The Price is Right Live Come on down to Sangamon Auditorium on Monday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. for The Price is Right Live, an interactive production of the hit TV game show by the same name. This high-energy stage show has been touring nationally for more than nine years and has given away more […]
Illinois
Posted inOpinion
Charity cases
ILLUSTRATION BY TRIBUNE MEDiA SERVICE The debate that Illinois ought to be having about government finance is not how much property owners should pay in taxes, but which property owners should pay. Large quasi-corporate nonprofit corporations such as private hospitals and universities behave like their profit-making cousins, and are among the biggest land-owners in many […]
Posted inNews
IDOT spends $143,000 on zombie-themed seat belt ad
IDOT’s “Driving Dead” short film on seat belt use features an armored Mustang with a machine gun and actor Michael Rooker from the “Walking Dead” TV series about zombies. PHOTO COURTESY IDOT In a dusty, dimly-lit warehouse, a horde of zombies closes in two men with high-powered firearms trying in vain to escape through a […]
Posted inOpinion
Adam’s off ox
One of the quainter rituals of any campaign, along with “debates,” is the newspaper editorial endorsement. It proceeds from three dubious assumptions – one, that anyone reads editorials besides the editor’s mother, two, that voters are swayable by argument and three, that a newspaper’s institutional opinion, being better informed than most, is thus automatically wise. […]
Posted inNews
Ad nauseam
U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, a Republican representing Illinois’ 13th Congressional District is running for re-election against Democratic challenger Ann Callis. pHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE Part 1 – 13th Congressional District: Rodney Davis vs. Ann Callis William Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It is famous for the line “All the world’s a stage, and all the […]
Posted inOpinion
Waste not. Why not?
Yard and food waste account for 26 percent of the municipal solid waste stream in the U.S. Composting reduces trash and yields a soil amendment that can be used for gardening. PHOTO BY DON KELSEN/MCT As much as 40 percent of the food that Americans buys in the supermarket is tossed uneaten into the trash, […]
Posted inOpinion
Where is Illinois?
MAP COURTESY WWW.FREEWORLDMAPS.NET You would think that the one inarguable fact about Illinois is that it is a Midwestern place. Walt Hickey, a writer for Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, commissioned a web poll of self-identified Midwesterners that asked them which states they believed make up that region. He figured they’d know, but 19 percent of the […]
Posted inNews
Hope Institute rebounds with innovations for better care
KAREN PHOTO BY Terry Farmer, AMANDA PHOTO COURTESY The Hope Institute Karen G. Foley and Amanda Brott A Springfield school for children with developmental disabilities is making big changes following two incidents of abuse in November 2013. The Hope Institute for Children and Families was already planning changes before the isolated abuse came to light, […]
Posted inNews
Illinois DNR revises fracking regulations
State regulators have released new regulations for a highly controversial oil and gas extraction technique. Environmental groups in the area that will be affected say the new protections aren’t enough, while energy companies say the new rules are too burdensome. The Illinois General Assembly in June 2013 passed a law allowing high-volume hydraulic fracturing, which […]
Posted inOpinion
Dangerous propositions
Bruce Rauner, a Republican candidate for governor of Illinois. PHOTO BY TERRENCE ANTONIO JAMES/MCT It was sometime just after the new millennium, I think, that Illinois political leaders first started to resemble the first guy through the broken store window crying “Justice!” while looting a TV set. The thought occurred to me while reading about […]
Posted inNews
300 million years ago
Scientific illustrator Mary Parrish of the Smithsonian Institution created this painting of what the Danville area would have looked like 300 million years ago using real fossils for reference. Parrish worked under the direction of Smithsonian paleobiologist Bill DiMichele. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution. Painting by M. Parrish. A warm, moist breeze blows through the swampy forest […]
Posted inNews
A fight against forgetting
Dr. Thomas Ala, interim director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders (CADRD) at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, is heading a trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug as part of a larger study nationwide. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE More than 100 years after it was first medically recognized, Alzheimer’s disease still […]
