“Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.” Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld, a seventeenth-century French writer and moralist, meant that people who disguise their less-than-worthy thoughts in their speech and writing are implicitly admitting that there is a…
Vafa Fati-Zada and Gunther Guggenberger were in Peoria for a week or so in October after spending some time in Springfield. Fati-Zada, from Azerbaijan, and Guggenberger, from Austria, were then on their way to Chicago, then planned to continue north…
I had to attend a funeral recently even though the guest of honor was not one of my favorite people. News of his death shook me up even less than hearing Roger Ailes had died. In 30 seconds I slipped…
By DIANA SCOTT In Public Health we’ve talked a lot about different infections the past few years, but not much about West Nile virus (WNV). With summer still here in central Illinois, we now have WNV in mosquitoes and the…
Sometimes girls got in trouble. Nancy took to the trampoline every lunch hour Slapping herself down in a full frontal flop. We all knew What she was trying to do. Peggy stayed in high school Until she was asked to…
A few weeks ago, one of the co-owners of The Community Word received a campaign mailer from a Republican state senator that asked, “Are you tired of politicians threatening your right to own guns?” It claimed, “The rights of Illinois’…
As of this writing, the recently leaked draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court raises a number of issues. Here I shall consider several issues raised by it. First, some observers argue that in the absence in…
