Commentary
This Inauguration Will Have no Hive Mind
Resistance is futile, according to the Borg from the late, great television show “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The Borg, a group of aliens who wanted to assimilate every being they encountered, aimed to create a hive mind, telling those who fought back, “resistance is futile.” And that, boys and girls, is the incomparable beauty…
Seminaries Part of Metro’s Secret Sauce
Religion in the United States has been in transition for decades, as the percentage of the population identifying as Christian shrinks — and particularly as the religiously unaffiliated population has exploded to nearly 25 percent. The effects have rippled through the Kansas City area’s several seminaries and colleges that offer religious education. “The cultural challenges…
Media: Meet Us Where We Are
I’m long overdue, but I just got around to watching the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” this weekend. As much as I enjoyed the movie, it increased my conflicted feelings regarding today’s reliance on social media and my anger at how far we’ve strayed from traditional media. “Spotlight” was about a Boston Globe investigative team defrocking…
Cliffie’s Final Chapter Isn’t Her Last Story
This past November was probably my toughest month. The election, of course. But I also lost my grandmother exactly two weeks later. There are a lot of people I love in the world, starting with my first love, my mother, but my grandmother and I always had a special kind of love. Our communication dimmed…
Commentary |Walls That Unite
One morning in June 2007, I stopped by the construction site of a Habitat for Humanity house in the 3700 block of Flora Avenue and noticed that work had come to a temporary halt. As I explained soon after that in a Kansas City Star column, someone at the site had noticed that something didn’t…
Commentary | Post-Election Public Relations Obscures Real Issues
The further we get away from the presidential election, the better position I’m in to settle on what most gets under my skin. Am I incredibly nervous about what a Donald J. Trump Presidency will look like? Yes, and I get more nervous with each cabinet appointment. But what I’m in full-fledged annoyance about is…
How Gus Saved My Job
It was early in my career at The Kansas City Star, really early, and I was in dire straits. I needed help. Lots of it. I was a newly-minted labor reporter at the newspaper, and my stern and demanding editors had sent me on one of my first out-of-town reporting trips — to Kentucky and…
Commentary |Creating A Hub For Religious Fluency
Imagine a day when: Any Christian fifth-grader in Kansas City who meets a Muslim fifth-grader immediately says to the Islamic child, “salaam alaikum,” the traditional Muslim greeting that means “peace to you.” Any Buddhist adult here who encounters a Jew after sundown on Friday routinely greets the Jew with these words, “Shabbat Shalom,” meaning a…
Commentary | The Untapped Power of Humor
Gil Scott-Heron was incorrect. The revolution will be televised. Because, apparently, pop culture is the only way to get through to people. This weekend, Tom Hanks was the guest host for Saturday Night Live. He played a Trump supporter in a skit called “Black Jeopardy” where he competed for prizes with black contestants, a black…
Tireless Activist Battling Back After Being Hit By Car
The day that a car shattered Steve Israelite’s body in September, he was in a crosswalk on 63rd Street heading to the Panera Bread in Brookside. While there, he planned to check his e-mail because he was early for a meeting with our mutual friend Julie Warm, co-director of the UMKC Service-Learning Program. Steve’s injuries…