Second Thoughts

I mentioned in my recent remembrance of John Garvey that I had known him for nearly 50 years. I met him when I was 18 years old. The folly of Vietnam had become alarmingly plain, I was facing the draft and John was a volunteer draft counselor for the American Friends Service Committee. John was my […]

 I have more to say about the late Lee Sandlin, whose work I extolled in “A poet of fact.” For decades Lee seemed doomed to be another of those writers who is famous for not being known. It was not until something like 25 years after he began being printed by the Reader that he […]

 In response to no public demand whatsoever, I took up as my column topic this week (“Masters of the new machine,” out February 5) our new governor’s interesting remarks on public sector pay. One or two further points might be made. I would accept Mr. Ruaner’s insistence that state workers take less from the public […]

 In “Insult with wit,” my paean to the lost art of invective, I noted that while the mature Lincoln did not stoop to invective. This was partly fastidiousness, partly because (as Joseph Medill once noted) Lincoln was “not a match for him [Douglas] on the stump before a mob.” However, as a younger man Lincoln […]

Reporter Claire Cain Miller recalled Pres. Obama’s wish, expressed during the State of the Union Address, that Internet service that is fast enough to be useful and affordable enough to be used be extended to every American city. Right now, lack of competition among the big providers means that most Americans have both slower and […]

 In “Topping off the tank” in 2012, I noted about the federal gas tax that it had not been adjusted for inflation since 1993, Merely raising the federal gas tax enough to restore the purchasing power it had in 1993 would put the bulldozers back to work improving the nation’s road network. Such an increase wouldn’t be a […]

 On January 9. Bob Goldsborough of the Chcago Tribune published a fine obituary of Lee Sandlin, the man I described in “A poet of Fact” as “arguably . . . Illinois’ best writer.”  In only 800 words I was able only to assert my case in support of my judgment, not demonstrate it with excerpts […]

 In my 2012 column “New Beijings,” I speculated more than half seriously on a possible cure for the depopulation of the Illinois countryside. I proposed to add a few New Beijings to our New Berlins by building housing for the middle class of newly-emergent economies eager to qualify their kids for in-state tuition rates at […]

 You might recall that in a February 2014 column I argued with myself about whether “Springfieldian” or “Springfielder” is the more appropriate term for residents of the state capital. While rereading Andy Van Meter’s 1981 history of the State Journal-Register, Always My Friend, I was reminded that our illustrious civic ancestors wrestled with a version of […]

 Faithful readers of this paper will recall that Jackson Street between 2nd  and 8th streets has been talked about in recent months as a pedestrianized link between the statehouse complex and the Lincoln home, as a potential site of a flood mitigation project or both. The former in particular is not a new idea. Looking […]

 In “Why did the pedestrian not cross the road?” I noted that downtown promoters and merchants have become concerned about the risks to workers, shoppers and tourists downtown posed by careless drivers, especially at street crossings. There’s been talk about lower speed limits, or construction of more traffic-calming devices. Pedestrian-vehicle conflicts are a problem in […]

Further thoughts on the naming, renaming and misnaming of public buildings that I addressed in “Official graffiti“: The original wing of what is now regrettably known to most Illinoisans as the Michael J. Howlett Building in Springfield is not merely a building but a monument. The Centennial Building was intended, by its name and its […]