There have been two recent events that I consider to have a common cause and left me more than a bit saddened and concerned for our future.
The first event actually happened last January, and was described in this Washington Post article on April 8. During the morning rush hour on January 12, Joshua Bell, indisputably one of the finest classical violinists alive today, wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and baseball cap walked into a Washington DC Metro station, pulled his Stradivarius violin from its case and began playing. For the next 43 minutes, nearly 1100 commuters strode past with only seven on them taking at least a minute to pay attention to his performance. His total take for the 43 minutes, a period for which he regularly gets paid tens of thousands, was $37 and change. One of those contributions was a twenty from a woman who recognized him and was astonished to find him performing for free in a subway station.
The second event was the Don Imus debacle. Those five syllables directed toward some extraordinary young women resulted in many hours of coverage of pundits debating the state of racism in the US, free speech, hypocrisy and a whole gamut of other more or less related topics. One of the key points that came out of these discussions is that it is apparently acceptable, even humorous and attractively entertaining, in today
There have been two recent events that I consider to have a common cause and left me more than a bit saddened and concerned for our future.
The first event actually happened last January, and was described in this Washington Post article on April 8. During the morning rush hour on January 12, Joshua Bell, indisputably one of the finest classical violinists alive today, wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and baseball cap walked into a Washington DC Metro station, pulled his Stradivarius violin from its case and began playing. For the next 43 minutes, nearly 1100 commuters strode past with only seven on them taking at least a minute to pay attention to his performance. His total take for the 43 minutes, a period for which he regularly gets paid tens of thousands, was $37 and change. One of those contributions was a twenty from a woman who recognized him and was astonished to find him performing for free in a subway station.
The second event was the Don Imus debacle. Those five syllables directed toward some extraordinary young women resulted in many hours of coverage of pundits debating the state of racism in the US, free speech, hypocrisy and a whole gamut of other more or less related topics. One of the key points that came out of these discussions is that it is apparently acceptable, even humorous and attractively entertaining, in today