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What’s wrong with the world going right?
Nationalism is returning to a world badly in need of internationalism. An increasing number of countries are moving sharply to the political right, endorsing nationalism, while the public and global goods of our world such as the fish in the ocean and our environment and climate have no international shepherds to watch over them.

Dodge-bashing downtown
Oh, are we going to have us some fun. Public party space being planned in the form of a new Bicentennial Plaza between Fifth and Sixth Streets at Jackson and a park on the Y block across the street. Mayor Langfelder noted, presumably approvingly, “With that block tied into the plaza, you could have thousands of people right there.

It’s time to put food policy back on the table
That’s Bush-Kerry, Obama-McCain, Obama-Romney, and Trump-Clinton. Not one of them mentioned the people who produce our food. Jahren notes that the monetary value of farm production alone is nearly eight times greater than coal mining, a declining industry whose voters Clinton and Trump avidly courted.

LETTERS
As a longtime observer and participant in the central Illinois music scene, I can say with certainty that this group has achieved a rightful place as a creative outlet for musicians of amateur and professional standing. No one receives a dime for their services, but all play their hearts out as if they were all under long-term contracts.

Charlie Brown’s football
Radogno assured the Democrats that she and her GOP caucus were working in good faith to achieve a bipartisan “grand bargain” in the chamber. Senate Democrats have been grumbling for weeks that the Republicans were playing Lucy with Charlie Brown’s football.

Rauner proposes more for schools, but no new formula
Rauner’s budget proposal includes a $250 million increase for elementary education, with $50 million going to early childhood and a $30 million increase toward general state aid. Rauner also proposed fully funding regular transportation grants and bilingual education.

UIS police find no trafficking
“We’ve completed our investigation from the law enforcement side,” a UIS police sergeant wrote to an FBI agent on Oct. 7, six weeks after a UIS student reported that families of Chinese students had paid as much as $48,000 “Chinese currency” as a fee to attend the university.

UIS reports heavily redacted
Police reports released by the University of Illinois Springfield are redacted to the point that it is difficult to determine exactly how university police responded, or just what police were told by students and others after police received reports of rape and illicit fees paid to enter the U.

HIP-HOP DISSERTATION
Decatur native and current Clemson University (South Carolina) Ph. D. candidate A. D. Carson will defend his dissertation on Friday, Feb. 24. “Owning my masters: rhetoric of rhyme and revolution” is no typical academic paper.

TORA! TORA! TORA!
The private equity fi rm that manages the parent company of the State Journal-Register is being sold to SoftBank, a telecommunications and internet company founded and headed by a Japanese billionaire whom Forbes last year reported was among the world’s 100 richest people.

Polar opposites respond to Rauner budget
Immediately after Rauner’s proposal on Feb. 15, the ILBC held a press conference at the Capitol. “This is a theoretical budget address based on fake math. Rauner offered brutal cuts to our state, social services, human services, seniors, schools and higher education programs,” said Rep.

Drizzling but not pouring
The 8-2 vote came four days after the mayor sent an email to aldermen, warning that the city library would close on Sundays, the police department would lose nine officers and curtail the fledgling body camera program while the fire department would lay off eight firefighters and 10 trainees if departments had to cut spending by 3 percent.

Thinking outside the stereotype
On Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 6 and 7, at Erin’s Pavilion, Springfield Public School District 186 held a series of unprecedented sessions addressing the subject of “cultural relevance,” popularized by educator Gloria J. Ladson-Billings.

Parade power
The title was born from a sobering conversation that took place in 2004. A gay constituent asked his local representative to support an anti-discrimination bill for LGBT citizens. The rep responded that he didn’t see the need because to his knowledge there were only two gay residents in the county.

What do you do with leftover wine?
Back in the late 1970s my wife and I used to go out for a steak dinner to a tavern in Virden called Rockenbachs. We were newbie wine connoisseurs at the time and enjoyed drinking Lambrusco, a semisweet sparkling red wine, reminiscent of Sparkling Burgundy.

Long trudge dooms Fight
The circumstances surrounding the way in which the above piece of dialogue was delivered had me laughing much harder than I have in quite some time. However, the single witty turn of an odd phrase does not a complete movie make, and unfortunately this is one of only a very few effective moments in the dismal exercise in comedy that is Fist Fight.

Friday February fun
I hardly know where to start, so I will start with what I know. While I’m missing from my Friday night post at George Ranks (I’m in central Florida now doing separate gigs with Ken Carlyle, Patrick Hagerman and Joshua Reilly – three area musicians who relocated to sunny Florida), Liz Fitz and Epsom rule the roost.

PUB CRAWL
Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, The Wolf Crick Boys.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Rockin’ Johnny Burgin
A man on the move, Rockin’ Johnny has really been rocking in the past year. He relocated to California from Chicago, toured mainland Europe between Halloween and Christmas, promoted a CD, recorded another CD, gigged nearly every night, and now he’s...

THE CALENDAR
Publishing, Writing and Editing in 2017.

BOOKS & AUTHORS | Teenagers recite poetry
In 2005 the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation established the Poetry Out Loud contest, which utilizes poetry as a vehicle to test teenage students on their oration and interpretation skills. The contest, open to high school students in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.

FAIRS & FESTIVALS | Sample Illinois wine
This annual festival is combined with the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association’s annual education conference, thus affording festival attendees the opportunity to sample made-in-Illinois wine alongside Illinois producers and growers.

BULLETIN BOARD | Become storm savvy
On Monday, Feb. 27, the National Weather Service will offer a free “Severe Weather Storm Spotting” course in the student union on the lower level of Menard Hall at Lincoln Land Community College.