Bus a gripping, vital cautionary tale On the morning of November 8, 2018, a powerline from a tower owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. broke during a windstorm and fell to the ground in northern Butte County, California. Having gone without rain for 121 days, the area was a tinderbox waiting for the slightest […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts Features
Come From Away reminds us of our shared humanity
“To the coves and the caves and the people from the planes…. five days… 19 animals… and 7,000 strays!” Most people of a certain age can vividly recall where they were and what they were doing when they learned on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, that the United States had been attacked. While many […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jacksonville turns 200
This weekend, Jacksonville’s year-long bicentennial commemoration culminates with the Budweiser Clydesdales, a drone show, parades, musical entertainment and other festivities. Jacksonville is celebrating a long and varied history. It has been a prairie town, an Underground Railroad stop and home to one of the state’s first colleges as well as state facilities for special needs […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
What if we truly dared to love?
Just when we think the divisions in this country can’t get any worse, they do. Overnight, the cracks in our society become crevasses, the crevasses, chasms. We are in danger of splintering into innumerable pieces which can never fit together again. Aside from being appalled, how is a person of faith to deal with this […]
Posted inFilm
Battle messy and ambitious, Dead of Winter tells wrong story
Anderson orchestrates ambitious Battle Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another comes fully freighted with great expectations. Proclaimed by critics as the front runner for the Oscar for Best Picture, it seems preordained to deliver the director recognition from the Academy that’s long overdue. Yet, much like Martin Socrsese’s The Departed, this is far from […]
Posted inPoetry
Distraction
My sister Jo was a reader. With the family parked outside the post office Joan took the farm mail and never lifting her eyes from the page walked up the familiar steps, disappeared inside, reappeared, and still reading felt her way down to the car. We all watched as she reached for the handle and […]
Posted inIT Picks
Popular car show returns to capital city
This weekend, all roads lead once again to Springfield for this major car show. Hundreds of street machines, muscle cars and hot rods will rumble into the capital city. They will be followed by thousands of spectators for this weekend of family fun, live music and entertainment. The festival begins with the Route 66 City […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
New Innovate Springfield space aims to grow jobs, talent and opportunity
Innovate Springfield, the University of Illinois Springfield’s hub for innovation, has spent the last 10 years supporting a community of entrepreneurs and helping expand opportunity across the region. Earlier this month, we launched an exciting new phase in this venture by relocating to the third floor of the Horace Mann headquarters building in downtown Springfield. […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
A season for self-reckoning
This week, Jewish communities around the world are celebrating the advent of a new year, 5786, according to our calendar reckoning. Rosh Hashanah, the new year observance (occurring this year from sundown on Monday, Sept. 22nd to sunset on Wednesday, Sept. 24) inaugurates a 10-day season which concludes with the solemn fast day of Yom […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Demolition underway at former Pillsbury Mills site
Demolition of the 160-foot-tall smokestack at the former Pillsbury Mills site began Thursday morning after a team of workers spent the first part of the week assembling a crane with a 200-foot boom. The five-story Grocery Mix building will be the next to be demolished. Moving Pillsbury Forward, a nonprofit that was created to facilitate […]
Posted inFilm
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey takes detour, Lily James great in Swiped
Enchanting Journey ultimately sidetracked I approached Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey with a healthy amount of skepticism. With one foot in the real world and the other firmly planted in the fantastical, my guard was up for something that labored to be whimsical or a film that revolved solely around its gimmick. Imagine my […]
