Less-than-universal
Even as Gov. Rod Blagojevich spent the week pitching his new proposal to offer health-care coverage to uninsured Illinois children, critics took new aim at his administration for tightening the screws on other health-related programs. Blagojevich’s All Kids proposal would provide health-care access to Illinois children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid…
People’s poetry
In this poem, which describes a shameful memory, Robert Clarke uses a haiku sequence. The reader might overlook the form because in good poems the form is servant to the idea, providing it an invisible framework. While not strictly haiku — there is no mention of nature or the season — the small vignettes work…
Last-ditch effort
One way or another, two local buildings will soon be history. The city’s Historic Sites Commission took a step this week to save the Strawbridge-Shepherd and Margery Adams homes, located at the University of Illinois at Springfield campus and Adams Wildlife Sanctuary, respectively. Whether the commission’s action has any effect remains to be seen. Save…
A day at Bison Beach
The e-mailed invitation from Alan Harn, archaeologist at the Dickson Mounds Museum, is succinct and inviting: “Temperature and weather tomorrow look good for a day of bison snooping on the beach.” No question, this site on the Illinois River south of Peoria is generating major excitement, and the discoveries being unearthed there are big news…
Native ways
When Tom Bedonie attended reservation boarding school, celebrating his Navajo heritage was something to be avoided. If he used his native language, Bedonie says, “I had to eat soap.” Instead of causing him to forget his Navajo ways, the punishment made Bedonie cling tightly to them. That is the reason this fiftysomething Navajo journeys from…
Practice cat and sidekick cat
Seven years ago. Cats are OK, as long as one doesn’t humanize them. I believe a cat would make a fine pet if it spent 10 minutes a day doing “frisky tricks,” then left immediately to work a double shift at Bob’s Package Liquor to earn enough to reimburse me for its room and board.…
Victim of the state
Patricia Schnoor remembers every detail. How could she forget? “My best friend says it was a brush with the devil.” It was April 29, 2004. Schnoor, who works at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and was attending classes at the University of Illinois, stayed late at the office to finish a school…
“The principle”
Former Illinois State Police lieutenant Michale Callahan went to court Tuesday expecting to find out how much money he had won in his lawsuit against his former superior officers. Instead, he was told he may face another trial on punitive damages, or a lengthy appeal. “It’s a no-win situation for me,” he says. In April,…
Meet the monk
What Gunasiri misses most about Myanmar since moving to Springfield in August is the distinct Buddhist presence that pervades the country. Landing at the airport, Guna says, a traveler to Myanmar can practically “smell the Buddhist atmosphere. When you enter the city, you see a big huge pagoda with golden shining light. You see many,…
Top detective put on leave
The investigation into the murder of popular hairstylists Barron “Mr. Fresh” Rice and girlfriend Lakisha Criss hit a snag last week when the lead detective on the case was put on paid administrative leave. Springfield Police Detective Paul Carpenter had handled the case since the two were found shot to death in their East Lawrence…
On visiting the cooler
Today I’m going to take you somewhere you never want to go. Don’t fret; just reading about it won’t hurt you. Besides, it’s the only painless way to peep inside. A brief visit to this place can be humiliating. Spending your life there has to be pure hell. Last month, I went inside three maximum-security…
Letters to the editor
Letters policy We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity. Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois 62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com A BROTHER LOST, NOW FOUND Every now and then I pick up…
Quicktakes
LINCOLN LECTURE SERIES STARTS Allen C. Guelzo, author of Redeemer President (1999), delivers the first lecture in the Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, in Brookens Library, on the University of Illinois at Springfield campus. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and director of Civil War-era…
A triumph of soul over style
A jazz tribute to Pavement sounds like a bad idea — at best a willfully silly experiment conceived by a gaggle of giggling stoners, at worst a transparent attempt to make aging hipsters feel more sophisticated, the Generation X equivalent of the Moody Blues’ gigging with a symphony orchestra. With a few exceptions, these high-art/low-art…
Back in the saddle
At 5-foot-9, Kyle Kaenel is a giant in the jockey world — but his heart is even bigger. Seventeen-year-old Kaenel has returned to the saddle after breaking his neck in a horrific fall in Phoenix in April that threatened to end his career less than a year after it began. Doctors expected that it would…
Enduring Foster
A two-decade-old song by the punk band Ism, “John Hinckley, Jr. (What Has Jodie Done to You)?”, mockingly recalls a legacy that might have derailed the career of a lesser actress. Jodie Foster survived — there has never been a better actress in movies — but being the obsession of the man who tried to…
Jacqueline Jackson
friendquotepoem # 2 christy says when my family gets together we talk about politics, banned books, movies, but when my husband’s family gets together they talk about cleaning out the septic tank and the main course when it was still alive © Jacqueline Jackson 2005
Kentucky ham
Cameron Crowe makes movies — Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky — about honesty, loyalty, love and redemption. Accept them or reject them, but you can never accuse the filmmaker of being anything less than sincere. It is this very quality that makes his latest work, Elizabethtown, worthwhile. Though it is unquestionably a flawed film,…
Stopping military recruiters
If some predator was sneaking into your kids’ high school and grabbing personal information about them, then contacting your kids without your being told about it — how loudly would you scream at this dirty sneak? Well, it’s happening in schools all across America, and the predatory sneak is the Pentagon. In passing Bush’s infamous…
Return of the honky-tonk hero
Since his last appearance at the Underground City Tavern, in December 2004, Texas singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver has published an autobiography, been the subject of a live tribute CD, had his life story produced on a DVD, been cast in a major motion picture, released a solo CD of new original material, appeared on CBS’s…
