Cover Story
Not enough vets for pets
Leo the cat was not happy. Leo had been brought into Five Star Veterinary in Springfield because of a severe loss of balance, and he fought with a fury the staff who tried to examine him. The noise that Leo produced was the textbook definition of “caterwauling.” Meanwhile, the Five Star waiting area and the…
Smile and My Best Friend’s Exorcism entertaining horror films, Amsterdam is fascinating
Haunting Smile one of year’s best 2022 has been a good year for the horror film, as new twists on familiar tropes have proved effective, while more than a few innovative features have graced the screen. However, for me Parker Finn’s Smile proves to be the highwater mark. It not only provides some effective scares,…
Adopt a tree at Oak Ridge Cemetery
Trees will soon turn brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow, treating us to the splendor of Mother Nature. Fall is a perfect time to adopt a tree – at Oak Ridge Cemetery. In addition to being the final resting place for some of Springfield’s most notable citizens, Oak Ridge Cemetery is a year-round source…
My adoption experience
I learned about the Adopt-A-Tree program at a previous tree tour. My father is buried in a family plot in a beautiful setting at Oak Ridge Cemetery, with a large, majestic oak tree nearby. I contacted my friend Guy Sternberg to learn more about this tree and discovered that it was deemed significant for being…
Visit Midwest history
As the weather turns chilly and the leaves start turning, there is still time to get in one or two last outings before cold weather hits. Cynthia Clampitt’s book Destination Heartland – A Guide to Discovering the Midwest’s Remarkable Past offers ideas. Destinations include historic towns and inns, museums and living-history venues, forts and lighthouses,…
Sandy Hamilton and Doris Turner turn to attack ads
Republican state Rep. Sandy Hamilton’s campaign and her supporters are alleging corruption and ineptitude on the part of Democratic incumbent Sen. Doris Turner. Turner’s campaign, in turn, has accused Hamilton of being a corporate tool and an anti-union extremist who failed to protect senior citizens from prescription-drug costs increases. In the run-up to the Nov.…
Buyer & Cellar is worth the buy-in
Basements are synonymous with sentimental hoarding. Oh, the things we can’t part with but don’t want in our “upstairs” lives. Buyer & Cellar, the 2013 comedy by Jonathan Tolins, takes this universal conundrum to a superstar level. The setting involves the very real mall in the basement of Barbra Streisand’s Malibu barn. As detailed in…
Celebrate the season
Lincoln Memorial Garden has managed to pack a full season of fall activities into one fun weekend. The annual Fall Harvest Festival will have blacksmithing and spinning demonstrations, live music, face painting and pumpkin decorating. Be sure to explore the popular fairy house building, which is constructed of natural materials such as acorns, twigs, bark,…
Editors note 10/6/22
Ah, it’s autumn, the time when thoughts go back to hayrides, bonfires and the old neighborhood back home. Those were the days when some of us thought we didn’t have to worry about white supremacy or gender equality, because we didn’t know what we didn’t know. I remember when alternative journalism just meant beating the…
The freedom of music
Wrongly locked behind prison bars, Amanda Knox found a way to escape her circumstances by lifting her voice and singing. Knox, one of the world’s most famous wrongly convicted individuals, will be performing Oct. 15 in Sangamon County with the Exoneree Band to raise money for the Illinois Innocence Project. The endeavor covers two of…
Bringing back the building trades
An act of generosity to one young man entering the building trades is emblematic of a larger Springfield partnership among a church, businesses and unions, designed to help Lanphier High School students succeed. When Joey Martin graduated from Lanphier in May, he was part of a pilot building trades program intended to expose students to…
Lincoln Library’s “Library of Things”
What do a ukulele, cordless drill, corn hole game, pulse oximeter and telescope have in common? They are all things available to check out of Springfield’s Lincoln Library with a library card. Springfield’s public library recently launched a Library of Things and now has many more items to borrow than books, magazines, DVDs and CDs.…
Good-for-you dips
Whether you’re looking for that perfect game-day recipe or dish to take to a harvest cookout, hearty dips are a party essential that deliver lots of flavor with relatively little effort or expense. Hot or cold, creamy or spicy – there’s a dip for every taste and diet. Some of the best preparations don’t even…
Welcome home, Honor Flight #63
Lincoln Land Honor Flight #63, an annual flight to Washington, D.C., accommodated 94 veterans, 92 of whom were Vietnam-era veterans and two were Korean war-era veterans. Fifty-five Illinois counties were represented on the Sept. 27 flight. Currently every Honor Flight is intended for Korea and Vietnam veterans. They are provided a round trip flight to…
Octoberized music
Don’t look now, but summer is over and autumn has arrived, and with cool temperatures by wondrous ways of the weather. You may need to bundle up for outdoor events as we weave toward the end of the season, but you can tell yourself (and others) that you are cool, for real. Now let’s see…
vulgarity
on the farm grampa forbid drinking smoking swearing though with his deafness some must have gone on behind his back but us kids didn’t hear it my dad however was grampa’s partner and obeyed his rules though he did smoke in the house he also swore around the place but in french so that us…
Governor needs to clarify SAFE-T Act
“If we didn’t pass something, we wouldn’t have gotten anything from law enforcement. We wouldn’t have gotten a serious conversation,” claimed Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, recently about why the SAFE-T Act was originally written and passed the way it was. Ford was speaking about the cash bail provisions within the SAFE-T Act during a…
Letters to the editor 10/6/22
We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to editor@illinoistimes.com. —- EQUAL TREATMENT? One article in the Aug. 25 issue reports an IDOT study found Black people in our community are disproportionately pulled over for traffic stops (“Driving while Black”). Another article in the same…
Illinois Supreme Court races heat up
The labor union and trial lawyer-backed All for Justice independent expenditure committee has so far reported raising $3.5 million, with, I’m told, at least another $5 million in pledges. The committee’s sole purpose is to back the two Democratic candidates running for the Illinois Supreme Court, Appellate Justice Mary K. O’Brien and Judge Elizabeth Rochford.…
Learning to listen
Grief is a strange thing. You never get over it. You just learn to live with it. I was thinking about that this month when I wrote a story about Dee Stern, a woman who works as a chaplain at HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield. She has just written a book about helping grieving…
Better politics, smarter government
I’m preparing to teach a class at Southern Illinois University next spring on restoring American statesmanship and I’m struck by the critical connection between engaged citizenship and successful statesmanship. Put simply, active citizens expect – and even demand – more from their leaders than less engaged ones. Informed and concerned citizens care about good government…
