I try to read at least one book a month for pleasure or to learn something not directly related to my work. This year I read 17 books to completion, four fiction and 13 non-fiction titles. Here they are, in the order that I finished them: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot [...]
I grew up in a house sandwiched between waving fields and a muddy creek bed. I spent my childhood traipsing up and down paths walled off from cows by barbed-wire fence. I carved out my own right-of-ways through the land, ones that could only make sense to a nine year-old’s brain. The environment I was [...]
The book of case studies that I wrote for the Kansas Leadership Center has been the focus of several stories in the Kansas news media. You can see them at the websites of The Dodge City Globe and The Lawrence Journal-World. You can learn more about the KLC case study initiative and the book of [...]
In this day and age, it’s a lot tougher to judge what exactly constitutes journalism. This post by New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen sets out some really though-provoking criteria to use in trying to determining journalistic legitimacy. It used to be that we conferred journalistic legitimacy based on professional orientation. If you reported [...]
In recent months, I’ve been able to expand my writing about civic leadership by contributing blogs and newspaper columns about the subject through the Kansas Leadership Center. Please check out some of my pieces this fall and winter. I’m particularly proud of the blog post about why I try not to use the word “leader.” [...]
Here’s a link to a story I recently completed for the Kansas Land Trust about Rod Moyer, a Flint Hills rancher. He recently put his nearly 7,000-acre ranch under a conservation easement that will protect the scenic area from non-agricultural development.
I’ve watched a few minutes of World Cup soccer football in recent weeks but my viewing is likely to drop drastically as a result of the U.S.’s 2-1 loss to Ghana last Sunday. Although soccer continues to grow in popularity here, it’s still a sport that a lot of people — including some of my [...]
It seems that barely literate spammers appear to be some of my biggest fans. A selection of the pending comments I recently deleted … “I never thought I would agree with this opinion, but I’m starting to see things differently.” “The crisis is still hiting (sic) on american (sic) people!” “I am quite interesting (sic) [...]
While I’ve long been grateful for my MacBook’s assistance when it comes to writing, I never would have thought of writing a poem about it.
Remember “subprime” mortgages? Those high-rate, variable interest home loans provided to borrowers with less than stellar credit? They played a significant role in blowing up the nation’s housing market, eventually helping plunge us into the worst financial crisis in nearly 80 years. A troubling report from the PBS investigative reporting show Frontline last night called [...]