Eclectic eating
Fried oyster poor boys, BBQ shrimp, pulled pork horseshoes, Mediterranean tofu salad, ribeye sandwiches, West African gumbo, grilled chicken portabella, risotto, gourmet desserts and more. If you think your mouth is watering now, wait until you try these delicious entrees prepared by downtown Springfield restaurants. While you eat, enjoy the sounds of a dozen different…
Away We Go a trip well worth taking
I would never have pictured John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (SNL) as a romantic couple but I am glad director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) had the insight to do so. The chemistry they generate in Away We Go is magical and winds up being the key to the film’s success. Their genuine affection…
Korean War National Museum comes to downtown Springfield
Springfield resident Larry Benson served in the Korean War, working first as a radarman and then for a chaplain. Last Friday, Benson joined dozens of other veterans from central Illinois and around the nation on the Old State Capitol Plaza to celebrate the grand opening of the Korean War Museum’s exhibit in the old Osco…
People’s Poetry
welcomehomepoem #1 the new AC unit upstairs fills with water there’s no way to drain it easily spent a lot of time mopping no way to keep it from leaking turned it off dragged bedding down-stairs slept on the floor demi already asleep on the couch up at four checked the AC which even off…
More robotic nonsense in Transformers 2
You have to give director Michael Bay credit for one thing — he sure makes destruction look pretty. This is a dubious skill to be sure and it’s on display, ad nauseum, in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sequel to the 2007 eardrum-buster that made a huge amount of money around the world. This…
What I learned when I failed
The following is from a speech given by Andy Van Meter at the Eagle Scout Recognition Banquet held at the State Capitol March 2. My topic is failure. I could talk to you about the failure of others. Instead, I would like to talk to you about my own failure, as experienced in the Boy…
Be mean to weeds
Last week in between the rain showers, I finally had the opportunity to tend to my flower beds. While not the most enjoyable outdoor task, weeding is necessary. Remember the saying, “one year of seeds equals seven years of weeds.” That is enough motivation to get me to pull weeds in this heat, humidity and…
Today’s perpetrators of gas pump thievery
Like a Fourth of July crescendo of fireworks, our gasoline prices are rising higher and higher. While this is tough on consumers, we’re assured by a covey of tongue-clucking industry analysts that nothing can be done about it, for it’s simply the law of supply and demand in action — so suck it up, and…
When will Lisa Madigan come out of hiding on tax hike?
Every Republican governor this state has had for the past 40 years has raised taxes. Republican legislators and most of their leaders have always been involved with those tax hikes. So, it’s probably not fair that nobody bats an eye when every Republican candidate for governor — announced and unannounced — is allowed by the…
What price speed? FAST TRAINS
President Barack Obama announced his plan for a national network of speedy passenger trains in April by painting a scene familiar to high-speed rail utopians. “Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city. No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no…
Private hell
On June 8, Robert Foor filed a grievance with the Illinois Department of Corrections seeking a transfer out of Tamms Correctional Center and into a mental health prison, plus proper treatment and medication. Last week, on June 23, Foor was found unresponsive in his cell, and within hours was pronounced dead at Union County Hospital.…
Everything’s just peachy
It’s one of my earliest sensory memories: climbing our old white peach tree, picking one of the rosy fruits, and taking a big bite. The taste was sweet, floral, delicate — almost ethereal. The peach had been basking in the sun, and the hot sticky juice ran down my chin as I ate. Decades later…
Singing with the stars
In just the past year, Cassy and Alyssa Gaddis, teenage sisters from Springfield, have become the bright-eyed faces of the National Guard music campaign. Since Alyssa, now 13, penned “The Price of Peace” last summer, the girls have recorded the song in Nashville, starred in their own music video (which appeared in movie theaters across…
Brad Elvis of The Handcuffs
Honestly Abe, what an incredible selection of live music goings on are going on around Springfield this weekend. From shows around the lake and neighboring town fireworks shindigs, the downtown Capital City Bicentennial Celebration and American Music Stage to all the regular bar business bands, it’s a regular once in a 200-year gala event. Plenty…
New nonprofit plans fitness center for the disabled
As Illinois prepares to slash funding for, and effectively shut down, social service and nonprofit organizations, Kerry Jennings is working to launch Chrysalis Independence Foundation, Inc. — a nonprofit that plans to build a fitness center for Springfield’s low-income and disabled communities. So how’s he going to do it? “I want this all to be…
Party with Lincoln
This isn’t just a festival – this is a big party honoring the 200th birthday of Springfield’s most famous resident, Abraham Lincoln, in concurrence with Independence Day. Twelve blocks of activities will be staged on streets radiating out from the Old State Capitol and at Lincoln’s Home and Neighborhood, Union Park, Illinois State Museum and…
Rock and roll
In conjunction with the Capitol Bicentennial Celebration, the Jaycees present several bands and activities including rock climbing, mazes and inflatables. Perhaps the most unusual and exciting, Wii-rock, is the Recycled Records/Game Crazy Wii Rock Band Contest. From 5-8 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, teams of four can sign up at Recycled…
The Aspect
Conceived by Bill McKenzie (bass, vocals) as a “collection of local musicians from different bands who get together now and again for recording projects of live performances around particular themes,” the Aspect is not your average, everyday band. Last seen presenting the Beatles catalogue, the Fab Four are so all-encompassing and so ingrained in the…
Letters to the Editor
STATE SOLUTION Yes, Gov. Pat Quinn can veto the budget, but that won’t happen. It would be better to take back the Illinois General Assembly members’ initiative money ($500 million this budget) and use it to balance the budget. Then he can (they don’t need members’ initiative money) have the laws changed to keep the…
Sky shows
Feast your eyes on the Fourth of July night sky as it fills with explosions of color and light. The Capital City Bicentennial Celebration concludes with fireworks above the Capitol building at 9:30 p.m. simulcast to music on radio station ABE 93.9. Knight’s Action Park puts on its display of skyart, called Fireworks Extravaganza, at…
Teching things to extremes
Two years ago, Todd Green was happy with his Blackberry. Or so he thought. Then he went to his son’s basketball practice, where another dad hanging out in the bleachers was showing off this new contraption called an iPhone. “He starts to show me some of the stuff on it, and I’m like — this…
