Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz. PHOTO BY OLIVIER DOULIERY/TNS For presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, Feb. 1 was a good day. Not only did the Republican from Texas top presumed front-runner Donald Trump to win the influential Republican primary in Iowa that day, but Cruz also won a favorable ruling in Illinois saying he’s […]
Illinois
Posted inOpinion
Where corn is god
I grew up within a block of a corn field on the east end of Springfield. Nearly every weekend of those years we’d visit the relatives on their farm outside Beardstown; over the potholes and through the corn, to grandmother’s house we’d go, with me entranced by the corn rows, like the spokes of a […]
Posted inOpinion
Imagining revolutions
PHOTO BY Anthony Souffle/TNS Drowsy after a heavy holiday meal, I settled in to finish Stefan Zweig’s classic 1934 biography of Marie Antoinette. As I drifted in and out of sleep, the Versailles in Zweig’s account of the final days of Louis XVI and his queen faded and was replaced in my imagination with the […]
Posted inOpinion
Childproofing culture
While visiting an old friend in Evanston last weekend, I attended a Ceremony of Lessons and Carols at Northwestern University’s Millar Chapel. It was typical of such performances – hard benches and good music, and this time a polite “says who?” delivered to the scare-mongers among us in the form of lessons delivered in Spanish […]
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
Rough week for Madigan
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS “He seems so done with it all,” said one top Republican earlier last week about House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. “He hates this,” said a close Durkin pal not long afterward. The overtime session’s constant battles with the House Democrats and super-strict marching orders from Gov. Bruce Rauner were wearing Durkin […]
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 inFood & Drink
Slow Food Springfield St. Louis brewery tour
A batch of Pale Ale rolls off the line at the Schlafly Bottleworks brewery in Maplewood, MO. PHOTO BY HUY RICHARD MACH/TNS For as long as I can remember, St. Louis has been a beer town. And for most of that time, St. Louis was a one-brewery town. Anheuser-Busch ruled the roost; even sighting a […]
Posted inMusic
Octobering for music
Chris Miller, along with Joe Dawkins and Mike Burnett, plays Trail’s End Saloon in Curran on Fri, Oct. 23. I don’t know why, but this weekend shows up like a who’s who of what’s happening here, there and everywhere. Tough choices lie on the entertainment table. Let’s start when Chris Miller, the extraordinary guitarist, singer […]
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 […]
Posted inNews
Planes, trains and trucks
Illustration by David Hine. It all began with a napkin. The international food-processing company Archer Daniels Midland was paying $250 per shipping container to transfer its goods between two railroads in Decatur, and they were looking for a way to cut that cost. Scott Fredericksen, ADM’s president of transportation, and Mark Schweitzer, then the company’s […]
