Slamming the door
Untitled Document George W. Bush keeps talking about America’s moral responsibility to Iraqis. So why is he slamming America’s door in their faces? There’s an ugly story about the war that the Bush administration hopes you and I don’t notice. It’s that their incompetence and arrogance have made the Iraqi people’s lives a succession of…
Local is the new organic
Untitled Document It used to be that organic was enough. That organic label told consumers their food was safer, fresher, and more likely to have come from a small, reliable farm than a megafarm factory. Then, last year, Wal-Mart started selling organic products. Suddenly, organic didn’t seem so special. The 2006 outbreak of Escherichia coli bacteria…
People’s Poetry
Untitled Document maybirthdaypoem #1 birthing a poemthe sort I write anywayis like a pregnancycan’t always tell whenthe knocking up cameor even whodunnitbut it grows slowlystarts to kick finally swimsthe canal is or is nota bonny babe needs a spankmaybe later plastic surgerysometimes it’s a burp thebelly growls and it eruptsnow and then it doesburst…
Get ready for Nobody
Untitled Document Brian Granse is not just anybody; in fact, he’s not even somebody. He’s a nobody — an American Nobody, to be precise. “In this world I’m just a speck on the music scene,” says the Illinois-reared singer/songwriter. “That’s where the idea of American Nobody came from.” After recording his first couple of records…
Tropical punch
Untitled Document Change the look of your traditional flower garden this year by incorporating some plants that will add a tropical feel. Using tropical plants in the landscape is nothing new — it’s a revival of Victorian-era gardening practices — and it’s easy to create a car-stopping display with just a few tropical plants. Tropical…
Up next
Untitled Document Most people in Springfield want similar things: their sidewalks fixed or new ones installed, roads resurfaced, debris hauled away, a visible police presence. Getting these expensive services isn’t easy, however. Next week, the newly elected members of the Springfield City Council convene for the first time. Although some council members appear content to…
The young and the restless
Untitled Document In the fall of 2005, with the assistance of then-U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Collaboration on Youth and Youth Network Council received a $1.2 million grant to expand mental-health services to children who’d been exposed to the juvenile justice system [see R.L. Nave, “Mind matters,” Sept. 29, 2005]. This week, the…
Neverending wars
Untitled Document May 1 marked the four-year anniversary of President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” photo-op debacle, and the Iraq War rages on. Just as Hollywood avoided confronting the Vietnam War while it was in progress, we aren’t likely to see anything significant representing Iraq until it comes to an end, whenever that may be.…
Keeping the faith
Untitled Document A dozen Hindu worshipers in the Springfield area are working with members of the local Indian community to open a permanent temple. The group is scouting potential locations and raising money for a $1 million temple, which will serve several hundred families, says Krishna Brahmamdam, who leads the Springfield temple project. “The time has…
Spring orgy risotto
Untitled Document Spring of 2000, northern Italy. It would be my first time, for real. It didn’t matter that I was a culinary-school graduate and had since attempted my own pizza dough (clumsy) and risotto (gummy and unseasoned). I was now in the land where it all began, and in the eyes of the Italians…
Oily science
Untitled Document Did ExxonMobil really pay scientists and economists to write articles trying to debunk global warming? A February 2007 report in the British newspaper The Guardian fell like a ton of bricks on efforts by ExxonMobil, the world’s largest and most profitable oil company, to repair its damaged environmental reputation. According to the report, the…
Hog heaven
Untitled Document I have been to the mountaintop. The sanctuary of smoke. The high temple of porkdom. From the outside, it doesn’t look like a place of pilgrimage. The modest cinderblock structure, located about 40 minutes south of Knoxville, Tenn., is a bit dingy. There’s a sign painted on the outside: “BENTON’S COUNTRY HAMS. WE…
“Why not me?”
Untitled Document Michelle Higginbotham is allergic to children — not literally, but almost. “I don’t like babies, and you can quote me on that,” Michelle says. “You know when somebody brings a baby into the room and everybody’s like, Ooh, so cute! Let me hold him!? I’m, like, Eh, don’t get that thing too close…
Overreach?
Untitled Document Federal prosecutors have recently been handed a couple of big setbacks in their ceaseless pursuit of governmental corruption — but you would hardly know it, considering the lack of press coverage the cases have received here. The first case, USA v. Georgia Thompson, involved the allegedly corrupt selection of a travel agency to…
Who are the monsters?
Untitled Document I wasn’t a big fan of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, an apocalyptic vision of the near future in which a virus has turned most of the world’s people into frenetic zombies. For me, this was simply an exercise in gore, and I just can’t abide zombies who run the 100-yard dash in…
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. IRV SMITH DIDN’T “RUIN” ANYBODY Bravo! I’m an avid Abe Lincoln fan and yearn for the days of the eloquence of…
Straight shooter
Untitled Document As a little boy growing up in Elkhart, Bob McCue didn’t know that he was related to anybody famous until organizers of a local pageant — part of the village’s centennial celebrations in 1955 — came to see his mother. The visitors were looking for photographs of prominent residents, including Capt. Adam H.…
Cover-up
Untitled Document To call the Detroit Cobras a cover band is not inaccurate, but it misses the point. Although it’s true that the Cobras’ repertoire consists almost entirely of other people’s songs — their fourth and latest full-length, Tied & True, contains not one original track — the Motor City outfit hardly fits the cover-band…
