What are YOUR legislators up to? A report from Illinois

Last updated on: April 6, 2025 at 4:23 pm By Jane the Actuary

First, the background: In Illinois, the city of Chicago has long been dominated by Democrats, but most suburbs have not been. Even up to very recently, the state legislators in my area had been a mix of Republican and Democrat, until 4 years ago. Our township trustees had been Republican for who-knows-how-long. And village board elections were non-partisan, or strictly speaking independent, not just “officially” but also in terms of how the elections played out. This past week saw a... Read more

Why are American mobile phone plans so expensive?

Last updated on: April 1, 2025 at 9:52 am By Jane the Actuary

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Why am I writing about mobile phones? Bear with me . . . First, the background: The Actuary family has, as many families have, expanded the number of mobile phones in the household as each successive child became old enough to need one, though we have also economized by taking advantage of the Xfinity mobile “Bring Your Own” phone service, which for a fair bit of time enabled us to pay next-to-nothing for service, by selecting a by-the-Gig option which... Read more

What does the Pope really think about “just war”?

Last updated on: March 22, 2025 at 8:55 pm By Jane the Actuary

Going on three years ago, in an interview on June 20, 2022, Pope Francis in an interview made the statement that I believe it is time to rethink the concept of a ‘just war.’ And some time afterwards I came across this and was mystified at what he could possibly mean. A lengthy explainer in The Pillar seems to claim, based on statements shortly before then, in March (thus, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine) that the Pope is really saying... Read more

Do you have a “Third Place”?

Last updated on: February 28, 2025 at 11:18 pm By Jane the Actuary

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For various reasons, I’ve been thinking more about local issues than national politics these days — not so much because I think things are going swimmingly at the national level as because there is at least some degree to which it’s possible to make a difference at the local level. And I’ve been noticing that our local library has been sponsoring more community events lately — not just children’s chess club but a board game night for adults, a trivia... Read more

What’s good and what’s bad about the Illinois Homeschool Act

Last updated on: February 23, 2025 at 10:43 pm By Jane the Actuary

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The state of Illinois has, at present, a very unregulated approach to homeschooling: you want to homeschool your child, you can. But there is currently a bill (with two of its sponsors being my “hometown” state representatives) which intends to make rather significant changes, and which has homeschool families up in arms, so I decided to see what the actual legislation has to say. Is this the “final product” which will come up for a vote? Illinois, which has a... Read more

The ERA of 1972 no longer exists in 2024

Last updated on: January 19, 2025 at 3:33 pm By Jane the Actuary

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So on Friday, President Joe Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment is henceforth adopted, following the urging of supporters, based on arguments that the constitution doesn’t have any provision for Amendment approvals setting time limits, so that the 1982 deadline was never valid. The National Archivist said, “no, it’s my job to certify amendments and I do not,” and Biden supporters said, “her role is purely ministerial,” and, well, it should be apparent that if the role of certifying... Read more

Dear Cardinal Cupich: enough with endless Capital Campaigns!

Last updated on: January 5, 2025 at 11:41 am By Jane the Actuary

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From 2014 to 2015, the Archdiocese of Chicago ran a capital campaign called To Teach Who Christ Is. The Archdiocese’s purpose in the campaign was to generate $150 million for scholarships for Catholic schools, but in order to make the campaign palatable, each parish was instructed to come up with capital projects of some sort or another, so that an additional $150 million of the overall goal of $350 million was for the use of the individual parishes. (In my... Read more

How “Blind Spots” are driving up medical costs – and worse

Last updated on: January 5, 2025 at 10:03 am By Jane the Actuary

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Yes, I just finished Marty Makary’s new book, the topic of which is clear from the subtitle, “When Medicine Gets It Wrong and What It Means for Our Health,” and the story he tells is grim. It’s a slim book and probably available for checkout at your local library (though I had to wait for it to come off hold) and honestly I don’t understand why his nomination for a cabinet position in the Trump administration was treated as suspicious... Read more

Ray Bradbury, Book Burning, dystopias and prognostication

Last updated on: December 23, 2024 at 9:06 am By Jane the Actuary

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Who was Ray Bradbury? According to Wikipedia, he was born in 1920, spent most of his early childhood years in Waukegan Illinois, then moved to Los Angeles at the age of 14. He dreamed of being a writer from an early age, and began publishing science fiction in 1938, continuing to build his career during the wartime years because bad eyesight exempted him from the draft. In 1951, so, at the age of 31, he published The Fireman as a... Read more