Author Archive for Clare Howard

Clare Howard is the editor of the Community Word. She can be reached at communityword@yahoo.com

Criminal justice reform

ankle monitor

Michelle Alexander has called some uses of electronic ankle monitors the newest Jim Crow and “e-carceration.” The cost of some monitors can be $300 a month, and people ordered to wear a monitor can easily fall into arrears and face…

Editorial | Ah … he’s adopted

S.A. Shepler (c) 2018 Community Word

Diversity training helps expand understanding. Journalism is foundational to democracy, but the craft is still evolving based on our levels of assessment and training in issues related to diversity. It used to seem OK to repeat a police description of…

Cleve’s triumph

Cleve painting

After 47 years in prison for a murder conviction that was vacated, Cleve Heidelberg lived just 306 days as a free man in Peoria before he died of heart failure, but his ultimate triumph remains his challenge to society to…

Invisible barriers to GED

GED

Darryl Townsend felt a strange sense of alarm as he walked into the Peoria County Courthouse, through security, past armed guards. He was there for his GED test, but it was not test anxiety he was experiencing. It was knowledge…

Editorial | Bright Future for Hotel Pere Marquette/Peoria

S.A. Shepler (c) Community Word 2018

Paul Flynn, business manager of IBEW Local 34, lamented recently about a columnist in the Journal Star who ridiculed the transfer of the Hotel Pere Marquette from the local ownership of Gary Matthews and partners to INDURE Build-to-Core Fund, National…

Bread: Living flour, airborne yeast, explosive flavor

Cody Scogin

In France, bread is still baked daily and consumed with every meal. The list of ingredients numbers three. In America, the culture of real bread baking died long ago. Now, bread is manufactured by Wall Street corporations. It has a…