Halloween 2013

Imagination Overflow: Halloween ‘R’ Us

DeLand Beacon, November 28-December 1, 2013
http://www.beacononlinenews.com/opinions/opinion_letters.php

In recent years, our technologies and hard work have produced an extraordinary abundance of information. Think of the richness this brings to our lives: information at our fingertips, awareness of events half a world away, instant communication—such as your ability to read this essay. The remaining frontier: How to keep up with the abundance, sort it out, and figure out how to use its richness to enrich our lives, rather than just leave us overwhelmed. Continue reading →

Halloween 2012

Halloween on Minnesota Avenue: The Imagination Factory

The West Volusia Beacon, November 15-18, 2012, p. 1B

On October 31st, Minnesota Avenue was as full as ever with costumes and carnival delights. Some houses featured fanciful lawn decorations and music and lights, hot dogs and other treats, and of course candy, lots of candy. The crowds swelled—there must have been about 2000 people on the street and lawns.
As the token eggheads, I and two patient and playful neighbors, Blake Jones and Sam Valdez, persisted with the simple delights of meeting the kids of all ages on my front lawn, but with our mere Gang of Three to do the greeting, we turned more to talk and less to counting. Like the pollsters during the recent elections making predictions based on the returns of only a few precincts or interviews, our estimates of popular outfits come from the mere 800 that we actually could meet…. Continue reading →

Halloween 2011

Halloween: Carnival Day for Children’s Imaginations

The DeLand Beacon, November 17-20, 2011, p. 5A

Halloween is a day of the child. Most days, children have to do what they are told, or even try to be someone who doesn’t come naturally to their natural impulse: follow rules, learn challenging things, play to win. Halloween is a day for them to follow their imaginations, learn fun things, and play just to play. Continue reading →

Halloween 2008: The children lead us beyond the 1960s

October 2008

While witches and goblins walked the sidewalks of Minnesota Avenue, a controversy brewed.

Maybe I should have seen it coming in the number of political outfits the kids were wearing: two Sarah Palins, one John McCain, one Joe the Plumber, four Obama-themed outfits, including one with Martin Luther King Jr., one “kickin’ it” for the candidate, one “Obama Mama,” and one “loving school” (OK, not all Democrats are student rebels).

Before the Big Day (on our street, that’s Halloween), I offered the use of my front lawn to both political parties. With Halloween only days before the election, and hundreds of people descending on our street, I figured it would be a good chance to put some democracy into action.

The Republicans did not respond, but the Democrats did, big-time.

Mining for professional experience and for various political answers

April 2005

I testified at Stetson’s Model Senate in favor of defusing land mines before a panel of role-playing student “Senators.” They grilled me with questions about ways to reduce innocent destruction and about ways to assert power. At Model Senate, students get the feel of wrestling with real political choices. And the experience was a reminder that, with the current fear of terrorism, there have been no recent bills to support dismantling these deadly instruments of past wars.

On Saturday, March 19, I took a day trip to the nation’s Capital—actually I was only there an hour, and I never really left town. I testified at a Model Senate hearing, and for a few moments, it felt a little like being in Washington.

Stetson’s Model Senate was initially formed in 1970, and is still going strong today as the oldest collegiate-level model senate in the country. For more on Paul Croce’s experience there, click here!

Campaign 2004

GOP convention grazed issues

September 2004

The word on the street is that the Republican convention was one for the moderates. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says calmly: That’s simply what the Republican Party is.

But if that were the whole story, where were Colin Powell, James Baker and other luminaries of moderation in the party?

Before we Americans get too excited about what we saw about President George W. Bush as presented in New York, we ought to get clear not only on what we’ve seen, but also about what we have not seen.

What else happened at the GOP Convention? Read more here.

US in the Middle East / Middle East in the US

International politics down the street

May 2003

This is a story of grave international policy questions and clashing worldviews as they played out on a side street in the small town of DeLand where I live.

The story starts with my own skepticism last fall about the policy for invasion of Iraq. While recognizing that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, I suspected war would make matters worse.

My whole family agreed, so we decided to make our small voices heard: We put up a yard sign in January that said “War is Not the Answer.”

For more on the politics right down the street, click here!

Popular Culture and Cultural Politics

Chocolat: A gentle endorsement of change

June 2001

It is easy to view Lasse Hallstrom’s movie Chocolat as a light and tasty treat. It is a fanciful story about a 1959 traditional French village transformed by the opening of “Chocolaterie Maya.”

Well, it is simple—like a fairy tale. Taken for what it is, a morality tale with social types standing in for contemporary social issues, it is a charming fable with and easy-to-taste moral about the forces of modernization and the liberalization of tradition as the best response.

…read more by clicking here!

Campaign 2000

The personal is now political; let’s decide if it’s presidential

November 2000

“The Personal is Political” was a slogan that emerged from the cultural changes of the 1960s. It summarized the demand to take the realms of private life seriously as matters of political concern. In place of the traditional separation of public and private, the blurring of these spheres of life was at the root of many of the liberal and liberating movements of that era. The phrase first emerged from women’s liberation. While the old school maintained that the private sphere of women’s lives—including choices about work, marriage and children—was not even grist for public talk, the new consciousness found political consequences shot through all these decisions.

If you would like to read more of this piece, click here.

Popular Culture and Cultural Politics

The Polarization of America: The Decline of Mass Culture

Pop culture is forever, but mass culture is only a few hundred years old and showing its age. Popular culture is just a big, loose term for things popular beyond the tastes and standards of small groups of elites. It’s always been around. Mass culture, however, requires mass communication across long distances.

Read on here!

Pub Classroom

Welcome to the pub classroom. Academic ideas downloaded for public use and popular deliberation.

Tag Archives: Cultural Life