Suspend Kent Gray, lawyer disciplinary board says
The disciplinary arm of the Illinois Supreme Court has recommended that Kent Gray, a local politician and attorney for Southern View and Illiopolis, be suspended from practice for one year for lying in court and practicing law without a license. The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission in a report issued Tuesday found that Gray…
Medicaid in emergency care?
Jordan Weissman of Slate sums up Republican senators’ proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid is America’s largest health insurance program by enrollment. It covers 62 million Americans—almost as many as Medicare and the entire individual market combined. It helps the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and—thanks to Obamacare’s expansion of it, which Republicans…
Faulty Execution Sinks “47 Meters Down”
Lets hope that having to sit through a bad shark movie doesn’t become an annual tradition. Last year’s “The Shallows” was dead on arrival and now we have “47 Meters Down,” another tepid adventure that fails to deliver the thrills one would expect from a feature focused on one of nature’s most efficient killing machines. …
Cast Can’t Save “Rough Night”
Taking a respite from kickin’ butt and takin’ names in a myriad of action movies, Scarlett Johansson dips her toes in the comedy pool with Lucia Aniello’s “Rough Night,” a film with some genuinely big laughs. It also has more than a few gags that fall flat, which is regrettable as Scar Jo and her…
Race, class and representation
Come fall, it will be 30 years since the City of Springfield’s new aldermanized city council first convened. I voted for it, and I wrote about it. A new system of representation had been forced by a lawsuit alleging that voters’ choices were ineluctably driven by race. The occasion gave me a chance to take…
The GOP will free you from having health care
When I think of freedom, I think of it in positive, aspirational terms – our First Amendment freedoms, for example, or FDR’s “Four Freedoms” or the uplifting songs of freedom sung by oppressed people around the globe. But right-wing, corporate-funded ideologues have fabricated a new negative notion of “freedoms” derived from individual choice. You’re free…
Fear and loathing at the Statehouse
One of the hottest rumors making the rounds among Statehouse types last week was that the governor and/or the Illinois Republican Party will be sending “trackers” to Springfield for the upcoming special legislative session. The rumor, which was everywhere, was that the trackers would follow Democrats around to try and get them to say silly…
Letters to the Editor 6/22/17
STATE STORAGEI enjoyed James Krohe Jr.’s piece on the Department of Human Services record storage problems (“More floppies in a shoebox,” June 15), but was rather amazed that you could write so much without getting to the point. In every story written about this DHS records “scandal,” no one has bothered to define exactly what…
Editor’s Note 6/22/17
That Gov. Bruce Rauner has a limitless capacity for audacity is well known. Yet his Tuesday evening plea for bipartisan “unity” while he is bankrolling ads attacking Democrats for supporting a tax plan similar to his own reached a new low. The governor calls for compromise, but so far he has been unwilling to compromise.…
How to fix Obamacare
I am in agreement with President Donald Trump on at least one thing. He is quoted as telling Republican senators that the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) was “mean” and whatever Senate Republicans come up with needed to be “more generous, more kind.” A recent Quinnipiac poll that shows only 17 percent of Americans…
Teenage expression through poetry
As part of their mission to offer programs and spaces where teens and children can explore and engage with history in a fun way, the Springfield and Central Illinois African-American History Museum’s education committee is hosting a Teen Poetry Slam Friday, June 23, from 6-10 p.m. All area teens are encouraged to compose and perform…
The Summer Porch Chat series
On Friday, June 23, the Elijah Iles House kicks off its annual “Summer Porch Chat” series with a roundtable discussion centering on Abraham Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln. Two conflicting schools of thought regarding Thomas Lincoln’s character have been laid out by scholars since the first Abraham Lincoln biography was penned in 1865. The first describes…
History and video games
Don’t miss War Games, a one-day event organized by Lizzie Roehrs, a junior communication major at the University of Illinois at Springfield and current intern at the Illinois State Military Museum. War Games is an interactive event where attendees can talk with reenactors and historians, examine historical equipment popularized in video games such as “Call…
Our bodies, our selfies
My girlfriend of two years had me help her download photos from her phone, and I found about two dozen close-ups of her private parts. She said she was “just curious.” Well, okay, but why not use a mirror? Besides, she’s in her 30s. Surely, she knows what her parts look like without a photo…
Restoring the Marbold farmstead
To see the old Marbold Farmstead is to want to see more. The imposing brick residence on Illinois Route 29 20 miles north of Springfield dates to the 1850s and has been uninhabited since the 1960s. Passing by its grand edifice, tattered but majestic, you want to pull over and see it up close. If…
Modernism and residency
The Springfield Art Association is currently in high gear with a unique exhibit featuring nearly 300 specimens of modernist furniture and décor. The SAA is also now hosting the first two visiting artists to participate in the recently established Enos Park residency program for visual artists. “Many [20th-century] designers and consumers rejected traditional styles and…
Killing fields
As Springfield police confront a wave of gun violence, a handful of firearms stolen in gun shop burglaries last year have turned up at shooting scenes as well as in the hands of suspected criminals. At least one death has been linked to a gun stolen in Springfield last year, when 64 guns were taken…
Set free by science
“Fire science in the’80s and ’90s was more of an art form than a science,” said Lauren Kaeseberg, legal director of the Illinois Innocence Project’s Chicago office. “Today it is much more scientific.” Illinois Innocence Project is a program of University of Illinois Springfield. Kaeseberg is discussing the recent release on bond of William “Bill”…
Lightning strikes again in Cars 3
Having put the dismal second entry in the series in its rearview mirror, Pixar’s Cars franchise is once again back in the winner’s circle with its third chapter in the adventures of the ever-boyish NASCAR racer Lightning McQueen. Foregoing the sort of misguided adventure that prevented part deux from gaining any speed, director Brian Fee…
A visit with A.J. Croce
Generally, I try to cover lots of stuff going on each week, but every once in awhile, something begs for my entire space. This column is fully dedicated to singer, songwriter, pianist and musician A.J. Croce, who is performing this Saturday in the Studio Theatre at Sangamon Auditorium. To start off with full disclosure; yes,…
Blacktop South
Hailing from the river town of Quincy, this blues, country, Southern rock and classic rock quintet takes on songs familiar to average Midwest music lovers, then gives the tunes a slight twist to make ‘em their own with tight vocal harmonies and experienced music-making. Popular acts cited as influences by bandmates Todd Rost (vocals), Eric…
difference poem #1
my sister went to morning kindergartenin an emergency one day our mom asked ifpatsy could go in the afternoon pat told meabout it many years later “I loved kindergartenthe toys, the things to draw on, being all on myown, but that day I came through the door intoa sea of unfamiliarity a crowd of strange…
Summertime and the grillin’ is easy
My obsession with cooking outdoors over fire must have been carried forth in the DNA from my primal ancestors. Grilling adds depth and complexity to vegetables in a way that can’t be achieved by steaming or boiling. I challenge my vegetable-hating friends who were brought up eating bland and insipid canned or frozen veggies to…
