Blago teases Thomson

A piece in the QC Times today reports that the Thomson prison may open. This of course, would be big news, if it seemed apparent that the prison will indeed open. This "news" isn't really news, as until some concrete announcement is made, nothing has changed.

The reporter bases the story on another reporter's question about opening the empty prison put to Gov. Blagojevich at the press conference in Moline yesterday held to announce his award of $2.4 million for preliminary studies and planning for WIU's riverfront campus project in Moline.

The governor refused to say whether the prison would open, or even what, if anything, is being discussed, saying only after being pressed, "Keep hope alive, keep hope alive and we'll have something to say about this sometime between Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day, give or take a day or two, and I think they'll like what we have to say."

Not a lot to go on, and one might conclude that things are far from being nailed down. At any rate, it's not exactly cause for Thomsonites to start upacking the bunting and stocking up on nightsticks, mace, and shotguns.

It's a shame that this area has nothing better to offer than working at hog slaughtering plants, catching monster carp, or helping to imprison ever more of the population for non-violent crimes. With prisons being a growth industry, how long will it take before half the population is paying to keep the other half in jail?

But apparently the "Field of Dreams" dictum doesn't apply in this instance. If you build it, they won't necessarily come.

So there the huge Thomson prison sits, as empty as Dick Cheney's soul.

I mean, is this what passes for progress? It used to be that before an enormous building was left rotting and unoccupied it was at least in business for a few decades. Apparently in the name of efficiency the state decided to build Thomson their own, bigger, better abandoned facility. (Which seems a bit excessive considering the glut of rotting abandoned properties all over the mid-west.)

It's come to this? Now we skip the decades of productive use and build pre-abandoned facilities? Talk about cutting to the chase. That's like the guy who said the next time he had the urge to get married he'd save time and just find a woman he doesn't really care for and buy her a house.

Though Sen. Jacobs said he's "very optimistic" that the prison will indeed open "in some form" in 2007, I say we wait until we see it to believe it.