by admin | Nov 1, 2020 | Activism, Coronavirus, Crime, Government, History, Journalism, National security, Personal history, Political philosophy, Politics, Public safety, Terrorism
In two days, those who have not yet voted by mail or in person at an early voting site will have their last chance to express their views on America’s future. It is by far the starkest choice in my lifetime, and I will add that Harry Truman was in the White House when...
by admin | Jun 4, 2020 | Activism, Books, Business, Chicago, Civil rights, Crime, Emergency Management, Government, Personal history, Politics, Public safety, Racism, Resilience
I weep for my neighborhood. I weep for Chicago. I weep for the state of criminal justice in America when a police officer, hand in his pocket, a look of utter indifference on his face, feels the sense of impunity that empowers him to kneel on a black man’s neck in...
by admin | Oct 29, 2019 | Activism, Books, Chicago, Christianity, Civil rights, Crime, History, Identity, Immigration, Personal history, Public safety, Racism, Religion, Terrorism, Volunteerism
Last week was for me an eventful time, including a four-hour trip to Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday for the Growing Sustainable Communities conference, an event the city sponsors every year. I spoke in a session that afternoon, October 24, on community planning for...
by admin | Sep 22, 2019 | Activism, Civil rights, Crime, Immigration, National security, Politics, Public policy, Public safety, Racism, Terrorism, Volunteerism
National Park Service photo We have become so accustomed to a certain Homeland Security phrase since the events of September 11, 2001, that we have never seriously contemplated its larger meaning. “If you see something, say something,” for most people simply means...
by admin | Jan 23, 2019 | Books, Crime, Government, History, Journalism, Public safety, Uncategorized, Writing
Cover photo provided by Random House It is hard to know where to start in describing why the privatization of prisons is a terrible idea. The effective abandonment of public responsibility for the fate and welfare of people sentenced to incarceration after being...
by admin | Jul 18, 2018 | Activism, Books, Crime, Government, History, Journalism, National security, Politics
It is a dramatic and evocative scene. In The Two Towers, the second novel of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Grima Wormtongue, a spy at the service of the evil wizard Saruman, has gained control of the mind of Théoden, the king of Rohan, which is on the...
