Marissa DeWeese didn’t really mind the congestion at Springfield High School. A member of the marching band, DeWeese thought it was pretty cool once when the band and freshman football team practiced on the same field while a group of law-enforcement agency trainees ran laps around the track. Nevertheless, a committee made up of community […]
R. L. Nave
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Made for TV
Minutes before the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, addressed journalists of color this past weekend in Chicago, a few dozen latecomers were asked to relocate, which involved the laborious task of awkwardly scooching past others who were already seated. When nobody moved, a volunteer with the host organization, UNITY: Journalists of Color, […]
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“They want a place”
Untitled Document Even though President George W. Bush appointed him to head the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness in 2002, Philip F. Mangano didn’t utter his boss’ name once during his two-and-a-half-hour presentation in Springfield last week. Instead, he simply referred to “the administration I serve.” Nor does Bush’s name occur once in Mangano’s extensive […]
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The Green dream
Untitled Document From the stage of the Chicago Symphony Center, Rich Whitney struggles to regain control of the more than 500 delegates and proxies to the Green Party’s national convention. At issue is one item contained within the party’s proposed platform that calls for temporary-worker programs for immigrants who hold jobs in the U.S. but […]
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Rethinking the plan
Untitled Document Five years after Mayor Tim Davlin’s creation of a task force on homelessness and its formulation of a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness in Springfield, changes are being made to the plan. The city has hired strategic-planning firm Sikich Gardner & Co. to recalibrate the 10-year plan, says Springfield community-relations director Sandy […]
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The skinny on McKinney
During her early days in the Georgia House of Representatives, Cynthia McKinney occasionally sparred with her father, also a Democratic state lawmaker, on several issues, including sodomy. Cynthia wanted to repeal the Peach State’s longstanding sodomy statute; Billy McKinney, whom his daughter affectionately called a Neanderthal and a homophobe, opposed legalizing sodomy. That’s pretty much […]
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Hoping for a U-turn
Untitled Document Trevor Halfacre, who has severe scoliosis and a muscle condition known as arthrogryposis, uses a motorized wheelchair and has a personal assistant who shuttles him back and forth between his home and his job with the traffic-safety division of the Illinois Department of Transportation, just off South Dirksen Parkway. Even if he wanted […]
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Don’t just blame the uninsured
Untitled Document Retired coal miner Paul Perrine says he can’t get health insurance. Perrine, 52, who worked in the mines for 30 years and has hurt his back on several occasions, was recently turned down, he says, because of those old injuries. “Everything is a preexisting condition,” he says. Perrine belongs to the Champaign-based Campaign for […]
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Perfect storm
Untitled Document Heartland Ethanol LLC has jettisoned plans to construct seven ethanol plants around Illinois, including one in Waverly, in nearby Morgan County. Walker Filbert, Heartland’s president, says rising commodity prices, especially of corn, combined with the high price of petroleum and very little easing in credit markets, prompted the company’s private-equity investors to “put […]
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The Rico Act
Untitled Document Just past midnight on a chilly February night, Club Chrome is heating up. The nightclub on Springfield’s south side is packed to the gills with teenagers clad in myriad shades of red, yellow, and green; the spacious dance floor has been transformed into an ersatz exercise studio as young women and girls — […]
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So fresh and so clean
Untitled Document Beginning next week in Decatur, Illinois environmentalists will try to rally support for a tough set of regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions with a series of town-hall meetings to take place throughout the year and into next year’s legislative session. Known as the Global Warming Response Act and introduced in both chambers of the […]
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“Such a horrible thing”
Untitled Document Many of the visitors attending last week’s preview of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library’s exhibit on the 1908 Springfield race riot were silent as they inspected the artifacts and informational panels chronicling the events of 100 years ago. “This is not only black history, this is American history,” says guest curator Carole Merritt. […]
