I’m cameraman and video editor, neither job being my primary skill set, in this Glenn Kaiser interview of activist prison lawyer Alan Mills. Both men are my friends, and both forgive me. Bonus: music written by Glenn and myself (lyrics) at the tail end. More information about Alan’s organization, Uptown People’s Law Center. And, to visit Glenn Kaiser‘s site. The […]

Jonathan David Brown, grammy-nominated (twice) Christian music producer, died suddenly September 27, 2016, of an apparent heart attack. He was sixty years old. His face book pages (this and this) and a gofundme page are filling with condolences from some of the many well-known artists he worked with creatively. But his death also brings into focus a tangled, extremist legacy of […]

Robert P. Jones’ new book begins with a chapter entitled “An Obituary for White Christian America.” And it doesn’t get better from there. But his premise is driven home even for those of us who’d rather be in denial about the demise of our beloved subculture. Architecture hardly seems a promising genesis point for the topic, but by giving both mainstream […]

I am a Bible-believing Christian who has served Christ full-time in the inner city of Chicago since 1977. I met Christ as a sixteen-year-old in 1973, praying the prayer on the floor of a Jesus Person’s Montana farm house. I pray that first love empowers me daily. I am not going to claim that unless you vote the way I […]

  ‪#‎NRADeathSquad‬ by Jon Trott Easy enough to conceal who you are with the hip-carried friend Sending someone else far away from this place, this life, their universe of time and rhyme gone — snap — watch it congeal on the sidewalk near Leland and Malden I heard the bang-bang-bang-bang-bang And the girl start screaming that they shot her baby […]

Professor of Philosophy Adriel Trott, who as a sideline happens to be my niece, is very patient with me and my continual dialogue regarding feminism. Patience is needed, because while I find myself still hashing out what Second Stage feminists fought through, Dr. Trott and her compatriots are post-Third Stage pioneers re gender identity, intersectionality, and ever so much more. […]

Voting in my hometown Chicago can be fascinating, infuriating, or both. I’ve seen it from more angles than most folks, having served as an election judge (many times), poll-watcher, and “get out the votes” activist (many, many times!). Voting is ugly. This is the truth of it. From the moment you register as a voter, you will discover this. Campaign […]

The original version of this very-tongue-in-cheek (but maybe too painful to be funny) article appeared fifteen or twenty years ago. I’ve revised and added to it here fairly extensively for today’s “culture wars.” There’s been a lot of complaining lately about how born-again believers get kicked around by the secular heavies. Fair enough. So how about our treatment of the […]

Background: October 14, 2011, President Barack Obama announced he was sending 100 troops to Uganda as advisors in locating and defeating The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). While to those unfamiliar with the LRA this might have come as a surprise, it bears noting that — in a show of unity remarkable for this congress — a vote to provide aid […]