Chief conversation
The primary is over. Head out March 2 to the first Mayoral Candidates Forum in Lincoln Library’s Carnegie Room hosted by the Faith Coalition for the Common Good. This is another important conversation between the four contenders left who will vie for Springfield’s top post in April. Be informed. Make the right decision about who…
Changing the world one dinner at a time
Marsha Wallace of Greenville, S.C., started the group Dining for Women in 2003 after reading about a group of friends who met for potluck dinners and collected money for needy families. Wallace liked the idea of using the money they would have spent if they had eaten at a restaurant, and founded DFW on the…
Noble humanitarian
A guy who’s climbed mountains literally and figuratively to improve the world, and on top of that carries unbelievably interesting tales about how he got there and what he’s gone through, is humanitarian and New York Times bestselling author Greg Mortenson. He speaks at Sangamon Auditorium March 3. Don’t miss it — one such story…
Springfield Picassos
What makes this month-long installment of three artists impressive is the individual power of each artist’s work and the combination of their unique presentations — each, to use a musical metaphor, sung in a different key. Springfield’s illustrious canvas-sage, Felicia Olin’s pieces are stunning as always, situated on the beautiful sides between haunting and whimsical.…
HOME HELP
Experts are saying the economy is recovering, but for homeowners struggling to pay the mortgage, recovery can seem ever more distant. Fortunately, a program spearheaded by Gov. Pat Quinn is offering help to prevent foreclosure. The Mortgage Relief Project is coming to Springfield on Feb. 26, bringing together homeowners and lenders to rework mortgages. The…
joggerspath poem #1
I thought I knew the way fromsheridan to lake shore driveup there by chicago’s icy edgebut somehow found myselfdriving beside the lake ona sweet snowy paved roadno wider than my honda scant room for scatteredrunners my GPS wasn’t onit would have had the autofloating in air the patient voicerecalculating . . .recalculating . . .though…
Bruschetta, the right way
One of the most interesting things in the five years since I began writing this column has been readers’ responses. I’ve learned a lot from them and, hopefully, that’s been a two-way street as I’ve responded to inquiries. Apart from individual comments, though, it’s been intriguing to see which columns and topics generate the most…
Setting the facts straight about pensions
The media continue to publish inaccurate statements about the pension systems in Illinois. I would like to set the record straight. What is TRS? The Teachers’ Retirement System – established in 1939 by the state to protect retirement security of Illinois educators. Why is there a problem with the pension funding?Studies, task forces, etc., have…
Ethics, health care, guns and Congress critters
This new Republican-run House of Representatives is looking a lot like the old ethics-be-damned House run just a few years ago by the convicted money-launderer, Tom DeLay – only more so. Back when DeLay was the GOP’s corrupt majority leader, he got caught hustling campaign funds from an energy corporation whose legislation he then helped…
Letters to the Editor 02/24/11
CRASH CORNERSpringfield’s intersection of Lawrence Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard is considered a dangerous place. Known as the “high accident intersection,” everyone in town seems to know it well. My husband and I have worked our business here within earshot of it for nearly four years now. And just when we think the traffic accidents are…
Quinn calls for cuts to social services
Gov. Pat Quinn wants to borrow billions of dollars to pay the state’s backlogged bills, but social service providers could still face cuts. Illinois owes billions in overdue payments to mental health clinics, long-term care facilities and numerous other service providers statewide. In his Feb. 17 budget address, Quinn proposed borrowing $8.75 billion to pay…
Budget politics: What was Quinn thinking?
Child care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state’s child care services budget after speaking with top officials in Gov. Pat Quinn’s office earlier this month. And the governor’s budget office then told a Senate appropriations committee that no such cuts were being planned. But when the governor unveiled…
A few friendly folks
This past weekend I spent a whirlwind couple of days in Memphis, Tenn., at the Folk Alliance International music conference. This is my fourth consecutive year of attending and my sixth conference overall and number 23 for the organization once known as the International Folk and Dance Alliance. Several years ago the group dropped the…
Lemon shrimp bruschetta
Don’t let this list limit you. All of the above ingredients will make a fine Italian bruschetta, but you don’t have to stop there. How about an American version with grilled fresh corn kernels, chopped red peppers, sweet onions, ham, and cheddar? Or a dessert bruschetta spread with goat cheese or cream cheese, grilled fresh…
When Valentine’s Day gangsters cooled off in Springfield. Or not.
Eighty-two years ago, Chicago mobsters were lying low in Springfield, escaping fallout from the brutal St. Valentine’s Day massacre gang slaying in their hometown. Or maybe they weren’t. It depends on whom you believe. On Feb. 14, 1929, four men, some dressed as Chicago cops, stormed a north side garage near Lincoln Park which was…
‘A neat and appropriate address’
When I lived on the east side in the 1980s, I often walked past the building now called the Lincoln Depot on my way to and from downtown. Many’s the time I found myself having to wait while a freight train ambled down the track, and to kill time in that pre-Kindle age I read…
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL
The young folks at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School in Springfield take theater seriously. They’ve won Illinois Times’ Best of Springfield reader poll three years running in the “Best High School Production” category, and they’re at it again this year. Anything Goes, a 1934 comedic musical by famed composer and songwriter Cole Porter, takes place on…
Advocates: ‘Don’t prosecute teens for consensual sex’
If Romeo were alive today, he would be a sex offender. That’s the situation with Illinois sex offender laws, say reformers calling for changes to laws they say unfairly stigmatize low-risk teenage offenders. Illinois law criminalizes so-called “Romeo and Juliet” relationships, in which two consenting teens have sexual contact but one is under the age…
Civil rights office asks UIS to evaluate Title IX compliance
After a former faculty member at University of Illinois Springfield issued a formal complaint to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights that the university was violating federal law, UIS has come to an agreement with the Office for Civil Rights to settle the matter. Derek Schnapp, public relations director at UIS, told…
School turnaround
When Springfield Art Association director Betsy Dollar moved to town a little over a year ago, she learned early on of the poor reputation of McClernand Elementary School, the building at North Sixth Street and Enos Avenue directly across the street from her organization’s headquarters. Ninety-four percent of the school’s students are considered low-income, about…
Frank Trompeter Quintet
Long a staple on the Springfield music scene, Frank Trompeter continues his marvelous musical march accompanied by a mass of musicians and a bevy of bands. The configuration of the current combo features Trompeter (saxophones, vocals, percussion, sax synthesizer), Chris Miller (piano, organ), Chris Warren (bass), Dion Doss (drums) and A.J. Good (trumpet, flugelhorn). The…
Water under the bridge
A bridge, by any other name, is still a bridge. Nowhere does a definition of the word offer up the structure as a house or a liveable shelter. But after two years of bickering with bureaucracy, New Berlin developer David Barnett no longer has to pay taxes to the county on his bridge as though…
Neeson muscles Unknown to success
It’s odd how one film can change the trajectory of an actor’s career. Since scoring a major international hit with 2008’s Taken, Liam Neeson has become an everyman action star. In the tradition of Harrison Ford and Cary Grant in Hitchcock mode, the actor has effortlessly taken on the role of the ordinary fella who…
Number Four is familiar fun
There’s as much marketing involved in the making of movies today as there is art, often more. This is the case with I Am Number Four, which sports a story that’s a second cousin to Twilight with a heaping helping of the Superman myth thrown in for good measure. Pitched directly at the teen set,…
