We Are Community 238
Many years ago, I was on the Board of the Illinois Education Association and as such knew that downstate Illinois received about 1.4 dollars for every tax dollar sent to the state. I often wonder if the people pushing” New Illinois” know this. In the Community News Brief this week there was an article about “New Illinois” and this issue was addressed by the author Darcie Shinberger. The disparity has grown since I had checked the facts. Now our area of the state receives 1.87 dollars in tax money for every dollar spent and southern Illinois receives even more. For those pushing “New Illinois”, this needs to be understood. If they were to succeed in splitting the state, which I feel is highly unlikely, our taxes would need to almost double to just keep the services we presently have like schools and roads. Chicago is not a drain on our tax money, it provides us with more tax money than we give.
Had a chance to watch the evening news on both KHQA and WGEM this week as the channel 10 news was late due to other programming. In my opinion there is a big difference in quality of the broadcasts.
My birds and squirrels are greedy little “people”. I put out a suet cake every day for the wood peckers and every day it is completely eaten by what appear to be sparrows. I put out two feeders of sunflower and mixed seed about 2 pm and they are gone now and it is not yet 5 pm. Will just keep filling the feeders and the heated water bowl. What the birds drop on the ground will surely be eaten by something else.
The full moon this week was the “Wolf Moon”. It has been lovely and there have been some great photos taken of it and shared.
Was at Walmart on Wednesday evening. When I exited the store, I saw a phone on the ground. I picked it up and took it back into the store and gave it to the person watching the door. A couple of minutes later, as I was getting into my car, a gentleman came rushing over and asked me to call his cell phone as he had lost it. Told him that I had just given it to the store person. What are the chances that in a whole parking lot of cars, that he would approach the one person who had found his phone.
The weather has been pretty rough the last couple of days. Must admit that I am really afraid of very cold weather. Keep asking God to help me not to worry so much and to be able to sleep. It is very important to do what we can for the animals that are out in the cold. If you put out shelter for kitties etc., it is supposed to be better to use straw rather than blankets as straw does not get damp so easily and freeze,
Saw on Facebook that Ron Dalzell, who also attended Cherry Grove School, had passed. Sorry to hear this as it was a small school and we all knew each other well. Our sympathy to his family and friends.
Hancock County had day one of its 200th anniversary celebration. There are to be more parts of the celebration to come. Hope we get to attend some of them.
There have been few customers at the store during this snowy and cold weather. I am thankful to have my phone to keep in contact with the world. You might want to check on your neighbors when it is difficult to get out. Human contact is very important to our wellbeing. Scatter Kindness and Love.