Charles Manson finally died last night, at 11:13pm Eastern Time Sunday. I don’t think anyone who is too young to personally remember the 1960s can come close to understanding why his particular brand of evil never quite faded, and why he still received about four fan letters daily until his death. I believe that the […]
AltFacts, really meant as a joke about national-level distortion of information, took on a frightening new meaning locally in November, when a series of ugly police-related incidents spiraled out of control. Now, with social media, information distortion can truly explode into digital panic. On one day, two police incidents that felt related took place. In one, […]
Village of the Damned As our childish, lip-pursing President Tweetybird continues to fill in his top echelon of advisors and Cabinet members with people chosen from a casting call of incompetents, Phillipe and Jorge are becoming alarmed at the way these people look. That is to say, if you saw them coming toward you on […]
It has been one year since Donald Trump was elected president. Though change is blessedly — or painfully, depending on your political leanings — slow, his election has certainly had an impact. Some organizations and individuals are reacting with fear, changing policies and making life decisions based on what might be, and no one […]
One year after Trump’s election finds the economy in many ways stronger than before the election. How much of that can be attributed to the current administration? Probably very little. The stock market has certainly gone up – about 20% in the past year. Corporate earnings are up, which is related, and much of this […]
A year after the 2016 election, the same questions persist that have poked at the arts community for decades prior. The open debate about the roles of race, gender and sexual identity in this freshly riven society is not new, so much as it is in high relief. The echo chambers within the arts have […]
“The proudest empire in Europe is but a bubble compared to what America will be, must be, in the course of two centuries – perhaps of one,” wrote Gouverneur Morris in 1800, who is most remembered for drafting the text of the Constitution, beginning with the words “We the People.” What motivated Morris’ prediction was […]
On November 9, 2016, my 5-year-old daughter asked me what was wrong. “Donald Trump was elected president,” I replied. Cue the wailing and rending of garments. Audrey was upset, too. My wife was much more measured in her response. She asked, “What can we do about it?” So, I ventured online for answers. There, in […]
Crowd stress is nothing new. Back in the ’90s, I was an on-air therapist for a reality-cam house full of 20-somethings in Boston. Without exception, the number one fear they all had was entering a crowded place where they didn’t know anybody. The unknown is a formless dark specter that looms out of our control at […]
I stood within a sea of black umbrellas outside the Louvre. We held them at arm’s length toward the cameras – black circles emblazoned with white letters spelling the words “Fossil Free Culture” as the French police watched closely. We called for the Louvre to divest, for society to divest, for the international […]