U of I top officials out of touch
Those people in charge at the University of Illinois are sure some tough disciplinarians. They said an emphatic “no” to a $400,000 bonus for Phyllis Wise, the outgoing chancellor at the Urbana-Champaign campus.
Wise sure took a slap in the face settling for a $365,354 sabbatical salary. How will she ever make ends meet?
It seems that her dismissal was more of a “pretend firing” because she will return as a tenured professor at a paltry $298,296 salary. Apparently the academics at the University of Illinois are unaware of the financial crisis in Illinois.
No wonder Illinois is broke.
Joseph A. Murzanski, Palos Heights
Trump is Gordon Gekko
Ever since Donald Trump burst upon the scene as a bombastic Republican presidential candidate given to sweeping grandiosity, I’ve tried in vain to think about for what philosophy he is the poster boy.
After the Aug. 6 debates, it finally hit me — he’s the incarnation of Gordon Gekko, the character played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” whose mantra was “Greed is good!”
Only winning matters. The end justifies the means. Narcissism personified. Too bad, Trump fans, the real world doesn’t work that way.
Colonialism is dead. We have no vassal states groveling to do our bidding, as Trump seems to imagine, as if stuck in a time warp circa 1898, when Teddy Roosevelt ascended to the White House.
Meanwhile, stay tuned. Though destined to flame out, there may never again be another presidential candidate quite like him.
By comparison, magically Trump makes the rest of the GOP field look competent and normal, even those given to regressive reactionary impulse.
Ted Z. Manuel, Chicago
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