s complicated by delayed reports from the Census Bureau. Herb Trix’s guest is Peter Hancock, Statehouse Reporter for Capitol News Illinois. You can also hear Midwest Week Fridays on WVIK at 6:20 pm during All Things Considered. Other Episodes December 30, 2022 ... Read More

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Benjamin W. Clark was an entrepreneur who planned ahead. Few speculators would have disagreed with his decision to establish a ferry service across the Mississippi just below the mouth of the Rock River. Clark reasoned that the flood of immigrants expected to head for newly opened Iowa farmland would cross the river at the most logical place. Lake Michigan, whose tip was almost due east, prevented those immigrants from going further north, while the multiple channels of the Rock River delta would make it difficult to get to the Davenport ferry upstream at Rock... Read More

Find out on the next Heartland Politics podcast when Larry Bartels, co author of Democracy for Realists, explains voter behavior and the implication for our democracy. He also applies his findings to the Donald Trump era. Other Episodes May 16, 2024 Nobel-winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz New Book Offers A New Vision on Economic and Political Freedom ... Read More

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Some of the finest schools on the Upper Mississippi River in the 19 th century were the ten-acre rafts of Minnesota and Wisconsin white pine floating down to the sawmills of Rock Island, Davenport, and Moline. The twenty to thirty men who worked on these rafts and steered them down to the mills may not have diagrammed sentences or practiced their multiplication tables along the way, but they learned the habit of attention, and a philosophy of life likely more true than yours or mine. Other Episodes ... Read More

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Visitors who come to the Rock Island Arsenal with preconceived notions of stark, purely functional military architecture are surprised to find a good deal of attention to aesthetics. Other Episodes December 27, 2023 The Special Edition This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. ... Read More

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. When Brigadier General Thomas J. Rodman arrived on Rock Island in 1865 to complete the long-delayed Rock Island Arsenal building at the downstream tip of the island, he was already famous in military circles. He had invented the Rodman Gun, a cannon that lasted as much as twenty times longer than conventional cannon. It was the most formidable weapon of the Civil War. Other Episodes ... Read More

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Whenever I wake to one of those cold, blizzardy mornings tempting me to call in sick, a childhood song floats into my mind. “Over the hill to the poor house.” I’m up, shaved, and off to work in ten minutes. The only place worse than hell in my Midwest Lutheran home was the county poor home. Other Episodes December 27, 2023 ... Read More

Other Episodes June 23, 2023 Scribble: The Finale Listen · 29:02 June... Read More

Don Wooten and a cavalcade of guests kill an hour in a very unceremonious way. Other Episodes May 18, 2024 Saturday Morning Live! Carrying on one of the most venerable traditions in local broadcasting history, Kai Swanson carries on the carrying on Don Wooten carried on with a cavalcade of carriers on. Carry on. ... Read More

Other Episodes May 17, 2024 River Way Stories – May 18th 2024 River Way Stories - May 18th 2024 Listen · 4:00 ... Read More