Grandpa,I take a car pool to the train station every day. There are four of us in the pool. Each of us drives one week a month. One of the girls in our pool prohibits smoking in her car when it is her turn to drive, yet smokes like a...
Grandpa,I am writing to you from on the road. I travel for business and am currently out of state on a day trip. I saw a sign that thrilled me. It said that a (fast food franchise) is open for business with inside sit-down service! I got off the expressway...
Grandpa,I’m not really sure where to start. All I know is that I am extremely heart-broken. Several years ago my husband had an affair. I had gone through a hysterectomy, dealt with menopause and was not feeling sexual at all. My husband complained that by my not being sexual, not...
By John W. Whitehead While America continues to fixate on the drama-filled reality show scripted by the powers-that-be, directed from the Nation’s Capital, and played out in high definition across the country, the American Police State has moved steadily forward. Nothing has changed. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a convenient,...
August 3, 2020Dear editor; Those paying attention to the protests around our country, especially if they ever studied fascism, should be disturbed by these protests. Fascists employ violence, intolerance, and repression. Many protesters do, too. Fascists use schools to indoctrinate students, to instill blind obedience to fascist authorities, and to...
Grandpa,I am a maternity nurse. Several of us have been looking at the stay at home order differently than most. We are planning to be very busy between Thanksgiving 2020 and Valentine’s Day 2021. So much for the six-foot rule in social distancing. Grandpa says: Thank you. My staff members...
By John W. Whitehead We have become one Nation under house arrest. You think we’re any different from the Kentucky couple fitted out with ankle monitoring bracelets and forced into a quarantine at home? We’re not. Consider what happened to Elizabeth and Isaiah Linscott. Elizabeth took a precautionary diagnostic COVID-19...
July 24, 2020Dear editor; Wear a mask. Illinois made great strides fighting COVID-19, but it will take sustained effort and discipline to keep the virus under control. Illinois doctors ask everyone to take two simple actions when in public: Always wear a face-covering and continue to maintain social distancing. The...
Grandpa,I just read an online advice column where the lady was whining that her husband does not lock all the doors and windows, set the alarms, and turn on all the outside lights before going to bed. I have the opposite problem. My other half won’t stop locking everything. I...
July 15, 2020Dear editor; Governor JB Pritzker’s graduated tax proposal on the November 3 ballot is in the news. I worry about giving carte blanche to the spendthrifts who put our State into such a financial crisis. Without detail for specific tax rates for various levels, the end result could...
By Marjorie Logman I am writing to a select group: Far right Donald Trump followers, and far right Evangelicals, those who have a steady diet of Fox News television and Republicans who have made the party something my father would not recognize. To give some background, I grew up with...
Grandpa,Here is a scam I just encountered. I got an E-mail from an address claiming to be from the government. It said that I need to verify my unemployment in order to begin receiving checks to help me through these hard-economic times. Because I am still working and have not...
By John W. Whitehead For those old enough to have lived through the McCarthy era, there is a whiff of something in the air that reeks of the heightened paranoia, finger-pointing, fear-mongering, totalitarian tactics, that were hallmarks of the 1950s. Back then, it was the government, spearheaded by senator Joseph...
July 1, 2020Dear editor; There are 546 individuals with the power to change anything in Washington D. C. and in America. The president (1) The vice-president (1) The House (435) The Senate (100) The Supreme Court (9) These 546 are all employees, or serve at the people’s pleasure. We the...
Grandpa,I met my daughter’s father-in-law at the wedding. I was not impressed by the man and made no overtures to develop a friendship. Apparently, neither did he. From my daughter, over the years, I have grown to dislike the man based on what she told me. Well, when my daughter...
By John W. Whitehead What exactly is going on? Is this revolution? Is this anarchy? Is this a spectacle engineered to distract us from the machinations of the police state? Is this a sociological means of re-setting our national equilibrium? Is this a Machiavellian scheme designed to further polarize the...
June 22, 2020Dear editor; Is George Floyd a Manchurian Candidate? The most recent autopsy report states that Floyd died (through murder by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minn. May 25) from a concentration of Fentanyl in his blood, three times the fatal dose. Fentanyl is a dangerous opioid, 50 times...
July 6, 2020Dear editor; Here is my response to recent criticism of The Voice columnist Charles Coddington (Reaction to Charles Coddington column, in the July 2 Reader’s Voice): Charles Coddington is as American as a figure out of an old Frank Capra movie. He is an Aurora treasure, a walking...
Grandpa,Have you ever heard of putting chopped apples and nuts into potato salad? My sister-in-law did it and totally ruined a family get-together. I was the only one with enough gumption to publicly call her out on it. Everyone else was too afraid to hurt her feelings. Potato salad, as...
By John W. Whitehead “Violence creates many more social problems than it solves…. If they succumb to the temptation of using violence in their struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless...
