Fool me once . . . .
There’s a sucker born every minute, they say, which might explain why state legislatures and city councils count so many of them among their members. As I noted here and here, spending the public’s good money to entice large corporations to do business in one’s home state or city is folly. From a recent report…
Been There, Done That with “Morgan”
The antecedents to Luke Scott’s “Morgan” are many – Frankenstein, A.I., Lucy, Ex Machina – so much so that we should simply regard this movie as yet another variation on the artificial life vs. human beings theme. Truth be told, there’s little new at play here and this latest entry suffers from being released in such close proximity…
Conviction Propels “Oceans”
Where The Light Between Oceans is concerned, you have to give director Derek Cianfrance and his cast credit – they’re fully committed to making the audience weep and will go to any length to make this happen. Unabashedly romantic, this adaptation of the novel by M.L. Stedman ticks off every element on the list of…
Criminal probe in fatal state police accident
The Illinois State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s office expects to investigate a fatal collision between a Decatur woman and an Illinois State Police master sergeant who was traveling 108 mph in the seconds leading up to the wreck. Kelly Wilson, 26, died hours after the May 7 accident. On Wednesday, her parents filed a $10 million…
Former inmate collects from state
Inmate Quentin Robinson, shown here, is accused of raping James Fontano. James Fontano, a former inmate who served less than a year for a drug offense, will collect $450,000 from taxpayers to settle his lawsuit filed after he was disciplined for reporting that he had been repeatedly raped by a cellmate at Logan Correctional Center.…
Beautiful “Kubo” Speaks to All Ages
Poignantly told and beautifully rendered, Travis Knight’s Kubo and the Two Strings may be the most striking film in a landmark year for movie animation. Containing elements from Japanese folklore, the screenplay by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler is modeled after the classic hero’s journey as it chronicles a damaged boy’s efforts to reclaim a…
Well-Written “Southside” a Compelling Love Story
Surprisingly engaging, Richard Tanne’s Southside with You recounts the fateful first date between Barack Obama and his future wife Michelle Robinson, which occurred on one very long afternoon and evening in 1989. On the surface, this would seem a project with limited appeal, and surely a very narrow audience. However, one of the film’s surprises…
Refined, delicate and urban
The Centennial Building, now known as the Howlett Building, will be 100 years old in 2018, the bicentennail of Illinois becoming a state. PHOTO BY DAVID HINE Last week, in “Getting it right this time,” I proposed that the State of Illinois commemorate the bicentennial of its founding in 1818 not with celebration but with…
Why can’t our economy promote equality?
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Instead of griping about the greedheads of Wall Street and the rip-off financial system they’ve hung around our necks – why don’t we “Take On Wall Street”? You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what. For example, if tiny groups of Wall Street bankers,…
Tougher penalties for gun crimes
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Gov. Rauner said last week that he has never spoken with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel or any legislators about a much-anticipated proposal to toughen penalties for gun crimes. “I’ve not discussed that issue with the mayor myself,” he said, adding, “Frankly, I’m talking with legislators all the time. They have not…
Letters to the Editor 9/1/16
There is currently no public access to much of the 7,000-plus acres the city has purchased for a second lake. PHOTO BY METRO CREATIVE CONNECTION Open up lake landThe city began land acquisition for Hunter Lake in 1965. As of August, 2015 when Mayor Langfelder and IDNR Director Rosenthal signed the Memorandum of Cooperation…
Editor’s note 9/1/16
In a political climate with intolerance as a theme, the goodheartedness that shows up in Springfield is remarkable. Last Thursday evening the big sanctuary at Westminster Presbyterian Church was nearly filled when more than 400 Christians and Jews and the curious of all stripes came out to hear Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine [see “Levine and…
Message to students as school starts
Nancy Flood wrote this article 35 years ago when she was a young teacher in Springfield School District 186. She says if she were teaching today she’d want to say the same thing. Dear students,I’ve been welcoming you to my class for 13 years now and somehow the beginning of a new school year never…
Ale have another
Clams and cold ones. Bivalves and brews. Mollusks and mead. No matter how you say it, the Springfield Oyster and Beer Festival sounds like heaven. Now in its seventh year, this charity event features fresh oysters served in a variety of ways, alongside more than 100 craft beers from around the nation. There’s live music,…
Cutting crime with cool cars
It’s not often you get to help improve public safety by going to a party and looking at amazing cars, but that’s the idea behind the Crime Stoppers Hangar Party on Sept. 4. Crime Stoppers of Sangamon and Mendard Counties is a nonprofit focusing on partnerships between law enforcement and the public to solve and…
Rolling along
If you’ve ever been curious about roller derby, here’s your chance to check it out. MidState Mayhem Roller Derby holds a training program every Tuesday evening for newbies – a.k.a “fresh meat” – to try out this fast-paced sport. It’s open to men and women ages 18 and up, including all sizes and abilities, with…
Duck Face the Nation
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’m a woman in my late 20s. Guys don’t have car crashes looking at me, but I am pretty and have a nice boyfriend. I have three drop-dead gorgeous girlfriends who are perpetually single, but not by choice. I realized that they all do two things: complain that things…
A budding industry
Marijuana seedlings grow beneath lights at Revolution Cannabis, a cultivation center in Illinois’ medical cannabis pilot program. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE See more photos in the slideshow at bottom. Aside from the barbed wire perimeter, you’d never know from its appearance that this low, gray warehouse on a rural road lined with soybeans is anything…
Can Springfield elect a Democrat to the House?
Left: Tony DelGiorno, Democrat. Right: Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, Republican Tony DelGiorno, the sole Democrat to defeat a Republican for a seat on the Sangamon County board in 2012, is hoping history will repeat itself this fall as he faces Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez in the 99th House district. No Democrat has held the seat…
Levine and the divine
Amy-Jill Levine is Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. If religion were based on logic, it would be Sudoku. “In Sudoku, everybody can get the same answer if you’re patient enough, if you’re smart enough and if you have an eraser,” said Amy-Jill Levine, a celebrated Jewish scholar who…
Health insurance rates increase on public exchange
The Illinois Department of Insurance released premium rates last week from the six insurers on the public health insurance exchange, revealing that many plans will probably cost significantly more in 2017. For some people, however, the increased cost may be offset by a federal subsidy. The federal Affordable Care Act of 2010 – nicknamed “Obamacare”…
Lawyers eye bench opening
PHOTO BU ISTOCKPHOTO.COM Candidates for a seat on the Seventh Circuit Court in Springfield have at least one thing in common. Both Rick Verticchio of Carlinville, a Democrat, and Ryan Cadagin of Springfield, a Republican, are sons of judges who also served as state’s attorneys. Verticchio’s father, the late Paul Verticchio, was a Sangamon County…
NOT SO FAST
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John “Mo” Madonia is giving the parties a chance to figure things out for themselves in the Wyndham Hotel foreclosure case. With a loan servicing company playing a lead role, lenders foreclosed earlier this year even though the hotel’s owners were current with all payments on a $17.3 million mortgage…
ANTI-RACISM AWARD
They certainly didn’t do it for the recognition, but the Dominican Sisters of Springfield recently won a national award recognizing their anti-racism efforts. Illinois Times profiled the Sisters’ program last year. (See “Rooting out systemic racism,” Jan. 15, 2015.) LeadingAge, which represents nonprofits serving aging populations, announced last week that the Dominican Sisters at Sacred…
High Water targets corporate greed
Chris Pine as Toby and Ben Foster as Tanner in Hell or High Water. PHOTO COURTESY CBS FILMS On the surface, the appeal of David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water appears to be that it’s a revisionist western – far too few of these are being made – and features a performance from Jeff Bridges,…
September songs
Friction Farm performs a concert concerning books at Lincoln Library on Thursday, Sept. 1, 7 to 9 p.m. Our 2016 summer is nearly over as the Labor Day weekend comes to pass, bringing plenty of live music and more to come into the fall. Many of you may have heard by now that the venerable…
The Junior Varsity
From 2002-07, The Junior Varsity (Asa Dawson of Griggsville, Andy Wildrick of Jacksonville, Sergio Coronado of Danville, Nick Dodson of Jacksonville and Chris Birch of Edwardsville) joined forces as a “rock band in the alternative/progressive/emo touring circuit” to make quite a splash in the music world. Based out of a communally shared house on Clear…
Culinary labors
Monterey chicken PHOTO BY ASHLEY MEYER Again it’s Labor Day, when, without a hint of irony, we celebrate our country’s workers by taking a day off from work. For most professionals, a day off is assumed to entail doing pretty much anything other than their job. To be sure, as much as we chefs love…
Chicago skyline 2016
CARTOON BY CHRIS BRITT
electronic devices poem #4
a teacher guy writes on the chat log:my cellphone is a very old modelat work I look on the deathly silenceand see an ocean of kids with theirearbuds headphones on their facesbathed in the harsh light from theirsmartphones, other mobile devicesoften I expect to see drool runningfrom the corners of their mouthsan electronic leash is…
