Building Sustainable, Local, Equitable, Economies
AI, College Plagiarism and Existential Crises: Reimagine Higher Ed.
I spent thirty years teaching college social science courses, developing strategies for dealing with plagiarism. Receiving a copied paper was always the most painful part of the job. I tried to develop assignments so unique that it would be impossible to find something already written. Now that AI is writing college essays for students, the game is transformed. I suggest abandoning the research and essay enterprise altogether. Forget thinking outside the box: throw away that old rectangle completely. The crises of our 21st century world demand a new higher education. Here is what I’m...
Our Existential Crises Are More Fundamental Than AI
What does it mean to have an existential crisis? According to the World Health Organization, half the population of humans on the planet lack water for sanitation, and a third lack safe drinking water. Surely, we can not exist without water. The World Food Programme tells us 828 million people do not have enough food. The crisis has grown since 2020. We are moving in the wrong direction. Certianly we do not exist without food. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists tells us the Nuclear War doomsday clock is 90 seconds from midnight, the closest to Armageddon that it has ever been since it was...
War in Ukraine. Lessons From A Century Ago
I have a friend who is Ukrainian and Russian. We never talked politics. I have not heard from her since the war began. I write today with her in mind. Never have I known so many good people with such opposing perspectives, as those on the war in Ukraine. Unlike political leaders motivated by the desire to control territory and resources, the people I know are, like me, motivated by the desire for peace and justice. A century and a decade ago the world burned up its youth in a global conflagration. My child, who had great-grandparents on opposite sides of World War I, is now graduating with...
Book Tour Journal: Tornados and Hurricanes, Human and Natural.
We were in Montgomery when tornados devastated downtown Selma, on January 12, hitting urban and rural regions across Georgia and Alabama, and killing at least eight people. In the morning we had considered riding to Selma, stopping to take in the art and public history sites erected by the National Park Service, that commemorate the three 1965 Civil Rights Marches between the two cities, but decided instead to stay out of the car. We were in the Alabama State History museum, a perfect fortress for waiting out a storm, when the tornado hit. We were oblivious to it. The tornado skirted...
Dear Pastor Senator Warnock
Dear Pastor Senator Warnock, I am glad you won your re-election! I was in your hometown of Savannah on your election day, December 6, 2022. I walked by your old high school and the project housing where you grew up. I saw the economic/racial divide that was the theater of your childhood. Though you grew up in the post Jim Crow era and went to an integrated high school you did not grow up in post- racist society. I could see just how far your road to the US Senate has been. The race/class divide in Savannah, in Georgia, in the United States, is still extreme in 2022. In Savannah it...
Bookstores are Political
Bookstores are political. Today there are the those that have banned-book clubs and offer space to Trans support groups. They feature the works of Black, Indigenous, Latine and LGBTQ authors and subjects. “Labor” is a section, and so is “AAPI.” Genocide is a fact of history, and children can learn about menstruation in a book. And then there are the ones where People of Color are absent, all characters are straight, personal failings are big and social struggle is not. And then there the ones who think they can be “neutral on this moving train.” (Zinn). You can get every Stephen King book...
My Grandparents’ Rent Control Apartment in Queens
At a recent community forum on rent stabilization in Minneapolis, my City Council member argued that rent control was not a good instrument for addressing poverty or racism because it also benefits well-off white renters, or people who are low income when they first move in, but still benefit when they become well-off. ‘Even though they financially no longer need it,’ she said, ‘they stay in the rent-controlled apartment because it is too good of a deal.’ The comment made me think about my grandparents who lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Queens, New York City. Moving in as refugees...
Bicyclists Should be Disability and Mass Transit Advocates
A rail conductor and bicyclist we stayed with when my spouse and I biked the contiguous perimeter of the US, rode passenger trains up the California coast. He told us that there was plenty of room on the federal rail lands for both trains and paved trails. Bicyclists commuters, recreational riders and, especially tourers, are heavy users of the commons. We ride roads and trails. We are delighted when those trails lead to parks where we can picnic, and public arenas like museums etc. that can be shelter and entertain us. We give bonus points for public restrooms. If we commute, buses...
Calling up the Nineteenth Century to Understand our Own Times. Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth, Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered and Tony Horowitz’s Spying on the South
Annette Gordon-Reed, and Barbara Kingsolver are writers grounded in history, science, and Tony Horowitz was a writer steeped in evidence, yet reading On Juneteenth, Unsheltered, and Spying on the South together, felt like a mystical retreat with three mediums, channeling the 19th century to answer 21stcentury questions. Kingsolver and Horwitz wrote during the 2016 election and early period of the Trump administration. Gordon-Reed wrote during the summer of 2020 with the early pandemic and uprising against police brutality in her backdrop. Kingsolver was reading Naomi Klein’s This Changes...
The Aspiring Intersectional Feminist Traveler
I am preparing to be interviewed by the Intrepid Traveler. That caused me to consider, what kind of traveler am I? I am not intrepid. I travel loaded with fears and cautions. I think I am an aspiring Intersectional Feminist Traveler. What does it mean to be an Intersectional Feminist Traveler? It means I think about the use of spaces. I think about resources, access, and sustainability. I try not to accept status quo inequalities as natural. I question what is, envision a new world order, and find ways to share that vision. When I enter a new place, I think about: Housing, Education,...