The Community Festival (ComFest) is seeking applications for its 2021 Community Grants program. Each year, ComFest invites grant applications to support and sustain innovative programming demonstrating a commitment to ComFest’s principles and mission which are rooted in community, social justice and progressive activism. 

ComFest established the grants program in the spirit of giving back to the community. Since 2006, over $320,000 has been awarded to local organizations.

To learn more about ComFest’s Grants program, application requirements, read about previous grant recipients and submit an application, please visit https://www.comfest.com/committees/grants.

The deadline for submitting applications is Tuesday, January 19, 2021. Applications received after the deadline cannot be considered.

And now . . . what?

Joe Biden, in blatant defiance of the wishes of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, has won the vote and claimed the presidency. He will now, as he told the nation in his acceptance speech, begin attempting to “restore the soul of America” and “marshal the forces of decency,” which sounds great but means virtually nothing unless the words are linked to a clear and courageous agenda.

The essence of the Biden agenda, as presented so far, seems to be pulling the good old USA back into what we never were: one united country, free of racism, hatred, fear of one another. And to cooperate with the Republicans.

There is no moral or ethical justification for the killing of innocent people, anywhere. Therefore, the murder of three people in the French city of Nice on October 29 must be wholly and unconditionally rejected as a hate crime, especially as it was carried out in a holy place, the Notre Dame Basilica.

However, we would be remiss to ignore the political context that led a 21-year-old Tunisian refugee to allegedly stage a knife attack against peaceful worshippers in Nice. While it is fairly easy to recognize the individual culprit behind such a violent event, it takes much introspection, let alone honesty, to identify the true culprits, who, often for political reasons, fan the flames of hate and violence.

In his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan lamented as follows:

I have a foreboding of [a] time when... awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down... is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media... but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.... The plain lesson is that study and learning – not just of science, but of anything – are avoidable, even undesirable.

Near the end of his well-crafted victory speech Saturday night, Joe Biden decried “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another.” He went on to say that “we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- to make that choice with me.”

If Biden chooses to “cooperate” with Mitch McConnell, that choice is likely to set off a political war between the new administration and the Democratic Party’s progressive base.