The other day I took a walk with a friend who came to this country as a child, a refugee from Nazi Germany. We talked–are there any other topics these days–of the state of American politics and society. “It’s just like Germany,” she said. “If we were younger, if our children didn?t live here, we’d …
It’s hilarious the way \Fahrenheit 9/11\ is being microscopically vetted for accuracy, with long newspaper stories scoring each of Michael Moore’s assertions and implications. Where were these avatars of “balance” when the Ronald Reagan mythos was being constructed daily by a print-electronic media collaboration that rivaled the Tower of Babel? The media snit suggests a …
A few days ago I alerted you to expect information about another great project by and for artists awakening to the crisis in democracy. SPARC, the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice, California, has inaugurated the National Call to Artists, a Web repository for images, songs, scripts, and ideas that can help increase …
This is amazing! Check out this beautiful ad created to run on Arabic-language TV, apologizing for what was done at Abu Ghraib in our names. If the clip doesn?t play right away, click on “low” and a low-resolution version will open in another window.
One of my consulting clients is a group called Global Kids. I’m helping with its Newz Crew project, which involves high school-age kids in online dialogues about global issues. Each time a group starts, the kids are given an article to discuss, and one of my tasks is to formulate questions about the article. This …
In 1971, psychology professor Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in which Stanford students played the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison in redecorated labs and a boarded-up corridor of the Psychology Department. They were all healthy male students who’d passed psychological tests and given informed consent about the deprivations they might experience. …