Guest Opinion

If you’re old enough, news that President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency, apparently without legal authority, to monitor the private communications of American citizens must seem awfully familiar. This sort of monitoring has been pursued before, when technology was less sophisticated and less intrusive, becoming especially notorious during the administrations of Lyndon […]

Whenever you start a new job in a new town, someone gives you a stack of letters, e-mails, and press releases that no one else was interested in and calls them story ideas. Check these, you’re told — there’s got to be something here to get you started. Usually there isn’t much. In this stack, […]

It was a strange, serendipitous Springfield moment, an unlikely conjunction of comets and pinto beans. But it happened last Tuesday afternoon, just as the downtown parking garages relieved themselves and the September sun dipped below the capitol minarets. Garrison Keillor — bestselling author, national columnist, and rhapsodic host of A Prairie Home Companion and The […]

As an artist exhibiting at the Old Capitol Art Fair, I displayed a print of the Orpheum Theater, which was torn down in 1965. On seeing the print, many people remarked about what a great loss it was that Springfield’s largest and most majestic theater was demolished. In hindsight this is obvious; today, no one […]

Like most people, I reacted with revulsion, not shock, to evangelist Pat Robertson’s suggestion that we assassinate Venezuela’s president. Robertson, after all, has a record of saying things that thoughtful folks wouldn’t. That’s why he’s largely ignored — most media organizations tune out the rants of TV preachers and most talk-show hosts. In this case, […]

Given the recent NCAA ruling regarding Native American-themed sports mascots, it was time to call in the big guns, the committee of the highest rank: Yanks Avatar, Knuckles Kloof, Tom “Snorts” Sullivan, and Sam “Frog” O’Malley, Illini fans for 40 years each. Knights of truth and reason. Social scholars. Enlightened four. Sportsmen sensitive. Giant but […]

Isn’t it obvious by now that President George W. Bush is totally lost in Iraq, without a clue of how to get out? Instead of a coherent Iraq policy, Bush relies on political one-liners. His most infamous was “mission accomplished,” but, for me, the most disgusting was his response two years ago when he was […]

U.S. officials have stumbled down a meandering trail of denials regarding this deadly meat-borne disease. When mad-cow disease was first detected in British cattle, the official line was that the brain-destroying disease could not be transferred from cows to humans, so not to worry — eat your burgers. Then, when Brits began to die after […]

Last month President George W. Bush visited a nuclear power plant in Maryland to proclaim, “It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again.” Bush has joined the nuclear industry’s public-relations campaign for what it calls a “nuclear renaissance,” putting construction of new nuclear plants on a fast track. One of […]