Editor’s Note

Now that the Code Red storm has passed, Storm Team 20 still regularly warns us that terrible weather may be coming, but now adds that there is but a “slight to moderate risk” that any of it will happen. The real storm is the one being stirred up by Ana “Bulldog” Espinosa and the news […]

 Abraham Lincoln said it was time, 87 years after the founding Fourth of July, for the nation to have a “new birth of freedom” and it is time again. Nobody knows quite what to do about racism, but equality is valued so we keep trying. Health is another shared value, but disease is the rule, […]

Illinoisans got used to thinking that because we abolished capital punishment in 2011 the moral dilemma of the death penalty now belongs only to residents of other states. But now the guilty verdict in the Brendt Christensen murder case is a reminder that there is work to do. The sentencing phase of the trial will […]

As crowds of homeless people gather downtown – at the library and at the church across the street – we are reminded that homelessness is a community responsibility, and not just in winter. With the overflow shelter closed and campsites flooded, too many people have nowhere to go. Short-term answers, like the city providing portable […]

In the current Pure News USA, fellow newspaper CEO T.C. Christian, Jr. observes Father’s Day by paying tribute to his father, T.C. Christian, Sr., in a piece called “He left me his name.” The elder Christian, a butcher in the Armour meatpacking plant in East St. Louis, spoiled the son a bit with gifts like […]

 Almost overlooked during the flood of legislation coming out of the Statehouse was the May 31 tentative agreement on a new contract between AFSCME, the 40,000-member state employee union, and the Pritzker administration. If approved, it will be the first contract in four years. “Illinois has turned another important page from years of brutal ideological […]

As the General Assembly rushes to wind up its session by voting on legalizing sports betting, casino expansion, recreational marijuana and a big capital bill, comes the news that some Illinois legislators may be profiting from an industry they regulate. Shocking, we know. According to reporting by ProPublica and WBEZ Chicago, Senate Minority Leader Bill […]

 Installation of the 30-foot Lincoln statue outside the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum sent us to Illinois Times archives. In March 2005, then staff writer Dusty Rhodes headlined her column “This is no cowtown,” and described how Tony Leone tried to promote the idea of a contest that would put 100 “plastic Abes” around […]

This week’s cover photo, “Julia’s Blue Moon Club, 1945” illustrates both the rich cultural history of Springfield’s African-American community and the fragile nature of its physical structures. The Blue Moon Club was among the dozens of buildings bulldozed during the “urban renewal” push of the 1960s when entire blocks of structures along Washington Street between […]

 Legalizing recreational marijuana won’t make Illinois great. But the proposal is different from other recent addiction-for-profit schemes, like video gambling, the General Assembly likes to approve. Legalization will put an end to pot smoking being a criminal act, which has caused untold suffering for decades, and there are provisions for expunging minor marijuana offenses from […]

One of the benefits of being a small-town newspaper editor is you get to know important people. I was pleased to get a letter last week from U. S. Sen. Richard Durbin, wishing me a happy birthday. “Dear Bud,” it read. (He calls me Bud. I call him Dick.) “It is a pleasure to wish […]

Sometimes we just have to say no. Our friends at NPR Illinois, who already have an ad in the paper, were asking if we might find some editorial space this week to promote the many events they have planned for their first Public Radio Week, April 29-May 5. To make room for that we’d have […]