“Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” Bob Dylan “The law of unintended consequences is never broken.” I thought I would find many citations when I googled this, but since I found none, I’ll attribute it to myself. Quite a few people I know have been expressing …
I’d never heard the term “moral injury” until I read about it last week in a New York Times article about a crisis among doctors precipitated by the accelerating treatment of healthcare as a privilege rather than a right, a profit center rather than a social good. (This phenomenon rhymes with much I’ve written about …
Grifters, con artists, and sleight-of-hand entrepreneurs come in all ages, classes, genders, and colors. My subject today is the grifters born into ideal circumstances for learning the type of charm that makes people feel that your smile grants them access to excellence. I’m talking about the young, white, privileged, headline-making variety, whose exploits definitely call …
If I hear one more person (however grudgingly) admire the Republicans’ “long game” and compliment them on masterminding a fifty-year strategy to overturn a longstanding consensus on rights, bodily autonomy, guns and more, I’ll scream. In fact, I’ve screamed already. It’s not that the U.S. Right doesn’t long for a Big Daddy and eagerly follow …
It’s a little ironic that apologia, the Greek root of the word “apology,” basically means self-defense. Perhaps that’s also the root of what appears to be widespread confusion about what constitutes an apology. Jumping into the breach, I offer a public-service announcement in the hope of helping to set that right. An apology is something …
NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the seventh episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available on 16 July 2021. You can find it and all episodes at iTunes along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural …
NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the fifth episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” You can find it and all episodes at iTunes along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen …
Last week, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the launch of the City Artist Corps, a $25 million initiative that will give around 1,500 New York artists funding this summer to mount “performances, public artworks, pop-up shows through New York City’s Summer Rising program, new murals and canvasses, and more,” according to the official …
I recently heard a member of the Idaho Nez Perce/Nimiipuu say that if you have the sense of having lost something, you should gaze in that direction and it will come toward you. I’ve been trying to gaze in the direction of democracy. People mean a million different things by democracy, but it seems there …
NOTE: This is a guest post by my friend Francois Matarasso, originally appearing at his website A Restless Art. It describes the second episode of our podcast, “A Culture of Possibility,” linked below on SoundCloud. You can also listen to it at iTunes and subscribe to miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and …