Oregon Humanities

I recently completed the Humanity in Perspective (HIP) course and am proud of the accomplishment. It isn’t merely that I completed the course, received the certificate or the credit. It was an achievement that changed my perspective, and a change in one’s point of view can be profound. Often in life our point of view is altered due to conditions outside our control. It seems sometimes that we are but the affected spectator. When we seek and welcome change and it... More

08 April 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

I was halfway through my shift on a quiet night at the bar. To be fair, they were all quiet nights at that bar. I might as well have been tending in a dry county. You’d think a free hotel bar would be full 365, but this bar was silent. Perhaps it was the Merlot?
When I realized my tips were going to be under $10 I started putting the lemons back in the fridge. Then an Inuit man walked in.

I’d love to tell you there were cinematic strings played upon his entry... More

01 April 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (1 so far)

I’m sure most of you have heard of Annie Leonard—creator and host of the insanely popular short animated film The Story of Stuff (now at more than 10 million views worldwide). Leonard has written a book of the same name and is currently on national tour. This last Monday she presented at Powell’s, and I went to go hear what she had to say.

It was standing room only, and even though I got there early, I was one of the people crammed against the bookshelves in the... More

25 March 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

We live in a noisy and intrusive society. Cell phones and electronic devices summon us non-stop. They are addictive. They must be obeyed. But no electronic device I know of can teach us how to think nor can it help us find peace in the only venue that really counts: our own heads.

Be honest here. When was the last time you sat on a hillside, a park bench, or even in your own back yard and just listened—let your mind roll on—waited for whatever popped into your head... More

18 March 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (2 so far)

My freshman year in college, I stumbled into a class on the Holocaust, and four months later, I stepped off a bus in Auschwitz with a dozen classmates, my professor, and a living, breathing survivor of the Nazi camp. This might seem like an incredible journey, but really until I was standing in Auschwitz, the journey had been fairly easy. I read books, I watched films, I cried, and I had found myself hurt and angry at a history that wasn’t mine. But angry and hurt... More

11 March 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

Any regular moviegoer or fan of cult TV favorite Freaks and Geeks knows the name James Franco. He delivered a subtly stellar performance in Milk, stumbled his way as a hysterical stoner in Pineapple Express, and will soon play Allen Ginsburg in Howl. But there’s a less-well-known side to this actor moonlighting as a grad student (he’s in not one but two MFA programs, film-making at NYU and creative writing at Columbia) and that side is James Franco: Performance... More

18 February 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

In 1992, the film The Crying Game opened in Colorado Springs, my hometown. The film played in a cozy, fifty-seat theater tucked behind a café called Poor Richard’s. Next to the café was a restaurant and a bookstore, all bearing the same name. As a child, I had eaten in the restaurant with my family. In junior high, a friend and I entered a talent competition held there and won third for our impression of dancing like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to New Order’s... More

09 February 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (2 so far)

I’ve been thinking about design—its merits and its effect. I know nothing can escape it since, in its natural expression, design is everywhere—the rock, the potato, the wisps of cloud formation. But what changes a thing from being whole unto itself into what we might rather it become? More specifically, I wonder when it is honest and when it serves to betray?

Let me step back to the source of my inquiry. I was driving in a car with a friend who spoke about the need... More

28 January 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (1 so far)

Perhaps I had never truly contemplated the struggle of drug addiction until I read Beautiful Boy by David Sheff. You may have heard of this book—the author garnered praise, but also a fair amount of criticism for publishing what some called an exploitive account of his son’s struggle with addiction to methamphetamines and other drugs. It’s a heart-wrenching read, following a roller coaster of emotions as Sheff discovers his son’s drug abuse, makes grave missteps in his... More

11 January 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

If you read my last post, you know that I’m interested in gender. And, by the way, for those of you who did read that last post, I remain unsettled by Betty Draper’s character development in Mad Men last season. I’m proud of her. I’m mad at her. I’m impressed by her. And I’m disappointed in her.

That said, I have what I think are two more unnerving stories about gender:

1. Last month, at an informal dinner with some female colleagues, one woman referred... More

01 December 2009 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)