After 45 years of research into environmental and climatic changes, I’m now more disturbed about our current situation and future than ever. The time for preventing global warming has gone -- we’ve waffled and procrastinated for so long, that now we’re left to mitigate, adapt and suffer. We’ve created this situation over just decades. In only the last 25 years we’ve released the majority of carbon dioxide that's in our atmosphere. 2018 saw the greatest global production of carbon dioxide in a

Recently I visited the Manet exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Edouard Manet’s later paintings of garden flowers depart from traditional paintings that show deliberate arrangements in fancy vases. I studied Manet’s haphazardly arranged flowers in clear glass containers, their lower extremities on view for everyone to see. This change in subject matter manipulates one’s perspective by realizing aspects usually hidden. Knowing there is more than meets the eye allows a viewer to consider

“First, shut up and listen.” And “If people don’t ask for help leave them alone.” Ernesto Sirolli recommends this when seeking to transform a local economy . Too often we seek to save. In doing so we are patronizing, insulting and doomed to fail. Many of our local communities, both small and large across northern Illinois are spending thousands of dollars, and holding numerous public meetings to plan how we will save ourselves from going down with the sinking ship of Illinois. Consultants are

Once a decision is made to attend college, then subsequent choices await . My daughter receives stacks of letters from colleges trying to entice her. Most of them tout benefits so similar that they become virtually indistinguishable. What should she ask? Some choices are fixed due to financial considerations and admissions. But after that, it’s well to remember that final decisions usually hinge on the campus visit. For over twenty years, campus tours in the United States have emphasized a fun

September has arrived and another new school year is underway for everyone -- from pre-school through graduate school. If you’re a student or a parent, it may seem that the number of hours in the day just shrank from twenty-four to “almost enough” or “not nearly enough,” depending on your workload. If you’re feeling unsure about how you’re going to handle everything on your plate, you are not alone. A Google search analysis revealed that September is the month that people MOST frequently Google

I have been in the college classroom long enough to notice the difference. When I was a TA thirty years ago, it was obligatory to quiet everyone down before commencing the day's discussion because all the students were chatting with each other. Now, when I enter a classroom, complete silence reigns. Every single student is fixated on a phone, and hearing snippets of a conversation is a rarity. I have always made a general greeting when I enter, but instead of the chorused reply from years past,

I came this close to selling my young mare. She was five. When she was displeased, she snapped her big white teeth at me and she bucked, with the most beautiful light buck when I pulled her away from grass. I was simply leading her. What would she do under saddle? I don’t bounce. I don’t have those youthful anti-fear hormones. Not only that, she and my other mare roared like dinosaurs trying to kill each other. My friends told me to sell her. I wept saying I was afraid she’d be sold to a killer.

Today is Labor Day. As we pause from work, we should pause to examine the troubling conditions of work in America today. The very nature of work has changed fundamentally. The transformation from a manufacturing economy to a service economy has rattled and even wrecked the lives of many Americans. By ignoring this tectonic shift, self-satisfied elites helped elect Donald Trump. The rise of the "gig economy" has left too many workers unprotected by basic labor laws, and the number swells. Wages

“I yam what I yam.” My generation knows who said that. There were no apologies from Popeye, the sailor man. For how he looked or acted. For who he was. Always taking on the large, hulking bully. And winning, eventually, thanks to a quick snort of spinach that gave him super strength. Kind of weird, but as a kid I loved it. (The cartoon, not the spinach.) Funny that I often have turned to Popeye to defend who I am. More than once over the years I’ve shrugged and said, “Hey, I yam what I yam.”

The first frost of the northern region (that’s us) is October 24th. Cool wet weather is predicted for September and October. The Farmer’s Almanac predicts heavier snowfall for our area. Frigid weather sets in the last week of January through early March. There you have it, winter in a snapshot . I can feel winter moving in as the urgency to harvest, preserve and winterize my gardens increases. It’s anticipation. Will I be able to preserve enough produce, soup, jams and fruit to get us through