For years in these parts – 46 years, to be exact – if you wanted to hear top-flight jazz played by an all-star big band, you could always go to Bovi's Tavern in East Providence.
But the music stopped at the end of November, when the doors closed at Bovi's after 46 years of Monday-night, big-band jazz.
Over at the Arc of the Universe blog, my friend Daniel Mark ponders why Indonesia is not perceived to represent the Islamic world, and what could be done to make its peaceful, pluralistic version of Islam more prominent. The most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is nevertheless not an assertive player within the Muslim world, much less in international political affairs.
Mark, who in addition to being a world-class scholar is a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, suggests that "American foreign policy experts might do well to begin thinking about how the country of our president's childhood could be more assertive on the international stage, promoting a form of Islam suitable for the modern world."
