Chicago Public Radio asked me to write a commentary about stem cell research back in 2004. In the recorded piece I mention a couple girls I know who have Type 1 diabetes: Raechel is 13, goes to Prairie Middle School in Barrington, and loves to dance. Clara just turned eight. She goes to Lincolnwood Elementary […]

Harper and I head to Madison, Wisconsin today, and one of the things we’ll be doing there is this: “The Lindbergh Lectures” Thursday, September 29 12:00 – 12:50 PM Room 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building “Seeing a Bigger Picture” Beth Finke NPR commentator, Teacher and Journalist Author of “Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound” Abstract: Thanks […]

Harper needs a break. So do we. Friends have offered Harper a week of peace and quiet at their house in the suburbs, and while he’s Safe & Sound for a week or so in Wheaton, we’re heading…where else? The south of France! Here’s the story. A hundred years ago (well, really, more like 30 […]

Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself comes out today, and I’m eager to read it. From what I’ve heard, he writes a lot about his middle-class Midwestern upbringing in Urbana, Ill., a place Mike and I were proud to call home for many, many years, and the town where our son Gus was born. Ebert was […]

This week The Bark published a post I wrote for them about guide dog Roselle and her blind partner Michael Hingson. The pair were on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They worked in tandem to get out safely, taking 1,463 steps one at a time. […]