by admin | Apr 10, 2016 | Books, Government, History
I may be one of the few non-historians to have read at least one biography of every U.S. President from George Washington through Barack Obama. The fact that I earned a B.A. in Political Science at Cleveland State University way back in 1973 may make my quest seem a...
by admin | Feb 15, 2016 | Government, History, Political philosophy, Religion
Back in the Great Depression, amid the New Deal, when the Republican Party was the very face of the Establishment, a good-natured, lasso-twirling Oklahoma humorist named Will Rogers quipped, “I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat.” To some extent,...
by admin | Dec 20, 2015 | Books, History, Industry
Let’s cut to the chase. If you have a relative on your gift list who loves the nooks and crannies of history, particularly those less well-known details behind the reality of the modern world, may I offer a suggestion? This suggestion emanates in part from the simple...
by admin | Aug 29, 2015 | Blogging, Disaster, History, Resilience
For the first time since launching this blog, I have invited a guest author, Stephen D. Villavaso, a New Orleans native, urban planner, and land-use attorney, to comment on today’s tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on the Gulf Coast. I was heavily...
by admin | Jun 21, 2015 | Civil rights, Government, History, Public safety, Racism, Religion
Less than three weeks ago, on June 2, a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus mysteriously crashed a red light on Lake St. during the evening rush hour, jumped the curb on the eastern side of Michigan Ave., and killed one pedestrian while injuring several others. The...
by admin | Jun 14, 2015 | Activism, Civil rights, Disaster, Environment, History, Housing, Travel, Urban Planning
There is something mildly disconcerting about visiting an intriguing city several times without having the spare time to go tourist. I first visited Charleston, South Carolina, in 2003, for a business meeting with the National Fire Protection Association, for which I...
