Daily Archives: May 30, 2007

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NY Times: Rethinking the kids menu

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The New York Times has an interesting article today that questions whether children’s menus are good for kids. David Kamp writes, “the standard children’s menu is regressive, encouraging children (and their misguided parents) to believe that there is a rigidly delineated ‘kids’ cuisine’ that exists entirely apart from grown-up cuisine.”

Especially irritating to the author is the ubiquitous chicken finger. I have to admit, it is on every kids menu I’ve ever seen, even at Avanti’s where chicken fingers wouldn’t seem to fit an Italian menu. Says Kamp, “It pains me that many children now grow up eating little besides golden-brown logs of kid food, especially in a time when the quality, variety and availability of good ingredients is better than ever.”

The NY Times offered a place for readers to posit their opinions here. But I wonder, locally, what do you all think of children’s menus? Are you concerned that the food offered isn’t the healthiest? Or are you most concerned with the limited number and homogeneous nature of the offerings? Or do you think they’re great and wish you could order off of it yourself?

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City of East Peoria, Crime

Woman attacked on biking trail

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From the May 23 Morton Times News:

Woman assaulted on the Illinois River bike trail.

By Nathan Domenighini
Times Newspapers

A twenty-year-old woman was attacked Saturday on the Illinois River Trail, which runs between Morton and East Peoria.

At about 11 a.m., Tammy, whose name is being withheld for security purposes, said she was riding her bike along the trail when she acknowledged a man also riding a bike near her.

“I said ‘good morning’ to him (while he passed), ” Tammy, an East Peoria resident, said.

He responded. Tammy said he seemed to just be carrying on a friendly conversation.

After passing her, then letting he catch up several times, she said he fell behind one last time before speeding up and ramming the back of her bike, knocking her to the ground. He asked her if she was alright and apologized for knocking her down.

“At that point, I was just annoyed,” Tammy said. “Then, he just kept coming closer and closer and I kept telling him it was alright and to just move on.” Before she knew what was happening, “He jumped and grabbed me,” she said. “He pulled out a white rag with chemicals on it and held it over my face.”

Tammy then struggled and started barraging him with kicks and punches, she said.

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Peoria Journal Star

Pessimistic headline writers

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Who writes the headlines for the Journal Star? Whoever it is could use a little Prozac. Lately, the negative spin on some stories has been disappointing.

For example, in today’s paper is the headline, “O’Brien Field fails to attract growth.” However, after reading the article, one could just as easily have headlined it, “TIF could spur redevelopment around ballpark.” Both headlines are equally valid, but one is negative, the other positive. Why does the headline writer choose a negative tone?

Here’s another example: “Committee for city growth shrinking in size.” That was the headline about the Heart of Peoria Commission’s (HOPC) meeting where they discussed the Mayor’s proposal to have the HOPC become a private advocacy group. This headline is poor on so many levels, but let’s start with the fact that the HOPC is not a “committee for city growth.” It’s a commission to facilitate implementation of the Heart of Peoria Plan, primarily. Secondly, the article wasn’t about the size of the commission (it was mentioned in passing that we have some vacancies, but so do many other commissions), but rather the future of the commission, so the headline is misleading. It appears the headline-writer didn’t even bother to read or understand the whole article, but instead just picked out the first negative comment and made that the label.

All I can say to the anonymous headline writer is, “Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face… wipe off that frown and cheer up, put on a happy face!”

City of Peoria, Traffic

How was the traffic forum?

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Traffic signal clipartLast night, instead of attending the traffic forum at Bradley, I instead took my daughter in to MedPointe where she was diagnosed with strep throat. By the time I got her prescription filled and got her back home, it was close to 7:30. She’s getting better — the trick is keeping her brother and sister away from her during the first 24 hours while she’s still contagious. 🙂

I did get a chance to check out the Blogger Bash for a while later in the evening. Eyebrows McGee was there with Mr. McGee, as was PeoriaIllinoisan, Brad Carter, Billy Dennis, Diane Vespa, David Henderson, and Precinct Committeeman.

So, did anyone go to the traffic forum? I heard a couple of reports on WCBU which were good, but does anyone else have any more details to share?

One of the suggestions I heard on WCBU’s report was an Uplands resident who suggested putting in cul-de-sacs to keep more traffic from filtering through the neighborhoods. I think that’s a terrible idea. When you shut neighborhoods off to through traffic, it puts more strain on the arterial roads like Main and University, forcing them to be wider and faster, just exactly what we don’t want.

My contention is that cut-through traffic per se is not the problem, but rather people speeding through the neighborhood. If motorists wanted to cut through at 20-25 mph, I doubt neighbors would have much complaint. It’s important to deal with the proper root issue so we don’t make things worse in our attempt to fix them.