Climate — Listening to know for sure

I have a friend in South Dakota who lives in a town that flooded last month.  It was near completely under water.  I have another friend who lives in Akiak, Alaska who told me about the tundra taking on a smell, thawing for the first time in his life or in the lives of his ancestors who have lived there for many thousand years.  Then there was the photo my dad managed to… Read More

The Day after Independence Day

Feelin’ it?  The independence? Last night I sat under a sky that, after a day blanketed with marine clouds, cleared for this:  The exquisite blues riffed from Curtis Salgado’s voice and Lloyd Jones’ fingers dancing the way they do on the neck of his guitar.  But that’s not all.  The music those guys sent into the air around the Willamette River bounced off the buildings of the city, soaked into the vast… Read More

Listening Across Difference — We’re all in this together, Pt.2

“We’re not as divided as the media tell us we are.” “Good luck.  We need this — to know what Americans are really thinking.”  baristas at the Starbucks in York, NE Only two days into the EX:Change road trip the Mini Cooper’s front end came between me and the sturdy steel pole of a highway sign.  At the time, I was blissfully if distractedly motoring south on U.S. Route 97, the stretch… Read More