Welcome to A Gray Agora

In ancient Greece, the Agora was the Athenian marketplace and political epicenter where any free citizen could address the assembled crowd on any issue of public concern.

Of course Socrates discovered that free speech turned out to be a relative concept. Socrates had to curb his tongue, but at least the Athenian elders did buy him lunch and a hemlock cocktail to assuage his outrage.

The Greek experiment with free and public discourse lasted a short time before the Athenian man-in-the-street concluded that democracy was an exhausting proposition requiring much too much diligence and vigilance. And so Athenians hired kings to do their thinking for them and the rest is (as they say) ...history.Here in America, we have fared a little better with this democracy thing. Our machination is called a republic in which we hire journeyman kings to do our thinking for us. Every 2-6 years we perform a cursory job review of our surrogates and conclude whether or to extend their contracts. Occasionally, we get whipped up into that old mob mentality, and we capriciously execute our charges ...

Often just because we can. Viva la Republic!

If democracy still exists anywhere in the world is in the small local community where what one individual says is still heard and can still can make a difference. Of late in Gray, both the politics and the personalities have eclipsed the issues. The current discourse in the papers and the blogs may fill a void vacated by the cancellation of Jerry Spinger, but the net damage is the alienation of all the John Q.'s in Gray who have something worthy to say.

We need more and better voices.

A Gray Agora is the forum for such voices.