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In my blog entry for June 6th, I reported on a meeting of community artists. I described how the participants noticed that, out of political demoralization, we had silenced ourselves in the public arena, not even bothering to state our case. Unlike earlier times, we artists weren’t promoting a cultural policy agenda for the presidential …

People want things–lots of things–but what do we want most? What’s on top? It seems to me the failure to answer that question is at the heart of progressives’ proclivity for self-defeat. The typical pitfall of progressives is to load each decision with so many and varied significances that it becomes impossible to choose for …

There was an interesting article in the June 7th New Yorker about Ahmad Chalabi, the Manuel Noriega of Iraq (beloved and lavishly funded by our covert agencies, imprisoned when he became inconvenient). A schoolmate of Chalabi?s is quoted offering a psychological explanation for his determination to secure U.S. intervention in Iraq. “Ahmad wanted to avenge …

It seems that Amazon has trouble keeping up with demand from popular iUniverse titles, and if there are many orders, shows them as out of stock. So if you try to order \Clarity\ from Amazon.com and get that message, don’t believe it! You can order the book from iUniverse, where it’s never out of stock. …

This is amazing! Check out this beautiful ad created to run on Arabic-language TV, apologizing for what was done at Abu Ghraib in our names. If the clip doesn?t play right away, click on “low” and a low-resolution version will open in another window.

I suppose a worshipful tone is to be expected in the coverage of any presidential passing, but the Ronald Reagan hagiography has been a bit much. (The San Francisco Chronicle‘s coverage of Reagan as the avatar of family dysfunction was a point of light, however.) But what has really gotten me has been the headlines. …

At the end of May I attended a conference sponsored by the Community Arts Network, a uniquely rich resource for anyone interested in culture and community. It was conceived as a state of the field meeting, a check-in. While some of the participants were relative newcomers to community cultural development practice, there were enough 20-30-year …

My husband has been reading a book on the history of Minnehaha County, South Dakota. It was published in 1949, and Don’s name appears on the flyleaf in the large, round Palmer-method hand of someone who had just learned to write script at Laura Ingalls Wilder School (no kidding). The other day he read aloud …

Good survey essay by Bill McKibben in the \New York Review of Books\ on the Bush administration?s environmental destruction policy. He describes how ?The bill that turned the national forests back to loggers in the name of protecting against wildfire, for instance, was called the “Healthy Forests Initiative,” though, as [Carl] Pope suggests, “Horizontal Forests” …