Upon Further Review

  I have long had an affinity for sedans. Couches on wheels, made in America, the bigger the better. My love affair with cars no one else wants began with a optioned-out 1974 Ford LTD Brougham, baby blue with navy vinyl top. Strictly speaking, it was a coupe, having two doors, but at 19 feet […]

Samuel Rosario as a soldier, left, and an arrestee. Samuel Rosario is due for sentencing tomorrow. That he’ll get probation is almost certain. The former Springfield police officer had never been in trouble before he lost his temper in 2017 and challenged a rude youth to fisticuffs that the whole world watched via body cam. […]

I don’t know much about Adam Ehrman, the moderately embattled superintendent of the New Berlin School District, and I know as much after a four-hour school board meeting last week as I did before. The New Berlin Education Association had called on Ehrman to resign, saying its members had taken a no-confidence vote. Two television […]

I write, too much perhaps, about pets. First, there was Peanut.Then came Champ The Wonder Pug. Lately, I have devoted thought to Monty, who is getting on in years, if not decades. Most anyone who acquires any species of python – they range from less than four feet, like mine, to 30 feet, like those […]

Most every job has certain rewards – ditch diggers, for example, develop tans and physiques for which the well-heeled pay plenty in the form of gym memberships and liposuction. Still, there are some occupations that most of us cannot imagine doing for any amount of money. Who among us can run into burning buildings to […]

I am happy, but not surprised, to report that the sky remains above my hometown, which I visited recently and where marijuana has been legal since voters overwhelmingly ended pot prohibition in 2012. Tacoma isn’t like Springfield, and Washington isn’t like Illinois. For one thing, the Evergreen State pays its bills on time and has […]

When I learned that esports have come to public schools for which I pay good money, I thought of Billy Mitchell. Not the father of the Air Force who got court-martialed shortly before World War II after arguing with superior officers: Forget battleships and build aircraft carriers, he implored. He was dead before they finally […]

The ickiness started in 2013, when Christina Hibbert, an Illinois State Police employee assigned to the Firearms Service Bureau that issues firearm owners identification cards and concealed-carry permits, began an affair with Master Sergeant Anthony McClure. They were not discreet. Someone once spotted McClure standing between Hibbert’s spread legs as she sat in an office […]

  The most dramatic part of the trial came when the judge asked Samuel Rosario if he would testify. The former Springfield police officer stared into space for the better part of 30 seconds before saying that he would not. From a legal perspective, it was the right call, but Rosario looked like a man […]

Not long after learning to walk, I learned to wander. Once, I made it to one of the busiest streets in town, right off the freeway. Another time, while exploring a demolished laundromat, I stuck a foot down a concrete drainpipe. My mother summoned firefighters who summoned a jackhammer. I was freed only after a […]