As of today, the Great Lakes are at war.

For almost two decades, states that border the lakes and rely on them for drinking water, recreation, commerce and more have been watching an inexorable invasive force make its way toward their waters.

The feared...

What happens when leaders and managers of more than 60 different non-profits from Chicagoland get together? Best practices are shared. New ideas come forth. And solutions are found. One of those solutions is a smart investment - in the 'right' volunteers.

WomenOnCall.org recently hosted our annual non-profit workshop, aimed at...

In my memo to the Democratic women members of Congress the other day, I noted that since:

1) not a single male member of the House or Senate has stood-up and said that insuring equitable access to women's reproductive health care, including access to abortion,...

The follow excerpt is taken from Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics, & Spirituality, by Charles Shaw (2009, Reality Sandwich)

"Dead Time"

The Cook County Jail is part of the Cook County Department of Corrections, a sprawling 96-acre detention complex situated next to the Cook County Criminal...

Some mornings when the Chicago Sun-Times has a dumb celebrity story on the front page, as if there were no news locally, nationally, or internationally, I wonder why I still pay to have the tabloid delivered to my doorstep.

I got my answer again today when...

Seven more shopping days until Christmas, and a mere forty more until voters must make their Election Day decisions for who will represent the Democratic, Republican, and Green parties on the ballot next November in Illinois. Yesterday's attendees of the Union League Club's Democratic U.S. Senatorial Candidate Forum...

Classroom learning is a delicate balance between teacher and student -- a balance of discipline and nurturing that shelters students from the chaos of the outside world and replaces it with structure and inspiration to help focus on building their minds. But the recently published analysis by the Associated Press...

NEWS FLASH: Tiger Woods sex scandal hits Chicago. Plus, Sun-Times reporter Kara Spak dishes Beluga babies at the Shedd Aquarium, leasing Giant Pandas and gives the scoop on a pregnant Brookfield Zoo animal. Don't miss the latest on the attack of the Asian Bighead Carp. There's more Blagojevich ridiculousness. An...

Democrats in Illinois are preparing to select their candidate for next year's race for Governor, and the primary election presents an important test in the fight for LGBT equality.

One candidate, Dan Hynes -- the long time and highly respected State Comptroller -- is strongly, proudly pro marriage equality, has...

On a mild mid-November night I ventured up to SPACE in Evanston with my friend and colleague Judy Raddue for a show by the po-mo folk trio Sons of the Never Wrong -- not the first for either of us (far from it), but the first we'd attended together. There...

As we wind down 2009, I have a few words to say about Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey announced she would be leaving the small screen in September of 2011. Her twenty-five years as the Queen of Daytime TV has changed the face of media and celebrity....

Via Twitter, Illinois Comptroller and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Hynes likes Notre Dame's hire of Brian Kelly as head football coach and hopes he brings the school their first national championship in more than two decades.

On his home page, State Senator Dan Rutherford and treasurer candidate just...

Dashing through the snow in the watersheds of some of the last old growth forest in Illinois ... are discharges of illegal levels of pollutants, including manganese, total suspended solids, sulfates, iron, and acidic water, thanks to a reckless strip-mining coal operation.

At the Fulton County Health Department in Canton,...

State Senator and Lieutenant Governor candidate Terry Link's political wave machine is operating at full-tilt boogie.

Link just scored the endorsement of the 1,000,000-member Illinois AFL-CIO, the state's largest labor organization, an endorsement that is a potential game-changer in the crowded, seven-candidate Lt. Governor race in the Democratic primary.

The...

My parents died six months apart. Grief has become my new companion. When you've experienced major loss in your life good people try to comfort you with the assurance that grief is a process. The idea being that all processes have a beginning and an end. Don't misunderstand me, I'm...

So I had a fine time down at the CCPA this afternoon - greatly enhanced by chance encounters, before I began my Mock Audition session, with three immensely distinguished singers who have been friends as well as colleagues for forty years. There were Richard Stilwell, David Holloway, and...