Day 2 of the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings. Today, Kagan gets to speak. Yesterday, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was on the hot seat. Kagan clerked for Marshall and described him as her hero. Marshall, the civil rights icon of desegregation in schools and first African American appointed to the Supreme Court in [...]
Even with an impromptu firing of the four star “Runaway General” Stanley McChrystal; and an almost seamless replacement (and in management terms – demotion) of General David Petraeus from head of Central Operations Command to Afghanistan operations — oil spill still ravaging the Gulf, Congress hits a brick wall on extending unemployment benefits — the [...]
Clayton LeBouef and I have been chatting up Rod Serling recently. “The Twilight Zone” and other works by Serling were light years before their time even compared to today’s standards for television programming. In what human relation areas have we entered a Twilight Zone? Race. Religion. Class. Culture. Immigration. Wall Street. The environment. War. Peace. [...]
In John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” song he writes “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Or lately, the adage resembles the Frank Sinatra tune “That’s Life.” One life lesson is there’s really no excuse for not practicing your art if that’s what you want or love even in a environment [...]
The annual Smithsonian Institution Folklife Festival starts this week from June 24 – 28; and from July 1 – 4. The festival takes place on the national mall by the Smithsonian castle and Ripley Center. This year’s featured festival programs include: – Mexico – commemorating Mexico’s Independence Bicentenary (1810-2010) and Revolution Centenary (1910-2010) – Asian [...]
The first time I heard Horace Silver‘s “Song for My Father,” it was in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College. Wendell Logan, the jazz professor of a renegade jazz studies program at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, assigned it to my BFF Dawn E. Robinson to sing as a duet with our fellow Duke Ellington School [...]
I’m still trying to figure out how obstructionism is the most effective strategy especially when its played out to the point of just shutting down any and everything. President Obama specifically calls out Republican “leadership” for obstructing the work of getting the nation’s business done. Here are some of the things left hanging on the [...]
As you leave Duke Ellington, you’re entering and running into a world in which many budgets for the arts have being slashed. So what must you do? What can you do? You might all have to become art activists. Be talented, be beautiful, be outspoken. At times you have to take your drama from the [...]
STEP AFRIKA! HOME PERFORMANCE SERIES June 16 – 20 Opening night! After being out on the road for months (in the U.S. and abroad), Step Afrika! is back in DC for their annual home performance series at the Lansburgh Theatre – Harman Center for the Arts. There’s a “VIP Experience” which includes a roof-top reception [...]
President Obama will address the nation from the Oval Office tomorrow (Tuesday) following a two-day visit to the Gulf region (Mississippi, Alabama, Florida). The trip to the Gulf will be the President’s fourth since the tragic BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
