BY HENRY BROCKMAN We live in difficult times. We are hit with a daily drumbeat of near-apocalyptic news: climate change, natural disasters, migrants fleeing violence and poverty, a dysfunctional government at home . . . the list of things to…
Opinion
Op-Ed | Blackmail by plea bargain
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BY ELIIDA LAKOTA Chase Iron Eyes is a member of the Standing Rock Nation in North Dakota. He is an attorney, an Indian activist and a member of the Lakota People’s Law Project. He was a Democratic candidate who ran…
Op-Ed | Vote As If Our Country Is Depending On You
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BY DALE GOODNER Margaret Chase Smith probably never expected that her “Declaration of Conscience” would become listed as No. 41 in American Rhetoric’s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th century. The Republican Senator from Maine delivered that speech on June…
Op-Ed | A true quagmire
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BY DALE GOODNER It’s August in northeast Wisconsin –– Dog Days. Sultry evenings in Kewaunee County are punctuated by acrid metallic smelling breezes and persistent passing tanker-loads of poop as industrial factory dairies eagerly eject endless effluents onto the land…
Op-Ed | Peorian attends UN conference on refugees; forced displacement worldwide hits historic levels
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Tim Barnes is a former pastor who lives in Peoria and works for the International Association for Refugees, a not-for-profit based in Minneapolis. He wrote this piece after returning from a recent meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees…
Op-Ed | If only they’d come the right way …
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Editor’s Note: Immigrants and refugee seekers have different rights. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, everyone has a right to seek asylum from persecution and violence. The UN states that “some mass displacements may…
Op-Ed | Protect Peoria Hospital Patients from Hazardous Hot Dogs
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A hospital stay shouldn’t put a patient at risk for cancer. But it can—if the menu includes hot dogs, sausage and other processed meat, which the World Health Organization has declared carcinogenic and placed in the same category as tobacco…
Op-Ed | Are We Losing Our Right to Peaceful Protest?
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BY Eliida Lakota It is amazing to me the extent government officials will go to deny innocent people their constitutional rights –– people who are protecting their land and water. I attended the protest at Standing Rock and saw law…
Op-Ed | Bangladesh, Our Global Canary?
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BY JACKIE CORLETT The writer is founder and director of Motif Ltd., a fair trade company that operates a workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She divides her time between Bangladesh and Illinois. Motif products are sold at Global Village, a Fair…
Editorial | Safe injection sites: sound public policy
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“Data takes the emotion out.” The Rev. Marvin Hightower, president of the Peoria Chapter of the NAACP, said that in an article in the March issue of Community Word about clean syringe exchange programs. Research shows clean syringe exchange programs…