Howard Zinn (Photo: History is a Weapon) What is left to be said? Ten days in, I have read hundreds of opinions about the outcome of the election, conversed with sympathetic friends and family, sought for ways to stay grounded in this increasingly surreal landscape we now share in the United States. For all the […]
Politics
- Art Making
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Benedictions
Sally Mann (Photo: Liz Liguori) Finding fully immersive distractions to defend against the relentlessly ugly political news has become a daily ritual. Like so many others, I go out each day in search of sustenance in a landscape that has been ravaged by the locusts of lies, hatred and distrust. Protecting the inner landscape and […]
E) All of the Above
Dewey Square in Boston on October 15 On the topic of art and political activism (discussed in my earlier post here): Susana Viola Jacobson, consummate artist and critic, left the following response to that piece. Her thoughts were too good to not share. Very thoughtful piece. I wrestled with this divide for years and finally […]
- Art/Politics
- ...
Both/And
October 15 march and protest in Boston Aligning the work you do with the passions of your heart is not a given. My partner Dave worked for decades before he finally found a way to integrate his professional life with his personal desire to make the world a better place. (His organization, ReachScale, creates public/private […]
- Philosophy
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Weather Patterns
Skyline of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake just after a cloudburst Yesterday I heard an interview with an American journalist on NPR. She has spent most of the last 8 years in Afghanistan reporting on the war. In the process she developed a deep affection for the country and its plight, so much so […]
Poetry and Politics
His Springboard Resolve For his firmness is most fog horn. For he’s darning our fraying hem with fine thread; for he’s following a plan. Be it a progression from detention to due process. Be it a declaration of Middle-East and market collapse mazes unmazed. Be it settled. From this day forward, a little less fetus, […]
Thumbing Through the Dreams
Two of the five poems that appeared on the New York Times op ed page on Wednesday, November 5, the first day of this new chapter in US history: When the Fog When the fog burnt off this morning Outsize JumboTron screens were hanging off the clouds, Scores of them, huge, acres and acres of […]
YEAH!
I am speechless with joy. So is everyone in my world. A message this morning from my friend Thalassa said, “I’m in love with my country again.” I know what you mean, and it feels intoxicating. The crowd in Grant Park. The euphoric celebrations everywhere, even overseas. The newspaper headlines (The Morgen Post in Hamburg […]
Election Day Ponderings: Art, Empathy and Politics
Can you tell that I can’t think about anything other than this election? Until this contest is over, that’s the only channel I’m on. To continue on the theme of my posting below, here is a provocative piece by John Stoehr from the excellent blog, Flyover. This adds yet another dimension to the discussion of […]
A Nation Divided, In Perpetua?
Election Day, finally. I have lost personal access to the timbre of evenhandedness in this political season, so it was with fascination that I read Eve LaPlante’s feature piece in the Boston Globe yesterday. She explores current research that suggests the hard-wired, biological and somewhat predetermined nature of a political point of view. A correlation […]