January 2019 – Semaphore & Cairn
3 posts published by Ken Smith during January 2019| Semaphore & Cairn
3 posts published by Ken Smith during January 2019| Semaphore & Cairn
Today Jay Rosen describes and asks about the perversely self-reinforcing system that is threatening us all: This reminds me of Vaclav Havel’s central essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” which is sometimes reprinted in a longer book by the same name. (Not sure, but I think I recall that Jay Rosen is an admirer of … Continue reading The trap of the system→| Semaphore & Cairn
So many prepackaged memes we can all post are out there, some thoughtful and some seemingly not so much. I wonder if we have a chance to get the two political parties to improve, to be more responsive, if we keep sending each other kinda-true, sorta-true, maybe-not-very-true meme postings and comments instead of trying to … Continue reading The darkness around us is deep→| Semaphore & Cairn
I have to miss most of today’s campus meeting about this, sorry to say, so I am sending these notes on ahead. Why I turn to Twitter: Open notebook. Of course you have to “follow” selectively, but no matter what topic interests you, there are thoughtful, well-read people tracking their work, their thinking, their reading, … Continue reading Why this academic turns to Twitter→| Semaphore & Cairn
It feels more like America when our willful, crude, chaotic President Trump loses control of the national conversation. There’s a beautiful episode several years before the Communist government began to crumble in Czechoslovakia, when Vaclav Havel strategized about no longer reacting to the actions of the tyrannical government but making the government react to him … Continue reading Feels more like America→| Semaphore & Cairn
Being educated means: Being able to make an informed decision about the story the country likes to tell about itself. Having the tools to speak and organize as a citizen. Without these basic moves, we’re trapped in the story, yes?| Semaphore & Cairn
“If it doesn’t have a feed it isn’t a podcast,” Dave Winer wrote and then defined further. This is what I thought at first he meant: No feed? You won’t know something has been published until you go looking for it. The new publication sits stewing in its electron suit, wanting to go out, hoping … Continue reading If it doesn’t have a feed→| Semaphore & Cairn
Trying to understand a difficult sentence about the chances we humans might have of not completely destroying ourselves, a difficult sentence uttered by Gabriel García Márquez in the final paragraph of his 1982 Nobel Lecture, I wrote two new versions. First, let me say that I can’t evaluate the original in Spanish with any skill: … Continue reading Art in the last hour of restorative human possibility→| Semaphore & Cairn
I feel powerless, I admit. But that’s not good enough. I know I’m not alone in feeling powerless. I assume that when half of my country’s citizens don’t vote, it’s partially because huge numbers of them also feel powerless. Well, that’s not good enough either. People I respect feel powerless. I can tell from their … Continue reading Powerless: not good enough→| Semaphore & Cairn
Concerning climate change, Christopher Lydon believes people have a “hunger for clarity on a street corner, and candor about the pickle we’re in.” That need has recently been sati…| Semaphore & Cairn
“Is the Green New Deal For Real?” Radio Open Source’s January 2019 episode that asks question in worthy detail. But about 19:16 minutes in, Christopher Lydon’s second guest,…| Semaphore & Cairn
We owe a great debt to experts. They got us to the moon before our enemies; they saved my father’s life in the ICU years ago; they made this truly beautiful machine I am typing on right now; they c…| Semaphore & Cairn
