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 …
I’m excited to be engaged this week in a “virtual residency.” My friend and colleague Francois Matarasso is using his blog “A Restless Art” (where you can also download the excellent book with the same name) to publish daily excerpts from my workshop handout on the “Values and Ethics of Participatory Arts Practice,” then to …
According to this morning’s COVID wrapup in the New York Times, despite warnings from top health officials, Americans are leaving their homes in ever-larger numbers, urged on by #IMPOTUS and the entire kakistocracy (I looked it up: government by the worst). Meanwhile Jared Kushner is right on time suggesting that the November election may be …
Today, May Day (traditionally a worker’s celebration), could be a hinge moment in U.S. history, when a critical mass of voters and others said “Enough!” to the fat cats attempting to use the pandemic to profit further at public expense. An excellent account of the principles that should guide a compassionate and effective body of …
As a longtime cultural policy wonk, I’ve been perpetually frustrated at the persistence of American exceptionalism, our stubborn insistence on our own unique superiority, our stubborn refusal to look beyond our own borders for inspiring examples and new ways of seeing. This is usually accompanied by some type of smug assertion about the superiority of …
Yesterday I posted an essay about the spiritual aspects of the pandemic. Today, my topic is political: how addressing the future of democracy and a livable economy are one and the same. I will start with immediate action, then move on to a brief look at the longer term. Last week people were rightfully up …
Every time I hear a candidate tout “college for all” as an economic and social panacea, something inside me balks, even as huge cheers come up from the audiences gathered for Democratic primary debates. But I hadn’t been able to put my finger on my unease until I read “Educated Fools,” Thomas Geoghegan’s provocative and …
My custom is to avoid mentioning the Present Occupant of the White House by name. One main reason is that he worships his own name; why help that along by repeating it? Another is that contradictions Trump has brought to a head were not of his own making, rather having been cultivated over centuries by …
Where on the integrity scale would you rate a candidate whose background is marked by lies and misdeeds, who is called to account and fails to show up, and who releases a glitzy campaign ad so mendacious that the Washington Post‘s fact-checker awards it three Pinocchios? I’d give Valerie Plame a zero. Back in June, …
The Great Hack, a new Netflix documentary directed by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, is not to be missed. The film explores the question of data rights: privacy, ownership, exploitation, and cultural manipulation. To make a complex story powerful and accessible, the filmmakers used the clever device of following one man’s quest to impel British …