Berg Too Close for Comfort with “Horizon”
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible offshore oil drilling rig suffered a catastrophic disaster when high pressure sent thousands of gallons of oil into the air when a system of blowout preventers failed to ease or staunch the flow of the petroleum from beneath the surface of the ocean bed off the…
Dull “Witch” Pales Next to Original
For some inexplicable reason, director Adam Wingard has gained the reputation of being some sort of horror craftsman among aficionados of the genre. Based on his previous work (V/H/S, You’re Next, and others), this can only mean that the standards of modern fright-film fans have fallen very low indeed. A master of confusion rather than…
Stone’s “Snowden” Engaging Agitprop
As with most of Oliver Stone’s fact-based movies, Snowden is a work that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Fascinating and frightening, the film sets out to give the title character’s point of view concerning his reasons for having released over 1.5 million documents he stole from the CIA and other government…
None of your business
How embarrassing. The City of Springfield finds itself in the same bind as the young swain who, wooing a sophisticated lovely, invites her to a posh dinner only to realize at the end of the meal that he doesn’t have the money to pay the tab. Attentive readers will know of the hoped-for redevelopment of…
What 47 cents buys these days
Although most of us take it for granted, the U.S. Postal Service is an amazing bargain. For only 47 cents, you can purchase a “Forever” postage stamp. Buy one 47-cent stamp, and postal workers will deliver your envelope to any address in the country by plane, train, bus, boat, truck, car, bike, pushcart, mule, on…
What’s keeping Democrats awake at night?
The Republicans have been saying behind the scenes that they have put four Democratic state Senators “on the bubble” – Tom Cullerton in DuPage County, Melinda Bush in Lake County, Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant in Will County and Gary Forby in southern Illinois. Understandably, Senate President John Cullerton does not agree. “If it wasn’t for Donald Trump…
Letters to the Editor 9/22/16
REDISTRICTINGIt’s time we return the power of Illinois government back to the people. Our current political system is broken. It’s rigged against us. The people of Illinois deserve a more just and fair system. Unfortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court has now blocked a voter referendum that would have allowed you to vote for an…
Editor’s note 9/22/16
Sangamon County is eerily quiet during this election campaign. True, Illinois as a blue state isn’t in play for the presidential election, so that cuts us out of a lot of hoopla. But what about the area state representative races, where the three incumbents running were all hand-picked by Gov. Bruce Rauner, supposedly the most…
“Ban the Box” helps ex-cons succeed
More than 700,000 Americans are released from prison each year. We expect them to reenter society and be law-abiding, but we make it extremely difficult for anyone who has served time to ever become gainfully employed, even though they have paid their debt to society. A barrier that needs to be removed is that box…
Route 66 rivalry
Jacksonville’s Playhouse on the Square is pleased to present Bleacher Bums, a Cubs/Cardinals comedy presented in nine innings. Originally penned by Tony Award-winning actor, producer, director and writer Joe Mantegna (Three Amigos, The Godfather Part III, The Simpsons Movie and “Criminal Minds”), the play, set in 1997, follows a group of Cubs and Cardinals fans…
Celebrate the supernatural
This weekend, paranormal enthusiasts will gather in one of the most haunted small towns in the Midwest to celebrate ghosts, hauntings and the supernatural. The 16th annual American Hauntings Fall Festival will feature vendors and presentations on spirits, macabre history and ghost encounters in America. The festival is hosted by Troy Taylor, founder of American…
Interdenominational hymn sing
Help Grace Lutheran and Trinity Lutheran churches commemorate their 175th anniversaries during Springfield’s first-ever City Wide Hymn Fest on Sunday, Sept. 25. The concert, directed by J.B. George, will consist of a dozen popular Christian hymns accompanied with carillon music by Carlo van Ulft and band direction by Jan Zepp. Several hymns will also feature…
Loaf Actually
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’m a 35-year-old woman, and my boyfriend of a year is 43. Sadly, my friends and family don’t like him. They think he’s “not good enough” for me. Their argument: He doesn’t have a full-time job with benefits (like me), plus he smokes pot to relax; therefore, he is…
Mature Mob
The men’s chorus sings “New York, New York.” PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE It’s one of those things that may seem like it’s always been here, but Senior Services of Central Illinois, Inc., is only 50 years old. And it hasn’t always gone by that name. Its roots go back to a study begun by United…
Life in focus
Professional photographer David Beatty has used a 4×5 Speed Graphic camera since he began his career in 1945. He is shown here in his Fifth Street studio, circa 1979. Hardworking, faithful, and resilient in the face of what others might call setbacks, professional photographer Dave Beatty has enjoyed a career photographing corporate jets and entertainment…
Digging deep on Hunter Lake
While Pawnee questions the design of Hunter Lake, an engineering firm that has worked for the village questions the need for a 3,000-acre reservoir, which would stretch to the burg south of Springfield. Mudflats and mosquitoes are Pawnee’s “number one environmental issue,” village attorney John Myers wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to the U.S.…
Weeding things out
Chainsaws and herbicide and matches, it turns out, can be an environmentalist’s best friend. After more than two years of clearing brush with saws and poison and fire, Friends of the Sangamon Valley, a nonprofit preservationist group concerned with environmental issues, has completed its mission of removing non-native plants from 60 wooded acres on Lake…
Poverty decreased slightly in 2015
More than 1.7 million Illinoisans lived in poverty last year, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week. That’s an improvement over 2014, but not nearly enough to erase the steady increase in poverty since 2000. Meanwhile, nearly 32,000 people in Sangamon County lived in poverty last year. The Census Bureau released…
HAVING A BLAST
Springfield has been host to myriad you-don’t-see-that-every-day gatherings, from the World Juggling Federation Convention to confabs of Elvis impersonators. But we feel especially secure this week as the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators is in town for four days of annual training that ends on Friday. Don’t look for big signs – the…
ABE GETS HIS KICKS
If there’s one fact about Abe Lincoln that everyone remembers, it’s that he loved cars. Okay, that’s not really true. Although a steam-powered precursor to the modern car was invented in 1769, the first president to ride in an automobile was William McKinley in 1899. Still, Abe’s surname graces the Lincoln line of cars, and…
Fuqua helms Magnificent muddl
Denzel Washington as Sam Chisolm and Chris Pratt as Josh Faraday in The Magnificent Seven. PHOTO COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES There’s much more to making a Western than putting movie stars under Stetson hats, giving them six-shooters and throwing them on a horse. This approach plus poorly choreographed sequences of extended carnage is all director Antoine…
Marvelous music mix
Dave Adams along with Larry Stevens, Danny and Tony Fafoglia, Jeff Helton and Dougie Adams play the Walnut Street Winery in Rochester on Friday evening. As we wind our way through September, heading toward the other end of things, a wonderful mix of music with which to entertain ourselves appears to be ahead for all.…
Black Queen
Back in 2009 when Caleb Smith showed up at an open mic run by Bruce Williams and sang Queen songs, the two self-described “huge fans” of the supergroup decided to start a tribute band. They knew right away the band’s name would come from the song “March of the Black Queen” from Queen II released…
Slowing down to save our food supply
Gardener Garrick Veenstra showing off some of the seed varieties that were planted for the Oct. 1 Ark of Taste dinner. PHOTOS COURTESY SLOW FOOD SPRINGFIELD Consumers today seem to have more choices at the grocery store than ever before. My great-grandmother would have marveled at the red strawberries available in grocery stores in the…
word to the wise poem #3
not mentioning any names or anythingbut teenage kids here’s a warning word:if you ask a parent for money to go tothe fair and you’re given admission thecost of elephant ears turkey legs rides onstomach lurching ludicri etc and youcome home money spent saying you had agrand time at the fair you had better checkaround before…
