On April 11, I was pallbearer for my first and only God daughter Artiana Faith Parker. I was the last person to carry her. It was an honor, and it was a great sadness. Artiana was just 1½ pounds and…
Being Thankful
Heights News
The anticipation is multiplying for connoisseurs of the sights, sounds and smells which has become synonymous with Trefzger’s Bakery. Speak with businesses in Peoria Heights and many are drawing attention to the outside transformation of the old Rouse-Hazard bicycle factory.…
Political writers are fond of using “Kabuki dance” to refer to various tactics and machinations during political battles. We have unfortunately had too many examples of this during the past several years with government shutdowns, bailouts, failed grand bargains and…
Arts Beat
May 1: Music Scholarship Concert Series. Bradley Women’s Choir. 3 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center. Tickets: $10/general; free/students. May 1: Philharmonic Chorale in concert. 3 p.m. ICC Performing Arts Center, East Peoria. Cost: $12/public, $10/students and seniors. May 1: “The Road…
Art in Peoria is looking up, figuratively and literally. The past few years have seen an increasing amount of public art after decades of art drought. Thankfully Preston Jackson’s islands of aesthetics around the city brought new life to our…
Hypertension Part 2: Sodium and Hypertension
Many of the 70 million adults with hypertension would like to avoid taking medication. One common recommendation to lower blood pressure without medication is to reduce the amount of sodium in your diet. Most of the sodium in the American…
Labor Roundup
Low-paid workers stage another mass 1-day walkout April 14. Low-paid workers, fast-food workers, retail workers, adjunct professors, health-care workers and others from coast to coast staged another one-day walkout on April 14, again demanding “$15 and a union.” The protests…
Student learns systemic racism is tough to identify, harder to remediate
News of police violence in Ferguson, Chicago and Cincinnati hits people in Peoria with emotional force. It makes everyone wonder, what happens here on the streets of this community. Britta Johnson wanted to know. Growing up in Peoria, she did…
Peace for Peoria counters Islamophobia
Community leaders including Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman, UnityPoint-Methodist president Debbie Simon, OSF Saint Francis Medical Center president Michael Cruz and Bradley University president Gary Roberts will make opening remarks at a Peace for Peoria town hall event 7 p.m. to…
Elder Care Concerns
BY DAVE WEIMAN Everyone needs a break. If you are living with a senior and are the primary caregiver, remember to take care of yourself. It’s wonderful that you are providing the means for your loved one to stay at…
“Game changer” looms for central Illinois farmland
Winter could transition to spring this year with major change on the farm horizon. Or change could start next year, but regardless of the timing, a major economic reshuffling of ag acreage is fermenting. “A game changer” is how farm…
Renaissance along the river
A few breweries and eateries may have gotten attention for recently opening within sight of the Illinois River, but a few joints have been persevering here for years. Compared to Peoria’s past – from the heydays of Harold’s Club on…
GateHouse to Peoria Newsroom: You don’t deserve your salary
Peoria Journal Star newsroom employees are paid twice what they deserve, a representative of the paper’s owner, GateHouse Media (New Media), told the union in Springfield during negotiations there recently with journalists at the Springfield State Journal-Register. Union employees at…
Pioneering leader in liberal Christianity challenges many Biblical interpretations and will speak in Peoria about new theology
BY MICHAEL BROWN John Shelby Spong, a global and pioneering leader in liberal Christianity, is scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. Saturday April 9 at the Universalist Unitarian Church, 3000 W. Richwoods. Tickets can be purchased at the door or…
Purge Continues With the March 15 election, voters continued to make changes on the District 150 school board. Dan Walther will be seated as District 3 representative. He replaces one timer Rick Cloyd. Cloyd will be remembered for trying to…
Technology comes with benefits, but a price
A Peorian in his 60s talks about his having turned library trash into flea-market treasure by retrieving hundreds of books discarded into dumpsters during remodeling or conversion from traditional libraries to public computer labs where teens watch YouTube videos. The…
Editorials
Hoosick Falls versus Bedford Falls: Guardian angel for one but not the other Greed almost ruined Bedford Falls, the idyllic fictional town in the Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.” When George Bailey (James Stewart) felt overwhelmed by a…
Letters
Cleve Heidelberg Trial Your retelling of the 1970 trial of Cleve Heidelberg for the murder of police officer Ray Espinoza was full of surprises—surprises about the poor police work and improper, perhaps illegal, practices of the prosecution. I was called…
OP-ED
UN 2016 International Year of Pulses: The United Nations has designated 2016 the International Year of Pulses, highlighting dried legumes in promoting global sustainability, food security and countering malnutrition. Pulses include dried beans and peas. Pulses are affordable, high in…
Ethics of Stewardship As I write about ethics of stewardship, today I am focusing on things outside our walls. Next time I will focus on use of building space. It was not until the late 19th century that grass lawns…
Snow Trillium Spring has officially blossomed! On St. Patrick’s Day, I managed to get out to a special place in the woods where some of the first flowers of spring peek through the leaf litter. It has been a mild…
Even as a young adult, I firmly believed in the likelihood of living happily ever after. Growing up in an era and environment which included many large families, though mine was not, I had naïve expectations about marriage and children.…