From the Editor

January 28, 2001

We’re here on Sunday afternoon readying the February issue for the printer. Ani
Di Franco trills and warbles like a bird of prey moving in for the kill out of the speakers on Carla’s desk. Outside, bright sunshine reflects off the snowy Shawangunk Ridge.

Later today, an estimated 160 million Americans will watch the Super Bowl. By the time you read this, the game will be long over. Maybe you watched it, maybe you didn’t. If you watched it, most likely you can’t remember much of the game; sure, you might remember who won, or who sang at halftime or a clever commercial some company paid CBS $2.2 million for the privilege of airing. By now, it’s probably a fleeting wisp of a memory to you, like a bland party after which you can’t recall any of the conversations you had although you can picture the faces of the people you spoke to.

I’m not going to engage in any Super Bowl bashing—the overheated athletic spectacle is too easy a target. (Besides, I already wrote that piece four years ago.) But Super Bowl Sunday has got me thinking about values. To wit: What are the values propagated by the Super Bowl and what are the values propagated by Chronogram?
The Super Bowl’s core message, reflecting the values of our society at the dawn of this new millennium, is consumerism. Buy, the Super Bowl tells us. Remain passive. Whatever you need—be it physical, emotional or spiritual—it can be bought.

What do we value at Chronogram?
We value honesty. We believe that the flow of information that will never be featured on CBS or in the pages of the New York Times—like Gary Alexander’s article this month on the dangers of irradiated food—is important.

We value activism. People will speak up for themselves if they feel empowered to do so. When we all raise our voices, whether to demand remediation of the Hudson by General Electric or to register our dissatisfaction with a flawed electoral process, we begin to effect change.

We value gentleness. We believe in treading lightly on the earth, as well as among our fellow humans. When we recognize our shared humanity, our sameness, gentleness will surely follow.
We value people’s stories. Contained in this magazine you will find articles, profiles, poems and short stories. These add up to a meta-narrative about our community. Looking through the contents of this month’s magazine, that story seems to be about hard work, beauty, perseverance, vigilance, humor and love.

And that sounds like a pretty good story to me.

—Brian K. Mahoney