Right of refusal
As soon as the morning-after pill Plan B came on the market several years ago, downstate-Illinois pharmacist Peggy Pace knew that she’d never dispense it. “It has the effect of ending the life of an embryo,” she insists — flat-out rejecting the drug’s classification as contraception: “A contraceptive works by preventing ovulation or fertilization; this…
The life of a mad cowboy
When Howard Lyman approached his banker about starting an organic farm, his banker laughed. After Lyman made the change from chemical-based farming to organic and became a vegetarian (he’s now a vegan), he lost weight, and his blood pressure and cholesterol dropped. Now he’s the one laughing. Lyman, a fourth-generation farmer, made the choice to…
backstage pass 6-16-05
Great things are happening on summer stages. I just saw 42nd Street in Sullivan at the Little Theatre on the Square. Having seen back in 1980 the original Broadway production, which began with a slow curtain rising on what seemed to be 100 pairs of tap-dancing feet, I wondered how effective the opening would be handled…
flicks 6-16-05
The remake of the football comedy The Longest Yard is quickly becoming one of the most successful sports movies ever made, and Cinderella Man and Kicking and Screaming are headed for respectable business. This new flurry of movies with sports themes should rejuvenate interest in some older classics, ones that avoid the pitfalls of the…
Sorry end
Rep. John Fritchey’s session was going extraordinarily well — until he smacked into the last 10 days. The Chicago Democrat was the prime mover behind the unprecedented compromise between anti-abortion and pro-choice groups earlier this session. The two sides had never worked together before Fritchey forced them to the table. It all started when House…
now playing 6-16-05
Singer/songwriter/blues guitarist Brian Curran is just south of Iowa City. He’s on his way back from a Des Moines coffeehouse show, heading to Hannibal for an evening restaurant gig. As we talk, his cell phone crackles and cuts out. “Man, I’m losing you,” says the traveling 28-year-old troubadour. “I’ll call when I get through this…
Opposition melts
What was shaping up to be a fight at City Council over a zoning request from Prairie Farms Dairy may have been averted by a neighborhood association’s fact-finding efforts. Prairie Farms, which has been making ice cream mix at its South MacArthur Boulevard facility since 1950, has a petition pending that seeks permission to demolish…
sound patrol 6-16-05
At first blush, the pairing seems odd: abrasive American indie-rock idol and whimsical French soundtrack doyen. Like horseradish and marzipan, they’re two great tastes, but do they taste good together? To the few thousand people out there who know her work with Crowsdell and her devastating solo CDs, Shannon Wright is the quintessence of the…
Jacqueline Jackson 6-16-05
environmentpoem #1 when I turn on the flame beneath my iron frying pan to dry the puddle in the middle so the skillet won’t rust I stand and watch the water shrivel in from the edges like the aral sea © Jacqueline Jackson 2005
quick takes 6-16-05
ADOPT A MESSY ORPHAN Mayor Tim Davlin and the folks at Springfield Green last week unveiled the latest effort to clean up litter. “Adopt-a-Street,” which is modeled on the state’s adopt-a-highway program, aims to clean up the city’s streets through volunteerism. St. John’s Hospital, the first business to join up, is pledging to keep tidy…
capital voices 6-16-05
He was Billy Mack See-Inside because it was the name he wanted and what he could do. He could see inside living trees, feel time as it was when each ring was newborn. Weather permitting, he came by every Saturday, stayed an hour, told his secrets, then lumbered on to his other worlds. His uniform…
Winning, together
People should get along and “try to plant a good seed,” says Kevin Frazier, a fifth-grader at Matheny Elementary. They should “join together, hand in hand,” says Kiem Carter, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Magnet School. It’s time to “give birth again to the dream,” says Marquetta Dickerson, a freshman at Springfield High School. Unity and…
common sense 6-16-05
George Washington sagely warned against America’s getting caught up in “entangling alliances” in foreign affairs. President Bush, however, seems to think he’s smarter than the first George W. As a result of Bush’s arrogance or ignorance or both, our country is now entangled in some ugly and messy alliances that put us on the wrong…
Green ham and interrupted prayers
They were known as plain people with a practical faith. Their church was called German Baptist and later changed to Church of the Brethren when ethnic identity became a handicap, but they were nicknamed Dunkards for their method of baptism: not once but three times under. Following the injunction in the Book of James “to…
Fade to black
In just a couple weeks, Mitch Hopper will turn off the spotlights and floodlights in the Illinois State Board of Education’s television studio, probably for the last time. A staff member since 1971, Hopper is the last professional from a TV operation that once sent programs all over the United States. “We had over a…
letters 6-16-05
Letters policy We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity. Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois 62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com NEW REGS DON’T GO FAR ENOUGH The Illinois Department of Agriculture recently…
movie review
Part Mermaids, part The Parent Trap, and all mess, The Perfect Man is one of the most annoying, lame-brained romantic comedies to be released in many a moon. Not only is the plot so silly that the Three Stooges would have rejected it, Perfect Man expects audiences to accept a circumstance that’s too fantastic to be…
people’s poetry
In the Earth She calls in the night, in the blindness of three AM, her black loam throbbing . . . This is not the first time I’ve slipped away to be with her. We’ve made love on the breasts of hills and wrapped ourselves in thickets at high noon. Not always gently, I have…
