Derail this plan
The Canadian National Railway surely is getting pushy with its recent request to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to set a Dec. 1 deadline to approve the railroad's $300 million purchase of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway. If it's a rush the Montreal-based firm is looking for, maybe it's time to derail this proposal which more and more appears to be a loser for Lake County.

Stunned at the pump
We knew it was coming, and yet it's still a shocking sight: $4-a-gallon gas. That stunning milestone price at the pump has finally reached Lake County. We're going to have to swallow hard and cough up more hard-earned cash to feed our oil addiction. But once we get over that initial disbelief and outrage, we should also ask ourselves whether we've done anything about it. It's easy to complain, but have we really changed our driving habits? Forbes magazine recently estimated the average commuter's gasoline cost in the Chicago region totaled about $6.23 a day.

State buffoons
It's good to be an Illinois lawmaker. You live in a world where you don't have to ask for a raise, you get it automatically. Unless you reject it.

Nix the pay hike
Lake County Board members should show some integrity and reject a 15.5 percent pay hike package Tuesday. Apparently taking a cue from the Illinois Senate, County Board members are moaning they are underpaid.

Time to resign
A statement by the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, "Common sense often makes good law," has, well, always made sense to us. What also makes sense is for Judge David Hall to resign entirely from the bench. Hall was charged with driving under the influence, resisting a police officer, improper lane usage and making an improper turn after Vernon Hills police pulled him over in the wee hours of April 26 following a benefit fund-raiser. Pepper spray allegedly was used on the 55-year-old Waukegan resident.

DARTS & LAURELS
DART

A tale of two
Compare what the Antioch Village Board is doing to what the Waukegan City Council is threatening to do when it comes to voters and taxpayers addressing their duly-elected officials. It is a tale of two municipalities.

The shades are drawn
Like a family aiming to keep an in-house spat from the neighbors, Gurnee officials have drawn the shades and are keeping mum on why the village's director of public works resigned suddenly and two department supervisors have been placed on paid leave.

Where to call, write
President

Recalling officials the old-fashioned way
Maybe it's time for voters to start doing it the old-fashioned way this November.

Immigration reform falls off the radar
Two years ago, dozens of buses took Lake County supporters to Chicago for a rally on immigration reform that drew 400,000 others. They took off work and gathered at churches and parking lots from Wauconda to Waukegan, where they boarded buses. When the buses were full, they loaded into taxi vans and took Metra trains downtown in one of the largest immigrant mobilization efforts Lake County has seen. Immigration reform became a national priority, and our elected officials vowed to find solutions.

Darts & Laurels
Dart

OUR VIEW The deadly season
We're in the midst of prom season and graduation is right around the corner. These rites of passage for high school seniors should be a time they'll cherish the rest of their lives. But young lives can be cut short when teenagers look to mark these milestones by drinking and driving. Around the county this week, programs are being held to warn teens about the danger of making bad decisions.

'Hannah' pics wrong image for role model
Miley Cyrus' parents are the ones who should be embarrassed. Instead, their daughter, the hugely popular 15-year-old star of the "Hannah Montana" TV show, is the one telling the world, somewhat disingenuously, that she is "so embarrassed" by the racy photos of her featured in the June issue of Vanity Fair. The apology is a bit hard to swallow, seeing as how she sat for the photos, with Mom and Dad by her side. Her parents -- including her country-singer dad Billy Ray Cyrus -- not only approved the provocative and unseemly shots, which surfaced last weekend. They were there for the photo shoot.

A run on rice
Lake County has mercifully escaped -- and will continue to escape -- the food shortages and disruptions afflicting some other parts of the globe. To be sure, food prices are rising uncomfortably fast, but availability is not a problem.

Monkey business
Ten Zion-Benton High School students, dressed in banana suits, ran through the school hallways last week. Why? Because another kid dressed as a gorilla was chasing them. It was a senior prank -- and we have to admit a funny one at that. But the monkey business did not amuse school officials.

Tempel Farms a good fit for the Olympics
What better place to hold Olympic equestrian events than the home of the Lipizzan stallions? The Chicago 2016 Olympic committee finally came to its senses last week in changing the Lake County location of the proposed equestrian venue to Tempel Farms in Wadsworth. The Olympic committee's original site at Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda was met with vocal resistance from environmentalists and development foes.

High price of food
Typically food crises have been localized affairs, famines due to drought or crop failures. But we are now in the midst of a food crisis that though uneven is widespread. It is fair to call it global in scope. There have been food riots in Egypt, Haiti and West Africa, and troops have been called out to stop warehouse looting in Pakistan and Thailand. The World Bank warns that 33 countries are at risk from hunger-driven social upheaval.

A destination but no road map
On a day when he knew whatever he said would be drowned out by the excitement over Pope Benedict's visit to the capital, President Bush dramatically called for a complete halt in the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025 and even sooner for power plants.

Bridging the poverty gap
A study released this week by the Heartland Alliance reported that 38,752 of Lake County's 713,016 residents are living below the poverty line.

A jungle out there
Time and again, advancing civilization has set people against large carnivores. On the front lines of this epic battle Monday were Chicago police who gunned down a cougar on the city's North Side. Police say several residents reported seeing the cat, which was more than 5-foot long, earlier Monday. One witness said the cougar leapt over a 6-foot tall wrought-iron fence before it was shot dead in an alley.