Untitled Document People who have lived somewhere else are best at understanding how complex and cumbersome Springfield’s trash system is. When Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson liv]]> Untitled Document It was a nice surprise to see Mike Bowman and his wife, Kim, last week on the NBC network news, testifying before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. They ]]> Untitled Document Mayor Tim Davlin has sailed into his second term without distinguishing himself on any single issue. The mayor campaigned as a hardworking administrator with a ]]> 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 Roland, the editor, recently told me, the senior writer, that he wouldn’t mind having an occasional piece from the Illinois Times archives as a way t]]> 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 The great 19th-century naturalist John Muir was onstage at New Salem State Park last Sunday, in the person of the actor John Wallace. “The forests of Amer]]> Untitled Document They say that time behind bars makes criminals better at what they went in for. A gangbanger makes more gang connections, and a small-time bank robber learns fr]]> 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 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]]> Untitled Document The U.S. strategy in Iraq is failing, and it is time for something new. Withdrawing American troops would not leave the vacuum that many suppose or the conseque]]> Untitled Document Illinois Auditor General William Holland was so angry over the Department of Healthcare and Family Services’ delays in submitting information over the pas]]> 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 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 ]]> Former Gov. George Ryan is remembered for two things. First, that he went to prison after being convicted on corruption charges. Second, that, in his final days in office, he cleared out dea]]> 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]]> When I first heard about the new Crime Stoppers drug dumpster, I found it amusing. A trash dumpster, welded shut, painted orange, is stenciled with, “A suspected drug house is in thi]]> 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]]> I love the New York Times. I quote it so often my kids think I don’t know anything I didn’t read there. So naturally I was drawn to the long piece in May’s Vanity Fair on NYT publish]]> The visiting architects and city planners who made up the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team said over and over that Springfield is poised on the edge of greatness. ]]>