A vacation worth repeating
Are you making plans for your 2009 vacations? Or are you, like many of us, wondering if you’ll be taking a vacation at all? Last summer people stayed home because of high gas prices. This year the financial meltdown has many wondering when, if ever, they’ll be able to take a real vacation again. I’d…
The Midnight Swinger is back in town
It’s been over three years since we last checked in with the Midnight Swinger, when the brash and blonde comedian headlined the sixth anniversary of Springfield’s Funny Bone Comedy Club back in September of 2005. Then he was peddling a new self-produced DVD, Swingin’ thru America that followed the comic on a trail across the…
AGGREGATION FRUSTRATION
GateHouse Media, which owns the State Journal-Register and several other newspapers in Illinois, on Monday Dec. 22 sued the New York Times Co. for doing it a favor. In its lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts U.S. District court, Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse charges that NYT-owned news Web sites in the Boston area violated copyrights by displaying “verbatim…
A housing crisis and its new year’s resolution
This time of year, when you can offend one person by saying “Merry Christmas” and tick off the next with “Happy Holidays,” it’s nice to know you can still count on karma, that spiritual version of what goes around, comes around. Take, for example, Dorothy Milford, first introduced to Illinois Times readers in April 2007,…
Say yes to Hunter Lake
There are at least two sides to every story. The Hunter Lake story has been going on for over 40 years and the following is another side of it [See “Say no to Hunter Lake,” by Fletcher Farrar, IT, Dec. 11]. Hunter Lake is, and always has been, the preferred alternative for a permanent secondary…
Letters to the Editor
Policy wonk Your article on Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn [see “Governor in waiting,” Dec. 18] brought back memories. When he was state treasurer in the early 1990s, I researched public policy issues and wrote press releases for Quinn before moving on to a second career in academic life. You captured the essence of the guy.…
Show me the funny
Gov. Rod Blagojevich better run and hide. The comedians at Donnie B’s Funny Bone in Springfield have him in their sights. The Gov, the minimum wage, fast food, the economy, the Cubs and marriage seem to be the most popular topics at the comedy club’s monthly open-mic contest. Several local comedians compete for the top…
How much water does Springfield need?
The proposal to build Hunter Lake has been around for so long that its opponents have come up with plenty of reasons why Springfield can live without it. At a recent hearing held by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, they blasted the proposed 3,010-acre reservoir — conceived in 1965 as a way to buttress Lake…
A family tells its story, and you can tell yours
Here’s a book you’ll love. I’m stating up front it’s by a good friend, Rosie Roach Miller, who grew up in Belleville, graduated from Millikin, married a vet from Springfield who joined his father’s business, Capital City Paper Company, raised children, was active in the community, and when Sangamon State University (now UIS) began in…
Holiday gifts for a better America
In keeping with the biblical adage that it’s better to give than to receive, I came up with a delightful sleighful of holiday goodies this year to dispense to some of our nation’s most special people. It was not easy to shop for these folks. I mean, what do you get for members of Congress,…
IT Picks
HOME IMPROVEMENT | Weatherization workshop Heating a house in the winter can put a strain on the pocketbook, so the city of Springfield is offering a workshop to help reduce the cost of utility bills. City Water, Light and Power is offering a 90-minute workshop focusing on home energy efficiency improvements that can be done…
The famous trial lawyer will lose this case
“It’s tough to scream ‘witch hunt’ when your client is riding a broom,” cracked one Statehouse reporter the other day after Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s defense attorney Ed Genson claimed the atmosphere following Blagojevich’s arrest was “a real witch hunt.” Genson’s protestations have mostly fallen on deaf ears, particularly with the Illinois House’s impeachment committee. The…
REMEMBERING PARIS
What would have possessed a pair of French immigrants to open a dry cleaning establishment in Springfield way back in 1909? Well, it was kind of a filthy year. Drilling began on California’s Lakeview oil gusher and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened. Here in Illinois there was a coal mine fire in Cherry and the…
Kent’s state
Kent Redfield has been a go-to-guru of Land of Lincoln politics since forever. A regular on WICS Channel 20 and in the pages of the State Journal-Register and this newspaper, the emeritus political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield is frequently sought out by quote-seeking journalists outside of Springfield as well. For…
2008: The year in film
In the world of film, 2008 will be remembered as the year in which the industry proved it could thrive even when the economy did not. Never before were there so many films that grossed over $200 million (six) at the box office, with three of them going past $300 million, one of them becoming…
