Governor-elect JB Pritzker was asked last week about the timeline for passage of a new minimum-wage law.

“That’s very important to me,” Pritzker said, “It’s probably something we’ll be able to get done in the first six months in office.”

The trouble with today's voters is that most have compartmentalized their civic responsibility into the narrow confines of support for one of two political parties: Democrats or Republicans. Sadly, such narrow-mindedness misses the otherwise glaringly obvious truth that there are no longer two ideologically distinct parties in American politics. The two-party stranglehold on politics today is a sophisticated, fantastical ruse that has people locked into an arena mentality of win or lose at all costs, no holds barred.

Amidst the joys and festivities of the season, it wouldn't be the holidays if they didn't also come complete with a hearty cry of “Bah, humbug!” And from December 14 through 22, Countryside Community Theatre will deliver that cry – along with messages of hope and wonder and scores of beautiful music – in the Boll's Community Center production of A Christmas Carol, the seasonal delight boasting music and lyrics by Danny White and a book by the show's director Tristan Tapscott.

Back-to-back evenings of improvisational comedy, delicious food and drink, and seasonal slaughter will soon be on the menu at Rock Island's Skellington Manor Banquet & Event Center, with the riotous talents of It's a Mystery Quad Cities opening their 2018-19 season with presentations of the interactive comedy-whodunnits A Model Murder on December 14 and Murder at Skuttlebutt Sound on December 15.

An incredible 90 works by 52 regional artists will be on display at the Quad City Arts Center Gallery from December 7 through January 25, as the venue houses the exhibition Finding Inspiration: From Monet to Matisse, boasting works by those inspired by the Figge Art Museum's current exhibit French Moderns: Monet to Matisse 1850 - 1950.

With Country Standard Time calling the group “one of the most talented and unique acts in modern country music,” the a cappella quintet Home Free brings its seasonal A Country Christmas tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 13, performing holiday classics and modern compositions with the vocal fire and stage presence that led to the singers winning the fourth season of NBC's competition series The Sing Off.

An annual holiday-music tradition returns to the area as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers present their latest A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of non-secular, classical, traditional, and contemporary holiday favorites performed December 14 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 15 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.

Forty-five years after The Exorcist, we can still count the number of legitimately great demonic-possession movies on the fingers of one hand. (And that's including works that employ the conceit only tangentially, as this past summer's phenomenal Hereditary does.) Consequently, in regard to this particular horror-flick sub-genre, it's easy to be grateful for the little things, and Dutch director Diederik Van Rooijen's The Possession of Hannah Grace, although fair-to-middling overall, actually boasts a number of little things worthy of gratitude. It's doubtful you'll remember much about the film a day after seeing it, but while you're there, it's an inoffensive way to pass 85 low-expectation minutes.