Twenty five years ago this month, the video of Rodney King being beaten, clubbed, kicked, and stomped by a gang of police went viral before going viral was a thing. Eighty-nine seconds of unmistakable brutality repeatedly looped, dissected, and discussed. A year later, the defense attorney’s frame-by-frame deconstruction of King’s beating successfully convinced an all … Continue reading »
social change
The World Cup begins
Starting today, the world’s attention turns to Brazil, where the 2014 World Cup begins. From cafés in Ramallah, to bars in Kampala, to a pub in Cambridge (where I’ll be watching), people of all ages will be shouting frantically at televisions, sometimes screaming in agony, other times delighting in joy. A truly global moment, the … Continue reading »
Which radical ideas come true?
It’s 1974. Richard Nixon resigns the presidency; Barbara Streisand is singing, “The Way We Were” all over the radio (that music-playing thing before the internet); and you could buy a hand calculator that could only add, subtract, multiply, and divide for, in today’s currency, $100. Someone asks you: Here are three pretty radical ideas – which do … Continue reading »
King’s evolving Dream
It is that time to pause and think about the incredible life and contributions of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., oftentimes referred to as MLK. He was named Michael King Jr. after his father — who later changed both their names to Martin Luther, in honor of the religious reformer. Like many icons, … Continue reading »
Slavery’s heavy hand
In an earlier post, I mused about the notion of the “heavy hand of history,” the idea that long-past conditions pull us in certain directions even generations after the fateful events. One of the very earliest users of the phrase, in 1944, was an eminent psychologist who was trying to understand the situation of African … Continue reading »
More on Occupy
Last week’s post on the OWS Movement, “Occupy! Now What?,” got more than the usual attention – in part perhaps because it was re-posted on The Berkeley Blog just about the time that the police roughed up defenders of the tents at the campus occupation. The interest led me to re-check my notions about the … Continue reading »
The big change
What’s the biggest change in the American way of life in the last 50-60 years? There are a lot of candidates: the coming of new technologies, especially the computer and internet; the end of the post-war boom and the start of economic stagnation for average Americans; much more liberal and open sexual mores; the dismantling … Continue reading »