There was no bowing to national fads like Common Core in those days. Miss Graham knew what education was about... reading and writing, using proper grammar and correct spelling. And attention to, and knowledge of, the books with which anyone with a liberal education should be familiar.

News came last week that the libertyloving Mr. Rauner wants to free the people of Illinois from the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago. He took steps to establish its fair market value, thus taking the first step toward a possible sale of the 30-year-old building as surplus property.

Cinch up your seatbelts, for Sen. Ted Cruz (fueled by his raw ambition and flaming jetpowered ego) has come screeching out of the GOP’s presidential staging area, getting a head start on all the other wannabes seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

After retiring from the Peoria Park District, Dale and I moved back “home” to northeast Wisconsin and found a home in Algoma on the shore of Lake Michigan. When we moved here, we had no idea what a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) was or that Kewaunee County was home to 15 dairy CAFOs.

Police departments across the nation are obtaining a device that takes a picture of your license plate, stamps the location, time and date on it, and sends it to a database. The devices could be in parking lots, attached to traffic lights, or on top of squad cars.

In a muddy corral on a hill in southern Illinois, dozens of horses chomp on hay and cautiously eye the cowboy-boot-clad visitors who walk past their pen. When a human gets too close, the horses draw their heads back behind the vertical bars for protection, but they’re in no danger.

Springfield resident Tara Lybarger, a 42-year-old cashier at a laundromat, had been waiting since December to get signed up for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). On March 24, a few days before the appointment was scheduled, she got a call back.

Inmates in several central and southern Illinois prisons say that they have been subjected to this and more by Department of Corrections tactical teams dubbed Orange Crush for the color of their uniforms. And they have sued in federal court, seeking both financial compensation and a judicial order to end alleged abuses.

Seven months after the state began accepting applications, just 2,000 people have been approved to legally purchase pot once it becomes available in 60 dispensaries statewide that are supposed to be supplied by 21 cultivation centers, 18 of which have been approved by the state.

In 1857, Benjamin and Helen Edwards of Springfield remodeled their home on what is now north Fourth Street, hanging ornate floral wallpaper in their formal parlor and their new children’s parlor.

“What’s your favorite cuisine?” It’s a question I’m frequently asked – and one I’m never comfortable answering. Do I really have to choose? My answer at any given moment may depend on the season, a cookbook I’ve been reading, a restaurant at which I’ve recently eaten, recipes I’ve been developing, a trip recently taken or any number of other factors.

As far as the film’s plot is concerned, it’s a Macguffin-laden exercise that’s solely constructed to provide opportunities for various forms of vehicular mayhem.

Welcome to a wonderful week of live music bursting out of the bars like blooms on a forsythia branch. All kinds of styles and sounds and looks and listens are coming at us from all sides, much as the wind blows on a blustery spring day. That’s quite enough with the campy comparisons, now let’s go to town.

Dates, times and locations are subject to change, so we suggest calling before attending an event..

Arlin Peebles has composed songs and played in bands (Cleanray, Young Loves) for nearly two decades and spent the last eight or so years working on songs that made it onto his first solo release, Some Big Mystery..

Dates, times and locations are subject to last-minute changes, so we suggest calling before attending events..

On Saturday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m., violin and fiddle virtuoso Jeremy Kittel joins the Illinois Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Evan Chambers’ “Concerto for Fiddle” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” featuring ISO’s concertmaster Violetta Todorova.

The second annual Central Illinois Junior First Lego League Expo will be Sunday, April 12, from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., in Cass Gymnasium at Lincoln Land Community College. The expo showcases the work of 32 regional Junior First Lego League teams.

The dinners will be served Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., at Maldaner’s Restaurant. A prepayment of $65 guarantees your place at the table plus a delicious, four-course dinner prepared by Slow Food Springfield chefs.