Buttermilk & Molasses

I'm Going to Really Enjoy Being a European

I was just complaining the other day about how Europeans put a splash of cheap red wine in sippy cups for fussy toddlers; apparently, that's taboo here in the States. Fortunately, by the time Thea turns three I'll be able to give her wine, cigarettes and cheap, plastic sandals. At least of you believe former KGB analyst Igor Panarin. From BLDGBlog:

In what sounds to be very obviously an act of wishful projection, a former KGB intelligence analyst turned public intellectual named Igor Panarin has explained to the Wall Street Journal
that the United States only has about 18 months left to live. In the summer of 2010, it will "disintegrate" into six politically separate realms...

And from the Wall Street Journal piece itself:

[Panarin] predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

In addition to the fact that Canada and Mexico suddenly develop dramatic political and social influence over populations twice their own, I just really appreciate the notion that as a resident of Atlantic America my cash (which will be Euros, thank you) will be worth six times that of the Chinese-led California Republic. The map pretty much tells the story:

There's something to be said about good, clean mapping. It really takes the messiness out of political restructuring.

Best of This, Best of That. Everyone Loves a Weblog These Days...

The inRich and Richmond[dot] and assorted minions of the Media General [dot] Goliath have let it be know that there are blogs in Richmond, and some of them are the "Best of." It's a new way of ranking things around town. We think you'll come to enjoy it.

I was disappointed on two levels. First, that Cameron ranked Buttermilk & Molasses below Made in Richmond. Second, that Karri Peifer bolted and threw a tie in the mix between Buttermilk & Molasses and Tobacco Avenue. For the record, TA has only written 23 posts in the past year that involved readers laughing out loud; nine of them featured Gene Cox. As is usually the case, I got trumped by cute and clever, neither of which have ever been particular strong points for me (according to my mother).

On the subject of Buttermilk & Molasses, Karri writes, "Hands down, Buttermilk is the best in Richmond." While the effervescent Cameron opines on Buttermilk & Molasses and RVANews, "These two always have my attention.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t check them more than once a day."

I don't even check my own site once a day. Observant readers note that I don't even update once a day lately. (I'm working on that one, folks.)

Here's the laundry list: RVABlogs, Church Hill People's News (2x), Buttermilk & Molasses (2x), Tobacco Avenue (2x), Jack Goes Forth, Circles of Concrete, Jocelyn's Corner, Made in Richmond, RVANews, River City Food and Wine, Spying on Suburbia, and Libby with a Y. For links and catty comments, visit the inRich Best of Richmond Blogs Holiday Extravaganza.

Lebanon, Lost and Found

The Washington Post's David Ignatius waxes optimistic about Lebanon, which has been the muse of a great many Western political analysts over the years -- Ignatius and the NYTimes' Thomas Friedman among them. I spent a short week there just before the Hisbollah/Israeli tiff exploded into open warfare during the spring of 2006.

And for a country that was torn apart over the course of several decades, briefly re-glued and then subject to a re-implosion with the February 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the withdrawal of Syrian forces the same year, and the 2006 miscalculation by Hezbollah that led to the 2006 invasion of the small country by Israel, there's some room for optimism.

After all, Lebanon still exists. That's defying the odds by almost any calculation.

But this week's move against Hamas by Israel -- resulting in more than a thousand dead and injured in the Gaza Strip, and only some portion of the casualties actual Hamas militants -- makes me wonder whether Hezbollah has another card to play, and what that might mean for Lebanon.

Optimism aside, Lebanon remains as Ignatius describes it: "Still straddling the fault line, a multicolored quilt of a country that is now dressed collectively in a neutral gray."

Create Your Own Future

My wife alerted me to a new notion floating out there in the land of People We Both Admire -- The Portfolio Project, a 12-week burst of creative output designed to magnify the small droplets of effort we normally put into our most passionate outbursts. Here's Jen Lee on the Lee/Lemen joint venture:

We came up with a 12-week action burst that would focus on daily production goals that will dramatically expand our body of work.  This is a big game.  What would your landscape look like, if 12 weeks from now you had 50 new paintings, or 100?  If you had 50 new poems and short stories?  What if they weren’t all amazing–don’t you think the odds are that plenty of them would be?  That it would feel good to fish for the best from a vast ocean instead of a puddle of projects?

It got me to thinking about the sorts of things I might use to varnish my creative landscape over a 12 week period of time -- a dramatic redesign of my weblogs; a major flurry of poetic output; a series of profiles on people creating real change, every single day, in our community; the launch of a new business.

Game on. Check with me on March 22 and let's compare notes.

Great Things Require Thought, Initiative, Risk

"Can we see great things coming out of the region under our current setup?" asks Michael Paul Williams in a December column, which looks back at the failed 1961 attempt to merge Henrico County and the City of Richmond.

Presumably, Williams is asking if the region might look different if there was a change in the political process. I'm not sure Richmond's problem is entirely structural.

Over the past five weeks -- since losing my job and deciding to start my own business -- I've been having conversations with people. Lots of people. Well over 100 at last count.

I've had conversations about life, about work, about new business ventures. And I've had an awful lot of conversations about our region -- and about a need for different conversations to build a different community in the Richmond region. Those conversations have been with civic and corporate movers-and-shakers, as well as friends and peers and residents of the region whose stake in the notion of change is nominal at best.

I've yet to met with anyone who wasn't interested in seeing "great things" come out of the Richmond region. Oddly enough, while I was talking to each of them, few of them were talking to one another.

Peter Blanchard -- the "Who Moved My Cheese?" guy and an expert in leadership and culture -- uses a model called Situational Leadership (SL2) in his work. Essentially, SL2 suggests that at any given task an individual demonstrates a certain level of commitment and a certain level of competence. Commitment and competence are a measure of an individual's developmental level -- different developmental levels require different amounts of direction and support to accomplish tasks.

Blanchard's developmental levels -- D1 through D4 -- can be applied to organizations and communities, as well.

I'd diagnose the Richmond region as being at D2 in the art of community conversations -- with low-to-variable commitment and low-to-moderate competence at engaging the broader community in important conversations.

If it were entirely a question of competence, it would be easy to change course. Richmond's problem -- not a surprise to many, I suspect -- seems to be a lack of commitment to a broader community process.

But when I refer to Richmond's lack of commitment, who am I referring to? The political elite? The business class? Corporate citizens? Civic associations? Individual residents of the city, or the region?

I wish I could say. Some, or all, of the above.

But we'd still not be at the heart of the matter.

Blanchard's developmental levels are accompanied by supervisory levels -- how a supervisor or leader can help an individual or group move through their particular hurdle.

Two problems here. First off, helping a community move through commitment issues is no easy task. More importantly, the competent leadership required appears to be lacking. Lacking in competence, and lacking in will.

Which brings us back to the notion of great things being done.

Perhaps what Michael Paul Williams ought to be asking is whether great things can emerge from the region with the current leadership.

Jim Crupi said we should pull more chairs to the table. I'm beginning to wonder whether we should just order a new table altogether. The old one's looking a bit wobbly.

Speaking out for the Arts -- the Cultural Action Plan Goes Live (and You're Invited)

I'm glad Don at Save Richmond posted his long-form flashback on Richard Florida, Arts and the Man, and the ongoing tension between big and small in the world of arts and culture. It reminded me that I had a thick packet of information about the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan, and its next steps for public input.

It only takes a quick glance at the emerging themes in the plan to recognize that Don's post is probably correct about one thing (via the Milwaukee Cultural Alliance and playwright R. Winsome) -- "They focus all their attention on…big organizations, as though these are the only existing relevant cultural assets, when, in reality from the creative class perspective, they are the least relevant."

And while that certainly has consequences for everyone involved, I'm not sure it's a disaster in the making if there is a umbrella organization that works to change the way we coordinate, fund and experience art in the Richmond region. Even if it only touches big organizations and operates 20,000 feet above the real creative action.

I find that I've got a fairly pragmatic take on the potential outcome of the Cultural Action Plan. Will it transform the region? Probably not. Will it create a new energy for grassroots cultural activity? There's some slight possibility there. Does it have the potential to align many of the big players in the cultural arena, and create a more holistic approach to arts and culture in the Richmond region. Yes.

For that reason alone, it's worth the time and energy of key influencers from the local cultural scene -- the big museums and bigger galleries; the dance and performance organizations; the historical institutions -- to come together with the public to envision a broader, more ambitious future for arts in the Richmond region.

The Cultural Action Plan process started at the end of June, and it included a survey of 2,700 regional residents about their cultural participation. In January, the public is invited back to weigh in on the emerging themes identified by the plan's strategy team, consultants and stakeholders.

The community is invited to participate in a series of public meetings -- which are unfortunately jammed into two days (either a sign of bad planning, or a consultant who hasn't set up a process that can run without their presence in the room). In the weeks ahead, Buttermilk & Molasses will work to dissect some of the eight key themes that the public is being invited to address.

First, the details.

The four community meetings are happening in mid-January at locations around the region:

• Monday, January 12, from 4:00 until 6:00 p.m. at the offices of the Hanover School Board, 200 Berkley Street, Ashland, Virginia.
• Monday, January 12, from 7:00 until 9:00 p.m. at the Pine Camp Arts & Community Center, 4901 Old Brook Road, Richmond, Virginia.
• Tuesday, January 13, from 4:00 until 6:00 p.m. at the Cultural Center of India, 6641 Ironbridge Parkway, Chester, Virginia.
• Tuesday, January 13, from 7:00 until 9:00 p.m. at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, 2880 Mountain Road, Glen Allen, Virginia.

If there's one thing I can tell the team working on the Cultural Action Plan -- based on my experiences with the Downtown Master Plan process -- it is that they had better start beating the drums on this pretty hard if they hope to get a significant turnout beyond the most passionate members of the arts community. Weblogs, news media, schools, libraries, retirement communities and churches should all be targets as a strong, creative PR campaign during the first two weeks of January.

Before you show up, you might want to take a look at Buttermilk & Molasses' ongoing coverage of the Cultural Action Plan, or better yet the documents posted online by Wolf Brown, the DC-based consultant working on the plan. (Note to Wolf Brown: Post the emerging themes document from December 8 so people can focus on the relevant issues.)

The eight key themes, which I'll explore more in-depth as we approach the January meetings, are:

• The Economy and the Plan - Essentially, how should the plan best position itself in light of the demoralizing economic forecast for 2009? My answer comes from the only middle school cheerleading chant I remember: Be aggressive. B. E. Aggressive.
• Regionalism - How best to engage this issue on a regional level, and how can the plan get the right people to the table? Issue the invitation and move forward with energy and optimism regardless of who shows up -- in the world of change management there's a wonderful phrase: "The right people are the ones who are here." Everyone else will catch up if you have a good product. We spend way too much time thinking we can get everyone on board on the front-end in this town.
• Coordination - Who's going to coordinate this multi-headed, artistic hydra? Figure out what you're trying to accomplish, and then identify the competencies you need to achieve those strategies. Only then should the planners begin identifying an organizing body. If you identify the organizing group first, the plan will find itself limited by that group's history, experiences and skills. In business, you define roles based on the needs of the customer -- not the person you want to fill the position.
• Cultural Equity - The African-American / white divide is the one we all talk about, and it's an important divide to bridge. But the plan had better be talking about the region's other sizable cultural communities -- the Asian-American and the Hispanic communities; the Muslim community; the Indian community. There is a past that needs to be addressed, but there is also an exciting new future to be created.
• Cultural Education - There are plenty of organizations providing educational and creative experiences in the arts and culture realm. But there's very little alignment between their activities.
• Artists and Emerging Organizations - The region's amazing grassroots cultural structure is its most under-appreciated commodity, and there is very little support to allow it to flourish and grow. On the one hand, the creative adversity faced by individuals and ad-hoc groups striving to build something new and different is what makes the local arts, music and cultural scene so kick-ass. On the other hand, how much more amazing could it be if there was a mechanism to provide support, resources, connections and capacity building in this space?
• Cultural Tourism - Leveraging the arts and cultural community to bolster the region's tourism trade makes sense. But given the region's general inability to get its act together as a regional tourism magnet -- the Tri-Cities and Williamsburg areas do far better in this regard than the Richmond region, it seems -- I wouldn't bet the bank on this one.
• On-Going Public Process - How to attract people to this conversation, and how to keep them attracted to it as it continues. As someone trained in large- and small-group facilitation, I'm constantly amazed at the lack of creativity and competency most organizations and institutions exhibit in this area. Whether it's a charrette process, an Appreciate Inquiry process, or a formulaic strategic planning session, there are some powerful tools to change the way conversations happen, empower citizens to lead the discussions, and create energy and motion that continue to live well after people leave the room.

If you can't make the meetings, you can also email Tom@wolfbrown.com with your thoughts, concerns and ideas about the Cultural Action Plan.

Urban Richmond Returns

Not only has Urban Richmond returned, but its author has ripped off his mask. It's good to see Matthew Freema back in the local weblog mix -- with or without his name.

In Which a Young Barack Obama Channels His Inner Truman Capote

It all shook down in 1980, according to TIME Magazine.

The Collision of Beer, Holidays and Verse

RVANews is passing out a couple of free tickets to the Ipanema Beer Feast (set for January) in exchange for a holiday tag line for RVANews' site. The entries to-date are worth their weight in hops. Go play.

Richmond Magazine Liberates Content

The retooled Richmond Magazine website has been out on the town for a couple of months now, which makes it about time for me to tip what passes for a hat around these parts for the liberation of more of the magazine's increasingly solid content. (Note: I periodically slap out an article or three for the magazine. So does my wife.) It even has five new blogs.