It has been a season of cancellations, and sadly I announce the cancellation of the 50th West Peoria Fourth of July parade, ceremony and festivities. Typically, the event attracts hundreds/thousands to our community and involves the efforts of many West…
Columns
The Lion’s Den | Let’s Examine the Wounds
by Community Word Staff • • 0 Comments
I will admit that it has been somewhat of a challenge to write during this worldwide pandemic. As we continue to adapt to what ultimately may become the new normal, simple survival has taken precedence over most things. Our daily…
Straight Talk | Bel-wood / Heddington Oaks to close
by Roger Monroe • • 2 Comments
Peoria County’s nursing home, founded in 1848, is closing. County board chairman Andrew Rand and administrator Scott Sorrel made the announcement Friday, April 17. While it was a surprise to most taxpayers, county board members have been quietly evaluating the…
Bill Knight | Trump’s virtual campaign rallies
by Bill Knight • • 0 Comments
Sixteen years before Jonathan Swift published “Gulliver’s Travels,” the essayist and clergyman wrote, “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” Now, every afternoon, the world is awash in nonstop nonsense from a mental Lilliputian who sees himself as…
The Watch | Public meetings during the pandemic
by Terry Bibo • • 0 Comments
At every government level — from Washington D.C. to Springfield to Peoria — COVID-19 is changing the subject, the format and the outcome of public meetings. When the Peoria County Board held its March 12 meeting, for example, Chairman Andrew…
Nature Rambles | Solace in nature
by Mike Miller • • 0 Comments
During this unprecedented time, when everything we seem to know is turned upside down, there are still many steadfast harbingers of reality in the natural world. The chorus of Robins and Cardinals still begin at daybreak even if we are…
Inland Art | John Phillips
by Paul Krainak • • 0 Comments
John Phillips began painting in earnest about the time that the medium was relinquishing its preeminent avant-garde station, leaving painters with the task of buttressing and re-defining the practice. Its formal contours had been turned inside out or neglected in…
Art: What is it Good For? | Healing joy
by Doug and Eileen Leunig • • 0 Comments
As we write this column, we are in our fourth week of shelter-in-place, and the news headlines are filled with the death toll, the failing economy and the total disarray of life as we knew it. A steady diet of…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | The Partially Effective and Safe COVID-19 Drug
by Community Word Staff • • 0 Comments
There is a safe, long-standing drug that is showing success with septic shock, a serious infection that causes our immune systems to go haywire. This is timely because sepsis can be complicated by acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the same…
Real Talk | How I’m managing “sheltering in place”
by Sherry Cannon • • 1 Comment
The experience of sheltering in place for someone living alone is different than it is for those who live with a spouse, significant other and/or children. Without distractions you do one of two things; you worry excessively or you pray…