This week’s column is the 1,000th to appear under my name in this paper, and I’ve decided it’s time to take a break from weekly opinion-mongering. After so many essays, even I am getting tired of hearing myself talk. Besides, I have been working on what I believe will be a very interesting book about […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Springfield, reimagined
The Springfield city council has before it a draft of a new comprehensive city plan, City of Springfield Comprehensive Plan, “Forging a New Legacy,” intended to guide development in the capital city until 2037 or until a growing Chatham annexes it, whichever comes first. Compiled by the clever Santa’s elves at the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional […]
Posted inOpinion
In the crosshairs
Oh dear – the North Koreans are threatening the United States with a preemptive nuclear strike. In November, Kim Jong-un ordered a test launch of the Hwasong-15 missile, which has the potential to reach any spot in the U.S. The missile for the moment is incapable of delivering any warhead more lethal than a couple […]
Posted inOpinion
No mere bump on a log
The Illinois Bicentennial looms. In the Illinois that exists, the Rauner administration looks forward to beer parties and pantomime shows. In the Illinois of my daydreams, historians scribble away at biographies of the state’s best (not necessarily most famous) citizens. People like Springfieldian Logan Hay, for example. By the end of his life in 1942, […]
Posted inOpinion
Mencken sees the future
For no particular reason, and for every reason in the world, I thought I’d share with you something H. L. Mencken wrote almost a century that could have been–should have been — written yesterday. As democracy is perfected, the office [of the Presidency] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We […]
Posted inOpinion
The Hay house
I’m working on a column about the life of Springfield attorney and public citizen Logan Hay. Most of today’s Springfieldians who have heard of Logan Hay know him because his name was attached to his nobly proportioned house at South Grand Avenue. More imposing than graceful, the house was a bit of Monticello Hay had […]
Posted inOpinion
Grave matters
Cemeteries are not only places to park dead uncles while they await their maker. They also are, or were, parks, picnic grounds, trysting places, settings for patriotic rituals and party venues for teens happy to find one place where their elders didn’t shout at them to quiet down. But cemeteries also can be classrooms.Any person […]
Posted inOpinion
City of the dead
I’m writing about cemeteries this week. My focus is Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery, world-famous for being the final (one hopes) resting place of Lincoln and his family. But anyone who’s driven in the west suburbs of our great metropolis has probably come across Forest Park in Cook County. This is a town where cemeteries not only occupy scenic […]
Posted inOpinion
Poor outcomes
It is possible paint a picture with numbers. The State Journal-Register did it the other day when it used data from the Illinois Report Card, the state’s education data source, to draw before-and-after portraits of 15 area school districts from 2001 and 2016. I was particularly interested in one measure: how much of the enrollment […]
Posted inOpinion
Shame on you
The news from the Illinois Statehouse almost makes one nostalgic for the Illinois politicians of old, those sticky-fingered but charming rogues. Today’s Capitol, we learn, is a playpen for not at all charming jerks, creeps and pervs who feel not only empowered but entitled to prey on any females who cross their paths. Sex at […]
Posted inOpinion
Amazon deals
In “How high can you go?” (Nov. 16, 2017) I looked at the various proposals to lure Amazon’s proposed second national headquarters to Chicago. The issue of economic development subsidies looms large in the debate. I’ve done my share of complaining about them. ((See “Such a deal” from Jan. 26, 2012, […]
Posted inOpinion
New developments
In Business as usual” (Nov. 9, 2017) I looked at, por rather down on, the new economic development initiative known as the Sangamon County Project. There is more to be said. The focus of the effort, as ever, is on attracting makers of goods, not sellers or movers. The obsession with manufacturing as the centerpiece […]
