We are having a conversation about class in this country, but not everyone knows it. For instance, joblessness means one thing to a person whose unemployment insurance has run out and quite another to, say, a business leader who worships constantly growing profits, repeatedly cutting jobs to expand them. Our national conversation about class is …
The phrase “culture wars” has been popcorning to the surface of the cultural landscape lately, the renewal of a trope from the late eighties and early nineties. Many people are perceiving a re-emergence of the eighties/nineties culture wars, in which art—especially art depicting homosexuality and/or religious images and artifacts—provides the setting for combat over freedom …
We are suffering from an epidemic distortion of reality, the byproduct of commercial media addiction to shock and awe. What are we going to do about it? I recommend an immediate moratorium on believing the sensational garbage blasted through the mediaverse simply to sell airtime; and a reality-check that helps liberals and progressives kick the …
A tidal wave of hindsight washes over the country after every election, drenching us in a not-quite-drinkable cocktail of hypothesis and certainty. When things go badly—as they did for Democrats, especially conservative ones, in some key races—it is consoling to believe we know precisely how the outcome could have been reversed. But that particular consolation …
Election time brings it out, I suppose: the deafening clash of certitudes. However vainly, I find myself wishing to hear a candidate ask a question without a foregone conclusion, actually engaging us in discovering new answers. But no matter how clueless they may feel inside, politicians act like they know it all. And no matter …
An evening spent contemplating a California election is not for the faint of heart. Last night, I plowed my way through a few trees’ worth of crappy, useless, expensive campaign mailers. The copious smear propaganda made me feel like taking a bath. The tendency to lean on the lowest common denominator made my heart sink: …
Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, was the luncheon speaker at Monday’s GIA meeting. His relaxed and likable presence comes across as realness personified. His low-key style gives me a sort of internal headshake. By the time Ito’s presentation ended, I was buzzing with a frequency of intellectual excitement I’d normally associate with verbal pyrotechnics. …
Of all the powers in which I have placed my faith, my deepest and most lasting allegiance is to the power of speech. I eat, breathe, and sleep words. When I am lucky enough to happen on it, the delicious taste of le mot juste fills my mouth like melting chocolate. If words had volume, …
One thing I know for certain is that our struggles in the little world of our own hearts, minds, and relationships are inscribed on the big world that comprises the institutions, communities, and movements that human beings make. Turn the conventional assertion on its head: As below, so above. I was talking with a visiting …
“Dinosaurs” was a hilarious and unique TV series that ran for four seasons in the early nineties. (You can get it on Netflix if you missed it the first time around.) It’s a classic family-centered sitcom, very much on the model of the original “Honeymooners,” except that Mom, Dad, the kids and pets are all …