Second Thoughts

From Upshot, we get this report of a new public opinion survey of a national sample of 1,890 adults about “Obamacare,” or the Affordable Care Act. 35 percent of respondents said either they thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were different policies (17 percent) or didn’t know if they were the same or different […]

 Once in a while, life imitates journalism. In “The birth of the plyscraper” (April 24, 2014), I noted the trend toward green buildigs of a different kind – large commercial and residential structures made from wood rather than the usual steel and concrete. Were such buildings to become popular, it would open new markets for […]

 Now we hear that they got the date wrong on the Illinois state seal. The seal, which is the centerpiece of the state flag, features a perched eagle bearing a banner, “State Sovereignty, National Union” encircled by the words, “Seal of the State of Illinois Aug. 26, 1818.” Only, the state of Illinois did not […]

 After reading “Red brick roads” (Jan. 19, 2017), a faithful reader who grew up in Tuscola – magical name — recalled for me the almost melodic sounds made by car tires on the old brick streets of that town, adding that the sounds should be recorded “for archives that store such things.” Hear, hear. Alas, […]

 I only scratched the surface of my topic in “Form over function” (Jan. 26, 2017). Under the old commission government, each of the five commissioners were both administrative and legislative—as individuals they ran major departments and, as a council, passed laws. Whatever the system’s faults, it did demand that every one of the five had […]

 In her recent conversation with Bruce Rushton (“Can we talk?,” Jan. 19, 2017) Lisa Clemmons Stott, executive director of Downtown Springfield, Inc., said that  Springfield lacks a vision for its city center. “We don’t have this collective understanding of what the neighborhood wants to be.” This is not inaccurate but it is insufficient. What Springfield […]

 The outgoing Obama administration reportedly prepared hundreds of memos — more than 300 from the National Security Council alone — to aid the Trump transition. Those memos, apparently, were never read. Citizens ought to do some reading to get ready for a Trump presidency too. I suggest we start with The Emperor’s New Clothes.

 George Packer in The New Yorker reminds us that George Washington, in his farewell address upon leaving office in 1796, said this about the danger of partisan demagoguery. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door […]

The Illinois State Museum has announced the dates of showing of 16 original oil paintings in its collection by Manierre Dawson. “A Journey to Abstraction.” Dawson, sayeth the curators, was a little-known artist from Chicago who had virtually no direct contact with his early 20th century European and American Avant-Garde counterparts but who independently arrived […]

Next month Springfield will mark the 208th anniversary of te birth of Abraham Lincoln. The city is familiar by now with the tributes that national and international Somebodies pay to our best citizen. Thanks to Nancy LeTorneau at the Washington Monthly, I can share with you the views of our departing president and of his […]

Way back in 2014, when the sun still shone on America, I did a column titled New York, New York in which  I ventured an opinion or two about why New York City draws to it the best and the brightest young people, or at least the most energetic and ambitious, from around the country, including Springfield. […]

Here is a short shelf of books that explore in some way the history of mid-Illinois, as I promised in “Understanding our brave new world through the old one.” All are still in print or, if not, still fairly easy to track down in good used shops such as Springfield’s Prairie Archives.  Among the anthologies aimed […]