It’s been a busy time for me in online dating world: much fun, new friends, maximizing my exposure to serendipity on the road to true love. I keep being surprised at how much this process teaches me about myself. For instance, I just added another paragraph to the list of qualities I am seeking in …
I like the way the Occupy movement has sent an echo across the country, encouraging all sorts of people toward questions of systemic inequality. Many voices have recently weighed in on questions of equity in this country’s cultural funding apparatus, shattering a resigned quiescence that had taken hold in too many hearts and minds. In …
Grantmakers in the Arts has been sponsoring an Online Forum on Equity in Arts Funding, inspired by The National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) recent report, authored by Holly Sidford, Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy. Nearly two dozen contributors involved in arts funding as researchers, foundation officers, public agency …
Tempers are running high in San Francisco, where the powers-that-be have unleashed yet another full-on demonstration of the cluelessness of U.S. cultural policymaking. This essay is in four sections: I will first describe what has happened; then discuss the context; the response; and finally, explore the reasons why San Francisco and every other U.S. city …
Deracination is a great word: it means to pull something up by the roots, to sever or isolate someone (or something) from its native culture. All week, I have been chewing on an example I encountered at last week’s arts conference, and still, I just can’t swallow it. The meeting was convened by arts funders, …
I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning. Side-by-side with a young woman (I can see her earnest face so clearly, the tumble of dark curls that nearly covered it), I strolled through an encampment occuping a city square. We stepped over bodies, threading our way through a maze of conversations. “Before …
We’re midway into the new-year holidays sometimes called the Days of Awe, and so midway into the t’shuvah—self-accounting and reorientation—process this spiritual technology enables and demands. I love many things about High Holy Day services: the beauty of the liturgy and music, the communal and individual invitation to learn from experience, correct mistakes, and set …
Note to readers: This is the sixth in a series of blogs I am delighted to be writing for Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project. They will appear biweekly on the WomenArts site (when you get there, scroll down for a list of blog installments), and I will also reproduce each one here. This installment of …
Public policy should be driven by a few essential questions: Who are we? What do we stand for? How do we want to be remembered; what is our legacy to the future? These foundational questions underpin this second essay on the jobs plan we need. Before you dismiss this out of hand as absurdly idealistic, …
After seeing the economy bleed jobs for so long, it was hard to watch without ambivalence as President Obama finally rose on Thursday to call for a transfusion of public funds for job creation. I felt some measure of relief: at last, our national leaders are paying attention to the suffering caused by economic policies …