Delivered as part of the Davenport Public Library's virtual 3rd Thursday at Hoover's Presidential Library & Museum programming, the August 19 Zoom webinar The Lafayette Escadrille will tell the heroic tale of how 38 Americans volunteered to fly, and pay the ultimate price, in the First World War – fighting in the skies to aid France long before our country officially entered the war.

Described by the Windy City Times as “an archly manipulative psycho-thriller” that “holds your attention like a leash,” author Douglas Post's fiendishly witty thriller Murder in Green Meadows enjoys an August 19 through 28 run at Moline's Black Box Theatre, the show a recipient of six Emmy nominations when performed on television by Chicago's legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Legendary songs by two iconic rock acts will fill the Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on August 20, when The Music of Boston & Journey features the former band's Tommy DeCarlo – a touring Boston singer since 2007 – performing classic hits from the '70s and '80s, and former American Idol contestant Rudy Cardenas singing Journey smashes such as “Open Arms,” the song the performer made his TV debut with in 2007.

Writer/director James Gunn's re-imagining of David Ayer's Suicide Squad – now outfitted with a “The” and an identifiable sense of humor – is almost inarguably a stronger piece of work than DC Films' five-year-old predecessor: more tightly structured, more visually audacious, almost entirely exposition-free. Yet it's still a rather depressing experience, because instead of finding ways to make the “old” movie better, Gunn appears merely to have found ways to make a Guardians of the Galaxy flick gorier.

I attended Quad City Music Guild's Thursday preview of Matilda: The Musical, and as I'd never before seen the 2010 show, hadn't seen the 1996 movie, and hadn't read the 1988 Roald Dahl book it's based on, I obviously came very late to this party – and it's a huge party.

When Governor JB Pritzker recently announced that state employees who work in congregate facilities would have to be vaccinated by October 4, the largest state employee union, AFSCME (or the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees), released a statement chiding the governor. “We strongly oppose any effort to define them as part of the problem,” the powerful union claimed on behalf of those workers. But Governor Pritzker also said that about 80 percent of new COVID-19 cases in those congregate facilities “have been due to infection among employees.”

The Quad Cities' doom-metal/post-grunge duo Murnau seems to be getting back on the horse once again. Not that they ever necessarily fell off the horse, but, you know, society as a whole pretty much fell off our collective horse – and that fall was much more pronounced for musicians who were used to jamming at top volume in their pummeling guitar + drums sludge metal project. For now, it doesn’t seem like Murnau have announced any major album project, but they have individual tracks trickling out of the faucet here and there to keep us satiated.

After nearly 30 years of providing alternative news and views in sharp contrast to that of mainstream corporate media's highly scripted homogenous coverage (or lack thereof), it is the under-reported content that differentiates our journalistic missions. I have four (maybe five) favorite rules for life. Among them are (1) Never accept nonsense as a replacement for sense; and (2) Evidence matters. After 19 months of due diligence on all matters COVID without compromising these simple rules, I am confident Americans have been largely played.