This blog is primarily about my art and adventures in Mongolia. But I’m also an American and I’m very concerned about what is going on in our country. Not just economically, but the “body politic”. Who will have time for art if we lose what fundamentally ties us together as a people? I have no intention of changing the focus of my blog, but it also doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Civilization and a civil society are required for culture to flourish. Our society, thanks to a vocal few, has become anything but civil. We have lost our ability to have honest disagreements and work them out. The shrillest and most extreme voices are prevailing. And it needs to stop. Now.

“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. “ Edmund Burke.

How many of us stood by for the eight years until President Obama’s election while the Constitution was dragged through the mud? I’d have to raise my hand. How many of us stood by while, at the very highest levels of government, fear was used to control people and keep them from seeing that we were engaging in a war of choice, that alleged enemies were tortured and that the civil rights upon which we all depend were deliberately, consciously and with malice aforethought eroded?

Andrew Sullivan, who blogs over at the Atlantic Monthly, posted something very important today. The title of this post is taken from his. It is a quote from John Adams. It is the best explanation yet of the situation that America now finds itself in. Whither goest our grand experiment in self-governance? Please click through and read it. Thank you.