What if businesspeople started saying no to the prevailing corporate ethic that your business must always be getting bigger to be a “winner”? Well, it’s happening. It gets little coverage by a media constantly fawning over the barons who run the slam-bam expansionist operations such as Amazon and Starbucks, but a quiet rebellion is spreading […]
Editor’s Note
Posted inOpinion
Stopping military recruiters
If some predator was sneaking into your kids’ high school and grabbing personal information about them, then contacting your kids without your being told about it — how loudly would you scream at this dirty sneak? Well, it’s happening in schools all across America, and the predatory sneak is the Pentagon. In passing Bush’s infamous […]
Posted inOpinion
It’s all Ellen’s fault
Those who are promoting the notion of “intelligent design” contend that human beings are the product of a supreme intelligent designer. If that’s so, how do they explain Pat Robertson? Goofier than a whole barrelful of monkeys, this guy keeps making absolutely moronic statements that defy the existence of any intelligence whatsoever. The televangelist’s latest […]
Posted inOpinion
Wouldn’t it be great if. . .?
Lately Springfield seems to be in a “Wouldn’t it be great if. . . ?” mood, as opposed to the “there’s no money” mood that prevails most of the time. It’s hard to explain, because there’s still no money. The president is bogged down in Iraq and Louisiana, the governor is both unpopular and unbeatable, […]
Posted inOpinion
The continuing madness
You’ve probably never heard of Mike Johanns, but he could make you deathly sick. Johanns was a Nebraska politico who was plucked from obscurity by corporate agribusiness early this year to be the U.S. secretary of agriculture. Apparently his chief duty there is to serve the corporate interests. Take mad-cow disease. Anyone who contracts the […]
Posted inOpinion
The other side of the tracks
The visiting architects and city planners who made up the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team said over and over that Springfield is poised on the edge of greatness. “The new museum may move Springfield from a sleepy town to a world-class city,” said Chuck Davis, the San Francisco architect who headed the team. “The bar has […]
Posted inOpinion
The great textbook robbery
In recent weeks, on campuses all across America, students have been enrolling in university. Ah, what an experience — the camaraderie of college spirit, the titillating possibilities of higher learning! Then these eager innocents go to buy their textbooks, and — wham! — the dispiriting reality of corporate greed whacks them upside the head. Students, […]
Posted inOpinion
Gutless Beltway Democrats
Excuse me, but has anyone seen the Democratic Party? An outrageous war of lies rages in Iraq, nearly 2,000 American troops have died there, Iraq itself is spiraling down into civil war and theocracy, a growing majority of Americans now see President George W. Bush’s policy for the disastrous deceit that it is, and grassroots […]
Posted inOpinion
What about “unintelligent design”?
“Intelligent design” is the latest buzzword of the right-wing Bible-thumping cultists who keep pushing to Christianize our public schools. The intelligent-design crowd flatly rejects the science of evolution as apostasy, asserting that life on this earth is way too wondrous to have simply evolved. They point to Genesis as proof that a mighty God schemed […]
Posted inOpinion
Can they make MacArthur Grand again?
The Esquire Theatre was brand new, and several other businesses had located near it on Springfield’s burgeoning southwest side. “South Grand and West Grand District is Rapidly Developing,” read a headline in the Illinois State Journal of Jan. 28, 1938. The greatest excitement surrounded the new Piggly Wiggly store, where Aunt Jemima herself would make […]
Posted inOpinion
Bush’s economic draft
President George W. Bush’s handling of Iraq has been such a mess that his numbers are in the ditch. I’m talking not about poll numbers (which are at new lows) but about his recruitment numbers. The Bush administration doesn’t need polls to show what the public thinks about its Iraq policy — the public’s judgment […]
Posted inOpinion
What we need from Jim Edgar
Here’s an idea: Instead of reluctantly agreeing to run for governor as a means of rescuing the Republican Party and then trying to survive four years without damaging his good reputation, how about if Jim Edgar gets back into politics with enthusiasm, determined to make life better in Illinois? Edgar is the one potential gubernatorial […]
