Untitled Document Lying with a needle in his arm and parts of his blood streaming into three separate bags, David Parsons is    donating platelets, which takes longer t]]> Untitled Document When Hillary Clinton scolded Barack Obama the other day in Iowa, talking about his inexperience and listing his mistakes, I saw a picture of a mother lecturing ]]> Though I knew how the story turned out, as I read I kept hoping that one of the safety inspection reports on Centralia Coal Co. Mine No. 5 would move somebody to action before it was too late. In the ]]> Untitled Document Not long after Dan Walker took office as governor, in 1973, I interviewed him in his office in the Capitol. I was finishing a journalism degree at Northwestern ]]> A plain white pitcher, a bowl, a broken plate and a whiskey bottle from the mid-to-late 1830s are among the finds from Floyd Mansberger’s digs on the block where the Abraham Lincoln ]]> Untitled Document In 1961, after a long day of working on a promotional film at New Salem, 83-year-old Carl Sandburg granted Tom Littlewood an interview about Sandburg’s ol]]> When U. S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu met with the FutureGen Alliance on Monday to discuss whether to proceed with a large-scale coal gasification demonstration plant near Mattoon, he fa]]> Untitled Document I thought she had star quality, like Reese Witherspoon, maybe, the way she got up to speak before the audience of some 200 people at the PORA fundraising dinner]]> Untitled Document The subject of hope has gotten so much press, there was bound to be a pushback. During a recent debate, our guy had to carefully explain that hope doesn’t]]> Hunter Lake is a 40-year-old idea whose time, if there ever was one, has passed. The 3,010-acre lake would hold far more water than Springfield needs. There are less expensive alt]]> Untitled Document The tour begins on the Old State Capitol Plaza, by the law office where Lincoln walked to work. He must have stopped right here to talk, about the future of the coun]]> I know parents who wish they had half as much information about the boys their daughters bring home as cattle breeders have about today’s purebred bulls. The 38th Annua]]> When I noticed that the City Council was preparing to address the problems of homelessness, I stopped by outside St. John’s Breadline after lunch to ask the poor and the homeless, and those who ]]> Untitled Document Looking out over the crowd at the Historic Sites Commission’s Mayor’s Awards for Historic Preservation, I began to think that maybe historic preserv]]> Untitled Document Eric Scott Volkel-Barno is a person who likes to help people. He especially likes to help people who are helping other people. A quiet person who tries to live ]]> The 1821 Sangamon County commissioners established the temporary county seat on Spring Creek, so they named it Springfield. But the town's real founders — Elijah Iles, Pascal Enos and ]]> Untitled Document Rwanda is known as a place of death, but I wish that everyone could see the life in the faces of some of its orphans. It was 14 years ago this month that the sl]]> It is a sad and sickening sound, that of another good reputation gurgling down the drain. Only a few weeks ago, Roland Burris was remembered as a trailblazer in Illinois politics, who had]]> Untitled Document The governor’s proposed gross-receipts tax isn’t as gross as you think. Ohio, Texas, Washington, and other states have each implemented a version of]]> Illinois farmers have a big problem on their hands: They’re about to harvest a huge crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture started the bad news when it predicted a few weeks ago that total U.S]]>