As of Labor Day this month, professional quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been prevented from working at his job for 551 days, just before the National Football League’s regular season starts Sept. 6 when the Eagles host the Falcons in prime…
Author Archive for Bill Knight
Ag studies: good, bad, scary
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Glancing at area farm fields, one recalls the Rodgers and Hammerstein lyric “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” and new research from the University of Illinois College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Studies (ACES) strengthens the notion…
Bill Knight | Eugene Debs fought for workers, free speech
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
After escalating tensions in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia and the assassination of Austria-Hungary heir and Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist, 104 years ago this month Germany pledged military support to Austria-Hungary, which three weeks later declared war on…
New Book: Former coach looks back
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Time can offer perspective – if you have the time. When Gary Dreibelbis was Bradley University’s forensics director, he was on the road for 20 weekends a year – busy Friday afternoons and evenings, all day Saturdays, and getting back…
Bill Knight | “The Return of the Slinkenwolf”
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Cynics or snobs listening to “The Return of the Slinkenwolf” may hear a banshee wielding a buzzsaw, but such types might also prefer humpback whales’ mating calls or think Up With People really was. However, the raw, industrial-strength style displayed…
Bill Knight | Minor League Baseball: Pays less than minimum wage
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
When the Peoria Chiefs take the field for 16 home games this month, know that they’re working for peanuts (sans Crackerjacks). One of 16 teams in the Class-A Midwest League, the team is one of 244 clubs in 19 minor…
Trump’s EPA won’t – or can’t – clean up some hazardous sites
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
A year ago this month, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, appointed by President Donald Trump, visited the USS Lead Superfund site outside Chicago. It’s still hazardous. The EPA’s Superfund program was established 38 years ago to clean up…
Bill Knight: Don’t politicize from the pulpit
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
A year ago this winter, President Trump at the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast repeated his campaign promise to dismantle the Johnson Amendment, the federal law prohibiting nonprofits, including churches from getting involved in partisan electoral politics. “I will get rid…
Black newspapers fight for justice
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
February marks Black History Month, when Americans remember the heroic Crispus Attucks and George Washington Carver, daring women such as Harriett Tubman and Rosa Parks, and stalwart figures ranging from Frederick Douglass to Peoria’s own Dr. Romeo B. Garrett. Less…
Bill Knight: Agriculture seems to have become agri-vulture
by Bill Knight • • 1 Comment
The 2016 harvest ended months ago, with truckloads of grain shipped to elevators, and now – weeks before spring work is expected to start – farmers are busy fixing fences, researching effective systems and taking soil samples, meeting with seed…