Advocacy on hold
Untitled Document All activities of the Illinois Association of Minorities in Government are suspended and the future of executive director Roy Williams is in doubt as IAMG board members seek answers to questions about the organization’s finances. During the IAMG’s annual conference, held in Springfield last week, the organization’s eight-member board voted to put Williams…
Missed connection
Untitled Document What happens to my old cell phone after I upgrade? Do the stores really recycle them or give them to the poor, or are they just ending up in landfills? Where can I take mine to ensure that it is dealt with properly? As cell phones proliferate, they are giving computers and monitors…
Raising a stink
Until last week Bob Young had never been inside a courtroom, so he didn’t know exactly where to sit. He chose a spot in a middle pew on the right-hand side of the room, next to his wife, Sandy, and just behind their new best friend, a loquacious agribusiness consultant named Nic Anderson. All three…
An eye for iris
Untitled Document Few plants come in a wider range of colors than the iris. More than 300 species have been identified worldwide, and many of them are long-lived perennials that flourish in central-Illinois gardens. In the past 50 years, thousands of cultivars, in various colors, sizes (ranging from the 6-inch dwarf crested iris to the…
Letters to the Editor
Untitled Document We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. HE REPRESENTS THE BEST OFTHESJ-R What is the State Journal-Register thinking by letting Paul Povse go? He is one of…
Paper cuts
Untitled Document At least nine longtime employees of the State Journal-Register were fired last week. The dismissals came less than a month after GateHouse Media Inc. completed its acquisition of the State Journal-Register and other Illinois and Ohio dailies previously operated by Copley Press in a deal worth $380 million. Several advertising and marketing management positions were…
People’s poetry
Untitled Document nfifthstpoem #2 somebody’s abducting dogs in chatham well listen dogsnatcherI have a candidate for you here in springfield one in rochester too and a couple of cats while you’re at it would you find who surreptiously painted the art association pink we could get rid of him or is it a her at…
Springfield Magic
Untitled Document Before 1983, ethnic food in Springfield was pretty much limited to Italian (American) restaurants, Chinese restaurants (owned by émigrés who geared the food to American palates), and gringo Mexican taco joints (tasty but hardly authentic). Who could have guessed that a tiny coffee shop in a semi-seedy motel at North Grand and Veterans…
Out of Africa
Untitled Document Springfieldian Sydney Kling wanted to mark her retirement from a nursing career by doing something both different and worthwhile. She gathered her courage, did some investigating, passed tests and panels and at 67, with the blessing of her loved ones, headed for South Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. There, her nursing and…
Vacationing on the edge of reality
Untitled Document My wife, her brother, sister-in-law, two nephews, and a niece-in-law are hiking the Grand Canyon. It’s down, around, exploring, then up and out — four days of walking narrow ledges. I am not walking narrow ledges. My excuses are reasonable — age, plus a back that only works after epidural shots — but…
Full house
Untitled Document Perhaps it’s a personal thing, having a grandfather who was a professional gambler during the Depression, but few occupations are as cinematically fascinating. Apparently I’m alone on this, with Lucky You folding at the box office despite its relatively realistic portrait of the game of poker and its players. Eric Bana…
Clock’s ticking
Untitled Document For several weeks now, the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session has been a slow-motion train wreck. Those of us who work at the Statehouse are moving around in real time, watching it happen all around us and saying to ourselves, “Oh, this is gonna hurt.” The state’s top Democrats — Gov. Rod Blagojevich,…
Delayed rite, done right
Untitled Document Whether it’s to allay the anxiety of influence, honor important forebears, or simply work through a case of writer’s block, most musicians consider the covers album a necessary rite of passage. Even such songwriting heavies as Bob Dylan and David Bowie have succumbed to the temptation; Bryan Ferry, bless his little Dylan-stalking heart,…
Shrek’s long march
Untitled Document The Shrek film franchise is like a dog. The first movie’s a puppy: cute, cuddly, fresh. The second is a bit clumsy and awkward, and the novelty is wearing off. The third entry? You guessed it: There’s no teaching this green ogre any new tricks. It isn’t so much that Shrek the Third is a…
Sour grapes
Untitled Document The bulk of a lawsuit against the Illinois Liquor Control Commission, brought by an Italian winemaker last summer, was recently dismissed. Two of four counts were dismissed with prejudice on May 8; the remaining two were also stricken, according to Sangamon County Circuit Court records. Villa Monteleone Winery, however, has a month to…
Another coat of Enamel
Untitled Document In 2002, Springfield-based rock group Enamel released debut CD Cleaner than Ever with high hopes and great expectations. The band spent the next few years working in support of the disk, but by the summer of 2005 everything had disintegrated, leaving Kevin Wasmer — guitarist, vocalist, and main songwriter — as the only original…
Joining Bush’s war
Untitled Document Remember the famous recruiting poster with Uncle Sam pointing straight at us, declaring: “I Want You for the U.S. Army”? These days, the poster would feature President George W. Bush, pointing to the side and declaring: “I Want Them.” See, Bush insists that his war is an urgent matter for the very survival…
Preservation hasn’t arrived, but it’s getting there
Untitled Document Looking out over the crowd at the Historic Sites Commission’s Mayor’s Awards for Historic Preservation, I began to think that maybe historic preservation in Springfield has reached the tipping point, that magical critical mass where the movement just takes off like an epidemic. At this 15th annual affair, the crowd was bigger than…
Southern fish fry
Untitled Document Two weeks ago, a few thousand people lined up in a Columbia, S.C., parking garage for dinner. They wanted some of Lucius Moultrie’s fried whiting, despite the hearty serving of political grandstanding on the side. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, who’s also South Carolina’s most senior Democrat, hosted this classic Southern fish fry…
