Blog Posts for Arlene Goldbard

Patriotism's Double Edge

Arlene Goldbard — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:05:38 -0800

A kind reader directed me to The Singing Revolution, a film on Estonians' movement to regain their independence from the Soviet Union, highlighting the special role music played in the sustenance of spirit and solidarity. And also, for me, a film on the double meaning of patriotism, both a shining strength—the indispensable key to independence—and a stupefying weakness, the excuse to elide ...

Time of Mystery

Arlene Goldbard — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:36:44 -0800

As the days shorten, I like to walk at four o'clock, when the light turns thick and golden. Everything it touches seems suspended in honey: the waterbird puffing out its feathers to keep warm, the egret gliding by, the tight, lonely clump of sky-blue ceanothus clinging bravely to life, the pile of dog poop a previous walker has left in my path. The democracy of light. The tide is low, the ...

Change and That Other Thing

Arlene Goldbard — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:04:58 -0800

President Obama has appointed 25 new members to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, a Reagan-era creation that combines representatives of federal cultural agencies (i.e., National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the U. S. Department of Education, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery ...

The Embedded and The Revealed

Arlene Goldbard — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:09:31 -0800

I've begun to see our perceptual capacities as a kind of funhouse (only not always so much fun). Our paths to clear sight are blocked here by obstacles, there by distorting mirrors. It's easiest to spot the places a fellow-traveler has been tricked into thinking a mirror is a window; and hardest when we find ourselves walking smack into a wall, serenely confident until the last second that we ...

Practicing Cultural Citizenship: A New Framework Launches

Arlene Goldbard — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:38:52 -0700

I'm not known for the brevity of my blogposts, but if I had the power to command, this one would consist of three short sentences: Go here and read the Framework. Go here and sign on as an endorser. Go here and share your stories of culture and community. You can do all those things now, then come back and read the rest, okay? But in case you want to be persuaded first, let me try. Art & ...

Change of Scene

Arlene Goldbard — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:43:57 -0700

Some people blog every day—or at least at regular intervals—but having a blog has been fun for me because I gave myself permission, early on, to write only when a topic taps me on the shoulder, demanding attention. Lately, the intervals have been getting longer and most of the taps come from outside—new developments in cultural politics, things like that. As for the inner taps, it isn't ...

An Open Letter to President Obama: Repairing Democracy

Arlene Goldbard — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:59:50 -0700

Dear President Obama: I appreciated your Rosh HaShanah message to Jewish Americans last week, especially the line that read, "Let us resist prejudice, intolerance, and indifference in whatever forms they may take." You declared that on this occasion, "We rededicate ourselves to the work of repairing this world." The time has come to translate these words into action. I want ...

Annals of Scapegoating, Part Two: Yosi Sergant

Arlene Goldbard — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:41:59 -0700

Three days ago, in an essay about the scapegoating of green jobs advisor Van Jones, who was hounded out of office by wingnut Fox commentator Glenn Beck, I wrote this: We must act now to put a brake on scapegoating before it once again becomes the force that controls public life. The issue will not die down when headlines about Van Jones have faded. Now that Beck has tasted blood, his appetite ...

Repenting Silence: The Scapegoating of Van Jones

Arlene Goldbard — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:45:53 -0700

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Dr. Martin Luther King In the Hebrew calendar, this is the time of t'shuvah, literally turning, but often translated as repentance. In preparation for the new year, we inventory our missteps, the damage we have done and the damage ...

Customer Service

Arlene Goldbard — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:52:10 -0700

After three months of accepting the boundless hospitality of lovely friends, I am moving into a new apartment, less than a mile along my beloved Bay walk from the house in Richmond where I wrote so many of the essays posted to my blog since 2004. Most of my possessions won't arrive for a couple of weeks. Although I'm looking forward to things like cooking in my own kitchen, which entails ...