In “The burdens of office” I recalled my inglorious tenure as president of Springfield High School’s Interact (a combination of “international” and “action”) Club in the 1960s. Two or three things might be said. In the rush to make deadline, I left out something important. I wrote how membership in the club was supposed to […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Ill spent
In “Wasted,” I lamented the fact that the Illinois public has so little basis on which to judge the merit in that perennial complaint that our tax money is being wasted by grasping public employees, bumbling bureaucrats, and corrupt pols. I suspect that the very first letter to the very first editor of the very […]
Posted inOpinion
Churchly people
For those on the evangelical right who are dismayed that there is not enough God in the Donald Trump campaign, I offer this on the GOP convention from the always interesting Tyler Cowen: They are not saying what they are saying, in fact they are saying “the world is going to hell, and many of […]
Posted inOpinion
More name-calling
We learned on July 18 that the directors of the Prairie Capital Convention Center approved the sale of naming rights to the building to the Bank of Springfield for $150,000 per year for 10 years. The “facility” during that period will be known as — drum roll, please — the Bank of Springfield Center. The public […]
Posted inOpinion
The burdens of office
I know that my life makes you nervousBut I tell you that I can’t live in serviceLike the doctor born for a purpose— The Clash/”Rudie Can’t Fail” Critical though I feel obliged to be of their decisions, at one level I feel a deep empathy with Misters Madigan, Emanuel and Rauner. I too have known […]
Posted inOpinion
Wasted
Gov. Bruce Rauner PHOTO BY BRIAN CASSELLA/TNS An old rule of thumb among business owners holds that half of all the money they spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is no one knows which half. The question of waste in government spending is much easier for most taxpayers to answer: government “waste” is any […]
Posted inOpinion
Everybody join in
You know how some songs seem just right for the moment? Charles H. Chamberlain and Archibald Johnston’s isn’t. The state of Illinois made their “Illinois” the official state song in 1925, but it wasn’t right for that moment, harking as it did not to the Jazz Age but to the immediate post-Civil War era. As […]
Posted inOpinion
Naming right
A follow-up to a follow-up: I recently noted (see “Ask the kids“) that School District 186 has begun the process of devising a formal process for renaming district facilities. Is it a process that school boards lacked in the past, or gumption? In “A school by any other name” I complained about how it’s been done […]
Posted inOpinion
Ask the kids
I read today that the policy committee of School District 186 is considering adopting a formal process for the naming of district facilities after citizens deemed worth of the honor. You might well wish to forget it, but I addressed that issue in a 2011 column titled, “A school by any other name” in which I came […]
Posted inOpinion
Imaginary landscapes
Faithful reader Brent Hahn responded to my maunderings about natural beauty and politics, “The blossomy haw, remembered,” with this reminder that the sensible person who lives in a place bereft of scenery simply makes some up. I grew up in Springfield. and moved away, but lately I’ve been back a lot. And I’ve decided my […]
Posted inOpinion
At the corner of Someplace and Nowhere
Breaking the norm, Indian Hills subdivision street names recall the original residents of the place that is now Illinois. PHOTO BY DAVID HINE Attentive readers might have noticed my recent preoccupation with the problem of place – how people come to define a place as a “place” and what it means to the people who […]
Posted inOpinion
Distant echoes from the north
Our sister paper, Chicago’s Reader, has just published its annual Best of Chicago issue. In it are excellent pieces that echo topics recently taken up in this space. “The Thompson Center is Chicago’s endangered, postmodern Pantheon” by Deanna Isaacs outdoes my lament of April 9 for the old State of Illinois Building, which our current […]
