My wife, Risa, has been an educational therapist for four decades. She pushes her students to develop a positive mindset about their ability to learn. She helps them to develop persistence. She helps them find a sense of joy in learning. It is a really hard job. She does her work in an office in our home, working one on one with students, so I’ve had more than a peek at her work through the years. I’ve seen her agonize over kids who struggle with brains and bodies that do not want to allow them to conform with the rules…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Golf, race and prejudice have had a long tortured connection in Chicago. Now it looks like we will see a new chapter near my old home on the South side of Chicago. Golf course developers are eyeing the Chicago Park District’s 27 holes of pleasant, but pedestrian golf for a potential super course with Chicago lakefront views to accommodate a big time pro championship course. It could be a Pebble Beach of the Midwest. This is also the area where the Barack Obama Library may be built. It is a pebble’s throw from Michelle Obama’s home when she was growing…
In a deal that is supposed to close by the end of the third quarter, Watts Water Technologies is selling certain assets related to its brass fittings, brass & tubular and vinyl tubing product lines to Sioux Chief Mfg. Co. (“Sioux Chief”) of Kansas City, Missouri. The selling price approximates to $35.5 million. My understanding is that Tribal Manufacturing, of Marshall, Michigan, will get the keys to the Chesnee, South Carolina, brass turning plant of Watts Water Technologies. This is a big deal in the screw machine world because the South Carolina plant did most of the turned parts work…
Most people profess to dislike lawyers, but I suspect it is the circumstances in which they meet them, not the lawyers, that fuel their distaste. Lawyers are the lubricant keeping the complex machinery of society from breakdown. Imagine if we let individuals resolve their disputes with firearms like countries do when they can’t get along. This is important work that I have been honored to do for over 35 years. But lawyers, and the practice of law, are being commoditized, just like the rest of commerce. The services of the once “priestly profession” of lawyer, the sage advisor to whom…
Where have all the souvenirs gone? I find it ironic that we seemingly hacve a collectibles boom, with TV shows like Pickers and Antique Road Show, but if you go to a tool show like IMTS or the PMPA April extravaganza you leave with nary a keepsake that is worthy of a shelf in your office or a chest in the attic. I was reminded of the value of a souvenir twice this past week. I went to a wedding in New Jersey and took a 20-year-old t-shirt to wear at the family lake house where the wedding took place.…
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, is one of the most brilliant, innovative entrepreneurs in the world. In just 20 years as head of the company he founded from scratch, he has built the biggest, most efficient online retailer in the world. And the New York Times just spent thousands of words on the front page hating on him for being a demanding boss. Bezos is a zealot about his business. You don’t become a billionaire after being abandoned by your father as an infant in Albuquerque if you’re a pushover. He is absolutely driven and he does not suffer…
The game was over, the Chicago Cubs had completed a four game sweep of the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field in Chicago and I was there to witness it with my three granddaughters. We were walking out and everybody in our group was in the bathroom but me. I paused and shed a few tears while I mumbled a short prayer of thanks, that I was able to share this moment with my family. My daughter, Sarah, is a Rabbi in California. She and her husband Scott and kids usually come to Chicago once a year. This year she…
Seldom have I struggled with a political and emotional issue like I am with the Iran nuclear deal. My gut tells me to be against it, because Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is so adamantly opposed to it. My dislike of Obama and John Kerry also pulls me to oppose it, but my sense of the deal, intellectually, is that it is a net plus for the world. I think that Iran would have developed a nuclear bomb capability eventually if they wanted to do it, and there really was no way to stop them. Sanctions punished them over the last…
Now that United States has begun normalizing relations with Cuba, I get irritated at times when Americans who have never been there give me their predictions about the country’s future. I’ve been to Cuba twice, both unbelievable experiences, and I will flat out say, you can’t understand what Cuba is like from watching the news. You can only get a good idea of the place by going there and talking to its people. Both times I traveled to Cuba (illegally) I wanted to blog about my experiences, but we made a judgement at the time that it was best to…
Chicago Public Schools are laying off 462 teachers, because the budget is a hopeless mess and the Teachers Union is much more interested in protecting the pensions of incumbent and retired teachers than retaining young untenured teachers. Meanwhile, Charlotte, North Carolina, is desperate for 200 teachers to start the school year, and the suburbs of San Francisco are bending their certification standards to fill their teacher needs. But I doubt many of the Chicago layoffs will quickly pack their bags for Charlotte or the Bay Area. It’s just too hard for most people to make those kinds of quick shifts.…