A year like no other. So far out there. Wonder if we’ll ever get back to normal. It has been an amazing year, for sure. Emily, Mitchell, Erich, Zen, Laya, Jennifer, Jay, Liz, Erica, and Ira are all progressing in school. We met when they were undergrads,…
On this last day of 2017, I awoke too early and could not fall back asleep because of a pesky thought that I could not shake: I really don’t care very much about your happiness – or about mine. I don’t want to be miserable, nor do I want anyone to experience misery. I am…
Back in the days when we actually watched television shows at their scheduled times, Friends was the bomb. Its finale in 2004 was viewed by more than 50 million people, making it among the top watched television episodes in history and the top in that decade. We knew people whose social lives before that final episode…
Ironically, one of the tasks for those who succeed the baby boomers is to restore idealism. The great challenge of our moment is the crisis of isolation and fragmentation, the need to rebind the fabric of a society that has been torn by selfishness, cynicism, distrust and autonomy. — David Brooks, The Death…
Just hours ago, I wrote a dear friend, “I respectfully ask that you reconsider our relationship and be sure the one we have matches the one you want. If it does not, please consider a redesign.” I added, “I can be a forever friend.” Perhaps because of Paul’s death a year and half ago and…
When an idea has found its time, it seems to show up everywhere. Who didn’t know about climate change a decade ago? Now, despite the best efforts of corporate idiots in the fossil fuel business, we learn more about it daily. No Milwaukeean over 60 can resist recounting deep snow and bitter cold of the old days.…
As my semester is winding down, I am mentally reviewing the class that I taught this semester. It is loads more fun to review my lecture notes, slides, and activities than to read papers or prepare for the final. I have been teaching for 47 years; I think I would like to make it to…
In many ways our common practices, those things we do year in and year out, define us as a community or communities. In political stump speeches, national and local candidates ask rhetorical questions like, “What do we stand for as a nation?” and “Are we unified by greed and fear?” Then, depending on the candidate,…
One of the things I noticed as a new staff person at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in the early 1980’s was that both government and foundation staff were very helpful. They wanted Planned Parenthood programs to succeed. They valued sexuality education, clinical services, and advocacy. They got the point that to make every child a…
They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her…
Creating Community for Everyone 