If  you are reading this, you are obviously reading HopeDance.

But that no doubt makes you a very small minority of Central Coast readers, and an even smaller minority of all Central Coast residents.

Bob Banner has asked me to offer some thoughts on why more people DON’T read HopeDance. In doing so I will for the moment take on the role of devil’s advo-cate. (Even I don’t read all of HD, and I’m sure that would include more than a few of you).

As a fellow publisher/writer, I under-stand why Bob wonders why the bi-monthly sweat of his and others’ brows isn’t better appreciated (at times) — the same blind spot that young mothers have, I sup-pose — their baby(ies) are the cutest ones around, AND they’ll of course be greatly influential in the world one day.

Being greatly influential on the Cen-tral Coast is certainly something HD has partially accomplished. Not everyone has to read it for this to be true. The mere fact that it exists can sway the opinions of those who don’t read it often, or ever. THAT’s the good news.

The BAD news is we live in an area where print media choices are limited, and many of us rely on sources outside SLO/SB county. New Times and the Inddependent are great weeklies, but what else is there here that really conveys the special quali-ties of the Central Coast? HD does, and certainly should be better read because of that.

However, the subject matter of HD is alien to the vast majority of people who live here. How many people are ever going to build a strawbale house? (Well, I did). How many people get to garden using per-maculture methods, here or anywhere? (I don’t even have a garden-size plot). Many of us dislike George Bush and his errant war but don’t think we have an ice cube’s chance in hell of upending him anytime soon, anymore than we have of recalling the new governor. HD is all about Positive Solutions, but, for many, the best we can hope for is being able to afford to live in this fine place, and not become a part of the many potential problems.

Personally, I read HD because I feel an affinity for the community of doers and pos-itive thinkers that it tries mightily to unify. Yet, there was a time when I WOULDN’T have felt this way — when I was relatively young, raising my child, living in a big impersonal city. Then I was just trying to survive. A lot of working-age people (and students) just don’t have the time or inter-est in HD. They might later, but then (ha ha) the world might not exist by then (at least not a pleasant one).

I made an informal list of reasons why people don’t read HD, but I’ve covered most of them already. One I didn’t discuss Bob found out about—some people think nothing (or little) needs changing. So why rock the boat? Yes, I know this is incredi-ble, but compare our society to that in Iraq, Zimbabwe or Chechnya and you’ll realize that, by comparison, things are really ducky here.

If I were editing HD, I’d probably take the "radical solutions" phrase off the cover. To many, radical means Weathermen, hippies, anarchists etc. (We may feel an affinity to some of them, but by using such terminology we turn off those who have preconceived notions of left/liberal activ-ists). [See the explanation in this issue of "Radical Solutions Inspiring Hope."]

In most of my work as an activist I have tried carefully to draw in people who are in transition, often because of a personal event that shocked them about how our society has failed in one way or another. For example, I talked with a woman recently whose middle-aged husband died partly because of toxics she was not given the truth about. HERE is someone receptive to HD, and I told her how to get one.

In much the same way YOU can spread the word about HD, person to person. It isn’t fast, but it’s probably the most workable.