Category: Coffee & Conversation

Coffee & Conversation: Free Flow Friday

So many questions. Can speaking up advance the cause of terrorists?   Go to Cannes for a crisis instead of watching films? Do election primaries still matter? Have we finally occupied a movement? So little time. It’s a free flow Friday at the Howard Thurman Center – lots of stuff for the weekend chatter.  I’ll […]

Coffee & Conversation: What Are You Afraid of?

My list: the absence of soul Skrillex beats and mixes Modernization without thoughtfulness Insane Clown Posse an efficient world without poetry terrible Powerpoint being read to me indifference to other people’s existence Charles Barkley coming at me on a fast break The one loud guy in the crowd who feels dissed people who get no […]

Coffee & Conversation: Give Me Your Vote, Please?

Dear Mr. President (Obama), I’m a little late on it, but now I’m serious about changing your world. I want your votes – and some. I’m about to go on the road. My campaign is to ask for votes. That’s right, I’m collecting ballots – for real. I’m asking for written commitments to refrain from […]

Coffee & Conversation: Music is Dead?

Because it was a public acknowledgement of a lifestyle.  Because it lifted me up – it wasn’t a trend.  Because when I could meet up on the edge of a park to listen to the music, watch the DJ, and laugh at the cleaver M.C., I knew we were alive.  Later, I recognized we could […]

Coffee and Conversation: . . . To Die For

“We will continue our journey one way or another. We are prepared to die,” Freedom Rider, Jim Zwerg – then, a 21-year-old student from Beloit College   I always bring it back to the people who take to the streets for the change we might need.  I can’t shake the story of student activists who […]

Coffee & Conversation: If It Makes You Happy . . .

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo. “I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.” – Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to Countee Cullen It’s a right, right? Happiness? Or the pursuit?  A right from institutions? The […]