After a night's sleep and especially after reading this morning what others who have read my post of yesterday are saying about the subject of artistic censorship and our relationship to the world, I realized that what I wrote just wasn't really in my voice. Although I suppose not everyone would agree, I think I was way too concerned with being gentle to everyone and everything: Uncharacteristically, I didn't make my own position clear on issues about which I have very strong opinions.

While this next section looks like a partial creed, maybe I should just call it a small glossary, even if it won't be arranged alphabetically.

GOVERNMENT: [okay, I know the word is missing from yesterday's post, but that's part of what I mean] I abhor everything the current administration in Washington stands for. I also believe that its enablers in the other two branches of government share equal responsibility for its domestic and foreign crimes, and that the corrupted system which has brought us to this juncture is an abomination we may not survive.

CENSORSHIP: I believe that censorship is a substitution for thought, and is its mortal enemy.

CHILDREN: I argue that children should be educated and protected through the active engagement of all adults, and not by a passive, dumb curriculum of barricades or screens.

LBIF: I am aware that simple-minded, do-good arts organizations can sometimes do as much harm as they do good. Sorry.

FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS: I probably couldn't say enough about the good they do.

TRANSFORMATION: I regret that when it comes to the public presentation of their work artists are not always free to determine either its site or the manner in which is presented.

SUSAN DESSEL'S SCULPTURE: I affirm that the artist Susan Dessel has a great mind and a soul which is its equal, and that her work, "OUR BACKYARD: A Cautionary Tale", is a powerful human statement and an exceptional work of art (even if I still can't decide whether it might suffer or thrive from the remarkable gentleness of the title attached to it by its gentle creator).

I mourn the fact that this country has virtually no use for artists and thinkers, so I'm still gravely pessimistic about the future of our polity.