I am among those dismayed by the outcome of the November elections – not because people I disagree with elected the next President of the United States, but because they didn’t. Voters were asked to choose from among four candidates, and the one who was awarded the most votes was Hillary Clinton, the pride of […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Rural clout
Rural America, even as it laments its economic weakness, retains vastly disproportionate electoral strength. Rural voters were able to nudge Donald J. Trump to power despite Hillary Clinton’s large margins in cities like New York. In a House of Representatives that structurally disadvantages Democrats because of their tight urban clustering, rural voters helped Republicans hold […]
Posted inOpinion
“People, not Pontiacs,” uncut
For readers with a taste for the archival. Here is the full version of my column abut the Y block in downtown Springfield, an abridged version of which we ran on Nov. 10, The original that follows appeared in my Prejudices series in the IT of Oct. 8, 1981. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to cheer […]
Posted inOpinion
As the crow is bent
Some say that names are destiny. Surely jurist Learned Hand was doomed at his christening to take up the law, just as John Wisdom took up philosophy or Brandon Belt picked up a baseball bat. I am indebted to New Scientist magazine for what I know about “nominative determinism,” a spoof discipline that purports to […]
Posted inOpinion
Boomer bust
Note to baby boomers: Now’s your chance to relive the ’60s for real — only now Bull Connor is in the White House.
Posted inOpinion
People, not Pontiacs!
Ever know a kid who never quite grew up because her parents wouldn’t let her? The Y block in downtown Springfield is a lot like that. I described the partial clearing of that parcel in 1978. (See “A shooting,” Dec. 30, 2015.) I returned to the topic of its unrealized promise in 1981 in “People, […]
Posted inOpinion
Rigged
Turns out the election was rigged, after all. Voters were asked to chose from among four candidates, and the one who was awarded the most votes was – Illinoisan Hillary Clinton. She lost, however, in the only tally that counts, the Electoral College. The college was set up by the Founders as a political hedge. […]
Posted inOpinion
Of the women, for the women and by the women
I just voted a few minutes ago, with pleasure and relief. Just visible n spite of the smoke and mirrors was the fact that this was an election of the women, for the women and by the women. I fully expect by end of day that they will have saved the country, and finally realized […]
Posted inOpinion
Women’s place
Some further observation on, and from, Women, Work, and Worship in Lincoln’s Country: The Dumville Family Letters from the University of Illinois Press, which I review this week in “Old letters.” The book’s editors, Anne M. Heinz and John P. Heinz, offer the letters as lessons in American social, political, and cultural history, as essays […]
Posted inOpinion
Lucky charm
In 2002 I moved to the Chicago area and became a White Sox fan; they won the World Series in 2005. In 2010 I moved to the Bay Area and started following the Giants; they won baseball’s top prize that year and again in 2012 and 2014. I moved back to the Chicago area in […]
Posted inOpinion
Old letters
Hepzibah was a young woman of a sort we’ve all known – smart, full of gumption and eager for a little bit more from life than life was prepared to give her. “It does seem to me that any one who thinks me either pritty or remarkably inteligent must err greatly. I often complain of […]
Posted inOpinion
Keeping what’s ours
All that banging and buzzing you might have heard coming from the Springfield city council chambers in September was the council and mayor building a wall along the city’s border with Sangamon County and the world beyond. That’s when alderpersons approved an ordinance requiring that contractors make good-faith efforts to ensure that Springfield residents work […]
