Spring Cleaning… Spring has finally arrived, and there’s a flurry of activity and updates to share. So get out and enjoy everything that this season has to offer. Fire… An ecologist once said that fire season is just like…
NATURE RAMBLES
SERENDIPITY
Communication Writing, Com 200, at Bradley University in the fall of 1987 included about 20 young students, our professor, the late Dr. Jack Fought, and me. I was the one with apprehension written all over my face. Old enough to be the…
West Peoria News
April 25 is the West Peoria community’s Annual Clean Up Day. Clean Up drop off is open at 9 a.m. at the city garage on Hillside Avenue and can be accessed off Farmington Road or Sterling Hill. This is the…
The Magnificent Invalid
This past month, Peoria audiences were able to see performances from the great powers of the past two centuries and one from the current. The Bradley theater department produced the 2010 winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play,…
Art – What is it Good For?
Now that Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed slashing budgets and funding across the board attempting to make Illinois more solvent, the arts, always first to go, are slated for elimination from the Illinois educational system. So what that kids won’t…
Eight Reasons Why You Don’t Need Animal Milk
In 1943, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) started promoting dairy products as part of the 7 Basic Food Groups. It recommended adults drink 2 or more glasses of milk a day. This promotion of milk and the dairy…
Labor Roundup
Think tank defends crackdown on law-breaking contractors. In Washington, a progressive think-tank is defending President Obama’s executive order cracking down on federal contractors who break labor laws. Karla Walter of the Center for American Progress reminded a House committee of…
Freight Volume Up In Peoria More Growth Projected: Noise and Safety Issues Raised
Pictures rattle on the walls and plates shake in the cabinets at Joann and Galen Siscoe’s home a dozen times each day when freight trains pass on the tracks about 75 feet from their front door. The couple has lived…
Offbeat but not off-balance: Peoria’s NYT bestselling author/illustrator Skottie Young
New York Times best-selling graphic novelist and Peoria illustrator Skottie Young might be offbeat, but he’s not off-balance. Whether work and fun, his job and his family, or words and pictures, Young is about balance, despite a visual style that’s…
2 for 2 in scoops
As exclusively reported in this column by this monthly newspaper, Bradley athletic director Michael Cross is going to be replaced. It was made official with the Cross resignation, Monday, Feb. 16. We also predicted that Bradley president Joanne Glasser was…
Cubs manager has Peoria connection
For years, the Joe Maddon-Peoria story has been that in 1984 Maddon introduced himself to the new Peoria Suns owner Pete Vonachen by saying, “Hi, I’m Joe Maddon, and I’m your manager. I just want you to know that I’ve…
Illinois women & access to abortion: Determined by federal law, personal bank account or someone else’s religion?
Gov. Bruce Rauner has not definitively confirmed or denied he is prochoice. His first state-of-the-state address focused on lots of choices but not choice to have an abortion. Rauner is a millionaire pragmatist. Money has meaning to him. The “burdensome”…
Injustice pervasive in the justice system
Injustice Pervasive in the Justice System Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, made a rare public appearance at Bradley University Feb. 12. It was standing room only in the Michel Student…
Strong unions are an important part of true employee empowerment
By Nancy Long To hear Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to allow local governments to establish “employee empowerment” zones where employees could get all the benefits of union membership without paying union dues, one would think he is acknowledging the benefits…
Communications beyond our silos
We developed silos to effectively store items, like harvested crops, in bulk supply. Here in the Midwest they are easily identified, as we drive through our states labeled as the “breadbasket” that feeds the world. In doing so, we cross…
Serendipity for March 2015
In 1966 when I was 18, I traveled on a cruise ship to visit my sister and her family living in the Philippines. It was a marvelous adventure after the seasickness subsided. An infirmary visit and medicine helped tremendously. The ship I was…