What we are witnessing today is encouraging for many reasons, among them the fact that we’re seeing a new generation of Americans from all races and backgrounds standing with us to demand our freedom.
All lives can’t matter until black lives matter too
All lives matter ignores history and resists efforts to improve the lives of black people specifically, who have been struggling for 400 years under the weight of anti-black racism to belong in this country and to have our humanity seen.
We need to move from ritualized responses to reparation
Shifts in the social terrain, if navigated skillfully and boldly, could serve as the catalyst we need to finally embark on the long journey towards a reckoning that has been over 400 years in the making.
We’re in a moment of collective trauma. But there are glimmers of hope
We need to remember that policing is but a single component of the larger system of oppression so acutely felt in the Black community.
Social science is filling a vacuum in the political response to COVID-19
Coronavirus 2020 will go down as the social science epidemic of the modern age. The deluge of data and analysis is so great that its sheer quantity has created a qualitative shift in how most of us—those not directly engaged with the sick and dying—think about this crisis.
We’ll be carried forward upon the whispers of our elders
“Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today To get through this thing called life” ~Prince One evening in early March, before we were all sent home to shelter, I got a call from my mother. She told me that her cousin and her cousin’s husband had been rushed to the hospital. Both were diagnosed … Continue reading »
Reflecting on a pandemic and its aftermath, in fiction and reality
Addendum as Prologue: 22 April 2020, Earth Day I wrote the essay that follows a decade ago, in 2010, the year the novel The Great Bay by Dale Pendell (1947-2018) was published. I also nominated the book for a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. It didn’t win one, nor has it yet received the kind of … Continue reading »
Don’t let physical isolation become emotional isolation
We hope you are staying healthy and safe during this period of uncertainty as governments around the world take dramatic and unprecedented measures to try to contain the pandemic currently disrupting life on our planet. As has been pointed out in many commentaries on the current situation, the pandemic exposes the inadequacies of our health … Continue reading »
Lenten Humor During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Orders from Italian Government: 1.The Italian government has ordered all sporting events to take place ‘without spectators’ 2. Italians should try to remain 1 meter apart from each other. (Carrying a tape measure is optional) Advice from a few illustrious saints and a few notorious sinners. — “Stay calm and don’t lose your head.” – … Continue reading »
The stories of the South are the stories of a nation, and need to be told
Fake news and humanities education
Critical reading in the humanities is the antidot to fake news, which has been around since the “Donation of Constantine,” which an Italian scholar discovered wasn’t what it was touted to be.
Is Trump intuitive or has he learned from Hitler?
In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett (Henry Holt, First Edition, 2018, pages 38 and 39) writes: ADOLF HITLER LIED all the time. Yet he also said clearly what he was doing and what he planned to do. This is the essential paradox of Adolf Hitler. We can see this paradox at work in … Continue reading »
The conversion of Pope Francis
When Pope Francis arrives in Ireland this August to officiate at the Vatican’s triennial World Meeting of Families, the pontiff will be landing in a country that has changed almost beyond recognition over his lifetime. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J, first visited Ireland in 1980 when Ireland was still one of the most observant Catholic countries in … Continue reading »
For the love of the local newspaper
Regional publications do work that really matters to their communities. And local journalists know it in their bones. A fatal single-engine plane crash in a corn field was the first story I ever covered for a local newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette. Life and death. That’s the bread and butter of local newspapers. The obituaries are among … Continue reading »
A small reach for gender parity at tech conferences can produce big gains
I was part of the second class of undergraduate women at Williams College, which became co-educational in 1970 after nearly 200 years of being an all-male enclave – and for many of those years, all-white as well. I became accustomed to being one of the only women in a classroom. I didn’t have a single … Continue reading »
MLK: an enduring and great teacher
This is cross-posted from the Haas Institute Blog of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. This week people all across the world are pausing to acknowledge the incredible life and the tragic death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I always deliberately include the “Reverend” in his title as we … Continue reading »
Focus on the source of most satisfaction, not consumption
Buying stuff can make you happy for a short time. But you will revert to needing another happiness boost by buying even more stuff. We can, however, replace the boom and bust of a consumption-driven search for satisfaction with lives that are more fulfilling and economically sustainable.
Facebook and the humanities: Pondering what would Oedipus do
No less disturbing than the recent news that the personal data of millions of Americans was culled from Facebook by the shady research firm Cambridge Analytica and provided to the Trump campaign, has been the behavior of the masters of Silicon Valley. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has so far been mostly silent. This … Continue reading »
Why doesn’t the American public use its power over the gun business?
As teenagers in Parkland, Florida, dressed for the funerals of their friends – the latest victims of a mass shooting in the U.S. – weary outrage poured forth on social media and in op-eds across the country. Once again, survivors, victims’ families and critics of U.S. gun laws demanded action to address the never-ending cycle of mass shootings and routine violence ravaging American … Continue reading »
Billy Graham’s missed opportunities
As one of world Christianity’s most admired leaders, the Rev. Billy Graham, who died on Wednesday at 99, had extraordinary opportunities to affect the character of the Christian religion and to pronounce on its implications for personal conduct. He scored at the top of lists of “most respected” Americans decade after decade. He was loved … Continue reading »