I’m referring to Chautauqua Institution, a center for the arts and learning situated on Chautauqua Lake in western NY, where I work during the summer. Chautauqua began as a sort of educational retreat for Methodist Sunday school teachers in the late 1800s and is today a prime thinking (and relatively well-off) person’s vacation spot. A gated community requiring paid admission for nine weeks every summer, Chautauqua offers a plethora of high-level events ranging from symphony, opera, ballet, and theater productions to lectures by such figures as (this year) Al Gore, Tony Campolo, Richard Schickel, Michael York, and Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
There was a write-up in Sunday’s Buffalo News (article unavailable online without a subscription) on “Citizen Sulzberger,” who will be speaking on “Citizenship, Democracy and Journalism: An Essential Partnership” at the Chautauqua Ampitheater this Thursday July 13. Said Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, regarding the controversy over reporting information that could potentially threaten national security:
Whenever we find ourselves under conditions of wartime, this country falls back in that balance between civil liberties and security. Not mediocre presidents, either – Lincoln, right? Habeas corpus. John Adams and the Sedition Acts. Woodrow Wilson and imprisoning political opponents. Franklin Roosevelt and Japanese Americans....There is a context here, and you can’t view today’s events outside that context. You have to deal with them as they come, and that’s unpleasant sometimes, but it does help, it helps me at least, to know others have been down this path.
I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have a blogger’s convention at Chautauqua sometime – there’s so much there to blog about! I hope to do a little Chautauqua blogging myself though I’m not able to get to more than a few lectures. If any other bloggers out there are interested in coming to Chautauqua, let me know!
