Columns

EXCLUSIVE For writing a column in a monthly newspaper I’m proud of the scoops I’ve had over the years. This column was the first to predict a federal judgeship for Judge Jim Shadid and the first to forecast that Chillicothe’s IVC would join the Mid-State 6. Here’s another one to remember....
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“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” — Sinclair Lewis quotes (American Writer, 1885-1951) I’m stepping outside this column’s normal subject matter — news and media in Peoria — to discuss an extremely important topic: The country’s slow striking embrace of...
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There’s no way we can keep living like the last book of the Bible is fiction. It isn’t. It is now our daily news. If you’ve ever stepped into a church, been to Sunday School or cracked open a Bible, you know it’s real. But trust me when I say that...
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Home videos document dates of visits to Wildlife Prairie Park as far back as 1984. Our three children were 10, 9, and 7 then and we frequented the park. I could possibly verify the specific year we joined although some 26 years of confirmed park patronage suffices. We shared many ...
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A recent nationwide recall of shell eggs has many people wondering if their eggs are safe. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been investigating over 200 reports of salmonella cases each week since late June. Many of these cases...
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A May 2009 column by Bill Knight was named one of a “Golden Dozen” recognized by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE) at its annual conference in Richmond, Ky. The opinion piece, “Illinois can handle detainees,” was on moving 240 Guantanamo Bay terror suspects to Illinois. It was...
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Woodruff High School is dead.  Its execution was ordered by District 150 board members David Gorenz, Laura Petelle, Debbie Wolfmeyer and Linda Butler. As a physician, Gorenz lost “the patient;” Petelle, the attorney, pulled the plug; Wolfmeyer, a school secretary, filed the official death notice; and Reverend Butler, former WPEO radio employee, gave the...
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Seventy-five years ago this month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act, which said that collective bargaining was in the national interest of the United States. FDR is just one in a long line of patriots whose actions today would get them attacked as liberals, socialists, heathens or worse. As greater Peoria...
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Sarah Palin has a flair for irony. According to her, the Gulf oil spill illustrates why we should do more drilling.  She points out athe blown out well, and spewing oil, were due, not to inept drilling or lack of contingency procedures, but were caused by “extreme greenies.”  Environmentalists, in her view, pushed oil...
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First, I applaud Peoria City Manager Scott Moore for moving to an older Peoria home in an older Peoria neighborhood and fixing it up. Second, I was annoyed that Moore had to go before the Peoria Historic Preservation Commission and ask their permission to demolish the old garage at the site and build a new...
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