Author Archive

With the start of the new year, I thought it appropriate to take a look back as some of the news that caught my eye during 2007: The race to replace Congressman Ray: First, U.S. Representative Ray LaHood’s decision to retire caught everyone by surprise. He was one of the first GOP members of the...
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I wouldn’t want to be a mainstream reporter these days. It was tough enough of a job back when I was doing it. These days, I sometimes wonder if it’s ethical to even offer college journalism programs, considering that newspapers are laying off reporters as profits drop. The newspaper industry blames the Internet for...
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”A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Macbeth, 5. 5 That’s it? That’s all there is to this? It was quite a let down at Peoria Police HQ last week. I was looking forward to months of increasingly bitter acrimony and accusations of racism as the city...
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After the Sept. 18 “summit” meeting of the Peoria School District 150 board and the Peoria City Council, I spent a few minutes chatting with board members Mary Spangler and Debbie Wolfmeyer. I’m glad I did. Spangler brought up one of the issues that makes her and other board members and school administrators so...
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John Morris spent a day enjoying the news media reporting on the results of a campaign poll “as if it were gospel.” Actually, I suspect that the habitually upbeat former Peoria City Council member wasn’t really all that much amused as he was annoyed. Not that he would ever admit it. For those who missed...
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I’ve had a lot of fun with Ray LaHood on these pages as well as the pages on my blog, PeoriaPundit.com. I imagine, though, that wasn’t quite so much fun for the congressman. Now that LaHood has announced his retirement and the end of his current term in January 2009, I think it’s appropriate to...
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Bear with me. This is still a column about media and politics in the ol’ River City. I’ve been doing this for several years now, and I think I’ve earned the right to digress a bit and devote just a few paragraphs to the most media-saturated non-news story of this decade. And I promise,...
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