This phrase is the title of an essay in All We Can Save. It lives in the Nourish section of the book, nestled between “Black Gold” and “The Seed Underground.” “God is change,” claims Octavia Butler. “Water is in constant flux,” says Judith D. Schwartz. It’s not like we didn’t know things were changing. The land knew. The animals knew.…
An elegy
Democracy isn’t a state of being, it is a process. To be democratic, to live in democracy, is to participate boldly with our neighbors in the collaborative decision making that is governance. We’ve seen many instances in the last 40 years of anti-democratic movements gaining momentum. But we have to ask ourselves, do we truly want to be a democracy?…
The Nature of Desert Nature
Ostensibly, editor Gary Paul Nabhan’s collection of friends’ essays, The Nature of Desert Nature is about the desert. Rather … it’s human nature that we encounter delving into this collection of essays. The writers reminisce on their own beingness as they encountering one specific desert: the Sonoran. The Sonoron is the desert covers vast area in the Southwest United States…
The LEWIS Registry
The folks from the USC Safe Communities Institute stopped by to talk to me about the new LEWIS Registry. The Registry is a crowdsourced public database for police officers who have been fired or resigned during an investigation of their behavior. In addition to the front, public-facing, end there is a backend for use by Law Enforcement. The team at…
10 books, 15 series … 2020
When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back: Carl’s Book by Naji Marie Aidt, Denise Newman (translator) This was one of the first things I read in 2020 – I should reread it again. It feels like something everyone in the world should have read in 2020. About grief and living with it. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by…
On trolling in academia
The nickname we have for persistent, consistent societal problems is wicked problems. These issues are complex. These problems are pervasive. They are a result of decades (centuries) of institutional policy build up on top of so many other forces. There was a recent opinion in Inside Higher Ed in which a Professor Jim Moore laments the unwillingness of “certain” communities…
to watch on bad days
A dismal 2049 to look forward to …
Not a week for finishing things. It was a hard week. Beginning with late night Sunday news from Las Vegas … being glued to the news all Monday, followed by a scare at USC. Everything felt on edge, a little too bright, a little to brittle. Breakable and fragile. It was a week for hugs. For discussing solutions with smart…
Hard to find the words
This Monday is particularly hard to get this started. Another mass shooting, another round of “if it wasn’t a white man” and “now isn’t the time to debate policy.” Without knowing what motivated this man, this white middle aged man, we won’t know if it was religiously or politically motivated. I hope they find some reason, the senselessness feels overwhelming.…
#TakeAKnee to Take a Stand
Well, it’s officially Fall. While it doesn’t seem like most of the country feels the cool, crisp, breezes yet, LA is finally seeing a bit of a cool-off.
Monday, September 25, 2017. Last week in review.
Reading: from Jane Austen to Claudia Rankine. From sports and racism to empathy and storytelling.
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