Governor Sunshine
Want a simple answer to a simple question? File a Freedom of Information Act request. That was the word from Gov. Bruce Rauner’s staff when Illinois Times today asked for a copy of the contract between the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and University of Illinois Springfield that allowed for employees of the Papers of Abraham…
Everything old is new again, Part 2
This caught my eye the other day. ““The conspirators against our liberties who have been admitted from abroad through the liberality of our institutions, are now organized in every part of the country.” Another well-known author on the same topic, I learned, believed that these conspirators religious doctrines demanded compliance, with the result that they…
Gerwig and Kirke discuss the merits of America
Greta Gerwig as Brooke and Lola Kirke as Tracy in Mistress America. PHOTO COURTESY FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES The moniker “Darling of American Independent film” may seem a bit facile, but it’s a title actress Greta Gerwig wears proudly. To be sure, she has more than enough credits to back this up as she’s appeared in…
Ride on
I am on a Bruce Rauner fast, during which I have foresworn insulting our new governor. So I will instead refer you to Guardian columnist Jeb Lund’s recent appreciation of Mr. Rauner’s role model, “When you’re as bad at campaigns as Scott Walker, you should just give up.” Referring to the Wisconsinan’s faltering Presidential campaign,…
Rauner goes after Lincoln papers
Gov. Bruce Rauner is reportedly shutting down the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project, which aims to digitize every piece of paper that touched the hands of the Great Emancipator. A spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency that administers the program denied that the papers project has been shut down and said that money remains…
Getting a lot right
Solar panels were installed in 2012 at the parking lot of Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California. The state schools are turning to solar in hopes of saving billions state-wide on energy. PHOTO BY ANNE CUSACK/TNS Me and parking lots, we go back a long way. I’ve written at least seven columns over the…
CEOs favor wage increases for workers
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Peter Georgescu has a message he wants America’s corporate and political elites to hear: “I’m scared,” he said in a recent New York Times opinion piece. He adds that Paul Tudor Jones is scared, too, as is Ken Langone. And they are trying to get the Powers That…
A grim outlook
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS The state fiscal crisis is only going to get worse, and the solution is becoming more difficult by the day. As you probably know, the General Assembly and the governor have not yet agreed on a full state budget. But because of various federal judicial orders, a signed education funding bill…
Letters to the Editor 9/3/15
Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed cutting vital social services while paying a consultant to slash the budget and firing a longtime administrator who spoke critically of the cuts. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE THE TELLTALE HEADLINESThis week we saw two headlines that, sadly, sum up exactly how Bruce Rauner operates, and what he has in store…
Editor’s note 9/3/15
When Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed Medicaid funding for heroin addiction treatment, he kept Illinois in the dark ages while many other states are seeing the light. Roosevelt University released a study recently showing that Illinois’ addiction treatment capacity fell from 28th in the nation five years ago to third worst. Illinois is one of the…
Cuba, the country that time left alone
Since 2002 I have had the privilege of visiting Cuba three times, once with the Illinois Council of Churches, once with the Presbyterian Mission and once with the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield. Cuba is an intriguing country, having a hate-love relationship with the USA. After the revolution in 1959, Cuba nationalized the land holdings…
Stumped by leaves?
Has a leaf-collection project stumped your family this season? If so, don’t miss out on the two Leaf Identification Hikes hosted by Lincoln Memorial Gardens the first two Sundays in September from 1:30-3p.m. Spend an afternoon in the beautiful, 100-acre outdoor paradise designed by internationally recognized landscape architect Jens Jensen during a naturalist-led hike to…
Three evenings of culture, learning
PHOTO COURTESY HTTP://JACKSONVILLEIL.ORG/PRAIRIELAND-CHAUTAUQUA/ Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt once referred to the Chautauqua, the adult education movement made popular in the 19th and 20th centuries, as, “The most American thing in America.” Chautauqua festivals included musical shows, storytellers, communal suppers and evenings with reenactors representing famous Americans. Modeled after a traditional Chautauqua, the 17th Annual…
Reflecting on racial climate
PHOTO BY CURTIS COMPTON/TNS The Fall 2015 ECCE Speaker Series begins Tuesday at 6 p.m. with a panel discussion examining the historical, social and political lineage nurturing the racial climate that resulted in the June 17 Charleston shooting and the rise of racially charged aggression on college campuses and in the workplace. The panel features…
Wait lifting
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’m a 37-year-old woman. I’ve always been quick to have sex, but I’m trying to just “date” first. Well, I’ve been on five dates with this one guy, and all we’ve done is kiss. Now I’m beginning to think that he isn’t attracted to me or is put off…
Balancing school books
Diamond Jackson, the student member of the Springfield school board. Photo by Patrick Yeagle. It’s only the fourth day of the school year in Springfield Public School District 186, but already Teresa Holton has her AP literature and composition students at Southeast High School reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a challenging book in many ways.…
Wide Spectrum
Tramp art radio cabinet. PHOTO COURTESY ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM I always learn something when I visit the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. Walking through the new exhibit, “Spectrum: Selections from Fine and Decorative Arts,” I learned about the phenomenon of Tramp Art. In this show is a six-foot-tall cabinet carved out of wooden cigar boxes…
Early prisoner release saved Illinois $11 million since 2013
Illinois’ early prisoner release program saved the state more than $11 million in the past two years, according to data from the Illinois Department of Corrections. These savings come as a state panel works to reduce Illinois’ prison costs by reforming the correctional system. During the state’s 2015 fiscal year, which ended on June 30,…
Win for the defense
Mark Willett An appellate court has overturned the conviction of a Springfield man who was sentenced to 16 years after being convicted of battery to his infant daughter. In reversing the 2012 conviction of Mark Willett, the Fourth District Appellate Court found that Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Pete Cavanagh allowed prosecutors to use an…
HOME AT LAST
Access 4 Christian Producers president Alyce Lyle (left) and treasurer Ricky R. Smith (right) outside their new production space at 1408 Loveland Ave. in Springfield. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE It’s been a long road for the Access 4 Christian Producers, but they’ve finally reached home. As the name suggests, A4CP is a group of Christian…
America delusional in its intent
Greta Gerwig as Brooke and Lola Kirke as Tracy in Mistress America. PHOTO COURTESY FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES Eventually, we all come to realize that people aren’t always as they seem; it just takes some longer than others to learn this lesson. Take Tracy (Lola Kirke), for example. She’s just come to New York City to…
Music labors
Skibbereen plays the Old Capitol Farmers Market on Saturday morning at Fourth and Adams. As we roll into the end-of-summertime weekend anchored by Labor Day on Monday, this seems like a good spot to reflect on an eventful summer of great music and incredible events. Sorry, though, we just don’t have time to look back,…
Alter Ego
Band members Dave Boedecker (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Keith Dunlap (guitars, lead cowbell, vocals), Tony Grissom (drums, vocals) and Tony (A.J.) Tarro (bass, keyboards, vocals) bring a boatload of talent and experience to the stage with plenty of time spent in groups like the Itchy Pickles, Sleepwalker, Familiar Stranger, Hoosier Daddies and Sandbox 101. With that…
The can man
CARTOON BY CHRIS BRITT
Midweek meals
PHOTO BY BILL HOGAN/TNS “I know you’re not an elitist,” my husband, Peter, said. “But do you ever worry that you come across that way to readers?” Peter’s question arose from a conversation he’d had with one of his dental patients. This working mother of young children said she read my columns every week and…
river trip poem #4
my daughter put three pix on facebookone for each day the first: two baldeagles maybe ignoring us from a deadtree behind the willows of the sandbarwe retreated to our tents at dusk whenmosquitoes arrived the birds were goneat dawn the second: the rainbow aftera storm that sent us scrambling fromcanoes onto a sandbar a curve…
