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 …
One thing we’ve been hearing a lot about since the quadruple pandemic hit is the hope that instead of trying to restore our civic and market systems to their former flawed and inequitable state, we should see this enforced pause as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make essential change. People see the opportunity to strengthen democracy, …
In my last essay, I used the civic frescoes of the 14th-century Sienese painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti as a starting-point for scrutinizing the culture of US politics as most appallingly revealed in our recent electoral process. I’ve heard or read a great many analyses of the election, but there’s a key point most seem to be …
One more day to go, not to achieve heaven on earth, but to the relief of anticipating the Present White House Occupant’s exit. For me, that’s also one day closer to the reality of a new WPA, a public service employment program to enlist all kinds of workers in rescuing the public good from the …
In normal times, I fantasize that something I see or say might help save the world. I’m aware of the grandiosity of my ambitions—and their psycho-spiritual roots—but what can I say? “An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own,” wrote Shakespeare. But when the current pandemic hit a triple (virus, climate crisis, and response to violence …
After working with nonprofit organizations for a zillion years, I don’t put much faith in mission statements, for one simple reason. The process of articulating identity and values can be exciting, fun, and satisfying; to be sure, living the examined life is as important for organizations as for individuals. But most of the time, once …
Sometimes the memory is so fleeting I can’t quite bring it into focus, but most of the time, memories flow like a river carrying everyone I’ve ever known, everywhere I’ve ever been. It started a few weeks into the pandemic, and it’s been keeping a steady beat ever since. In the space between laying my …
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m voting for Biden come hell or high water, and no attempt to dissuade me will succeed. But that’s not my subject today. The Democratic Party released its draft platform, the compilation of ideas and legislation intended to be adopted at August’s convention and to guide the next …
Once in a while a book calls to me such that I need to ask you to read it—perhaps half a dozen books since I began this blog in 2013. Today, that book is Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. A friend urged me …
Seven weeks ago I published two essays on the way U.S. arts advocates—the established institutions in particular—responded to the pandemic. The first one criticized the narrow, economistic, and backward-looking calls for funding issuing from red-carpeted marble halls. The second one called for very different statements and actions, grounded in social benefit, with investment in jobs …