Lincoln Avenue

Alexandra Zapruder has provided an important resource for understanding the Holocaust in her book,  Salvaged Pages .  By collecting the diaries of children and teenagers, she gives us the tools...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/04/not-just-anne-frank.html

Preparing to interview George Packer requires tough choices.  Do we talk about Iraq or about American liberalism ?  About journalism or fiction?  About the past or about the future?  Packer ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/04/writer-at-work.html

As a YSU faculty member and YSU-OEA officer, I am, of course, not an objective bystander when it comes to the union.  But my interest in its history is not just about my investment in its work.Â...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/04/ysus-union-history.html

It's clear that Teri Lesense is passionate about young adult literature -- and about young adults.  You can hear her excitement and commitment in her voice.  You can also see it in the way she ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/04/talking-with-goddess-of-young-adult.html

I'm not sure why I always assumed that sex education was about the basics of conception and how to avoid it, but talking with Alexandra Lord made clear how wrong I was.  Nor is sex ed only abou...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-teach-kids-about-sex.html

Wade Rathke is pretty darned inspiring.  He started one of the most successful organizing groups in U.S. history, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), when he was just...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/03/chief-organizer-at-work.html

As Carole Ann Drick explains in our interview, the way we die has changed over time, from the fairly quick at-home death from critical disease to the extended, often very slow process of dying i...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/03/dying-with-dignity.html

I can’t pretend to be neutral about Planned Parenthood, or women’s health, for that matter, and my conversation with Gary Dougherty, Legislative Director for Planned Parenthood Affiliates ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/03/defending-womens-choices.html

It's always fun talking with Tim Francisco about education, especially the NewsOutlet.org , the project he runs with Alyssa Lenhoff.  Yes, he's enthusiastic, but he's also very thoughtful about ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/02/job-preparation-and-liberal-arts.html

Like many of you, until I sat down to talk with Jean Waris and Brian Hudzik, the main thing I'd heard about human trafficking in our area was the story of new regulations for massage parlors i...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/02/fight-against-human-trafficking_16.html

The most interesting thing about talking with Sam Antar isn't his story of committing fraud, or the way he evaded jail by helping catch other criminals, or the fact that he now spends his time t...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/02/cheating-and-character.html

What I appreciate most about Deborah Mower's perspective on civility in politics and education is her emphasis on the idea that being civil does not mean suppressing disagreements.  Instead, it'...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/02/value-of-good-argument.html

Actually, as Tom Finnerty explains in this week's Lincoln Avenue, the truth about all those statistical reports on Youngstown's economy is not as bad as that famous old Mark Twain line.  It's no...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/01/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics.html

Given all the battles in the 2011 Ohio legislature, and the way fights like the one over SB 5 spilled over to engage citizens almost all year, it's hard to understand how Senate Minority Leader C...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-agenda.html

If you're looking for something to do next Saturday night, I have a suggestion: begin the evening at the McDonough Museum of Art on the YSU campus and help preserve, and maybe even help make, so...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2012/01/imagining-community-downtown.html

Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness explains how the war on drugs has not only targeted young black men, putting more African-Americans in...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/12/persistence-of-racism.html

I believe in stories.  That's hardly surprising -- I'm an English professor, after all.  But my faith in stories, and in the act of storytelling, isn't just about Literature with a capital L. ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-stories-matter.html

The argument that David Campbell and his co-author Robert Putnam make in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us seems contradictory.  On the one hand, they tell us, we see a sharp ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/12/religion-ties-that-bind.html

Vito Acconci is -- at least for the moment -- an architect.  Over time, he's been a writer, a visual artist, a conceptual artist, and a designer, as well.  What I found most interesting about ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/11/rethinking-art-and-architecture.html

I've been reading about Jim Sutman's work for a long time.  As his company, Iron and String Life Enhancement (ISLE)keeps growing, I've been intrigued by the way he is combining a business model ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/11/human-and-economic-development.html

Autism can be mysterious to anyone who hasn't experienced it.  In a recent 60 Minutes report about how children with autism were learning to communicate using iPad apps, several parents comment...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/11/inside-and-beyond-autism.html

I wish listeners could see David Vosburgh as he talks about Opera Western Reserve .  He describes the incredible amount of work involved in putting on each fall's opera, but instead of looking l...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/10/tosca-in-youngstown.html

We all know that access to health care is far from guaranteed in this country.  While emergency rooms won't usually turn away an uninsured person with an immediate need, our health care systems ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/10/caring-for-those-who-cant-pay.html

"Food policy" was a new phrase to me when I joined the Grow Youngstown board a couple of years ago, and I have to admit that I'm still not entirely clear on the full range of what it might cover....

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-sense-of-food-policy.html

One of the things I appreciate about this week's guest, Leslie Brothers, director of YSU's McDonough Museum of Art , is that her vision of art itself -- not just the role of a campus art museum, ...

http://linkonavenue.blogspot.com/2011/10/art-beyond-museum-museum-beyond-art.html