Why Tulsa’s bid to attract the “creative class” is doomed
“Nobody wants to live in Dogpatch.”
Read moreCategory Archives: Generations
The democratization of photography: S&R Honors George Eastman
Our lives are full of Kodak moments.
Read moreRemembering 2016: the year when everyone died
No, famous people won’t stop dying on January 1. But we lost too many bright lights this year and we hope that 2017 will be better. Here’s a list of noteworthy people who died in 2016. For the past several months a lot of us have been saying we can’t wait for this damned year to be over. 2016 gave us
Read moreKids today aren’t like we were
You know how schools sometimes have assemblies where outside speakers or entertainers put on a show for an hour? Right. Well, when I was in first grade my school, Wallburg Elementary in sleepy little Wallburg, NC, had a musician come in. I don’t remember much about the show, except for this one thing. He said he was going to do
Read moreGeneration X, whatever, nevermind: reflecting on Kurt Cobain
No one could possibly be THE voice of Gen X, but Cobain was certainly A voice of my generation. In their seminal 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?, published in 1993, Neil Howe and William Strauss argued that the only thing Generation Xers really agreed on was that there was no such thing as Generation X. Given the inherent irony
Read moreFive reasons why soccer will eventually surpass football in the US – #5: Americans love a winner
Part five in a series. As Americans continue to succeed in the global game, expect fans to jump on the bandwagon. Back to my original thesis, noted in part one: Americans love a winner, and the more success we achieve on the global stage, the more fans here are going to latch on. …soccer might well have a bright future
Read moreFive reasons why soccer will eventually surpass football in the US – #4: The children are the future
Soccer’s American base is young, passionate, and more globally minded than any generation in history. In part one we saw ESPN analyst Rich Luker explaining that in the 12-24 demographic, soccer is already bigger than any sport except American football. And yesterday, in part three, we saw that the bright young entrepreneurs driving MLS are tightly focused on the sport’s
Read moreMark Zuckerberg: Is it time for Facebook’s boy genius to go?
Today’s LA Times asks a good question: Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO? Business writers Walter Hamilton and Jessica Guynn dig into an issue that I suspect some of us have seen before, and it’s remarkable that the clamor over Zuck specifically hasn’t been louder for some time. Should Mark Zuckerberg, the social media visionary but neophyte corporate
Read moreNorth Carolina’s Amendment One and America’s youth: more on winning the battle and losing the war
Rachel Held Evans nails it: When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next
Read moreTarget to require retinal scans and DNA samples of all in-store customers
Okay, maybe not yet. But we’re definitely getting there. Check out today’s two-part gotcha. Part 1: Back in 2008 I wrote a piece called “The Smartest Shopping Cart That Ever Lived,” a glimpse into the near-future of GPS meets RFID meets customer relationship management meets intelligent supply chain meets nosy retailer shopping experience. I invoked Minority Report in doing so –
Read moreDear Judge Adams: No, it was worse than it looked
“He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24) “Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” (Proverbs 23:13-14) By now, you’ve probably heard about the video of
Read moreGetting hired and getting ahead: five important tips for the career-minded college student or recent grad
My alma mater, Wake Forest University, has a “career connectors” group on LinkedIn, and there’s currently a thread where one of the university’s career dev folks asks for some input on a project she’s working. Specifically, she asks: “If you were hiring a recent graduate, what top five professional skills do you want him/her to possess to be a strong
Read moreMore than marketing: The Blueflowers and the New Wave of Americana
I’ve never much cared for the musical genre broadly known as Americana, and lately I’ve been thinking about why this is. I suppose it’s acceptable to say hey, I’ve listened to a lot of these artists and most of them just kinda bore me, but that seems unsatisfactory for a guy who thinks about music like I do. After some
Read moreThe American Parliament: our nation’s 10 political parties
Part two in a series. Forgive me for abstracting and oversimplifying a bit, but one might argue that American politics breaks along the following 10 lines: Social Conservatives Neocons Business Conservatives Traditional Conservatives (there’s probably a better term, but I’m thinking of old-line Western land and water rights types) Blue Dog Democrats New Democrats Progressives
Read more30-Day Song Challenge, day 12: a song from a band I hate
I talk a lot about generational dynamics and have been known to criticize the collective shortcomings of the Boomers and Millennials. I’ve also allowed that my generation (X) has some failings of its own, and one of them is that our cynicism can get the best of us. In fact, sometimes it almost seems to define us. As much as
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lullaby pit 