I just returned from San Diego, where I spent most of last week at the annual convention of the Association for Dispute Resolution (ACR), a leading international group of arbitrators, mediators (commercial, family, community, etc), and peacemakers of all stripes. During the convention, I attended the Advanced Commercial Mediation Institute (ACMI), which was co-chaired by Jerome Allan Landau and Lee Jay Berman, two nationally renowned mediators who've…

As I enter September, I feel as though a series of enormous weights has finally been lifted from my back; I hope that I've come to the end of my annus horribilus.  

My sorry tale began in late January of this year when I developed my customary winter cough.  I say customary, since, being asthmatic, I seem to contract a bone shaking cough almost every winter.  Past experience had taught me that my doctor would, at best, give me an antibiotic, and, in truth, the cough would just…