People’s poetry
Untitled Document Our poet this week is 16-year-old Devon Regina DeSalva of Los Angeles, who says she wrote this poem to get back at her mother, only to find that her mother loved the poem. Snip Your Hair I’ll snip your hair Cut it all off until you look like a man I will replace…
Trouble in the skies
Untitled Document As the Bush administration moves forward with plans to double or triple air traffic capacity by 2025, the government may be placing concerns about aviation’s impact on climate change on standby. Congress created the Joint Planning and Development Office in 2003 to institute the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), a program designed…
The price of trucker fatigue
Untitled Document The Bush administration is determined to increase corporate power even if it kills them — or you! Eager to serve the giant trucking firms that have supported President George W. Bush with generous campaign contributions, Bush’s acolytes at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration keep trying to jimmy the rules of the road…
Browning evergreen foliage
Untitled Document Every fall, people get upset when their evergreens undergo dramatic changes in color. “People are convinced that their plants must have some type of virus or fungus and want to know what can be done,” says Martha Smith, a horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension. “There is really nothing to be…
Payback is murder
Untitled Document Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, which sports a dog-eared storyline, could have gone wrong in so many ways. That this revenge thriller doesn’t is a credit to Jodie Foster’s compelling and tragic performance, solid support from Terrence Howard, and Jordan’s ability to accentuate the devastating effect of violence while appealing to our basest…
Manage with care
Untitled Document After more than a year of preparation, the second phase of the state’s mandatory primary-care case-management program was rolled out this week to the remaining counties in central and southern Illinois, including Sangamon County. Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced the program, called Illinois Health Connect, in May 2006, saying that people are healthier when…
Nipped in the bud
Untitled Document The conflict between the Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary Trust and the sanctuary’s neighbors reached an anti-climactic end on Tuesday as the Sangamon County Board voted to table the trust’s request for a conditional-use permit to establish a public park. The neighbors initially complained that they had not been properly informed of the trust’s zoning…
Removing land mines
Untitled Document What is the status of the land mines issue popularized by Princess Diana and Paul McCartney’s ex-wife, Heather Mills? Land mines were first widely used in World War II and have since been used in Vietnam, the Korean War, the first Gulf War, and in about a half-dozen conflicts around the world today.…
Lightning strikes again
Untitled Document Everybody knows what “DNA” stands for — not just deoxyribo nucleic acid but also “do not argue.” It’s a conversation-ender, the kind of irrefutable proof that sends criminals to death row and springs the innocent from decades of imprisonment. So earlier this year, when I met Cheyenne Siebert — an 11-year-old cutie whose…
Pirates, Angels, and Miss Daisy
Untitled Document The fall theater season has much to offer. Here is just some of what will be happening on area stages. The season starts off in a big way Sept. 21-23 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, when The Pirates of Penzance, featuring recording artist and Broadway actor Rex Smith as the Pirate…
Getting the chile bug
Untitled Document Jerry JimОnez is a contented man. You can see it in his serene smile and hear it in his calm, rich voice that carries just an intriguing hint of accent. Maybe it’s because of his loving family. Maybe it’s because of his home on 17 acres in the hills of southern Illinois, with…
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. WE NEED A PRO-BIKE CULTURE Jeanne Townsend Handy tells a tale of cities that have embraced cycling as a viable transportation…
Sinking ship
Untitled Document A recent statewide poll showed Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s job-approval rating was lower than George W. Bush’s. As if that isn’t astounding in and of itself — that a Democratic governor in a Democratic state would be polling worse than a wildly unpopular lame-duck Republican president — there was even more bad news for…
What it takes
Untitled Document A yearlong statewide program has forged new connections among organizations working on various aspects of violence against women. “What Will It Take? Building the Safest State for All Women and Girls,” headed by the Chicago Foundation for Women, provided $1 million in grants to nonprofits. The Illinois state government and the federal government…
Requiem for a tavern
Untitled Document I hate to be the bearer of bad, sad news, but here goes: The Underground City Tavern is not long for this world, and this weekend will mark the end of an era for the Springfield music scene. The Hilton heads have leased the space to a popular restaurant chain, and so the…
Tricks are for cooks
Untitled Document Time flies when you’re chopping chives; this year makes 10 since I received my blue-ribbon diploma from cooking school. It was there that I learned, among many other things, how to bone a quail, make a sauce, and cook eggs in more ways than I cared to know. Ten years hence, I’ve not…
Real to real
Untitled Document Linda McElroy never had popcorn at the movies. Growing up on a family farm near Edinburg, movies, for McElroy, meant that she and her four younger siblings had picked a field of corn or cleared a field of beans fast enough to earn the prize their dad dangled as incentive — a Saturday…
