Deb Kuntzi, executive director of the Hauberg Estate Mansion and Gardens in Rock Island, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Tuesday, May 19.
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This feature collects articles published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and by CapitolFax.com and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
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Lee Jackson, director of the Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, discusses the zoo's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Thursday, May 14.
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Kathy Wine, executive director of River Action in Davenport, discusses the organization's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Tuesday, May 12.
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Rachael Mullins, President and CEO of the Putnam Museum & Science Center in Davenport, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Thursday, April 23 (which happened to be her birthday).
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Last winter, a buddy of mine asked me if I thought I could cover state-legislative sessions from a remote, perhaps warmer, location.
I've been writing about Illinois politics and government for 30 years. Like many of my more-experienced colleagues, I've developed an extensive list of sources and contacts that I can reach out to. I can also watch General Assembly floor debates and many committee hearings on the Internet.
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The most mystifying phenomena of this COVID-19 pandemic is the public's resistance to a wealth of compelling new data that confirms the SARS-CoV2 virus, claimed by the CDC, NIH, and WHO to be the cause of the disease COVID-19, is not nearly as lethal as originally feared.
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For many weeks after the beginning of this COVID-19 crisis, Governor JB Pritzker proved adept at telegraphing his every move.
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On October 18, 2019, the planners of the 2020 worldwide panic called a Covid-19 pandemic emergency fully mapped out and role-played how all of this fear and economic chaos would arise and what steps global leaders will take. Visit Plannedemic.org to see the World Economic Forum and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded Coronavirus pandemic simulation's own Web site of materials and video recordings. Participants include non-government organizations (NGOs) such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations, global corporations and media, Johns Hopkins University, the World Bank, and both U.S. and China Centers for Disease Control agencies.
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Governor JB Pritzker has repeatedly said he's delegating enforcement of his stay-at-home order to local governments.
That stance has frustrated some folks who want him to get tougher with violators (although he'd undoubtedly risk making martyrs out of them if he did crack down hard). And the governor's position seems to have emboldened some local officials to defy the governor's order and open up their economies on their own.
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Dan Danielowski, executive director of the Timber Lake Playhouse in Mt. Carroll, discusses the theatre's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Wednesday, May 20.
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Brett Hitchcock, director of audience development at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse in Rock Island, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Thursday, May 7.
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Daniel DP Sheridan, Artistic Director and Performing Arts Supervisor for Davenport Junior Theatre (DJT), discusses the organization's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Tuesday, April 14.
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Brent Tubbs, co-founder and -owner of The Spotlight Theatre in Moline, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Wednesday, March 25.
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The Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Their Town is this season's first production in the venue's Barn Owl series of newer (or debuting) plays, and this year, all four “Barn Owls” are by local authors. Playwright Alexander Richardson has not only kicked off the 2020 series with a strong script, but has also, along with his and director Elizabeth Melville's cast and crew, given the upcoming presentations much to live up to.
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Admiral in Distress is not what one would expect from Andrew Stuart "Stu" Cline. The affable, soft-spoken fellow is known to many in the Quad Cities for his cheerful work behind the counter at Ragged Records and his half-deadpan comedy routines. He's also made a name for himself from his journeyman stints (mainly on keys) in a number of QC bands from varying spots on the progressive spectrum. They include Ice Hockey, Ronin, Grandfather Confusion, Dynoride, Giallows, and, most recently (and almost vexingly), with emotional, melodic rockers Mountain Swallower.
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One-person production project Landethics dropped the relatively short but jam-packed 12-track album phantom tidepools on their Bandcamp at the beginning of May. The producer explores a palette of sounds and production styles that falls between windswept Japanese role-playing-game soundtracks that you might hear on turn-of-the-century Playstation games and a hip-hop-adjacent series of grooves built over clipped kick drums and heavy 808 bass thuds.
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Iowa’s premier grindcore/mathcore/screamo ensemble Closet Witch compiled their full discography together into one conveniently compressed Bandcamp page at the beginning of April. The band’s complete catalog, consisting of 44 tracks, ranges from songs that bear a fuller, more detailed sound characteristic of more professional studio-recording environments, to tracks clearly marked with [DEMO] that, paradoxically, end up hitting just as hard despite their cruder recording origins.
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Davenport-based psych-rock power trio Giallows have been pumping out a steady stream of studio-recorded material, live shows, and odds and ends on their Bandcamp over the last couple years. Their newest recordings from April 2020 include the full-length release Enochian Power Ballads that features three improvised jams in the psych/stoner rock vein, and the standalone single “The Sun Falls Down (Plague Music)” that falls closer to a surreal collage of horror-movie music and somber poetry.
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Davenport-based experimental psych-folk freak Bo Jaywalker released a full-length album straight to Bandcamp in mid-April, making it available for digital download for the telling amount of $4.20. The album expands in bizarre directions over the course of its often winding song structures, colliding smooth digital beats, multi-layered synth missives, and passages of weighty spoken word with his own vocals.
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The following are five of my favorite 1975-1993 ensemble movies with significant roles for more than a dozen name performers, with mentions of the most valuable players in ascending order of ardor. The six actors nominated for Academy Awards for these films were ineligible for MVP inclusion, as they probably found it heartening enough just to hear their names read aloud before learning that their Oscars were being awarded to others. Hmm. Was that actually heartening … ?
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In honor of my Augustana College friends who are graduating this weekend yet were denied the opportunity to enjoy a proper on-campus send-off before entering the cold, cruel workplace world, here are five titles under the collective blanket of “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” – home-viewing options from 1976 to 1990 featuring excellent examples of pros at their inspiring peaks of performance. Consider it my cinematic commencement address. I don't know why I've never been asked to give a real one. Probably because they'd anticipate my being crude. Those jackasses.
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What follows are five of my favorites from the 1970s and '80s that give me the pleasure of being riveted by others' anger when I'm feeling some myself and want to dispel it without throwing a public fit or composing an online treatise on the subject. The latter of which I suppose I'm doing right now. Damn it.
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There were loads of huge hits in the summer of '92: Batman Returns and Lethal Weapon 3 and Sister Act and A League of Their Own … . But as usual, the releases that affected me most and lingered most were the ones that went dark, even for comedies – works that continue to resonate more than a quarter-century after my initial viewings. Here are my five favorites – all but one seen gratis, and all of them enjoyed before I had to start paying for movies all the time like some kind of chump … .
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In honor and celebration of my college-senior theatre-major friends who are now graduating yet were denied the opportunity to enjoy one final send-off performance, allow me to guide you to five of my personal favorite film performances from the years in which I attended Augustana College.
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In a combined celebration of The Great Outdoors, beautiful and evocative works by a pair of Iowa-based artists will be showcased in the next Quad City Arts exhibition running through June 19, with the venue's Web site currently displaying photographs by Ken Urban of Durant and paintings by Margaret Ertz of Burlington.
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Many thanks to all who entered the River Cities' Reader’s Spring 2020 Photo Contest for which we received dozens of entries in the categories of "Past," "Present," and "Future." Here are our winners and honorable mentions – congratulations to all!
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Works by a celebrated Chicagoland painter and more than 100 up-and-coming area artists are set to decorate the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy beginning May 23, with the Bettendorf venue welcoming visitors to two brand-new art exhibitions running through May 28: Nina Weiss: Prairie Visions and Back to the Future: A Student Exhibit.
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Currently Installed in the Figge Art Museum’s second-floor orientation gallery, the Davenport venue's new exhibition Seen & Heard: The Art of Empowerment will be available for online viewing from Saturday, May 9, through Sunday, September 6.
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People gather in celebration with friends and strangers alike on the streets of downtown Davenport while rainbow banners wave behind them. Taken during the 2019 Pridefest, these images by photojournalist Andy Abeyta document one of the many events planned by Quad Cities Unity Pride during its annual QC Unity Pride Week, and can currently be viewed online in the Figge Art Museum's virtual exhibition QC Pride Photographs by Andy Abeyta, on display through August 2.
