I think it was the same day I opened the package containing a bright, fresh copy of Strachan Donnelley’s new posthumously published Frog Pond Philosophy; Essays on the Relationship Between Humans and Nature that I also received the news that Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin had proposed cutting all funding to the University Press of Kentucky that published it.
In a startlingly simplistic, false-binary proposal (“cut this or that suffers”) put forward in an effort to improve the funding of the state’s astonishingly under-funder public pension fund, the governor proposed that, among other cuts, “funding for the Kentucky Commission on Women, the Kentucky Center for the Arts in Louisville, the Kentucky Folk Arts Center in Morehead and University Press at the University of Kentucky would all be eliminated.” No mention was made that perhaps taxes should be raised to help improve the financial heath of the long-neglected fund.
Donnelley, a philosopher, bioethicist, and the founder of the Center for Humans & Nature, left this life back in 2008, but as part of his remarkable legacy, he left this collection of essays in which he explores the writings and ecological, ethical, and spiritual ideas of famous naturalists and philosophers, as well as the unknown but to their own intimate circle of friends, to develop “a conservation-centered philosophy, which he dubs ‘democratic ecological citizenship.’”
Proceeds from the sale of Frog Pond Philosophy will be directed to the Center for Humans and Nature in support of the Center’s work promoting moral and civic responsibilities to the whole community of life.
