Keep the Lights On
The State of Illinois owes Springfield’s municipal utility $12 million. File photo by Patrick Yeagle As the state passes into month nine of the budget impasse, Illinois’ financial backlog is growing. But higher education and human service providers are not the only people waiting for money from the state. The State of Illinois owes City…
Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Films
Ave Maria (Palestine/France/Germany) – Taking place on Palestine’s West Bank, a Israeli family’s car runs off the road and crashes into a convent where five nuns who have taken a vow of silence reside. What with the Sabbath having just come into effect, the members of the family are unable to use the phone to…
Citizenship test
ILLUSTRATION BY Julie Notarianni/TNS Who gets to be an American? I don’t mean who gets to live here. I mean, who gets to be an American citizen? This large question weighs heavily on the smaller minds on our political right. I recall that Alan Keyes argued – if that’s the accurate term for an assertion…
Corporate cons and widening inequality
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE The basic problem facing the corporate and political powers that want you and me to swallow their Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is that they can’t make chicken salad out of chicken manure. But that reality hasn’t stopped their PR campaign, pitching their “salad” as good and good for you.…
Not working, not winning
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS President Barack Obama seemed to admit almost right from the start of his address to the Illinois General Assembly last week about the need for a more civil politics that he probably wouldn’t sway his audience, which has been bickering amongst itself for over a year. Obama talked about his first…
Letters to the Editor 2/18/16
Bill Dudleston, owner and founder of Legacy Auto. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE LEGACY OF EXCELLENCE Many thanks to Illinois Times and Bruce Rushton for the profile of Springfield’s Legacy Audio (“Sounds good”) in the Feb. 11 edition. It made me smile. This company is truly a gem in Springfield’s business jewel box, and Bill Dudleston…
Editor’s note 2/18/16
The bright spot in Gov. Bruce Rauner’s no-budget budget address is his support for increased state funding for K-12 education. In addition, support is growing for a change in the formula for distributing that state aid, which could greatly benefit Springfield schools. But education is not the only thing Illinois is supposed to do. If…
The people’s school
Back in the 1960s, one community college opened every week in America. Illinois was part of that movement. This year, proclaimed by Governor Rauner as the “Year of the Community College,” marks the 50th anniversary of Illinois’ law setting up the community college system. His proclamation bears a certain irony given his failure to fund…
A charitable comedian
Comedian Peter Berman’s big break occurred when hallucinogenic drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary caught his act and invited the then-University of Michigan student to perform a gig in Los Angeles at Hollywood Improv. One year later, with a degree in communications in tow, Peter moved to Los Angeles and quickly became a regular on the…
Linking music and sports
Enjoy a Sunday concert that showcases Millikin University’s powerful interdisciplinary alliances with collaborative performances by students and faculty from the College of Fine Arts. This exciting program by Millikin University’s Chamber Percussion Ensembles explores the relationship between music and sports. The production includes a rendition of Rocael Hurtado’s “Tennis Club” performed on marimba, Richard Lerman’s…
When race, culture, country collide
On Thursday, Feb. 25, join Dexter Burns, a current Master’s degree candidate in the Latin American and Caribbean studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Dr. Hinda Seif, sociology/anthropology and women and gender studies faculty member at University of Illinois Springfield, for a presentation that examines the complicated intersections of race, culture…
Fifty Shades of Wait
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’m a very successful guy in my 30s. I had a lot of casual sex in my 20s, but I got sick of the disconnection and emotional fallout. I’m looking for a relationship, and I’ve started waiting to sleep with women (for at least a month). I tell them…
Nature’s friends
Vern LaGesse, executive director of Friends of Sangamon Valley. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE Wherever you are right now, odds are the world surrounding you is made of human-designed objects. With a stretch of the imagination, perhaps this world can become one of nature, filled with acres of prairie, woods and wetlands, inhabited by creatures of…
The sweet flow of Poetry Out Loud
Mariah Brooks. Photo by William Richards. Troy Roark is amazed at how much talent is “hiding” in local schools. Roark, Springfield Area Arts Council board president, is referring to the group of 17 high school students who competed in the regional Poetry Out Loud contest on Feb. 10, demonstrating their ability to recite poems concisely,…
Downtown student housing coming this fall
One of Bluffstone’s numerous apartment properties. Starting this fall, the University of Illinois Springfield will offer housing for graduate students who want to live downtown. A partnership between UIS, Town and Country Bank and Bluffstone, LLC., a student housing development firm, will give graduate students a new option for off-campus housing in the downtown area.…
It’s a wrap
Jack Campbell, former undersheriff for the Sangamon County sheriff’s office, shows off the department’s MRAP in 2014. PHOTO BY BRUCE RUSHTON The Sangamon County sheriff’s office has gotten rid of a massive armored vehicle designed to withstand blasts from mines and improvised explosive devices. The department a few weeks ago returned the six-wheeled vehicle, officially…
Illinois behind on federal ID mandate
Illinois is having trouble complying with a controversial federal law on state identification cards, more than a decade after the law passed. If the state doesn’t comply or get an extension by 2018, Illinois residents would be unable to board airplanes in the U.S., among other restrictions. The federal REAL ID Act of 2005 required…
Still no contract at SJ-R
PHOTO BY BRUCE RUSHTON Negotiations between newsroom employees and management at the State Journal-Register have not borne fruit despite the aid of a federal mediator who has been called in to help the two sides reach agreement. Shannon Duffy, administrative officer for the United Media Guild that represents about 25 newsroom workers, said that a…
TELLING ALL
When Roland Burris moved his family back to Illinois from Washington, D.C., in 1963 after he finished law school, he swore only two conditions could convince him to move back to the nation’s capital: he would go either as vice-president or as a U.S. senator. Burris, 78, says he chose “vice president” because he never…
PAST AND PRESENT
Springfield is full of fascinating history even outside of the usual Abe Lincoln connections. However, much of the city’s “everyday life” history gets overlooked. Luckily, a Facebook group called “You know you’re from Springfield, IL, when…” exists to share the type of history that probably won’t make the text books. On a typical day, members…
Small but mighty
The nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Short are (clockwise from upper left) “Bear Story,” “We Can’t Live without Cosmos,” “World of Tomorrow,” “Prologue,” and “Sanjay’s Super Team.” For the last ten years, the Oscar Nominated Short Films have been packaged and released to select theaters around the country. What began as an experiment…
Music goings on
Melanie Delaney comes from Iowa way to play George Ranks on Sun., from 7 to 10 p.m. In the new record category, folk-based singer-songwriter Ben Bedford launched a Kickstarter project last week to fund his latest recording. The album, The Pilot and the Flying Machine, was recorded live in early January in the sanctuary of…
Fun DMC
Take the cover band concept of playing popular songs and combine it with a DJ-style song mashup to make an “oddly entertaining blend of musical alchemy”, and there you have the design behind Fun DMC. Combined artists include Journey and Metallica, Nelly and The Bee Gees, Run-D.M.C. and Avril Lavigne, Usher and Michael Jackson, LMFAO…
The last waltz
Gumbo with layers of flavor, “earthy, mysterious, complex.” I recently lost my wife (and Illinois Times food columnist), Julianne Glatz. When one loses his best friend of 45 years, the mother of his children, the Nana of his grandchildren, a tremendous void suddenly appears. I can’t bring her back, but I can’t let go either.…
potluck poem #1
potluck poem #1 if it’s gotcornflakeson topit’s boundto be good ©2016 Jacqueline Jackson
