Archive

Designing for Data Literacy in the Age of Post-Truth

We should use our tool­box to make com­plex­i­ty under­stand­able. We need to use the tools at our dis­pos­al to build data lit­er­a­cy by show­ing the con­text that data exists in. Because with that data, and with con­text around the data, we’ll be able to build understanding…

Disposable Life: Zygmunt Bauman

In pre-modern soci­eties there was no idea of waste; every­thing was going back into life—recycled, as we would say today. If there were more chil­dren com­ing into the world in a fam­i­ly, then obvi­ous­ly there was room for them, and extra work some­where in the farm­yard, in the field, in the sta­ble. And of course a place around the table. So the idea of being redun­dant, hav­ing no place in soci­ety, sim­ply did­n’t occur. 

Define American

The real­i­ty is we have been so busy call­ing peo­ple names, obsess­ing over bor­ders and walls, and spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion that we haven’t even asked hard ques­tions like why do peo­ple move? What does US for­eign pol­i­cy and US trade agree­ments have to do with migra­tion pat­terns? Remember when those chil­dren start­ed walk­ing from Central America to here, and CBS News and a lot of orga­ni­za­tions called them ille­gal immi­grant” chil­dren instead of call­ing them the refugees that they are? What did we do to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala so that their coun­tries got so vio­lent that they have to come here? Who start­ed the drug war? What did NAFTA do not only to the United States but to Mexicans, right?

The Conversation #49 — Scott Douglas

People think that the Civil Rights Movement and all big epochal move­ments involve con­science, and they do. They also involve con­scious­ness. I mean, you can’t strug­gle against what you’re unaware off, right? The Klan as the icon­ic car­ri­ers of vio­lence, the Bull Connor of the icon­ic south­ern white male resis­tance, George Wallace the icon­ic neopop­ulist racist. You know, these were his­toric fig­ures in myth and real­i­ty. But we would­n’t get to what they rep­re­sent­ed till much later.

The Conversation #1 — Reverend John Fife

What has redeemed the faith com­mu­ni­ty through­out the cen­turies of his­to­ry has been that there has always been a sec­tor of the faith that has not sold out, that has recalled the gen­uine moral and eth­i­cal val­ues of that faith and its tra­di­tion, and has renewed that, and there­fore moved the agen­da into the future, that is moral and eth­i­cal and just.