Compartmentalizing

Last night, at dinner with friends who are, in one of the more peculiar twists of an American life, in the position of deciding between spending their next set of years in Alabama or Stockholm, I was reminded that I have a blog.  

Hello Blog. Sorry to be such a stranger. 

I've been working at launching a blog for United Way, called SpeakUnited And while I don't really write on that one EITHER. It's taking a bunch of my time to run it for the other bloggers who post on it.  What's been really fascinating about that blog is it focuses on all of the issues that matter to our organization - homelessness, youth violence, foreclosures, trends in philanthropy, effective pathways out of poverty etc. -- really bedrock stuff.  It does not, however, focus on politics.  It can't.  United Way is a nonprofit and thereby falls under 501c3 tax laws, the most limiting of which is the unequivocal restriction which makes all the world a dinnertable conversation at which politics and religion can never be broached. And I get that. I truly do. But it's primary season, ladies and gentlemen.  It's hard enough not to talk about the role politics plays in community issues on a daily basis.  It's nearly impossible in an election year, when every Globe article, every blog entry, every hallway conversation has taken that tint.  At least for me. 
We'll see how it goes.  It's not formally launched yet, but I'd definitely encourage anyone of you to go poke around it.

As for my friends who are choosing between moving to Stockholm and Alabama, ... did you guys realize that John Coltrane recorded songs about both of them?  You can't really go wrong in any location that inspired Coltrane to pick up his saxophone.