E Plurius Pablum

Ken Burns at National Constitution Center
Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

Ken Burns, 'Diversity' Crowd
Call for Unified 'Civility'
at Constitution Center Love-in

By Richard Carreno
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
The National Constitution Center was converted into charm school last weekend as Ken Burns, the noted PBS-funded filmmaker known for making documentaries that popularize the popular, led a chorus of assembled main-stream media opinators for they called 'civility' in public discourse.

In other words, Burns, his production sidekick Lynn Novick and the others, including Chris 'The-Last-Time-I-Had-an-Original-Thought-was-in-1976' Satullo of WHYY,  envisaged something on the order of Meet the Press, the Sunday blah-blah 'news' show hosted by bore-meister David Gregory wherein opinions -- quite civilly presented, to be sure - range in the spectrum from A to B.

David Eisner, the center's head, introduced Burns and his crew at a press conference that preceded the weekend-long event titled 'Can We Talk? A Conversation about Civility and Democracy.' Joan Rivers it was not. Eisner gave Burns and Novick ample time to also plug the duo's new, upcoming PBS series on the Prohibition era.

All said, the announced partnership between the center and Burns, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was a noble effort, though it smacked of more tea party (without the dainty doilies) than Tea Party (with china-breaking GOP Ludittes). Despite this particular table-setting, Eisner needs to congratulated for transforming the center -- with hits and misses -- into a compelling national venue.

The problem of course is that when the liberal MSM spouts its unified call for 'civility' --droning on from MSNBC's Chris Matthews to CNN's Wolf Blitzer -- what they are really calling for is inside the Beltway cant. Like Eisner, who praised 'diverse opinion,' they really mean the same opinion by a diverse cross-section of the like-minded.

What's missing in civil conversation is civil disorder. Yes, comity, but with wit, intelligence, and informed opinion. I'm reminded of debates I've attended at the Oxford Union at Oxford University. Sharp, challenging, penetrating -- with an occasional jab of ad hominem, though you'd hardly know it.

Oops!

               

Writers Clearinghouse/Richard Carreno

Labels Get
It Wrong

It can happen to anyone -- even Sir William Hamilton, who, in the 18th century, pioneered the potter's classical images. Josiah Wedgewood, right? Wrong! Only one 'e,'
that pesky extra 'e.' Wedgwood. Two out of three ain't bad. See the label, in picture, from new exhibit at the National Constitution Center. Worse, really unforgiveable, another label cites circa 1930 as the reference date for a gladiator helmet, loaned from the Museo della Civilita Romano, Rome. Somebody needs to be paying attention.
--RDC 

At the National Constitution Center

When in America,
Do as the Romans Do

By Richard Carreno

Junto Staff Reporter Bio

The National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, will tomorrow (19 February) open its new exhibit 'Ancient Rome & America,' a broad retrospective highlighted by sculptures, paintings, miniatures, and ancient artifacts that couples the birth of the United States to Classical roots.

The result is an obvious, and well-worn story, how early Americans from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson adopted Roman and Grecian mimes to underscore the new spiritual underpinnings of the emerging nation. Washington fashioned himself after the Roman citizen-soldier-general Cincinnatus. Jefferson liked to consider himself an architect manque -- in the Classical style. (Viz Monticello).

Introducing the exhibit yesterday, the center's head, David Eisner, linked the two cultures, of imperial Rome and the early United States. 'The connections between these two cultures separated by millennia and continents are startling and captivating,' he said.

Unlike past exhibits, 'Rome & America' also exhibits scholarship and an actual connection with the center's stated mission related to an understanding Constitutional values. The center's last exhibit was a bit of fluff -- though wildly popular -- that flogged the shallowness of Diana, the late Princess of Wales.

Though the show -- running to 1 August -- has been in the making for three years, the seriousness, relevance, and curatorial flair of the new installation speaks well of the debut tenure of Eisner, on the job as the center's chief executive officer and president for just two months. 

Helping to curate the show, not surprisingly, were two heavy-hitters, Caroline Winterer, associate professor of history at Stanford University, and Campbell Grey, assistant professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Winterer and Grey also appear in a short video presentation in which they discuss whether the United States could succumb to the same fate as ancient Rome -- an internal corruption and political flaccidness the signaled the end of its empire.

Check out this well-crafted video. Fair and balanced. (Hint: Sarah Palin, Democrats, and Wall Street greed).

Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, and $12 for children aged from four to 12 years. Admission to the center's permanent exhibit and theatrical production, 'Freedom Rising,' is included. The center is located at 525 Arch Street.