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“Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves we are the same.”
‘Do you ever listen to a song and find yourself moved so deeply you are almost in tears? Have you ever been to a live performance that turned your worst day into your best? Have you ever heard a song that inspired you? Music has the power to move us and to change us. Yet today’s music mostly does not seem to have the same earth-moving, society-shaping effects as that of the past.
With today’s technology, music has become even more of a part of our life experiences: we listen to it on our drive to work, when we go to parties, while we study, when we exercise, and in so many other settings. Yet we see fewer and fewer people taking to the streets with picket signs because of its messages. There are, however, still musicians who hope that their words will inspire change.’
Not long to go before the 2019 New Year. The time of hope, spiritual renewal, music, dancing, celebration, nostalgic journeys and more.
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I was prompted to write this blog, after listening to some great and inspiring music, whilst hearing the life-story of one of my favorite musicians being interviewed on the Desert Island Discs, BBC, Radio 4.
Born in New York City in 1952 to a teenage mother, he spent his early life immersed in his parents’ bohemian, beatnik, and drug-dominated lifestyle. Drugs played a part in his life too from an early age, and he took his first acid trip at the age of 15.
He then got cancer. He was in and out of rehab and hospitals, and went through life-changing experiences. And then, he discovered the healing power of music, and as it is often said, the rest is history.
I very much wish that, this, my last blog of 2018, will be a blog of hope, healing, joy and wondering, whilst reflecting on how we may find the path to a better life: And what better way than the Healing Power of Timeless Music and Lyrics to guide us to that path.
'Guitarist, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers has made music worth more than $2 billion, according to one estimate – from his floor-filling singles with Chic, to hit albums with Madonna, Diana Ross and David Bowie in the 1980s, and a more recent collaboration with Daft Punk. He’s also a survivor – of an unconventional childhood, life-threatening addictions and two cancer diagnoses – and he continues to play dozens of live shows around the world.'-Photo:bbc.co.uk
And now listen to Nile Rodgers, Desert Island Discs, BBC, Radio 4
Related reading, viewing and listening:
When it comes to Mother Nature, his words, lyrics and music are timeless, everlasting and prophetic: John Denver on Mother Nature
And now, another favorite of mine, a peacemaker and his powerful antiwar music and words, Peter Seeger: When Will They Ever Learn?
HAPPY NEW YEAR
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May you find joy in the simple pleasures of life and may the light of the holiday season fill your heart with the hope for a better world.
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In this season of light and hope, we wish to give thanks for the best of the gifts life has to offer, which is: The Gift of Friendship. Thank you for being a part of our global family and embodying the vision of what it means to be for the common good with us. Thank you for all your support, assisting us to uphold the values of the GCGI. Thank you for who you are and what you do.
...And now, are you still in search of a new year resolution? Why not Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity?
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“Nature is what we know - yet have not art to say – so impotent our wisdom is to her simplicity” ~Emily Dickinson
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The Cost and Consequences of the Economics of the Whites for the Whites by the Whites
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...And this, the charge sheet concludes, is now inflicting serious harm on the whole fabric of our society and community, with tragic consequences for us all:
‘This lack of diversity at the very highest echelons of economic policymaking reflects a similar lack of diversity across the economics profession as a whole. It’s one that leads to a lack of attention to issues that specifically affect minorities in everything from economic research to the macroeconomic models used to understand the world to public policy decisions. But it also deprives economics, in general, of its best chance to serve the public most effectively. A narrow pipeline of economists has created a profession vulnerable to groupthink. Lacking the widest possible range of perspectives, life experiences, and expertise, the profession stands to miss crucial information, and make poor decisions. This is a charge that was laid on the Federal Reserve after the 2008 financial crisis.’
The dismal cost of economics’ lack of racial diversity
By Eshe Nelson, Via QUARTZ
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‘On June 5, 2017, Raphael Bostic became the 15th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. This also made him the first African American president of any regional Fed in the US central bank’s 100-year history.
The Atlanta Fed is the main seat of the Federal Reserve’s sixth district, which covers all of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, as well as parts of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Bostic’s role is to study trends in the economy, and oversee monetary policy activities and bank regulation in the region. This year he also became a voting member of the Fed’s main interest rate-setting body in Washington DC, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
The symbolism is stark. The states of the sixth district were at the heart of the country’s civil rights movement, culminating a little over half a century ago, in the Civil Rights Act affording black Americans the same rights as their white peers.
Progress since has been achingly slow. The gulf between the economic lives of black and white Americans is still staggeringly wide. For example, average household wealth for a black family is about $17,000, one-tenth of white household wealth. In some respects, racial inequality has gotten worse.
Bostic isn’t the first black person to be a member of the powerful FOMC, which sets US interest rates thereby influencing everything from government borrowing costs to mortgages rates. The first was Andrew Brimmer, a sharecropper’s son from Louisiana, who was educated in racially segregated schools. In 1966, Brimmer was appointed by president Lyndon Johnson to an eight-year term on the Fed’s board of governors.
In the intervening 43 years, just two other black people have served on the FOMC, both men—Emmett J. Rice and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. Two other men of color, Narayana Kocherlakota and Neel Kashkari, both of Indian descent, have served as heads of the Minneapolis Fed. That makes six non-whites out of a total of 235 people who have served on the Fed’s Board of Governors or been president of a regional Fed since it first met in 1914. It’s worth adding that just 16 women have ever been on the rate-setting committee, which is made up of the members of the board and a rotating schedule of regional Fed presidents.
This lack of diversity at the very highest echelons of economic policymaking reflects a similar lack of diversity across the economics profession as a whole. It’s one that leads to a lack of attention to issues that specifically affect minorities in everything from economic research to the macroeconomic models used to understand the world to public policy decisions. But it also deprives economics, in general, of its best chance to serve the public most effectively. A narrow pipeline of economists has created a profession vulnerable to groupthink. Lacking the widest possible range of perspectives, life experiences, and expertise, the profession stands to miss crucial information, and make poor decisions. This is a charge that was laid on the Federal Reserve after the 2008 financial crisis…’ Continue to read
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