Today I was interviewed by the Illinois Times newspaper! One of their writers became aware of my petition and e-mailed me about writing a story on my efforts. So I sent her my phone number, and today she gave me a call. She asked me if I had ever worked at a state historic site, and I told her that I have not in Illinois, but that I am currently doing an internship at a state historic site in Utah (we had already discussed the fact that I'm a graduate student at Eastern Illinois). She wondered why I was interning in Utah, and I told her that's where I'm from. She then said, "Ooooh, I see. So, if you're from Utah, why do you care about the Illinois historic sites?" You can imagine that I had quite a lengthy answer :-) She told me that she was impressed with the petition--especially now that she knows I'm not even from Illinois--and she's going to write an article about me this week. So that was pretty cool. But what would be even cooler would be if the petition has some kind of positive effect in helping the historic sites!
Speaking of cool, check out one of the new designs for next year's special Lincoln bicentennial pennies!!! Oh, is that the Old State Capitol building I see in the background? The one that is now closed for part of the week because the governor of Illinois does not care about the history of the state? Oh, and isn't that the same building where all of the Illinois state historic site collections are stored--the collections that will have to be left unattended in a room without a properly working lock after the collections administrator is laid off? Yep, that's the building. So at least the rest of the country obviously cares about the significance of Abraham Lincoln sites in Illinois--even if the governor of the state does not.But there is still hope that the governor's budget wrongs can be righted by the state legislature. Today they met for their "special session" to hammer out a revised ethics bill. They still didn't like the one that Blago had written, so they adjusted it and passed it this afternoon. Now, hopefully, they will vote on the budget issue tomorrow. I read today in the State Journal-Register that some Republican senators had identified $25 million tied up in pork barrel spending that could be reallocated to replace the money Blago cut from the budget. All that IHPA needs is $3 million, so hopefully, hopefully they will get it. The legislators were supposedly going to meet this afternoon to discuss a new budget plan which they could vote on within the next few days. Let's keep our fingers crossed!
The elephant in my esophagus left during the night last night, so that was good. Now we just need to get rid of the frog in my throat and whoever is hanging out up in my sinuses.
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