Talk to me

The audiobook goes from public service into product

It is a rare human being who does not enjoy being read to. The soothing tones of the mother at the bedside, reading us to sleep, the soothing tones of the politician, reading from a teleprompter, read

Reinventing the past

Springfield’s surprising tradition of industrial invention

Building new businesses based on new ideas is the central axiom of the near-science of economic development. Sangamon County’s would-be Edisons in the medical field recently were invited to subm

Something about a man in uniform

Rep. Mark Kirk suffers a self-inflicted battle wound

You wouldn’t think it was possible for a soldier to shoot himself in the back while marching toward the front line, but Congressman Mark “Don’t Get Fooled Again” Kirk has manag

Cheeseparing in the Capitol complex

Will a new Stratton Building be a better one?

The William G. Stratton Building – eyesore, health risk, money trap – has gotten a reprieve. It has been sitting on Death Row since 2007, when the State of Illinois launched an inquiry and

Treasures from faraway seas

Attending from the University of Shadid in the ’60s

The advantage of pursuing an education in a bookshop rather than a school is that at the bookshop young readers can pick out books that teachers and parents think aren’t good for you. I had boug

Making Springfield a better place

Readers recall Shadid’s Book Mart

“‘Intellectual oasis’ might be asking the venerable place to shoulder more weight than it could plausibly bear, but homage is overdue.” I was trading anecdotes about Shadid&rsq

Noise about noise

The noise from boom cars is confusing Springfield aldermen

Were a boom car to drive past city hall while Springfield’s city council was in session, the din would make it impossible to hear what the aldermen were saying. This is the sole public advantage

Yielding to nonsense

The General Assembly makes pedestrians less safe

A General Assembly unable to pass the laws that are needed must pass something, and so busies itself passing laws that are not. One of these is Illinois House Bill 43, which in round figures demands t

Making room for the Huangs

Immigration policy and the skilled international

In 2002, the government of the People’s Republic of China banned a book of oral history interviews with the sorts of people that the West does not hear about, and that the Chinese authorities do

The Presidential museum turns five

Abe World opened five years ago this month, on April 19. Drawing on all the dark arts of electronic hucksterism, the new museum was to transform Springfield into a Mecca for patriots who would make th