Preserving The American Political Philosophy

QUOTE FROM PEN AMERICA WEBSITE The combination of our New York and Los Angeles offices and membership strongholds will provide tent poles on each coast, enabling us to accelerate efforts to build a truly national organization.  Our goal is to build a national constituency of writers and readers who are energized to defend open discourse; foster the exchange of ideas across political, geographic and ideological bounds; amplify unheard voices; and stand with writers and creators who face persecution. Over the last year, PEN America has taken new steps to engage and mobilize members across the country through events, activities and leadership development in more than a dozen cities including Tulsa, Tucson, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, and New Orleans. The timing of this union is no coincidence as we face potent challenges to free speech, press freedom, the right to dissent, and the open flow of information here in the United States.  Never have the voices of writers and t...

REBUILDING MANUFACTURING & MAKING IN AMERICA by Wendy Rosen   We were banned from teaching others how to make this product (and others that we designed)  by terms offered by Fractured Atlas fiscal sponsorship Wendy Rosen has been advocating for indelible labeling of imports for years. During the beginning of the Baldacci administration, Wendy Rosen sent an initiative on indelible labeling that I submitted to to "the creative economy listserve" a listserve sponsored by Maine's public-private government, and juried by its friends.  My message asked Mainers to contact Olympia Snowe but the overlords rejected my submission.   I took the message to a local craft fair where people were grabbing it out of my hand before I finished my first introductory sentence. I was advised to contact Mrs. Baldacci. I did so but did not get a personal response from the Governor's wife.  Several months later I received a demented apology from the listserve jurors, explaining...

PART TWO  in a series in which I  place Andersen Design's vision of economic development in the economic development environment in Maine Go to PART One Patron and collaborator, Bob Rose standing among some of Maine;s "underutilized resources"  A special request It is the legacy of the second generation of Andersen Design, including yours truly, to preserve the Andersen Design tradition and meld it into the 21st century. Today more than ever, it teeters on the brink of extinction. To secure it's physical headquarters, and work space, which is also where we live on a rental basis, we need to raise $2000.00 in funds available by Friday.  You can make a donation to our ready cash fund to cure the most immediate need here: This is a donation to this research and opinion blog, which I have been individually maintaining since 2007. If Andersen Design makes it through this existential crisis, we will be willing to make good on your donation, on...

A Rare Standing Robin, few were produced due to unresolved production problems PART O NE in a series in which I  place Andersen Design's vision of economic development in the economic development environment in Maine Introduction I was raised in a home business, similar to a farm, but instead of producing crops, we produced ceramics. From the beginning,  Andersen Design , was  conceived of as part of an economic development philosophy. My father Weston Neil Andersen, often expressed the value of creating jobs. In this 1964 letter, by my father as he sought capital for the next phase of development, He talks about increasing the number of employees of our small company and about the benefit that the ceramic industry can have for Maine's feldspar industry . Our company was small but this is the stuff that real economic development is composed of, creating new avenues of wealth and connecting resources, not merely redistributing existing supplies of wealth. ...

I first published this post on my seldom used blog, Sitting On A Log. It was the first blog I ever created. The name represents the activity of sitting on a log in the woods, or a field, or a mountain top- somewhere in the natural world remote from the cultural world, where one's mind can wander wherever it wants to  go. Since it is my birthday, I decided to publish it here as well: I just added one phrase to this post which isn't in the other- I'll let you guess which one that is . Today, January 27 is my seventieth birthday. I am giving myself the gift of allowance to tell my story my own way. Throughout my life, whenever submitting biographies, resumes and so forth, I have thought what if I were to tell the real story about what has formed who I am instead of just the things that conventional accounts are made of ? My story begins with my first memory after finding myself in the material world. I was lying in a crib. Off in the distance there was a light shi...

As our national drama unfolds as a tale of alleged money laundering clogging the arteries of presidential politics, a uniquely positioned character emerges in Steve Bannon. Once rumored to be the power behind the throne, Bannon is now banished from the regime, fired from his job, and cut off from his financial supply chain. Steve Bannon has nothing left to lose. In ostracizing Bannon, Bannon came to be empowered with an unpredictable artillery of a loose cannon, a circumstance which the prevailing power contingency failed to foresee. Bannon is as derisive of Congress as he is ostracized by the Trump Republicans. Bannon was called back to center stage by the equally independent Mueller, reported to be straighter than an arrow and poised to penetrate the long-whispered rumors of an underworld wasp's nest crowning the glorious tower of Trump Global Enterprises. How delicious! But sorry to disappoint my dear reader, this blog post is not about Trump or Bannon and the whole shebang, H...

I am loving our new location. It feels like living in the Mists of Avalon, which is a book that was very popular some decades ago. It is the only book I ever read that has an indescribable but very pronounced internal effect on beingness. We moved from a view of the mill pond to a view of the rolling hills and forests, one would think. But as the sun breaks through the clouds as it rises over the  tree tops in the morning, a landscape of shining seas surrounding a structure on a mountain top forms as an interaction between clouds and sun. This is a calling to do Chi Gong and other exercises. I am listening to John Meyers album, Contimuum as I do so. Its a challenge not to dance to this enchanting album while doing Chi Gong, which are stillness exercises. I am now a John Meyer fan. He has a voice so free of tension that his humanity shines through. Related Content: Russian Artists, Eugenia Dudnikova, uses trees as a rural version of street art