Celebrate Cinco de Mayo
It’s kind of disillusioning. First it was finding out that St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a big deal in Ireland. For a variety of reasons, its most raucous, over-the-top celebrations take place in America: the Chicago River being dyed green; an almost de rigueur menu of corned beef and cabbage consumed by Americans — Irish or…
For better perennials, divide and conquer
This is one of my favorite times of the year — crabapples and tulips in bloom, peonies budding and perennial plants popping up all over the garden. It is also the time of year when we realize that our perennial gardens may have an unkempt, overgrown look to them. Plants have multiplied beyond their boundaries…
Hide the watermelons, honey, here comes Gallagher!
If I say, “Gallagher,” what picture springs to mind? If everyone just said, “Smashing watermelons with a big mallet-thing,” I think we’re thinking of the same guy. He’s the one-name comedian who, regardless of his insightful and hilarious standup routines, is best known for his Sledge-O-Matic antics and outrageous props. Who thinks of anything else…
When losing is good
Angie Griffin never considered herself obese, but when her Body Mass Index revealed she fell into that category, she knew something had to change. Together with her husband, Derek, Angie signed up from the YMCA’s first ever Lose Big contest, an event designed to mimic NBC’s popular weight-loss reality show, “The Biggest Loser.” Patty Knepler,…
SPATULAS
When asked by gal pal Elaine about the likelihood of convincing a love interest to “change teams,” Jerry Seinfeld declared, “He’s not going to suddenly switch sides. When you join that team it’s not a whim. He likes his team. He’s set with that team.” Well, not always. This week, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,…
IT Picks
DANCE | Enthusiastic amateurs What does a realtor, a programmer, a banker, a disc jockey, a doctor and a manager have in common? They wear tights and dance ballet Friday night at the Hoogland Center for the Arts for the hilarious production titled “Men in Tights” to raise money for the Springfield Ballet Company. The…
Here’s what’s up with the governor of Texas
Texas politics has long been a source of great amusement for the people of our state, but it’s often a source of bafflement for people beyond our borders. So, sometimes there’s a need to explain what’s going on here, and this is one of those times. In this case, the explanation is simple: Our governor…
Orange juice
If you saw Zach McCoy without his baggy jeans, oversized T-shirt and baseball cap, you would assume he’s more interested in Lord Voldemort’s latest plot against Harry Potter than the new Lupe Fiasco album. You certainly wouldn’t suspect that McCoy, a Springfield native, would stand a chance in a freestyle rap battle against MCs from…
Reforming state’s contract system is harder than you think
By far the most ironic aspect of this entire post-Rod Blagojevich push to reform Illinois has to be the last paragraph of Gov. Pat Quinn’s much-praised reform commission report. “All Constitutional officers should issue executive orders, comparable to George Ryan’s Executive Order #2 (1999), prohibiting their campaign funds from accepting contributions from state employees under…
Letters to the Editor
Same-sex means second class Today in the state of Illinois an incarcerated heterosexual serial killer is able to get more benefits for his or her spouse than a law-abiding homosexual citizen. Two complete strangers of the opposite sex can get married within a few seconds of knowing each other and have more rights than a…
Nothing But the Truth
While I don’t usually review DVD releases here, I’m making an exception this week as the circumstances surrounding Rod Lurie’s Nothing but the Truth merit attention. Set for release at the end of last year, the film’s distribution company went belly up, leaving it limbo. Released only in New York and Los Angeles, in the…
The Soloist is out of tune
While watching Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. give heartfelt, moving performances in director Joe Wright’s The Soloist, I couldn’t help but think that the filmmaker and the actors were playing different tunes that never quite meshed. As the two gifted thespians pulled out all the stops to deliver moving turns of the troubled men…
Inner city blues
For anyone who thought that the federal stimulus plan would be manna for the needs of city and state governments, think again. Jim Moll, project manager for Hanson Professional Services, put it into perspective last week at a policy briefing sponsored by the Springfield Citizens Club: of the $787 billion in the American Recovery and…
Making babies at SIU
Jim Kontio knows what it’s like to lose. After he and his wife Meganne married, the couple quickly decided that they wanted a baby. They were both older, Kontio says, and realized that they were running out of time. What seemed tough in the beginning became tougher as Kontio’s wife suffered from several complications, was…
The raucous office of Lincoln and Herndon
The Lincoln-Herndon law offices must have been like the “fun cabin” at summer camp: always messy, rarely dull and the best place to hear something interesting. William Herndon was Lincoln’s last law partner and nine years his junior. Although Herndon was a brand new lawyer when he joined Lincoln (and proved to be a problem…
