We live in a media driven world. A supply-side scheme where large media outlets, especially cable TV, regardless of perceived political stripes, know how to stretch content to fill time, spread narratives and aggravate the hell out of us. And they know that anger and spectacle somehow keeps bringing us back. They’re in the eyeballs […]

Just got back last night from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois — Mike drove Whitney and me down there so I could give a presentation to a lecture hall of 400+undergraduates enrolled in an Animal Sciences class at the University of Illinois. Inspired by the Pick of the Litter documentary Mike posted about on Monday, I spent a […]

It’s been years since Beth and I attended a movie at like, you know, a movie theater. Part of that is we filter for kinds of movies that Beth likely can enjoy—dialog-heavy, play-like movies. They’re kind of few and far between, and then when we note one that would be a good bet, we’re late […]

Dear Whitney, Remember when Mike read that New York Times story out loud to the two of us earlier this month? Yes. That one. The article about Seeing Eye dogs, and how a trip to New York City is part of the training we do: The school’s training is done in a suburban setting far […]

The spring of 2003 I was without a job—the weekly newspaper I worked for in Champaign-Urbana had closed its doors at the end of 2002. I hung around the office a couple months to take care of the nasty details. Our son Gus had moved to a facility for the developmentally disabled in Wisconsin a […]