Been cogitating on a bunch of stuff since last weekend, which saw hundreds of thousands of Grateful Dead fans come to our neck of the woods. I started on one topic but it sort of got out of control so I’m backing off and am going to keep it short here. The upshot is what […]
Twenty-five short years ago, the United States Capitol had no wheelchair ramps. You read that right. The monument that pretty much defines American equality and justice was inaccessible to people using wheelchairs. In 1990, activists in Washington, D.C. struggled out of their wheelchairs and crawled up the Capitol steps to urge lawmakers to pass the […]
Back in college, I took a course called “The History of Communications.” Taught by a Teaching Assistant in the Ph.D. program named Carolyn Marvin (now on the faculty at the Annenberg School at Penn), it was one of those courses that changed the way I looked at things. Forever. The course looked at advances in communications […]
The late great comedian George Carlin said it best: “When you’re born into this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. If You’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” Between the likes of Donald Trump and Rachel Dolezal, This week’s freak show was weirder than usual. The best I can […]
The political scene around these parts continues to depress. Particularly gruesome is the latest news about the head of the Chicago Public Schools being under Federal investigation. But that’s only a part of the ugliness—the conflicts of interest and big-money corruption is rife in a place that has profound ramifications for kids in the system, […]