In celebration of its 125th anniversary, Modern Woodmen will partner with Habitat for Humanity-Quad Cities to build a home in the Habitat Park area of Rock Island. Modern Woodmen will provide the funding as well as volunteers to help build the 52nd Habitat house in the Quad Cities. Groundbreaking is tentatively slated for late summer, and the home is scheduled to be dedicated on the organization's 125th anniversary: January 5, 2008. Founded in 1883 as a fraternal benefit society, Modern Woodmen offers financial services and fraternal member benefits to individuals and families throughout the United States. This house will be the 15th home to be built in the city of Rock Island since Habitat for Humanity-Quad Cities was founded in 1993.

It's apparent both in its publicity materials and in its recordings that the Chicago-based band Tenki aspires to the epic.

Yet by that measure, the band's newest release - the second in its two-part CD series We're Not Talking About the Universe Are We (on the Quad Cities-based Future Appletree label) - comes up short. Aside from the intentional brevity of its running time - 33 minutes - the songs are too compact for the band to stretch its legs. Almost all the songs clock in at around three minutes, and they need to be longer.

Philip Bialowitz should have died 64 years ago. That he survived one day at the Nazi death camp at Sobibór was mostly a matter of luck.

That he has lived this long is a testament to a group of people - himself included - who planned and executed one of two successful prisoner revolts against the Nazis during World War II.

Editor's note: Prior to press time, the Davenport City Council tabled the appointment of John Nahra and canceled meetings scheduled for April 11 and 12.

Last week, eight Davenport aldermen and the mayor signed what several of them thought was a petition seeking the reorganization of the city legal department that had been drafted nearly a year ago but vetoed twice by the mayor. Following the petition - less than a week later - the demotion of sitting corporation counsel Mary Thee (without a formal performance review), a revision of the ordinance governing the council's supervisory purview of the legal department, and the hiring of retired Judge John Nahra to replace Thee were all on the table for a special council meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 10, at 5 p.m. The administrator's office scheduled three special meetings - for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday - in case Tuesday's meeting did not result in a waiving of the "three readings" requirement for an ordinance change.