Leann Fox would seem to have most everything a small business owner would want: loyal customers, an established location and a recognized brand. But one thing the owner of Leann’s Parkway Café doesn’t have enough of is employees. “We’ve had to temporarily close because we just haven’t been able to hire enough people. I’m eager […]
Scott Reeder
Scott Reeder is a staff writer at Illinois Times.
Posted inOpinion
The costs of war
As Americans fled Kabul and desperate Afghans sought to follow, Jerry and Brett Young stood in the yard of their rural Rochester home Aug. 20 and remembered their boy who never got to see his 26th birthday. “He loved to skateboard when he was younger. And he loved all kinds of music. He especially liked […]
Posted inOpinion
Small-time landlords are struggling too
In the maelstrom of economic chaos roiled by the COVID-19 virus, small-time landlords are struggling to stay afloat. “We are the only business out there that has to provide its service but doesn’t have to be paid,” said Anthony Nudo, a Springfield landlord. While there may be a touch of hyperbole in that statement, there […]
Posted inOpinion
Concession civility is more than polite politics
A candidate concession speech is an important rite in a democracy that is done not for the benefit of the winner or the loser but as a means of honoring the voters and our system of government. Sometimes the speech is done at a podium before a crowd, but more often than not it happens […]
Posted inOpinion
Entitlement at the Statehouse
Entitlement at the Statehouse Legislators think rules don’t apply to them Last week, two state Senate staffers were allegedly caught – gasp – drinking beer in the Capitol. The surprising thing is that both were arrested. While it is illegal to drink alcohol in the Capitol building, I’ve never heard of the measure being enforced. […]
Posted inOpinion
Seeing flaws in our heroes
Is it time for sainthood or a public reckoning? I was thinking about that Sunday as my phone beeped with tribute after tribute for Kobe Bryant. No one can deny Bryant was one of the great athletes of his generation and died much too soon. But it is also undeniable that a 2003 sexual assault […]
Posted inOpinion
U of I stifles press freedom
I’ve sat across from many victims of violent crime and had them share what they have suffered. The more intimate the violation the less likely they are to want to be identified. I can appreciate this. It took me 40 years to publicly disclose that I was sexually assaulted when I was 12. Victims often […]
Posted inOpinion
Losing Mom
GALESBURG – My mother’s breathing was ragged. I held her left hand with each labored gasp. My dad, her husband of almost 59 years, gripped her right. As she breathed slowly, shallowly, my dad cried out, “Save a place for me in heaven.” Tears fell down the face of my sister, who sat at the […]
Posted inOpinion
Paul Findley remembered names
There is power in names. That is something of which former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley was keenly aware. Findley, a Republican from Jacksonville, died last month at age 98. Findley, who served in the U.S. House from 1960 until 1982, was an early critic of American military involvement in Vietnam. “We were looking for a […]
Posted inOpinion
Consider more inpatient mental health treatment
Santa Fe, Texas – Last week, I sat in this small Texas town and listened to a mother tell me how a gunman killed her son as he hunkered in a classroom closet. Her boy was one of 10 people killed in the May 18, 2018, shooting at Santa Fe High School. In the wake […]
Posted inOpinion
Denied communion but who cares?
After being elected to the Illinois legislature in 1936, Richard J. Daley would do the same thing every morning in Springfield. The future mayor of Chicago would kneel and a priest would intone: Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam, Amen.” And then the Host would be placed on his tongue. […]
Posted inOpinion
What happened to a journalist who did his job
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund BurkeMichael Leathers is a good man who did something. And it cost him his job. Back in 2002, he was the editor of Illinois Baptist, a newspaper covering Southern Baptist congregations across the Land of Lincoln. When he […]
