 We trust that all of your holiday cards arrived at their destinations on time. Come spring, though, the check in the mail or that birthday card from Uncle Max probably will arrive a day or so later than usual. That's the upshot of the U.S. Postal Service's recent announcement that it plans to close 252 mail processing centers and trim 28,000 jobs in its struggle to survive in the digital age.  | Moving the borders: Goodbye Chicago It's back — the plan to split off Chicago from the rest of Illinois. State Reps. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, and Adam Brown, R-Decatur, want a 51st state to be created by carving Chicago from the Illinois body. "Downstate families are tired of Chicago dictating its views to the rest of us," Mitchell says. |  | For public safety, it's a golden age The 1950s are often recalled as a golden age in American life — stable families, rising incomes, wholesome TV shows and low crime rates. Doesn't sound like 2011, does it? When it comes to crime, though, there is a striking similarity: We are, believe it or not, in a new golden age. |  | Family matters It is oddly poetic that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il's death fell in the days leading up to Christmas, one of the most family-centered times of the year. While the abuses under Kim and his father's regime have been mainly directed at their own people, the far-reaching consequences have touched many more, even my own family in the U.S. | | Real meaning of Christmas I must have been 7 or 8 years old, when my parents had scant room in their budget for Christmas decorations. They had eight kids squeezed into a three-bedroom bungalow and a yellowing plastic snowman with a light socket inside his belly. | |  | |
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