I’m not sure whether this piece is about the challenges of urban life, the sometime unreliability of the GPS or the problems of DWA, Driving While Aging. Let me tell you where the story starts and we’ll see where it takes us. This past weekend we made a date with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law to have dinner in an outdoor Greek restaurant. (We still eat only in restaurants that have an...

Just the other day, I got this letter from my friend Bruce Thomas. It raises a lot of interesting questions about what it means to be well read. I’ve attached the response he requested which I don’t think answered any of those questions. Instead, they raised yet others. What more could you hope for from a good conversation? I invite you to add your own questions – or answers. Dear Marv and Posey:...

Recently the New York Times reported that the Food and Drug Administration is authorizing over-the- counter sale of hearing aids without a prescription. This is music to my ears – literally – because my hearing aids are life preservers that save me from drowning in a sea of silence. At the same time, it’s been frustrating and infuriating that this salvation has been out of the reach of a large...

                                             Teachers Who Write My apologies if you’ve heard this before, but I’ve been on a life-long campaign to encourage teachers to write...

            The warning flags have been up for a long time, so it didn’t come as a complete surprise when word began to trickle out that the University of Chicago was phasing out its Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP); still it felt like a punch in the gut. Being part of the team that birthed the program and seeing it through its first 11...