There are certain words or phrases that I don’t give a second thought to when overheard in casual conversation, but that stand out as glaringly inappropriate when spoken in a formal context. Case in point, the quote in today’s SJ-R story on a defamation suit filed by the city:

Unless (Gripper’s lawyer) is retarded, this […]

The Illinois Times kicked off their annual Best of Springfield survey this week, an annual feature that will culminate in what I believe is traditionally the biggest issue of the year for the left-wing weekly.
Oops. Not supposed to call them left-wing.
In this week’s editorial, Roland Klose, the IT’s editor, takes the Weekly Standard to task […]

“So come to the ________ if you want to get sick and die and leave a big garlicky corpse. P.S. Parking was amble.”
What Springfield publication would print such a scathing and vitriolic review?
And what restaurant was made to publicly suffer the indignity of having their cuisine butchered so mercilessly?
The answers: The Springfield Shopper and the […]

My daily local talk radio listening originates almost exclusively from the 970 and 1450 points on the AM dial. Leach and Madonia in the morning, Molson and Lee during lunchbreak, and Wilson and the Pressbox* on the drive home. Absent from this slate is any programming by 1240, WTAX**. Today, it occurred to me why […]

A quick Google news search reveals that I am the first to reference Emily Bronte’s classic novel or the Kate Bush song that it inspired in a headline referring to Hurricane Emily. Perhaps gothic romance isn’t easily connected in the mind to extreme weather events, although I do think it would be fair to categorize […]