Opinion: Columnist shares thoughts on local happenings

Posted 10/12/18

Enjoys hay bale creativity.

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Opinion: Columnist shares thoughts on local happenings

Posted

The hay bales around town are really neat. If you have not gone out to see them, take advantage of the next nice day and tour Rochelle.
I have seen several, but need to get out and drive the streets looking for more.  Now that the weather is sunny, it may be a good chance to see them.
The new downtown Marilyn Monroe mural is also pretty cool.  
The hay bales and the murals all make Rochelle a more interesting place to visit.  Tell your friends who live out of town to take a drive and check things out.
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CBS News recently put out a listing of the most deadly cities in the country.  They used the number of murders per 100,000 population for the rankings.
Chicago had 24 murders per 100,000 people   That is an alarming rate and something that each person living in Chicago, or who visits the city, needs to be concerned about.  Too many young people are being killed.  Too many innocent bystanders.  Too many futures lost. 
But the worst part is, Chicago is not the top city.  It’s 10th.
Think of that.  There are nine other cities worse off than Chicago; Las Vegas, 31 per 100,000, for example.  But St. Louis leads, with 64 per 100,000.  That’s more than twice the rate for Chicago.
We don’t hear about the killings in other cities, because we are closer to Chicago.  
What bothers me the most is that we have a society where murder is common, and often done without regard for the survivors.  The impact on a parent losing a child, or an adult losing a spouse is tremendous.
Gangs, drugs, lack of parental control, poverty, and joblessness are often cited as the reasons for the killings.  But in reality, these are not excuses for murder.

Maybe instead of politicians accusing each other of being failures or crooks they could concentrate on fixing a problem that concerns all of us.
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I truly get bothered by politicians who seem to take delight in creating rifts among various groups in our country.
We share so many things in common, regardless of your race, religion, heritage or sexual orientation.
We all want a good education for our children.
We all want clean air and water.
We want jobs.
We all want to live our lives in safety.
We want sick people to be taken care of, and the hungry to be fed.
We want to hear the truth.
We all want a nation that can be proud of itself in the world community and one that is a leader in the fields of technology, education, transportation and industry.
Those are issues that I believe all citizens want.
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I saw a video about an island in the Atlantic that was overrun with plastics…bottles and containers especially.
Plastic is not good for our environment, for the animals in it, or for us.  The more we use, the bigger the problem.
Stuff doesn’t really go away in our society.  It may be buried, or burned, or turned into another product, but it never goes away.
If you don’t use recyclable bags, now might be a good time to start.
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Finally, I am on the Rochelle Flagg Township Historical Society board.
We have one board member who has spent countless hours over the past year, scanning articles and pictures from editions of the Rochelle News Leader.  So far, I believe he has scanned about 50 years of newspapers, looking for names of people, businesses, and pictures. All this is entered into the museum’s data base.
So, if you want to find out about a business, come down to the museum and use our computers to look up information.
And thank Tom McDermott for all the time, effort, and enthusiasm he has spent on this project.  
By the way, he is not done yet.