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“Ban the Box” helps ex-cons succeed
More than 700,000 Americans are released from prison each year. We expect them to reenter society and be law-abiding, but we make it extremely difficult for anyone who has served time to ever become gainfully employed, even though they have paid their debt to society.

None of your business
The experienced Indianapolis design firm of Flaherty & Collins has proposed to fill the block with 200 apartments, street-level retail space, off-street parking and green space. It would be just the sort of mixed-used, medium-rise project that has enlivened Illinois suburban downtowns beyond counting.

THIS WEEK
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What 47 cents buys these days
Buy one 47-cent stamp, and postal workers will deliver your envelope to any address in the country by plane, train, bus, boat, truck, car, bike, pushcart, mule, on foot or all of the above.

LETTERS
I encourage everyone to call your state senator and representative. Tell them you want the General Assembly to pass redistricting reform in the fall veto session so we can fix our broken political system and restore democracy in Illinois. Governor Bruce Rauner Springfield.

What’s keeping Democrats awake at night?
The Republicans have been saying behind the scenes that they have put four Democratic state Senators “on the bubble” – Tom Cullerton in DuPage County, Melinda Bush in Lake County, Jennifer Bertino- Tarrant in Will County and Gary Forby in southern Illinois.

THIS MODERN WORLD
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Weeding things out
After more than two years of clearing brush with saws and poison and fire, Friends of the Sangamon Valley, a nonprofit preservationist group concerned with environmental issues, has completed its mission of removing nonnative plants from 60 wooded acres on Lake Springfield near Glenwood Middle School.

Digging deep on Hunter Lake
One solution, Myers wrote, would involve deepening the southern portion of the proposed lake so that water would stop well short of the village.

HAVING A BLAST
Springfield has been host to myriad you-don’t-see-that-everyday gatherings, from the World Juggling Federation Convention to confabs of Elvis impersonators. But we feel especially secure this week as the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators is in town for four days of annual training that ends on Friday.

ABE GETS HIS KICKS
www.route66fest.com.

Poverty decreased slightly in 2015
DATA | Patrick Yeagle.

Mature Mob
It’s one of those things that may seem like it’s always been here, but Senior Services of Central Illinois, Inc., is only 50 years old. And it hasn’t always gone by that name. Its roots go back to a study begun by United Way in 1957, but it didn’t become a reality until 1966, when the Senior Citizens’ Center was incorporated.

Life in focus
Hardworking, faithful, and resilient in the face of what others might call setbacks, professional photographer Dave Beatty has enjoyed a career photographing corporate jets and entertainment stars, political leaders, rickety bridges and deep coal mines.

Slowing down to save our food supply
The Ark of Taste highlights heritage foods.

Fuqua helms Magnificent muddle
There’s much more to making a Western than putting movie stars under Stetson hats, giving them six-shooters and throwing them on a horse. This approach plus poorly choreographed sequences of extended carnage is all director Antoine Fuqua has up his sleeve where his remake of The Magnificent Seven.

Marvelous music mix
With the hot rods coming to town for the big car show in conjunction with the 15th annual Route 66 Mother Road Festival held downtown, the weekend push is “vroom, vroom; take a look at my car room” or something like that.

PUB CRAWL
Find more details and gigs in our online calendar at www.illinoistimes.com.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Black Queen
Back in 2009 when Caleb Smith showed up at an open mic run by Bruce Williams and sang Queen songs, the two self-described “huge fans” of the supergroup decided to start a tribute band. They knew right away the band’s name would come from the song “March of the Black Queen” from Queen II.

THE CALENDAR
Sep 24-26, 8am-5pm Sat-Mon. See horse powered equipment, antique tractors, gas and steam engines, demonstrations on bailing, blacksmithing, more. Train rides, large fl ea market, food. $5. prairielandheritage.com. 217-243-5678. Prairie Land Heritage Museum, 1005 W.

THEATER & COMEDY | Route 66 rivalry
Jacksonville’s Playhouse on the Square is pleased to present Bleacher Bums,.

FAIRS & FESTIVALS | Celebrate the supernatural
This weekend, paranormal enthusiasts will gather in one of the most haunted small towns in the Midwest to celebrate ghosts, hauntings and the supernatural. The 16 th annual American Hauntings Fall Festival will feature vendors and presentations on spirits, macabre history and ghost encounters in America.

MUSIC | Interdenominational hymn sing
Help Grace Lutheran and Trinity Lutheran churches commemorate their 175 th anniversaries during Springfield’s first-ever City Wide Hymn Fest on Sunday, Sept. 25. The concert, directed by J.B. George, will consist of a dozen popular Christian hymns accompanied with carillon music by Carlo van Ulft and band direction by Jan Zepp.