These are the questions that frame my current climate and policy deliberations: How to stop over-producing, over-using, and over-working everything and everyone? How can everyone make a decent living and have a good life, too? What does our form of government have to do with these questions? What does declaring a climate emergency actually mean? […]
Evanston, IL
Thanks to the Evanston RoundTable for publishing this letter to the editor that I wrote in mounting frustration at the amount of damage control our City Council inflicts on itself (and the rest of us — voters, City staff, businesses, etc.) as the result of an outdated City Code. An extra thanks to editor Susy Schultz for […]
CONTENTS A. New City Manager (with “local foods” bonus)B. Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI): Better economic metric for Illinois?C. Renewed U.S. women’s movement: National convention, webinars, women’s bill of rights TO: — Evanston voters, media, political groups, businesses, activists, institutions— Residents in my neighborhood (Nichols Neighbors)— Some non-Evanston voters with Evanston connections & interests Read in your […]
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 […]
I’m sure most of us in Evanston are relieved to have some closure on the sexual misconduct at City lakefront operations. Knowing how these kinds of trauma work their way through survivors’ lives, I would not be surprised if more information surfaces, even years from now. But having read the report (released in Feb. 2022) […]
In 2009-10, I was lucky enough to learn about Participatory Budgeting as a way to promote real democracy. I was doubly lucky to learn from the first PB project initiated by a U.S. municipal official, the 49th Ward of Chicago where Alderman Joe Moore and his wife, Barb Moore, spearheaded the process. Evanstonians know the […]
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 […]