by admin | Sep 20, 2020 | Activism, Art, Climate, Coronavirus, History, Literature, Politics, Racism, Wildfire, Writing
I might have thought by now you would have found the exit from the hall of mirrors. But no. You are mesmerized by its dreamy distortions, imprisoned by its illusions. Perception arises from wave lengths and shadows, reflections against a shifting surface. Tall becomes...
by admin | Jul 20, 2020 | Activism, Business, Chicago, Coronavirus, Disaster, Disaster policy, Government, Healthcare, Natural Hazards, Politics, Public health, Public policy, Racism, Resilience, Transportation, Urban Planning
In recent years, the development of local or regional recovery plans following major natural disasters has become increasingly common. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has long encouraged such planning, and I led the production of two major FEMA-funded reports...
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 | 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 | Feb 13, 2020 | Books, Climate, Coastal Management, Disaster, Disaster policy, Environment, Floodplain management, Government, Housing, Natural Hazards, Politics, Public policy, Resilience, Uncategorized, Urban Planning, Water, Weather
In the days shortly after World War II, writes Gilbert M. Gaul in The Geography of Risk, Morris Shapiro and his family were busy building their own version of Levittown, the famed suburban tract housing development of Long Island, on a barrier island in southern New...
by admin | Jan 21, 2020 | Activism, Books, Christianity, Government, History, National security, Political philosophy, Politics
In the mid-1960s, before the advent of the personal computer, when a manual typewriter was the state of the art in original document production, I took a high school typing course in which I learned the QWERTY keyboard and how to manipulate my fingers to put words on...
