To bring you a great link.    Posted this on Facebook today, and will post it here, too.    I’ve become a bigger fan of the opinions of columnists considered, traditionally, as “conservative.”   The energy and tumult of the world is shifting values of liberals a little to the right, and the values of conservatives a little to the left.   More meeting in the middle.   If you didn’t see it, newly appointed Democratic State Chairman Chuck Herz just recently had his letter to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times published.  In the letter he praised the views of David Brooks, who spoke of the situations humans create for themselves that are too big to solve when the worst happens.   And when the worst happens, it is catastrophic.

Thomas L. Friedman, in this column, is saying that the worst has happened many times over and both political parties are culpable.  And that means the population at large is culpable.

A pull quote: ” It is not your imagination,” says corporate strategy consultant Peter Schwartz – there is a lot more scary stuff hanging out there today.   Since the end of the cold war and the rise of the Internet, we’ve lost the walls and the superpowers that together kept the world’s problems more contained.  Today, smaller and smaller units can wreak larger and larger havoc – and whatever havoc is wreaked now gets spread faster and farther than ever before.”

We’re at the watershed; we need to consider good ideas, where ever they come from.   To read the full article, click here.

This is a lesson we in Jackson could learn; I hope we are learning.  The truth expressed in Friedman’s article is applicable to Jackson’s economic woes:  we’ve put our eggs in one or two baskets.   We have crashed hard.   We need more baskets.

(“You know… more money funds — flows through the private capital markets in a day than through all the world’s governments in a year. So, there’s no question that this job, this transition, this move of America and the world to a clean energy future is not going to be done by our governments. It’s going to be done by our entrepreneurs, by our investors, and — and by our business leaders.”- John Doerr )

An “up” note:  I applaud Jackson’s resilient, ever-expanding and brave arts community.  So much positive energy and ideas are hatching (from the arts basket), and growing!   We stumbled, but in recent months I see one of our private sectors taking up the challenge and running with it.   Congratulations, all you entrepreneurs, new galleries and public art pushers!   You are picking up on ideas and bringing them forward.  It’s a beautiful thing.  I love hearing about new ventures, so do send news to me via my email:  tammy@jacksonholearttours.com. I don’t always pick up info from Facebook, because I rarely scroll past the first page of posts on my wall.     Direct mail is best.