Jessica Hammie

As I’ve written about before, I’ve been thinking and reading about data centers in Illinois a lot. I’m personally very pleased with the 12 month moratorium enacted by Champaign County. But as was noted in ...

On a gorgeous, brisk Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I met up with Peter Shireman at Mattis Park in Champaign. Shireman is the creator and host of Litterature, a BookTok in which he talks ...

It’s summer in C-U! All of the pools are open. The kids are done with school. Many people will be working from home on Fridays. So allow me to get on my soapbox and remind ...

Last Monday, on Memorial Day, posters went up around Champaign-Urbana announcing a surprise pop-up concert by four-time Grammy winner Phoebe Bridgers. Bridgers is a musician known for her solo career as well as her work ...

Happy Pride month, everyone! Happy Juneteenth! June in Champaign-Urbana is the best. The weather is great, the farmers markets are filling up with delightful produce, we can celebrate the first of our Pride festivals (we ...

Happy Pride! There are so many ways to celebrate this month; we will publish guides to activities soon, so keep an eye on the site. Here in Champaign-Urbana, we have two big Pride celebrations, one ...

Happy Juneteenth! This short work week is long on activities. Eat good food, take a walk, take in some history, watch a play, see a drag show.

If you’re a reader of this newsletter, then you already know that you can write for Smile Politely. As a community magazine, we accept pitches from anyone who lives in the area. We are particularly interested in ...

We’re off next week for our annual Smile Politely summer break. We’ll resume publishing on Monday, July 13. As such, there is no Weekender this week, but I’m sure you’ll all be hanging out by ...

In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne develops a surveillance system that blankets the entire city of Gotham with cameras. We have a surveillance system like the one in Gotham, but unlike the movie, ours covers ...