June 3, 2022 An important factor in healing some of the deep divides we’re experiencing in society today, is to examine who sits at the table. Who do we invite to provide information about issues? Who do we invite to participate in making decisions about the best course of action? If we only invite those who look, think, and act as we do, we leave out large swaths of society. Addressing who sits at the […]
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Earth Day 2022
Today, April 22, is Earth Day, a day that grows more significant and important each year. Reports about about humanity’s need to curb our insatiable appetite for natural resources has increased from a trickle to a raging river worth of news. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River, which winds its U-shaped way through Cleveland where I grew up, caught fire. The river feeds into Lake Erie. After a storm we often found hundreds of dead fish […]
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Ukraine
I prepared the March articles before Russia invaded Ukraine. I interrupt what I had planned to write, for #StandWithUkraine. It is hard to decide how to appropriately respond to the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, mind-boggling news about the atrocities inflicted on the Ukrainian people, who only want what we all want – the ability to determine our own national destinies. Listening to the news is particularly poignant as, before Russia invaded Ukraine, my book club decided to review […]
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Sidney Poitier & Black History Month
Sidney Poitier always comes to mind when I think about Black History month. Thinking about him reminds me an incident I experienced a year or so after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita decimated the Gulf Coast Region. I and two other disaster response workers, both Black men, were walking along the famous Bourbon Street area of NOLA. We were in town to assess needs and address the unrelenting challenges wrought by the hurricanes. One companion was […]
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RIP Betty White
Last Monday would have been Betty White’s 100th birthday. She missed celebrating it by a few weeks. Last Monday was also Martin Luther King Day. At first glance, it might appear those two facts have little in common, but I think they have a great deal in common. I think Betty White gave us three important tools to use for making Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream become reality. Before explaining, I want to thank a […]
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