Since The Utah Review started publishing in 2014, the emphasis on the Utah Enlightenment has dominated the coverage of what is new and original in the arts and culture landscape locally. Utahs natural beauty always has appealed strongly as a branding asset. But, as we have covered the arts and cultural scene, there is no question that when it comes to arts and culture, Utah has many strengths and on a per capita basis, the evidence confirms that the Salt Lake City metropolitan area is punching well above its weight (population) class.

Heading into 2020, several general characteristics can be identified with the Utah Enlightenment:

The Utah Enlightenment also lost a titan this year, when playwright Eric Samuelsen died in September at the age of 63 after a long illness. As The Utah Review noted in a tribute published earlier, he epitomized and clarified how this spiritually abstracted movement of creative expression arising from Utahs unique sense of place and meaning could be defined. Samuelsen did more than create extraordinary plays for the purpose of art for arts sake. His plays elevated the contemporary experience with the sum of its tensions, problems, conflicts, disappointments and crises to an enthralling sensation of healing and empowerment.

The following are the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment for 2019, as presented in no particular order.

One of the strongest performing arts collaborations of the year occurred last winter with theRirie-Woodbury Dance Company, theFlying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratoryand the Red Fred Project in a work that evoked a vibrant, colorful, innocent, joyful, poignant and glistening landscape. For the Red Fred Projects young authors and their curator Dallas Graham,the live creature and ethereal thingsconcert was like an animated film made full in flesh and character. It heightened the senses evoked in the stories created by their young authors, who have rare diseases and chronic illness and who are mentored by Graham. The young authors creative voices are naturally poetic, full of innocence and vivid imagination. On stage, the six dancers were transformed into the bird characters of the Jolly Troop, joined by Robert Scott Smith, the narrator, who asked the audience if you could tell the world story, what would it be. Smith and Alexandra Harbold from Flying Bobcast guided the theatrical contributions to the production. The transformation was complete with the delightful costumes created by Jared Gold that accentuated dancers pitch-perfect character movement and the musical score by John Paul Hayward. A reenvisioned version of this shimmering world of fantasy and innocence will be presented in Allegory, Ririe-Woodburys winter season concert (Jan. 31-Feb. 1).

Julie Jensen is the most frequently produced playwright from Utah with her work being presented not just in the state but also nationally and internationally. For its season-opening production,Pygmalion Theatre Companypresented JensensTwo-Headed, directed by Fran Pruyn.

Written two decades ago, with previous productions in Utah as well as in other locations including New York City and the U.K., the play opens on the day in 1857 when the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred. A decade after Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, a wagon train of 127 immigrants from Missouri and Arkansas were slaughtered in southern Utah by Mormon zealots. Seven were spared: all children. The specific reference to time anchors the play, as four decades pass through each scene and the memory of that horrific event is permanently etched in the minds of both characters, Lavinia and Hettie, who are 10 years old at the start of the play.

The production was stellar in every aspect and it communicated the poetic streams of Jensens writing to maximal effect. Most importantly, Haley McCormick Jenkins as Hettie and Brenda Hattingh as Lavinia delivered dynamite performances, particularly in their subtle mannerisms that evolve as they move from the ages of 10 to 50 in 75 minutes.

Plan-B Theatresefforts in inclusion and diversity establish an undeniable position as leader in the artistic community. Two of this years top 10 moments come from this extraordinary small theater company. The first comes from Olivia Custodios short play Drivers License, Please, that premiered last season as part of Of Color, featuring four short works by playwrights of color. A writer with natural comedic gifts, Custodio delivered the productions most audacious, ribald moments, riffing handily off the classically unpleasant experience of renting a car, the setup for a scene as women get justice for the wholly obnoxious behavior of a chauvinist male. Likewise, her short play Bombastic Blue with three characters in an underground shelter after a nuclear bomb attack brought roars of laughter in late August at the 8thannualRose Exposed!show.

The second moment from Plan-B comes from this seasons stupendous world premiereof Camille WashingtonsOda Might. The play, with superb examples of subtle foreshadowing, commanded absolute attention from the audience. The simplest description is that Oda Might is about two black women sitting and chatting at a table in a therapy session at a mental health institution in New York City. But, listen closely. The session starts conventionally enough, reflecting the sensitive, careful research the playwright conducted to fortify the credibility of a superbly crafted narrative. There are subtle ripples throughout the play that shake our expectations about the charactersa brief moment of nonverbal frustration in reaction to a spoken line, eye contact or a raised eyebrow reacting to an unexpected utterance, the growing sense that a puzzle is nearly completed but still missing the most critical piece or two.

WashingtonsOda Mightconfronts and takes command over the consequences of sadly familiar, condescending displays of casually tolerant inclusionary rhetoric and stereotypes that have engendered more negative than positive impact. The characters negotiate the narrative through the frequent intersections of contemporary culture, entrenched racism and black womanhood.

It is important to reiterate a point The Utah Review made earlier this year about Plan-Bs Of Color: For a critic who sees the creation of art, in its broadest terms, as framing difficult questions that pull us out of our comfort zones, creative expression that is fearless in taking risks becomes the most meaningful to consider. In Utah, we put a premium on civility, politeness and gentility that tacitly signals restraint and not just among conservatives but also many others of different sociopolitical stripes.

Likewise, Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC) has advanced significantly the goal of inclusion and diversity. This season saw the premiere of Charly Evon Simpsons Form of a Girl Unknown, an outstanding work Tapped for a top 10 moment this year is SLACs production Will SnidersDeath of a Driver, with riveting performances by Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie and directed by Alexandra Harbold.

Ssenjovu, a native Ugandan, was electrifying in his unquestionably credible portrayal of Kennedy. Stokes-Wylie equally was just as authentic in her role. The acting chemistry in this magnificent chamber theater piece was superlative.

Another top 10 moment came with the remarkableSackerson theater companys productionABrief Waltz in a Little Room: 23 Short Plays about Walter Eyer. This play opened in the late summer and continues through December with sold-out performances.

As The Utah Review stated in its review, the play is one of the most incisive renderings of the consequential meanings and impact of a sense of place in Utah. In breaking from practically every standard logistic of theatrical convention,A Brief Waltzpresents the unorthodox opportunity frankly, brilliant beyond expectation to transform what has been destructively judged as and perceived to be a moral failure into an emancipating expression of self.

However, the most extraordinary part of this experience is that each individual is immersed and, in fact, steps into the realm of becoming Walter Eyer, a forty-something Mormon man of familiar circumstances and conventional means but also who is embroiled in his own identity crisis.

The audience, limited to just 10 members for specific reasons that gives the performance its full spectrum of emotional impact, is introduced to Eyer (Robert Scott Smith) at the beginning with a short film projected on a wall in the back of theUrban Arts Galleryof the Utah Arts Alliance atThe Gateway, the shows venue. The audience convenes together in only three brief instances: the opening, the entracte and the conclusion.

Playwrights Morag Shepherd, Matthew Ivan Bennett and Shawn Francis Saunders wrote the 23 scenes. Its a dance that all of us might engage in, at one time or another, particularly when a consequential event or life decision faces us.A Brief Waltzopens a door for each of us to confront the collisions of superficially bright surfaces and dangerous undercurrents in our own lives.

Sackerson excels at innovation. Having secured support from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums and the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the company will hold its inaugural Micro Immersive Theatre/Experience Festival in June.

Age, indeed, is just a number for the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT). Now in its 54th season, the nations oldest repertory dance company is as revolutionary as ever. RDT and Ririe-Woodbury enjoy international reputations and connections par excellence.

RDTs dance artists has delved quite successfully in the Gaga movement language, a specialty developed prominently by many Israeli-born choreographers. Danielle Agami, an Israeli native who directs theate9 dance companythat she founded in Los Angeles, has adapted the intense physical demands of Gaga movement as an effective story-telling device for dance. Agami returned last season to restage Theatre, a 2016 work.

In its restaged form,Theatresizzled and dazzled, as the dancers relished Agamis new take on the work. As The Utah Review noted in its review: In the intervening three years, one senses how both choreographer and the ensemble have matured to make the latest interaction ever more meaningful and confident. Gaga is not a choreographic style but it reorients the dancers to push themselves to new levels of stamina and physical possibilities all while truly enjoying themselves. Theatrebubbled with clear portrayals of the characters who happen to be RDT dancers. Like Plan-B, RDTs leadership in the mission of inclusion and diversity has been revolutionary.

For a moment it appeared that the Red Desert ensemble, the duo project of clarinetistKatie Porterand composer/percussionistDevin Maxwell, was set to leave Utah for other venues to continue its pioneering efforts in showcasing contemporary music. Porter and Maxwell emphasize how new music actually is accessible and approachable and offers as compelling and enriching a listening experience as any other music. The duo, however, are still in Utah, thanks to an artistic residency at Westminster Colleges school of music.

Last spring, at a concert at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Red Desert presented a glorious jam session featuring the musical village possibilities in Salt Lake City. Porter and Maxwell gathered an assemblage of local musicians gathered for a performance of Terry Rileys In C masterpiece. As previously mentioned in The Utah Review, the work is the global villages first ritual symphonic piece, as described by critic Janet Rotter. This Red Desert performance emanated with that precise spirit.

Salt Lake City has gained a unique reputation for one of Rileys most well-known compositions. In Cis based on a concept with stunningly deceptive simplicity. Each performer works from sheet music with the same set of 53 short musical phrases that range anywhere from a half-beat to 32 beats. As with any traditional musical composition, each performer begins on the first phrase repeating it an undetermined number of times before moving on to the second phrase and so on. The work has been rendered marvelously on a combination of electronically synthesized sounds and tones accompanied by electric and acoustic instruments, especially in a highly esteemed recording by the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble.

The Red Desert performance grounded the works sprawling soundscape with a cavalcade of acoustic touches. More importantly, it underscores the adventurous spirit that highlights Red Deserts educational and performing efforts this season. In the upcoming spring, the duo will premiere works that they have commissioned from various composers.

Last spring, just ahead of the Utah Pride Parade and Festival in downtown Salt Lake City, the inauguralQueer Spectra Arts Festivalwas held. Artists and speakers addressed the impetus and inspirations for the queer creative aesthetic or, as one organizer described, the chicken-or-egg question of which comes first when queer artists create. At a closing performance in the evening, featuring works by local and national artists, it was a good glimpse into the multifaceted nature of the queer aesthetic. The point was clear: there is no one stylistic definition for how queer artists and performers express their desires, presence or empowerment. The boundaries of their visibility can overlap into the larger mainstream or remain exclusive in a niche where perhaps an audience or community might appreciate the outcome more sincerely or genuinely than others.

One of the most memorable examples wasA Politics of Desire, a literary performance by Alborz Ghandehari. He weaved aspects of desire and longing from various dimensions of his personal narrative based in Iranian roots: the revolution 40 years ago that brought about the Islamic Republic, his sexual yearnings, the experience of an immigrant now living in the West, regrouping from a loss of national identity and the pains of war and conflict. Ghandeharis gift was an elegant synthesis, which flowed so seamlessly that one truly could be awed by how within such a terse, concise frame he developed so many rich narrative textures..

Rounding out the list for 2019 Top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment is the Utah Museum of Fine Arts fascinating exhibition titledPower Couples: The Pendant Format in Artthat closed earlier this month. Curated by Leslie Anderson, who now is the director of collections, exhibitions and programs at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, Power Couples featured 60 works representing 36 pairs, including several new acquisitions and a handful of works borrowed from other museums. Many of the works come from the UMFAs existing collections of European, American and regional art and 28 had not been seen since the UMFA reopened two years ago after major renovations were completed.

The concept of pendants for the exhibition was ingenious, as Anderson not only curated it to exemplify the representation of gender roles and social status but also to highlight arts potential intellectual, philosophical and story-telling powers. As mentioned in The Utah Review earlier, Power Couples was a first-class example of how museums can sharpen the relevant connections to contemporary audiences. Andersons innovative approach invites exhibition visitors to a fluid, expansive conversation that dramatically shortens the distance between the past and the present. The pendants inPower Couplesoffer a mirror, allowing us to see the extraordinary history encompassed in this exhibition and connect it to our own complexities and in our own relationships. Anderson curated the exhibition so that contemplating the emotional and spiritual paradoxes, as they are displayed, is less intimidating and more accessible. The historical background and contemporary contexts are clarifying, invigorating and enlightening.

The exhibition underscored a thrilling year for UMFA, including the current showing of four masterpieces on loan from the Smithsonian and Art Bridges collections.

Excerpt from:
Fascinating, innovative, collaborative: Top Ten Moments of the Utah Enlightenment for 2019 - The Utah Review

If youve only been reading news lately, youd be forgiven for thinking that the world is falling apart. News is how adults continue learning about the world we make our home. But news also has a strong bias toward highlighting the problems we are facing, rather than noting the incremental but important progress we continue to make.

Steven Pinker has an antidote in his 2018 book Enlightenment Now. The Harvard professor and prolific author of bestselling books says that reason, science, and humanismideals of the 18th century period called the Enlightenmentcan be used against the forces like populism, nationalism, and militarism that threaten to turn back human progress. The book has become a bestseller and received rave reviews from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In a conversation with Quartz, Pinker spoke about why he wrote the book, what he would have changed in hindsight, and how to gain a more realistic picture of the world we live in. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Quartz: Enlightenment Now comes after your previous book The Better Angels of Our Nature. What inspired this follow-up?

Pinker: One motive was the realization that the kinds of progress that I had documented in Better Angels, namely the reductions of violence, were part of a larger picture of improvement in the human condition, such as longer lifespan, reduction in poverty, more leisure time, more education, more literacy. The story was not just that life had gotten more peaceful, but also longer, healthier, safer, and richer.

The other motive was that to remind people that there is a system of beliefs and values that is easy to take for granted. Thats not authoritarian populism, religion, or reactionary nostalgia for a golden age, but its the use of knowledge and science to improve human well-being. I call these the values of the enlightenment, just as a term for them.

I am certainly not arguing that we should go back to 18th century thinkers and do exactly what they recommend. I think a lot of people already are committed to these values, but they dont know what to call them. I was trying to articulate a set of values that had been left in the background.

You write in your book that these enlightenment values are under attack. What do you mean?

Note the rise of populism, militarism, and nationalism in many developed countries, including the United States with the election of Donald Trump. There is also a denigration of organizations of international cooperation, like the European Union, the United Nations, and the Paris Climate Accord. Were seeing a neglect of science. From the political right, it is in the form of denial of the evidence for climate change. From a lot of the academic left, there is a tendency to blame science for pollution, racism, and war. Both of which I think are wrong. There is often a denigration of reason, and of using logic and evidence in favor of gut feelings and intuition. For these reasons, a defense of reason, science, and humanism is timely and important.

What can turn the momentum against populism?

There are several forces that will naturally push back. One of them is urbanization. Populism is much more popular in rural regions and the global trend is for people to move to cities. Second is education. People who are more educated tend to be less sympathetic to authoritarian populism and there is a trend for people to get more education. But the most powerful trend is generational turnover. Populism is more popular among the baby boomer generation and the World War II generation than it is among the millennials and generation Z. As the elder generations die off and are replaced by younger generations, there will probably be a movement away from populism.

Enlightenment Now was published about 18 months ago. Has anything since then made you want to change something in the book?

I would not change anything major at this point. It hasnt been out that long. None of the trends have gone into reverse. I might have added some of the negative news that has come out about the environment and on species extinction. I did have a major section on climate change, but since I wrote it, the news has gotten probably a bit worse with more severe warnings on climate change. So I wouldve perhaps altered that.

Bill Gates saysEnlightenment Nowis his favorite book of all time. You have also talked about having a speaking relationship with Gates. How much of an impact did Gates have on the book while you were writing it?

Not directly. I had long recognized that Gates efforts have been a major force for human improvement. According to one estimate, the efforts of his foundation may have saved 100 million lives. But his approach would be an example of how an evidence-based focused attempt to improving human life can succeed.

Back in 2009, I had, almost as a joke, asked readers who is more moral. Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, or Norman Borlaug. This was before Gates had been famous for his philanthropy. Most people still thought of him as just the founder of Microsoft. The fact that almost everyone would say Mother Theresa is the most moral it shows how the human moral sense works. Namely we are impressed by super signs of austerity and self sacrifice. Whereas the amount of actual good that Mother Theresa is far less than what Gates has done through his philanthropic efforts. And both of those are less significant than the achievement of Norman Borlaug, who practically no one has heard of. Borlaug was the father of the Green Revolution. He did win a Nobel Peace Prize. He is credited with saving one billion lives but no one has even heard of him.

Why are you optimistic about the future?

The word optimism does not appear in the subtitle of the book. The argument that progress has taken place is not an argument for optimism. Its an argument for basing ones understanding of the world on trends and data rather than on headlines and stories. The rate of extreme poverty has declined by 75% in the last 30 years or the rate of death in war has fallen by a factor 20 since the early 1950s its not a question of optimism. Its a question of being aware of facts that most people are unaware of.

Its not optimism to know that fact, its being knowledgeable. The argument that I make in the book is that progress has taken place. It can be measured. Most people are ignorant of it because if you understand the world through news rather than through data, news gathers all of the worst things that are happening anywhere in the world on any given day and presents them to readers. And therefore provides a highly biased picture of the world.

The many positive developments consist of nothing happening, like a country that is not at war or a city that has not been attacked by terrorists. And many positive developments consist of gradual changes, such as a continuous but gradual reduction in extreme poverty. They never make the news, theyre not headlines.

There is an opening for optimism in the sense that since we have solved problems in the past, it reminds us that its possible to solve problems in the present. So it can encourage some degree of optimism, but what will happen in the future depends entirely on what we do now. And that depends on strengthening the values of what I call the Enlightenment, namely reason, science, and humanism.

How could journalism change to provide a fuller picture of the world?

All of news should borrow some of the practices used by those covering sports, business, and weather. All of which report quantitative indicators of the world. Not just things going wrong. So in the business section, if the stock market goes up, its reported. If the stock market goes down, its reported. If the stock market stays the same, its reported. Same with sports. The sports section doesnt just report when the team loses. They report whatever the team does and reports the standings of the whole league every single day.

There should be far more coverage in the news of weekly or annual indicators of data such as the rate of violent crime, rate of death in war, carbon emissions, literacy, school achievement scores. And then I think that it should be a part of the practice of journalism that any report of an incident that has some chance of affecting peoples impression of which way the country is going, be accompanied by a short summary of which way the trend has gone.

So if there is a plane crash, it should be accompanied by statistics on how dangerous plane travel is and whether its gotten safer or more dangerous. Likewise if there is a school shooting, it should be in the context of how many people are killed in school shootings versus other types of murder that dont get as much attention but they kill far more people. And for that matter, whether the trend has been going up or down. Better still, if its accompanied by an actual graph. Now of course, not every story can be accompanied by a graph, but if people were presented with graphs, say in the week in review section, theyd have a better understanding of the world than if they simply had isolated stories. Which is the current practice of journalism.

There is an opinion among many journalists that the responsibility in journalism is to report what goes wrong. That what goes right is corporate public relations, its government propaganda, its feel-good stories. This in particular would be easier to counter because it really is a philosophy, an attitude, a mindset. Just knowing the corrosive effects of negativity in journalism might encourage journalists to realize that reporting positive developments can be a progressive move.

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Steven Pinker on how to use reason, science, and humanism to fight today's problems - Quartz

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All images by Chris DeCicco for Yellow Scene Magazine

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What is the path to enlightenment?

Trevor Hall asked this question of his guru and shared the story at his Nov. 29th 2019 Boulder Theater concert. The path to enlightenment is through feeding and serving the people, says the guru. Thus the seed was planted and the vision started. Figuring out how to feed the people has been incubating since that conversation. The plan finally came together with the help of friends and the folks at Conscious Alliance, the non-profit that works with artists and festivals to collect food at concerts and distribute them to the needy.

Trevor and friends came together for the first of what he hopes are many such events like the Conscious Alliance community meal at the Sacred Heart Church in Boulder. The team over at Arcana, including chef Samuel McCandless, put together a simple meal to warm the hearts of fans and the unhoused alike. Trevor mingled with everyone taking selfies and being the humble dude that he is.

Friday nights concert kicked off with an opening by his close friends, originally from Hawaii, Amber Lily and Tubby Love. Their sweet mix of reggae island vibes and message of unifying the people and being a catalyst for change was well received by the Boulder faithful. They are now based here in Boulder along with Trevor, injecting a welcome infusion of conscious music to the local scene.

Trevor came out barefoot and excited to play in front of his hometown and started off with a slow building beat that reached its peak just as the crowd did. His voice is like butter and his songs are straight from the heart. For those not familiar with his music, many of the songs have a mantra based chorus that is intentionally repetitive to help everyone connect with that highest part within all of us. When you sing along and let the words flow it can put you into an ecstatic state of oneness, if you let it. Trevor invites you to take a journey into your spiritual life along with him and find internal peace.

It was Trevors birthday the day before and his Dad was in the house. He was introduced and brought up to play drums with the band. Just seeing the bond between the two of them and the joy they shared on stage was worth going for. They played a couple of Blues based jams to the surprise and delight of the audience.

What touched me the most was Trevor sharing about his ongoing struggles with depression and anxiety. He joked with us and through his own vulnerability was able to help normalize the ups and downs we all go through. It made me think about all the rock stars and famous people who we have lost way too early to similar illnesses masked by addiction and the idea that we are all supposed to be happy on the outside and hide our pain. The real change comes from sharing your inner world with others and Trevor did that beautifully.

Trevor then brought out Tubby Love and Amber Lily to accompany him on a few more songs and their island connection and affection for each other made the song, O haleakala that much more potent. We heard some of Trevors biggest hits, including The Lime Tree, The Mountain, Green Mountain State, and some brand new tunes like Storm Clouds. The band is tight and each player brought their best, especially on the encore where we got to hear the individual magic of the musicians. The lead guitarist brought a fiery end to the show with a bluesy electric trippy sound that everyone seemed to love.

Trevor will be back at Red Rocks on May 1, 2020, with Citizen Cope and Rising Appalachia after a sell out show earlier this year. Hopefully they will be able to team up with Conscious Alliance again to bring the feeding people theme by serving up another community meal. Dont forget to bring canned food and non-perishables to donate.

All images by Chris DeCicco for Yellow Scene Magazine

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The Path to Enlightenment with Trevor Hall | Review December 17, 2019 North Metro Diversions North Metro Diversions - Yellow Scene

In the Ayn Rand Institutes 2019 annual report, Onkar Ghate explains how ARI is uniquely positioned to succeed in the worldwide battle for individual freedom. Alone among pro-freedom institutions, Ghate observes, ARI understands that philosophy determines long-term trends in any culture. Thats why the Institutes activities, including New Ideal, are aimed at making a difference in the long game, by injecting the right philosophic ideals reason, individualism, capitalism into our civilizations lifeblood. Join us. You can support our work by becoming an ARI Member.

When the Ayn Rand Institute was established in 1985, its founders understood they were playing the long game. ARIs founding documents quote Rand herself: The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophys impotence, but the proof of philosophys power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state [of cultural bankruptcy] it is only philosophy that can lead them out. (For the New Intellectual, 1961)

ARI is the only institution fighting for freedom in the world today that understands this fundamental truth.

To the extent the world has moved forward since the 18th century, it has done so by implementing, however imperfectly, the ideals of the Enlightenment: reason, science, individualism and a government limited by the principle of individual rights. To the extent the world has stagnated or retrogressed, it has done so because of the ascendency of opposite philosophic ideas: mysticism, dialectical logic and other pseudo-scientific approaches, collectivism/tribalism, and unlimited government given the power to sacrifice the property and lives of individuals, when doing so is said to be in the public interest.

Rand viewed her new philosophy, Objectivism, as putting the Enlightenments ideals for the first time on a fully rational, fully defensible foundation.

Rand viewed her new philosophy, Objectivism, as putting the Enlightenments ideals for the first time on a fully rational, fully defensible foundation.

ARI exists to inject that philosophy into the lifeblood of civilization. The Institutes progress, accordingly, is not measured in days, but in decades. Perhaps the clearest sign of progress is that Rands ideas are following a trajectory similar to what J.B.S. Haldane outlined for the acceptance of radical ideas: first the idea is dismissed as worthless nonsense; then it is regarded as an interesting but perverse point of view; then it is regarded as true but unimportant; then it is said to have been everyones viewpoint all along. Arguably, we have moved into the second stage, as evidenced by the growing worldwide interest in Rands ideas, by how often her ideas are mentioned in the media and in ideological discussions, and by the growing difficulty of simply dismissing her ideas as nonsense.

This change over the last thirty-plus years is in large part due to ARIs activities: our essay contests, books to teachers program, educational talks, conferences and courses, media appearances, and published essays and books. We are trying to change peoples fundamental convictions and to normalize discussion of Rands radical ideas.

Our focus on the long-range dissemination of philosophic ideas does not mean there are no shorter-term successes. But it does mean that these successes are created through the impact we have on other individuals and organizations. For instance, one of ARIs long-standing, vital activities is educating individuals about Rands ideas and their application. Many of these individuals go on to do impactful work. We have helped train individuals who are now teaching and publishing at universities, are involved with legal think tanks like the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Institute for Justice, and the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, and have founded organizations like the Center for Industrial Progress and Higher Ground Education. We need thousands more individuals like these who are knowledgeable about Rands ideas and are working to apply them to forge a new culture.

Its an exciting journey, in which I hope you join us. If you already have, thank you for your support.

Become a member of the Ayn Rand Institute, starting at $10 per month, by December 31, and receive an invitation to an exclusive online Q&A session with New Ideal writers.

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Fuel the Fight for Reason, Individualism and Freedom - New Ideal

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday invoked the nations birth in defending her decision to delay sending impeachment articles to the Senate. Our Founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected that there could be a rogue president, she said. I dont think they suspected that we could have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time.

The accuracy of that observation depends on how one defines the Founders. The Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution certainly predicted that the new Constitution would encourage the sort of corrupt behavior of which President Trump is guilty. But the Anti-Federalists were the losers, not the winners, in the struggle over the Constitution. The Federalist victors likely would have agreed with Pelosi.

The Federalist framers of the Constitution understood that it was vital to endow the new government they created with broad powers, but they recognized that this grant itself posed great danger. It was for precisely this reason that the Constitution was built on a system of check and balances. By creating coequal branches of government, the Framers hoped that ambition would be made to counter-act ambition.

These words, quoted by Pelosis colleague Congressmen Adam Schiff, point to the Founding generations Enlightenment faith in the human capacity for rational self-interest. Each of the three coequal parts of our government, the Founders believed, would seek to preserve its powers and authority, and the new Constitution thus would offer a means of checking the designs of demagogues and the sycophants and rogues who followed their lead.

Continued here:
Could Americas Founders Have Imagined This? - The New Republic

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ)

Sexual orientation is getting closer to becoming a protected class in West Virginia.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael hosted a hearing on Thursday to get input from religious and business leaders about the Fairness Act. It's a proposed law that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

It is currently legal in West Virginia to fire someone from their job or evict them from their home because of their sexual orientation. Race, religion, gender, age and national origin are currently protected in the state, but not sexual orientation.

"Whenever we see an employee that does everything right, but it happens to be discovered that they are gay, and they can be fired for that with no ramifications, that's simply wrong and West Virginians can't stand for that," Charleston business owner Chris Walters said.

There are currently 12 communities across West Virginia that have protections that would be expanded to the entire state under the Fairness Act. Supporters said the policy would help boost business.

"Unfortunately, our talented youth are moving out of state," Walters said. "I have more friends that I went to college with that are not in West Virginia than are still in West Virginia."

"I want to see them come back here," Walters continued. "I want to do everything we can to make them feel welcome."

Opponents of the law said it could open businesses up to more lawsuits and create more problems than it solves.

"I would argue that it would put undue pressure on business owners," said Pastor Jonathan Pinson with Grace Baptist Church. "I do not believe that this type of legislation is going to help West Virginia. I believe that if we were going to look at the vast majority of West Virginians, they are concerned about their religious liberty, and that liberty being infringed upon."

Religious leaders also questioned how someone could prove or enforce their sexuality in a complaint.

Carmichael has not committed to supporting the bill but has said he will not block it from coming up for a vote in the upcoming legislative session. The session begins on Jan. 8, 2020.

ORIGINAL STORY 12/3/19

A meeting Tuesday at the West Virginia Capitol is bringing together leaders from both sides of the political aisle in a push for comprehensive LGBTQ non-discrimination protections.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson County, described the roundtable as very informative, although he would not commit to bringing the Fairness Act up for a vote in the Senate.

"This may not be the right bill, this may not be the right time, it may not be in the perfect structure and we need to find that out," Carmichael said. "When you move a society forward, you have to bring everyone along, and we are trying to do that in the best way possible. These are incredibly difficult issues that need education, enlightenment and understanding."

Forty-four politicians across the West Virginia House and Senate have backed the Fairness Act. A version of this legislation has been introduced for multiple years, but leaders say its finally gaining traction.

"The votes are there, it's just a matter of making leadership comfortable," Fairness West Virginia Executive director Andrew Schneider said. "Like the Senate president said, we will go through a process where we talk about the language of the bill, and see if we can find language that will make the most number of people comfortable."

Currently in West Virginia, someone can be fired from their job and denied housing or public benefits based on their sexual orientation.

"At a minimum we need to be able to provide employment and housing protections," transgender activist Danielle Stewart said. "Public accommodations, especially for transgender individuals is an issue, and I won't deny that, but really the employment and the housing is what holds the LGBTQ community back.

State leaders say about 60 percent of West Virginians support this type of legislation. Twenty other states have passed comprehensive legislation like the Fairness Act, as theres no federal protections against this type of discrimination.

The U.S. Supreme Court has heard three cases on LGBTQ employment discrimination issues and rulings are expected in early 2020. That could create the first federal protections on these issues.

Opponents of the Fairness Act say it opens businesses up to frivolous lawsuits for discrimination, Carmichael said. That issue is one of the reasons similar bills have been brought up in recent years but have not been passed through the Senate.

There are currently 12 towns throughout West Virginia with non-discrimination ordinances. That includes Charleston which passed the first ordinance of its type in the state 12 years ago. Only two lawsuits have been filed under these ordinances and both plaintiffs won their case, Schneider said.

More:
LGBTQ non-discrimination protection legislation in W.Va. another step closer - WHSV

Dear Readers:

Usually at year-end I share with you an update on the state of your Seattle Times. This year, Seattle Times President Alan Fisco will do that on Dec. 29th.

Today, we want to share something bigger than just The Seattle Times the state of the free press system in our nation. This is a system literally on life support as it suffers through the final stages of disinvestment and destruction by a handful of non-democratic fiscal oligarchies (hedge funds and distressed-asset players) who control most of the countrys newspapers. These are the bottom-feeders at the end of a four-decade period of consolidation and lost local control something that we should never have tolerated because it has put our democracy in peril.

This crisis is not well understood, even in Greater Seattle where we enjoy one of the few major metro newspapers that is still local, robust and trusted.

In keeping with the Blethen familys 123-year stewardship of independent journalism and community service, we believe this is the moment for all of us to speak up and address the national crisis before it is too late.

As an extension of The Times commitment to preserving the free press across America not just Seattle, Yakima and Walla Walla earlier this week we hosted a Save the Free Press meeting. This brought together a stellar core of national leaders from policy, activism, academia, philanthropy, journalism and independent newspapers.

The purpose is to begin a nationwide Save the Free Press Initiative by identifying and prioritizing solutions necessary to:

Because The Seattle Times is one of the rare newspapers under continual private, local stewardship for more than 100 years. This stewardship has enabled us to become a national beacon of light with our journalism and innovation. We are proof that while stressed, the business model is still viable when not hobbled by debt.

And because our community support for quality local journalism in the Greater Seattle area is unparalleled across the country. That is not surprising for a community known for innovation, enlightenment and generosity.

On the state level, we will initiate discussions with our state Legislature about creating incentives and removing roadblocks to enable building more local ownership.

Statement of Purpose for the Save the Free Press Initiative.

Your community support of The Seattle Times through subscriptions, public-service journalism funding and advertising has been fantastic. Thanks to you, Greater Seattles free press has a bright future.

Link:
Save the Free Press initiative: A message from Publisher Frank Blethen - Seattle Times

Event organizer: Temple of the Feminine Divine

Event Date & Time: December 21, 2019 3:00 pm until December 21, 2019 7:00 pm

Temple of the Feminine Divine | Contributed

BANGOR Join the Temple of the Feminine Divine for a Winter Solstice Pop-Up mini-craft fair! This 4-hour event will be jam-packed with local makers (no direct sales vendors) and magical items certain to delight even the most unique and crafty people on your holiday shopping list. We have lots of fun surprises and activities in store!

Vendors include: Sacred Products of Light,Wildly Inspired Soul Enlightenment, Jess Wade Arts, Made by Mudgi, Naissance Farm, Enby Embroideries, Switzers Jewelry and Sew Crafty Maine, Adventure Awaits, Oh My Goddess by Louise Shorette, and delicious chocolate goods by Hazel Littlefield.

This event will take place at theUnitarian Universalist Society of Bangor at 120 Park St. The public Yule Ritual will follow the Craft Bazaar, starting at 7:15 p.m.

Read more from the original source:
Temple of the Feminine Divine's annual Yule Craft Bazaar - Bangor Daily News

Blades swirl around their bodies, coming perilously close to piercing flesh. Swords flashing in the morning sun, the young women twirl, cartwheel and then kick in unison, finishing their graceful movements in a centuries old kung fu fighting stance.

Dressed alike with matching shaved heads, the women and girls finish their daily exercise and move on to their other duties as part of the Kung Fu Nuns of the Himalayas, a name they have proudly adopted.

Jigme Yanching Kamu has lived at the Druk Amitabha Mountain Nunnery perched high in the mountains outside Kathmandu since she was 10 years old.

We are the only nunnery in all of the Himalayas doing deadly martial arts, Kamu told CNNs Great Big Story in June. This is a lifelong vow that I made to the Drukpa Order, and I am very proud of my practice.

The Drukpa Order is a branch of Himalayan Buddhism, a faith which traditionally considers women second-class citizens. According to Buddhist narratives, a woman cannot achieve spiritual enlightenment unless she is reborn as a man.

The idea was that as long as the nuns cook and clean for the monks, they can come back as a monk in their next lifetime and then become enlightened, said Carrie Lee, the former president of Live to Love, a non-governmental organization that works closely with the nunnery to supply aid to the region.

According to Lee, discrimination toward women is a way of life in Nepal and surrounding nations. Girls are considered a burden and are frequently aborted; if they live, they have limited access to healthcare or education. They are often sold off to traffickers or marry young; wife beating and other types of spousal violence is common.

His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual leader of the Drukpa lineage, says as a child he believed the Buddhist beliefs about women to be misguided. In the early 2000s he began to promote the nuns to leadership positions.

It wasnt always well received. Local traditionalists called the action blasphemous, Lee said, and then they started harassing the nuns and assaulting them.

To teach the nuns self-defense, Drukpa hired a kung fu teacher in 2008. But His Holiness also hoped the training would improve the nuns confidence and self-esteem.

I consider the kung fu art, martial art, an education, he told actress Susan Sarandon in a 2014 interview. Im very proud of the nuns.

I have been breaking through all these barriers, he added. Whatever the Buddhist people say I dont mind and I dont care.

We wake up at 3 a.m., we meditate, we bicycle and we train for three hours, Kamu said. The Drukpa Order is not for lazy people.

In addition to kung fu practice with swords, sticks and flags, the women jog and run up and down stairs to boost their fitness. They even learn to break bricks with their hands.

All of the physical work has a spiritual purpose, Kamu said. Kung fu trains us to focus our minds for meditation.

Martial arts are known for their health benefits. A 2018 studyfound hard martial arts like kung fu can improve balance and cognitive functions that decline with age, while a 2016 study found kung fu and karate helped with blood sugar control.

Another ancient martial art, Tai Chi, has been more thoroughly studied. Research shows Tai Chi can improve bone mineral density, reduce blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and reduce harmful inflammation.

And the mental health benefits are just as strong. The calming, meditative trance needed to do a Tai Chi series has been shown to greatly reduce anxiety and stress, even lowering levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, in the blood of participants.

When a devastating 7.9 earthquake took the lives of 9,000 people in Nepal in 2015, the nuns from Druk Amitabha Mountain Nunnery were some of the first relief workers on the scene.

Supported by the Live to Love organization, the nuns walked to villages that government and traditional relief organizations considered too dangerous to visit.

When the earthquake hit, our kung fu training helped us to be brave and strong, Kamu said. We survived the landslides, avalanches and earthquakes.

Later the nuns were able to do a medical helicopter rescue, truck rescues, food and medicine distribution, provide solar power, and more, they wrote on their website, even building 201 new homes after clearing the rubble.

During the cleanup, Lee said, the nuns saw young girls being given away or sold off to potential human traffickers and decided to take action. They organized bi-yearly bicycle trips, taking months to cover thousands of treacherous miles between Kathmandu and Ladakh, India. They stop at tiny villages along the way to spread a message about the value of girls and the dangers of human trafficking.

We talk about equality and safety, Kamu said. We wanted to show everyone that if nuns can ride bicycles, then girls can do anything.

By showing that girls could survive the mountainous terrain, they were sending the message that girls were strong enough to farm and thus worth keeping, Lee explained. They started raising awareness about what actually happens to girls when you give them away.

Many of the mothers had encouraged their girls to leave, hoping they would have a better life, Lee said. And now when the nuns go back, these families come up to them and say, We had no idea where our girls are going. Were much more protective of them now.

His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, their spiritual leader, joins the nuns on most of their bicycle trips. His presence adds weight to their fight for womens rights, especially in the most traditional villages.

Because of his religious authority, equality becomes a religious mandate, Lee said. Respecting women becomes a religious imperative wherever he goes.

The effort appears to be paying off.

In the past 15 years, Ive noticed a huge shift in some of these villages, Lee said. Before, if I sat down with meetings, it was predominantly men. Now women are so much more vocal in these meetings. Now you see female police officers, you see female politicians and leaders.

The nuns have added a green theme to their good works. Each year they do a Eco-Pad Yatras, a 400 plus mile hike picking up plastic litter and educating locals on ways to protect their local environments.

Many of the nuns are trained solar technicians, others assist doctors in the Live to Love eye camps, where cataracts surgeries are free of charge. Other activities include music, dance, theater, and animal rescue and care.

When Lee first began volunteering 20 years ago, the nunnery was home to about 30 nuns. Today there are more than 800, ranging in age from eight to 80. There is a waiting list for young girls who want to join the Kung Fu Nun revolution.

All of the nuns bear the first name of Jigme, which means fearless one in Tibetan.

I learned I can do anything a man can do, Kamu said. Kung fu has trained me to be confident, strong and happy. The teachings help me put my compassion into action.

View original post here:
Kung Fu Nuns in Nepal boost their health in the fight for women's rights - KKOH

The Drowning Liberty installation at Flatiron Plaza in New York, U.S., Photographer: Michael ... [+] Nagle/Bloomberg

In a New York Times magazine article, published on 13th September 1970 and headed 'The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits', the economist, Milton Friedman, argued that the sole purpose of business is to generate profit for its shareholders.

He went on to say that, "Acorporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible".

And for decades to follow, that was the accepted wisdom of the function of business, to generate profit for its owners and shareholders. It shaped corporate goals and objectives, and made many people very wealthy.

It spawned the 1980's frenzy of spending, it fed the thinking of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher andled to the 1987 film 'Wall Street' where we faced the unsavoury face of capitalism,as portrayed by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko:

"Greed is good. Greed works.Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind".

The world today, however, is a very different place. Because today we have climate change, we have oceans filled with plastic,we have fast fashion, we have a returns epidemic, and we have sustainability issues.

And this got me thinking. What are the implications for retail and just where is all this heading?

When Retail Goes Wrong

Let's be in no doubt, retail is not only the most exciting sector, it is also the one which is closest to all of us. We build relationships with retail businesses, from the corner store to the largest department store, in ways that we would never do in other sectors.

Have a favorite utility provider? Thought not. No, retail has a place in our society, in our communities if you will, like no other. But in this new, enlightened age, this is both a blessing and a curse.

We've witnessed the impact of when retail goes wrong on many occasions - horsemeat, accounting scandals, faux fur versus real fur and the collapse of BHS spring to mind - and when it does, it does so, often in spectacular ways.

There's no keeping it under the radar, it's front-line and in our faces, and while the supply chain can often be complex and difficult to monitor, we don't concern ourselves with that, it's always the retailer's fault.

New Decade, New Retail Model

This all means that retail is in a unique position. Because, just like greed is now perceived to be a bad thing (was it ever anything but?), as we move into a new decade, does rampant consumerism now conjure up similar sentiments?

The plastic straws we drink from, that T-shirt we only wore a handful of times, that single use plastic bottle we threw away, that steak we had for dinner. What was once acceptable is now more likely to raise an eyebrow, or more.

Because, the transition from raising an eyebrow to out and out resentment is not a huge step to take. And that's where we've arrived at as we welcome in the New Year.

And just like the teachings of Friedman, retail has largely existed to make a profit. To encourage us to buy more stuff. More clothes, more food, more electricals, more and more stuff which ultimately finds its way to landfill.

Enlightenment

However, will the twenties be the decade of enlightenment? The decade when we finally conclude that businesses, retailers especially, exist not to generate profit but to do good. Do good for communities, for society and for the planet.

The decade when wealth won't be measured by the size of the bank balance but by the impact left on the planet. The decade of not just credit scores but carbon scores. The decade when the very purpose of business will be challenged.

Idealistic? Maybe. But one thing is clear. We can't continue in the current direction of travel, it's simply unsustainable. Something has to give. And retail needs to be proactive in its response to growing public sentiment.

It needs to re-evaluate its place in society because we now know that neither greed nor rampant consumerism is good. The wind of change is blowing down our high streets, but just how many retail businesses will embrace it? Because for those who don't, the future looks very bleak indeed.

Originally posted here:
The Business Of Business, Why It Is Changing And Why Retail Must Take The Lead - Forbes