When it was built for $150,000 in 1906, the Ferguson Building housed the Lincoln Bank. PHOTO COURTESY SANGAMON VALLEY COLLECTION The U.S. economy, having finally recovered from the bankers’ attempt to poison it, is up and about again, and Springfield is seeing a modest uptick in spending on the rehabilitation of historic downtown structures such […]
Illinois – James Krohe Jr
Posted inOpinion
The recycling drop-off
PHOTO BY METRO CREATIVE CONNECTION Saving the world, even this very small part of it, is a tricky business in every sense of the word. Lake Area Disposal is closing its popular recycling drop-off center, at least for a while, after losing money on it for a couple of years. The closing of the drop-off […]
Posted inOpinion
Our gift from St. Nicholas
A happy buyer with his take from one of several going-out-of-business sales at the St. Nick in the mid-1970s. PHOTO BY JESSIE EWING I often reflect on the past while washing the dishes – usually, trying to remember where I’d laid the scrub pad that I’d had in my hand a minute ago. But yesterday […]
Posted inOpinion
The melting pot boils again
“The Battle of Nauvoo.” PAINTING BY C.C.A. CHRISTENSEN Consider this nightmare scenario. Thousands of religious refugees whose beliefs are radically outside the mainstream, acting with the connivance of compliant politicians, establish a theocracy within the borders of the Illinois commonwealth. Believers vote the way their prophet tells them to and establish their own courts. Social […]
Posted inOpinion
Unhappy days are here again
Photo by G. Kunz/ Tribune News Service The news media, as their name suggests, focus on what is new in the world. Journalism’s only subject is current events – “current” having been defined of late to mean “within the past 10 minutes.” Yesterday is barely mentioned, last year is nearly forgotten, a century ago does […]
Posted inOpinion
Kitchen concoctions
Jim Davison enjoys corn dogs at the Cozy Dog Drive In in Springfield. PHOTO BY TOM UHLENBROCK/TNS Writing about diners and diner food lately (see “Off the menu” and “Breakfast of a champion”) has left me hungry to know what other contributions to the nation’s waistline can be traced to this part of the world. […]
Posted inOpinion
Breakfast of a champion
PHOTO COURTESY CHARLIE PARKER’S To such names as A.L. Ide, Ira Weaver and George Celani (who in the 1980s invented an express air package service out of thin air!), we should now add to Springfield’s roster of distinguished inventors that of Mike Murphy, who devised a process to turn an English muffin into a $25,000 […]
Posted inOpinion
Let the Pilgrims land again
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin PHOTO BY HARRY E. WALKER /TNS The United States should accept 100,000 refugees from the ghastly violence in Syria, said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin recently. More than half of that nation’s people have been driven from their homes and to date at least 250,000 have been killed – the equivalent of […]
Posted inOpinion
Winner takes nothing
As you might have heard, the merry band of ball players disguised as Chicago Cubs won for themselves a chance to go to the World Series this year as one of the two best teams in American professional baseball. Except that the two best teams were already known back on Oct. 4. They’re the Royals […]
Posted inOpinion
‘We are writing the rules,’ says Obama
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE The negotiations and the sales push behind Washington’s latest (and biggest) “free trade” agreement amounts to Kabuki theater. What theater? Kabuki. It’s a 17th-century form of Japanese drama, featuring elaborate sets and costuming, rhythmic dialogue and stylized acting and dancing. That does, indeed, nicely sum up the White […]
Posted inOpinion
Closing a deal
Bruce and Diana Rauner PHOTO BY ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/TNS Trust me, readers, I am no more eager to write another column about the closing of the Illinois State Museum than you are to read it. I have been moved to do it because the most important aspect of the story is the one that remains the […]
Posted inOpinion
Home is where the boss is
Well, looks like we got taken again by a big out-of-town jasper. The Omaha-based processed food giant Con-Agra – parent of Chef Boyardee, Swiss Miss and other take-in fast foods – is moving its 700-person corporate headquarters to downtown Chicago. The Tribune parroted the company line that leaving the firm’s suburban-style campus in Nebraska to […]
