Category Archives: Center for the New Northwest

Innovation and ideas on life, policy, and the arts.

Counter That!

We talk a lot about the counterculture in the work we’ve been doing lately. It may surprise you to learn the term was coined no earlier than the 1960s by Theodore Roszak in The Making of a Counter Culture HERE. The tradition itself, though, no doubt goes back as far as societies have existed. I Read More

Best Ever

Bob Dylan called him, “the best guitar player I ever heard.” Being the astute musicologist he is, Bob has tuned in to more than a few great players, so that’s high praise. It merits serious attention. People love lists and love the rankings those lists bring us. What person’s number four, which city is most Read More

When the Rooster Crows

  When something phenomenal happens and you give it some thought – how did it come about, what were the forces at play, was it simply a matter of timing, was it inevitable, who can explain it? – it sometimes seems to be made of a complex set of circumstances. Dauntingly so. At other times, Read More

The Price of the Fourth Estate

When did it begin? Within my recent lifetime, I believe. Like Hemingway said about bankruptcy, it happened very slowly and then very suddenly. The Fourth Estate is in its death throes HERE and HERE. To be accurate, there are many diehard journalists about and looking for new ways to practice their craft HERE, but the candle Read More

Whither We Go

Making a living. I always thought that was an odd term. “What do you do for a living?” people ask. As though what you do to make money is what you are. Ever since I was a child, and my father took me aside to explain “the way it works,” I’ve pondered the reality of Read More

Beat

Yeah, well, maybe, I guess. One of those headlines that today we call clickbait. Do we want to read about what happened? An uprising of the counterculture? The fringe fraying from the body politic of the established order? Perhaps. We’ve been thinking and writing about the counterculture of the Sixties and Seventies, with a preamble Read More

Inspiration

We’ve all had the experience, some more often than others no doubt, but is there anywhere anyone who hasn’t had an “Aha!” moment? That burst from out of the blue that shows you something you never have seen before or clears up something that always before has been muddled, or maybe generates in you a Read More

Joy, too

In this season of joy and goodwill to all, a persistent issue arises for me. Walking the streets and sidewalks of our prosperous little town, especially in the evening when lights in the store windows twinkle and cash registers ring, it’s always a challenge to ignore the flotsam and jetsam of our social order. People Read More

Sources of Information

Radical Radio: FREEFORM Radio Archive was launched as promised (whew!) late on Thanksgiving Day. The response to this Version 1.0 of the archive has been great so far. More than 300 people have checked it out to date. The December 5 edition of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (CMHOF) newsletter featured the site and Read More

Something To Give Thanks For

Well, there are so many things we can give thanks for when we really think about it. For all its faults, life is pretty fine and, as is so often said, it’s better than the alternative – although none of us living can be certain that’s true. BUT, I am especially thankful to be realizing Read More