Gary Goldhammer –author and storyteller.

Content strategist, PR practitioner and marketer | digital and social media innovator | writer and author

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Category: Current Affairs

  • Making Fear a Non-Factor

    Making Fear a Non-Factor

    FEAR ONLY EXISTS IF YOU LET IT. Ask the man who casually fled the London Bridge terror attack with pint in hand. Ask the Borough Market restaurant patron who returned the next day to pay his bill and tip the staff, and who promised to eat and drink out in London even more often now.…

  • These are The Ways in Which We Die

    BY VIOLENCE. Victims of crime, of hatred, of regrettable circumstance. By disease, like the cancer that took ESPN anchor Stuart Scott. By fate, sudden and unexpected. Like a heart attack, a car accident. Like the brain bleed that took my wife’s uncle last week. And by time. Old age, wearing out. “Natural” causes. These are…

  • Ferguson and Berkeley: Two Gunmen Cast Their Shadows on Christmas in St. Louis

    Ferguson and Berkeley: Two Gunmen Cast Their Shadows on Christmas in St. Louis

    ALMOST NOTHING IS MORE DANGEROUS than interrupting a teenager while she’s in mid Snapchat. Still I took the risk because this was important. This was a current event barreling toward history, and I wanted her to be aware, if just for a moment. “We just entered Ferguson,” I said, leaning toward her in the back…

  • Walmart Changes An Ad Because One Moment Changed Us All

    WALMART IS REVISING AN AD showing an excited young girl hugging her father so tight that he jokingly says “I can’t breathe.” When the ad was created earlier this year, there was no cause for concern. It was (and still is) a simple spot featuring a girl overjoyed at getting her own mobile phone. It…

  • Engagement vs. Enragement: Michael Sam, Richie Incognito, and the Two Sides of Social Media

    WHEN MISSOURI FOOTBALL PLAYER Michael Sam revealed he was gay, it was a landmark moment not just for professional sports but also for the power of social media. Within seconds of Sam’s New York Times story and interview on ESPN, we saw a flood of support from players and coaches. We saw quotes of concern…

  • We are the Monsters On Maple Street: A Final Word on Justine Sacco

    “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes and prejudices to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill. And suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all…

  • Eons of Evolution and We are Still Dumb Animals

    WE ARE DUMB ANIMALS. Evolution is not the same as change, and eons of evolution didn’t change us. We are still wild, scared, nervous mammals. We scream at the dark because we can’t remember what happened to the light. We are dumb. We Repeat ourselves despite ourselves. We say we will learn but we don’t…

  • Homeless for the Holidays

    (The following post originally ran Nov. 21, 2007, and has become a Below the Fold holiday tradition of sorts. For those who have read it before, please pardon the repetition — and for those who are reading it for the first time, I hope it serves as a reminder of what this holiday, and being…