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Beyond naming and shaming
As the high-profile Bill Cosby trial winds down this week, it’s right to ask what happens to low-profile victims who get harassed in the workplace every day by low-profile lowlifes? What happens to victims who don’t happen to work in Hollywood? Naming and shaming doesn’t work so well when offenders don’t have much of a name and even less shame.

A whale of a good idea
For more than a decade I’ve been signing the name of the world’s most famous killer whale on credit card receipts and signature pads. When I’m not in a hurry, I add a crude drawing with jagged teeth and a spray of water coming out of Shamu’s blowhole..

Examining the Kochtopus
– Pack courts with pro-corporate judges. The Koch brothers understood early on that they would need to invest millions of dollars over many years to package, perfume and surreptitiously push their unpopular antimajority ideas on the public.

LETTERS
Previously in the Senate the legislation was titled a catchy name, the FARM (Fair Agriculture Reporting Method) Act. The phrase itself would bring to mind farmers, fairness, agriculture and everything green. But, in reality, this legislation represents a cloak that exempts industrial factory farms from a vital superfund law (CERCLA).

Sam McCann’s third-party bid for governor
If McCann gets on the ballot, the idea here is to establish a new party’s identity with one specific goal in mind. Its name is the Conservative Party. Its mission is to attract conservative Republican voters who are upset at Gov. Rauner on abortion, “sanctuary state” and other stuff including possibly guns.

#Swee Too
Former anthropology and psychology teacher Gary Swee retired in March after being accused for the seventh time of sexually harassing and otherwise mistreating students.

Imagination reaches for the divine
Launched in 1996 and running alternate years since, this year’s Liturgical Arts Festival of Springfield is set to present several days of events at multiple venues around town, all centered around themes of the sacred as experienced in the traditions of various faiths.

The Joy of Running 100 Miles
“It was sooooo much fun. I met so many amazing, grit-filled and passionate people.” Most of us can’t imagine that reaction to running more than 24 hours to cover 100 miles, with the temperature as low as 17 degrees. But, that was Joe Miller’s reaction a day after he completed the 100-mile Potawatomi Trail Run at John T.

Joe Miller’s account of his 100-mile race day
Distances: 200 miles, 150 miles, 100 miles, 50 miles, 30 miles, 10-mile night run. Course: 10-mile loop consisting mostly of single-track dirt, some prairies, several creek crossings and endless rolling hills. Elevation gain: 1,600-feet per 10-mile loop.

C-U offers lots to see and do
Driving east on I-72 on a crisp fall Saturday, you may encounter carloads of orange-clad Illini fans, heading to Champaign-Urbana to tailgate outside Memorial Stadium or cheer the football team inside. While fall can be fun on the University of Illinois campus, the twin cities offer a multitude of treasures in spring and summer.

Not for the rich, for the planet
It was the middle of the afternoon of my second day staging at the celebrated new St. Louis restaurant Vicia. (It’s pronounced “stahjing. That’s French for voluntarily working your butt off for free.) I’m stemming and slicing a huge box of shiitake mushrooms as fast as I can with my brand new razor-sharp carbon steel hand-forged Japanese knife.

Troopers 2 delivers
Having been disbanded at the end of the first film, the troopers are working construction and are not too happy about it. However, it is found that a small part of Canada actually belongs to the United States, which prompts the governor of Vermont (Lynda Carter) to give the boys another chance.

End of April music
The Curve Inn continues to support a monthly Americana night, and this Thursday brings The Deep Hollow along with singersongwriter Joshua Reilly and singer Ian Wick to the cozy indoor/outdoor stage in the good and capable hands of sound man Ric Major.

PUB CRAWL
Americana Night: Joshua Reilly and The Deep Hollow.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | The Blue Lotus Soul Revue
Roland Johnson and Gene Jackson spent their adults lives involved in the soul and rhythm and blues live music scenes in the St. Louis area – Jackson since the mid 70s and Johnson since the late 60s. After decades of making music, the two singers met up with Paul Niehaus IV, a local musician and producer and owner of Blue Lotus Records.

THE CALENDAR
Gothic at Midnight - An Evening of Hilarity and Horror.

THEATER & COMEDY | The Second City does Springfield
Chicago’s legendary sketch and improv comedy theater returns to the Hoogland Center for the Arts on Friday, April 27 at 8 p.m. with “The Best of The Second City.

FOOD | A four-course morel dinner
Make reservations now for Slow Food Springfield’s third and final annual morel mushroom dinner, hosted at Maldaner’s on Saturday, May 5, at 6 p.m. Attendees will be treated to a fourcourse meat or vegetarian meal highlighting the morel mushroom followed by a Q-and-A session with chef Michael Higgins.