Illinois – James Krohe Jr

Public higher education is in trouble in Illinois. Enrollment at most of the former “normal” schools is down, costs are rising and the best in-state students are signing up to attend out-of-state schools. What to do? The Chicago Tribune editors know. In a recent editorial, the paper proposed changes in governance structure and operations intended […]

For years the Sierra Club has played the conscience of City Water, Light and Power in the absence of mayors and aldermen capable of the role. Most people can agree that having a conscience is a good thing, but no one likes be nagged by one, and CWLP is doubtless fed up with the Sierra […]

My favorite Miss America was Vonda Kay Van Dyke (1965), forever famous as the first  Queen of Atlantic City to use ventriloquism in the talent portion of the contest. She later wrote a series of Christian-themed teen advice books in which young women learned about how “that inner sparkle that only Christ can give” would […]

A college campus is a sleepy place in the summer, which makes summer a good time to go sightseeing. I’ve always enjoyed visiting the main campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana for that purpose. One sees things one seldom sees at home, such as people reading books in public. (And people say Angkor […]

Attorneys in their sunset years dream of the day when they no longer have to start a day knotting a necktie, governors of when they can complain about bills without people expecting them to know what’s in them. A certain Springfield columnist of that age dreams of never again having to write about parking downtown. […]

It is late August as I write this, a time of year when gardens and gardeners alike begin to look a little, well, tired, for reasons I explored in the column, which appeared in our paper of Aug. 27, 1987. It has been artfully revised and edited for length. T.  S. Eliot was no gardener, […]

A draft version of this piece was posted in error. The version that follows is the corrected one. – JKJr. At least no one demanded that insulting images be suppressed a la Charlie Hebdo. No blood at the publisher was shed, and no one issued a fatwa against the artist, even if ritual murder was […]

Not since Chancellorsville have so many rebel soldiers fallen in battle. Across the U.S., statues and other memorials to Confederate heroes from the Civil War are being driven from their pedestals, decried as symbols of a white supremacist creed that has come to be regarded as odious. The problem of whether and how to honor […]

Springfieldians are always trying to get above themselves. As I noted in “Seeking the scenic in central Illinois” (Aug. 19, 2010), something must be seen to be scenic, and seeing the landscape in a flat land requires the breadth of perspective that verticality affords. One of the charms promised by the Rauner-backed North Mansion Y-Block […]

It’s summer, when spouses (usually women, but not always) show up in ERs seemingly catatonic because their mates have begun talking, again, about the Cub curse or the Cardinal way. Baseball itself is not inherently boring, even if it is mystifying to the non-fan. The game, like tour cycling, cricket or government, is one of […]

Sooner or later, every rookie reporter must face the ugly facts: Somewhere, sometime, there will be a school board meeting she will have to cover. A veteran opinion monger like me faces a similar dilemma. As he seeks to meet readers’ demands for wisdom on a deadline, he must occasionally write about education funding. The […]