Art

I work in a pretty technical field so I don't think about art, in the general sense often.  I still remember in one of my literature classes as an undergraduate, one of the most striking things I learned was the power of art.  My professor gave a simple example: in World War II, after both of the atomic bombs had been dropped, there were the devastating statistics, of course, of just how many people died and how many people would continue to die much later from radiation poisoning. But it really wasn't until she and many other people saw this picture, a school girl's tin lunch box where the peas in her lunch had carbonized that they really connected to something human and emotional about the bombings.  (see here)

In light of a recent decade anniversary, here is a youtube video from Story Corps.  I've seen a few of Story Corps videos and they are fantastic.  They are a national project to record people's stories and memories.  There's some really moving stuff of the site.