Opinion

I have plenty to worry about. One of my ears sticks out farther than the other. I get my kids’ and grandkids’ names mixed up with long-dead relatives. If gas gets any more expensive, I will be working just so I can drive to work. But my biggest worry right now is one I face…

Have you ever wondered about wonder? I mean have you ever thought why you attribute beauty or awe to certain things? Have you ever been amazed how a large tree can grow from the tiniest crack in a massive rock? Have you ever been rapt by a sunset, a blanket of fog, or ridge of…

By Bill Hoagland Retail theft has become such a problem that retailers in some parts of the country have had to permanently close stores. In San Francisco, for example, shoplifters are walking out of stores carrying merchandise worth hundreds of dollars without any attempt by store employees to confront them. In fact, employees are prohibited…

We must be a society dying of thirst. Everywhere I go I see poor, parched people whose lips are greedily sucking straws. Gulping special water from plastic bottles. Sipping swigs of coffee from logo-ed cups. I know it’s hot, and I understand the need for extra liquids in sweaty weather. And, before you assault my…

One of the keys in hunting is learning how animals communicate. And as you know, they are always communicating. Just step outside during the early morning hours, and you’ll hear creature after creature communicating. It is so natural that we hardly ever think about it. We hardly ever think about it because most of it…

By Bill Hoagland I’ve always enjoyed the serene beauty of a turkey vulture slowly floating in the wind currents above the rolling hills of Calhoun County on a warm summer day. And one day, after I found two fluffy, infant turkey vultures in the woods just milling around on the ground by themselves (with their…

I was in my early thirties when I had my first lesson about cattle and farming. I don’t remember how I was introduced to Daryl and I don’t remember why I was on initially on his farm, but there I was, watching a cow in a headgate try to give birth to a calf that…

We played Bottle Cap Baseball all summer long when I was a girl; the laundromat up the street saved all the Tab, Orange Crush and Pepsi bottle caps from their machine for us. My brothers would amble there with an empty Kroger bag each Saturday morning and come home with a jangling sack that they…

By BILL HOAGLAND Judge Charles Beach, who presides in the Criminal Division of Cook County, recently held a press conference to declare that in the first seven months of its application, the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act is “working well”. This Act abolishes the traditional cash bail system in Illinois and substitutes a system that basically…