Seeing Privilege

It’s going to take a while.  I don’t want to speak for blacks, but from my perspective being a black man with what I have observed in my lifetime, I will feel as though I’m going to be shortchanged because of the history behind us.  I will feel that until I see some definite improvement.  If  they tell you that you can be equal, but you never make any gains, you’re going… Read More

Year Three Begins: Change in Everyday America

Two years ago, today I was interviewing Kate and Georgiana, #s 002 and 003 on the EX:Change.  They are both women in the middle of their careers.  They are both artists and teachers.  I was interviewing them about change, the word and the concept that had gained such notoriety in the 2008 presidential election. Kate said this: “It’s really my strength and my weakness, this penchant for change.  I can get impatient… Read More

Tucson, 9/11 and a Publication Date (!)

It’s happening!  The EX:Change project’s interviews from early 2009 are going into a book.  The tentative title – You Say Change, We Say….   And Loud Mouth (http://www.loudmouthpress.org/) is the perfect publisher – a nonprofit in Brooklyn devoted to issues of social importance.  Here’s one thing they say about themselves.  “Our projects offer an innovative, creative and artistic perspective on important topics that concern the entire human family.”  Cool, huh?  Fortunately, the… Read More

Procrastination and a Nation’s Hostility Habit: When a Congresswoman has Been Shot in the Head

It is shortly after 1:00 in the afternoon in the Starbucks on 28th and E. Burnside in Portland, Oregon.  It’s Adam’s last day as a barista here.  He’s off for a full-time gig in a fusion restaurant downtown.  My friend Doug just walked by and came in for a chat.  He’s a bartender who, for the first time in two decades, didn’t have to work New Year’s Eve.  “Nothing more renewing than… Read More

New Year’s Story

I live in a house that was built in 1898.  It’s my home.  And it’s home to my daughter, even as she lives her new and bountiful adult life 6000 miles away for now. I’ve been paying on my mortgage for 9 years now.  I’m one of the lucky ones for whom timing and other circumstances have made “ownership” possible.  I love my home. There is a man.  A white man who… Read More

Intersections

Walking south on NE 28th Ave. under my new umbrella (the other one blew out in yesterday’s storm), I came to the corner at Flanders St.  A man in full raingear – the heavy orange plastic stuff – stood on tiptoes behind an enormous canvass sign.  The sign was as orange as the man.  Although a square, it was situated as a diamond to warn oncoming traffic of the roadwork ahead. The… Read More

Only a Person

Yesterday evening I walked into the little Whole Foods in my neighborhood.  It was actually more like late afternoon on a typically chilly, misty and too-soon-dark December 1 in Oregon.  But, I needed B vitamins and am always looking for a motive to get a bit of walking. I walked into the warmth of the store, headed toward the supplement area and turned a corner to see an older Tibetan man adorned… Read More

Taxis, TSA & the Imprecision of Communication

Tuesday night I was in a Taxi in San Francisco.  My companion and I sat in the back seat comfortable after another in a two-day series of divine dining experiences.  Earlier in the evening we had walked downtown sidewalks under a sky defined by elegant angles of glass and steel reaching to frame the gibbous moon and Venus where they glittered in their particular harmony.  We were looking for the Mexican fusion… Read More