Horse play
Your family doesn’t need to be horse lovers to love the prancing, dancing, marching, leaps and maneuvers of the Lipizzans – a rare and unique breed of horse – made even more famous by the Walt Disney movie The Miracle of the White Stallions. The World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions current tour features 12 to 14…
A letter to a young worker
Dear young worker: You’re in trouble. Sorry to rain on popular culture’s positive-thinking parade, but reality is composed of facts. Our wealthiest 1 percent already receives about 24 percent of our country’s annual income, but they asked for and received another $700 billion in tax cuts. The Republican Party also claims it can balance the…
Big Brothers and Sisters wanted
Yvonne Wapniarski says it takes her an average of two years to match a child with an adult mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Illinois Capital Region in Springfield. “Two years unless they match right up,” she says. “If I don’t match them in two years, I’m supposed to take them off the…
All but married
As Susan Frain and Susan Faupel sit next to each other discussing civil unions, civil rights and the basic notions of partnership and commitment, they laugh, they listen and they remember the other’s part in past dialogues played out over the course of their 23-year relationship. Intellectual equals with similar liberal notions and anti-establishment ideals,…
Parking war
Parking in Springfield is cheap. Visitors from Chicago sometimes joke that it’s cheaper to get a parking ticket here than to simply pay the meter in their city. But that could change with a proposed ordinance under consideration by the city council. On Jan. 25, the council considered a measure to double Springfield’s fine for…
Lincoln and love
I’m not really sure why, but let’s say the nearness of the dates drew me to attempt to vaguely tie the holidays of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and St. Valentine’s Day together. Our first connection concerns what’s commonly known as the Lincoln Love Couch in historic Edwards Place, home of the Springfield Art Association. There sits…
northfifthstreet poem #16
worst blizzard in years on tuesdaythat evening the school parking lotnext door got plowed I thoughtprematurely left a mountain of snowbetween me and the curb then ateleven o’clock I heard laughterthought what are kids doing out inthis weather this wind chill are theyok I looked out until I spotted themin the parking lot three kids…
Letters to the Editor 02/10/11
RELIABLE TRAINSDuring last week’s blizzard, Amtrak’s website stated that regular train service was running with only minor delays. Meanwhile, nationwide more than 6,000 flights were canceled at American airports. Interstate routes were covered and blizzards kept motorists going slow, if they were on the roads at all. The only dependable form of transportation during Blizzard…
Planning a one-stop shop for health insurance
Flash forward to the future: The year is 2014, and Illinois residents are buying their health insurance in a new way. Instead of fumbling with numerous complex health insurance plans, they have the option of buying pre-approved, comprehensive plans through a state-administered website. That’s how a state council on health reform envisions it. The Illinois…
Now, how about equal rights for singles?
Illinois’ civil union law undeniably brings a greater sense of equality between same-sex couples and married couples. That’s a good thing – love is love, and if married couples get hundreds of benefits and protections, same-sex couples should have that opportunity too. But now that the law has passed, it’s time to look beyond what…
Honorable ancestors
Thomas Schwartz has been the Illinois State Historian since 1993. Asked how he got into the racket in a 2008 interview, Mr. Schwartz recalled that he grew up surrounded by an extended family whose members like to get together, eat, drink and tell stories. “History was easier for me,” he said, “because it was transmitted in…
A rich season for local theater
The new year has begun with some new titles on area stages and several more are coming up in the coming weeks. Seeing the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee recently (a Springfield Theatre Centre production at the Hoogland Center for the Arts) was such a lift from the winter blahs. This organization…
COLD CASE: ILLINOIS
Skip the crime investigation shows on TV this week and come out for the real thing. Springfield’s FBI Citizen’s Academy Alumni Association promises an evening of mystery with former cold case investigator Paul Echols on Feb. 15. He will discuss his experiences as a key investigator in a case involving a serial killer in Illinois…
MENU COMPENDIUM
What do you do when you’re looking for some place to eat out? For many of us, the first stop is Google.com. While you can find almost anything that way, it’s often out of date or incomplete. Even with Yelp.com, you can’t always get current information, and you usually can’t see what food a restaurant…
Royal Pain
Stocked with a bevy of classy, veteran Springfield musicians, Royal Pain stakes a claim as the classic rock band “THAT ROCKS!” With Sam Draper (guitar, vocals) from Freak of Nature, Elephants Gerald and Spy vs. Spy, Gary Davis (guitar, vocals) from Hurricane Ruth, Out on Bail, Little Big Band and Muni Opera Orchestra, Steve Marvel…
Chicano culture
Though March 23, view a series of large silk-screen prints by artist and writer Carlos Francisco Jackson, assistant professor of Chicana/Chicano Studies at the University of California at Davis, and director of Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, a community art center in Woodland, Calif. Jackson explores the story that he and others live, or have…
Quinn makes shameful cuts to child care
The state’s Secretary of Human Services met with a group representing child-care providers Jan. 31 and gave them some bad news. Prepare for $100 million in cuts to child-care programs, Secretary Michelle Saddler told the group. According to a participant in the meeting, Secretary Saddler said the state could freeze intake of new clients, “dramatically”…
Sanctum cave is not as deep as it should be
“What could possibly go wrong cave diving?” Yes, screenwriters John Garvin and Andrew Wight actually employ that piece of dialogue early on in the 3-D disaster movie Sanctum and, regrettably, it proves to be one of the more witty lines in the movie. Yeah, the script is that lazy but there’s no question that the…
Off-stage stories
Ever wonder what stories and thoughts run through the actors’ heads as you watch them on stage at the Hoogland? Just this curiosity ignited playwright Ken Bradbury to explore and capture the stories, memories, thoughts and desires of central Illinois’ acting community. Bradbury’s script formation began with hundreds of hours of interviews with local actors…
Roommate in need of eviction
I know that beauty is only skin deep but in The Roommate it’s what takes the place of character. There’s no question that everyone in the cast is a looker. Obviously there’s a “sexiness” requirement to be admitted at UCLA as there’s nary an overweight, pimple-plagued social reject in sight. Yep, this is the campus…
The Kochs are coming!
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – The multibillionaire Koch brothers are used to running their nefarious network of political front groups from behind closed doors, keeping their identities and self-serving involvements secret from the media and us hoi polloi. For more than three decades, Charles and David Koch have been quietly funneling tens of millions of dollars…
Revisiting winter 1979
Sounds like you had some nasty weather back in Illinois last week. Here in New York City, that particular weather system wasn’t bad, although further north, New England was inundated again. Boston has been particularly hard-hit. Just before I visited my son, Robb, there last month, his car was so buried that he had to…
