by admin | Apr 20, 2020 | Activism, Blogging, Civil rights, Coronavirus, Disaster, Education, Emergency Management, Government, History, Immigration, Politics, Public health, Public policy, Racism, Resilience, Volunteerism
What follows is an adapted, re-edited version of a Facebook post from today that seems to have struck a nerve, attracting dozens of likes, comments, and shares. As a result, I concluded that perhaps I should add it to this blog. No pictures here, just observations:...
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 | Jun 17, 2018 | Activism, Christianity, Civil rights, History, Immigration, Public policy, Racism, Religion
I am angry on Father’s Day. I am deeply disturbed by what I am seeing. I am a Christian who is insulted by the use of the Bible to justify the separation of children from parents who brought them to the U.S. border in search of safety and political asylum. First, it...
by admin | Jan 13, 2018 | Activism, Books, Chicago, Civil rights, Government, History, Immigration, Literature, National security, Racism
Greetings from the U.S. city founded by a Haitian immigrant. Sometime in the 1780s, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, reportedly born of a French father and an African slave mother, who had gained some education in France and made his way from New Orleans to the Midwest,...
by admin | Jan 1, 2017 | Civil rights, History, Identity, Immigration, Politics, Racism
For many Americans, including numerous prominent Republicans, one of the more troubling phenomena in the 2016 presidential election was the rise of certain groups who seem to attach their own identity to resentment and rejection of those who do not fit traditional...
