Some outstanding cultural and current events for the rest of January

Setting aside my Ranting, here are some fascinating events we have an opportunity to attend this week.  The list ends with my plans for two future REAL RANTS!

At the old standby, Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue:

Monday, January 27 – 7 PM

Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes – Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the Worlds Most Powerful Office

Tuesday, January 28 days 7 PM

Marsha Chatelein – Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Wednesday, January 29 – 7 PM

Diane Ravitch – Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Flight to Save America's Public Schools

Thursday, January 30 – 7 PM

Kim Ghattas – Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the 40 Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East

Friday, January 31 – 7 PM

Yuval Levin – A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus: How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream

How fascinating that in most cases the tone of the book is established in the subtitle.

If these cultural events do not totally absorb you, here is one more that may have appeal the following may have appeal:

Film: A More or Less Perfect Union

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William G. McGowan Theater
Washington, DC National Archives – Metro stop one half block away

Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 7:00 pm. to 9:00 pm.

Reserve a Seat

A More or Less Perfect Union (2020) explores the most contentious issues in American history and today through the lens of the U.S. Constitution. The groundbreaking three-part public television series tells the story of how the framers put freedom in writing; how amendment after amendment finally spread freedom to all of “we the people,” and how we still struggle today to preserve the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. Hosted by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg—a national authority on the Constitution, with 30 years of experience on the Federal appeals court in Washington, DC. Throughout the series, experts of all stripes—conservative, progressive, and libertarian—debate key issues of liberty: freedom of religion and press, slavery, civil rights, the Second Amendment, separation of powers, and more. Following the screening of episode one of the series, Judge Ginsburg will be joined by Professor Hadley Arkes, , Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions emeritus at Amherst College, to discuss the series and take audience questions.

And for anyone missing my “Ranting” please know that I'll have two more in the near future expressing my concern about:

The Democratic candidates candidates for the next election and

One way out of our America's governmental moral abyss

I CAN RAVE ABOUT THE EVENTS i CAN ATTEND AND YOU CAN GET THEM ON LINE

MORE THAN EVER WE NEED AN INFORMED CITIZENRY.  And my former DC Free Culture will be included with my ranting and raving.
Hopefully you will take time to read my Rant that is included at the end of this listing.

Author talks

this week – 1/22 – 26

Thursday – Sunday

Politics and Prose - D. C. BOOKSTORE

Thursday – Steve Inskeep – Imperfect Union: How Jesse and John Fremont mapped the West, invented celebrity and helped cause the Civil War – 7 PM

Friday – Andrea Bernstein with interviewer Franklin Foer – American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps and the marriage of money and power – 7 PM

Saturday – James S. Gordan – The transformation: Discovering wholesomeness and healing after trauma – 1 PM

Saturday – James Mann – The great rift: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and the broken friendship that defined an era – 3:30 PM

Saturday – Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Kahn – Sexual Citizens: A landmark study of sex, power and assault - 6 PM

Sunday – Daniel H. Weiss and Peter Osnos –In that Time: Michael O'Donnell and the tragic era of Vietnam – 1 PM

Sunday –Franchon Jean Silberstein – Art in Sight: nderstandingart 

and why it matters – 5 PM

My church responds to taunts of homophobic and racist slurs as we celebrated the life of Dr Martin Luther King.

I wonder if they knew that All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Washington DC with well over 1000 members is a beautiful composite picture of America with an emphasis on young people and young families representing people of all religious beliefs and creeds.

How could they be so disrespectful and ignorant of America's heritage as founding fathers and intellectual leaders from Jefferson to Emerson extolled the freedom of all Americans to freely worship according to their individual consciences.

How proud I am of being in a church that is representative of all America EVERY SUNDAY and has leadership that responded to the congregation with a letter including these two paragraphs:

“We were so moved by how our congregation responded to this hateful act. Hand-in hand, we walked out of the sanctuary and onto the front steps of the church singing "We Shall Overcome." Our loving songs drown out their hateful shouts.

One congregant said afterward that our collective action on Sunday embodied one of Dr. King's most important teachings: "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

I hope that you will also read my next “Rant” that will tell of how this one church has such broad appeal that it alone among all the churches I have attended for 94 years is truly representative of the people of my country.

A poem for starting the new year

Clearing

by Martha Postlewaite

Do not try to save

the whole world

or do anything grandiose.

Instead, create

a clearing

in the dense forest

of your life

and wait there

patiently,

until the song

that is your life

falls into your own cupped hands

and you recognize and greet it.

Only then will you know

how to give yourself

to this world

so worthy of rescue.

I'll have more to say about this in a week or so.  The minister at All Souls Unitarian Church used it in a mailing as an introduction to his sermon this last Sunday.  I couldn't wait to share it with those of you seeking perspective for the daunting new decade.