Buck Ramsey (cowboy poet) testifying in favor of funding National Endowment for the Humanities “I think our nation, and our species has common memory that keep us, through tradition, connected; reminded of the precious things our minds and hearts and souls have sifted and sanctified from our long and common experience. But, as regards to songs, stories, and poems, which are much of the tradition of my tribe, I learned early a curious fact:...

A friend, Julene Bair, just posted a moving article about selling the family farm in Kansas.  Out in the Cold at High Country News  http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.22/out-in-the-cold Knowing she had no choice didn’t help. The fact that her mother and brother supported her decision didn’t help. Hang onto the land, was her father’s oft repeated advice–words that haunted her and continue to haunt her. She still feels like...