Is it Springfieldian or Springfielder? Many years ago, when the creeks ran clear and deer roamed free in the wooded groves of downtown Springfield, I was leaving Lanphier Park after watching the Springfield Redbirds play a ball game. I ran into IT colleague Ruth Knack and her husband, Bill Knack. Baseball, as its fans will […]
Illinois – James Krohe Jr
Posted inOpinion
Changing the rules
Proposals to change the Illinois Constitution, I’ve noticed, are like UFO sightings: They tend to come in bunches. At the moment, the skies above Springfield are filled with strange apparitions. Several groups, some with good intentions, are busy preparing to put on the November ballot measures to change the way income is taxed by the […]
Posted inOpinion
Trial by jury
The United States ended military conscription in 1973, but draft-dodgers still roam the land – ordinary citizens drafted involuntarily into service as trial jurors by the courts. Many objections can be made to the policy of hauling untrained laypeople off the street under threat of fines or prison to decide complex matters of fact and […]
Posted inOpinion
A new Dawn at the Statehouse?
Does Illinois really want to emulate Everett Dirksen? PHOTO BY DAVID HINE On Jan. 9, Rich Miller of CapitolFax took a break from chronicling Illinois lawmakers who ought to be forgotten to ask a queston on his blog about one who ought to be remembered: Should there be a statue of the late Dawn Clark […]
Posted inOpinion
God lets Ingersoll off
Robert G. Ingersoll PHOTO COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION. BRADY-HANDY PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION. Atheists don’t expect to rise from the dead, but one famous dead agnostic came up, as it were, when I was reflecting last week on the fear and loathing that atheists excite among some Illinoisans. Attorney Robert G. Ingersoll, blasphemer […]
Posted inOpinion
Your money’s no good here
Hemant Mehta What in the name of Joe McCarthy is going on up north? In case you didn’t read about it, here’s what’s happened so far. In October, American Legion Post 134 in the Cook County town of Morton Grove withdrew its annual $2,600 donation to the local park district because one of its commissioners […]
Posted inOpinion
All for one – and ‘for’ for all
These days, the editor’s desks of most newspaper and web news outlets are occupied by the very tender bottoms of bright boys and girls who are younger than some of my house plants. These are the people who are writing the headlines to our news reports, which means they are the people who are responsible […]
Posted inOpinion
Over regulation
Karen and Court Conn. PHOTO BY GINNY LEE Court and Karen Conn are peeved. In the current issue of Compass, the magazine of the libertarian Illinois Policy Institute, they air several gripes about their problems doing business in the capital city. The IPI celebrates the free enterprise system as one of “the greatest force[s] for […]
Posted inOpinion
Comic timing
What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A drummer. I don’t know why I have always enjoyed drummer jokes. My father is a professional drummer, and a fine one, so one should not read anything Oedipal into this odd taste. I have yet to recognize any aspect of his playing or his […]
Posted inOpinion
Promises, promises
Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO The headlines all say that the General Assembly has reformed Illinois’ public employee pension system. The headlines lie. Legislators didn’t reform what has become an unworkable system, although they did change it – or try to. Their ingenious fix is likely to prove futile; the courts will have […]
Posted inOpinion
Foreground music
Christopher Golub PHOTO COURTESY HTTP://CHIPOTLE.COM Thinking of oneself as a fogey is so poignant for a boomer, so vested are we in being the nation’s new generation. When we find more and more Xers taking our favorite seats on the bus, we react with ill grace. I thought of that as I stood in line […]
Posted inOpinion
What they had to do
Illinois in the War of 1812 by Gillum Ferguson. University of Illinois Press, 2012. 333 pages, $34.95. Thanksgiving is the time of year when some white people serve up a heapin’ dish of guilt. The season reminds us all of the circumstances of the founding of the nation, when it was the white people who […]
