Warwick Sabin

We are living in an age of uncompromising ideological certainty. From the debt ceiling to Medicare to labor relations to most other hot-button issues, the major players choose a side and never give an inch, even if that means governments shut down, bills don’t get paid, or people lose their jobs and their health care.

I tried to beg out of a recent invitation to speak at a fundraising event for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre. The organizers wanted me to talk about the Bard himself, and that is a subject I am definitely not qualified to address, especially on a program with a Hollywood producer, award-winning writers, English professors, and other Shakespeare experts. I'm just the publisher of a Southern literary magazine.

From January 14 to 18 of this year, Mayor Jim Smithson of Marshall, Arkansas, decided to raise the Confederate flag at City Hall in observance of Robert E. Lee’s birthday. (The federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., occurred on January 17.)

An object lesson in the value of Southern culture.

Dare to dream.