Clare Consultation, LLCYear 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
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
Like Water, Like Air — the Voices of Change Don’t Go Away
There’s this – the EX:Change blog. And there are my still-steady attempts at catching the attention of the trade publishing industry. And then, proving that like water or air the EX:Change voices are here to stay, there’s the stealth-EX:Change…. From the beginning, dozens of volunteers have donated time, energy and BRILLIANCE to the EX:Change project. Most recently, two of these near unimaginably talented people (really – no overstatement is possible here) have… Read More
Change: Who Cares?
So here we are, lots of us feeling somehow betrayed with many of the most vocal folks on both ends of the conservative/progressive spectrum heavy into tape loops of public diatribe. The change just isn’t right. It falls short. It isn’t giving the same feel we signed on for during the campaigns. The pressing issue here in the middle of the EX:Change project is finding the right words to answer a question… Read More
Oil Spills, Financial Crises and the EX:Change Voices Who Will Inherit It All
This morning I had tea in a coffee shop in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur, GA. Yep, back in Georgia. In fact, as I type, I’m sitting in front of the courthouse in the photo atop the February 27, 2009 blog entry from the EX:Change Road Trip (EX:C blog, The Heart of Dixie). Family lives here. I’m visiting. Thus tea in Oakhurst. I sat at the table with a grandmother, two moms… Read More
Be the Change
“We need to ‘be the change,’ – Gandhi – ‘we want to see in the world.’ I think we’re ready.” Tara Loyd Remember Tara and Brett from last week? You already know they are good at listening to one another even though they often don’t agree – especially on matters political. A thing they did agree on was the necessity for being active parts of the public changes they want to see. … 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
Dayenu: You gave us freedom, and that would have been enough.
“Maybe the most empowered change is to work to be less ignorant. We’re all ignorant and it’s a life long struggle. If we commit ourselves to do our best to be wrong less frequently, well, that’s about the best we can do.” Peter Frishauf Last night I sat at a table with eight dear friends from two families. Four of them are teenagers. The rest of us are parents – you know,… Read More