Letters to the Editor

FOXES GUARDING HENHOUSE In light of the recent complaints or accusations against some people in the Illinois legislature, I was shocked to learn that the so-called Illinois Legislative Ethics Commission is composed of eight lawmakers themselves. The worst yet, the same commission or the same eight lawmakers have the final approval over the appointment of […]

WEAK KNEES CAN’T KNEEL Strong knees bow and kneel boldly for justice. Weak knees will never kneel for justice; they stumble and fall down to every wind and force of power. To be clear, every football player that took a knee for justice during the National Anthem had strong knees. Their knee bowing is a […]

TAKING A TOLL ON ME On July 27, I didn’t have the necessary change for tolls, but knew I could pay for them online. Law requires payment of tolls within seven days. After checking online for several days, I was finally able to pay my toll charges that were posted on Aug. 2. This past […]

PORT-A-POTTIES DOWNTOWN The current introduction of port-a-potties to the City of Springfield and the downtown area originated out of SearchLight: A Beacon for Serving the Homeless Community. Vice President of SearchLight, William Mercer, gave the SearchLight executive board a report regarding an oversize homeless man in a wheelchair. Because of his size and his wheelchair, the […]

  TOWNSHIP SUCCESSESAs the executive director of the Township Officials of Illinois, I would like to comment on the story by Bruce Rushton (“Outdated?,” Illinois Times, Sept. 21). In his piece, he examines the topic of township consolidation at length. The fact of the matter is, cherry-picking townships as a unit of government that should […]

A SICKENING STINK This is in regards to Scott Faingold’s article titled “Humane Society takes larger role in Illinois ag” (Sept. 21). We live in Hancock County, in the small town of LaHarpe. There are several different roads leading out of town and about half of them go close to hog confinements. There are more […]

LOST FAITH IN MACARTHURI lost faith in making MacArthur Boulevard better (“Mixed bag on MacArthur,” Bruce Rushton, Sept. 14) when Roberts Auto was “not allowed” to build there and a Dollar General went in instead. The straw that broke my back was the treatment of the owner of the Shell service station. That was a […]

  CRITICAL OF COALReading the Sept. 7 “Guestwork” column by Rep. John Cabello (see “Coal critical to power future in Illinois” at illinoistimes.com, I wondered if Rep. Cabello was bought or simply hoodwinked. His arguments make little sense. The regulations he despises are there to prevent pollution, not just carbon dioxide. Coal is the dirtiest, […]

HERO OF HOPE Anything could have happened – none of it good – when Rosa Parks said “no” and refused to give up her seat on that bus in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the Confederacy. She could have been thrown down the stairs by the driver or slapped around and humiliated […]

U.S. SLAVE CONSTITUTION The United States of America has three forms of slavery: the original slaves of Africa, the black prisoners, and the sharecroppers, of which I am one. The U.S. Constitution is crafted to keep the black race as servants to the whites. To preserve their Confederate slave owners, whites have erected monuments and […]

DARKNESS IN THE DAYTIME I enjoyed the article “Darkness in the daytime,” by Scott Faingold, on Aug. 17, but wondered why some facts closer to home weren’t there: history. No one alive today has ever seen a total eclipse in the state of Illinois before, as one hasn’t occurred since 1869. That eclipse was the […]