Earth Talk
Dear “Earth Talk”: I’m looking for projects for my son’s elementary school to do for Earth Day this year. Do you know of any that can teach children about taking care of our environment? — Meryl Greenfield, Williston Park, N.Y. Earth Day is April 22 this year, and there’s no time like the present to…
Music notes
SHOWS A-GO-GO! You will like the Boss Martians, because Steven Van Zandt likes the Boss Martians. The Seattle foursome won the coveted “Coolest Song of the Year” on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, Van Zandt’s Internet-broadcast radio show, in 2003. The Martians play garage rock, but if they’ve learned anything from the school of Little Steven,…
Step by step
If a film has been more or less done before, it needs to feel fresh in order to convince us of its value. Take the Lead visits the familiar formula of an outsider who takes a group of disenfranchised kids under his wing and shows them they have true potential. Even though it falls back on…
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Pity our lawmakers. Public officials are underpaid and overworked. The House and Senate are practically sweatshops. Given the paltry paychecks politicians receive, citizens should be worried that qualified folks won’t run for public office. And the problem goes way beyond the Legislature: The governor, prosecutors and more than 100 other officeholders and bureaucrats also are…
Culture wars
At 7 in the morning of Oct. 11, Daniel McCarthy stood in front of University Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois at Springfield, holding a piece of chalk. It was National Coming Out Day. As members of SASSI — Students Against Sexual Stereotypes and Inequalities — McCarthy and fellow members Renee Rathjen,…
Questionable sources
There’s good news and bad news for the two Springfield Police detectives who have spent the past few months on paid administrative leave. The good news is that Jim Graham and Paul Carpenter have been exonerated by SPD’s internal affairs investigators in at least one complaint filed against them; the bad news is that a…
The Hype
AN ISSUE IN 2007? Now that spring has arrived, Capt. Deon Oliver, head of the Salvation Army in Springfield, says that, unfortunately, folks have moved on and forgotten about homelessness in the city. However, Oliver hopes that they’ll remember this time next year, when Mayor Tim Davlin goes up for reelection and five city wards each…
Play online poker and win $2,000
Eleven million people play online poker; 10,999,999 of ’em win, usually $2,000 each. No doubt you know one of the 10,999,999 — Uncle Bob’s strange friend who wears a topcoat in the summer, the nerdy college kid down the street, the librarian with the darting eyes. The only problem these folks have is how to…
Disenchanted
African-American Democrats long have had to possess a sort of double political consciousness — as party loyalists on one hand and as members of the socially oppressed black community on the other. In downstate Illinois, things are even more complicated. Scattered and fewer, blacks here depend heavily on powerful African-American Democrats from Chicago to make…
Letters to the editor
We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address, and daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length, and clarity. Send letters to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. FOR MANI, FREEDOM WASN’T FREE Bruce Rushton’s story on the life and death of Mani the…
Ashcroft resurfaces
All of you John “Mad Dog” Ashcroft fans will be glad to hear that he’s back in government! Well, not in government, exactly. President George W. Bush’s former attorney general is actually working the smarmy edges of government, having become a Washington lobbyist. He’s put his reputation, expertise, and — most important — his connections…
Bush’s education law may not be so bad
As war overwhelms the nation’s social agenda and Illinois political candidates continue to ignore the state’s failure to provide adequate school funding, a crucial conversation continues, largely behind the scenes. At first, President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” education reform was seen as a Republican hoax, an unfunded mandate, a punitive approach to…
Jacqueline Jackson
countrysidepoem #3 so what’s geocaching you ask well it’s when you hide a treasure cache and people seek it with their GPS and then they sign in when they find it I hid one on an abandoned railway trestle east of rochester called it curiouser and curiouser everything in it alice related cards chess pieces…
CAP CITY
JUST LIKE IN THE BIG CITY You can’t be too careful these days. That, presumably, is why the State Journal-Register now requires visitors to wear photo ID cards made on the spot. Like albatrosses, they’re worn around the neck. Employees have to wear them, too. No sneaking over to the ad department to steal leftover…
The song’s the thing
You might not think you know who Jules Shear is, but you’ve probably heard at least one of his songs. Although the 54-year-old Pittsburgh native has been performing for almost 30 years now, his songs are much more famous than he is, thanks to several high-profile cover versions. Cyndi Lauper and the Bangles scored chart…
Hear the best bad country
Somehow Brian Henneman, head honcho of the Bottle Rockets, got it in his head that crappy country songs of the 1970s should not die alone and forgotten. He’s revived the best of the worst from their moribund state for presentation to an unsuspecting public, and Diesel Island, Henneman’s chosen band vehicle for this adventure, takes…
American life in poetry
What a marvelous gift is the imagination, and each of us gets one at birth, free of charge and ready to start up, get on, and ride away. Can there be anything quite so homely and ordinary as a steam radiator? And yet, here, Connie Wanek, of Duluth, Minn., nudges one into play. Radiator Mittens…
