It all started with a script -- "Greater Tuna."

Award winning director, Katie Damp (Best Director, "Raisin in the Sun," down in Colorado Springs last year), gave me the Tuna script some months ago and asked if I'd be interested in one of the leads in the two man show. She offered the other part to David Truhler, an enormously talented and experienced actor -- most recently seen as "Ali Hakim" in "Oklahoma."

I was intrigued to learn about a new phenomenon in Cuba: private libraries. According to a November 8, 2000 article in the Denver Post, more than 60 independent libraries recently have sprung into being.

Officially, there is no censorship on Castro's island. In fact, the "many donations of books sent from Mexico, Spain, and the United States are seized by custom officials without explanation."

Recently I had the opportunity to visit with some librarians on the Western Slope. Our main topic was Amendment 21. They were very concerned that rural library funding was going to be decided by the majority of voters who lived on the Front Range.

As one of the librarians pointed out to me, folks in the Denver metropolitan area have a rich array of cultural offerings: museums, art galleries, universities, theaters, ballet companies, and more.

Well, another election season is over. Although at this writing I don't know how it all turned out, I do know this. There is a profound mistrust of government in the land; and it augurs poorly for our future as a people.

Consider the initiative process. In the history of the United States, there have been relatively few amendments to the Constitution. There were 10 when it was adopted in 1791; 17 more were ratified in the next 209 years. There have been no U.S. Constitutional amendments since 1992 -- and that one had been first proposed in 1789.