Serendipity | Writing

Students’ complaints about writing assignments in grade school were in sharp contrast to my enjoying them. I tried to mask my feelings because being different wasn’t comfortable. Neither did I express apprehension about science, art and anything geometry related. Writing,…

Inland Art | Pillars of Dust

Beige and Black Drawing

Over the past year and a half, I’ve written about art that’s formally and conceptually rigorous but advocates for the rural – work that explores the relationship between the intellect and the advancement of places outside the approved borders of…

Arts Beat | October 2018

MUSIC Oct. 1: Dark Star Orchestra. 7 p.m. Monarch Music Hall. 966-0826. Oct. 2: Drive-By Truckers, with T. Hardy Morris. 7:30 p.m. Monarch Music Hall. 966-0826. Oct. 3: Sons of Korah. 7 p.m. Trinity Lutheran Church. 676-4609. Oct. 5: Dexter…

West Peoria News | Fall cleaning

The West Peoria Residents’ Association will meet 6 p.m. Oct. 18 in City Hall when the Beautification Committee will announce the award for the resident with the most improved lawn. The committee will soon store away the planters and clear…

Labor Roundup | October 2018

UNITE HERE and five other unions prevailed in bargaining with Walt Disney World, announcing early last month that they’d reached agreement for a 50 percent pay increase bringing the corporation’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by October 2021, plus…

Straight Talk | Loss of a friend

I was shocked and broken-hearted upon learning my dear friend, Alicia Butler, had died suddenly. I knew she had been suffering in recent days because she told me, first on a Monday afternoon and then two days later. I said…

EPA orders Peoria to pay almost $800,000

After decades of discussion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is imposing a fine on Peoria for failure to resolve its combined sewer overflow problem. The EPA has still not approved Peoria’s so-called “green solution” and is ordering the city to…

Why I joined the Democratic Socialists

I didn’t leave the Democratic party; it left me. Technically, I’ve been an Independent for years, occasionally voting for Republicans, Democrats and Greens. But Democrat candidates often got my vote. However, three things got my commitment to become a member…

Straight Talk | Bad timing

I won’t argue the city council’s decision about its two top management hires, though I could. The creation and hiring of a chief diversity and inclusion officer and assistant city manager at a time when the same people are laying…

Editorial | Our neglected rivers

S.A. Shepler (c) Community Word 2018

When rivers are used as sloughs for waste, pollution, plastic and agricultural runoff, the damage is hazardous, ugly and demoralizing. In a call to action, Prairie Rivers Network is hosting the “Wild & Scenic Film Festival” at Peoria Riverfront Museum…

Real Talk | The office of president

Traveling in Europe in the era of Trump has been quite interesting. In July, my niece, great-niece and great-great nephew and I flew to England to visit another niece and her husband. During our visit, Donald Trump also happened to…