We think KNOWING is so easy that we approach the unknowable with suspicion. Longitude by Dava Sobel and William J.H. Andrews is a worthwhile read if only to challenge the certainty of our suppositions. Modern precision is grounded in countless struggles with imprecision. Anyone who believes the modern world is a simple one should read [...]
Posts under ‘WHOLENESS/order’
Citizen’s Conundrum: Dirt, Data and Digging Out
Now showing: “every utterance, every court filing, every public transaction, every burp, every miscue.” In an interesting read, Jack Shafer wonders about the state of our politics “now that we have dirt on everyone.” While some debate the power of the Internet to democratize even the most authoritarian regimes, we should consider its role in [...]
Politics and Public Art
There’s something about public art that gets to the heart of Politicolor’s project. When Carlos Collejo offered a tour of L.A. murals to our National Academy group in 2009, he explained the people and the art meet in the streets through these works of art. In the short video, “The Battle for LA’s Murals,” a [...]
Being Human
We are a people who need a frontier. Carl Sagan provided these words as he reflected on space exploration long before Atlantis launched into space for the last time. You’ve seen these reflections on Politicolor through our imagined conversation between Cicero and astronaut Michael Collins. As Sagan notes in this video, the space program did not provide [...]
Seeing Simplicity in Complex Ideas
Eric Berlow is an ecologist and network scientist at the University o California who believes nature has something to teach us about problem solving. Nature shows that, with any problem, “the more you can zoom out and embrace complexity, the better chance you have of zooming in on the simple details that matter most.” Eric [...]
Many in One
Where are we from: Oregon or Ohio, Colorado or California..? Sue Leeson suggests the Madisonian perspective: We are from the United States. A corollary arises for participants at this year’s James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship: Where are we constituted? Surely, that’s the case for the Landmarks workshops: that a home, a monument, a farm, a [...]
112th Reads the Constitution. Don’t Stop There.
The 112th Congress has already delivered on a campaign promise. They read the entire Constitution on the House floor. Like most campaign promises, however, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. There was a quibble about which version to read, the original version or the current version that reflects revisions, amendments or deletions…. actually, they [...]
Madison on Facebook
In a 1791 essay printed in the National Gazette, James Madison contemplated public opinion and a “general intercourse of sentiments.” He imagined that roads, domestic commerce, and a free press would all work to reveal true public opinion in an expansive country where it would otherwise be easy to counterfeit. Imagine what he would have [...]
Wikileaks and the First Amendment
Being a tech enthusiast, I’m not quick to scoff at the idea of “hi-tech terrorists.” Cyber security must be considered a high priority for effective government, but the current Wikileaks stories suggest that our liberty is at stake as much as our security. If you don’t identify with the extremes (i.e., set our data free [...]
America’s “Futures Plural”
An interesting post on Big Think provokes thoughts on our future as well as how we teach about our past. Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor, takes on the question, “What will be the U.S.’s place in the world over the next 20 years?” He discusses a future where the U.S. as a waning empire [...]
