All posts by Editor-in-Chief

Deborah Levine founded the American Diversity Report in 2006. She is a Forbes Magazine top "Trailblazer" and award-winning author of 20 books. Her published articles span decades including: American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, The Bermuda Magazine, The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin.
Editor-in-Chief

Chattanooga’s festivals bring family, friends together for good works – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s always a pleasure to attend community festivals that combine great fun with service to those in need. Over the weekend, I attended several of these events and I’ll be smiling over them for weeks. The first of these events was Derby Day on Saturday at the East Ridge Local Coffee. Derby Day was a fun way to support the East Ridge Needy Child Fund. This amazing organization does the important work of making sure that East Ridge children have shoes, clothes, toys and a food basket for the family.

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DL Opinion columns

Why get “interested” in Artificial Intelligence – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

It was super exciting to be invited to the annual conference of Project Voice which has taken place in Chattanooga, home to the country’s fastest internet since 2016. Project Voice looks at artificial intelligence, but not the traditional artificial intelligence (AI) that analyzes historical data and makes future numeric predictions. Rather, the focus is on conversational and generative AI, terms I hadn’t heard until sitting in the conference. Conversational AI can hold two-way interactions with humans by understanding and responding in text or speech. Generative AI can take prompts and create all kinds of stuff that never existed before but are indistinguishable from human-generated content. I started to feel overwhelmed by this new information. 

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Arts & Culture Podcasts

Robert LaRoche Podcast: Forevermore Musician

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ForevermoreRobert LaRoche has been a musician since his teens in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He toured long and hard with The Sighs in support of their Nineties’ albums What Goes On and Different, and when their frontman elected to step out of the spotlight, he found a satisfying role, writing, recording, and performing with Patricia Vonne, whose pop-rock sound has Latin/country flavors. Ultimately, LaRoche’s own muse stirred anew and he released the aptly titled Patient Man in 2015 and its follow-up, A Thousand Shades, four years later.

Now, on Forevermore, he’s come full circle. There are sparkling, giddy moments and somber, poignant pieces. LaRoche explains: “Loss and gain, dark and light—it’s the basic human experience of redemption that I hope rings true to the listener.”

CLICK for Podcast

DL Opinion columns

Praying for the Earth’s Healing – by Deborah Levine

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 (originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press) 

Wacky weather is our new norm. I called my daughter in Maine to tell her about how we went quickly from 80 degrees to below freezing. She said, “weird”, but it didn’t compare to what she’s going through. At first she called it a “spring snowstorm”, but as it got worse, she named it a “snowpocalpse”. She lost power, the trees in her yard were downed and despite having a monster truck, she barely made it home from work. 

If there’s any doubt that climate change is a reality, pay attention to a recent headline in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that warned of “Brewing Storms” as alarmingly high ocean temperatures suggest a nasty hurricane season coming up. My friends in Bermuda are paying attention. The Bermuda Royal Gazette reports that  waters in the Atlantic’s main hurricane development region had temperatures 65 % hotter at the end of January than the next closest year. Temperatures recorded in March aren’t usually seen until mid-July. So late summer should be a hurricane doozy with rapidly strengthening storms, even close to land.

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Make a Difference Podcasts

Podcast with Veteran George Eshleman: The Keeper

The KeeperGeorge Eshleman is a veteran who inspired the upcoming film THE KEEPER which is based on his real-life experience hiking the Appalachian Trail while carrying 363 military name tapes from military members who committed suicide to raise awareness.

 

Hear George discuss:

  • What inspired him to hike the Appalachian Trail to promote veteran mental health awareness…
  • How he dealt with his own depression…
  • What it was like working with Co-Directors Angus Benfield and Kendall Bryant Jr. and the cast…
  • What we can do to address the rising rate of suicide among veterans.

The KeeperCLICK for podcast

Levine articles

Mothers Day: Matriarch Training – by Deborah Levine

Mothers Day is a great American traditions, but I’m not sure I like it. Unhappily, I have a really big problem with these days because I don’t have the goods. My mother and grandmother who were such loving figures in my life are gone. My father, who I take after in so many ways, is gone, too. I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself.  My children live far away but will no doubt call or send a card. I’m grateful for their love but I would really like to call my own parents. Just knowing they were around made life balanced and feel more secure.

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DL Opinion columns, Editor-in-Chief

Broadway songs for our sanity – by Deborah Levine

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originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

We live in a time of chaos and raging hate. How do we survive? The Arts can help and we should turn to them. My dad read poetry non-stop when serving as a US military intelligence officer during World War II. He said that’s how he kept his sanity dealing with the horrors of war. Dad summoned the Arts generations ago, when we moved reluctantly to American and us kids were heartbroken leaving Bermuda behind. He took us to art galleries and art museums and, fantastically, to a Broadway theater to see the musical, “West Side Story”. Wow! Maybe this America thing isn’t so bad!

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DL Opinion columns

Holocaust education is necessary now more than ever – by Deborah Levine 

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Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

When I was invited to give a webinar for Echoes and Reflections, an organization in partnership with Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Remembrance Center), I freaked out. This was Big Time and I better be good at it. Reviewing my documentary: Untold, Stories of a World War II Liberator and my dad’s wartime letters, I was reminded that not long ago, I made a similar presentation at a Chattanooga high school. A student told me that she wanted to hear “both sides of the story”. I wondered what she was seeing online, and knew that these archival documents are still relevant today, and Holocaust education is even more so.

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DL Opinion columns

Inter-generational education needed now – by  Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

All too often we look at the elderly as outliers to society, and the presidential election is embedding in our minds that being old is a non-starter. It’s getting harder to look at an elderly person and feel that you’re experiencing a great moment. Instead, they’re recipients of our sympathy, and objects of charity. That’s why funding Social Security is the only political issue focused on seniors. And that’s women who want to advertise products or be newscasters on TV face-lift themselves silly. The value of being a senior citizen is fading. 

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Levine articles, Social Issues, USA Culture

Tracking our Terrorist Destructors – by Deborah Levine

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I used to write about terrorist destructors in the U.S. every spring. My articles began with the domestic terrorism of the Oklahoma City bombing more than thirty years ago on April 19.  That’s when I became the community/media liaison for Oklahoma’s Tulsa Jewish Federation. It was shortly after the bombing destroyed the Murrah Building and so many lives were affected. I felt compelled to investigate what led to the deadliest bombing, prior to 9/11, on our native soil.  The violent hatred that I saw has not only continued, but has expanded globally, and now, it  encompasses the entire year.

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