PeoriaStory

Environmental film festival: coal and ice

PEORIA -- An Environmental Film Festival takes place at the Apollo Theatre in Downtown Peoria on November 6 & 7, 2009.

 

This is an educational event as well as a fundraiser for Heart of Illinois Group, Sierra Club. 

 

Friday night, Nov. 6,  is Coal Night.  The movie presentations include a film debut of "Sinking the Heartland" with the videographer, Cindy Ward, in attendance.  The subject of the film is longwall coal mining in Montgomery County, Illinois.

The feature presentation for Friday night is "Burning the Future:  Coal in America."  Our other special guest in attendance will be Bauer Power, a renewable energy installer.  

 

Saturday night is Ice Night.  The movie presentations include a short film debut about the Village of DePue and the EPA Superfund site within their village, and another short film, "Mountains Without Barriers" about three very special mountain climbers. 

The feature film was donated by National Geographic and Nova called "Extreme Ice." 

 

Those arriving early can browse tables of information, sign up for door prizes and munch on locally grown popcorn!

Music for peace, healing

PEORIA -- Here's an interesting musical event: 

The Jewish Federation of Peoria is sponsoring

Harmony for Humanity
Date: Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009
Location: Michel Student Center Ballroom, Bradley University Campus
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: $5.00/adults $15.00/max per family

Daniel Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in 2002. He was also a passionate musician. After Daniel's death, the Pearl family invited the world to create or support musical events in their communities.

Peoria's event-joining musicians from around the world-will include performances by local musicians including Garry Moore, The Orpheus Club, St. Martin Chamber Players, Paul Adams and others.

Charter school event

PEORIA --   From a news release:

The Peoria Charter School Initiative (PCSI) will host a community forum on Thursday, November 5, from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Peoria Civic Center, Rooms 401-403, featuring students, teachers, parents and administrators from the Chicago Math & Science Academy (CMSA). 

The event is open to the public and will provide the opportunity for community members to learn more about charter schools and ask questions of the CMSA team. CMSA is one of the top three charter schools in Chicago, with every graduating senior from the class of 2009 accepted to college. Approximately 15 students from the class of 2010 will be in Peoria visiting Bradley University.

 

The November 5 event will also provide an update on PCSI’s efforts to establish a math, science and technology charter school in District 150. On a recent bus trip to two charter schools in Chicago, including CMSA, parents of District 150 students returned stating, “We’ve got to get this done in Peoria” and “I saw a lot of what I’m hoping for with my kids.” Another parent said, “We’re failing our children if we let this (Peoria charter school) initiative die.”

 

Currently scheduled to open in August 2010, Peoria’s charter school will be a District 150 public school open to any student who applies and is selected through a lottery process. It will initially offer grades 5-7 and add a grade each year, ultimately serving grades 5-12 with a maximum of 600 students.

 

PCSI has submitted its final application to the District 150 Board of Education, which is expected to vote on the charter school initiative in December.

 

About CMSA

Chicago Math & Science Academy is a comprehensive middle and high school enrolling 475 students in grades 6 through 12. The school opened in the fall of 2004 and is a public charter school under the Chicago Public School System. The student body is culturally diverse with a population that is 58 percent Hispanic/Latino, 25 percent African-American, 12 percent Asian and 5 percent White. CMSA is recognized as one of the top three charter schools in Chicago.

 

About PCSI
The Peoria Charter School Initiative is a nonprofit organization of business people, community leaders, parents and educators working to bring a new educational choice to our city—a District 150 public charter school focused on math, science and technology and open to all students regardless of academic or financial background.

 

For more information contact:  Jeff McCombs, 309.696.9887 or via email, jmccombs@f-w.com.

AMEREN hearing

PEKIN --  From a Citizen Utility Board news release: 

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) is holding a public hearing on Ameren's proposed $226 million rate hike. CUB urges Ameren customers to pack the hearing to give state regulators a strong message: Say NO to the rate hike! Tell a friend to attend the hearing too.

The hearing is: 

7 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27
Pekin City Council Chambers
111 S. Capitol St.
Pekin

Here's some background on a study CUB just released showing that Ameren is among the most wasteful power companies in the nation. If you can't attend the hearing, please call the ICC, at 1-800-524-0795, to let regulators know you're against the proposed increase.

CUB's legal team is working hard against this rate hike, and it's appealing the $162 million increase Ameren got just last year. Visit our Stop Ameren page, and please help CUB battle Ameren's army of lawyers trying to raise your gas and electric bills. We can't do it without you!

Health care discussion

PEORIA -- If you want the inside information on the health care debate, here's an opportunity.

Dr. Donald Crane and Beverlee Gilmore will present understandable information about the current proposals for reforming our health care system and a workable model for universal health care. 

They are speaking from 9-11 a.m. at the Peoria Area League of Women Voters meeting, at Peoria Castle Lodge, 117 N. Western. An optional light breakfast for $8 begins at 8:30 a.m. 

They authored "Reasoned Health Care Reform" which they sent to all members of the United States Congress in July.

Dr. Crane and Beverlee Gilmore formed Crane Gilmore & Associates, Inc in 2001. Long experience in the corporate world of health management allowed them to study and understand challenges facing all employers-that of unacceptably high health care costs.

From the news release: They believe that current health care reform proposals do not go far enough and tend to be self-serving. Their approach to health care reform goes farther than any being considered. They have no agenda other than to see that all Americans receive sustainable, quality medical care at a reasonable price.

They believe that there is already more than enough money in the system to pay for quality health care for all Americans through improved efficiencies, holding accountable those benefiting from the system without contributing, reducing greed and accepting change. They bring a unique perspective to the discussion on health care for all.

Recycling information Oct. 14

PEORIA --  This event bears repeating: 

The Global Warming Solutions Group is sponsoring a free public meeting on recycling from 7 - 8:30 p.m. on Wed. Oct. 14 at the Lakeview Library, 1137 W. Lake.

A panel of recycling operatives and the Illinois Recycling Association will discuss ideas for curbside recycling in Peoria.

Learn all about recycling, how the process works, what can be recycled, and everything else you might want to know about recycling.

Health care rally Oct. 6

PEORIA -- Can Cong. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, be moved to vote for health care reform?

Does it matter, given that he is in the minority in the US House?

Nevertheless, here's the latest effort to turn him into someone who represents his constituents rather than the health care industry.

From a news release from the Campaign for Better Health Care:

The sentiment among health care advocates in Washington is clear. Congressman Schock must be moved to vote in favor of health insurance reform.

The vote in the full House is scheduled for October 12, and this date is rapidly approaching.

In Peoria, we will hold a rally on Tues., October 6, and kick-off an action to call Health Insurance Companies as well as Rep. Schock and Senators Durbin and Reid.

As a community, we MUST send a loud and clear message to Schock:

"We, the people, want you to vote for health insurance reform with a strong public option! Are you complicit in insurance company crimes? Or will you finally stand up for your constituents?"

STATEWIDE DAY OF ACTION: BIG INSURANCE MAKES ME SICK!

PEORIA AREA RALLY AND CALLING ACTIONS

Congressman Schock, Whose Side Are You On?

When: Tuesday, October 6th from 4:30pm - 5:30pm

Where: The Federal building in Peoria on the corner of Main and Monroe in Peoria.

Purpose: To pressure Congressman Schock to support his constituents, NOT the insurance industry, by voting for a health insurance reform bill with a strong public option!

Bring homemade signs or use ours!
Possible Sign Messages:

1. Big Insurance: SICK OF IT
2. Congressman Schock: Whose side are you on?
3. Support the people! Support the Public Option!
4. Honk for Health Care Reform!

We will also have informative leaflets to distribute.

Come, bring friends and family, and show community support for health care reform!

For more information email Joyce Harant,Community Organizer, JHarant@cbhconline.org

-- Elaine Hopkins

Protests for animals, peace

PEORIA -- Stand up for animals.

Peoria Area Voices for Animals is holding a leafleting demonstration on Saturday, October 3, from 11 a.m.-noon, at the corner of Main and University. Signs and leaflets will be provided.

This event is in conjunction with World Farmed Animals Day which is a campaign initiated by FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement). Demonstrators want to educate the public about the horrific cruelty and suffering endured by billions of farmed animals each year in this country.

Stand up for peace.

Oct. 17 is a national day of Local and Regional Actions Against the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Peoria Area Peace Network will stand from noon - 1 p.m. on Sat., Oct. 17 at the corner of West Main and University. Signs will have messages such as "Troops home now from Afghanistan and Iraq."

Meanwhile the group continues to protest war every Saturday at that location and time. Signs are supplied.

Bloomington-Normal Citizens for Peace and Justice holds an anti-war protest on the first Thursday of every month, from 5:30 - 6 p.m. in front of the Center for Performing Arts on East Street, near downtown.

Recycling discussion: the Peoria waste hauling contract

PEORIA -- Peoria is one of the few Illinois cities without free curbside recycling. A new trash hauling contract is about to be approved by the Peoria City Council which offers this recycling.

City staffers are recommending a bid submitted by Peoria Disposal Company that includes once monthly recycling pickup, but residents may have to use a 96-gallon toter for a $50 deposit.

The bid is complex, and to learn more the Global Warming Solutions Group is sponsoring a free public meeting from 7 - 8:30 p.m. on Wed. Oct. 14 at the Lakeview Library, 1137 W. Lake.

A panel of recycling operatives from the city and county, the bidders and the Illinois Recycling Association will discuss ideas for curbside recycling.

The Peoria City Council may vote on accepting a bid on Oct. 13, but also maybe later. The group is urging people to contact the city council to express support for recycling.

Gay marriage: the legal perspective

PEORIA -- A talk on legal issues relevant to California's ban on same-sex marriages takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 5 at Bradley Hall Room 250 on the Bradley University campus. The speaker, a distinguished legal scholar and author, says the case was "a strategic and tactical mistake."

From the news release:

The lawsuit filed in a California federal court by two of the country’s most prominent attorneys – one (David Boies) a titan of liberal causes, the other (Ted Olsen) a veteran of Republican administrations and a conservative stalwart – challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 received much national attention.
It was a follow-up to the unsuccessful challenge launched in state court, which sought to block Prop 8 solely on state constitutional grounds. One of the most interesting dimensions of the reaction to the case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, was the reception it received among prominent scholars, leaders, and litigators in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement – and their response was far from uniformly supportive.
To the contrary, most argued that the suit was a strategic and tactical mistake, likely to result in an adverse decision, perhaps from the Supreme Court of the United States, and that such a decision would set back the cause of marital equality for same-sex couples for decades to come.

The speaker, Sam Marcossom, further states: I will argue in this talk that the Prop 8 challenge should not have been brought.
Despite its strength on the merits, and even despite the undoubted quality of the attorneys handling the case, the plaintiffs’ chances of success are exceedingly small. Indeed, the best that advocates for LGBT rights can realistically hope for is that the case never reaches the Supreme Court at all, or that if it does, the Court ends up not deciding the case on the merits.
This is a case study in the necessity of effectively and carefully judging the litigation landscape, and of learning the lesson that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund taught us more than half a century ago: few qualities are more important than patience in a legal struggle for civil rights and equality. In bringing the Perry case, Boies and Olsen forgot that lesson.

The news release states: Sam Marcosson is a Professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. He is a 1983 graduate of Bradley, with a B.S. in Political Science, and received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1986. In 2002 he was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Bradley University. Before joining the faculty at Louisville, he clerked for a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, and then spent eight years at the Office of General Counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C. Since joining the Louisville faculty in 1996, he has taught courses in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Employment Discrimination, Sexual Orientation and the Law, and several others. He served as Associate Dean for Student Life from 2004-06. In 2009, he received the University’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching.
Since joining the faculty, Professor Marcosson’s research and writing has concentrated on constitutional law (especially the Fourteenth Amendment), and the civil rights issues facing lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, and was the programming coordinator for its annual conference in 1998. Most recently, he has since 2008 served on the Coordinating Committee of Louisville’s Fairness Campaign.
Professor Marcosson is the author of numerous articles and a book, Original Sin: Clarence Thomas and the Failure of the Constitutional Conservatives, published by the New York University Press in 2002.