Different roads
I mentioned in my recent remembrance of John Garvey that I had known him for nearly 50 years. I met him when I was 18 years old. The folly of Vietnam had become alarmingly plain, I was facing the draft and John was a volunteer draft counselor for the American Friends Service Committee. John was my…
Oscar-Nominated Shorts an Eclectic Mix of International Visions
Animated Shorts – The five nominated films to be shown vary in quality but are overall a solid bunch. Canada’s charming Me and My Moulton concerns three dissatisfied sisters who come to realize how lucky they are though the middle sibling constantly complains about her lot in life. An unexpected turn of events puts things in…
Moore’s Honesty Sustains “Alice”
Alice Howland knows that she’s living on borrowed time. She’s well aware of what fate awaits her having been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and seeing those whose minds have been ravaged by it, their vacant eyes disconnected from the past and unable to interpret the present. She jogs and watches what she eats, the…
A watchdog now holds the leash
John Maki Gov. Bruce Rauner wants to reduce Illinois’ use of incarceration. His commitment to prison and sentencing reform is evident in the person he hired to crunch the numbers. Until recently, John Maki served as the executive director of the John Howard Association (JHA), a Chicago-based watchdog group focusing on prison reform in Illinois.…
Reading recipes
PHOTO FROM METRO CREATIVE CONTENT When my husband, Peter, was a college freshman, he and a friend developed a shared longing for liver and onions. The friend had an apartment, so they decided to make themselves a liver-and-onion feast. “It says here to dredge the liver in flour,” said Peter’s friend, reading the recipe. “What…
Clown comedy
The Portuguese Rodeo Clown Company If you are a fan of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” or The Second City, you will not want to miss this weekend’s Portuguese Rodeo Clown Company performances. In this live, improvisational two-hour comedy show, five ragtag actors take the stage without a script, acting out scenes and scenarios at…
An important tool to fight drug abuse
The fear of measles and news of the Ebola virus have captured news headlines for many months. These are of course serious news stories and deserve our attention. However, there is one issue that should share this grave spotlight: the epidemic of prescription drug abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly…
A HIGHER POWER
Some religions worship the sun; others use it to power their buildings. In late 2014, the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congregation (ALUUC) in Springfield installed solar panels on the roof of their building at 745 Woodside Road, making it the first church in town to harness this “higher power.” They say it wasn’t just about…
RJ Mischo & His Red Hot Blues Band
RJ Mischo & His Red Hot Blues Band RJ Mischo is nothing short of a phenomenon. He’s traveled the globe for more than 20 years as a touring blues artist, released nine internationally distributed CDs and played on an additional 21 CDs as a guest or on compilations with the likes of Jimmie Vaughan, James…
Aetna’s common sense wage lift
Business schools and Wall Street banks preach a strict, anti-social doctrine of corporate management that comes down to this: CEO’s must be idiots. By that I mean the original Greek word “idiotes,” which applied to people who care only about themselves and the prosperity of their immediate family, rejecting any responsibility to the larger society,…
BIZ TECH
Business owners: what could you do with $30,000? Chances are, many business owners have a list of projects they’d tackle if the funds were to become available. Cable company Comcast wants to know what’s on your wish list, and they may give you a big wad of cash to scratch something off of it. Comcast’s…
Sustainable design
Designing a Sustainable Springfield Sustainability will be the topic of discussion on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at Lincoln Library. Sustainable design leaders from Springfield and Chicago will share the stories behind their designs and offer suggestions for revitalizing downtown Springfield. Featured architects include Springfield resident Larry Quenette, president and principal architect at Renaissance…
A Pan-African and American dialogue
Book signing and panel discussion with Seenaa Jimjimo On Monday, Feb. 23, visit the Out of Africa Heritage Center, located at 422 E. Monroe St., for a book signing and discussion with Seenaa G-D Jimjimo. Seenaa will be signing copies of her book, The In-Between. She will also lead a discussion on the relationships, American…
Work in progress
A train car, pictured above, carried Lincoln’s body from Washington, D.C., to Springfield in 1865, but authorities have not granted approvals for replica to hit the rails. The reenactment of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral on the 150th anniversary of that event is not coming together in the usual way for an occasion that organizers promise will…
Editor’s note 2/19/15
We are pleased to hear that Gov. Bruce Rauner has recognized the need to give independence to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum by making it a stand-alone state agency. Now it can get the attention it deserves and work on the accreditation it needs to win respect in the museum world. But the…
Letters to the Editor 2/19/15
MORE POLICE DIVERSITY In 1972, the Illinois State Police hired a young, black state trooper from Rockford to join the force in District 15. He returned to Rockford to patrol the tollway from Rockford to Chicago. Three years later, the state police selected this trooper to head their Office of Affirmative Action and head their…
A man worth knowing
John Garvey “Agnostic though you are you should pray for his health,” John urged me when he heard that critic and essayist Clive James was suffering from cancer. “After [the deaths of Christopher] Hitchens and [Robert] Hughes we can’t lose him.” From memory, John offered as evidence a line from James’ review of the excruciatingly boring official…
An end to 30 years of hell
Christopher Abernathy walked free on Feb. 11 after spending more than 60 percent of his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE The morning of Feb. 11 started like any other for Christopher Abernathy: wake up at 6 a.m., make coffee in his prison cell, then get ready to…
Victim of the week
Curses, foiled againJeffrey Wood, 19, announced a robbery at a convenience store in Washington, D.C., where two police detectives were shopping. They were in plain clothes but one had her badge hanging from her neck. She told the suspect, “Stop playing, I got 17,” referring to the number of bullets in her gun. Wood reportedly…
Master mixologist, will travel
Edward Burch has a fondness for Prohibition-era cocktails. Edward Burch of Springfield can fix an extraordinary Martini with dry rye gin, blanc vermouth, and old-style Boker’s Bitters while recounting the drink’s unique history and the nuances of each ingredient in great detail. Recently while serving cocktails to friends, he began the evening by offering a…
Rauner’s labor attacks continue
More than a few Statehouse types have been wondering aloud for weeks what Gov. Bruce Rauner is up to with his almost daily attacks on organized labor. Just what, they ask, is the end game here? His people say that the governor feels “liberated” since the election to speak his mind about a topic which…
Grey a bit anticlimactic
Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. For any story that revolves around sex to have any sort of impact, the characters involved must be complex and appealing. If we can’t come to care about or be intrigued by them, then having them do whatever they…
Beak experience
I recently started dating this new girl. I asked her whether her lips and boobs are real (and it turns out they are). However, I did call her out on having a nose job. She admitted it but seemed kind of upset. It’s the truth. And she’s beautiful, however she got that way. What’s the…
gene poem #5
gene poem #5 GMO sounds like anSTDwell, isn’t it? ©2015 Jacqueline Jackson
Indelible Del
The Del McCoury Band performs Friday, Feb. 20, at the Sangamon Auditorium. In looking for a snappy headline about Del McCoury, I landed on “indelible” to describe the 76 year-old musician and entertainer. The definition of “making marks that cannot be removed” seemed fitting considering the accomplishments achieved by this grounded and ground-breaking artist in…
