Top dogs
Three months ago, Mark Anderson and Rob Deaton opened the Wienerdog, a business dedicated to that quintessential summertime meal: the all-beef hot dog. The two were working at a local Applebee’s, when they came to the realization that what this city really needed was a good hot dog. “There just weren’t any good hot dogs…
Checking you out
Ed Yohnka could always count on the “knee-jerk, I-hate-Ashcroft types” to fill the seats for his talks on civil-rights abuses by the U.S. government in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But lately he’s seeing a new crowd: well-read, conservative citizens concerned about their rights ever since the Patriot Act took effect.…
Bards of the Sangamo 7-24-03
The Lost Prairie–Lake II Covering the land of my youth I hear the laughing lake filling behind a massive concrete dam. Its fingers flood little hollows, cover brown cattails and purple violets. Sangamo history is hidden beneath the mirrored surface where names are etched on a gray stone bridge humped over the county road once…
The governor’s most dangerous game
Last week was a public relations nightmare for Rod Blagojevich. A few months after freezing the wages of nonunion state employees and deducting 4 percent from their checks to pay for their pension contributions, a month after vetoing pay raises for legislators and judges, two weeks after unilaterally slashing the operating budgets of two statewide…
Now Playing 7-24-03
Hark, is that the sound of the evening’s wind blowing across the prairie, or perhaps it’s the cacophony of a summer pond? Nay, my friend, it is but the music of the capital city pouring forth in all its beauty and resonance. In other words, here’s what’s going on this week with all the stars…
Knoepfle 7-24-03
what cesar vallejo said he said when the time comes for me to answer to god I will have a defender–god he said it is sunday in the clear ears of my peruvian burro
Movies
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over While large-scale IMAX productions have achieved stunning realism, writer and director Robert Rodriguez’s latest film–the third following the childhood adventures of Juni and Carmen Cortez–succeeds with quaint 3-D cardboard glasses. Floating bulls-eyes loom before us. Frogs on pogo sticks bounce forward. Nuts and bolts fly off disintegrating machines. Grasping hands…
Now Playing
Hark, is that the sound of the evening’s wind blowing across the prairie, or perhaps it’s the cacophony of a summer pond? Nay, my friend, it is but the music of the capital city pouring forth in all its beauty and resonance. In other words, here’s what’s going on this week with all the stars…
Bigger doesn’t mean better veggies
Most vegetable gardeners would agree with my four-year-old son: the most fun is planting the seeds and then eating the produce. We gardeners persevere through weeding, watering, and pest management, dreaming of our first tomato slice or the taste of fresh zucchini. One advantage of a home vegetable garden is that you can pick the…
The highway side
What you missed:Private eye Nick Acropolis finally meets Sheriff Archer outside of the Sawyer County Courthouse in McKinley. Archer asks for the pictures Nick took in the impounded semi trailer. Nick hands over a roll of film, and the sheriff says he’s also heard the investigator is looking for the missing son of Maddy Miller,…
The Patriot Act . . . Now at your local library
Last week was a public relations nightmare for Rod Blagojevich. A few months after freezing the wages of nonunion state employees and deducting 4 percent from their checks to pay for their pension contributions, a month after vetoing pay raises for legislators and judges, two weeks after unilaterally slashing the operating budgets of two statewide…
Lights! Camera! Confess!
Illinois law enforcement groups opposed legislation requiring police to tape their interrogations of suspects. But just before a watered-down version of the bill became law last week, they discovered the practice makes their work easier and more credible. For instance, in one of Kankakee County’s first attempts at videotaping the interrogation of a suspect, Christopher…
Who Killed Joel?
Julie Rea has told this story hundreds of times. But no matter how many times she tells it, the story never makes sense. She was asleep in her own bed when she heard a child scream. This child sounded more terrified than her son Joel ever did, no matter what kind of nightmare engulfed him.…
