Taking care of No. 1
In his State of the Union peroration, President George W. Bush instructed members of Congress “to be good stewards of tax dollars.” So I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear about the financial stewardship being practiced over at Bush’s own Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF agents are involved in policing violent crimes here…
Jacqueline Jackson
grandchildpoem #4 coming in from a vigorous afternoon playing in a late march snowstorm wyatt three shedding cap coat mittens says to nobody in particular this was a lovely lovely beautiful beautiful wonderful wonderful time and I catched a snowflake on my eye © Jacqueline Jackson 2006
The Hype
COMIN’ OUT HARD Not a full day after locking up the Democratic nomination for governor, Gov. Rod Blagojevich came out swinging, unveiling ads attacking his opponent, GOP hopeful Judy Baar Topinka, and inviting her to participate in a series of debates. That’s funny, given that throughout the Democratic primary campaign Blago claimed that he was…
Letters to the editor
We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address, and daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length, and clarity. Send letters to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. PICTURES TOLD THE WRONG 1,000 WORDS I thought your story on the coal issue was the…
CAP CITY
HAIL TO THE CHIEF We’re going to be seeing a lot less of Springfield Police Chief Don Kliment in the weeks ahead. For one thing, there’s simply less of him to see — he’s dropped some 30 pounds. For another, he will soon take off for Quantico, Va., where he will be attending the FBI’s prestigious…
Freebird
No one will ever know for sure. Was he content to rely on humans for food, water, companionship — everything? Or did he ever look beyond the wire mesh and wonder: What if? He was nearing a record. No red-tailed hawk had ever lived to 30 years. Confiscated by the state Department of Natural Resources…
F for fascism
V for Vendetta concerns a lone avenger who fights a totalitarian government, a popular theme in science fiction. Why is totalitarianism associated with science fiction? Apparently one man’s sci-fi is another man’s reality. Maybe the genre is a safe haven for political commentary. The Smothers Brothers ran into problems with their television network as a…
True to form, brilliantly
Will Johnson, Centro-matic’s singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter, is more than a frontman; he’s a frickin’ franchise. Besides cranking out eight Centro-matic CDs, Johnson has managed to write and record a couple of solo albums and releases by Centro-matic’s slightly weirder and more downtempo alter ego, South San Gabriel. Meanwhile, he and his loyal cohorts…
Closing the book
Last Monday morning, Lori Burger joined hordes of petty criminals, plus their kith and kin, in room 7D of the Sangamon County Courthouse. Crowded into pews and forced to sit with unsavory strangers, some first offenders grew restless during the hour and a half that lapsed before the judge appeared on the bench. But Lori…
Once a killer, always a killer
ROGIN, Belarus — On the night of April 26, 1986, one of the crews on duty at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant received special instructions from Moscow to conduct an experiment. They had to check whether the turbines could provide enough power to keep the cooling system running in case of a power cut. Before…
American life in poetry
Walt Whitman’s poems took in the world through a wide-angle lens, including nearly everything, but most later poets have focused much more narrowly. Here the poet and novelist Jim Harrison nods to Whitman with a sweeping, inclusive poem about the course of life. Marching At dawn I heard among bird calls the billions of marching…
More growing pains
Coming-of-age movies rarely deviate from a basic blueprint: Teens are forced to deal with a life of adult troubles for which they are unprepared. Chris Robinson’s ATL follows the formula to the letter, but even it ends up being better than most entries in this genre, it’s unable to put a distinctive stamp on the form…
Windy City storm clouds
I’m not sure how long it will last, but black voters in Cook County are united and fired up right now in a way they haven’t been for a long time. It goes back to Barack Obama’s 2004 Democratic primary victory, but the flames were stoked again in January, when Chicago’s historic Pilgrim Baptist Church…
Why not Wi-Fi?
Cities large and small are installing or looking seriously at citywide high-speed Internet networks. Philadelphia and San Francisco are two of the biggest. Closer to home, Chicago says it will solicit proposals, joining dozens of cities that are working with the private sector to build wireless systems at no cost to taxpayers. Aurora plans to…
Broadband turtle
Illinois ranks 27th in the nation in broadband penetration, according to the Federal Communications Commission. The upshot? It’s easier to put a customer-service call center in India than in a state where way too many folks have dial-up Internet service — or none at all. So says Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Evanston, who is pushing for…
Honking on the harmonica
Thirty-year-old Jason Ricci is one busy musician. With his group New Blood, the harmonica-playing blues-rocker has logged about 300 dates a year for the last several years. That, my friends, is a good sign. You don’t play that many gigs unless you are getting asked back for more. Ricci began his professional career at age…
