Not the winning, but how we play the game
Most of us assume that, on Aug. 10, the U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team will play for a gold medal, and I assume many Forest Park youth will be watching. What messages, subliminally, will they be...
View ArticleSchool genealogy project has unanticipated result decades later
Julie Brown (née Huebner) first became interested in genealogy in a history class at Proviso East High School in the late 1970s. Little did she know that decades later, this class project would lead...
View ArticleDo you work to live or live to work?
Another way to ask the question is, “Do you take work home with you?” Next Monday is Labor Day, a day set aside by the Federal Government in 1894 as a national holiday to recognize the millions of...
View ArticleCommon sense sayings for a complicated time
In “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, a vain emperor is duped into wearing an “invisible” suit of clothes and parades around town. Everyone watching goes along with the pretense,...
View ArticleGod as political influencer
According to a recent Gallup Poll, 81% of Americans believe in God. The bestplaces website reports that 59.9% of our neighbors in Forest Park identify as “religious.” Although the numbers in both...
View ArticleHow religion acts as a political influencer
Rabbi Yitzchok Bergstein helped staff a Chabad Lubavitch booth at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and some of his rabbi colleagues did the same at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. The...
View ArticleCondo associations as micro-republics
When I tell people I’m president of my condominium association, they often reply, “I’m so sorry for you.” Whether they get their impression of condo politics by way of personal experience or...
View ArticleSerenity to accept what I can’t change
My wife and I plan to have dinner at Yum Thai on Nov. 6, the day after the election. Here’s why: Several weeks ago I noticed that I was feeling anxious about the election. I had nightmares about what...
View ArticleReligious connections to Halloween
When Forest Parkers think of Halloween, I suspect they think of trick-or-treating, scarecrows and the Casket Races, but Western culture has a way of reframing what were originally religious holy days...
View ArticleConcordia’s compassionate conservatives
Traditional conservatives in our area, I imagine, felt like they were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea when they voted yesterday. The devil is Donald Trump who has hijacked their party,...
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