Letters to the Editor
Untitled Document We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. FIRST STEP TOWARD SECESSION? Whether Illinois — or any state — should adopt the National Popular Vote initiative as described by…
The thrill is gone
Untitled Document It wasn’t so long ago that ethanol was riding an amber wave of success. Just three years ago, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Renewable Fuels Standard, which pumped another 7.5 million gallons of the corn-based biofuel into the nation’s fuel supply. Thanks to the legislation, demand for ethanol soared.…
It’s no Secret. These guys can act!
Untitled Document This year has already brought exciting theater offerings — including the Springfield Theatre Centre’s Dreamgirls, which warmed things up during two bitterly cold weekends — to the capital city, and more is on the way, beginning with Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, which opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1.…
Bacon and eggs for dinner
Untitled Document Hello, my name is Kim and I’m a bacon-holic. For a cook who prides herself on mindful moderation, this is a difficult culinary confession. No other comestible tickles my sensory neurons quite like smoked pork belly. All it takes is one little lardon and I’m doing a jig, high as a kite. The…
Tearing down walls to build Springfield
Untitled Document At a breakfast meeting with about 100 business leaders at the University of Illinois at Springfield last week the Springfield Chamber of Commerce gave its inaugural annual report on the big initiative it calls the Quantum Growth Partnership. The purpose was not only to report to the public and be accountable to the…
Subsidizing manure lagoons
Untitled Document Old MacDonald Inc. has a farm, and e-i-e-i-o, it stinks and it pollutes! Congress is about to pass a humongous farm bill, and there has been wide coverage of the fact that the bulk of crop subsidies provided by the bill go to very large agribusiness operations — with 60 percent of family…
Last chance for Mardi Gras
Untitled Document I know, I know — it still seems too early for Mardi Gras, but we’ve been through this all before. Keep thinking that way and you’ll miss the big shindig entirely. The ultimate way to do the Mardi Gras thing is always to get your wild self on down to the French Quarter…
Every litter bit
Untitled Document What is the impact of all the littering that individuals do, largely from their cars and on highways? How can we strengthen laws to prevent it? Environmentalists consider litter a nasty side effect of our convenience-oriented disposable culture. Just to highlight the scope of the problem: California alone spends $28 million a year…
Vacation at home
Untitled Document We’ve just taken a vacation that’s become a midwinter tradition. We had a wonderful time, and afterward, as always, we were refreshed, relaxed, and reinvigorated, not least because we had no fatigue from a long car trip, worries about bad weather, road conditions, or flight delays. In fact, we never even left our…
Licensed to chill
Untitled Document Dan Mills, the former Sangamon County prosecutor caught up in the notorious “cocaine ring” scandal that obsessed the Springfield justice community for much of 2006, may lose his law license for two years. The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission last week recommended that the Illinois Supreme Court suspend Mills’ license for two…
Cap City
Untitled Document MENACE II SOCIETY Osama bin Laden might still be on the lam, but at least the feds finally have Diane Lopez Hughes in custody! On Monday a federal judge sentenced Hughes to 45 days in prison and assessed a $500 fine. In November, Hughes and 10 others — three of whom are Illinois natives…
New low in taste, new high in carnage
Untitled Document There are many perks to being a film critic, and one of them is the built-in excuse for seeing certain movies that you couldn’t normally justify wasting your time on. I was able to tell my wife that I had to see Rambo over the weekend, something that the powers that be at Lionsgate…
Hard look
Untitled Document Undeterred by this month’s hiring freeze veto, Republican aldermen continue to keep employee head count and salaries at the forefront of the city budget discussion. They’re taking an especially hard look at one document that names all of the people hired by the city of Springfield from October 2007 through January 2008. More…
People’s poetry
Untitled Document grandchildpoem #6 “surprise grandma don’t look!”wyatt — five — leaps forward, a red blue black spider-man girdled with a heavy leatherlineman’s belt its pockets crammed.“the ax is for chopping down trees andcutting people apart the dagger’s to throwwhen people are going downstairs thesword’s to fight with — my batman mask? its eyes…
Remembrance
Untitled Document There’s nothing particularly inviting about the term “solemn assembly.” There’s nothing appealing about the notion of re-examining the most painful part of Springfield’s past — the 1908 race riot in which two black men were lynched, at least five other citizens accidentally killed, and scores of black-owned homes and businesses destroyed. Furthermore, the…
Get it done
Untitled Document Is a national recession likely? I have no idea. Economists don’t seem to know for sure. Nobody really does. But it has been interesting to watch Washington, D.C., react to the potential of a recession. Usually I’m with those who say that Washington is broken. For years, the Republican-led Congress abdicated its role…
