Anne Snyder named Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine!
”Having served as a contributing editor to Comment, Snyder says she’s excited to lead a magazine at the nexus of North American cultural conversations. ‘I love Comment,’ says Snyder. ‘No other magazine has challenged me so consistently with such big questions, playing an important role in my own thinking as a Christian seeking to interpret our times. It would be an honour to amplify that role for the benefit of a wider pool of writers and readers. The world is hungry for a moral lens that is both ancient and future-oriented, coherent yet open to new ideas.’”
Anurima Bhargava in Soul Mechanism: A Community Conversation at Carnegie Hall
In preparation for the Soul Mechanism concert on May 19, celebrated performer Toshi Reagon leads a discussion with artists, activists, and community leaders on the ways ideas travel from generation to generation and across borders. Part of Migrations: The Making of America.
Bishop Garrison with his first published fiction in Vice.com
“Today's speculation is truly something special. Bishop Garrison, an army veteran, joins the small but distinguished ranks of vets who use both their personal experience and speculative fiction to examine the future of warfare and the trauma it engenders through a lens you quite literally cannot find anywhere else. As Garrison tells me, "I based this writing loosely on my own experiences as a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as a West Point graduate and a national security professional working within and for the government since 2010." The subject is an AI soldier forced to cope with the trauma of war, and the result is unmissable. See for yourself. -the Ed.”
Sarah Hunt writing about innovation espionage in Protego Press
”The best weapon against these attacks, however, is something we already have in this country: Unmatched ingenuity. We can always use more — but we will only get it if our policies adapt to show our innovators that we will protect their ability to innovate and home and profit off the results of their genius on a global scale.”
Three CtK.Campfire Fellows will be hosting an event in NYC on June 11. Huge thanks to Sam Corcos, Shaun Gordon, and Claire Baumann for hosting and a special thanks to Sean O’Hare for providing the venue. If you’re in NYC on 6/11, join us for cocktails and conversation!
Plus a few interesting additions to the world of democracy building and talking across difference.
Eric Liu - Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility, and Democracy. You can buy his new book here or check out his TED Talk here. And you can hear him reading from it tomorrow (May 18!) at Politics and Prose at Union Market.
Co-founder and CEO of Citizen University and executive director of the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program, Liu addresses groups around the country on how to be an engaged citizen in these polarized times. His new book, a follow-up to his “citizen’s guide to making change happen” You’re More Powerful Than You Think, collects nineteen of these “civic sermons”—bracing essays that explore urgent questions related to democracy, liberty, equal justice, and what it means to be part of an empowered citizenship. By turns inspiring and comforting, these pieces offer hope as well as concrete guidelines for getting involved and rehumanizing politics.
And a little about the SALT conference: SALT [was designed] to be a safe place to debate political opinions without vitriol. “I want to put the ‘fun’ back in political ‘dysfunction,’ ” Scaramucci said. “To me, these people should figure out a way for four days to get along with each other.”
“I think what they are trying to tell us is that it’s okay to be together,” said Robert Wolf, the Fox News commentator who moderated the discussion. “It’s okay to respectfully disagree. And it’s okay to agree on things we should agree on.”
“Whatever noise is going on on Twitter, there really are solid people, whether they are R’s or D’s, who just want a better, stronger, fairer country,” said Lynn Forester de Rothschild, an investment executive and Democratic Party supporter.
We continue our work to build the capacity of leaders who are willing and able to build a stronger democracy. Join us! And have a great weekend.