For the last few weeks, I have been talking with gardeners at an imperiled community garden on the South Side of Chicago. My colleagues at the Invisible Institute and I are making a "live documentary" about the garden, daily posting short conversations with gardeners, speaking out of their 10'...

Two years ago, Chicago newspapers and airwaves were full of public discussion of patterns of police abuse, government secrecy and institutional denial. As converging police scandals threatened to engulf his administration, Mayor Daley rebranded the agency that investigates abuse complaints, appointed a new police superintendent and promised an era of...

Launch photo essay by Patricia Evans

Blank slates make for easy planning. Awareness of ecological richness confounds the process, creating conditions for innovation. The purpose of this essay is to complicate the planning process for the new Chicago Theological Seminary building to be constructed on...

Three days after Studs Terkel's death, the New York Times published a column by critic Edward Rothstein titled "An Appraisal: He Gave Voice to Many, Among Them Himself." The piece is a striking instance of the low art of red-baiting disguised as high-minded criticism. It has been effectively countered...

The following is an excerpt from a speech I gave on the occasion of receiving an award from Rape Victim Advocates in 2005. Studs Terkel presented the award. That gave me an opening to talk about him a bit. I quoted an invocation by Rev. William Sloane Coffin that...