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Comedians as Today's Prophets
In an article titled "How Comedians Become Public Intellectuals" in The Atlantic, Megan Garber contends that there is a difference between the comedians we used to see on TV, who treated jokes as an…
A Confluence of Time, Culture, Deaths, and Politics
I have been using black binders to store my writings, reviews, and quotations by others since 1969 when Mary Ann and I started Cultural Information Service, which morphed over the years into Living …
Cell Phone Abuse
You have purposely gone out of your way to find a quiet spot in the airport where you can read your book. But before you can blink, a man strolls up talking very loudly on his cell phone. He talks o…
A Meditation on Hope and Despair
In brainpickings.org, Maria Popova presents a soulful meditation and affirmation of Rebecca Solnit's revised 2016 edition of her collection of essays titled Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild …
Words That Compel Us to Dive Deep
This article in Psychology Today by Susan Krauss Whitbourne caught my attention because in 2018 I found myself using the word "toxic" more than usual. It seems that this has been true for many peopl…
Michael Moore on Broadway
In an article in The New York Times, Dave Itzkoff describes filmmaker and comedian Michael Moore as "a 63-year-old hybrid of Noam Chomsky and P. T. Barnum." Now he's coming to Broadway. The Terms of…
Mapping Culture through a TV Competition
In a spunky article on theconversation.com, Katherine Meizel tallies up the impact of the American Idol TV show. She sees it as "a kind of guidebook for our entry into the 21st century." The show ha…
Confronting Ageism
In 1968 gerontologist Robert Butler coined the term "ageism" to describe the many ways in which society discriminates against the old. Maggie Kuhn formed the Gray Panthers in 1972 as a network of ol…
Making Movies that Reflect Human Values
Haskell Wexler (1922-2015), who died peacefully in his sleep on December 27, was a socially conscious cinematographer who believed in art as a means of reflecting human values. On Common Dreams, Abb…
The Reframing of Zeitgeist
In an article on Slate.com, Katy Waldman recalls how the term "Zeitgeist" used to carry meaning and depth: "A zeitgeist was a formidable thing. Matthew Arnold coined the term in 1848 to capture the …
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