Welcome

Kevin P. Gaughan: Founder, A Canal Conversation

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin, whose intellect and essays defined humane values throughout much of the last century, once wrote that the world was divided into two types of minds: hedgehogs, as he called them, who have one big idea, and foxes who create many smaller ones. Among his foxes, Berlin counted Aristotle, Locke, and Shakespeare.

And while we Western New Yorkers may never be included among such company, the life of our collective mind did produce one magnificent idea and we called it Buffalo. In this nation or world, there is no place like us. Here where Eastern sophistication meets mid-Western charm, with a fiercely family-oriented people without peer, and a sense of place and identity without match, we have a thrilling story to tell.

It’s a humane story. It’s a heroic story. It’s a fragile, tragic, resilient, redemptive, and ultimately triumphant story. It’s the Buffalo story.

And once again, not only with devotion to our past but as well commitment to a shared and brilliant future, let’s tell and re-tell it to ourselves, our children, the nation and the world.

Thanks very much.

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