If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
So, how did I get the best seat in the house, an upper box hanging over the front of the stage? Just lucky, I guess.
Like many of you, I have been horrified by the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by another Ariel -- Ariel Castro.
Years ago, I escaped from 18 years of an abusive situation -- and I know that it isn't chains that hold you. I was not tied in a basement. I could have found a way to escape. But my chains were mental and proved to be a much stronger binding than any physical restraint could have been.
To feel the full force of Ramsey's statement, you have to know something about the history of race relations in this nation and in particular about the role that white woman have played -- or been made to play -- in the incrimination and lynching of black men.
We have to be more sensitive to such wake-up calls, before our communities turn into a complete "collection of strangers."
I Am Charles Ramsey and Sweet Brown: "You Do What You Have To Do" and "Aint Nobody Got Time For Dat"
Many laugh when they watch the Charles Ramsey and Sweet Brown interviews, but the joke is really quite sad.
All of us contribute to this unequal system of values. When a pretty, blond young woman from a prominent, wealthy family goes missing, we follow the media stories of the search for months. Neighborhoods that do not have such influence are invisible. So, how do we see?
When I saw the news this week out of Cleveland about the women who'd been held captive since they were kidnapped as teenagers, I asked myself the questions that we all asked as the details came out. Most of the questions started with How?
I've now watched the taped phone call between Amanda Berry and her grandmother and I wish I had never seen that. She deserves for that to be a private and a protected moment.
Maybe we should spend less time being curious about the female victims and more time asking ourselves as men, "What can we do to resist this age-old male drive to dominate and have power over women?"
Cleveland, home of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Paul Newman, now has another bit of notable fact...three women, recovered after being kidnapped for ten years by three brothers...it's almost like a fractured fairy tale, except that the moral lesson may be harder to find.
I hate that we have to live in a "just in case" world. It's too bad we have to take all these precautions. It's unbelievably sad we have to take all these precautions but we do and stories like the one in Cleveland prove it.
The problems that you see startups tackling are dramatically different in different cities. Silicon Valley is unlikely to produce the same set of companies as New York or Cleveland because the region has a different set of strengths and defining institutions.
The "art" of "Capitalism Works for Me!" isn't necessarily in the LED sign and voting machine, it's in how people are confronted with a question that is both very public and very personal.
Right now, a specially-commissioned play is touring schools in 12 Ohio counties, bringing theatre to kids so that they don't have to leave school, ride a bus and miss out on mandated teaching programs.
Burlington, Vermont, nestled just below the border of Canada, is a charming town with a fittingly charming little airport. Its pedestrian-only main drag, Church Street, feels just like England. Everyone I met was astounded that this was my first visit to Vermont.
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