Curses, foiled againSheriff’s deputies hunting robbery suspect Matthew Oliver in Pasco County, Fla., posted his wanted picture on their Facebook page, naming him their “Fugitive of the Day.” Oliver replied, posting daylong comments, along with his photo and personal details, including his address. Insisting he was set up by a “crack head,” Oliver elicited such […]
Roland Klose
Posted inNews
News Quirks 7/25/13
Curses, foiled againBoston police accused Zachary Tentoni, 26, of snatching a woman’s purse because when he grabbed the purse, he dropped two bags he was holding and fled without them. One bag contained his birth certificate; the other, a letter from his mother. Officers stopped a man fitting the robber’s description and learned that he […]
Posted inOpinion
Things I’ve learned
Soon after they emigrated to the U.S., in 1954, my parents bought a fancy hi-fi radio-record player. A couple of decades later, when I was in high school, they got a new stereo and gave me the hi-fi. The belts on the Grundig Majestic’s turntable were worn, but the vacuum tubes still glowed, the shortwave […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The forgotten Maxwell brothers
Everybody knows of the exploits of outlaws Frank and Jesse James, but who remembers Ed and Lon Maxwell, two Illinoisans who captured the nation’s attention in the early 1880s? The brothers graduated from petty theft to stealing horses to murder, and made national headlines as they eluded capture for months. The law finally caught up […]
Posted inOpinion
The Constitution wins, by one vote
Untitled Document After 9/11, the U.S. rounded up hundreds of foreigners suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda or the Taliban, designated them enemy combatants, and imprisoned them. Many ended up at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Detainees challenged their imprisonment; at the very least, they argued, they had a right to know why […]
Posted inOpinion
Turning things around
Untitled Document In the 1980s, when she served as this paper’s general manager and ad director, Sharon Whalen and her family lived on Dial Court, just west of MacArthur Boulevard. She could walk to the Esquire Theater and see a first-run film, eat at Lichee Garden, and buy groceries at the nearby National Foods. The […]
Posted inOpinion
Swimming with sharks
Untitled Document There was a time, not so long ago, when adjustable-rate mortgages were just as unusual and as mysterious as cell phones and state-sponsored lotteries. The notion that an interest rate could change during the life of a mortgage loan seemed, well, unconventional and fraught with risk — for the borrower. But in 1981, when […]
Posted inOpinion
Homers
Untitled Document Something funny happened at City Council last week. OK, that’s hardly news. Something funny always happens at City Council. This time, however, was unusual, because it involves us — your friendly, locally owned newspaper: A city official was ordered to read Illinois Times. As you probably know, we’re a free-circulation newspaper, with no home delivery […]
Posted inOpinion
Missing Lincoln link
Untitled Document In April 1857, the Logan County Courthouse burned to the ground and court officials temporarily arranged to hold court in nearby Lincoln Christian Church. That fact is not in dispute. In the 1850s, Abraham Lincoln was a respected Springfield lawyer, trying cases all over the state, including in his namesake town, about 30 […]
Posted inOpinion
Travel to unravel
Untitled Document I’ve had a lot on my mind lately but not a lot of time to sort things out. That’s just the way things are. Compared with many, I don’t have much to complain about. We have plenty of people whose lives here are much worse — they’re sick, they’re poor, they’re alone. Not […]
Posted inOpinion
Dead man talking
Untitled Document As a young reporter, Lincoln Steffens learned that successful police officers had a somewhat ambiguous relationship to the law. Here’s how it worked in some New York City precincts in the late 19th century: Criminal syndicates did a thriving business in age-old vices (gambling, prostitution, thievery) and the police protected them, as long […]
Posted inOpinion
Getting it right
Untitled Document Long, long ago, I was the host of a public-access cable-television show in St. Louis, a boring gabfest about world affairs. We had a panel of regulars — academics and journalists — and guests, most of them foreigners: An anti-Marcos Filipino. An Iranian whose father had been a general. A Sandinista official from […]
