This Wednesday, July 19th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Martin Scorsese’s Silence @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Silence (2017) is a historical drama about two 17th-century Portuguese Jesuits who travel to Japan in an attempt to find their mentor, who is reported to have abandoned the faith. Martin Scorsese directs…
City
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, July 11th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park: Beauty and the Beast
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, July 11th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Beauty and the Beast @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Beauty and the Beast (2017) is a live-action fairy tale about a monstrous-looking prince and a young woman who fall in love. Bill Condon directs the two hour, nine-minute film, starring…
Alt-Right, America, City, Liberty, Putin, Russia, Trump
‘What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA from 2010 to 2013 and twice acting director, and Samantha Vinograd of the National Security Council staff from 2009 to 2013, speculate from experience on What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump: This is a speculative account of a memo that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s national…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, June 27st, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park: Lion
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, June 27th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Lion @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Lion (2016) is the story of Saroo, who “years after he got separated from his family, at a train station in India, and long since adopted by an Australian couple, decides to go…
City, Culture
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 13: That Which Paved the Way)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the thirteenth and final post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Some months ago, I wrote a post that described my thinking about Whitewater’s current situation: her weak, superficial, conflict-riddled politics, and that of so many other places, was that which paved the way for…
City, Culture
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 12: Messaging)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the twelfth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. There are several news (or news-release dependent) publications in Whitewater: the Daily Union, Gazette, and Banner. Add to that over a dozen Facebook pages, and a few local government websites (city, school district, university in particular),…
City, Film
Film: Wednesday, June 21st, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park: A Man Called Ove
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Wednesday, June 21st at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of A Man Called Ove @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. A Man Called Ove (2015) is a comedy-drama about “Ove, an ill-tempered, isolated retiree who spends his days enforcing block association rules and visiting his wife’s grave, [who] has finally given up…
City, Culture, Economy
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 11: ‘Fiestas and Apple Orchards’)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the eleventh post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. In the Wall Street Journal, Pennsylvanian Crispin Sartwell writes of Fiestas and Apple Orchards: Small-Town Life Before Trump (“My corner of Pennsylvania was thriving again—until immigration agents began carting people away”): I live in York Springs,…
City, Culture
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 10: Mailers)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the tenth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Worried over a large-scale party in 2016, Whitewater’s local government set about looking for a plan for 2017. College-aged adults are a plurality of the city’s population; they are a majority of the city’s adult population.…
City, Culture, Economy, University
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 9: Small-Town Harvards)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the ninth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Alana Semuels asks Could Small-Town Harvards Revive Rural Economies? Her contention, as she succinctly describes it: College campuses and educational institutions can bolster the economies of small towns that otherwise would be struggling like many…
City, Culture, Demographics, Local Government, Politics
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 8: Nearby)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the eighth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Just beyond the Whitewater proper lie several towns that form the rest of the Whitewater Unified School District. They play a key role in life within Whitewater, far beyond school policies. A few observations: The New…
City, Culture, University
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 7: How It Was Supposed to Be)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the seventh post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Consider the contemporary town-gown conditions in Whitewater. Here I am referring to present-day conditions, over the last ten or fifteen years. Part of the solution to this, surely, was meant to come from university-connected residents serving…
City, Culture, Demographics
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 6: Divided)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the sixth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Years ago (in 2010), I wrote of a red-blue divide within the city, where some elections favored red-leaning voters, and some blue-leaning voters. See, Why Whitewater Isn’t a Progressive City; Why Whitewater’s ‘Conservatives’ Hold the City…
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, June 13th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park: Collateral Beauty
by JOHN ADAMS •
This Tuesday, June 13th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Collateral Beauty @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building. Collateral Beauty (2016) is a drama about Howard, who, “retreating from life after a tragedy…questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things…