CONTENTS: Four new blogs + 2 news items on the following topics:— Local Foods— Participatory Budgeting— Universal Basic Income— Lakefront Misconduct Report TO: — Evanston voters, media, political groups, businesses, activists, institutions— Residents in my neighborhood (Nichols Neighbors)— Some non-Evanston voters with Evanston connections & interests Hi, all —I don’t know how much more energy I’ll […]
Climate crisis
Last month I was asked to draft an editorial for a local magazine (Our Evanston) on sustainability and local foods. It was to be the back-end of a friendly deal — an ad for the Wild Onion Market (a local food co-op) in the winter issue followed by a local foods editorial in the spring issue (to […]
DEDICATED TO MY PARENTS, who pulled the plug on our household television (c.1956) and never looked back. I was 5 or 6 years old, probably in first grade, with an older sister (8-9), younger sister (2-3), and one still to come. Unfortunately, I never got to delve into their deep reasoning. Nor were they particularly […]
An article in the Fall 2021 newsletter (The Kit) of the Evanston Township High School Alumni Association spurred me to reflect on the process of creating a community project, in this case the 12-year old Edible Acre Pilot Project, an urban agriculture project at ETHS. This blog consists of three accounts of the birth and […]
Thanks to Anne Sills for connecting some of us Evanston food & farm folks to a new food security initiative in Evanston that’s just getting started. The initiative (still to be decided and fleshed out) involves one of the local Rotary clubs and a cohort of Northwestern University students in SESP’s Civic Engagement Certificate program […]
Last Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish sabbath, was Christmas Eve. Being neither Christian or a religious Jew, I nevertheless appreciated a certain numinous atmosphere that develops every Friday night and holiday eve. I settled in for a quiet evening, deepened by the worsening COVID pandemic, by the puzzling lack of camraderie in my […]
So, a Tweet has gone viral reporting on a poll that asked academics why they remain in academia. Davis Kedrosky, who writes a newsletter on Economic History Research, posted the results of the poll (no link, context, or credit). People in his replies identified it as a Sept. 24, 2021 Twitter poll originating from Prof. William […]
Some national colleagues recently shared a paper that supports FOOD POLICY STAFF POSITIONS at the city, town, and county levels — in local governments. Although written for my hometown (City of Evanston, IL) and home county (Cook County, home to Chicago), this post might be useful for other grassroots groups looking to make food policy […]