If I were asked to divide the world into two groups of people, I would flatly refuse. It is extremely unfair, I would argue that it would be absurd to divide humans, as ineffably complex and diverse as they are, on the basis of one quality or trait. But then again, that would just be me being politically correct. I actually believe that on some level, all of us tend of categorize people into two groups on the basis of one overarching quality. We tend to empathize with individuals who ‘have’ that quality, and believe that the world would be a better place if everyone were like them. For some this ‘vital’ quality is hard work, for others humility, and for some others, it may be looks, or a sense of style. The quality that I regard as most important is the ability to be affected by your surroundings.

I have to come to realize that I have always tended to view the world as consisting of two groups of people. The first group consists of individuals who only concern themselves with the interests of their own selves and that of the immediate circle of family and friends. These individuals do the work that is expected of them, and have no interest or concern for people who are not directly related to them. The other group, whose members I admire, consists of individuals who feel connected to and, hence, are affected by the larger environment they live in.   They take a keen interest in their extended surroundings. Some of them even have a sense of moral obligation to alleviate humanity and human condition as a whole. I term people who belong to the former group as ’shallow’ and people who belong to the latter group as ‘humane’. Lately though, I have noticed, in many instances, an inexplicable overlapping of these two groups. Some people are so difficult to categorize into either of these groups that I have begun to question the very foundation of my system of assigning worth to individuals. Are the “humane” people of today genuinely humane, or are they merely a more fashionable manifestation of an all-pervasive shallowness?

In this context, I would like to mention two movies which dwell on moral ambiguity amidst urban decadence, the first being French film director Jean-Luc Godard’s classic 1960’s movie Masculin Feminin. A fragmented and frustratingly abstruse movie, the movie documents (and comments on) the attitudes among the French youth in the 1960’s, is universal in its significance.  The filmmaker’s thoughts are equally valid for any youth almost anywhere in the developed or developing world today. The movie is about the doomed relationship between Paul, a young, politically aware, conscientious, idealistic man, and Madeleine, a girl who is an ardent consumer of pop culture, whose conscience has been rendered inactive by the self-indulgence encouraged by the consumerist culture around her. Through most of the movie, Madeleine is shown to be an insouciant creature. An aspiring pop-singer, she generally sports a blank expression on her face, inert to almost any problem around her, and most of her time is spent in combing her hair and applying make-up.

It would be easy to think that the director uses these two characters to represent the two ends of our modern moral spectrum: Paul, as an “ideal” human being, someone whom we must aspire to be like, and Madeleine as a symbol of urban decadence, the modern automaton, devoid of soul. But that is not the case, as the director is equally critical of both characters. The criticisms levelled against Madeleine, the quintessential consumer of modern capitalism, may have seemed unique in the 1960’s, but by now are commonplace in social and cultural criticism. She is a self-obsessed, vacuous woman who, despite her lack of intelligence and talent, manages to find success as a pop star.  This woman represents the modern individualistic and anti-communal notions of success. In a striking segment of the film entitled “Interview with a consumer product”, Paul interviews a young teenaged girl who has been chosen as the face of a fashion magazine. The girl has no qualms in admitting her ignorance of almost all political events around the world. Yet, she admits she is drawn towards rebels, and dislikes ‘yes men’. The last point made by her is quite telling.

In this context, I would like to reference another movie, “Network”, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1976.  (more…)

I’m in Washington DC still (I’ve been here most of the week for a business conference).  Yesterday was the day of the American flag.  You can see flag-waving everywhere these days.  Americans do focus on the accoutrements of democracy rather than making sure we have a healthy democracy with active citizen participation (e.g., consider our pathetic voter turnouts compared to many other countries).

We obsess about flags instead of getting our citizens involved in their government.  Our persistent failure to correct this situation is mind-numbing.  It’s like being a baseball player at bat in the 9th inning.  He could tie the game with one swing of the bat, but strikes out.   Instead of focusing on putting the wood of the bat on the ball, he’s obsessing about drinking champaign and having his photo in tomorrow’s newspaper.  He’s spending his energy at the wrong level.  The waving of American flags is like thinking of drinking champaign while at bat.  By waving flags instead of educating and empowering the People, we’re waiving real democracy.

For a strong democracy we need fewer flags, fewer Pledges of Allegiance and a lot more participation by informed citizens.  This would start with an active and vigorous media.  (more…)

Did you ever notice how evocative moments of silence are?  I’m always emotionally moved when the PA announcer asks for a moment.  The silence of tens of thousands of people is powerful, indeed. 

American culture is usually out-of-control cacophonous.   If we aren’t yapping with each other, there’s a TV or radio blaring.  We are pummelled with noise everywhere we go, including waiting rooms, stores and airports.  We even bring our yapping and music to “quiet” places, such as national parks. We just can’t help ourselves.  It is getting much too hard to find quiet places anymore.

That’s why it’s such a joy to be reminded to shut up, even for a moment, even if once in a while.   I also appreciated this simple attempt to remind the crowd to be quiet out of respect for Abraham Lincoln’s accomplishments.

Not that this sign worked very well.  People still talked, almost as much as ever.  Children ran around unrestrained by their parents.  People shouted things like, “Hey Bill!  Isn’t it about time to go get some hot dogs?”

So here’s my idea.  Someone should start a new church called “The Church of Quietude” or “The Church of Shut Up” (depending on how it is best marketed in a particular locale).  After the congregation files in, the person leading the “ceremony” would announce that everyone needs to be quiet for the next hour.  Completely quiet.  The church leader would announce that anyone persisting in making noise will go to hell (not really, but it would get the attention of some of the folks who need extra incentive). 

Perfectly quiet.  For one hour.  No fidgeting with programs or candy wrappers, either. Or iPods. The goal would be a complete hour of silence. 

Maybe people attending would recognize how incredibly and delightfully different it is to be in a truly silent environment.  They would get used to hearing their own thoughts and their own heartbeats.  They might even learn to steer away from their inner thoughts entirely, focusing on their breathing or on the (what I would believe to be) overwhelming feeling of being merely one person among many people.  Sam Harris might even appreciate this service. 

This idea is not original to me, except for the twist of doing it once a week for entire congregations.  Can you think of a better way to spend one hour per week than having everyone shut up, shutting off their internal and external spigots of noisy sound and music? 

Note to ministers:  this will also cut down on your sermon preparation.

Perhaps such a church service would help people to recognize the near futility of words, insofar as words are often used for expressing “ultimate” meaning.  Fewer absurdities and inconsistencies would be uttered at this service than at any other.  The silence might bring revelations.  It might even bring humility.  It might bring a centeredness and a calm that would extend beyond the service. 

Some would be tempted to call this silence “God.”  Some would call it sanity.  The smart ones wouldn’t call it anything at all and they would simply benefit from it.

Yesterday, Dennis Kucinich wrote this letter to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman:

November 9, 2007The Honorable John Conyers, Jr. Chairman Committee on the Judiciary 2138 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Conyers

I am writing in support of H. Res. 799, the Articles of Impeachment which were referred to the committee relative to the Impeachment of the Vice President of the United States of America.

Recent reports indicate that the Vice President is attempting to shape the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran to conform to his misperceptions about the threat Iran actually poses. Much like his deceptive efforts in the lead up to the Iraq war, the Vice President appears to be manipulating intelligence to conform to his beliefs.

If the reports are true, they add additional weight to the case for impeachment. I believe impeachment remains the only tool Congress has to prevent a war in Iran. This information relates directly to the Article III charges in the resolution. I urge your timely consideration.

Sincerely,
/s/
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress

I was thinking of turning this guy in, to Homeland Security.

Clever packaging here.   The site, sponsored by Sustainability, asks how many Earths it would take were everyone to adopt your lifestyle.  

I didn’t do well (more than 4 Earths), despite my bicycle commuting and my reliance on public transportation.  Hmmm . . .

I’m in Washington DC for a conference this week. During a break, I took some photos, though I was hesitant to take any photos that included security (and Washington DC security is everywhere). Based on a blog called War on Photography, my paranoia might have been justified.

The behavior reported in War on Photography reminds me of parts of China, where I travelled in 1999 and 2001.   There, police officers brazenly told people that they couldn’ take some sorts of photos, for instance photos of the protesting Fulang Gong.  Though we didn’t see this behavior ourselves, we heard this from our Chinese-based translators.

If you think it’s difficult to read about the way America is wasting lives in Iraq, it’s just the beginning.  In an article entitled “The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush,” Vanity Fair has examined the ways in which the Bush Administration has wrecked the American economy.  There is lots of bad news to share, including this:

Think of the interest we are paying, year after year, on the almost $4 trillion of increased debt burden—even at 5 percent, that’s an annual payment of $200 billion, two Iraq wars a year forever. Think of the taxes that future governments will have to levy to repay even a fraction of the debt we have accumulated. And think of the widening divide between rich and poor in America, a phenomenon that goes beyond economics and speaks to the very future of the American Dream.

Joseph Stiglitz, the author of this article, is the former chief economist of the World Bank and a Nobel laureate.  On the heels of this scathing report, consider this additional article reporting near-panic in light of recent Congressional testimony by Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.

Whenever we take the time, we are better able to see that all issues are anchored by deep issues.   That’s the kind of day it was for me today. 

I’m in Washington D.C., attending the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference sponsored by the National Consumer Law Center.   NCLC is an invaluable resource for those of us who advocate and litigate for consumer rights.  At one of the afternoon sessions today, I had a chance to hear a panel of consumer advocates discuss recent developments in federal law regarding consumer rights. 

It’s quite depressing, for the most part.  You see, well-monied corporate financial interests own Congress.   Consumer rights are on the ropes.   Many industries are free to lie, cheat, steal and to impose onerous terms on consumers, thanks to the best federal laws money can buy.  They do this through corporate immunity, preemption and the imposition of mandatory binding arbitration before biased arbitrators.  All of these were gifts from Congress in return for huge amounts of money contributed by lobbyists.

I’ve been to Washington D.C. several times before, and I’ve always reveled in the history and the architecture.  

Now, I can’t help but feel ambivalent.  It’s a city awash in immense amounts of corrupt money. 

We are a country that preaches that the People are the government, but that is less true than ever.  If you don’t believe me, just try to call your Congressional representative, mentioning that you are a concerned citizen.  See if you can get five minutes with him or her.  Then offer to contribute $100,000 to his or her next campaign and see what happens. Here’s more proof that our lawmakers have little or no conscience when it comes to bribes:  note last week’s revelation that the head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission sees no problems taking $60,000 in gifts and trips from businesses she is charged with regulating.

Back to NCLC.  Here’s what kind of work NCLC does.  NCLC members represent the interests of un-powerful people (which includes many middle class folks these days).  It provides consumer lawyers like me with information that we need to litigate cases against powerful corporate interests.  I’ve sued predatory lenders that include payday lenders, title lenders and sub-prime mortgage companies; for each of these suits, I’ve drawn upon the guidance of NCLC.  When big corporate interests break state laws, many of them are allowed to hide behind mandatory arbitration clauses that they unilaterally impose upon their customers.  The ability to do this was yet another gift from Congress. 

Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear.  Many consumers plunge themselves into debt irresponsibly and get exactly what they deserve when the debt collector comes calling.  When a people can’t afford medicine for their children, they should never go out and put a big-screen TV on the credit card.  Again, there are many (many) irresponsible consumers.  But not all consumers who struggle financially are irresponsible.  That is why consumer lawyers feel compelled to do the work they do.

NCLC helps me (and other consumer lawyers) by providing an excellent set of legal reference books, updated by practitioners.   They offer advice to those who are new to the consumer law field.   This information is invaluable.  (more…)

My son’s cat “Spock” just jumped up onto my desk, commanding attention. As required by the International Declaration of Feline Rights, I immediately stopped what I was doing and petted Spock, telling him what a great kitty he was and thanking him for the gift of his love to my son Ben and the gift of his friendship to the rest of us who he tolerates.

A friend, who helps out with my work, and I had a spat yesterday morning. After a pleasant morning in court I had arrived at the office and it appeared my friend was looking for a fight and, after several lame attempts to ward it off, I joined in the fray. I think Spock jumped up on my desk to remind me of the gift of love and friendship which my friend is to me. Cats are like that, Spock especially.

Spock unconditionally loves my son, Ben. We adopted Spock from a no-kill shelter. Spock got his name from a kitty at my old vet’s office who Ben liked. Spock spent nearly all of his first several weeks in his new environs solely with my son. Ben fed Spock. Ben helped clean Spock’s litter box which was in Ben’s bedroom. Ben put out water for Spock. Ben hugged the little guy relentlessly. I still get the hugest kick out of the bundle of cat and boy I see almost nightly as the two of them sleep together peacefully. When it thunders and Ben is scared, I’ll awaken to a little boy snuggled up to my back with Spock on his shoulder, and the hind quarters of a kitty on my head, sometimes in my face. (Ben says he taught the cat to do that!). When Ben is a pickle to Spock, sometimes I’ll tell Ben that I’ll make Spock my cat friend. Spock doesn’t mind, he’s getting attention from his Benny. Benny says; “No! I love Spock!” And the two of them go back to playing “Spock darts” where Spock leaps up (he hit six feet up the other day!) to knock down Nerf darts from the window or door where Ben has shot them, or one of the other games they have invented to play together. No matter what Benny does, Spock loves him.

I love my friend. I’m responsible for the spat and what I said. I have to clean up my mess. I’m going to take the coaching from the cat, and call my friend to apologize and thank her for the gift of her love and the gift of her friendship of some 33 years.  That darned cat!

I needed to change the battery in one of our smoke detector tonight.  This reminded me of an incident that occurred in 2001.  It’s an illustration of the value of smoke detectors.  The story also has a nice twist at the end.  Afer the incident, I wrote the following email to friends and family. 

I’m writing today because I’m alive and able to do so because of an incredibly important and inexpensive gadget: a smoke detector.

Yesterday morning, at about 5:45 am, I was awakened from a deep sleep by the Battery-powered smoke detector located in the 2nd floor hallway, outside of the bedroom.  It was only after being awakened that I smelled the smoke.   I blasted out of bed and scrambled to find a fire in the upstairs hallway bathroom we are renovating.  The bathroom is only 10 feet down the hall. I was home alone (JuJu and Anne have been out of town while the bathroom is being renovated).

I grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the fire (the fire was the size of a roaring campfire when I hit it the first time.  The flames were the only thing I could see in the bathroom—all else was thick black smoke.  I ran downstairs to call 911, then grabbed a second extinguisher, which turned the fire into a small glowing area.  The fire department showed up a five minutes later and helped figure out (through lots of smoke) that an old permanently-installed bathroom space heater was the problem. 

That heater, originally installed in the bathroom wall in 1920, was due to be removed this week as a part of the renovating we are doing.  It was turned OFF during the renovations.  The removal of plaster, however, loosened up the heater.  It must have just fallen forward to a facedown position in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason.  It didn’t occur to the carpenter or me to find the breaker or remove the heater.  We were going to let the electrician do that this week, along with a lot of other electrical work.  Unfortunately, the heater switch was a mercury switch, so the “innocent” possibility that the heater might fall off the wall in the “off” position was actually quite dangerous.  The switch stayed in the OFF position, but the blob of mercury (inside the switch) rolled onto the contacts and heated up its massive coils.   That ended up igniting the fire.

I’m writing because, yes, I’m so very happy that the house suffered only minor fire damage, including minor smoke damage.  More important, this seemed like a good opportunity to remind everyone how important, cheap and simple it is to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.  (more…)

Here’s an excerpt from Paul Krugman’s Common Dreams essay, “Wobbled by Wealth.”

One of the saddest stories I tell in my book is that of Al Smith, the great reformist governor of New York, who gradually turned into a narrow-minded economic conservative and bitter critic of F.D.R. H. L. Mencken explained it thusly: “His association with the rich has apparently wobbled him and changed him. He has become a golf player.”

How do you change the system as a poor person looking in from the outside?  You likely don’t. Because you lack money, you don’t have access to the deep structures of power.  For instance, what chance do people who march on Washington have of implementing universal health care?  They don’t have a chance, because they have no money to reach the politicians who can really make a difference. 

To make fundamental changes to the system, you need more than protesters.  To really change the system, you need a large band of committed insiders who are willing to buck the system, even at their own expense.  How often do you find such a committed insider?  Not every day.  How often do you find a critical mass of knowledgeable and committed insiders ready and willing to tip over an established institution that employs them?  Almost never.

Why would that be?  I suspect that it’s because so many of us who successfully “work our way up” eventually succumb to the system (just like Al Smith).  How many people want to believe that they are progressives, but really aren’t anymore?  Most of them have succumbed to expensive temptations.  These temptations are everywhere for anyone who has accrued any wealth and power.  You want—and eventually “need”—the nice house, clothes, amusements, and retirement.  It actually turns out that no amount of money will ever be enough for you.

If that is not bad enough, stir children into the mix.  Then you have the world’s best excuse for being abjectly self-centered as a family.  You can justify very expensive schools, vacations “for the kids”, and an even bigger house “for the kids.”  It is true that children make you more conscious of our country’s economic, social and moral failings.  But having children also makes it much less likely to risk the financial security he or she has in order to buck the system.  Anyone who’s willing to lose his or her good job and risk making only 1/2 of that nice salary to do some social justice, raise your hand!  Ah, I do see a couple hands, but not many.  The ones with the most promise are those social-justice minded spouses of some of those encrusted capitalists.  Interesting.

What this shows me is that most people, and this includes most people with children, have positioned themselves such that they are not willing to take social stands that are economically detrimental to themselves.   They won’t do it (they say they “can’t do it).  As most people see it, they won’t (can’t) bite off their own arm to help their extended community.

Poor people can’t reform the system (for the most part) because they are cut off from the power base that runs the system.  That power base, in these especially crass times, understands only money.  On the other hand, too many well-intentioned financially successful people succumb to the temptations of the money world and are thus not willing to make any moves that jeopardize their 401K’s, etc.  That leaves the well-entrenched immoral and amoral to step up to do serious self-sacrificing for the benefit of the poor and disenfranchised.  I’m not holding my breath. 

Yes, you could continue on your merry way, spending money on the wrong types of things for all the wrong reasons.  We’ve all done this.  But we don’t have to keep doing things this way.  To give you an assist, you can get some ideas and inspiration from New American Dream.

It is important to consider the long-term consequences of your purchases.  For example, what does it really mean to workers and the environment to buy bananas?   Here’s what (the site requires a simple and free registration). 

And what about bottled water?  It really is a big deal in the aggregate. 

Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year. Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year.

Why should we strive to eat local food?

Estimates on how long the average food travels from pasture to plate range from 1200 to 2500 miles. A lot of energy is expended freezing, refrigerating, and trucking that food around. Eating locally grown food means less fossil fuel burned in preparation and transport. Local food is often safer, too.

How else could you benefit by spending wisely and consciously?  Maybe you can avoid some of the insanity of the Christmas season. 

We offer tips on how to simplify the holidays by focusing less on stuff and more on connections with family, friends, fun, peace, and even a little rest and relaxation.

There are a lot of tips at this site, some seemingly more worthy than others–but truly lots of ideas for turning you into a responsible consumer.  And you do want to be a responsible consumer, right?

The theme is well focused here.  We laugh about this, though the topic (and therefore any reasonable solution) is off-limits to today’s savvy politicians.

“The Church of Stop Shopping,” eh?  What is this church all about? I’m not sure yet (even though Vicki Baker introduced us to this church here).  This “Church” got my renewed attention, thanks to a friend who sent me a link today. Among it’s other activities, the Church is promoting a new movie (”The movie santa doesn’t want you to see”).   The title of the new movie? ”What Would Jesus Buy?”

On Friday, November 16th, the Shopocalypse ends.  It is on that date that Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping set out across America in two bio-diesel buses, confronting with their singing and preaching the shopping frenzy of America.  Travel with our harmonizing activists, as they invade the Mall of America, cast spells on the front-door of Wal Mart headquarters in Bentonville, wind up a whirlwind in a tent revival in Texas and hurls them all the way to Disneyland and the final Day of Judgment:  Christmas.

Here’s a bit of information about the church itself:

The first job of a church is to save souls. Pulling out of the advertising/debt/waste cycle of Consumerism is our idea of deliverance. Our soul-saving mission work is dramatic rituals and plays inside retail environments. As you will see from the interventions that I sketch out below, in instruction manual form – our missionaries are sometimes completely invisible to management’s eye. And then sometimes the chaos and broad strokes — Inappropriate Behavior! Amen! – is the whole point and carries our message best. These interventions are some of our favorites, representing each of the various types, and developed over the last ten years.

I’m all for a heightened awareness of the perils of consumerism.  Some related posts originating on this site include the following:

Why should we care about people falling deeply into debt? A review of “Maxed Out”

Killer High Heels

Shopping for Sex: wasteful consumerism and Darwin’s theory of sexual selection

Shopping for Jesus

National Buy Nothing Day,

The Grinch was much more evil than we thought.

We are drowning in material goods, yet we crave ever more stuff.

Churches: Places where rich people go to get God’s approval to live lavishly

and

Does constant exposure to advertising screw up our heads and lives?

Marty Kaplan has described how the media covers political campaigns.  The media:

work for a big business, whose oxygen is attention. They live or die on grabbing and holding audiences. To stay in business, they need combat, conflict, heat, meat, flip-flops, gotchas, losers, boozers, hairpin turns, heroes with feet of clay, Rockys, Quixotes, cliffhangers, firewalkers, comebacks, kickbacks, zingers, ‘wingers.

And yet at the same time the media root for and egg on mudwrestling and foodfighting, what they say they want is a cathedral — bipartisanship, consensus, a Serious Debate on The Issues, Bringing America Together.

Boy, is that a sucker punch. The truth is, they think that stuff is really b-o-r-i-n-g. No combat = no attention.

Bill Moyers asks this question in his video essay.

Periodically, I become a bit disoriented in the swirl of life, which gives rise to the question: “Who am I?” 

We aren’t static beings, of course.  We are complex adaptive systems, communities of relatively simple cellular life that number in the trillions.  Many of “our” cells (in fact, the great majority of them) don’t even have our DNA.  All of our cells are in constant motion, haunting us with the notion, raised many years ago by Heraclitus, that everything is in such flux that there is no stable version of “it” or “me.”  Everything that looks to be permanent is, according to his outlook, an illusion.

That the physical matter that constitutes us is so intricately linked by causality goes so far as to taunt our treasured notions of free thought and “free will.” Where, then, might one find some sort of stability during such existentially disoriented moments? 

Here’s how I approach the issue.  I take it as true that we are, indeed, complex adaptive systems (I’m not horrified by this idea as are some people—it just is).  I take it, then, that we are complex systems in motion and that it is thus impossible for us to maintain a stable ground of reference. 

This doesn’t mean that we can’t have meaningful connections with other people, however.  It just means that we move through time and space as a system of systems, as a knitted configuration of sentient beings who might eternally struggle to find a fixed meaning (if they don’t listen up!), but who can find stability in the geometry of their social frameworks.  “We the people” is a dependably stable entity, even though “I,” the individual, sometimes wobble about.  Richard Nisbett has much to say about the social context determining the individual.  Underlying his writings is the need to beware of the fundamental attribution error.

This eternal flux of the human condition, combined with the possibility of forming durable friendships, might lead to a solution of sorts (small “s”).  

Who are you?  Look around and notice the people who you consider to be your friends.  Take your closest 10 friends, or maybe your closest 50 if you’d like (but don’t pretend that you have more than 150 friends).  What do you see when you consider them as a group that has you in common?   Are they admirable?  Do they give you positive energy?  Does your group have sufficient diversity to stretch you and provoke you to be better at being you?   I’ve written before of the importance of close friends in their service as your private Greek chorus, your private advisory jury (see the comments here).  And each of you, of course, reciprocates by serving as a “mirror” for the benefit of your friends. 

I think of my approach as “social relativity.”  For me, there is no absolute and well-defined social state of rest; there is no privileged reference frame for determining who we are.  The trick is to generate a static frame of reference within a dynamic whole, never being fooled that one’s frame is more than a momentary placating heuristic.  What I’m suggesting is quite a tenuous form of stability, of course.  But maybe it’s all we’ve got.

Tonight is one of those nights when I am taking a breath from a happily tumultuous couple of weeks, in order to ask myself “Who am I?”   I am truly blessed with worthy friends (as blessed as any agnostic could be).   Over these past few weeks, I am glad that I have taken the time to reconnect with some of the people who have been important to me at various junctures during my curious journey through life.

So thank you, my friends, for helping me find my way back home tonight!

In “Supreme Imbalance: Why Originalism and Conservative Activism Are Wrong,” I think Jeffrey Stone has it about right in his Huffpo article on the jurisprudential doctrine that goes under the name of “originalism.”

With this mindset, the notion that any particular moment’s conception of rights should be taken as exhaustive would have seemed patently wrong-headed to the Framers, just as it would have seemed wrong-headed to them for anyone to assume that their knowledge of the human body or of the universe should be taken as final and conclusive. Such a conception was antithetical to the very core of Enlightenment thought and to everything the Framers stood for . . .

The narrow, frightened originalism of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia would have seemed absurd to the Framers. As a constitutional methodology, it not only invites the manipulative and result-oriented use of history, but it also and more fundamentally denies the true original understanding of the Framers of our Constitution.

Conservative activism offers the worst of both worlds. It undermines the decisions of democratic majorities, not in order to protect the rights of minorities, or the powerless, or the oppressed, or the disenfranchised, or the dispossessed, or the poor, or the downtrodden, or the accused, but in order to protect the interests of corporations, the wealthy, the privileged, the majority, and the powerful.

I spent some time over at Focus on the Family, a site that teaches God’s own version of morality, to see what they had to say about drug use.  As it turned out, the advice depended on whether the drug was illegal, as though God defers to the U.S. Congress to figure out what drugs are immoral.

Over and over, the Focus on the Family attitude is that you need to avoid “illicit” or “illegal” drugs.  On the other hand, barely a word is said about prescription drugs you can buy legally.  I checked out several other conservative Christian websites and I found the same attitude.  Legal = moral, whereas illegal = immoral.  There is no hint that mind-altering = immoral. 

This hypocritical attitude is described by Tim Wu in an article called “American Lawbreaking”: 

Over the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has developed a full set of substitutes for just about every illegal narcotic we have.

See also, a related article from this site.  It’s further interesting to note that most religions don’t prohibit alcohol or cigarette use.  God smiles at drugs that are taxed, apparently.

I can only assume, then, that God looks favorably on drugs that make corporations wealthy.  On the other hand, if you are a poor person living in the inner city, God won’t like it one bit if you self-medicate with home grown marijuana.  By the way, 829,627 people were arrested for possessing marijuana in 2006.

If artificial mind-altering is good (at least in moderation), it would seem that God wouldn’t care if you get the job done through a health-care bureacracy or whether you self-medicated with a safe street drug like marijuana.  If artificial mood-altering can sometimes be a good thing, why deprive the poor.  After all, Christians are under the directive to be kind to the poor.

If you are poor, you are much more likely to be subjected to stress and violence.  You are much more likely to face seemingly insurmountable financial pressures.  You are much more likely to be a witness (or a victim) of acts of violence than those well-to-do folks in the suburbs.   But those suburban folks have those healthy plans that provide psychologists to help them when they are stressed.  And those suburban folks can afford the factory-made mood-altering drugs.  God doesn’t seem to mind that suburban folks are artificially altering their moods. They have no duty to “repent” after partaking of Prozac, Ritalin, Vicodin, OxyContin, Wellbutrin or Clonazepam.  After all, they need these drugs and it is likely that some of the folks who attend those big suburban churches are highly paid employees of the pharmaceutical industry. 

Even though you (a poor inner city person) need stress relief much more than those people in the suburbs and even though you can’t afford the fancy drugs sold at drugstores, you’d better not grow a little patch of marijuana in the back yard or you’ll be thrown in the slammer.  And, apparently, even if you do your time in prison, God will eventually throw you into hell.

[This piece is not intended to advocate taking any drugs, prescription or illegal.  My working assumption is that being healthy minimizes the use of any sort of drug. My main point here is the rampant hypocrisy embedded in many forms of religious judgment (and the hypocrisy of the criminal "justice" system)].

The state of Missouri has never had an official poet laureate.  Like many people, I didn’t know that, although unlike many of those many people, I should have.  One of the hats I wear (besides the one in the cool profile photo above) is the president of the Missouri Center for the Book.

What, you may ask, is the Missouri Center for the Book and what, furthermore, does it have to do with state poets laureate?

I’m so glad you asked.  The Missouri Center for the Book (hereafter known as MCB) is the state affiliate to the Library of Congress Center for the Book.  All 50 states have such an institution now, and we are all as different in our structure and specific goals as those states.  The common thread is that we are all dedicated to promoting what we call the Culture of the Book.  This includes authors, certainly, but also publishers, editors, reviewers, literature teachers, schools.  We see all these things as inextricably part and parcel of that culture, though obviously authors are the most visible part.

We do not do remedial reading work.  There are other agencies that do that and do it far better than we could.  That’s not our mandate.

In our heyday, the first several years after our founding in 1993, we did all sorts of things to promote the idea of books and reading, mostly through the mechanism of conferences which addressed certain themes.  We had notable guests, lots of writers and publishers, an open forum.

And then, as happens in such things, funding slipped away and we did smaller and smaller programs.

Among the things we do is administer the state Letters About Literature contest, which is a very cool program for three levels of students, primary to secondary, in which a student writes a letter to the author of a book that has had a significant impact on that student.  We select the best, the winners go on to a national contest.  Some of these letters, even from very young students, are tremendous.  They give me hope for the future.  Quiet hope, a confidence that we have a chance, that the young are not dumber than their parents or grandparents, but are generally smarter.

As president for the past three years, I’ve been reorganizing and rebuilding the MCB.  We have plans to relaunch the conferences.  We intend to rebuild our website, which contains an author database which was, when it was instituted, the first of its kind in the nation.  We intend that it be made interactive.  That’s going to be a bit pricey, but once done it will be a great tool.

There are other programs we’d like to do.

But one thing we’ve been working at for the last eight years, doggedly and consistently, is the creation of a state poet laureate.  I won’t go into the details of that effort, they would bore you.  Mostly the work consisted of letter writing, long conversations with “influential” people, planning the structure of the post, often just being a pest.  MCB itself could not do this—for it to be “official” it must come from either the governor or the legislature.  Most states, it is an appointment of the governor.  It boils down to convincing the governor to do it.

Governor Blunt has decided to do it.  Last month we received word that the position would be created and the first poet laureate will be named in mid-December.  MCB has been named the agency which will administer the post and work on selection.

Warning:  what follows is an unapologetic promotional request for financial support.

I canvassed a number of states about their poet laureate programs.  There are about 8 or 9 states that do not have the position.  Among the others, the post is largely honorary, with no funding.  From the beginning, we thought the post should have some money behind.  It is incredibly difficult to make a living as a writer, triply so as a writer of poetry.  Besides, we intend for our laureates to travel the state, speaking on the matter of the literary arts.  That shouldn’t come out of the laureate’s own pocket.  But we’ve already learned that Missouri’s laureate post will also, as far as the state government is concerned, be honorary.

So I am asking for donations.  MCB’s future programming efforts will be built around the poet laureate–not specifically so much as thematically.  Missouri is stepping up to the plate, symbolically, to declare that literature, that reading, that authors are actually important.  In order to move forward and take advantage of the very public opportunity this is giving the Culture of the Book, we want to put some teeth behind it.

You can go to our website– books.missouri.org –and read a bit more about us.  Mind you, the site as it stands is going to be changed in a year or so, but there’s still worthwhile content.  If given the chance and the support, we intend doing a job of elevating the stature of the written word in Missouri.  So if you are so inclined, please send your tax deductible donations to:

Missouri Center for the Book
600 West Main,
P.O. Box 2075
Jefferson City, MO 65102-2075,

or call 573-751-1821

Before you ask, I cleared this with Erich.  MCB is a 501c3 nonprofit organization (which receives no money from state or federal sources).

As I said, I am unapologetically, unabashedly, unashamedly asking for money.  We want to pay our poets laureate a reasonable honorarium and we want to fund programs that will do for books what PBS does for documentary film or NPR does for radio broadcasting.  Granted, on a more modest scale, but still.

The governor has decided to announce this before Christmas.  Seems like a good time to give a present to the state and to make a stab at doing better for one of the things we all love and need so much—good books.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Here’s another obstacle to objectively evaluating a person.  There are many aspects of people.  If you are attracted to one aspect strongly, you might (subconsciously) allow that characteristic to serve as a token for that person’s other personality characteristics.   As this article from PsyBlog indicates, this is called the “Halo Effect.”

The ‘halo effect’ is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent). Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary . . .

So, the next time you vote for a politician, consider buying a pair of designer jeans or decide whether you like someone, ask yourself whether the halo effect is operating. Are you really evaluating the traits of the person or product you thought you were? Alternatively is some global aspect bleeding over into your specific judgement? This simple check could save you voting for the wrong person, wasting your money or rejecting someone who would be a loyal friend.

But sometimes a trait probably should be used as a token for that person’s other traits (with lots of asterisks, of course).  If a person shows herself to be conscientious and kind, she is probably trustworthy.   And consider this question, Do bad drivers (or bad eaters) make bad voters?

We all knew it, but the details are now pouring in. It’s all so very reprehensible . . .

This is an excerpt from today’s Washington Post:

In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid “physical labor” and wrote of the need to “keep elevating the threat,” “link Iraq to Iran” and develop “bumper sticker statements” to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.

The memos, often referred to as “snowflakes,” shed light on Rumsfeld’s brusque management style and on his efforts to address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief. Spanning from 2002 to shortly after his resignation following the 2006 congressional elections, a sampling of his trademark missives obtained yesterday reveals a defense secretary disdainful of media criticism and driven to reshape public opinion of the Iraq war.

Rumsfeld, whose sometimes abrasive approach often alienated other Cabinet members and White House staff members, produced 20 to 60 snowflakes a day and regularly poured out his thoughts in writing as the basis for developing policy, aides said. The memos are not classified but are marked “for official use only.”

Free Press has posted this article, including a take-action link:

In 2003, the Republican-dominated Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, under Chairman Michael Powell, tried to push through a drastic media ownership deregulation package that would have transformed the American media ownership landscape. The proposal triggered one of the largest and broadest public responses ever to FCC policy by opponents of the plan, and the deregulation scheme was beaten back. But this year, the FCC’s current chairman, Kevin J. Martin, is trying to push through basically the same plan again by the end of the year. It would allow cross-ownership of major newspapers and TV stations in a single media market, and allow other changes to reduce diversity on the radio dial.

According to groups opposed to the plan, Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that the FCC buried studies demonstrating the harmful impact of media consolidation and then commissioned biased research to support their conclusions. Media democracy groups including — Free Press, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union used the FCC’s own studies to demonstrate that ownership deregulation results in a net loss in the amount of local news produced across local broadcast markets.