It was the largest commencement in University of Illinois Springfield history, with 1,270 graduates walking across the stage. Their poetic names – Indian, African, Middle Eastern, Chicagoan – reflect the global diversity that UIS has come to represent. Near the front of the procession of academics, just ahead of Chancellor Susan Koch and Timothy Killeen, […]
Editor’s Note
Posted inOpinion
Populism is not about angry mobs
I’ve observed that the true political spectrum in our society does not range from right to left, but from top to bottom. This is how America’s economic and political systems really shake out, with each of us located somewhere high or low on that spectrum. Right to left is political theory; top to bottom is […]
Posted inOpinion
Editors Note 5/11/17
At the Better Government Association’s Monday evening forum on “The Future of News: Covering the Capitol,” more than one of the journalists and editors on the panel agreed the news business will never get back to the staffing levels of 15 years ago when some 40 reporters covered the Statehouse. Some thought that’s not all […]
Posted inOpinion
Editors Note 5/4/17
A year ago, Mayor Jim Langfelder in his state of the city address talked about streamlining the city’s approach to requests for public records. Now, the city is saying that drafts of an environmental study on Hunter Lake (rhymes with “money sinkhole”) required by the Army Corps of Engineers won’t be shared with the public […]
Posted inOpinion
Keep our Postal Service public
Journalism, which is supposed to help make sense of our turbulent world, can’t seem to make sense of itself. In addition to “news,” we’re now getting “fake news” (stuff that’s completely made up). But wait – the barons of corporate news are adding to today’s tumultuous state of journalism by putting out feeds of “BS […]
Posted inOpinion
The people must build the people’s government
In high school, I had a girlfriend who was involved in student government and all sorts of good works. While she paid attention to all that was happening in those years of the early 1960s, she essentially was a moderate – certainly not some movement rebel. Or so we thought – until one lazy Sunday […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s Note 4/27/17
As the U. S. Senate heads to the White House to hear the administration’s assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capability, and as President Trump continues his threat to use preemptive military strikes, what seems strange is that there is no sense of alarm here, nothing like the dread felt during the Cuban missile crisis. The […]
Posted inOpinion
How can we stop banksters from robbing us?
In an insightful song about outlaws, Woody Guthrie wrote this verse: “As through this world I travel/I see lots of funny men/Some’ll rob you with a 6-gun/Some with a fountain pen.” The fountain pens are doing the serious stealing these days. For example, while you would get hard time in prison for robbing a bank […]
Posted inOpinion
Editors Note 4/20/17
As our Chris Britt says in his inimitable way on p. 4, nobody is excited about the current crop of Democratic candidates for governor. Long gone are the days when a powerful political machine could put forward a progressive gubernatorial candidate like Adlai Stevenson and win on the benefit of ideas and integrity. Now Democrats, […]
Posted inOpinion
Activism is the only hope of restoring America’s democratic principles
Homelessness, we’re told by pious politicos, is impossible to cure, and so more and more cities are resorting to criminalizing people struggling to live on the streets. But wait, say proponents of a new way of thinking: Yes, some street people are addicts or mentally ill, but the vast majority are out there because they […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s Note 4/13/17
Every Good Friday for the past 30 years or so a small group of Christians and other compassionate activists follow someone carrying a big wooden cross around downtown, stopping occasionally to sing and pray. This is the Way of the Cross walk for peace and justice which begins, again this year, in front of the […]
Posted inOpinion
Editors Note 4/6/17
If you haven’t yet been to the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum, get there. The new location, a building leased from the city just outside the Monument Avenue entrance to Oak Ridge Cemetery, is ideal. The board and volunteers are energized, continually offering new exhibits and programs. The museum plays a key […]
