Black women have always comprised anywhere between 65 and 90 percent of membership in black [US] churches — institutions where they are largely excluded from the religious polity… Religion that began in slave communities is the only ancestral tie American-born blacks have to something like a family tree. But black churches, like many of their white […]
Coding for the Community: A Conversation with Teagan Widmer
I met Teagan about three years ago. She had just graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a compelling thesis on the representation of transgender women in film. After moving back to the Left Coast, she started learning computer programming languages on her own and in Bay Area coding collectives. Teagan recently hit the news with […]
A Writing November
I’ve decided to participate in this year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo 2013), and will be using the 50,000 word-challenge to reboot my research on the British executive branch’s structure, values, personnel, and communications during the 18 months before the UK- and US invaded Iraq.* This year marked the 10th anniversary of the March 2003 […]
The Overview Effect
One planet, one destiny. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson often speaks about the cosmic perspective that results from the study of space. The astronauts in Overview share their experience with “the overview effect,” a way of thinking about the Earth and our place in space that acknowledges our essential oneness and the adaptive interrelationships that are […]
On Understanding
Convenience of conceptual analogies is no substitute for usefulness or rigour. —R. Brennan & S. Henneberg One understands a phenomenon only when one has a holistic view of [it], a view that integrates all of its known components and all of its known manifestations. —T. Bouldin & L. Odell Pulling a mechanical thing apart to […]
Technology and Hope
This week I met with three engineers based at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration‘s Goddard Center. I’m always made more hopeful by young professionals who love their work, care about the neighborhood beyond their office gate, and are open to sharing with local children the kind of inspiration that motivated each of them to […]