When opponents grapple with Nick Hoekstra in jiu jitsu they tend to hold back — at least at first. His blindness gives them pause. But when it becomes apparent that he is determined to win, their hesitation evaporates, and he becomes just like everyone else, an equal. That’s the world of the dojo, he says: a place of respect for all comers. It’s not the world itself, though, where fitting in and ...
In Lawrence, as elsewhere across the country, residents have been stepping up in big numbers to care for animals in the community. The stay-at-home order issued by Douglas County to curb the coronavirus pandemic has led to unprecedented hardships, to be sure, but also has created a uniquely comforting circumstance for animals who need care and for people who long to feel useful. “A lot of people are at ...
A locally made film about immigration has won an award at the 2020 Borrego Springs Film Festival in Southern California. The film, “Strangers in Town,” co-directed by Lawrence resident Stephen Lerner and Reuben Aaronson of Los Angeles, won the People’s Choice Documentary award. Lerner said he wasn’t too surprised “because the response was huge at the screening, though you never know till it ...
Long before the images of families separated at the border outraged many Americans, Lawrence resident Stephen Lerner was quietly outraged by the increasingly ugly tone of the immigration debate. “I started feeling very uncomfortable with watching that happen, both in the political process and in discussions everywhere, because the fact is we are a country of immigrants,” he told the Journal-World recently. ...
Before she started directing “Matilda” for Theatre Lawrence, Widge Yager did her homework on the man behind the musical. Roald Dahl, the beloved British author of the 1988 book on which the hit musical is based, had a particular worry as he was writing the story about his child genius: that TV would replace books in children’s lives. “He was legitimately concerned that children would not read anymore, ...