Five days of outdoor fun will be on hand when East Moline's Rock Island Country Fairgrounds hosts the annual Rock Island County Fair July 14 through 18, offering patrons mornings, afternoons, and evenings filled with carnival rides, games, food vendors, animal shows, racing tournaments, 4-H events, live music performances, and exciting happenings scheduled for the nights' grandstand entertainment.
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With the latest program in the German American Heritage Center's popular “Kaffee und Kuchen” series offered by Ryan Saddler, MEd, the fascinating lecture Davenport Civil Rights Movement will be presented at the Davenport venue on July 19, the event featuring an emphasis on Charles and Ann Toney, widely known as the father and mother of the famed and historically essential movement.
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With guests of the German American Heritage Center invited to explore the powerful stories, struggles, and triumphs that shaped the fight for equality in our community, the fascinating traveling exhibition Davenport Civil Rights Movement will be on display at the Davenport venue through July 31.
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Delivering a blend of local history, environmental issues, education, entertainment, and fresh air, Davenport's River Action continues its series of outdoor presentations in the annual Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks – weekly "Explore the River Series" programs that, through August 1, will address such topics as ferry boats, pollinators, Silvis' Hero Street, and noted area jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke.
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In the latest exhibition at Davenport's German American Heritage Center, guests are invited to explore how German immigrant traditions transformed local musical life through Play On! German Immigrants & the Quad Cities' Musical Legacy, this showcase of ingenuity celebrating the enduring organizations, venues, and rich riverfront behind area-wide music culture.
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Chemical Trespassing on Iowa's State Tree Cannot Be Punished
Tony Singh's 20-Year Quest to Address Pesticide Damage in His Oak Savanna
In 1996, Tony Singh began rewilding a plot of land in LeClaire, hoping to restore its oak savanna, native prairie, woodlands, and wetlands. Fewer than five years later, he noticed the leaves on his oak trees were in tatters.
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In our enlightened age, the public seems tirelessly bombarded with warnings of existential threat from infectious disease. Another distant outbreak is spreading, this time it could be Disease X – “…and there is no vaccine!” How, one might ask, is our species still extant?
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About a week after the state budget passed both chambers in the dark of night, Attorney General Kwame Raoul spoke to the City Club of Chicago to complain that his budget was cut by $10 million.
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Representative Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, was arrested by the FBI on October 28, 2019, for attempting to bribe a state senator. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who was under investigation himself, called on Arroyo to resign that same day. The next day, Representative Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, was one of three House Democrats who signed a petition to automatically trigger the creation of a Special Investigating Committee. Welch and the two others included the sworn federal criminal complaint against Arroyo as evidence.
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The news earlier this month that the Illinois AFL-CIO has “deferred” all decisions on legislative and statewide endorsements in the upcoming fall election generated quite a bit of headlines.
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Nostalgia has a funny way of raising the stakes. A mediocre production wouldn’t just be disappointing; it would feel like someone had replaced my ruby slippers with muddy boots and then trounced all over my childhood memories. Thankfully, director Tony Parise’s production bursts to life with color, imagination, and obvious affection for the material.
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Though the show is billed as a comedy, I only laughed a few times. I was much more invested in its dramatic scenes.
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Do I have any interest in hiking the Appalachian Trail? Absolutely not. Do I want to hear about the 67-year-old who was the first woman to hike the entire trail solo? Absolutely. And trust me, so do you.
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While many children attended on opening night, I hardly heard a peep from them during the show – it was the over-25 crowd who were clapping and screaming upon each first entrance of these beloved characters from the underwater city of Bikini Bottom.
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An intimidating ogre, a feisty princess, a wisecracking donkey, a diminutive tyrant, an ambulatory gingerbread man, and other fantastical figures take over Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse with the July 17 through August 2 run of Shrek: The Musical, the Tony-winning fairytale slapstick based on the Oscar-winning animated smash, and a show that Variety called a work of “irreverent charm” that “never stints on spectacle or laughs."
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Hey, Chairman of the FED
Print some debt for me
It’s no secret
There’s no money in the Treasury"Parody Gold": Sound Money Lyrics Inspired by Bob Dylan
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A pair of unique indie acts share a co-headlining bill at Rock Islands Rozz-Tox on July 13, the evening boasting the talents of the Baltimore, Maryland-based Horse Lords and Jon Mueller's touring project Friend Less.
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Touring in support of their new recording OM MOKSHA RITAM that The Obelisk called "among the most cohesive and engagingly plotted debuts of the year," the rockers of Insomniac headline a July 14 concert at davenport's Raccoon Motel, Head-Banger Reviews adding that the band's first album is "an experience that is truly mandatory for all who consider themselves even the most casual fans of heavy psych."
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His repertoire boasting such classic tunes as “If I Had A Hammer," “Turn, Turn, Turn," “The Sinking of the Reuben James," and the iconic song of the title, gifted area singer/songwriter/storyteller Barry Cloyd brings his solo performance Where Have All the Flowers Gone, the Ballad of Pete Seeger to the Moline Public Library on July 14, an event guaranteed to get the audience singing along to some of America's best loved folk songs.
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With the singer/songwriter's newest album Hero Street including a titular song that appears in the lauded PBS docuseries of the same name created by the Quad Cities' Fourth Wall Films, David G Smith performs Songs from Hero Street at the Moline Public Library on July 14, the most recent recording the 12th full-length released by the popular artist who splits his time between Nashville, the Quad Cities, and touring the United States.
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Watching romantic relationships crack and crumble can be enormous, if nerve-racking, fun – just so long as those breakdowns are viewed from the perspective of an auditorium, and not a mirror.
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Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too. Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again
Thursday, July 9: Discussion of Young Washington; previews of Moana, Evil Dead Burn, The Invite, and Gail Daughtry & the Celebrity Sex Pass; thoughts on the 2026 Emmy nominations; and Darren's and Mike's violent disagreement over Minions & Monsters. Well, not violent at all. The guys are super-chill. But boy do they disagree.
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It's hard to think of a more ticklish recent ode to cinema than Minions & Monsters, which would've been just about perfect if its monsters were ditched entirely.
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Presented as a special event in the Quad Cities Latino Cinema Series, the musical biography and Jennifer Lopez breakout Selena enjoys a July 15 screening at Davenport venue The Last Picture House, noted film critic James Bernardinelli praising the film for "conveying the boundless energy and enthusiasm that exemplified Selena."
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Now playing at area theaters.
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In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, Davenport's Figge Art Museum is hosting American Art talks throughout the month of July, and on Thursday the 16th, guests are invited to hear from artist Connie Roberts of the new exhibition Connie & Michael Roberts: Portrait of America, Connie noted for bridging the realms of fine art and folk art, and for tackling many subjects with sharp wit and restrained humor.
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In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, Davenport's Figge Art Museum is hosting American Art talks throughout the month of July, and on Thursday the 23rd, guests are invited to hear from Larassa Kabel in Focus on the American Landscape, the speaker a multidisciplinary artist based in Des Moines, Iowa, whose work captures the uneasy balance between humans and nature.
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Four Chicago-based artists will present concurrent solo exhibitions across the galleries of Dubuque's Voices Studios through July 31, with the collective Quiet Intersections exhibit a multi-faceted experience that reveals how individual artistic voices can converge, diverge, and share creative space.
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Telling the story of Raven, an important trickster figure in Tlingit culture who transformed the world by bringing light to people via the stars, moon, and sun, Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight will be viewable at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through August 2, with the tale of Raven releasing or "stealing" the daylight one of the most iconic stories of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska.
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With the latest Quad City Arts Center exhibition taking on a very specific theme, and a seasonally appropriate one at that, a pair of Midwestern artists currently have beautiful works displayed in Bicycle Worlds, the Rock Island venue treating patrons, through August 7, to bike photography by Ken Urban and bike illustrations by Jeff C. Williams.
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