Opinion

Did you take full and proper notice of the political coming-out of President George W. Bush’s twin daughters? Jenna and Barbara Bush, the 22-year-old twins, have long been kept away from the political glare, but they’re now adults who have just graduated from college, and both have been brought into the limelight by the Bush […]

Nobody who knew Tom Teague can believe he’s dead. It happened last Saturday, on his 61st birthday, as he napped. At this point, though, his departure is merely physical. Spiritually, Tom had so much momentum going that his presence will linger for some time. His writing — straightforward, spare, and efficient — has fed Illinois […]

See whether this sounds familiar: A sour and rabidly partisan Vietnam vet named John O’Neill is plucked from obscurity by the Republican White House to be used as an attack dog against John Kerry. O’Neill creates a hokey “citizens” group to pound Kerry over his war service. But the assault I’m describing is not this […]

Two St. Louis men were arrested last month after being seen operating video cameras in the vicinity of City Water, Light and Power’s coal-fired generating station. Turns out they were filming ducks on Lake Springfield, but hey, you can’t be too careful these days, right? You can be too careful about some things and not […]

If you want to know what percentage of city employees are white and what percentage are minority, all you have to do is call the city personnel office and talk to assistant director Lori Bluhm. She’ll tell you that 87 percent of employees are white. Ask about their sex, and she’ll tell you that 38 […]

Wal-Mart has a problem. People all across America and the world are learning that it’s a beast of a corporation that — among other things — pays poverty wages, engages in massive sexual discrimination, exploits sweatshop labor, bullies its suppliers, muscles local competitors out of business, and tries to buy its way into cities that […]

Maybe you’re one of the 2 million Americans who’ve recently had their jobs offshoredto India, Pakistan, or elsewhere, or one of the millions more whose jobs are expected to be shipped abroad in the next few years. If so, don’t worry, Bucko, for a new growth industry has arisen that offers exciting job opportunities. You, […]

If talk picked up trash, Mayor Tim Davlin would have the town clean by now. All year he has been talking to neighborhood associations about his big plans to reform Springfield’s municipal waste system. This summer he convened a series of meetings with landlords and neighborhood activists. I attended as a representative of The Springfield […]

Jack grew up in Springfield, graduated from high school, joined the Marines, and became a military police officer. After being honorably discharged, he enrolled in college, got a degree in criminal justice, and found a job with the state. In 2001, when he saw a chance to join the Springfield Fire Department, Jack applied, partly […]

It’s been said that you don’t know what hell is until you’ve had an insurance salesman in your living room, prattling on eternally about term-life annuities. But I’ve recently learned about a deeper level of hell reserved for insurance-company hucksters who — get this — are ripping off America’s young soldiers. Companies such as American […]

Something major is taking place in our country that corporate chieftains don’t want us talking about: jobless creep. It’s no longer blue-collar families who are seeing their jobs hauled offshore to faraway havens of low-wage production. Now it’s hundreds of thousands (and soon to be millions) of well-paying white-collar and high-tech jobs that are being […]