You’re in your doctor’s office. You’ve just been told that you have cancer – one of the bad ones, like those that attack the pancreas or the liver or the lungs or the ovaries &]]> No parent ever has an ugly baby. Even if the little darling has a head that looks like a cantaloupe from the bottom of the pile, parents don’t like strangers stating the obvious. People are the ]]> Writers of newspaper columns, it turns out, are not the only people who have trouble getting sentences right. Eyebrows, if not voices, were raised when federal judge James Zagel set 14 years in prison]]> Usually, making a Top 10 list is cause for congratulation, but not when it’s Landmarks Illinois’ annual list of most endangered historic sites. In March, the preservationist group named to]]> As I write, the jury is still out on Rod Blagojevich. The coming verdict in his second trial for behaving like an Illinois governor will settle for now the question of his criminal culpability. Other ]]> I hear you’re mad about BrubeckI like your eyes, I like him tooHe’s an artist, a pioneerWe’ve got to have some music on the new frontier– “New Frontier” by Donald F]]> A planned new “patioscape” on the parking lot side of the former White Oaks Cinema will provide outdoor seating for customers of the shops and eateries expected to move into the converted ]]> Yes, kids, I really did used to walk two miles to school. For the whole of my ninth grade year in 1962-63, I often walked from Washington Junior High at 21st and Jackson to our house near the Statehou]]> The bronze sculpture commemorating the 1908 race riots was finally dedicated this summer on Aug. ]]> It’s back-to-school time again – the hopeful buzz of the first few weeks when the backward and the indifferent say to themselves, “This year I’m going to get it right,” f]]> South MacArthur Boulevard is a lot like a heart attack patient. It might recover its former vigor, but it will never thrive in the ways it did before it got sick. It will be able to survive at all onl]]> A people’s willingness to walk determines the shape of their towns – and their towns have a lot to do in determining the shape of the people who live in them. University of Tennessee resea]]> A while back – a long while back – I undertook to write a smallish book about a large topic, the history and culture of Illinois. I was certain that after more than 30 years spent reading,]]> Poet and critic Helen Vendler has observed that an epitaph is a form of lyric that must, among other traits, “assert a final judgment.” ...]]> ]]> Forget one-person-one vote; we are moving toward a one election-one vote future. The turnout of registered voters in Peoria for April’s municipal elections — and remember that not all qual]]> “‘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]]> I have little doubt about what we all ought to talking about after Tucson. The most pressing social issues revealed – again – by these shootings is the absence of a workable system to iden]]> “This book is not about Abraham Lincoln and his virtues,” announces Erika Holst in her introduction to Wicked Springfield: Crime, Corruption & Scandal during the Lincoln Era. “It]]> Here it is July again, and the General Assembly still hasn’t done anything about summer. Summers in the Midwest have never been pleasant, unless you own stock in a water park, but lately they ha]]>