•December 30, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

The Illinois Monument at the Kennesaw Mountain Civil War battlefield north of Atlanta is a rather nondescript vertical block of marble.

The monument stands atop Cheatham’s Hill, which the soldiers of the 85th and 125th Illinois Regiments almost but never quite reached on June 26, 1864. The marker commemorates the courage and cohesiveness of the men who came within 30 feet of the almost impregnable Confederate earthen parapets above the sharp rise.

Each holiday season I visit my sister’s family, who live near the park, outside Marietta, Ga. And each year I am drawn back to Cheatham’s Hill.

I stand at the top of the hill, looking down from the dug earthen defenses, still evident. I wonder in awe how men could have marched in formation up the hill, sure to absorb a crippling fusillade from rifles stuck through the slits of space between the earth works and the braced logs atop.

The open, grassy line of march up the hill is the shape of a football field, though maybe half again as wide and deep. Loblolly pine frame the battlefield, tall, mute sentinels to the carnage of that day. The Union lost 397 killed and wounded at just this one hill, rather insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

Before entering the battle that day, Union Colonel Daniel McCook recited for his men McCauley’s popular, “Horatius, the Captain of the gate; Death will cometh sooner or late, and how can man better die than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his father’s grave and the temples of the gods.”

A Reb soldier wrote in his diary later that, “The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees.” Ignited by the rifle and cannon bursts, grassfires threatened the Yankee wounded on the hillside. Read More

It's been 118 years since Virginia O'Hanlon sought the truth about Santa from the New York Sun.

In over a century, the lives of children — and their parents—have increased in complexity by a factor of ten.

Man landed on the moon, communism rose and fell, countries changed names and borders, Elvis begat Jagger, who in turn led to "gangsta rap". The kidnap and murder of children, which made world headlines for the Lindbergh family, now touches the lives of hundreds of families annually. Children begin learning at ages two and three about "stranger danger," AIDS and sexual abuse.

The age of innocence is gone.

But that doesn't mean that Virginia O'Hanlon's innocent question to an anonymous editor is irrelevant in today's world. Far from it.

Today, more than ever, we all need to be reminded of the good that dwells in even the meanest spirit, of the hope that fires our most ambitious dreams. That, yes, there is a Santa Claus, and he lives in all our hearts.

So here, as a Christmas gift to us all, is Francis Pharcellus Church's editorial response to Virginia, first printed in The New York Sun on Sept. 21, 1897. Merry Christmas. Read More

•December 16, 2015•

Who will have a white Christmas in Illinois this year? Historically, northern Illinoisans are most like to see snow fly on Christmas Day, according to Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, Illinois State Water Survey, University of Illinois.

A “white Christmas” is defined as having at least one inch of snow on the ground on December 25. It should come as no surprise that the highest odds are in northern Illinois. In general, the odds are about 40-60 percent in the northern third of Illinois, 20-40 percent in central Illinois, and 0-20 percent in southern Illinois.

There can be large differences between nearby sites, however. Snowfall is notoriously difficult to measure with blowing, drifting, and melting. Two nearby sites may have different results due to exposure to the sun and the wind as well as the dedication of the observer to report on Christmas Day. Read More

•December 9, 2015•

Letter of Importance:

After returning home safe from morning travel, this note may save a life. Please when it is foggy or gloomy turn your headlights on! Read More

•December 9, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

To paraphrase Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, we should not let a good bicentennial go to waste. But we may.

The Prairie State celebrates its 200th birthday in 2018, which is like the day before yesterday in planning terms, according to Perry Hammock, executive director of the Indiana Bicentennial Commission. The Hoosier State celebrates its milestone in 2016, and state leaders have been hard at work on it since 2011.

Almost two years ago, former Illinois governor Pat Quinn appointed a bicentennial commission that includes former governor Jim Thompson and other distinguished Illinoisans. But the group has never met, and with the ongoing budget stalemate and abundant political conflict affecting the state, any commission action and funding for its work are uncertain at best.

We have to get cracking on this, and it looks as though it will require private efforts to get matters off the ground.

The Indiana commission has been meeting regularly for four years. The state has committed $28 million for bicentennial projects, and a staff of four plus many college-graduate interns has stimulated upwards of 800 “legacy projects” across just about every city and hamlet in that state.

Every Indiana county has a volunteer coordinator. The commission’s website receives more than one million impressions a month and, says Hammock, “We’ve got the buzz going across the state.” Read More