“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.” – President John F. Kennedy, 1963 “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” – James Baldwin The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – When people talk about defending democracy, they usually think about…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – When the patriotic winds blew me out of Washington all the way across the country to California a year ago last month, I thought I could escape the painful destruction of American democracy and the nation’s beautiful capital city and the global citadel of…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – One of the most monumental midterm elections in the history of the United States will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and with one month to go, the outcome for American democracy is anything but assured. While Emperor wannabe Donald Trump seems to be panicking, traveling around…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – There is an uncomfortable question emerging from the artificial-intelligence revolution: What if one reason we need A.I. is because human beings are not nearly as smart as they think we are? Humans built civilization. Split the atom. Landed on the Moon. Mapped the human genome. Created antibiotics,…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – While I was off-grid camping in Yosemite, The New York Times began running a series marking its 175th anniversary. The New York Times at 175: A series exploring an active legacy of independent, eyewitness reporting. Perusing the story headlines gave me an idea. If you are a…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – YOSEMITE, Calif. – Moses. Jesus. Martin Luther King. The Beatles. Ten Years After. How many warnings does it take? How many have to die? Consider this a radio script with music. It was the Hippie Era when the concept first came to my attention that the world…
The parallels with the rise and fall of the American Empire are unmistakable – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – This is where reading AND watching makes a difference. Way down in Texas this week, Donnie Trump showed how afraid he is of losing control of Congress by making a false campaign promise…
Stop Staring at Your Phone, Feeding the Tech Giants Traffic, and Get Involved – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – How many red flags do we have to wave before enough people will listen and take action? For many years now, we have been pointing out over and over again that the future…
The A.I. Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – When riptides are churning up the ocean, lifeguards raise red flags, warning swimmers and beachgoers of the danger. When there is danger ahead in society, scientists, experts and journalists raise red flags. That is how democracy works, or doesn’t work, if people and politicians ignore the…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – The New York Times Editorial Board ran a piece today explaining how the Trump administration is trying to kill poor people in this country to get ready for the A.I. bots to take over. They didn’t exactly phrase it that way, but that is what’s going on.…
Under the Microscope – By Glynn Wilson – SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Why does this seem so hard for some people to grasp? Perhaps it is a lack of leadership? While sitting in a bar recently having an intelligent conversation with a good friend who understands, through the swinging doors entered a stressed out woman.…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – American writer Mark Twain, who spent two years in San Francisco writing for newspapers from 1864 to 1866, is often quoted as saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It’s apparently not true. He never said it,…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Biologists sometimes talk about the cycles of life. Communications scholars occasionally debate aspects of the “news cycle.” Life appears to move in circles, like the rotating planet Earth itself. Such it is with each individual life. In recent times, with all the crazy chaos upending this fast…
Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – California has the highest average gas prices in the nation, at $6.15 a gallon, where prices tend to be higher due to a combination of state taxes and fees, environmental regulations and special fuel blends. Of all the U.S. states, it was…
But this 21st Century Hell is Not for Me – Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – The Old West is full of great stories, famous the world over. Some are based on a bit of truth; others seem made up out of whole cloth. The Shootout at the…
Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – “I am haunted by waters,” author Norman Maclean wrote in the conclusion to his memoir A River Runs Through It. It is a line that will be familiar to anyone who watched the movie produced and directed by Robert Redford about hard…
Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – Man, have we seen changes come in our time or what? As I was reading The New York Times on Thursday morning the last day of April, 2026, and sharing some headlines on Facebook, I was reading another long screed about the…
Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – So in the interest of being “honest” and “unmerciful” as a writer – the sage advice to a young rock journalist from Philip Seymour Hoffman as Cream magazine editor Lester Bangs in the film “Almost Famous” – let me just say here…
A New Gold Rush Could Be Coming to California – Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – In creating my own version of literary journalism on the web over the past 20 years, as regular readers know I’ve often turned to Mark Twain and other American writers for inspiration.…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – COULTERVILLE, Calif. – Are we losing not just our attention spans but the ability to think deeply at all just in time for machines to take over? Is it time for millions of us to die in war because the machine economy will not support us? These…
