Letters to the Editor
FutureGen, a bold initiative The “Reporter at Large” essay in the April 2 Illinois Times [see “The questionable future of FutureGen,” by Fletcher Farrar] asks important questions about restarting the FutureGen at Mattoon project. Let me add two others: If not FutureGen, what? If not now, when? Some of the nation’s top technical minds designed…
CAUTION: HIS ART HURTS
Life sometimes requires sacrifice. For Travis Taylor, that’s meant putting one of his passions on hold temporarily to pursue another important endeavor. He’s put off his crafting of medieval weaponry to concentrate on his sculpture art. “I’ve been putting everything into this,” Taylor, an Enos Parker whose artwork made out of scrap metal could have…
Mother’s Day is for planting
Ready, set, plant! Mother’s Day weekend is not only a time to recognize Mom for all she does, but it is time to plant warm-season plants. This weekend, why not combine the two and take Mom shopping for her favorite plants? Don’t forget that Mom will probably expect some help planting them. Whether shopping for…
Exploring the Shawnee National Forest
It’s the only national forest in our predominantly agricultural/urban state, and it offers a great escape from our daily routines. Located down in the southern tip of the state, the Shawnee National Forest (SNF) offers unlimited recreational possibilities, ranging from day hikes, camping, nature photography, horseback riding, backpacking, fishing, boating, bike riding, exploring, or just…
Having a GirlFest
Before anyone gets too excited for the wrong reasons, let me explain what a GirlFest is in the context of this week’s column. Then getting a thrill from the upcoming event can happen without unnecessary guilt or misplaced desire in a perfectly acceptable, socially fair climate of sanctioned pleasure. The seeds of GirlFest took root…
Wolverine never gets off the ground
At one point during the nearly operatic X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the title character’s nemesis Sabretooth purrs to a soon-to-be-victim, “To tell you the truth, I’m a bit disappointed.” I couldn’t have said it better in regards to my own feelings about the film. After months of hype, heightened buzz due to a security breach in…
Wind resistance
Residents of western Sangamon County, where a Springfield company is planning to build a large-scale wind farm, insist that they are not opposed to wind energy. Instead, they want fellow landowners to have input in a project that, “may have tremendous impacts on the health, comfort and home values of families living nearby,” according to…
Bank profits, banker pay and other banker tricks
I’d like nothing more than to give the bailout scandal a rest — but the bankers won’t let me! They just keep coming at us with ever-more-clever inventions of greed and deceit. Their latest bit of hocus-pocus, accompanied by big puffs of smoke, is a dazzling show of profits. Yes, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of…
Things aren’t going well for state’s capital plan
Everybody at the Illinois Statehouse always says they’re for a major, multibillion-dollar public works construction plan. The problem has been that they could never agree on how to spend the money and how to pay for the massive beast. House Speaker Michael Madigan has taken the blame for the failure of the “capital plan” during…
Golden living dreams of vision
Springfield didn’t exactly seem like a happenin’ place to be in the 1970s, at least to me. I’d moved away, first to the University of Illinois in Champaign, then to Chicago with my husband, Peter. We came home during the summers to work on the family farm; but those physically exhausting, often 18-hour days and…
The high cost of behavioral health cuts
Community behavioral healthcare providers recently claimed that Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to slash state mental health and substance abuse treatment funding by $26 million and $12 million, respectively, in next year’s budget will translate to substandard services for more than 46,000 patients. In a survey released April 20, the Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois…
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
I’m a sucker for redemption stories, so obviously Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a favorite of mine and in my mind, a tale not to be tinkered with. Imagine my despair when I heard that it was to be retooled as a Matthew McConaughey vehicle in which the star was to play, yet again, a…
IT Picks
FEASTIVAL |Run? and fun!raiser Here’s the most enjoyable race you’ll ever enter. Whether you run or walk, stations along the route include donuts, ice cream and beer, as well as other surprises. If you tucker out and cannot complete the entire course, there’s a detour to reduce your route from 3.1 miles into a doable…
Indy film planned for Springfield
Kimberly D. Conner isn’t a newcomer to the world of movies. She’s placed as a finalist in several film writing contests, including Los Angeles and Atlanta but the short film she’s planning to shoot in Springfield represents her directorial debut. With This Life Ain’t Pretty, based on the real life of a woman who contracted…
What is racial unity? Ask a child.
Ask a dozen people what racial unity is, and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers; ask a member of the Baha’i faith, and he or she will likely say that race unity is God’s ultimate destiny for humankind. Racial unity is an evolving concept that few can envision in its final form (including this…
Pleasant Plains group wants to rescue Clayville
Annie Rieken, a historic archaeologist from Carbondale, was flabbergasted by what she found on a recent trip to Clayville. Vagrants or delinquent kids had broken into every building on the 13-acre site, located along Route 125 just east of Pleasant Plains, and destroyed dishes, furniture and other antiques that once set the scene for the…
ORANGE CRUSHES COMPETITION
Somebody get the Vitamin C because Springfield’s own Agent Orange got absolute sick against Mic Ripz on last week’s edition of BET’s 106 and Park Freestyle Friday. Orange (né Zach McCoy) triumphed in the nationally televised rhyming battle over the Danbury, Conn., rapper Ripz in what was likely the first time ever that the phrases…
BETTER OFF SHRED
Devron Ohrn, a law enforcement official, doesn’t think a Springfield Liberty Tax Service store broke any laws when they tossed documents containing sensitive personal information of his and several others [See Dusty Rhodes, “Fresh Ink,” April 19]. Jenna Shellenberg, a sales professional with Cintas Document Management, disagrees. “He is very wrong,” she says. “If someone’s…
Independents use teamwork to beat back the chains
Retail sales endured the steepest holiday season drop since the Great Depression last year, falling 9.8 percent from the previous December. But while news was bleak for most retailers, a close look at the breakdown of those declines offers valuable clues to enhance the local economy. A nationwide survey of independent retailers found their average…
