Alice being Alice
Ringling Brother and Barnum & Bailey Circus will hold its last performance next month. No matter. There is still Alice Cooper, who is a long way from folding his tent. With tickets priced at $47 and $71, Cooper has chutzpah for an artist whose popularity peaked 40 years ago. The ticket price, plus the fact…
Honest Approach Elevates “Gifted”
There’s definitely some merit to W.C. Fields famous warning about the dangers of working with children and animals. They’re unpredictable, at time amateurish and guaranteed to upstage you just by being in the same scene. That’s the danger films like Marc Webb’s Gifted run, what with its main character being a cute-as-can-be seven year-old who…
The hog and I
I was at my desk in 1982 when the phone rang. “Hello.” “What the hell is a pork belly?” It was Lewis Bergman, calling from New York City. Lewis was former editor of the New York Times Magazine who was then calling the shots at one of my magazines, the monthly published by the business…
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…
Tuning up the band
As you know by now, Gov. Bruce Rauner toured the state for two days last week. He denied that the tour had anything to do with the 2018 election, but it was pretty darned clear that he and his team were tuning up the band for the big show down the road. Campaign funds not…
Letters to the Editor 4/20/17
UNDOING PLANNED PARENTHOOD It seems quite clear that President Trump and much of Congress are heck-bent on getting rid of the funding for Planned Parenthood. The recent order signed by the president allows states to block Title X funding from going to Planned Parenthood or any abortion providers. It ignores the fact that even now…
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,…
In defense of arts funding
In the president’s proposed budget, funding for the National Endowment for the Arts would be eliminated in an attempt to cut “wasteful spending.” This reflects a common, though mistaken, line of thinking to the effect that art is a frivolous and unnecessary expenditure in the face of real bread-and-butter issues of lost jobs and stagnant…
Illinois’ longest-running Earth Day celebration
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the first Earth Day was introduced in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a way to promote legal and regulatory mechanisms that protect the environment onto the national agenda. On Saturday, April 22, the City of Springfield will celebrate Earth Day by hosting the 25th annual Earth…
Be part of history
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to volunteer at one of Springfield’s many historical sites, these volunteer recruitment fairs are for you. Join the State Historic Sites at Springfield this weekend to learn about volunteer opportunities at the Old State Capitol, Lincoln’s Tomb, Dana-Thomas House, Vachel Lindsay Home, Edwards Place, Illinois State…
Jihad me at hello
I’m a man in my mid-30s, and I’m dating a woman I really love. We match each other on so many levels, and I thought we had a really great thing. But recently, she seems to want more than I can give. Specifically, she’s prodding me to say “I love you” repeatedly throughout the day,…
A crazy system
Tiffany Ann Rusher could be a handful. She was nonetheless loved. In Rusher’s final days, relatives gathered at St. John’s Hospital. Her mother, Kelli Andrews, rubbed Rusher’s stomach and feet in the intensive care unit, hoping to evoke a response, if only a twitch, from a daughter on life support whose last of many suicide…
Wine meets fun on Walnut Street
Loren Shanle is living the dream. Sell the business, move to the sunny coast, start a winery…except, he hasn’t moved to the sunny coast. He’s still in Rochester, accepting all four seasons like the rest of us. But the other parts are true; he sold his business and started a winery in his former office.…
Alice Cooper comes to Springfield
At 69 and still singing “I’m Eighteen” for fun and profit, Alice Cooper is, arguably, the luckiest man in America. The artist formerly known as Vincent Furnier didn’t hit it big way back when because he was lucky. That was a matter of talent, showmanship and sheer audacity. If Alice Cooper sounded weird to the…
Manar: School funding system “completely rotten”
Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, is one of the state’s foremost experts on school funding reform. “We have a system that is completely rotten because the effect of the law makes us the least equitable system of public school finance in the country,” Manar said in an interview. A 2015 report by Education Trust found…
Both SIU and patients benefit from current health care law
On March 24, supporters of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, breathed a sigh of relief. This came after Republican U.S. House leaders withdrew the American Health Care Act, which would have repealed and replaced the ACA. The Republican health care act had failed to get enough support to pass. Local supporters of the…
Rauner targets hate crime
In a press conference April 10 Gov. Bruce Rauner unveiled a program designed to train police officers on identifying, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. “As we are all too aware, hate crimes are on the rise In America and around the world,” Rauner said. “In Illinois, we have to do everything we can to work…
PRESERVE HEALTH BENEFITS
During Statewide Healthcare Day of Action April 18, a coalition of Affordable Care Act advocates organized outside U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood’s Springfield office to ask for support of a pledge to protect health care insurance coverage and prevent the removal of ACA benefits. Organizing for Action, the Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans and SEIU Healthcare…
GRANDSTAND LINEUP
More names have been added to the Grandstand lineup for the 2017 Illinois State Fair. On Thursday, Aug. 10, fairgoers with paid admission to the fair will be treated to a free concert by the legendary rock band Foghat. Best known for their hit songs “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “Slow…
Fun Fate a worthy Furious entry
It’s a long way from street racing on the mean streets of L.A. to saving the world James Bond style, but that’s the evolution the Fast and Furious franchise has taken, one that no one could have expected when the first film in the series debuted in 2001. Modest in every way, this was a…
Many music choices made
I know, I know; I keep complaining about having so many things to go and see in town that one (or more) can hardly find the time to see the sights and hear the sounds. Well, you know, it could be worse (and it has been), so let’s just step it up and go. On…
Kofi Baker’s Cream Experience
What does the son of legendary, iconic drummer Ginger Baker do with the drumming gene? He plays music on the drums, and that’s what Kofi Baker does. Beginning with a drumming debut TV experience with dad at age six, the long and winding road of this working musician includes duets during the early 80s with…
next school shooting poem #when
next school shooting poem #when my daughter teaches in a schoolwhere every classroom every officeevery corridor every restroom has abutton if one is hit every area policecar every area police station instantlyis alerted there’s a shooter in thisschool it bypasses 911 which has toanswer get data while precious secondsare lost precious lives can be snuffedin…
Don’t be afraid to cook with cast iron
It’s rare these days to buy anything that will truly last 100 years, much less generations. Cast-iron cookware, when properly cared for, can last indefinitely. I have a set of cast-iron skillets that are true workhorses of my kitchen. Some I found at garage sales and the others I inherited from my great-grandmother. I cherish…
