I’ve been thinking about Jim Leach lately. Not in a way that should cause him to seek protection. Rather, in an I-still-think-I’m-in-grad-school-writing-communication-papers sort of way. So feel free to grade this post. I apologize for the length. Academia seems to breed long-windedness. At least it did in me.
Leach, as most of you know, is a […]

What’s that old adage? There’s no such thing as bad publicity? I’m not so sure that the proprietors of Best Value Recycling store will find that much good comes from their grand opening announcement that received front page, above-the-fold billing in today’s SJ-R. It wasn’t the typical Chamber of Commerce christening with the red ribbon […]

Under normal conditions, events such as the George Ryan guilty verdict and the new District 186 school board president’s bumbling performance on the Jim Leach Show would inspire a blog post or two. Conditions, tragically, haven’t been favorable for blogging. In the last week, I’ve been to two separate wakes for people who died way […]

As every parent knows, there are a countless number of books offering advice on how best to raise our children. The books run the gambit from the so-obvious-I-demand-my-money-back, to the utterly ridiculous. Towards the latter end of this range are books whose theses are that children should be treated as miniature […]

The professor of an online class I took in grad school kicked off the first week’s discussion by asking a simple question: “What is art?” A lively and somewhat contentious flurry of text messages ensued.
For the most part, the class believed that art is the production of music, painting, writing, acting and all of the […]