My brother and I had a conversation a few weeks ago that was a telling one. He told me he had started rereading George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, and stopped. It was simply too depressing, because too much of it rang too true in 2018. For reference’s sake, Orwell wrote this novel in response to the state terror that was Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. My brother has never been one to shy away from a hard truth and is as well-informed a citizen as anyone I know. So, his statement struck a

For well over a decade now, our education systems have been putting increased emphasis on developing the STEM curriculum. And there has been good reasons for this. Many of the celebrated innovations of the last 50 years are a result of work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — the Apollo moon landing, the personal computer, the Internet, the smartphone. But what these technologies giveth, they may also taketh away. In fact, many of the recent crises of confidence in democratic

Coming to the end of summer can be depressing, especially if you take stock of what you’ve accomplished during those anticipated summer months. For me, summer carries the hope of not only time for relaxation, but also doing things I enjoy like: 1. Planting flowers around the house – near the end of August and still not completed; 2. Writing more chapters of my memoir – a few more sentences, but little more; 3. Taking short day trips to places like the Anderson Japanese G ardens in Rockford –

In today's world, the ongoing discord in “grown-up” national politics is becoming more pronounced, with an ever-shrinking middle ground and fewer common goals. A fresh point of view can alter the playing field and provide positive change. This is a call to action for all young people to get involved in any capacity. Winnebago County Chairman Frank Haney, Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara and the Winnebago County Health Department have been working on a Youth Leadership Council . It will bring in

Small, rural downtowns can grow when a community’s under-served population becomes the focus. Targeting a specific sector of the population is how Downtown Dixon is successfully competing with the big box retailers in the community. About ten years ago, investors, entrepreneurs, and developers had an awakening concerning Dixon’s uniqueness. When that happened, Dixon’s under-served upper-middle and upper class, and more educated population were targeted as a way to re-develop Dixon’s Historic

Lo urgente no deja tiempo para lo importante Sometimes another language says it best. In Spanish, there is a saying that has no exact equivalent in English: Lo urgente no deja tiempo para lo importante. A possible translation would be "The urgent things leave no time for the important things". How often have I thought that as I go through my daily to-do list? Email is one area where the urgent clashes with the important. I work in an environment where FYI emails are simply baffling. What am I

When I was in high school I got busted three times: once for having a knife fight in the band hall, once for throwing spitballs at my deadliest enemy Jimmy Green, and once for laughing out loud at a classmate in plane geometry who couldn’t quite grasp a theorem. Each time my Deportment grade was dropped to a D. My parents were frantic and ashamed. The knife fight in the band hall was with rubber knives, but knife fights in the band hall were strictly forbidden even if they only involved butter

A Lincoln Elementary School student recently celebrated her eighth birthday with a party. Addie asked her guests to bring a donation for Barb Food Mart instead of buying gifts for her. The result was $50 for the DeKalb food pantry. What an amazing kid! Barb Food Mart celebrated its fifth anniversary in June. It was started by two retired teachers, who had seen too many hungry kids in their classrooms. As one of the founders said, “ It ’ s hard to learn when you ’ re hungry. ” Last year, 60

Ants. Mosquitoes. Flies. Oh, My! But other than that, what’s not to like about a picnic? Having learned the joys of picnicking pleasures from my parents as a young child, I have always been a picnic lover. In my youth while on our Wisconsin vacations , my mother and father thought nothing of throwing the five of us kids in a small fishing boat and motorin g us out to an island for a picnic lunch. It would have been a lot ea sier to eat in the cabin , but somehow, peanut butter and jelly

As an educator, I love summer reading – the chance to explore different literature. This summer, I read John Krakauer’s Into the Wild , my son’s summer read, and pondered the term adventure. This book chronicles Christopher McCandless’s journey of deserting conventional life to see how wild he could become. McCandless said, “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.” No matter where I went this summer, I connected my activities to this thought. I considered, how