Cool evening turns to hot night

The turn to cooler evenings made for a pleasant outing to Amistad Center for Art and Culture Fall Gala at the Atheneum Hartford Museum in Hartford CT last Saturday, Oct 26th. The event entitled “Dancing in the Streets” honored Martha Reeves, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who turned that song, and others, into a national anthem during the rhythm and blues heyday of the Motown years. Adding another layer of excellence to the evening, the august fraternity known as the Boulé, who were honored for their commitment to the community. As guests of the gracious couple, Pamela McKoin and Dr Larry Morse, we were feted among an illustrious group of supporters in the art filled main hall in grand style. Olivia White and Greg Deavens hosted the event, which also had in attendance the Chief curator of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Robin Jaffe Frank and her husband Robert, Lana Woods, Susan D. Toliver and Stephan Perry, and Cornell Wright, Robin Bell-Stevens, Alice Dear and a host of acknowledged artists and patrons of the arts, among others. As the evening warmed up we retreated to a art lined blue lit gallery for Martha Reeves “calling out” renditions of her hits, from Dancing in the Streets to Heat Wave!

If you think the shutdown of the government doesn’t affect you, think again. Especially if this shutdown spans for more than a week the ripple effect of it on your life and business will be felt. Whether it is directly through the growth and expansion of your company’s business practices, through the lack regulatory actions many corporations must hew to or through the purchasers of your products or services, you will feel it. Funding for your ventures and those of your consumers will be severely hampered by a governmental engine ground to a halt. Though the “Affordable Care Act” has been propped up as the shill, for which, this drama was to unfold, it was nothing more than the cloak the thief wore in the night, to rob you of your security. We all bear responsibility for allowing it to happen by not paying closer attention to the unfolding efforts at a governmental coup d’etat that now undermine our very existence, as we know it. A Pollyanna-ish desire for everything to resolve itself is nothing more than wishful thinking and is like saying Hurricane Sandy was a rainstorm and it would be okay in the morning. The consistent lack of apportionment by the congress has been a consistent effort to leave the country bereft of financial backup when this moment hit. No budget means that very little will be funded because there has been no provisions for it. From the export of products to the import of materials, from the regulatory labyrinth that corporations must navigate to move forward, to the expansion of educational funding, we will find ourselves stymied by shutdown bureaus, furloughed workers and unfunded initiatives. Our only chance of righting the ship (like the Costa Concordia), will take a long and concerted effort to overthrow the many obstacles that have risen up to block true democracy from working. We must break the gerrymandered practice of sustained immunity from electoral defeat for extremist in government and must overturn political funding by special interest that allows anonymous unlimited purchasing of anarchists to rampage the halls of local and federal congresses. If you have been too busy to write your congressman in support of protest, now would be the time to take that step. Don’t continue to sit and wait for someone else to do what only you can do. The next TV show, fashion show, art show, sales show, conference, vacation or theatrical performance can wait. Your congressman needs to hear from you for your help and/or disapproval. http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ NBC News: A government shutdown and what it could look like Please share your thoughts and ideas on what you feel can be done.