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How to Find the Right Dog for Your Family
1. Determine the responsible environment you would like to acquire your dog from..

What if voting were mandatory?
Answer: Zero. That’s right, not one. But even more stunning is the fact that if you take a failure to vote as equaling “none of the above” (NOA), then NOA has been the top choice of registered voters in 28 of the 30 presidential elections in that time period.

Budget blues and greens
It is too bad that Pritzker wasn’t at the previous night’s Springfield City Council meeting, when aldermen took a hatchet to the municipal budget and hacked away money for trees, which, being trees, weren’t there to defend themselves. Tree huggers were, and they made points that, if not irrefutable, sounded pretty darn strong.

Blagojevich emerges from prision unchanged
If you were too young to know about Blagojevich or your memory is hazy, you’re now getting a lesson in Rod 101. He knows what reporters want and he’s more than happy to give it to them if it serves his purposes. He will say anything, literally anything, to stay in the public eye, no matter how far from the truth it may be.

LETTERS
FRIENDLY, BUT NO AGREEMENT I read your recent Cap City article (“Shocking,” Feb. 20) about a complaint by assistant U.S. attorney Tim Bass about others in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in the course of the corruption prosecution of former Representative Aaron Schock.

Transgender inmate accused of rape
A transgender woman sent to Logan Correctional Center from a men’s prison has faced rape accusations and remains at the women’s prison in Lincoln after the governor’s office reportedly overruled a move by corrections officials to return her to a men’s facility.

SCOTT REMEMBERED
The late Jeanne Scott blazed legal trails. Valedictorian at Sacred Heart High School when it was girls only, she went on to become the first female Sangamon County Circuit Court judge and, later, the first woman appointed a federal judge in central Illinois, a post she held for a dozen years before retiring in 2010.

LET’S GO SWIMMING!
Owing to snow, there was no school Wednesday. The groundhog remains safely below ground. But this all will change soon enough, and when it does, there will be no better way to spend an afternoon than floating in the backyard pool or, perhaps, even paddling a few laps.

Plastic pollution
The four proposals have the support of organizations such as the Illinois Environmental Council and the Sierra Club of Illinois. Advocates said the aim is to increase sustainability, encourage environmental consciousness and improve the health and appearance of public spaces, land and waterways.

U of I law professor violated sexual harassment policy
A university finding of sexual misconduct likely would have come with more severe sanctions, but his behavior – including unwelcome touching, inappropriate sexualized comments and “ogling” – was not at the time deemed “severe or pervasive” enough to qualify as sexual misconduct.

MAP is back
The annual budget address presented by the Illinois governor is not the hottest event of the year for most college students. “I’m actually not at all invested in politics,” said Lauren Hernandez, one of the two Lincoln Land Community College students invited by Democratic Gov.

Redefining home
Nearly everyone loves an immigrant success story. For five years, one successful immigrant has been working to inspire the young people of Sangamon County to become involved in the economic development of their community.

Rahm is not the best messenger for mayors
The 2020 campaign season is upon us in splendor and glory. It is remarkable for several reasons, including the presence of two former mayors in the political mix. The office of mayor has rarely been deemed a steppingstone to the presidency.

Home-brewed kombucha
The end of our one-year lease in Oklahoma City is approaching and we are beginning the process of boxing up our belongings and deep-cleaning the apartment. We have a $1,000 security deposit on the line, and we’ve been told that our landlord is super picky.

This I Believe
Outstanding high school seniors from central Illinois will share their beliefs at a public event at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum 6-8 p.m. March 4. Five of the ten student winners of the “This I Believe” high school essay contest attend high schools in Springfield District 186.

Faulty CGI makes for a bland Wild
Adding insult to injury is the gutting of London’s novel, which is toned down by screenwriter Michael Green so that Buck’s transformation from house pet to wild beast is a family affair, one devoid of true meaning as the trials he faces during his journey lack gravitas.

LIVE MUSIC
Leap Year Live with Tom Irwin.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Tim Neuman
A central Illinois farm boy, born and raised, this singer-songwriter-performer takes those well-engrained country roots and adds an “eclectic mix of rock and pop” to create his signature sound. Now based in the Indianapolis area, in the last decade Tim played over there with several bands before recently launching his own Tim Neuman Band.

Blithe Spirit
Without drawing a direct comparison to the horrors of World War II, the times are dark again both in Brexit-anxious London and in starkly divided America. It’s just the right time for Coward’s hilarious, sexy, and yes, thought-provoking meditation on love and death.

A new theater in town
The theater is a place for entertainment, to be sure, but also a place to challenge old ideas, to educate and to inspire. Noel Coward knew this. His work and life are an example to us all to see things differently, to look below the surface, and face the world and our diversity with radical acceptance.

Leap into the music
Welcome to the end of February, and with this being 2020 – which is a Leap Year – welcome to Leap Day Weekend. To me, and by extension, hopefully to you, it’s an extra special February 29 because said day falls on a Saturday.

THE CALENDAR
Toastmasters Humorous and International Speech Contests.

MUSIC | A pub crawl of a concert
The Choir of Man is the runaway hit of the international music and theater scene and it is hitting the road for its first U.S. tour.

SPOKEN WORD | National Recitation Contest
The Springfield Area Arts Council will host 16 high school students who will participate in the statewide poetry recitation contest. The students are winners and runners-up in competitions held this month in eight regions across Illinois.