The intriguing and ponderous Tree of Life
Brilliant yet maddening, skillful yet pretentious, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is a polemic work if ever there was one. At once an examination of a Texas family during the 1950s, the film juxtaposes their trials alongside images of the heavens and earth being created, a brief glimpse of dinosaurs and perhaps the awakening…
Reduce, recycle, reuse
Before kids get back to the three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic – take them back and revisit the other three Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle. Aug. 13 at the Illinois State Museum, families with kids ages 4-8 can create a stained glass gift for a teacher using recycled crayons, make a pocket notebook…
Clay’s Popeye’s Barbeque turns 50
Barack Obama isn’t the only one who’s been celebrating a half-century birthday recently. Clay’s Popeye Barbeque’s 50th anniversary is this year. That’s a long time for any business to be in business, and especially noteworthy for a restaurant. Most have a much shorter lifespan. But Popeye’s has stood the test of time. Popeye’s Barbeque, which…
Breakfast, lunch and dinner – on you
Springfield Park District executive director Mike Stratton has used his taxpayer-funded credit card to purchase nearly $2,000 worth of restaurant food since April of last year, when he laid off about 30 employees, according to an Illinois Times analysis of Stratton’s credit card statements from August 2006 through June 2011. Stratton became park district executive…
Stop bullying on campus
Bullying is something that many associate with elementary school; however, it is a form of harassment that can continue well past high school into college. Bullying most often occurs where adult supervision is low or absent. Categorizing bullying at the college level becomes a bit different, but it is still defined as any deliberate act…
Channeling Clemens
Twain scholar and impersonator Warren Brown, winner of the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award for more than 1,000 presentations as Twain, brings the Midwest writer to life at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine on Aug. 11. Brown shares Twain’s insights from Diaries of Adam and Eve, friendships with inventors and thoughts about Galileo and…
City seeking minority police recruits
The Springfield Police Department hopes to hire new patrol officers in the coming months, with minorities to comprise a quarter of the new hires. On Aug. 4, Mayor Michael Houston announced the city would begin in September the recruitment process for new police hires for the first time in two years. Houston also took a…
When adoption goes wrong
Wally and Dawne Busch of Petersburg eagerly adopted their son Alan at the age of two in 2000, knowing that they would be in for some challenging times. They knew that Alan, now 13, had been abused by his biological mother, and they weren’t surprised when, around the time he hit puberty, he began to…
Illinois tiptoes toward regulating insurance rates
Before national health reform became law, if Illinois health insurers wanted to increase their rates, most were not even required to inform the Illinois Department of Insurance of that rate change. Although the Illinois Department of Insurance now has access to rate changes, it still lacks authority to approve or deny unreasonable insurance premium rate…
Going against the flow
My advice is, don’t ever invite the executive director of the Springfield Metro Sanitary District and a carp to the same party. Springfield, you see, is one of dozens of Illinois cities and towns that have a combined sewage system in which the same pipes that carry untreated sewage to the treatment plant also are…
The changing faces of the General Assembly
Redistricting is a time for stock-taking; for looking back and looking ahead. State legislators who’ve been around a while are suddenly faced with the often stark reality of signing on for another 10 years. They add a decade to their current age and wonder if they want to be in the game that much longer.…
Over the rainbow
Grab your seats and tickets and get ready for a night somewhere over the rainbow as The Muni closes out its season with everyone’s favorite story and musical, The Wizard of Oz. Kara DeWall plays Dorothy alongside everyone’s favorite dog, Toto, performed by rescued dog Arlen, trained by Judy Williams. Matthew Vala directs and Elizabeth…
Letters to the Editor 08/11/11
TURKEY DAMMayor Houston promised us a balanced budget, but it looks like he wants to spend money we don’t have on Hunter Dam, a project we don’t need. Federal regulators have said three times Hunter Dam is a turkey. And that’s just for starters. If it ever gets approved, it will take years to get…
The State Fair and beyond
Here comes the Illinois State Fair. From parking cars on our lawns to finding two-way streets going only one way, from bars open late to an increase in the fly population (there’s a barfly joke there somewhere), to a municipal tax revenue bump and filled hotels, the impact of the fair somehow reaches us all.…
A worthy addition to Planet of the Apes
Putting the Tim Burton reboot debacle firmly behind them, 20th Century-Fox has produced a worthy prequel to their Planet of the Apes franchise with Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Spending virtually no time on character development, which is the film’s biggest drawback, this entry focuses on Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) who’s developed…
Obama fights for the poor. Poorly.
By gollies, America’s workaday majority of middle-class and poor people have a fighter on our side in Washington. Unfortunately, that fighter is Barack Obama. He waved his white hankie of surrender in the debt ceiling battle, agreeing to a disastrous deal ruthlessly pushed by the loopiest of the tea party extremists in the Republican House.…
Ashley’s amazing biscuits
These biscuits are amazing because they’re so delicious and so incredibly easy. They’ve become known as Ashley’s biscuits in our house, but not because she devised the recipe. It comes from the cookbook Fanny at Chez Panisse, a Child’s Restaurant Adventures with 46 Recipes, written by the legendary Alice Waters. The recipes are simple yet…
Screamin’ Vatos
Originally conceived by Billy Bacon in 1993 as a Latin percussion-oriented group focusing mainly on material from Carlos Santana with a few cool covers by the band War, the Screamin’ Vatos have always been local favorites. With an average of 8 to 10 members in the band at all times, including percussionists and horn players…
Ride high
Pig out, ride high, be amazed throughout the streets, stalls and building halls of the Illinois State Fair as it opens its gates daily from Friday, Aug. 12 to Sunday, Aug. 21 with concerts, concessions, carnival rides, competitions, cows and so much more! Purchase concert tickets at 800-745-3000 to hear 3 Doors Down, the Oak…
mozartpoem #6
these weekly offerings seem often to include music environment excrementremember the guy and the reservoiralso things that strike me as funny or bizarre here’s an item no not from thetabloids but the august british guardianseems a plant in germany is saving $1200 a month by playing mozart to sewage treuenbrietzen’s chief operator anton stucki says…
Fresh peach cobbler
Peach cobbler is one of Mary Clay’s signature desserts. This is my version of that summertime classic. 2/3 – 1 c. sugar 1 T. cornstarch 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, optional 1 c. water Ashley’s amazing biscuit dough, using 2 T. sugar 3 heaping cups ripe peaches, peeled or not, cut into bite-sized pieces, including any juice…
