Seven up
Untitled Document Teachers at Douglas Alternative School are hosting a fundraiser for Doris Chambers and seven children she took into her home. As we reported in a recent cover story [see “Lucky number seven,” Oct. 19], Chambers is now legal guardian to seven siblings she met while working at the Urban League — a fact…
Reverse course
Untitled Document You leave home for your cousin’s wedding. En route, you are grabbed by armed men, blindfolded, shoved into a truck, and moved to a storage tank with so many others that your captors shoot into the tank so that some of you can breathe. The unlucky ones are killed by the bullets. Or…
Cut-and-run Democrats
Untitled Document For the past week, Democrats have been beating their chests, declaring that their reclamation of Congress, as well as the majority of governorships around the nation, is proof that Americans are fed up with the Iraq war and scandal after Republican scandal. But apparently the Democrats aren’t interpreting the results of the midterm…
Shrinking minority
Untitled Document The Nov. 7 election gave Illinois Senate President Emil Jones more bragging rights than anyone else at the Statehouse. Jones’ Democrats picked up five seats on Tuesday, giving them one more than the minimum needed for a veto-proof majority. Jones’ 37 seats compares to just 22 for the Senate Republicans. To say that…
Staying alive
Untitled Document I need to rent a woman for Ben DeFray — nothing sexual intended; no domestic duties; no companionship required; no relationship need exist at all. All she has to do is stop by once a week, look at him, and force him to go to a doctor — when he needs medical attention.…
A sweet fix
Untitled Document Krispy Kreme’s plump, sugar-sweet doughnuts were hotter than frying oil just a few years ago. Celebrities lined up to invest in franchises, and the media gushed that these sweet-treat purveyors were foodie angels. Ah, but that was then, and this is now — and Krispy Kreme’s little dough blobs have suddenly turned satanically…
Congratulations all around
Untitled Document While shooting the breeze with fellow Easy Street band members, after just another bar date, drummer Gene Acree began adding up his lifetime gig total. To his surprise, the calculations came to the astounding number of 5,000 (with a slight possibility of a lost night here and there) on Friday, Nov. 17, 2006.…
Smoke signals
Untitled Document Thirsty’s Playground seems lonelier now. The cigarettes have been stubbed out, the ashtrays relegated to the beer garden. The bar is still in its infancy, so its walls haven’t heard enough stories to tell and its patrons aren’t sufficiently seasoned to know whether they’ll weather blizzards and thunderstorms in the beer garden and…
Gatesgate
Untitled Document The times, they are a-changin’ — or so it would appear at first glance. Within hours of the Republican Party’s rout at the polls last week, President George W. Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. At the same press conference, the president vowed to work with the newly elected Democratic…
Letters to the editor
Untitled Document 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. THE SILENCE OF THE CATS Amid all the chatter about ephemera like Iraq and…
Sweetness and coherence
Untitled Document If you like your power pop sweet and shiny and more than a little bit silly, the Trolleyvox is the band for you. The Philadelphia-based quartet, whose ranks have swelled and contracted over the group’s decade-long career, delivers hooky, anthemic, mildly eccentric guitar rock dosed with girl-group vocals, nonsensical lyrics, and oddball instrumentation…
