As an artist who cares about the environment, I am keenly aware of all the stuff I put into the world when I make things. I am also aware of the resources I consume in making those things. We have reached critical mass with over-consumption and over-production in society, especially American society. Visit any antique store and look at all the useless crap that sits on shelves, of no real purpose other than having something…
I found an article from Smithsonian.com that discusses frisson, that delightful feeling of chills that overcomes you when listening to stirring music. I experience frisson all the time with music. Apparently not everyone does. (Dang, that would stink!) According to the article, “The researchers found that the brains of individuals who occasionally feel a chill while listening to music were wired differently than the control subjects. They had more nerve fibers connecting the auditory cortex, the…
I belong to the flood of women in the world that have a #MeToo story. In a continuum from sexism to sexual harassment to rape and other forms of violence, I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a woman anywhere who hasn’t got a #MeToo story. And when you include sexist policies baked into the governance of many cultures, we’re all affected to varying degrees. Because sexual harassment is so pervasive, it seems easy to…
In the latest dust-up between President Trump and the NFL, in which the President tweeted that NFL players who took a knee to protest racism during the National Anthem should be fired for being unpatriotic, there are people on social media telling us not to be distracted. They are indicating this is an issue manufactured by the President to sidetrack us from the destruction of the Affordable Care Act and the Russian investigation. Such comments…
Donald Trump, who can’t seem to get over the fact that he won the election, retweeted a 2016 election map that shows pretty much the entire country in red, emphasizing the precincts that gave him a majority of their votes. The map purposely attempts to display that “everyone” in vast swaths of the United States voted for him. Unfortunately, this map lacks any nuance. Even in my county, which provided over 70% of its votes…