Cover Story
The school that calls the police on students every other day
On the last street before leaving Jacksonville, there’s a dark brick one-story building that the locals know as the school for “bad” kids. It’s actually a tiny public school for children with disabilities. It sits across the street from farmland and is two miles from the Illinois city’s police department, which makes for a short…
1939: Grandpa Dougan to Wisconsin grandkids
1939: Grandpa Dougan to Wisconsin grandkids we drove 900 miles through mountains felt like thousands up and down skirting around peaks saw some of the grandest scenery in valleys hundreds of feet deep over ranges no two alike great snow-capped spires evergreens up and down; narrow road only wide enough for one car going higher…
Illinois General Assembly approves bill shielding state from sheriffs’ lawsuit
MENTAL HEALTH | Dean Olsen A bill hastily amended and approved by the Illinois General Assembly would shield the state from a lawsuit in which sheriffs are trying to force the state to prevent mentally ill defendants from languishing in county jail for months without adequate treatment. House Bill 240 was approved 32-15 by the…
New year music news
Since we’re only nearing two weeks into 20 & 23, I hope you don’t mind that I am still wishing folks a happy and healthy New Year (here’s to ya) and dwelling upon the fact that we turned the old calendar in for a new one. Now let’s take a peek at what’s going on…
Illinois is one of the last safe havens for abortion in the Midwest. What now?
Less than six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, states where abortion remains legal are seeing large increases in out-of-state patients forced to cross state lines for abortion. One of these states is Illinois, which remains a safe haven in a region where abortion is increasingly difficult to access. This month, my colleagues and I at…
Pick nation over party
Instead of a coronation, we ended up with an election. How is that a bad thing in a democracy? It took 15 roll-call votes to elect Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House. The political chattering class is calling it a national embarrassment and labeled each prolonged vote a humiliation for McCarthy. Well, maybe. By its…
Highlights from the lame duck session
When the Democrats get their act together during a legislative lame duck session, they can really pass a lot of stuff in short order. We’ve seen it before. Two years ago, the Democrats passed a huge amount of important legislation, including the SAFE-T Act, in just a few days. Except maybe for the assault weapons…
An exit interview with Rodney Davis
Rodney Davis, the Taylorville resident who failed on Nov. 8 to win a sixth two-year term in the U.S. House, pointed to many successes during his career in Congress in an interview before he left office Jan. 3. Davis, 53, represented the old 13th Congressional District and was defeated by incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Miller,…
Letters to the editor 01-12-23
WHO’S BEHIND IT? It’s obvious to every Democratic precinct committee member that Bill Houlihan and Mayor Jim Langfelder orchestrated this (“Two Black candidates for city council cite racial bias in removal from ballot,” Jan. 5). Houlihan’s son, John Houlihan, was running against Jaleesa Davis and they feared it would split the Democratic vote in Ward…
A new bid for a new year
It’s a new year, and I need a new bid. Maybe we all do. I just read “The Art of Bidding, or How I Survived Federal Prison,” a long essay by Eric Borsuk. On his first day of a seven-year sentence a cellmate told him, “Man, you gotta get a bid.” A bid, he learned,…
Chopped Salad, from Beverly Hills to Springfield
The original chopped salad was created in the late 1950s by legendary restaurateur Jean Leon at his ritzy La Scala restaurant in Beverly Hills. Celebrity sightings were commonplace at La Scala – Leon himself claimed to have personally served Marilyn Monroe her last meal (not a chopped salad). And although Natalie Wood was rumored to…
Editor’s note 01-12-23
Gov. JB Pritzker is right, as he said in his second inaugural address, that he and the legislature got “big things done” during his first term – things like improving state finances, protecting reproductive rights, instituting nursing home reforms and criminal justice reforms, plus responsibly steering the state through the pandemic. There have been more…
Take comfort in a Man Called Otto, Pale Blue Eye an absorbing mystery, M3GAN a cautionary tale
Though predictable, Otto a timely tonic Films like Marc Forster’s A Man Called Otto are the kinds of movies people tend to dismiss out of hand. It wears its heart on its sleeve, it paints its moral in broad strokes, and there’s a predictability to it cynics will scoff at. Tom Hanks takes on the…
