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Inauguration blues
I suggest this after having spent three hours on Monday listening to John Philip Sousa marches and speeches from a six-pack of Democrats who gathered at the Bank of Springfield Center to take oaths of office and spike the ball in front of a crowd...

What climate change means for government
Looking back at 2018’s weather-related news, it seems clear that this was the year climate change became unavoidable. I don’t mean that the fires in California, coastal flooding in the Carolinas and drought throughout the West were new evidence of climate change.

Charming up Springfield
As one top Republican said after Pritzker’s speech, just imagine Gov. Bruce Rauner showing up to speak about bipartisanship and then heap praise on House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton at a Democratic reception. If you can’t imagine such a thing, well, that was the Republican’s whole point.

LETTERS
The same night, the President said this, “I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers. So sad. So terrible. I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices and the sadness gripping their souls.

CITY CHANGES COURSE
The City of Springfield invites the public to attend an informational session for something called a Downtown Traffic Signal Modernization and Operational Modifications project, according to a Jan. 2 press release. That’s fancy lingo for: we want to talk about turning one-way streets back into two-way.

H.O.T. cops reaching out
Homelessness isn’t isolated to one part of Springfield, and responding police officers have been left with limited options when dealing with a transient population. “There’s not a section of town or beat that doesn’t have homeless people,” said Gerry Castles, a sergeant with the Springfield Police Department.

A WRONG RIGHTED
More than two decades later, Johnson became the fi rst case in Illinois of an individual posthumously exonerated, an action former governor Bruce Rauner took just before leaving offi ce.

Health care starts at home
In 2015, Memorial Medical Center and HSHS St. John’s Hospital partnered together to form what is now called the Access to Health Collaborative, each contributing $250,000 to improve the quality of life for those living in Sangamon County.

On your mark, get set, run!
Thirty-two candidates are vying for 13 municipal offices in the upcoming April 2 municipal election. Three citywide races – for mayor, city clerk and treasurer – each have two candidates apiece. Twenty-six candidates, the most in at least two decades, are running for city council, where just two of 10 races are uncontested.

The joys of meatloaf
It often seems that some most delicious meals were developed out of frugality. Day-old bread is transformed into decadent and hearty French toast by simply soaking in a mixture of milk and egg before frying. Cold rice fried up with random leftovers, frozen veggies and eggs can have a satisfying dinner on the table faster than ordering takeout.

Powerful Beale Street focuses on tragedy of common racism
Rather, in adapting the novel by James Baldwin, Jenkins concentrates on the two young people at its center, an ordinary, relatable couple whose modest dreams of happiness are torn apart by an act of random discrimination that alters their lives and tests their love in a way no one should have to endure.

Music in a winter wonderland
We were certainly spoiled over the last few years with mostly mild weather (or so I seem to remember), but payback time is upon us. I do believe the more bad weather we get, the more we get used to it, and unless things are truly dangerous the events go on regardless of the white stuff, icy conditions and freezing temps.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | James Neary and the Bevy Blue
Hailing from the Northwest Indiana/Southwest Michigan area and claiming La Porte, Indiana, as a home base, these up-and-coming soulful rockers are laying it on the line with all they got every time they perform.

LIVE MUSIC
Caleb Boles, Barrett Lankford, Zach Aaron.

THE CALENDAR
Pondicherry Lodge Sherlock Holmes Society.

THEATER & COMEDY | A romantic comedy classic
Take in a performance of Barefoot in the Park,.

HISTORY | More than 200 years of Illinois
You still have time to visit the Illinois State Museum’s exhibition celebrating Illinois’ 200 th anniversary of statehood. “Bicentennial and Beyond! The Illinois Legacy Collection” includes works of art and also pieces that are of anthropological, archaeological, botanical, geological and zoological interest.