I knew there was a reason why I wear my ball caps with the bill shading my nose.  A quasi-scientific survey has revealed the reason for it.  Groups dispensed throughout malls all across America, taking pictures of everyone wearing ball caps, then invited them to the food courts to take a short test.  Some of them took the test orally because they couldn't read.  The ones wearing their caps properly had an IQ of average or above average, while the ones wearing their caps straight backwards had the IQ of a grape.  All others were somewhere in between.  If the grape IQ people were wearing their pants more than 3 inches below the waist, then their IQ fell below that of a grape.  I don't think any of them will be offended by this because I have used too many words containing two or more syllables.

Dear Editor:

I recently saw on the news of a young woman who had just lost her husband to cancer and also had a two month old baby; living alone and found two "hopped up" fools breaking into her home to do her and her baby harm - she picked up a shotgun & killed one of them.  You go, girl!  Also saw a tortured little boy who was trying to go to school and was bullied every day, who took out a knife and killed his tormentor, instead of killing himself like some do.

As a reader, what do you look for in a column or newspaper article? Do you look for content that is interesting, thought provoking, amusing, entertaining, practical, informative, and something that adds to your knowledge base? While I don’t always succeed in providing one or more of these qualities, I try, because I know your time is valuable. Sometime back a man asked me what my column was about, and before I could answer, my pastor who was sitting there, said “It’s a smorgasbord” because it has a little of everything. To be sure, I am always on the lookout for content and ideas that I feel would be of interest and benefit to you.

Henry Bayer, the leader for the AFSCME-AFL-CIO Union in Illinois is crying foul over Quinn’s proposed closures. During elections for Blagoevich and Quinn, he started phone banks, door-to-door visits, etc. Basically crowing that these two could do no wrong.

One of my faithful readers, Paul Fleming, who lives near Marion, Ill., sent me something the other day that has tremendous potential to help us to better carry our burdens, or whatever it is that is weighing us down.

Here’s a couple of consumer tips. Micki buys a new purse every 6 to 8 weeks. Each time she shows it to me and announces it has exactly the features she wants. I, on the other hand, get a new wallet about every 6 years, I went into a local store that had a large selection of the brand name ‘George.’ I thought that ‘George’ might be the Gucci of men’s wallets. It had 12 card slots, just what I needed. I emptied my old wallet and tossed it in the trash. Not a single card would fit in the slots, without cutting it off at least a quarter inch so I went to the trash can and got my old one back. After wiping off traces of old coffee grounds and BBQ sauce, I reloaded it and am now sitting on it Try before you buy!

By Travis Akin, Executive Director
 Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch
 Everyone has a daily routine. For some it is reaching for an early morning cup of coffee. For others, it might be going for a daily jog. Whatever the routine is everyone has something they do to get their day started.
 For the City of Chicago, part of the daily routine is getting a notification about a new lawsuit filed against City Hall. In the last three years, Chicago has been hit with 900 lawsuits, which means City government is sued virtually every single day.
 Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch (I-LAW), a grassroots, legal watchdog group recently released a study and found that the City of Chicago’s notoriety as a target for lawsuits has cost the City a budget-busting $85 million for litigation in 2010 alone – millions that could have gone to hiring more police officers or teachers or avoiding layoffs of city workers.

By Jack Hargis
I feel so sorry for SIUC because of all their money problems.  Layoffs and furlough days.  But Chancellor Cheng can give 1.5 million dollars to a Chicago firm to design a new logo.  Now she will spend millions more to change out the old logos.  Wouldn't surprise me if her picture was on it.  Seems to me an in-house contest to design a new logo (with a cash prize for the winner) would have been the way to go.  With all the piled higher and deeper degrees right down to the most junior freshman, she would have received at least 10,000 entries, some of them duplicates of what she paid the big bucks for.

Dear Editor:

I am writing to express my concern for people with disabilities, as my son and I are among them.

Dear Editor:

I have lived at the Manor at Craig Farms for six months now.  I like it here.  I mean, I really love it here.  My sister asked me why I liked living at the Manor and I quickly replied that I didn't have to go to work.  Man, I was getting tired of that.  The work itself wasn't so bad, it was the going and coming.  Rain, sleet,  snow, cold or hot, it made no difference what the weather conditions were, I had to go when I was needed, whether I wanted to go or not.  At age 71, I was tired of it.  So  yes, one of my main reasons for liking living at the Manor is I don't have to go to work.  However, there are also other reasons.

Dear Editor:

I read with interest the quotes of Brad Reid, Don Stallman, and Don Welge on the potential of a motel.
I come to Chester 6-8 times a year, and I have always wondered why Chester keeps going down.  The thinking of these three gentlemen are going to put the last nail in the coffin of Chester.

By Jack Hargis
We have got to call our politicians in Washington to stop all of our jobs from going overseas.  Let's take our country back.  I thought at least one industry was sacred.  I got a prescription filled today for Fosamax.  It was made in India.  I don't trust the Indian people that much.  When I called about my computer problems in the past, every Indian that answered the phone was named Jim or Jerry..  Besides that, they consider the cow as sacred.  I do too, when it is stuffed in a hamburger bun.  Do you suppose the FDA might have an inspector in those pill factories?

So it seems our politicos in the nation’s capital have been getting a little bothered lately, because there’s this thing called “the debt ceiling” that limits how much money the federal government is legally authorized to borrow, and the folks in the White House are saying it has to be raised by Tuesday, Aug. 2.
As I write, it’s still unclear what kind of political deal (if any) will be arranged to resolve the feds’ latest fiscal foul-up.

By Jack Hargis
I’ve been to Lochheads Service Station a couple of times to see Chester’s Bionic Super Hero, Dean Lochhead. He was gone both times. With all the rain, I speculated he was out trying to save frogs or cicadas from drowning.
Shouldn’t it be immoral or ethically wrong to set up a speed trap in a church parking lot? What if someone missed seeing them. Then there would be no warning on our CB radio.
“Honey.” I used to get irritated when waitresses and check-out females called me that. I finally got over it when I realized it was not going to stop. I was now a member of geezerdom. However, if a male clerk or waiter ever calls me “Honey”, I’m moving to another check-out line or another table.

 On April 20, a news report from the British Broadcasting Corporation revealed that Apple Inc. could track the location of iPhone users through the iOS 4 operating system. On April 29, an Illinois resident working with a Metro East lawyer proposed a statewide class action against Apple Inc.