The week before Thanksgiving in 1963, the Friday-morning weather had some fog and a little drizzle; afternoon temperatures reached the 60s. “It’s true,” I heard from a trembling freshman schoolmate in Latin class, seconds after laughing and saying how I’d…
Knight Watch
The Country Needs a Better Minimum Wage
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Whether slinging hash at a fast-food franchise in Peoria Heights or clocking in day labor booked out of a downtown office, minimum-wage workers need better pay. The country needs a better minimum wage – and one that includes everyone who…
The full story on Peoria’s Betty Friedan
by Bill Knight • • 2 Comments
This Labor Day during the 50th anniversary year of the publication of the landmark “Feminine Mystique” by Peoria native Betty Friedan, one wonders, “What if?” What if more people knew of Friedan’s background – especially her years as a labor…
Art from jobs program could still inspire
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
I grew up in Carthage, IL, where even in childhood visits to the Post Office were made more meaningful by a moving mural by Karl Kelp: “Pioneers – Tilling the Soil and Building Log Cabin.” The 1938 art – showing…
‘Droning’ on and on mustn’t put us to sleep
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Will it take things like motorized aircraft or flying cameras banking over the Shoppes at Grand Prairie or Bradley University, hovering above the Par-A-Dice Hotel & Casino or Glen Oak Park, or zooming from Dunlap and the South Side to…
Nagging Feelings of Loss
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
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…
Special interests delay wastewater protections
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
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…
Should society protect kids from football?
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
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…
Knight Watch: Progressives Unite to Fight for Democracy
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
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…
Creve Coeur Club Genuflecting to Rove?
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
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…