In a new YouTube video, Common Interest founder Keith Allred says our nation's founding fathers matched the boldness of their vision with clear-eyed understanding of popular government's past failures.

They saw that countless experiments in self-government had failed because of factionalism and understood it was rooted in the failings of human nature. They worried that our forgetting this would put the republic in peril.

If factionalism was the disease, Keith says, checks and balances were the cure. Separate government branches would make it difficult for factions to impose their will on everyone else.

"The effectiveness of the cure requires us to work respectfully with each other. Only as we seek out solutions that cross institutional and ideological divides will we identify measures with broad enough support to make it through our complicated system."

Thomas Jefferson summed it up: "We have no interests nor passions different from those of our fellow citizens. We have the same object: the success of representative government. Nor are we acting for ourselves alone, but for the whole human race. Our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self-government. The eyes of suffering humanity are fixed on us and on such a theatre, for such a cause, we must suppress all smaller passions and local considerations."

Watch it at www.TheCommonInterest.org and link to it at the right.

BOISE'S CHANGING FACES

On June 20, Downtown Boise saw perhaps the most diverse gathering in its history. In addition to the Capital City Farmer's Market crowd of well more than 1,000, several hundred people were celebrating National Refugee Day in the Grove plaza, while more than 1,000 folks took part in the annual PRIDE parade.

From all walks of life, nations and backgrounds, we shared the same space and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

What I carried home (along with 158 digital images, three oil paintings by Sherri Carter, a print by photographer Alice Scully and a big round loaf of Zeppole's sourdough potato bread) was this advice from a Refugee Day speaker: "If you see someone on the street you don't know, just smile."

I did that as I walked toward my car and passed a man dressed in what I took to be Afghan garb. His eyes brightened and he muttered what might have been hello in a soft voice as we passed each other. For a moment, world peace didn't seem so impossible, after all.

FUN AT THE VISUAL ARTS COLLECTIVE

Visual Arts Collective hosts Alley Repertory Theater "Plays from the Alley" on Mondays in July. The VaC also will host a benefit concert by Steve Fulton, Doug Martsch, Rebecca Scott, Pinto Bennett and another dozen musicians Friday and Saturday.

Alley Repertory Theater invites audiences to tell local playwrights what they think of their work at a series of readings:

- "Head," by Oliver Russell Stoddard, July 6.

- "Catherine," by June Daniels, July 13.

- "Inflection Point" by Greg Hampikian, July 20.

- "Cocktails at the Fishers" by Kelly Broich, July 27.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; tickets are $7 per reading or $24 for the series, at the door or www.alleyrep.org.

Fulton's "Love for the Lab" tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door; first 200 fans get a free CD by artists they'll see that night.

Doors open at 7 p.m. The VaC, an over-21 venue, is at 3638 Osage St., Garden City, behind Woman of Steel, 3640 W. Chinden Blvd.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

A glimpse of the world by Marilyn Cosho, an artist on the autistic spectrum, opens July 9 at VSA arts of Idaho, 1878 W. Overland Road (near Federal Way) from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Diagnosed at age 54, Marilyn will debut her DVD, "Welcome to the Asperger Syndrome Mind," showing 56 of her collages, drawings, poems, photos and "fairy items."

Information: Evelyn Mason, VSA, 345-1210.

Freelance writer Diane Ronayne: dianeronayne@gmail.com