This upcoming 50th anniversary of Illinois Times has us digging deep into the archives, call it IT archivology. Here’s an issue from May 16, 1991. Things were so different back then. A cartoon by Bob Waldmire showed a limo with VIPs, one balloon saying, “What’re we doing in this neighborhood?” Another VIP answers, “This place looks historic. Let’s make it a parking lot.” A news headline: “Israel is brutalizing Palestinians, ex-congressman says.” There was a comment on Springfield’s garbage system: “If someone set out to devise the worst program imaginable, this is what they’d come up with.” The young publisher, Fletcher Farrar, wrote an editorial about a forum at Lincoln Library, one of a series to discuss and find “common ground” on controversial issues like racial inequality and economic competition. The recent program was about abortion. One woman had said she was glad her mother, 15 and unwed when she gave birth to her, “didn’t have the opportunity to abort me.” Another participant answered, “All of us are glad that our mothers decided to have us. But are you really glad your mother’s choices were so limited? Are you glad she wasn’t informed about adoption?” The editorialist wrote: “This kind of exchange of views – any exchange of views – is rare in American public discourse these days.” He concluded with the hope that “Americans will learn again how to listen to each other, to reason together, and to make social progress despite a lack of consensus.” – Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in September 11-17, 2025.
