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Lesson of the city’s NAPA contract
But this cooperation started to break down on March 4, when the Houston administration filed a peculiar ordinance to give a lucrative no-bid exclusive $3.75 million contract to Genuine Auto Parts, a.k.a. “NAPA.

Somebody tell the dogs
The third week of May every year is Dog Bite Prevention Week. The American Veterinary Medical Association spent that week “educating people about preventing dog bites.” Their time would have been better spent educating the dogs, as we learned from the report that State Farm Insurance released describing claims paid for damages from dog bites.

A bold shift in America’s minimum wage debate
Gosh, I hope you don’t think I meant Washington, D.C.! No, no – the same old corporate mentality of stiffing workers and stripping any semblance of ethics from the work ethic still rules in that plutocratic roost. Rather than Washington, D.C.

LETTERS
WRIGHT ON TILL THE END I wish we never knew the name Emmett Till. But it will be forever emblazoned in our nation’s history because as a 14-year-old young man, Till was pulled out of his bed in the middle of the night in Money, Mississippi, brutally...

Magic money? Rauner’s state savings
Fully half of what Rauner said he could save – $500 million at the Department of Central Management Services – came with absolutely no details. Rauner did provide some annual totals for emergency and sole-source contracts, but he’d have to get rid of almost of all those, with all those government services they involve, to hit his goal.

WILD MAN
When it comes to love of the Great Outdoors, it would be hard to be more devoted than Scott Gauvin of Springfield. An avid hiker, kayaker and camper, Gauvin shares his adventures with the world through his blog, www.hikingforward.com.

Inside the Bel-Aire Motel
The small, one-room apartment he shares with his wife at the Bel-Aire Motel in Springfield is decorated with Pez dispensers, stamps, coins and assorted trinkets. A significant part of the apartment is also devoted to canned goods. Fite says he hoards food because he was once homeless and had to go without.

SEE THEIR CEDAR DOME
There’s a remarkable house available in Jacksonville. The Week magazine, a national weekly magazine, recently featured a geodesic dome house located in Jacksonville, Illinois, as its “Steal of the Week.

Getting smart on crime
State lawmakers during the spring legislative session approved the creation of a committee to reconsider sentencing guidelines. However, the legislator who pushed the idea says it’s about being “smart” on crime, not just letting criminals off the hook.

Board games
When he drew up a bill to divorce the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the University of Illinois law professor who chairs an ALPLM advisory board says he had no idea that he was an architect of uproar.

Who are these guys?
Board was set up before the institution opened but was dormant until 2012, when Gov. Pat Quinn, who appoints the IHPA board, appointed members to the advisory panel. Here’s a look at who serves on the boards..

The hills are alive
The story takes us to Austria, where we meet Maria Rainer (Mary Harmon) and several other nuns in a hillside abbey. Maria – more childlike and whimsical than devout and pious – has Mother Abbess concerned.

Lincoln’s extended family
Ask someone how many children Abraham Lincoln had and they are likely to answer correctly (four) and will probably be able to name some if not all of them: Robert (born 1843, the only one to survive to adulthood); Eddie (born 1846, who died in...

A squid by any other name
They’re cheap. They’re ecologically sustainable. They’re über-nutritious: low in calories, but high in protein, antioxidant minerals and several B vitamins. They take only minutes – sometimes just seconds – to cook. They lend themselves extraordinarily well to freezing and are available, cleaned, in most local groceries.

22 Jump Street
Mismatched partners, police officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) have been handed a ridiculous assignment – they’re to enroll as college students in order to track down the source of a fatal drug that’s sweeping the campus of MC State, despite the fact that they are obviously much older than the average student there.

Festival and fair fun
Such sweet dreams roll around in my head of the Sangamon County Fair of my youth. Our family didn’t do the Midway much at the state fair (too expensive), so the little carnival in New Berlin was our time to ride. I remember entering a collection of jugs somewhere and being so disappointed to get a fifth place ribbon.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Tom Keifer
Best known as the voice of blues-rock band Cinderella, famed for such cuts as “Nobody’s Fool” and “Don’t Know What You Got,” Tom Keifer began working on his solo album right after the band broke up in the 90s.

PUB CRAWL
Bo Mellado, Rella, With Teeth & Nails, Gospel & The Wolf.

THE CALENDAR
Roxie Theatricals presents this Tony award-winning musical. The Legacy Theatre, 101 E. Lawrence, 800-838- 3006..

THEATER | Comic pastiche
Tony-award winning Best Musical Thoroughly Modern Millie.

BOOKS | Illinois nature
Naturalists Michael Jeffords and Sue Post will present a program on their newest book Exploring Nature in Illinois: A Field Guide to the Prairie State,.

FESTIVAL | Witnessing the past
The largest mounted Civil War reenactment in the Midwest takes place in Jacksonville Community Park June 20-22. Watch soldiers drill and prepare for battle, fix meals, practice medicine and enact major battles.