This is the third in a series of essays about bridging the distance between generations of artists who use their gifts in the service of community, of social healing and of social justice. In the first two essays, I wrote with longing about my memory of connecting with mentors in the sixties, about the relationships …
My last essay, on a generation gap among socially engaged artists, has provoked quite a bit of response. Now I’m moved to write by readers’ descriptions of encounters with younger activist artists they perceived as remarkably uninterested in getting down to the work, to the deep learning needed to ground their practice in a continuum …
First, a disclaimer. At no time did I personally utter this sentence: “Never trust anyone over 30.” (FYI, it was coined by Jack Weinberg, whose 1964 arrest for violating prohibitions against political advocacy on the UC Berkeley campus ignited the Free Speech Movement, and who—at 65 or so—is still a dedicated environmental activist, having had …
You know what I think of predictions, right? If you need a little reminder of the perils of prognostication, consider that we’re coming up on the 40th anniversary of the late Timothy Leary’s 1967 prediction that “Deer will be grazing in Times Square in forty years.” Actually, this morning I was thinking of a line …
Once again, I’ve been given an opportunity to visit another world, the strange and exotic land of teen culture. I’ve been assisting the New York-based organization Global Kids by reading and writing about 133 essays by high school students on how digital media affects their lives. You can download my report, read the essays and …
I have been noticing how much public trouble is rooted in what seems to be the general human proclivity for kings. George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi are in the headlines now for wanting to be emperors, but it isn’t as if they are aberrations. It seems we love to have a single figure whose image …
Dear readers, perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been quiet for awhile. With springtime’s emphasis on rebirth, I like to think I’ve been hatching an egg, conceptually speaking. A new thought (new to me, I mean) has been taking possession of my mind and I’ve been readying myself to express it. I am beginning to think …
Yesterday’s New York Times reported on a study the Center on Education Policy will release tomorrow. The article’s headline says it all: “Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math.” CEP found that since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, “71 percent of the nation’s 15,000 school districts had reduced the …
One unintended side-benefit of the recent orgy of censorship by the Federal Communications Commission has been the giggle of hearing all-grown-up journalists and lawyers pontificating on the news about “the S-word” and “the F-word.” When a coward like myself has to cover her eyes often during prime time to avoid close-ups of gunshot wounds and …
Consider the tale of DP World, Dubai’s state-owned company trying to spend almost $7 billion to buy a company that operates port terminals around the world, a few of which are in the U.S.A. This morning’s New York Times tells us that President Bush was shocked—I say, shocked— at the breadth and intensity of objections …