“If we are paying attention about facts, we end up as accountants. If you find out that yes, here or there, a fact has been modified or has been imagined, it will be a triumph of the accountants to tell me so. But we are into illumination for the sake of a deeper truth, for an ecstasy of truth, for something we can experience once in a while in great literature and great cinema. I’m imagining and staging and using my fantasies. Only that will illuminate us. Otherwise, if you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”

from the NY Times interview today with film maker, Werner Herzog

I experienced no push-back last week in talking with leaders of socially and economically challenged villages and suggesting that women are often the innovators, the change-agents, the mothers of invention in the face of necessity.

Talking with one of the community leaders in an Alberta region that borders Montana. The question, “Do people who co-exist across national lines consider geopolitical boundaries relevant?” Absolutely not. They are abstractions that don’t get in the way of the daily transactions and development of social and economic capital. People live in regions, not nations. National impacts occur, but do not factor in the real networks of people and relationships.

More from Peter Block’s powerful model for community engagement here in Cincinnati where great things are happening in small groups where speed and scale are less important than authentic belonging in a culture of commitment.

Helping is a subtle form of control
Connection has to come before content
Anyone who wants to promise you safety wants to own you
I’ve been blind to my gifts because I’ve spent a lifetime working on myself
Service organizations don’t know how to monetize gifts, only deficiencies
It’s a sacred act to betray someone else’s expectations
Our new questions are expressions of faith in each other
When dissent is important, there is room for assholes in the community
Every marriage I’ve ever been in, I’ve gotten the same feedback, there is no power in trying to fix myself or others
The structure of belonging is people sharing their vulnerabilities about what matters
Even the past is unpredictable
The job of leader is to convene and name the question

Bush today announced closure on a long search for a “war czar” for the country. Interestingly, a Google search of “US Peace Czar” turns up two, as in 2, hits, both referencing the same Dallas newpaper article.

That’s where the US culture is at the moment. Good news: a lot of room for improvement - room the size of the universe, to be exact. The root cause is that the thought of peace annoys many people, not the least of whom make a living from war. Until a peace czar helps us retool whole industries and careers, peace will be a long road to journey, but worth every step.

In a recent conversation with urban garden innovator, Maurice Small, he suggests that he gets his energy from the earth. A beautiful realization, that by literally touching and nurturing the earth, we get a kind of energy not available through any other means. It’s an energy that cannot be boxed, bottled, or virtualized. It is only available when we drink it in as we work the land, rest on the grass, or lean against a tree.

As we have become a generation striving to reconnect with our earth, we must develop our brain receptors for the earth’s energy the same way we develop receptors for fine wine, art, music, and poetry.

In Tremont tonight, perfect weather intersected the monthly art walk with its usual continuum from international scale to folk art. Sidewalks teaming with bantering locals and wide eyed tourists trading in openings, Cleveland’s finest fares, and the surreal site of a thriving neighborhood in a city inked as in decline. The diversity of conversations are only matched by the cool night’s air tapestried with live street music in tempo with the most complex smells of spring blossoms and kitchens where award winning cooks toil in joy. Beneath the inauthenticity of economic generalizations, renaissance flourishes.

The US government has now spent millions, possibly billions, of dollars on failed rebuilding projects in Iraq, including hospitals, airports, and infrastructure. It’s a project management issue. In one case, when inspectors visited a medical waste management facility, administrators there couldn’t quite locate the key to let them in.

We need a political vision that includes attention to common disciplines like project management that enjoy regular success in US business projects. If we’re going to continue occupying Iraq, it’s the least hospitable thing we can do.

Interesting interview last night with a grassroots community leader in a thriving transformational community.

The summary statement after two hours of breath-taking sagas was: “We get ideas and make them happen.” Story after story where small self-organizing actions, fully self-empowered, move a community from demise to flourish in less than a generation. No political leadership, no community consensus, no big money, no institutional support. Just making things happen, one possibility at a time.

At the Defrag Ohio conference today I facilitated a forum of civic regional thought leaders on the design of curriculum for the development of entrepreneurs. It was a group that inspired and energized itself in the process of sharing previously unshared perspectives, purposes, and practices. There is obviously national scale passion and innovation in this emerging cross-disciplinary venture.

The goods news is that entrepreneurism can be learned whether it’s in the space of arts, sciences, technology, or infomatics. Many of the pedagogical innovations are driven by the acknowledgement that digital media and robust mentored internships will be at the heart of the matter. Among the many points of consensus, agreement that entrepreneurs must be taught by entrepreneurs. Very exciting stuff.