The need for community anchor institutions keeps coming up in conversations and so I want to lay out 7 keys for moving ahead productively. Let me be clear upfront: Communities cannot create change without these institutions, but not all actions will lead down the right path – and many will be downright harmful.

The U.S. has been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and now soldiers are coming home without adequate supports. I’ve written on this topic before, and I do so here again because I cannot fathom how we allow this to happen. We make soldiers carry the body bags of their dead comrades, and then we make those returning home carry their own baggage of injuries to mind and body filled with unrelenting pain.

Reflections from Greg Braylock, Jr. Education Impact Specialist for United Way of Greater Toledo Early in the 3½ day Harwood Lab, the message sank in: organizations that seek to serve people too often know of the people they work to serve, but don’t really know the people they serve. This subtlety becomes the difference between failed or mildly successful plans, policies, initiatives, and programs, and those that are successful, sustained, citizen driven and system supported.

I hope you caught the Super Bowl ad “Halftime in America,” featuring Clint Eastwood. It’s amazing. Like Chrysler’s ad with Eminem, this one captures the country’s mood and people’s aspirations for moving forward. But the response to the ad reflects the sheer silliness and shallowness of our politics. Now, each of us must disregard the political posturing and tune into what we really want.

Once again Bruce Springsteen’s fans are being ripped off by scalpers who buy up then re-sell tickets at exorbitant prices, an act that encapsulates much of what people want changed in America today. The good news: Springsteen understands all this and is taking action. Now, if only others in our politics and elsewhere would take his cue.

I watched the GOP presidential primary debate last night and was aghast at the grandiosity put forth as sound ideas for moving the country forward. Now I await President Obama’s State of the Union Address tonight. Such grandiosity only makes a mockery of reality, insults people’s intelligence, and leaves people behind. Something has to give.

My Democratic friends always cringe when I say I like Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. Many couldn’t understand what I saw in him. Meanwhile, on Sunday he dropped out of the race, seeing no possible path to the nomination. But in his defeat he has gained a clear win: articulating a vision for politics and public life so many Americans yearn for. My hope is that Huntsman continues to speak out about his vision.

In many ways the rapid spread of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements is a healthy sign that people are not mere spectators in the public square. Instead, they are stepping forward to express what matters most to them.

I've never been on a real turkey chase, and maybe you haven't either, but as we approach Thanksgiving, I suspect we're all in pursuit of something. But where will your own chase lead you, and why are you headed there? Here are some thoughts concerning "the chase" to think about this Thanksgiving.

Last week’s defeat of numerous state referenda is proof that Americans are rejecting a scorched-earth approach to radically shift the nation’s political landscape. For weeks, people of every political bent have told us about their outrage, and now with these defeats they’re giving us clues as to what it means to move beyond the outrage. Common sense and the better angels of our nature may still prevail.