Creating new Halloween traditions
Starting back in August, my daughters began planning their Halloween costumes. At first, my six-year-old told me she wanted to be a vampire. Two hours later, she reconsidered that frightening getup and told me she wanted to be a beautiful princess. An hour after that, she changed her mind again. My oldest daughter is “totally…
vulgar poem #1
how about a little mild vulgarity? I wrote this limerick when my dad had prostate surgery I published it in a family newsletter; my nephews wrote a clever ballad on the subject much more vulgar but here is mine; I’ll be glad to accept compliments: “Our worthy progenitor, he Was finding it painful to pee.…
Letters to the editor 10/1/20
We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to letters@illinoistimes.com. —- BETTER FOR HAVING BUFF HERE Thank you for the article about Buff Carmichael (“Igniting change,” Sept. 24). I’d heard much about his past at one time or another. I know he’s done a lot…
Student screen time
After school abruptly went remote in March, the state board of education recommended a maximum of 90 minutes of daily “engagement” for students in kindergarten through second grade. For third through fifth graders the max was two hours and rose incrementally to 270 minutes for high schoolers. Much has changed since then. Springfield’s public school…
Steps to fairness include drug penalty reform, elderly parole
The Illinois Senate Criminal Law Committee and Special Committee on Public Safety held the latest in a series of hearings related to the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’ legislative agenda Sept. 29, focusing on reclassifying offenses, drug penalty reform and elderly parole. “We must confront the vast disparities in how individuals throughout the state are sentenced,”…
Police residency and review
Police reform is a nationally trending topic as demonstrators continue to protest killings of Black people. Meanwhile, activists are calling for changes they say would address concerns regarding the Springfield Police Department. Community leaders continue to meet to explore potential police reform. Black Lives Matter Springfield has held a series of off-record conversations with police…
Lower compulsory school age to 5?
Illinois lawmakers may soon consider legislation to lower the state’s compulsory attendance law to include 5-year-olds, a measure advocates see as a way to expand access to early childhood education opportunities, especially among Black and low-income families. That was just one of the issues discussed Sept. 24 during a virtual joint hearing of the Illinois…
IT AIN’T A LANDFILL
We know you might mean well, but please: The homeless don’t need secondhand wedding gowns or dinged-up dress shoes or used mattresses or other stuff that a thrift store wouldn’t take. Nonetheless, folks have been bestowing Springfield’s makeshift tent city on Madison Street with trash unfit for castaways on a three-hour tour, emptying car trunks…
STATEHOUSE STATUES
Two statues outside the Capitol have been removed. Pierre Menard was the state’s first lieutenant governor and owned enslaved people. Stephen A. Douglas, foe of Abraham Lincoln, profited from a family plantation. House Speaker Michael Madigan had asked over the summer for them to go. Many Springfield residents had asked for the same. Over the…
High-stakes rematch
A political rematch two years in the making, with campaigns dictated by the COVID pandemic, will decide who represents a large swath of central Illinois in the nation’s capital. And when it’s over, whoever wins may not have a district in which to run for reelection in 2022. The 13th Congressional District race is a…
Music-tober time
Welcome to October 2020 and all the fine, frivolous, fractious, fun, fantastic and phenomenal things it may or may not have to offer you and yours. But whatever the case, we’ve still got live music happening at outdoor venues as we await seasonal weather and the inevitable slowing down of music being made. On the…
The magic of brown butter
Brown butter is a magical thing. It’s devastatingly simple to make and transforms everything from cookies to chicken to boxed macaroni and cheese. It’s often thought of as a classic French ingredient, and indeed the late Julia Child, who helped to make French cooking accessible to American home cooks, was known for her love of…
Gabe Marshall
This Jacksonville native takes his music work seriously, whether writing songs, performing live, promoting his career or doing whatever it takes to make it in the business. Gabe Marshall composes material, plays guitar and sings, does solo and duo shows, plus brings out the full band when the time and place is right. He packed…
Subversive Spontaneous one of year’s best
Something is seriously wrong at Covington High School. Students are exploding. Yes, blowing up. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. It could be any of the teens who run the halls in the school. One second, you’re taking notes in World History, the next, your brains are splattered all over your best friend, blood…
Pre-history to the 21st century
The 22nd annual Conference on Illinois History, hosted by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM), will be online this year. Jacob K. Friefeld, Illinois and Midwest studies historian at the ALPLM, will open the conference. Scholars from across the U.S. will present 20 sessions on some fascinating subjects, such as the culture and…
“He had a good shot at getting out”
Legislators should hold hearings in the wake of an assault at McFarland Mental Health Center allegedly committed by a resident the state deemed safe for release, says the prosecutor who fought to keep the man at McFarland. “Luckily, it happened inside rather than out in the community,” says Effingham County State’s Attorney Bryan Kibler. Twice…
Police and politics
No one in Springfield, likely, has heard of Brian Eggleston, a bartender who sold dime bags of weed to make ends meet. I covered his first trial in Washington state, back in 1997. The cops did what drug warriors do. Knowing Eggleston owned guns, they came to his house early in the morning, expecting to…
What’s at stake in this election
It probably feels like the 2020 elections have been going on for years, and in a sense they have. Ever since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the political world has been girding for this moment. But more Americans than you might expect have only just begun paying attention, now that we’re in the…
Editor’s note 10/1/20
It looks like decency will win over crassness in the election next month, but it is too soon to tell. Things may have to get worse before they get better. Many will despair unless they focus on the long term, and local first. Regardless of the outcome of the national election, there will be neighborhoods…
More fallout from Rep. Amy Grant call
Another snippet has been leaked of a now-infamous recorded fundraising call made by Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) in late August. And it’s a doozy. Grant is already reeling badly from the backlash to other comments she made during the call. She has insisted that she is neither a racist nor a homophobe and has tried…
