Dear Mr. Salort-Pons, Mr. Gargaro, DIA board members, and DIA senior leadership,
It is with great sadness that I write this letter to the leaders of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), but I cannot watch what is happening to an institution I have long loved and remain silent any…
Like so many others, I am distraught over the insurrectionists who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol this afternoon: January 6, 2021. Today’s events clearly owe their lineage to a president (perhaps our first of this kind) who has never had faith in the American government, and has shared…
“There may be setbacks and disappointments, but I believe we are on our way to a better place.” —John Lewis, foreword, Barack Obama: The Official Inaugural Book, 2009
Representative John Lewis (1940–2020) is being widely remembered and mourned today. My voice is by far not the most prestigious one in…
It’s hard to reckon with the Fourth of July this year. More than any other time in my lifetime, we feel not like a country united, but a country radically divided — divided by ideology, by skin color, by income — and also physically divided by a worldwide pandemic that…
“I’m doing the best I can,” he says, “but there are just too many of them. And even if it was just one or two, there’s not much I can do for them. Do you understand me?”
“I understand,” you say….
“I know you know, Jacob,” he says, and yawns…
Maybe *You’re* the Jerk: A List of Hypotheticals of Use in Working with Humans
It happened again. Your totally reasonable request to a coworker was rejected with an unwarranted degree of malice, and perhaps a choice dig or two at you as well.
Wow, you think. What a jerk.
But…
Last night, I was fortunate enough to see Mavis Staples perform at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor.
If you don’t know who Mavis Staples is, you have been deprived. Just a few lines from her website’s biography give you a sense of the scope and impact of her career:
…
My sister and I throw around the acronym DPPWE: “It’s 6:30 and I’m still at work, cause DPPWE,” or “I’m technically off today but finishing this report from home — thanks, DPPWE.”
DPPWE stands for “Damn Parents’ Protestant* Work Ethic,” part of the set of values our parents instilled in…
I read a lot, and as I go, I collect quotes that strike me — whether because they so closely match my view of the world, they introduce interesting new ideas, or they are just so exceptionally phrased. During 2019, I saved over 500 quotations from books, articles, and poems…
I read a lot, and as I go, I collect quotes that strike me — whether because they so closely match my view of the world, they introduce interesting new ideas, or they are just so exceptionally phrased. During 2019, I saved over 500 quotations from books, articles, and poems…
