I had the chance recently to experience two institutions you wouldn’t think at first glance were alike.  Over a few weeks I visited a well-regarded liberal arts college and later a famous casino.  The bizarre similarities were both fascinating and disturbing. Who benefits? The college is bookish, so it’s not surprising that the professors were […]

The Great Financial Meltdown of 2008 has left investors and politicians stupefied, collectively scratching their heads in the absence of real explanations or solutions. Pundits sagely call for greater “transparency,” so investors, regulators and the public might better assess an offering’s underlying value. What we really want is VISIBILITY. Wall Street’s savvy insiders basically couldn’t […]

The newspaper and magazine industries continue their steep slide into oblivion.  At risk, literally, is the public square, since newspapers emerged a couple hundred years ago in order to deliver the news—and often rules and regulations—individually to the newly literate and urban citizens who used to receive it from the town crier, or read it […]

The folks working at Heronswood Nursery include these excellent employees headquartered at Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, PA. On this 60-acre estate, we have planted over 10 acres of rare cultivars, including much of what we offer on-line and in the Heronswood Catalog. Also, these are the folks you will meet at our upcoming 2009 Open […]

Another holiday-time pint of view movie critique of “Quantum of Solace”, the latest James Bond turkey. The clumsy and ostentatious title refers to our hero’s hard-won emotional release, fought out in a special digital effects studio.  This is James “Another time, another place” Bond?  Yes, and he’s worse than George Lazenby.  He is seriously disturbed. […]

Here’s a fun game of horticultural “Truth or Dare”. Growing sunflowers for snacking seed seems “out there” to me at least.  There would have to be an extremely delicious type that I’ve not heard of or grown yet.  The “freshness” of a nut’s taste is sometimes a result of its ripening after a few weeks […]

A woman of the south, my mother moved “up north” to Glen Ellyn, a small village on the Aurora & Elgin railway line (the “Roarin’ Elgin”) 30 miles west of Chicago, with my father in 1945.  In her mid-20s, she’d lived as a pilot’s wife for a couple of years at bases in Edmonton, Canada, […]

      Readers respond to “Garden Food For Thought”        1. Kathy Said:   I really enjoy reading your posts. Thanks.       You’re welcome. Thanks for the note.     2. Nancy Said:   I am in total agreement. Those of us who get dirty can eat well, pass it […]

Steve often uses materials from abandoned industrial sites. The seeds of the pinecone are paddles that churn molten iron at the Bethlehem steel mills. The core is the inner casing of a curved pipe. One of a few narrative works that Steve made in the 90s, the untitled “creature” stands atop a life-size tortoise and […]

When our nation faces a recession, it becomes receptive to the notion of gardening for both economic benefit and pleasure.  Imagine new vegetable gardens across the countrysides, in the suburbs and patched throughout the cities.  As we face food price hikes—despite relief in gas prices—and cancel big-ticket purchases and investments, we turn to our gardens […]