What would Col. Sanders do?
Chick-fil-A may be roosting at University of Illinois Springfield, and not everyone is happy with the prospect. “Have we been in contact with them?” says Derek Schnapp, UIS spokesman. “We have been. We’re basically at the discussion stage with our campus community.” Whether Chick-fil-A will return to Springfield since leaving the city in the 1990s…
Fresh perspective makes for a bright Mirror
Well, you could have knocked me over with a poisoned apple. In promoting this year’s first entry in the Snow White movie duel, Mirror, Mirror, Relativity Media is focusing on all of the wrong elements. As shown in the film’s trailers, the movie appears to be a cheaply done production that was shot on bland…
Faith, hope and statuary
The vandalism being perpetrated in Washington, D.C., it turns out, is not confined to the nation’s finances. Perhaps you read of the House subcommittee that met in March to hear arguments against the design of a proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial near the National Mall. The design is the work of architect Frank Gehry, who…
Literary eats
It’s free to enter and free to sample the entries. Lincoln Land Community College Library invites you to participate in its Edible Book Festival. Create your best book or book-related item out of food. Use your imagination and make a cake or sandwich or sushi or cheese display and give it a fitting name, such…
A ferry for the mentally ill
I could not sleep last night for quite awhile, thinking about her. Limping carefully, the young woman in the faded blue scrubs and hooded sweat shirt put one sock-covered foot in front of the other, from the hospital room doorway to the wheelchair in the hall. It was as if she were crossing a bed…
Jeff finds meaning in the mundane
Jeff is relatively harmless. Most slackers are. He spends most of his time smoking dope in his mother’s basement, where he lives, or watching the movie Signs. Yeah, he watches that a lot but there’s a good reason for this. See, he thinks that real life is much like that film, that small clues that…
Study: Consolidate education offices
The Streamlining Illinois’ Regional Offices of Education Commission recommended last week that the number of regional offices of education be dropped from 44 to 35. State lawmakers created the commission last fall to find ways to provide educational services more efficiently and effectively. Bob Daiber, president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of…
Impressionistic colorings
Watercolor exhibit “Around Each Corner – Expressions in Color,” by Illinois artist Bret Steinhaus opened at Robert Morris Gallery this week. Friday, April 6, 5-7 p.m. is the opening reception. Steinhaus will be in attendance. The artist’s watercolors capture the ambiance, vistas and details of cityscapes, landscapes and portraits. He has evolved from a realist…
Bills would require ID to vote
Illinois is one of at least 24 states considering controversial voter identification measures. Proponents say ID%u2008requirements would prevent vote fraud while critics say they amount to discrimination. An Illinois Senate subcommittee held two such bills in committee on March 22, keeping them from reaching the full Senate, with votes falling along party lines. Both bills…
Senate votes to widen ban on private prisons
Illinois could soon have a new privately run jail. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants a new privately run detention center in Crete, just south of Chicago, to house people who have immigrated to the U.S. illegally, and the Illinois Senate passed a bill last week to stop it. Illinois currently has a law against privately run…
Springfield filmmaker champions social issues
Springfield filmmaker Kimberly Conner says there are many advantages to filming movies in Springfield. “Springfield is an excellent place to make films because you don’t have a lot of the obstacles that you have to deal with in larger cities like New York and Chicago,” Conner said. “Sponsors and businesses are more likely to work…
Illinois’ first black legislator
From Slave to State Legislator: John W.E. Thomas, Illinois’ First African American Lawmaker, by David A. Joens. Southern Illinois University Press, 2012. 288 pages, $34.95. In 1877, Illinois became the first state in the Midwest and only the second state in the north to send a black man to its state legislature. That man, John…
Entrees for your Passover Seder
“Why is this night different from all other nights?” asks the youngest child at the elaborately set dinner table as dusk darkens the sky outside. So begins the first night of the most widely observed and important events on the Jewish calendar, Passover. Passover lasts for seven days. As with Easter, the exact date varies…
waking thoughts poem
waking thoughts poem This poem was recently emailedto Illinois Times anonymously.I gained the sender’s OK to printit. I only altered it to fit the formI use in this space, and took theliberty to change a few words.–Jackie Jackson eight days to go till paydayeight days to go till paydaynegative $121 in checkingeight days to go…
Letters to the Editor 4/5/12
NOT A BRITT FAN Just recently I started to again read your weekly newspaper, which I have never been a fan of, and then here you go again, you hire another SJ-R reject, Chris Britt. Then Britt starts placing garbage drawings in your paper that are meant to do no more than attempt to incite…
A museum divided
On paper, the story isn’t pretty. Just seven years old, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is on its third executive director. Attendance is down and money is tight. The institution is not accredited, and American Association of Museums in 2010 found shortcomings ranging from an inadequate disaster preparedness plan to a governance structure…
Bialystok Tsimmes
Radwine’s tsimmes is another classic Jewish dish – one he’s adapted from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America.” Tsimmes is a Yiddish word meaning fuss and comes from the German “zum essen,” to eat. Because it takes time to make tsimmes, the word came to mean making a big deal over something. While some ingredients…
Jesse White reflects on the mess he made
I’ve been pretty rough on Secretary of State Jesse White lately. I have no regrets about it, and I believe I had good reason to put the onus on him to correct his mistake of appointing state Rep. Derrick Smith to the Illinois House last year. Smith, of course, was arrested earlier this month on…
Ben Samples aka SAMPLES
Killinoize Productions of Springfield and Subsequent Vibes of Bloomington began a music series at Bar None several months ago and the success of the venture points to the growing popularity of electronic dance music in the capital city. The DJs, or more aptly, correctly and popularly called producers, mix on the fly, making impromptu live…
Author and activist honored as ‘Defender of the Innocent’
Scott Turow is one of the foremost courtroom fiction writers in America. Millions have read his books or viewed adaptations of his works. But Turow does more than write about fictional courtrooms. He uses his literary pulpit to speak out on important contemporary legal issues. Turow has written a short nonfiction book, Ultimate Punishment: A…
You lite up my life
This man I’ve been dating didn’t want anything serious. I don’t either. I explained that I just wanted to hang out and have fun. We were going out several times a week, sleeping together at least once a week. Suddenly, he freaked, worrying I’d get attached. I reinforced that I absolutely don’t want anything serious,…
Harrelson can’t save rambling Rampart
After Oren Moverman’s Rampart was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, its star, Woody Harrelson, was critical of the movie, saying it was not what he had envisioned when he read the script and that he was dissatisfied with the way it had been put together. For the sake of the film’s…
Carol Kitterman’s beef brisket
Kitterman’s beef brisket originated in an unlikely place: Fargo, N,D., where she and her husband, Jay, worked briefly after their marriage. “We had this brisket at a friend’s, and it was the best I’d ever tasted,” she says. “But I’m always tinkering with recipes, never” following them exactly, so it’s been modified. When Kitterman isn’t…
April-ling along
Now that all the May flowers came out in March, those April showers may have to find something else to do. Regardless of the weirdly warm weather, the music marches on as we see some new venues opening up and interesting music adventures popping up all over town. Join me in a salute to Salute…
Too many laws?
Does Illinois have too many laws? Some state lawmakers think so, and they’re moving ahead with legislation to create a special state board to repeal laws. Senate Bill 3681, sponsored by Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, creates the Board of Legislative Repealers, which would be tasked with determining whether any of Illinois’ many thousands of statutes…
The truth about the U.S. Postal Service
What does 50 cents buy these days? Not a cuppa joe, a pack of gum or a newspaper. But you can get a steal of deal for a 50-cent piece: a first-class stamp. Plus a nickel in change. Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563…
Coming down
The owner of MacArthur Park apartments on MacArthur Boulevard near Jerome will tear down one four-plex at the troubled complex that’s been a target of city building inspectors. Inspectors today found 19 violations at six of the seven four-plexes placarded in August. Two of the buildings placarded last summer have been issued occupancy permits, said…
Premiere weekend
The Route 66 Drive-In opens for the season this weekend with four shows playing on both Friday, April 6, and Saturday, April 7. Hunger Games (PG 13) and The Lorax (PG) show at 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. respectively. Safe House (R) and Big Miracle (PG) start at 10:40 p.m. and 9:55 p.m. See more…
