Author Archive

The week of the Boston Marathon bombing, the workplace explosion in West, Texas, and the death of Peoria comic stalwart Royce Elliott, it was impossible not to feel guilty about a nagging sense of loss from flooding. Even there, many people in greater west-central Illinois were hit far harder, losing everything short of their lives. Still,...
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It’s tempting to characterize opponents of the City/County Health Department’s proposed ordinance on wastewater systems to be as full of crap as the Illinois River and nearby Kickapoo Creek, both of which are considered by the state EPA, the Illinois State Water Survey and IDOT to be in poor condition due to human waste...
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Society somehow thinks it’s sensible to check Halloween candy for drugs or poison despite overwhelming evidence that such incidents are an urban myth, but faced with real reports of serious injuries to kids playing football, people seem unperturbed. But high school football is changing anyway, so maybe change can offer a chance to correct long-neglected...
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In 1864, the Rev. Byron Sunderland, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, prayed before an April session, “Oh, Lord, give us that Thou wilt in Thine infinite wisdom vouchsafe to our rulers and legislators in this Congress assembled more brains. More brains, Lord.” Today, the Senate still needs more brains. But Washington’s political paralysis has provoked...
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Complaints are building about the Creve Coeur Club bringing Karl Rove as its Washington Day banquet speaker, and the grumbling ranges from whines that the CCC “always brings in Republicans” to condemnation of Rove himself. Rove is scheduled to appear at the Par-A-Dice Hotel on February 22. As to the gripe that yet another Republican will...
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Climate change is not just an abstract, an inconvenience, or a disaster limited to coastal populations or Arctic ice. Peoria is already affected and climate change could hurt us all worse. The saying “think global, act local” is recalled, but there are no simple or easy answers. “There is no sound-bite, short way to explain the...
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The Chiefs and the City of Peoria in the downtown stadium may have started as a marriage of convenience, but at its 10-year anniversary, the relationship seems to be enduring. Instead of the honeymoon being over, ongoing operations and the return of the St. Louis Cardinals affiliation looks like a second honeymoon. A “honeymoon effect” between a...
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A tattered U.S. flag is an early image in the movie “Bailout,” directed by Peoria native Sean Patrick Fahey. Scheduled to premiere at downtown Peoria’s nonprofit Apollo Theater Oct. 5-11, the 85-minute documentary about the human cost of the 2008 financial crisis and the one-sided government assistance to Big Banks is filled with such...
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The Peoria Chiefs’ stadium development project cost $25.952 million. Public costs for land consolidation, utility relocation and improving Jefferson Street and curving it were $8.152 million. For this, the net to the City of Peoria was $4.94 million ($3.28 million in bonds and $1.66 million ). The balance came from the state of Illinois,...
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Super Political Action Committees (super PACs) spent almost a quarter of a million dollars in the Peoria TV market during the campaign from January-March, records show, together paying $3.74 per vote for the March 20 primary. That’s lousy for democracy – made worse by many negative or misleading commercials – and TV stations should...
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