Chicago Sun-Times

Cindy Galvin on how ARKive is preserving nature

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:50:00 -0500

“Take care of the Earth and she will take care of you.” — Author unknown When I was attending Northwestern in 1977, I met my pledge daughter, Kim Louis Stewart, daughter of Josephine Louis of Winnetka and the late Ambassador John Louis. After we graduated, Kim became an accomplished cinematographer, and she’s now known for her work on a spectacular IMAX production about migration and flying called “On the Wing.” Kim’s lifelong love for conservation eventually landed her on the board of ARKive, a global conservation tool available for free on the Internet. Over the past 10 years, ARKive has …

Michael Reinsdorf on the team that made us all proud

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:29:50 -0500

I hate losing. Winning is all that matters, right? That’s how I have always felt. Even as a young kid, I would cry if my dad beat me shooting free throws. (Of course, who could blame me — he shot underhanded!) Anyone who has watched a Bulls game with me knows I really hate losing. So, after losing a heartbreaking game to Miami that ended our season, am I upset? Of course. But I feel differently this time. Why? Because this team was special, and this year, they not only captured the hearts of people across Chicago, but of basketball …

Lindsay Avner on what Angelina Jolie’s courageous admission means for women

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:34:30 -0500

I started Bright Pink on Jan. 2, 2007, and every day since, I’ve dedicated my professional career and personal passion to educating and equipping women around the country with the knowledge and support to be proactive with their breast and ovarian health. Creating urgency around prevention is a challenge — one that I proudly face head-on, but a challenge nonetheless. Most days, it feels like an uphill battle. Tuesday, it felt like a landslide. I woke up early Tuesday morning to my phone buzzing from incoming emails and text messages. Angelina Jolie, arguably one of the world’s most famous celebrities, …

In anticipation of next week’s National Restaurant Show, Bob Sirott and Marianne Murciano talk dining out

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:37:49 -0500

Chicago is one of the world’s great restaurant towns — and it keeps getting better. We’re so passionate about food that while we’re having dinner, we’re usually planning the next one. But our tastes are very different. In anticipation of the National Restaurant Show, coming up May 18-21, we dug into what separates us. Marianne: I’m into hip and trendy places — if it’s new and people are talking about it, I want to try it. I like small plates rather than huge portions so I can taste a lot of different foods and share. Places where food is an …

Tamberla Perry on the state of roles for African-American actresses

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:44:01 -0500

It started in one of my first professional auditions in 2006: I read for the lead role, and the director cast me as the maid instead. African-American women have a long history of playing maids — a confining, stereotypical role — and the actresses who play them are often unrecognizable to the general public. At the time of that audition, I was just excited to work and didn’t see anything troubling about what happened until many years later. Now, I’m proud to star in “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” at the Goodman; in it, playwright and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn …

Sarah Elizabeth Ippel on helping Chicago’s children fall in love with learning

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:20:57 -0500

I’ll never forget the moment when I stepped onto the dirt floor of a small, sparse room in a rural Guinea Bissauan village. Sunlight was flooding into the open-air space; there were no windows or desks. Forty children of all ages were sitting on handcrafted wooden benches. Some were wearing shoes and some were not. Yet they had 40 of the most vibrant and eager smiles I have ever seen. These children, without pencils or books, were earnestly excited by the opportunity to learn. Their community creatively used resources, overcoming the scarcity of trained teachers and traditional learning tools by …

Geoffrey Nauffts on how he’s fighting for gay rights through his Tony Award-nominated play, “Next Fall”

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:08:25 -0500

I met the love of my life not long after I turned 40. He was a Christian, and as someone who’s pretty much had an aversion to religion my whole life, this was the last thing I ever expected. We struggled to find some common ground, but in the end, it was that inexplicable thing called “love” that kept us together. Eleven years later, we’re still going strong, and he’s still very much a mystery to me. Sensing there was something universal in the journey we’ve shared, I wrote a play. What began as a small off-Broadway production quickly gathered …

Wade Miquelon on why he’s racing for a cure on Mother’s Day

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:52:00 -0500

Every so often, something happens to us that puts things in the proper perspective, makes us grateful for each moment and motivates us to bring out the best version of ourselves every day. One of those privileged awakenings for me was not a something, but rather, a someone — two someones, to be specific. When I came to Walgreens in 2008, I was very proud to be part of a company that was working hard to bring to life the mission to help people get, stay and live well. Little did I know that soon after joining the team, I …

Quenten Schumacher on the importance of AIDS awareness

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:44:01 -0500

As a gay man over 40, HIV/AIDS has been a part of my life since I came out in my 20s. I’ve seen so many of my loved ones personally affected in some way by this epidemic. While living in St. Louis, I met Richard Morse, a fellow “retail queen” who became a dear friend. I learned that he had attended Parsons and Fashion Institute of Technology and had his own design label in New York for 10 years until he moved back home. I also learned that he was HIV-positive. He had lived without complications for quite some time …

Zoe Damacela on how she went from homeless to high fashion

Tue, 07 May 2013 07:15:20 -0500

When I was growing up, my family was extremely poor. In fact, we were homeless. My single mother worked full time and was trying to go back to school. But despite these challenges, I always knew that I wanted to start a business and be able to provide for my family and myself. When I was 8, I started my first business, selling greeting cards door to door. I made $30 in a day, and by age 14, I was on my fifth or sixth big idea. I started an apparel company from my bedroom when I was a freshman …

Allison Slade on the intersection of education and yoga

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:14:47 -0500

As a teacher more than a decade ago in inner-city Houston, every day I saw children come to school angry and frustrated — traumatized by violence, hungry or scared, but without the words to express their emotions and focus on learning. So I created a small oasis in my kindergarten class where students felt safe to talk about their feelings and engage in school. Inside our classroom walls, it worked. But once the students left my doors, everything would fall apart. I knew my kids needed emotional support, structure and instruction in identifying emotions — much more than I could …

Chris Pierce on the healing powers of music

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:20:59 -0500

We all have struggles. We all have different ways of dealing with challenges. I’ve always turned to music. From the time I was a young child, writing and performing music has always been an unconditional friend and a place of refuge. I started to lose my hearing at 15 years old, when I was diagnosed with otosclerosis, which is an abnormal bone growth in the middle ear that causes hearing loss. With guidance from family, music teachers and my doctor, I decided to have surgery on my right ear and ended up regaining 85 percent of my hearing on the …

Shaka Senghor shares how he transformed his life while in prison

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:38:01 -0500

I was invited to speak at TEDxMidwest this weekend because of my work in the community as a mentor and anti-gun violence advocate. During my talk, I will share my journey from an emotionally hardened and violent “thug” into a caring and compassionate mentor who found hope despite the hopelessness that grows like weeds in prison. I was a victim of gun violence at the age of 17, which led me to become very paranoid and live in constant fear. I started carrying a gun wherever I went, and 14 months later, I found myself in a similar conflict — …

Rick Smolan says “Big Data” may be more transformative than the Internet

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:40:00 -0500

This week, I’m going to be speaking at TEDxMidwest and sharing a fascinating adventure I’ve been on with 100 of the most talented journalists in the world. I have one of the best jobs on the planet. Every 18 months, I get to dispatch a team of these talented journalists around the globe, where they’re assigned to capture the human face behind emerging topics. Our team’s previous book projects have focused on the Internet the first year it began touching peoples lives (“24 Hours in Cyberspace”), exploring how the human race is learning to heal itself (“The Power to Heal”), …

Erin McKean shares how to make the most of a conference

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:56:00 -0500

Chances are, many of you reading this column will attend a conference in 2013 — in the next few months alone, Chicago is hosting TechWeek and the National Restaurant Association Show, and this week is the Comic & Entertainment Expo. This upcoming weekend in Chicago, May 2-4, I’ll be emceeing the third TEDxMidwest, and I can’t wait. We’re bringing together 35 of the most fascinating, world-class speakers — like Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer; Julia Sweeney, an author and famous comedienne; Jeanne Gang, a MacArthur prize-winning architect; and Carol Marin, a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist — for a series …

Joel Sartore is out to save the Earth’s captive species with The Photo Ark

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:18:00 -0500

For more than 20 years now, I’ve been a contributing photographer for National Geographic Magazine. They’ve sent me to every continent, and I’ve worked on 34 photo essays so far. Most dealt with conservation issues. But it has not been enough. Every year, I see more habitats lost, more species barely hanging on. At TEDxMidwest this week in Chicago, I’ll be introducing my latest project, The Photo Ark. The Photo Ark was born out of desperation to halt, or at least slow, the loss of global biodiversity. The goal is to document every captive species on Earth. With The Photo …