The last 12 out of the past 24 months has been surrealistic. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, an offer to buy The Sentinel and covering just one sporting event since February 28, like 90% of the population on this spinning mass of rock I can't wait for this year to be over. I know normal is still ways off but it needs to hurry up and get here.
I haven't had the Corona or the vaccine. I'm thankful for not getting both at this point. I'm feeling pretty confident that if I make to January 1 without either, 2021 will be a piece of chocolate cake with orange icing and sprinkles.
I enjoy being a journalist, meeting people, telling their stories and doing my best to keep loyal readers informed. The past year has been an awful time in the news business. It has been rough a row to hoe between the COVID pandemic and the proliferation of slanted news outlets that intentionally omits or misrepresent facts to further an agenda of division that is testing the core values of our nation.
The Sentinel is a labor of love. I'll likely never see even a modest financial return on the sweat equity that allowed me double the number of stories I published during the past year. While business owners are skeptical about using online papers to reach a wider audience with their brand, the Coronavirus pandemic has essentially flushed the traditional advertising model, which paid for the production of weekly and daily papers, down the proverbial crapper.
Despite the pandemic, The Sentinel has published more than twice the number of stories and articles, 398 to be exact, than in the previous year. In the past 12 months the online publication has added a Photo-of-the-Day series, published over a dozen Spartan Spotlights featuring SJO students from the Class of 2020, and added a Coronavirus Dashboard to track the number of cases locally. In June, The Sentinel added the villages of Sidney, Philo and Tolono to its area of coverage.
The most-read story in the past year, On the fence about getting vaccinated? You might not have a choice has been read over 12 thousand times. The Sentinel's story announcing the Illinois Rural Health Association virtual conference in October is the second most popular story followed by our story on the double homicide in St. Joseph.
I'm looking forward meeting the challenges for the next 12 months. Sheltering-in-place gave me the opportunity to refine my web design skills. Over the next nine months oursentinel.com will undergo a gradual makeover to become even more refined and more user friendly.
Finally, I would like to encourage readers to send your Letters to the Editor. Tell us why we should support local candidates for village and township elections, congratulate or thank a neighbor. We welcome your opinion on masks, restaurants ignoring or following Illinois' Tier 3 mitigation, or if schools should be open or close. Remember oursentinel.com is YOUR sentinel watching over our communities.
Hope to see here again next year!
Clark Brooks, Publisher
"We will only be opening half of the building to start," said co-owner and director Nicole Uher, who has been working with Jones on the project for the past two years. "In this phase there will be four classrooms: one infant room ages six weeks through fourteen months, one toddler room ages fifteen months through three years, one preschool room ages three years through five years, and one after school/summer room for children ages five years through twelve years."
On the first Christmas Mary and Joseph had traveled to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. They were among a multitude of other people who were making the same trip for the same reason.
The Bible says there was no room for them in the Inn. They found refuge in a stable and in the night, Mary delivered her baby. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a cow's trough.
Soon, Shepherds watching their sheep in the fields were alerted by a heavenly host of angels about the special baby who had been born. They quickly made hast to celebrate and worship the new baby Jesus. Eventually in the Bible story Wise men from the East traveled a long distance to see the new child. They brought with them gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh and worshipped him. When you read the first couple of chapters of Matthew and Luke's gospels you learn Christmas is about Jesus.
You also learn he was loved, held in the arms of his mother, adored by the shepherds and worshiped by wise astrologers who went to great effort and time to visit him
This Christmas we should all once again embrace the baby Jesus and celebrate his deity and mission to bring love and peace to our hearts. We need his love and peace. We need his joy to the world. Even in the hardest times of life people have found the joy of Jesus at Christmas time. Often the simplest things have a way of bringing the most joy. A baby in a manger. Peasant shepherds dropping by to say hello. Strangers visiting later to bring some gifts.
The people of Christmas are those who are the players of Christmas. We don't pay that much attention to the sheep of Christmas, the donkeys or the camels. The people are what make Christmas special. There would not be a Christmas story without the baby, Mary and Joseph.
Who are the people in your Christmas story? Growing up it was Mama Mollette, Mama Hinkle and Grandpa Hinkle, uncles and aunts, first cousins. Parents Walt and Eula Mollette, sisters and brothers and their children. Later my church families became very significantly involved in my Christmas story. Today there are new faces of extended family, their spouses and now grandchildren. The landscape has dramatically changed.
Years ago, I never imagined Christmas would change so much. Most of the people who I once celebrated Christmas with have passed on or live somewhere else. The people you and I celebrate Christmas with this year will soon pass on or relocate to live somewhere else. The point is this, embrace your Christmas while you can. Embrace your people while you can. The people in your life are your Christmas.
Christmas gifts, trees and decorations are all nice and fun. However, give love, and as safely as you can because of Covid-19, celebrate each other this year. It's always the people of Christmas who make up the Christmas story. While our celebrations this year may be remotely, use your telephone, computers and whatever means you have to connect with your most precious gifts of Christmas - the people in your life.
4. Make new friends from around the world
The response to inquiry was overwhelming enthusiastic and it didn't take long for Short's idea grow. Within hours the event planned for the December 19th had an impressive level of support from members of the Facebook group.
"The responses have been phenomenal! I love seeing how many people want to be involved in an event that has been planned with such short notice," Short said. "I’m ready for it to be December 19th! I’m so excited to see how everyone will decorate!
"I hope everyone has a good time," she added.
The parade route will start at the Middle School and entries can start lining up at 4:30pm for the 5:30 start.
"Get there early if you want to be in the front," Short said. "We will start rolling out at 5:30pm. Don’t forget your minimum entry fee of $5, there will be someone collecting it as you leave the middle school. We will also have two different vehicles collecting donations from others that are watching the parade"
The parade travel to Main Street and head north to Grand Avenue. Turning east, the procession will head to the St. Joseph Community Park. Short said she can be contacted by text or via messenger on Facebook if any one has any questions.
Organizing an event like this is a pretty impressive undertaking for a high school student. Short hopes the donations collected from participant entries and spectators along the route will help Nadiriah's family through the difficult days and months ahead.
"I didn’t know her that well but I had gone to school with her my entire life," said Short, who has committed to play softball at Spoon River College next fall. "We had multiple classes together and had been partners for various projects. She was such a sweet person to be around."
Three years ago, Madigan celebrated his record as the longest-serving state House speaker in U.S. history. Today, it looks as if his grip on power is slipping. As of this writing, 19 state representatives have publicly opposed Madigan’s re-election this January. But these lawmakers won’t just be voting on Madigan: they’ll also vote to adopt the House Rules, which help determine how much control the speaker has over the legislative process. These rules, coupled with the lack of safeguards against this steady accumulation of power, have led Madigan to where he is today. Without change, a shrewd politician could simply pick up where Madigan left off.
The House Rules establish how business gets done in the legislature. These rules let the speaker decide which bills get a fair hearing and which quietly die. They allow the speaker to select which politicians receive generous stipends as committee chairs. They allow politicians to gut and replace bills to rush through legislation – such as all 1,581 pages of the $40.6 billion fiscal year 2020 budget, originally a single-sentence bill appropriating just $2.
And, contrary to the Illinois Senate, which sets term limits of the Senate president at 10 years, the House Rules do not limit the number of terms a speaker can hold. Terms as speaker should be limited to prevent another Madigan.
This January, state representatives should reject the current House Rules. They can and should be amended.
But change can’t end there. Illinois needs to reform the way it draws political maps. Every 10 years, Illinois is required to redraw voting districts to adjust for shifts in population. But redistricting in Illinois has been used to keep incumbents in power. Earlier this month, 63 candidates ran unopposed for legislative office, including a whopping 52 of the 118 seats in the Illinois House of Representatives. This result is entirely predictable: Illinois legislators are responsible for voting on the map, so of course they will do what they can to benefit themselves. And Madigan’s bid for a new term has centered on his argument that he has the power to deliver another map that keeps his people from facing opponents.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Illinois could join the 17 other states that put independent commissions or other bodies in charge of redistricting – not lawmakers. Voters should choose their elected officials, not the other way around.
There needs to be more transparency and accountability in Springfield. Sitting lawmakers should not be able to lobby local governments or state executive agencies, and they should have a “cooling off” period after leaving the General Assembly before they lobby their former peers, as is the case in most other states. Lawmakers need to provide more detailed financial disclosures and should have to recuse themselves from voting on legislation in which they have a conflict of interest. Finally, the legislative inspector general needs the authority to open investigations and publish findings of wrongdoing without obtaining permission from lawmakers on the Legislative Ethics Commission, who have a propensity to cover for their own.
Madigan may be down, but he’s not out. Whether he can win back enough votes to get a 19th term as speaker remains to be seen, but Illinoisans deserve ethics reform no matter what. Changing the House Rules, adopting fair maps and instituting ethics reforms would begin unraveling Madigan’s web of corruption.
The Gallup results were nearly identical to The Sentinel's online poll where 38% of the respondents said would not be vaccinated as well. Polls completed by