Deft, Wry “Love and Friendship” a Comic Delight
Without question, Lady Susan is a woman to be reckoned with. Sly, coy, flirtatious, gorgeous, she’s a master manipulator, adept at playing the victim whenever it suits her; she has no problem exploiting the chivalric mores of her age, willing to be saved from any of her many dilemmas. However, any man who comes to…
Wan Returns to Frighten Once More with “Conjuring 2”
His considerable talent wasted on Furious 7, director James Wan is back in familiar territory with The Conjuring 2, an effective if overlong thriller that contains many of the elements that have become hallmarks in the filmmaker’s work. Just as in the Insidious series and the previous entry in this franchise, a family is in…
“Lobster” Humorously Challenges Our Notion of Love
By its very nature, falling in love is a transformative act. The newly besotted tends to look at life, themselves and others in a myriad of different ways when Cupid’s arrow finds its mark. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster takes this in an intriguing new direction as it looks at our perception of love…
Tree Cities Illinois
Bits and pieces about trees pile up on my desk like autumn leaves in the yard. Last week I mentioned Barrington, Illinois, as a Tree City USA. It is not alone. In addition to the U.S. flag that it flies at its city hall, the west-suburban town of Hinsdale proudly flies not an Illinois flag…
Return of the residency requirement?
Future city employees may soon have to live within the limits of Springfield, per a proposal to reinstate the city’s previous residency requirement. During his campaign, Springfield mayor Jim Langfelder promised to push for a residency requirement for city employees, and the mayor has now proposed such an ordinance for consideration by the Springfield City…
Re-treeing
My recent column calling for the re-treeing Springfield – “Something there is that doesn’t love a tree,” which of course should have been titled “Someone there is who doesn’t love a tree” – didn’t say quite everything that might have been said on that topic. A seldom unremarked-upon aspect of the history of Illinois is…
Bargains on bad boy’s bling
A diamond-encrusted fish brooch seized by federal Marshals from James “Whitey” Bulger Photo by Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers This is the pretty side of decades of extortion, corruption and murder. The former belongings of notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger and his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, are being auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals…
The blossomy haw, remembered
Paul Scott Mowrer Paul Scott Mowrer was born in Bloomington in 1887 and lived there until he was in the sixth grade. In short, everything important that can happen to a boy in the normal course of growing up happened to him in mid-Illinois. While he never came back to live, pursuing instead a career…
A new species of jumping beans
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE It isn’t trickery, but an odd twist in the natural world that creates the novelty of “Mexican jumping beans.” They’re not beans – they’re brownish seedpods from a desert shrub in northwest Mexico. A larva from a small moth invades the pod, attaches itself to the inner wall…
Failing on his mandate
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Near the top of any list of Illinois government’s many problems is that House Speaker Michael Madigan has made a decades-long game out of messing with the minds and the agendas of our governors. If there’s one constant since 1983, it’s Speaker Madigan’s jiu-jitsu moves against whoever happens to be governor.…
Letters to the Editor 6/9/16
THE MAGIC OF CITY PLANNING Paul O’Shea makes a convincing case for a city planner for the City of Springfield (“Springfield needs a city planner,” June 2). I attended the Citizens Club Breakfast May 27 – a forum on urban planning with O’Shea; Rob Kowalski, city planner in Champaign; and Norm Sims, director of the Springfield-Sangamon County…
Editor’s note 6/9/16
The fiscal policy center of Voices for Illinois Children, a respected and reliable nonprofit, offers “eight takeaways” to put the state’s fiscal problems in perspective. 1. Without a fully funded budget, Illinois is dismantling the foundations of a prosperous, compassionate state. It is causing the higher education system to fall apart, service providers to shut…
Keeping cool
We are close to the time of year when the big decision on air-conditioning must be made. Flip the switch now or wait for hotter weather? Some of us crank it up when the heat starts, others are more parsimonious and delay to save money. In the ’40s and ’50s most of us didn’t have…
Habitat home needs funds
Demara Albert and her three children,left to right: Tacorian, Teryawna and Takwon. PHOTO BY Brittany Hilderbrand For three and a half years, Demara Albert’s name was on a list with 17 other candidates who wanted to become homeowners through Habitat for Humanity of Sangamon County. Although Habitat temporarily suspended its home-building projects due to the…
The driveway to Scheels
Motorists soon may be able to travel a bit faster on MacArthur Boulevard without risking a ticket. The city is working on plans to raise the speed limit on the road between Wabash Avenue and Interstate 72 from a maximum of 40 mph to 45 mph. There has been no shortage of speeding citations written…
Battling over workers’ comp
The state workers’ compensation system is being eyed for changes as part of a possible resolution to Illinois’ budget crisis, setting up a battle between employers, injured workers and the doctors who treat them. A recent report says the cost of workers’ compensation for employers decreased because of changes made in 2011, but business groups…
2016 Drug Summit
On June 2, a group of statewide public health professionals participated in a Rural Health Summit at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Springfield in an effort to decrease Illinois’ heroin and opioid death tally. Last year in Sangamon County, there were 31 opioid-related deaths, which included various prescription pills and heroin, according to the Sangamon…
HIDDEN HISTORY
The City of Springfield’s Office of Public Works is currently resurfacing several streets in the city’s older core, and that process is revealing some hidden history. In some places, like Laurel Avenue between Fourth and Fifth streets, removing the worn out asphalt has exposed older brick that still lines the roadbed. The city isn’t sure…
on writing your stories #4
on writing your stories #4 long long ago here’s how aclever chap got himself in printI forget where I read it hewrote to a newspaper thathad a q-and-a column givinga line of his own poem andasking did anyone know theauthor he signed a fake namethen a week or so later heanswered the query tellingwho the author…
