It is a shame to have to ask whether democracy is a mirage in the United States, no doubt most Americans would rather be celebrating U.S. democracy than questioning it. But the reality of the disconnect between government and the people has become so stark it is impossible to ignore.
Gallup reports that Americans belief in our form of government and how well it works is now at only 42% (in 2002 it was at 76%). Less than a quarter of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, yet because of manipulation of the political process, the drawing of voting districts, the impact of campaign money and the power of incumbency, more than 90% will be re-elected.
A major problem is the two party duopoly acts much like a two party dictatorship. Despite nearly 60% of Americans wanting a third party and only 35% believing the two parties do an adequate job, the two parties work together to prevent more choices on the ballot. They have put up road blocks to independent challengers through ballot access laws, campaign finance rules, exclusion from debates and the winner take all electoral system. The corporate media plays an important role of keeping independent candidates off the air so people do not hear about their existence or positions. As a result only the two parties, both funded by the corporate oligarchy, and their corporate-approved candidates appear on most ballots. Most Americans end up voting against their interests for what has commonly become known as voting for 'the lesser evil.'
The courts, which play an essential role in applying constitutional limits on government in the U.S. Republic, have become a tool of the financial elite, actually weakening elections further. They have issued rulings that further empower the money-class in their control of democracy. The court has allowed unlimited spending by corporations and individuals in the Citizens United decision; and recently found the Arizona Clean Elections Act unconstitutional. Thus striking two blows for the wealthy - they can spend as much as they like, but government cannot provide matching public funds for elections.
President Obama, rather than pushing for clean elections, is going from big donor event to big donor event to become the first candidate to run a billion dollar campaign. More and more Americans recognize that his health care policy, which re-enforced and expanded the power of the insurance industry, likely resulted from their $20 million in donations to his first campaign. Obama kept single payer out of the debate despite years of polls showing large majorities of Americans want single payer and vast evidence showing it is the best model to control costs and the only model to provide health care to all. The insurance company's profits came before the necessities and preferences of the people. We see people from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and other big financial institutions not only being bailed out but being put in the Obama administration rather than prosecuted for crashing the economy despite strong evidence of criminal wrongdoing. These are two examples of many. Obama has advocated corporatism on every issue and is now going to those special interests to fund the most expensive campaign in history.
In the United States more and more recognize the disconnect between government and the needs of most Americans. They see how crony capitalist policies lead to the largest wealth divide we have known with increasing poverty, joblessness, underemployment and insecurity. At the same time the Congress, Treasury and Federal Reserve funnel trillions of dollars to the big banks, but demand cuts for programs that would create jobs, fund state and local government, build the infrastructure, provide basic necessities and protect the environment. This is the first generation of Americans who see that their children are likely to be worse off than they are.
What can Americans do to create a representative democracy and shift the power to the people from major corporations? In fact, the U.S. is not the only country facing the problem of oligarchy. One example that has not gotten a lot of attention in the U.S. media is Spain. The people have been in revolt since March 15th. Hundreds of thousands have taken control of public spaces across the country. Their protests continue and more major protests are being planned. The Spanish movement has been only minimally reported in the U.S. commercial media, perhaps because some of the complaints are so similar to what we hear in living rooms, schools and restaurants when Americans talk among themselves.
Here's a sampling of what they are saying in Spain:
A professor from Barcelona explains - the political structures, instead of protecting our welfare and living standards the government is doing the opposite. It is the institutional machine that is creating mass unemployment, precarious employment and unprecedented limitations on future hopes and expectations.
Another says the political parties have lost touch with the people. They have limited the exercise of democracy to every four years and have stripped democracy of its true meaning.
"They have reduced us to nothing. They tell us go vote, go vote, go vote - you go vote, pal."
The Spanish call themselves Real Democracy Already (Democracia Real Ya (DRY)). Like Americans they live under a two party system. There are other small parties, but they are shut out of real participation. The statement of DRY speaks mostly about creating a true democracy. They say:
Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us... Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest... The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers. Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.
Sounds familiar, like echoes of conversations many Americans are having. As a result thousands of Americans have joined www.October2011.org. This is a movement to demand an end to corporatism and militarism. Like the Spanish, the Greeks, Tunisians and Egyptians, among others, October2011, will be taking over a public space, Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC beginning on October 6. This day is the beginning of the 11th year of the Afghanistan War and that week is the beginning of a new federal fiscal year with an austerity budget for everything except the military. October2011.org has written the activists around the world seeking a common agenda of economic justice and real democracy letting them know that their revolution is our revolution. It seems much of the world is waking up to the need to topple the oligarchy at the same time.
Like Spain, October2011.org is led by individuals, not organizations. People from a wide range of issues see the common problem of corporate control of government preventing the change America needs. This includes ending the ongoing wars, reducing the military budget, better pay and jobs for workers, Medicare for all, reversal of the degradation of the environment, ending the wealth divide and putting in place a clean, sustainable energy economy, among others.
The solutions to the critical issues facing the country are evident to many but the corporate interests who profit from the status quo prevent real change. The electoral system is closed to all but the corporate parties. To transform the government into one that puts the peoples interests before those of the economic elite, will require a showing of power. It will require an ongoing, independent movement that demands real change and has the power to insist on it. On October 6th a major step to showing the development of such a movement and demanding real change begins. Join us.
In Spain, the protesters sing to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It":
They call it democracy but it isn't Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes They call it democracy but it isn't Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes
Are the people of the United States ready to face the reality of the corruption of U.S. elections and the lack of representation and do something about it? History is knocking. The time is now to answer.
Well the first episode of series 1 aired at 9.30pm on a Monday night. 9th July, 2001.
Obviously the concept existed some time before that. The BBC pilot was shot in January 2000, and we shot our own pilot two years before that.
I had David Brent as a character from about 1995 I'd say. (The first "sketch" I had for him was basically the scene where he interviews his new secretary in episode 5.)
And he is based on people I'd met throughout my adult life.
The very first scene of the series where he is talking to the fork-lift truck driver is based on an interview I had when I was 17 at a temp agency in the school holidays. His opening sentence was, "I don't give shitty jobs." I just looked at him and nodded. He said, "If a good guy comes to me... (points) etc."
He phoned his friend and at one point said, "yes of course he's 18." Then he winked at me and did the Pinocchio nose mime. (It was nothing to do with fork-lift truck driving, but it was for work in a warehouse.)
Gareth is based on the kid I went to school with who I talk about in most of my stand-up shows, and Tim is based on a guy I used to work with mixed with Norm from Cheers, a little Chandler and a touch of Oliver Hardy.
My favourite poem from about the age of 14 was "Slough" by John Betjeman.
These are my fond anniversary memories. They are free.
Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation's lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern D.C. with one of the highest unemployment rates anywhere in America.Or, if you happen to be jobless, upset about it, and living in that neighborhood, on a crisp morning in March you could have joined an angry band of protesters marching on the nearby 11th Street Bridge.
They weren't looking for trouble. They were looking for work.
Those protesters, most of them black, chanted and hoisted signs that read "D.C. JOBS FOR D.C. RESIDENTS" and "JOBS OR ELSE." The target of their outrage: contractors hired to replace the very bridge under their feet, a $300 million project that will be one of the largest in District history. The problem: few D.C. citizens, which means few African Americans, had so far been hired. "It's deplorable," insisted civil rights attorney Donald Temple, "that... you can find men from West Virginia to work in D.C. You can find men from Maryland to work in D.C. And you can find men from Virginia to work in D.C. But you can't find men and women in D.C. to work in D.C."
The 11th Street Bridge arches over the slow-flowing Anacostia River, connecting the poverty-stricken, largely black Anacostia neighborhood with the rest of the District. By foot the distance is small; in opportunity and wealth, it couldn’t be larger. At one end of the bridge the economy is booming even amid a halting recovery and jobs crisis. At the other end, hard times, always present, are worse than ever.
Live in Washington long enough and you'll hear someone mention "east of the river."That's D.C.'s version of "the other side of the tracks," the place friends warn against visiting late at night or on your own. It's home to District Wards 7 and 8, neighborhoods with a long, rich history. Once known as Uniontown, Anacostia was one of the District's first suburbs; Frederick Douglass, nicknamed the "Sage of Anacostia," once lived there, as did the poet Ezra Pound and singer Marvin Gaye. Today the area's unemployment rate is officially nearly 20%. District-wide, it’s 9.8%, a figure that drops as low as 3.6% in the whiter, more affluent northwestern suburbs.
D.C.'s divide is America's writ large. Nationwide, the unemployment rate for black workers at 16.2% is almost double the 9.1% rate for the rest of the population. And it's twice the 8% white jobless rate.
The size of those numbers can, in part, be chalked up to the current jobs crisis in which black workers are being decimated. According to Duke University public policy expert William Darity, that means blacks are "the last to be hired in a good economy, and when there's a downturn, they're the first to be released."
That may account for the soaring numbers of unemployed African Americans, but not the yawning chasm between the black and white employment rates, which is no artifact of the present moment. It's a problem that spans generations, goes remarkably unnoticed, and condemns millions of black Americans to a life of scraping by. That unerring, unchanging gap between white and black employment figures goes back at least 60 years. It should be a scandal, but whether on Capitol Hill or in the media it gets remarkably little attention. Ever.
The 60-Year Scandal
The unemployment lines run through history like a pair of train tracks. Since the 1940s, the jobless rate for blacks in America has held remarkably, if grimly, steady at twice the rate for whites. The question of why has vexed and divided economists, historians, and sociologists for nearly as long.
For years the sharpest minds in academia pointed to upheaval in the American economy as the culprit. In his 1996 book When Work Disappears, the sociologist William Julius Wilson depicted the forces of globalization, a slumping manufacturing sector, and suburban flight at work in Chicago as the drivers of growing joblessness and poverty in America's inner cities and among its black residents.
He pictured the process this way: as corporations outsourced jobs to China and India, American manufacturing began its slow fade, shedding jobs often held by black workers. What jobs remained were moved to sprawling offices and factories in outlying suburbs reachable only by freeway. Those jobs proved inaccessible to the mass of black workers who remained in the inner cities and relied on public transportation to get to work.
Time and research have, however, eaten away at the significance of Wilson's work. The hollowing-out of America's cities and the decline of domestic manufacturing no doubt played a part in black unemployment, but then chronic black joblessness existed long before the upheaval Wilson described. Even when employment in the manufacturing sector was at its height, black workers were still twice as likely to be out of work as their white counterparts.
Another commonly cited culprit for the tenaciousness of African-American unemployment has been education. Whites, so the argument goes, are generally better educated than blacks, and so more likely to land a job at a time when a college degree is ever more significant when it comes to jobs and higher earnings. In 2009, President Obama told reporters that education was the key to narrowing racial gaps in the US. "If we close the achievement gap, then a big chunk of economic inequality in this society is diminished," he said.
Educational levels have, in fact, steadily climbed over the past 60 years for African Americans. In 1940, less than 1% of black men and less 2% of black women earned college degrees; jump to 2000, and the figures are 10% for black men and 15% for black women. Moreover, increased education has helped to narrow wage inequality between employed whites and blacks. What it hasn't done is close the unemployment gap.
Algernon Austin, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., crunched data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and found that blacks with the same level of education as whites have consistently lower employment levels. It doesn’t matter whether you compare high-school dropouts or workers with graduate degrees, whites are still more likely to have a job than blacks. Degrees be damned.
Academics have thrown plenty of other explanations at the problem: declining wages, the embrace of crime as a way of life, increased competition with immigrants. None of them have stuck. How could they? In recent decades, the wage gap has narrowed, crime rates have plummeted, and there's scant evidence to suggest immigrants are stealing jobs that would otherwise be filled by African Americans.
Indeed, many top researchers in this field, including several I interviewed, are left scratching their heads when trying to explain why that staggering jobless gap between blacks and white won't budge. "I don't know if there's anybody out there who can tell you why that ratio stays at two to one," Darity says. "It's a statistical regularity that we don't have an explanation for."
Behind Bars, the Invisible Unemployed
So what keeps blacks from cutting into those employment figures? Among the theories, one that deserves special attention points to the high incarceration rate among blacks -- and especially black men.
In 2009, 7.2 million Americans -- or 3.1% of all adults -- were under the jurisdiction of the U.S. corrections system, including 1.6 million Americans incarcerated in a state or federal prison. Of that population, nearly 40% percent were black, even though blacks make up only 13% percent of the American population. Blacks were six times as likely to be in prison as whites, and three times as likely as Hispanics. For some perspective, consider what author of The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander wrote last year: "There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began."
Incarceration amounts to a double whammy when it comes to African-American unemployment. Rarely mentioned in the usual drumbeat of media reports on jobs is the fact that the Labor Department doesn't include prison populations in its official unemployment statistics. This automatically shrinks the pool of blacks capable of working and in the process lowers the black jobless rate.
In the mid-1990s, academics Bruce Western and Becky Pettit discovered that the American prison population lowered the jobless rate for black men by five percentage points, and for young black men by eight percentage points. (Of course, this applies to whites, Asians, and Hispanics as well, but the figures are particularly striking given the overrepresentation of blacks in the prison population.)
Even that vast incarcerated population pales, however, in comparison to the number of ex-cons who have rejoined the world beyond the prison walls. In 2008, there were 12 million to 14 million ex-offenders in the U.S. old enough to work, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). So many ex-cons represent a serious drag on our economy, according to CEPR, sucking from it $57 billion to $65 billion in output.
Of course, such research tells us how much, not why -- as in, why are ex-cons so much more likely to be out of work? For an answer, it’s necessary to turn to an eye-opening and, in some circles, controversial field of study that may offer the best explanation for the 60-year scandal of black unemployment.
Twice as Hard, Half as Far
In 2001, a pair of black men and a pair of white men went hunting for work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each was 23 years old, a local college student, bright and articulate. They looked alike and dressed alike, had identical educational backgrounds and remarkably similar past work experience. From June to December, they combed the Sunday classified pages in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and searched a state-run job site called "Jobnet," applying forthe same entry-level jobs as waiters, delivery-truck drivers, cooks, and cashiers. There was one obvious difference in each pair:one man was a former criminal and the other was not.
If this sounds like an experiment, that's because it was. Watching the explosive growth of the criminal justice system, fueled largely by ill-conceived "tough on crime" policies, sociologist Devah Pager took a novel approach to how prison affected ever growing numbers of Americans after they'd done their time -- a process all but ignored by politicians and the judicial system.
So Pager sent those two young black men and two young white men out into the world to apply for perfectly real jobs. Then she recorded who got callbacks and who didn't. She soon discovered that a criminal history caused a massive drop-off in employer responses -- not entirely surprising. But when Pager started separating out black applicants from white ones, she stumbled across the real news in her study, a discovery that shook our understanding of racial inequality and jobs to the core.
Pager's white applicant without a criminal record had a 34% callback rate. That promptly sunk to 17% for her white applicant with a criminal record. The figures for black applicants were 14% and 5%. And yes, you read that right: in Pager's experiment, white job applicants with a criminal history got more callbacks than black applicants without one. "I expected to find an effect with a criminal record and some with race," Pager says. "I certainly was not expecting that result, and it was quite a surprise."
Pager ran a larger version of this experiment in New York City in 2004, sending teams of young, educated, and identically credentialed men out into the Big Apple's sprawling market for entry-level jobs -- once again, with one applicant posing as an ex-con, the other with a clean record. (As she did in Milwaukee, Pager had the teams alternate who posed as the ex-con.) The results? Again Pager's African-American applicants received fewer callbacks and job offers than the whites. The disparity was particularly striking for ex-criminals: a drop off of 9 percentage points for whites, but 15 percentage points for blacks. "Employers already reluctant to hire blacks,” Pager wrote, “appear particularly wary of blacks with known criminal histories."
Other research has supported her findings. A 2001-2002 field experiment by academics from the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, uncovered a sizeable gap in employer callbacks for job applicants with white-sounding names (Emily and Greg) versus black-sounding names (Lakisha and Jamal). They also found that the benefits of a better resume were 30% greater for whites than blacks.
These findings proved a powerful antidote to the growing notion, mostly in conservative circles, that discrimination was an illusion and racism long eradicated. In The Content of Our Character (1991),Shelby Steele argued that racial discrimination no longer held black men or women back from the jobs they wanted; the problem was in their heads. Dinesh D'Souza, a first-generation immigrant of Indian descent, publishedThe End of Racism in 1995, similarly claiming racial discrimination had little to do with the plight of black America.
Not so, insist Pager, Darity, Harvard's Bruce Western, and other academics using real data with an unavoidable message: racism is alive and well. It leads to endemic, deeply embedded patterns of discrimination whose harmful impact has barely changed in 60 years. And it cannot be ignored. As the old African-American adage puts it, "You've got to work twice as hard to get half as far as a black person in white America."
Is There a Solution for Black America?
Tracing black unemployment in America since World War II, there are two moments when, briefly, the gap between black and white joblessness narrowed ever so slightly -- in the 1940s and again in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example in 1970, unemployment was at 5.8% for blacks and 3.3% for whites, a sizeable gap but significantly better than what followed in the Reagan era. Those are moments worth revisiting, if only to understand what began to go right.
According to University of Chicago professors William Sites and Virginia Parks, those periods were marked by a flurry of civil rights and anti-discrimination activity on the federal level. A series of actions ranging from the creation of the Fair Employment Practice Committee in 1941 to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which mandated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, write Sites and Parks, had "dramatic impacts on employment discrimination."
But those gains of the 1970s were soon wiped out. The thinning of union membership and the dwindling power of organized labor didn't help either, after decades of pressure on employers to end discrimination against workers of color.
Today, in terrible times, with the possibility of social legislation off the table in Washington, the question remains: What, if anything, can be done to close the jobless gap between blacks and whites? When I asked Devah Pager, she called this the "million-dollar question." This form of discrimination, she pointed out, is especially difficult to deal with. As she noted in 2005, many employers who discriminate don't even realize they're doing so; they're just going with "gut feelings." "It's not that these employers have decided that they are not going to hire workers from a particular group," Pager told me.
What won't work is relying on discrimination watchdogs to crack down more often. The way federal anti-discrimination law works, it's up to the person who was discriminated against to raise an alarm. As Duke's William Darity points out, that’s a near impossibility for a job applicant who must convincingly read the mind of a person he or she doesn’t know. Worse than that, the applicant who wants to lodge charges of discrimination also has to prove that the discrimination was intentional, which, as Pager’s experiments make clear, is no small feat. Under the circumstances, as Darity told me, perhaps no one should be surprised to discover that blacks "grossly underreport their exposure to discrimination and whites grossly overreport it."
Of course, fixing a problem first requires acknowledging it -- something the nation has yet to do, says the Economic Policy Institute's Algernon Austin. To put blacks back to work, lawmakers should invest federal money directly in job creation, especially for black workers. Other avenues for putting people back to work, like a payroll tax credit won't do the trick. "We've spent billions in trying to build jobs overseas" in war zones, Austin told me. "But if we invested that money here in our cities, we wouldn't have this racial gap."
But how likely is that at a moment when, in a Washington gripped by paralysis, any discussion of spending in Washington begins and ends at how much to cut? The painful reality of permanent crisis for black workers is here to stay. That’s how it seems to blacks in D.C., especially those who live east of the river. In April, another group of protesters took to the 11th Street Bridge to demand more D.C. hires, and the following month, the group D.C. Jobs or Else took their complaints to City Hall. But progress is slow. "We're being pushed out economically," said William Alston El, a 63-year-old unemployed resident who grew up in D.C. "They say it’s not racism, but the name of the game is they have the money. You can’t live [in] a place if you can’t pay the rent.”
Huma Ubedin is beautiful and clever. She works for Hillary Clinton. She's married to a handsome politician. She's the kind of woman other women envy. Or would envy, if the handsome politician wasn't now world famous for his big, bulging crotch.
It's just over a month since a photo of an erect penis battling grey boxer shorts was posted on the Twitter account of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. When the news, if you can call an erect penis news, exploded on to the Twittersphere, and then the blogosphere, and then into what another prominent American politician calls the "lamestream" media, Weiner seemed a bit confused. He couldn't, he said, after what sounded like hours of close inspection with giant computer screens and tape measures, say "with certitude" whether the erect penis was his.
He didn't explain where the obstacles to clarity lay. He didn't say, for example, if he thought it might be someone else's penis in his boxer shorts. Or if he thought it looked jolly like his penis, but he didn't remember buying (or, more likely, his wife buying) grey boxers, since he normally went for lime green or pink. He didn't say that he was quite surprised to find photographs of erect penises on Twitter, since people usually posted photos of cup cakes or kittens. He just said what people always say when there's been a little bit of confusion about a penis. He said that he had hired a lawyer.
Well, that, it turned out, was a porkie pie, or perhaps a wiener, which is what some Americans call a hot dog. Weiner hadn't hired a lawyer. The penis, he eventually admitted, was his. So were the boxers. And so were the hands that posted the picture on Twitter, to a young student he'd never met. The story took the usual course. Denial. Reluctant confession. Refusal to resign. Resignation. And then, the vital coda to every modern cock-up. Remorse? Are you joking? Rehab.
This week, in what every American gossip blog seems to call "a desperate attempt to save his marriage", Weiner went into "intensive" rehab. Perhaps, if you're American, you know what this means. Perhaps there's "really quite relaxed" rehab, and "a bit less relaxed, but still not too scary" rehab, and "quite tricky, but don't worry we'll help you" rehab, and finally, "this is the real deal and it costs an arm and a leg (but not a penis)" rehab for politicians, golfers and film stars whose PRs tell them they must look as if they're very, very keen for a bright new start.
Perhaps, at "intensive" rehab, you wear fluffy bathrobes, and get fish pedicures, as John Prescott tweeted that he did this week. Perhaps you have to drink carrot juice and eat egg-white omelettes and sip herb tea. Perhaps you have to do salutations to the sun. But I presume, at least from watching Fight Club, which is as near as I've ever got to rehab, that you also have to sit around in groups and talk about your problem, which you're encouraged to call an "addiction". And learn, or often learn, that the road to recovery consists of 12 steps.
The first step, of the 12-step recovery program pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous, and now used by anyone who says they're addicted to anything, is based on the principle that the person who says they have the addiction is "powerless". You wouldn't want anyone to fall at the first hurdle, or step, but it's really quite hard to see how they wouldn't. Anthony Weiner is, it's now clear, pretty good at lying, or at least he's had plenty of practice. But could he really sit, in his fluffy bathrobe, or his chinos, and say that the fingers that placed a smart phone inches away from his groin, and clicked the camera icon, and then posted the photo on Twitter, had nothing whatsoever to do with him?
And that the fingers that typed sexually explicit texts to five other women also had nothing to do with him? And the lips that told his wife, and the world, that he hadn't? Did he think he was Damien in The Omen? Does he want demons to be cast out? Or is he just another giant baby who's perfectly capable of doing difficult things when they further his career, but who chooses to call his more embarrassing hobbies a "disease"?
Is tweeting photographs of penises a disease? Is cheating on your wife? Or chatting up blondes? Or eating too much chocolate? Or drinking too much wine? If these are diseases, how do you catch them? And if these are diseases, how do you manage not to chat up the blonde, or drink the wine, or tweet the penis, when, for example, you're due to give a speech in Congress, or in court?
I have no doubt that many people who drink too much, and eat too much, and cheat too much, have been helped by sitting around in rooms with other people telling each other that they're powerless. They might also be helped by sitting around doing crochet or playing cards. It's always nice to be with people who see the world in the same way as you. Some people find that saying Hail Marys helps. Others prefer to say "Om" or recite the Koran. There are lots of different ways to solve a problem, or break a habit. People should be free to do whatever doesn't harm anyone else, and works.
But a habit is all it is. Sure, with alcohol, and nicotine, and narcotics, there are physical symptoms of withdrawal. Sure, with sex, and chocolate, and maybe Twitter, and maybe video games, and maybe for some sad souls a handbag, there's a little burst of dopamine that feels so nice you want to feel it again. But a habit is just a habit. A habit is something you choose to do a lot, and can also choose to stop.
The other day, a friend of mine, who's in the Parachute Regiment, went into his six-year-old's class. The girls asked him about his uniform. The boys asked him about his guns. They all asked him about his training, but some of them looked confused. In the end, one of them stuck up his hand. "What," he said, "is discipline?" He, we, and Weiner may well ask.
For years, Toni and Mark prayed for a child. Well in their 40s, their "miracle child" was born. Handsome and smart, Anthony exceeded all his developmental milestones until he reached 18 months. Then, inexplicably, he seemed to regress. Toni and Mark found he has a progressive, genetic disease. Anthony died just before his third birthday. For Toni and Mark, the illness and death provoked a deep spiritual crisis. How could God let this happen? How could He grant their prayer only to later take the child they so deeply loved?
We often think of grief as an emotional reaction, one where individuals may experience a range of reactions such as anger, guilt, sadness, loneliness and yearning, to name but a few. Yet grief is more than that. It affects us physically, sometimes even compromising the health of survivors. It influences how we think and how we behave.
Grief affects us spiritually.
These spiritual reactions to grief can occur to individuals who do not adhere to any religion or even have any theistic beliefs. Broadly defined, the essence of spirituality is how we find meaning in life. For some that involves distinctly spiritual concepts. Others may live by a more humanistic frame. Lisa did. She and her brother Jay grew up in home that eschewed religious beliefs. Yet, they were taught and internalized a deeply humanistic ethos. While the world was, they believed, a very random place, Lisa also felt that ultimately "what goes around comes around." Both Lisa and her brother fervently cared for others. Both worked in human services. When her brother Jay was killed by a distraught, crack-addicted mother as Jay tried to remove children from this neglectful, drug-infested home, Lisa's basic beliefs were shaken.
In the end, one of the most difficult issues in grief is reconstituting faith (or philosophical systems) challenged by the loss. We all have beliefs that give us some sense of security -- that make sense of the world and offer a code for life, whatever the roots. Sometimes a loss deeply challenges those notions, leading to a crisis of belief.
Naturally not every loss does that. Some losses, however much we grieve them, do not challenge our faith. My Aunt Marie died at 92 years old, healthy, alert and active until a sudden tumble down a flight of stairs placed in a terminal tailspin. We missed her terribly. She was the honored matriarch of a large Hispanic family. Yet, our beliefs were not called into question. Though her death was sudden, she had lived a good life. Even in an odd way her death was perceived as "appropriate." This was not a woman who would have done well with a long, debilitating illness.
Yet when losses do challenge our beliefs -- whatever they are -- it is important to acknowledge the normalcy of such a reaction. Sometimes we can feel frightened that we are losing our faith. Yet periods of doubt are part of the cycle of belief. Even C. S. Lewis, the great Christian writer, had moments of doubt as he struggled with the death of his wife. "Where is God when you really need Him? -- A door slammed in your face." Later Lewis could acknowledge that his own frantic need had slammed that door.
In such cycles of doubt and difficulty, it is critical to return, or not leave, our own sources of spiritual sustenance and renewal. Whether it is the counsel of similar-minded friends, the presence of our spiritual or faith community, or the resources, books, rituals and practices of our spiritual discipline, this is a time we need not to sever the connection but rather to strengthen our tie.
Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv, is a Professor of Gerontology at the Graduate School of The College of New Rochelle and Senior Consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America (HFA). A prolific author and editor, Dr. Doka serves as editor of HFA's Living with Grief® book series, its Journeys newsletter, and numerous other books and publications and is an ordained Lutheran minister.
Hospice Foundation of America is dedicated to helping the millions of Americans each year who cope with terminal illness, death and grief. In 2011, HFA focused on Spirituality and End-of-Life Care with a national education program shown at 1,000 sites across the United States and Canada, an in-depth webinar series, and companion book. HFA offers a range of publications for both professionals and the public and answers thousands of questions each year from family members trying to navigate the health care system. The Hospice Foundation website serves as a well-regarded resource for information end-of-life care and grief.
Just three weeks after one of the biggest moments in TOMS history, it gives me great pleasure to make another really special announcement...
On September 6th, after more than two years in the making, my first book entitled Start Something That Matters will be released. And in true TOMS fashion, no product would be complete without a One for One give: With every book you purchase, a new book will be provided to a child in need.
People often ask me what I consider my goal to be at TOMS. The truth is that it's changed over the years. When we first began, the goal was to create a for-profit company to help the children that I met in a small village in Argentina. And that objective to give new shoes to children in need continues to be a powerful driver for me and everyone else at TOMS.
But recently my personal mission has changed. Today, I would say that my goal is to influence other people to go out into the world and have a positive impact, to inspire others to start something that matters, whether it's a for-profit business or a non-profit organization. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to share everything that we've learned from TOMS, so that others can learn from both our mistakes and the counterintuitive principles that have guided our success.
I would also like to share the stories of other social entrepreneurs, from all walks of life, who are taking that wonderful and courageous step forward, who are moving from thinking about doing something to actually doing it. Among many others, the leaders profiled in my book include Tony Hseih (founder of Zappos), Scott Harrison (founder of charity: water), Lauren Bush (founder of FEED Projects), Eric Ryan (co-founder of method) and Tim Ferriss (author of The 4-Hour Workweek).
Like me, all of the people featured in the book faced insecurities and fear when first starting out. All of us bootstrapped with limited resources, and made countless mistakes along the way. After reading these stories of success, I hope that you'll realize that you already have everything you need to get started. You don't need a lot of money, a complicated business plan, or a great deal of experience to get your idea off the ground. What you absolutely must have, however, is the courage to take that first bold step forward....
For me, the ultimate success of this book will be measured not by how many copies it sells but by the number of people whom it inspires. So keep me posted in the comment section of my blog.
Carpe Diem,
Blake
To pre-order Start Something That Matters, click here. For a limited time, the first 1,000 people that pre-order the book will receive a limited edition SSTM Tote Bag!
Some readers may be old enough to remember that affable confabulator-in-chief, Ronald Reagan, who notoriously conflated movie roles with real events, insisted that 80 percent of air pollution came from trees (30 years before California Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher's similar assertion in May), and claimed that, "in the Russian language there isn't even a word for freedom." Nevertheless, he and his handlers were masters of media management. As the sign on the desk of his press secretary, Larry Speakes, famously read, "You don't tell us how to stage the news and we don't tell you how to cover it.'
Since Reagan's subsequent beatification by those have sought to rewrite the history of his administration, GOP politicians and political consultants have gone from adeptly putting a self-serving spin on events to making them up out of whole cloth. But this is not to say that the Republican Party is monolithic. There is a significant if dwindling plurality among GOP voters who despair over the loss of that now extinct species of conservative leader, the moderate Republican. The trait that most defines the majority of present day conservative politicians is their reflexive tendency to invent reality. But even among them there are important distinctions; some are delusional, while others are merely liars.
Embodying these two remaining species of Republican politician are the current front-runners for the GOP presidential nomination, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney. Bachmann's crackpot politics are grounded in genuine ignorance and a sincere belief in right-wing religious and historical fairy tales, along with the usual Tea Party brew of paranoid political fantasy. Romney, the most oleaginous of the wingtip Machiavellians that populate the GOP old guard, is smart enough to know he must play dumb. This has meant going along with the prevailing idiocy of the day -- even to the point where it seems he's insisting that his own creation (the Massachusetts health plan) is the spawn of Satan.
This brings to mind the old Woody Allen joke about the man complaining to the psychiatrist about his brother who thinks he's a chicken. When asked by the doctor why the man doesn't seek treatment for his brother, the man replies, "I would. But I need the eggs." Republicans like Romney, as well as reborn birther, Donald Trump, need the political eggs too much to challenge the delusions of their more untethered constituents or colleagues.
Whichever candidates get anointed to the top spots on the 2012 ticket can be expected to zealously embrace the ever-shifting catechism of crazy emerging from the GOP's Tea Party contingent, either because they believe it or because they need to look like they believe it. But regardless of the nominees' real or feigned beliefs, they can be counted on to be unwaveringly reality-based in pushing policies and high-court appointments that will redound to the economic and political benefit of the global corporate imperium.
Of course, vital to the conservative crusade against reality has been Fox News. Sadly, Roger Ailes, a veteran GOP propagandist and current Fox News manager, will not be able to set up shop in Canada due to a pesky Canadian regulation that stipulates, "a licenser may not broadcast... any false or misleading news." But back in the US, where false is true, faith is science, and fantasy is fact, Fox News is free to pioneer a brave new genre, unreality TV.
24 hours a day their considerable resources are devoted to manufacturing delusional problems and fictitious threats, for which the solutions are always elect more Republicans, cut taxes for the rich, and remove all constraints on corporate behavior. While making stuff up is their main tactic, generating fear is their chief strategy. And there is a good reason that this is so effective.
A recent study conducted by neuroscientists at the University College of London and published in Current Biology found significant brain differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals are more likely to have a large anterior cingulate cortex, an area important for the management and tolerance of uncertainty, complexity, and conflict. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to have a bigger amygdala, an area of the brain specialized for the processing of fear and disgust. Given the brain's plasticity, politics and neuroanatomical differences are each likely to be a cause and an effect.
Of course, depending on the context, each of these traits could be either an advantage or a disadvantage. As I have argued elsewhere, liberal tolerance of complexity could lead to moral and practical paralysis, and conservative fear and disgust could prime one to respond boldly to real threats.
Whether informed by this research or simply guided by intuition and observation, the programmers at Fox have wrought great ratings and political benefit from constantly jerking on the tender, hypertrophied amygdlae of their anxious viewers. "Beware," they warn. "There is a malevolent socialist/Muslim Kenyan-born terrorist-sympathizing president in the White House who wants to take away our guns, abolish Christmas, force our elderly citizens to appear before death panels, and mandate Koran reading in government-run reeducation camps." Not waiting for Democrats to establish the new Caliphate, a year ago ever-vigilant Oklahoma Republicans passed legislation banning the establishment of Sharia law within its borders. Thanks to the quick thinking of its conservative leaders, Al Qaeda's plan for an Islamic Republic of Oklahoma has been foiled. Since then, 13 red states have introduced similar laws.
While paranoia has long been an aspect of American politics, especially on the right, the post-9/11 GOP and its megaphones on Fox have succeeded in taking a disordered way of thinking confined to lone schizophrenics in private life, and to the lunatic margins of public life (like Timothy McVeigh and his anti-government Christian Identity brethren) -- and normalizing it. The delusions of Tea Party activists are now accorded the status of respected political speech, and are often featured in point-counterpoint debates across the mainstream media-scape. In part two of this series, "The Mainstreaming of Political Paranoia," I'll look at the role that the non-Fox media, like CNN and the networks, as well as the Democratic Party, have played in the growing obsolescence of reality-based politics.
Perhaps you've seen them trundling past your house -- those ruby-red Google Street View compact cars, with a tripod camera mounted on the roof. They have cruised through almost every major town in the developed world, photographing each house and posting the pictures on Google Maps.
But one year ago, following the German government's demand for more information, Google representatives were forced to admit that the cars were gathering more than harmless pictures; they were systematically gathering data on anyone using a nearby, unsecured Wi-Fi network. If you were within range and surfing the Web without a password, Google took a little electronic snapshot of whatever you were doing.
Outraged governments began to move. Officials in Germany, Spain, France, and other countries demanded to see the data Google had collected on their citizens.
After reviewing the information, the Canadian Privacy Commission declared that Google had broken the law thousands of times. "The personal information collected included complete emails, passwords, and a list of people who suffered from very specific medical conditions, along with their phone numbers," says Commission spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden. "We estimate that thousands of Canadians were affected."
French officials recently fined Google €100,000 ($142,000), adding that the company had actually made use of the data. South Korean police even raided Google's Seoul offices last year.
But here in the United States, the Obama administration has barely taken notice.
Federal regulators and Justice Department officials have either ignored the incident or conducted cursory investigations that privacy advocates and members of Congress have openly complained about.
And some critics wonder if President Barack Obama's personal ties to Eric Schmidt, who served as Google's CEO until January, may have something to do with it.
Google representatives refused to discuss the Wi-spying incident with iWatch News despite repeated requests for comment or an interview.
The company has claimed in numerous blog posts that one of its engineers accidentally included a snippet of code in the Street View Cars, and that Google never had any intention of stealing private Internet data. "Quite simply, it was a mistake," wrote Google Vice President Alan Eustace when the scandal first broke.
Privacy expert Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, says he doubts that Google deliberately set out to collect this data.
"No one can honestly believe that," Dempsey says. "The notion that driving a car down the street is an efficient way to collect information -- I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. ... The secondary content they collected was not only unintentional, but worthless. It's just random data."
And apparently, this explanation has been good enough for the feds. Because even though Google has admitted to spying on perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans, the U.S. government's response has been so muted that privacy advocates have resorted to elaborate pranks to embarrass officials into acting.
Take the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC opened an investigation shortly after the Wi-spying affair was made public in May 2010, but closed it almost as quickly in October, citing Google's "assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected," and a company pledge to make "improvements to its internal processes." Google promised not to do it again, and the FTC was satisfied.
EPIC officials submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and received internal FTC emails about the Google probe that suggest government lawyers treated this as a trivial affair almost from the beginning. One senior FTC attorney complained in an email that the Wi-spying investigation "wasted my summer," and hoped that a congressional briefing on the subject "won't be too much of a time suck."
Activists with Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles-based consumer advocacy group, decided that Congress needed a lesson in just how serious this violation may have been. Security experts drove by the Washington homes of members of Congress whose homes appear on Google Street View, and used the same software employed by Google to check if the search engine could have stolen data from their Wi-Fi networks.
The watchdog group found open Wi-Fi networks near the homes of Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman, Edward Markey, John Dingell, and then-Rep. Rick Boucher. Two unsecured Wi-Fi networks clearly belonged to Democrat Jane Harman, who then chaired the Intelligence Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. Google could have secretly recorded sensitive emails about U.S. homeland security, the group said.
All five Democrats declined to comment for this story.
According to John Simpson, who investigates Google for Consumer Watchdog, such theatrics are critical. Unless the federal government holds the search giant accountable at times like this, he says, Google will keep trying to see what else it can learn about consumers. He sees it as part of the company's DNA.
"I think they deliberately set out to gather the data," Simpson says. "At least the people who created the project set out to gather the maximum amount of data. That stems from the engineering mindset, that you should always gather as much data as you can, because you never know what you can do with it."
As a result of this and a formal complaint by EPIC, the Federal Communications Commission in November acknowledged it had opened an investigation. But as the months have dragged on, members of Congress have lost patience with the FCC.
In February, Democratic Rep. John Barrow of Georgia and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, complaining that the FTC walked away without asking any serious questions and requesting that the FCC do a more thorough job than its counterpart.
"Nine months after Google first admitted to collecting this data, we still don't have answers as to how this privacy breach was allowed to take place and how many Americans were affected, let alone a credible assurance that it will not happen again," the congressmen wrote. "The lack of progress in this investigation is concerning."
Neither lawmaker responded to iWatch News' requests for additional comments.
And on March 30, an exasperated Rep. Tom Graves, a Georgia Republican, grilled Genachowski on the status of the FCC's probe during an appropriations subcommittee hearing. "There could be almost 62 million emails picked up, but you don't know when you will be able to tell us about all this?" Graves asked, according to The Hill. "Would you consider this eavesdropping?"
"I apologize. I want to answer, but we cannot comment," Genachowski replied.
"What do you think the response would be by the American people if the federal government drove around and took pictures of neighborhoods and while doing that picked up private unencrypted Wi-Fi messages of Americans?" Graves later added. "Do you think the American people would be mad?"
"Yes, I think they would be mad," said Genachowski.
Google patent application
With the feds so seemingly languid, it has fallen to state governments and trial lawyers to investigate Google. And their experience shows that unless a national government takes a serious interest in the case, Google will go to considerable lengths to keep the details of its privacy violations -- well, private.
At first, Google's Eric Schmidt was cavalier about the whole thing. "Who was harmed? Name the person," he said from the podium of Google's Zeitgeist conference in Great Britain, just four days after the Wi-spying scandal broke on May 14, 2010.
Schmidt soon found that plenty of people were eager to take him up on that challenge, as France, Germany and Spain demanded to see the data Google had swiped from their citizens. After hemming and hawing for a few days, the company handed over the information to those countries.
According to Christian Schroeder, a German lawyer who specializes in data protection and Internet security, European governments take a much harder line on privacy issues, and their citizens are not at all inclined to simply take Google's good intentions on faith. "Data privacy has become really a topic in the German public for two or three years," he says. "And when a major multinational corporation like Google gathers such data that goes into their personal lives,that raised a lot of fears among the German public."
It's been a decidedly different story in the United States.
When Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal investigated on behalf of 39 other states and requested to see the same data, Google refused to provide what it had given every other government that had asked until then.
Blumenthal, a Democrat, issued a civil investigative demand for the data, noting in a press release his frustration with Google's lack of cooperation. "Reviewing this information is vital because Google's story changed, first claiming only fragments were collected, then acknowledging entire emails," wrote Blumenthal. "We will fight to compel Google to come clean."
Blumenthal's office did not return iWatch News calls seeking additional comment.
Seven weeks later, Blumenthal left to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. His successor, George Jepsen, agreed to drop the demand for data, signed a stipulation that simply acknowledges that the company recorded a lot of private data, and said he would hold settlement discussions with the company . Jepsen's office refused to discuss the investigation.
As for Blumenthal, he hasn't finished with Google yet. In fact, the senator may be one of the few officials willing to ask the company hard questions about the scandal.
When news broke that Apple and Google smartphones have the capacity to track users as they move through the country, Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota convened a May 10 hearing of the Judiciary Committee's privacy panel to ask both companies about their privacy policies. Blumenthal was at the hearing, and subjected Alan Davidson, Google's director of public policy for the Americas, to the first serious public grilling about the Wi-Spy affair.
"The company first denied that it was collecting this information, did it not?" Blumenthal asked Davidson, referring to the Google Street View incident.
"It did," Davidson replied. "We did not believe that we were doing -- we did not know that we were."
"And then it denied that it was collecting it intentionally, is that true?" Blumenthal asked.
"I think we still believe we were not collecting it intentionally," Davidson said.
Blumenthal then produced a 2008 patent application for the technology used in the Street View cars. He noted that according to the application, the goal of the technology was to download Internet data on unsecured Wi-Fi networks, and darkly suggested that perhaps this was more than a simple blunder.
"The interception and download of this personal data is contemplated in fact by a patent application that's been submitted by Google to both the U.S. patent office and internationally. Does it not?" the senator asked.
"I'm not specifically familiar with the details of the patent application," Davidson said.
"I think you've been provided with a copy," Blumenthal replied. "Maybe you could have a look at it."
After reviewing the document, Davidson reiterated that Google never meant to collect this data and was "honestly embarrassed." Blumenthal still wasn't satisfied: "Why would the company then submit a patent application for the process, that very process, that it denies having used?"
"I'm sorry, I can't speak to the specifics of this patent," Davidson said. "We were not aware that this was a topic for today's hearing."
Google dealt setback in class-action suit
Meanwhile, a number of private attorneys have sued the company in federal court and are seeking to bind the suits into a class action.
It's a little tricky to determine if their plaintiffs even have standing; they have to establish that Google actually swiped Internet data from their clients, and of course Google has refused to make this information public. But first, they must overcome Google's motion to dismiss the lawsuits -- and the company's argument has disturbing ramifications for the future of online privacy in America.
Under the Electronic Privacy Communications Act -- the 1986 federal law enacted 12 years before Google was born -- any electronic communication that is readily accessible by the public is fair game to be intercepted. Radio signals, for example, are exempt from privacy protections. Because unsecured Wi-Fi networks are transmitted by radio, Google's lawyers argued, the company is legally free to suck up anything their cars happened to drive past.
Just last week, however, U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose, Calif., rejected Google's request to dismiss the class-action lawsuit, allowing the wiretapping allegation to proceed.
"The Court finds that Plaintiffs plead facts sufficient to state a claim for violation of the Wiretap Act. In particular, Plaintiffs plead that Defendant intentionally created, approved of, and installed specially-designed software and technology into its Google Street View vehicles and used this technology to intercept Plaintiffs' data packets, arguably electronic communications, from Plaintiffs' personal Wi-Fi networks," the judge wrote. "Further, Plaintiffs plead that the data packets were transmitted over Wi-Fi networks that were configured such that the packets were not readable by the general public without the use of sophisticated packet sniffer technology."
Ware's ruling is also important for users of Wi-Fi networks in airports, coffee shops and other public areas to check for email.
In 2006, Google made a bid to administer a proposed but ultimately abandoned municipal Wi-Fi network for San Francisco, to turn the entire city, in effect, into one vast hotspot. Under Google's own arguments, the search engine would have had the right to spy on any San Franciscan using its own network.
Over the years, Google and the federal government have done more and more business together, as the feds farm out government administrative services to the company. Under the Obama administration, the relationship has grown particularly intimate.
Before the 2008 election, Google employees donated more than $800,000 to Obama's campaign, and Eric Schmidt publicly endorsed the candidate and sat with him on a panel discussing the future of the economy. After the election, Sonal Shah, an official with Google.org, was appointed to the Obama transition team. Shah now serves as the director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, and Schmidt sits on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In addition, Andrew McLaughlin, who once served as Google's head of global public policy, was a deputy chief technology officer in the Obama administration until resigning in December.
These ties coincide with a burgeoning Beltway lobbying presence on Google's part. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Google spent just $800,000 on lobbying in 2006. But in 2010, that expense had grown to more than $5.1 million. In addition, Google spent $600,000 in 2010 to retain the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm started by John Podesta, who oversaw Obama's transition team.
In January, Consumer Watchdog released a report that detailed the range of the federal government's current contracts with Google. The amount of cash the group found is only $40 million, a tiny amount compared to Google's annual revenue of almost $30 billion. But the contracts give the company a competitive edge in key emerging markets, as well as highlight the deepening relationship between Google and the Obama administration -- and the conflicts of interest that could potentially arise.
Last summer, for example, Google secured federal certification for its Apps for Government software, a service that places key government documents and email functions in the cloud computing network operated by Google Apps. A few months later, that certification enabled Google to secure a $6.5 million contract to provide email services for the 15,000 employees of the U.S. General Services Administration.
Google executives have long considered cloud-based applications as one of their main sources of future revenue, and having a federal certification goes a long way toward convincing corporations, small businesses, and state and local governments to let Google run their office software. The federal government's computer budget alone is worth an estimated $76 billion annually.
In addition, the FCC has begun using Google Analytics to plant cookies in the computers of people who visit their website and track their web habits thereafter. In addition to privacy concerns, the deal raises eyebrows among some critics who contend that the FCC should not be doing business with a company it is investigating.
Google also has long-standing relationships with federal law enforcement and intelligence services, some shrouded in secrecy.
The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration both use Google Earth Enterprise software for interdicting drug trafficking and other functions. The Pentagon's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which supports overseas military operations, has given Google a $27 million contract to provide Google Earth spatial imaging software.
One of the oddest deals has to be Google's contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Google gets to park its fleet of corporate jets at NASA's Moffett Field -- less than three miles down the road from the GooglePlex headquarters in northern California -- and in return, NASA collects a premium rent and gets to use the jets to conduct research on global warming. But over the years, NASA has used Google's planes just once or twice a year, according to a schedule provided by Administration officials.
Finally, there's Obama's personal friendship with Schmidt. Building on years of fundraising, endorsements, and private conversations, Obama went out of his way to mention Google as the equal of Thomas Edison in his State of the Union address in late January. A month later, Obama met with Schmidt at a dinner in Woodside, Calif., along with other Silicon Valley titans.
In late January, Schmidt announced that he would be stepping down as Google's CEO and moving into an emeritus role.
To be sure, Google has hit a few bumps in the road as the company expanded its Washington presence.
After the Google Buzz fiasco, in which the search giant's Facebook clone compromised the privacy of thousands of Gmail users, the FTC announced that Google had agreed to submit to biennial audits of its privacy policies and acquire its users' consent before sharing confidential information with third parties such as advertisers.
And in early April, the Justice Department added stiff conditions to its approval of Google's acquisition of the airline travel search company ITA Software.
According to Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson, the many intersections between Google and the Obama administration send a signal to federal regulators: don't push too hard.
"I don't think Obama has called Justice and said, 'Go easy on antitrust,'" he says. "But I think the staff at the Justice Department looking at Google's acquisitions can't help but notice that when O gave a shout out to companies in his State of the Union Address, one of those companies was Google."
Editor's note: Center for Public Integrity board member Olivia Ma is the news manager for YouTube, a video-sharing website acquired by Google in 2006.
One of my favorite bumper stickers reads, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
That's sort of how I feel about the health care debate. If more Americans paid attention to the fate of neighbors and loved ones who have fallen victim to the cruel dysfunction of our health care system, they would see through the onslaught of lies and propaganda perpetrated by special interests profiting from the status quo.
Since I started speaking out against the abuses of the insurance industry, I have heard from hundreds of people with maddening and heartbreaking stories about being mistreated and victimized by the greed that characterizes so much of the profit-driven American health care system.
Many other people send me links to articles or broadcasts they have seen. When I worked in the insurance industry, we called them "horror stories," and for good reason. The circumstances people often found themselves in were nightmarishly horrible. As an industry PR guy, my mission was to keep as many of those horror stories out of the media as possible. We didn't want the public to know.
It occurred to me recently that Americans are not sufficiently outraged because they either don't hear these stories or, if they do, don't believe how commonplace they are or that anyone they know could experience the same misfortune. Or they might hear that more than 50 million Americans don't have insurance because they can't afford it or, in many cases, can't buy it even if they can afford it, but they don't stop to think that real human beings make up that abstract 50 million figure.
The reality is that these stories are indeed commonplace. Almost all of us -- regardless of our age, income, job or political affiliation -- are just a layoff or plant closure away from being uninsured, or a business decision beyond our control from being underinsured, or an illness away from being forced into bankruptcy and homelessness.
My life changed when I really started paying attention a few years ago. I now have a new mission -- to help people become aware of and understand what is going on around them. So, starting today, I will be sharing on an occasional basis some of the horror stories like the ones I used to work so hard to keep out of the press. My hope is that people will begin to remember why reform is so necessary and why repealing "ObamaCare," despite its shortcomings, is not a real option.
You might have heard about this first one. Even if you have it bears retelling. A few weeks ago, a man in North Carolina was arrested for robbing a bank for $1 so he could get government-provided health care in prison.
Fifty-nine-year-old Richard James Verone has a tumor in his chest and two ruptured disks, but no job or health insurance. He is one of those 50 million Americans I mentioned earlier. Verone told reporters he asked for only a dollar to show that his motives were medical, not monetary. Because of his "preexisting" medical conditions, no private insurer will have anything to do with him. He wasn't destitute enough to qualify for Medicaid, the government program for low-income Americans, or old enough to qualify for Medicare, the government program for people 65 and older.
Verone and millions of other Americans who have a history of illness are considered by private insurers to be "uninsurable." Insurance company underwriters consider them an excessive risk to profits. Even insurers that operate as nonprofits, like many Blue Cross plans, refuse to sell coverage to a third or more of Americans who apply because they've been sick in the past. Many of the people they turn down are children who were born with birth defects.
Shortly after Verone staged his robbery, one of the contestants in the Miss USA pageant revealed during a nationally broadcast interview that she is homeless. Why? Her sick mother could not pay both the rent and her mounting medical bills. Twenty-three-year-old Blair Griffith was evicted along with her mother and brother just weeks after she won the title of Miss Colorado.
"I didn't know what to think" when sheriff's deputies starting putting the family's belongings in garbage bags, she said. "It was shocking. And then I saw my mom on her knees crying and begging them, 'Please don't do this to me' and then looking up at me and saying, 'I'm so sorry.'"
Blair's mother, a widow, lost her health insurance soon after suffering a severe heart attack. She was unable to get another policy. She and her children eventually had no choice but to join an untold number of other Americans who are homeless because they can't pay their medical bills. Many are bankrupt as well as homeless. Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.
The third story I want to share with you hasn't made headlines. Most such stories never do. A few days ago a young woman who said she'd been raped sent me an e-mail to ask if I might be able to help her find insurance.
"I am in the process of hiring a broker to help me find insurance, but it is just very overwhelming and sad," she wrote. "I have been denied by three major companies or had riders attached that will not cover anything related to HPV, cervical cancer, medications, or treatments. Basically, they will do nothing for me."
She wrote, essentially, to beg for help.
"I have never talked about what happened (to me), but I am learning that this is too big to handle on my own. There are so many barriers, and while I consider myself an intelligent person, I am by no means an expert when it comes to dealing with insurance agencies. I will take and am grateful for all the help that I can get."
I hope I can help her, but there is no assurance that either I or a broker or anyone else for that matter can help her get the coverage and access to care she needs. She is an apparent victim not just of rape but also of an unjust system that has devolved into seemingly intractable dysfunction while we were not paying close enough attention.
These are just three people whose lives have taken a tragic turn because of America's profit-driven private health care system. There are literally millions of other stories, many of which are even more maddening and heartbreaking.
When the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is fully implemented in 2014, the number of uninsured Americans will be reduced by 30 million, and many of the insurance industry's most egregious practices -- including refusing to sell coverage to people with preexisting conditions -- will be outlawed.
Let's hope that there will be far fewer horror stories after 2014. But the new law is just the beginning. We still will have a long way to go before we have universal coverage, like every other developed country in the world.
Universal coverage, in my view, is the ultimate goal we all should share. Remember this if nothing else: Until we achieve it, you and your loved ones could easily be facing your own horror stories.
Just over a week ago, in the same four-day period:
(1) Government figures confirmed that income inequality in the country remains at its most extreme since 1928, when we first began to track this statistic.
(2) Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican majority leader, walked out of the budget talks aimed at clearing the way for a federal debt limit increase because he wouldn't consider avoiding some of the most draconian spending cuts by instead ending tax loopholes for the very rich, like those that let them fly around on corporate jets, and for corporations, like those that go to oil and gas companies
(3) CBS's 60 Minutes ran an absolutely gut-wrenching piece on the nation's millions of children who, since the Recession began, every day live in either a vehicle or a motel room and go to bed hungry.
(4) The nation's largest multinational corporations continued to vigorously push their (mostly Republican) supporters in Congress to let them bring into their treasuries the roughly $1.5 trillion of taxable profits they've accumulated overseas but only after paying taxes thereon of just 5.25% instead of the 35% rate they currently owe the U.S. Treasury.
(5) And disappointing data about consumer behavior, factory sales and weak hiring in recent weeks prompted economists to ratchet down their 2011 economic forecasts to as little as half what they expected at the beginning of the year. According to Mokoto Rich of the Times , projections made just two months ago that the economy would grow at a 4% annual rate in the quarter ending in June have now been halved to anticipate no more than 2% growth when data for the second quarter is released in a few weeks.
In other words, with nearly 28 million workers mired in real unemployment and the nation once again in a declining economy, with 90% of American workers not having a real wage increase for well more than a decade, with more income inequality than ever before, and with the wealthiest of Americans (of which I am one) paying an effective tax rate that is less than half what the average middle class taxpayer pays, the Republican leadership in Congress -- Messrs. McConnell and Kyl in the Senate and Boehner and Cantor in the House -- absolutely refuse to consider closing egregious tax loopholes that benefit only the extremely wealthy while (much more on this later) giving a nearly $500 billion 'gift' to America's multinational corporations with no meaningful pass-through of any benefits to the middle class and no new jobs created.
What has clearly gotten lost in all of this partisan sturm und drang is any sensitivity by the Republican "budget cutters" to the day-to-day humane needs of the tens of millions of Americans who are everyday being devastated by the 30-year-long effects of the "trickle down" economic policies that were hatched by Reagan, nurtured or at least tolerated by every president since, and embraced -- enthusiastically embraced -- by the management class that on behalf of their own compensation and company profits now largely determine our country's domestic legislative actions.
As I wrote previously in this space, the winners of the ongoing deficit-versus-jobs debate and any resultant deal must be:
i. The unemployed, plagued as they are by a real unemployment rate of 18.2% -- which is exactly twice the "official" rate reported by the BLS of 9.1% -- and by the damage from an ever declining manufacturing sector.
ii. Middle class workers, with their plague of stagnant wages in real terms that has left them, on average, standing still earnings-wise.
iii. Retired workers and the sick and elderly, whose Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are now under constant attack by the Republicans in Congress.
iv. The poor, including the at least 50 million people who are ill-fed; the 50% of homeowners whose home value is now below its mortgage balance; the 100 million people who are at or below "200% of the federal poverty line of $21,834 for a family of four", which is a needs-measure made lame by the fact that no family of four can actually comfortably live on such a low annual income; and those millions of children who go to bed hungry and under-nourished, while also lacking proper housing, needed clothing, and the basic education required to develop.
The problem with how the Republicans in Congress continue to react to the Great Recession of 2007-2008 -- this time through their cynical demand that the mandated budget reconciliation talks can resume only if Democrats agree to take needed tax reforms off the bargaining table -- is that they are completely closing their minds and eyes to the reality that after decades of wide-spread wage stagnation and thoroughly discredited trickle-down economic policies, the entire middle class needs help.
Now, let's talk about that so-called "earnings repatriation" program that the nation's multinational corporations are trying to sneak into the budget talks, under which they say that they would repatriate hundreds of billions in foreign profits and pump them into domestic investment and hiring, provided that Congress and the White House agree to cut the tax rate on these profits to 5.25% from 35%.
By far, the best journalistic perspective on this issue (and many related ones) comes from David Kocieniewski of the New York Times . My perspective as you will see is blunter than his and comes from having been CEO of a Fortune 500 company and seeing first-hand that an "earnings repatriation" is one of the greatest -- and most abusive -- tax-related bait-and-switches that could ever be perpetrated on the middle class.
Mr. Kocieniewski writes that Congress and the Bush administration offered companies a similar tax incentive program in 2005 as part of the "American Jobs Creation Act," in hopes of spurring domestic hiring and investment. Eight hundred companies took immediate advantage of this 'opportunity' and though the tax break lured them into bringing $312 billion back to the U.S., fully 92% of that money was not used for investment or hiring, but instead was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, according to a study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research. In return for this measly "reinvestment" in America, the federal government reduced the combined tax bill from $109 billion to a mere $16 billion. But, most disturbing, according to Kristin J. Forbes who was a member of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and who led the study for NBER, "For every dollar that was brought back, there were zero cents used for additional capital expenditures, research and development, or hiring and employees wages."
More specifically, back in 2005 60% of the benefits went to just 15 of the largest U.S. multinational companies, many of which, as the authors noted, actually laid off domestic workers, closed plants and shifted even more of their profits and resources abroad in hopes of cashing in on yet another repatriation holiday. In 2005, however, the earnings stashed overseas aggregated $312 billion - now just six years later, in 2011, the figure which they would like to repatriate almost free of taxes is $1.5 trillion or five-times more. That's some recession you had, guys!
I would note, more bluntly as I said than would Mr. Kocieniewski, that overseas 'earnings', which are substantially the result of slick accounting maneuvers that have shifted proper domestic U.S. profits to low-tax countries, will, once repatriated, almost never be used to create jobs back home. This is so especially in a post-recession environment of the sort we have now when big corporations have already materially 'battened down their hatches' and, according to Federal Reserve data as reported by Mr. Kocieniewski, already accumulated domestic cash reserves of $2 trillion which they are pretty obviously not spending creating jobs.
These big corporations and their lobbyists say that this tax break would 'resuscitate the gasping recovery by inducing multinational corporations to inject $1 trillion or more into the economy', as sort of the "the next stimulus". Quite simply, they're lying.
While there may be mechanisms that could be attached to an earnings repatriation program to demand that earnings so brought home be used to create U.S. jobs and for productive domestic investment in new plant and equipment, they would be largely unenforceable given the byzantine nuances of major-corporation hiring and investing. But there is no sense in even trying to design them, since the multinational corporations and their Republican spear carriers will never accept such conditions. (As an aside, what in the world are the organization Third Way and my dear friend (and former SEIU President) Andy Stern thinking in endorsing this initiative? Sorry friends, you're very, very wrong on this.)
Let me use one example of the perfidy of this initiative. The company Apple right now has $12 billion of U.S.-taxable earnings waiting offshore, which of course it would love to 'bring home' and pay just $630 million of taxes on, rather than $4.2 billion it now owes.
Despite its enormous sales here in the U.S., Apple has only 25,000 employees in America, plus another 25,000 direct employees globally and 250,000 indirect employees in China (at a company called Foxconn). I totally hate Apple's irresponsibility toward American workers -- virtually all of those 250,000 jobs in China could be in northern California or northwest Oregon with only pennies of impact on the price of an iPad or iPhone -- but this said, Apple is a brilliantly and tightly run company. I assure you that not one cent of the $3.6 billion in taxes Apple would save from the 2011 version of the repatriation program would go toward job creation in America -- maybe toward another G5 executive airplane for Steve Jobs, but not toward new manufacturing jobs.
So there you have it. The most insensitive proposed solution to a real budget crisis in memory, coupled, if the Republicans also have their way, with the biggest non-productive corporate giveaway ever. The right answer of course is for the Congress -- the whole of the Congress -- to acknowledge that we can't straighten out our economy on the backs of the poor and middle class, and that the only way we will ever get a handle on our deficit in the longer term is to put people back to work in productive jobs so that consumer demand and tax revenues go up broadly.
Let's, along with your colleagues, have this conversation, Congressman Cantor and Senator Kyl.
Leo Hindery, Jr. is Chairman of the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Currently an investor in media companies, he is the former CEO of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), Liberty Media and their successor AT&T Broadband. He also serves on the Board of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.
Last week, the word leaked out of New York's state capital that Governor Cuomo was about to end the state's ban on hydrofracking. A detailed technical report proposed permitting the practice in some locations and under careful controls. The governor then appointed a 15-member scrupulously balanced advisory group to monitor the regulation of gas extraction. The panel includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental leader of impeccable credentials and unquestioned integrity.
The governor and his team have once again demonstrated an impressive combination of high principle and political skill. We saw it in the budget battle, the gay marriage victory and now in his energy policy. The same week Governor Cuomo opened the door on hydrofracking, he started to close it at the Indian Point nuclear power plant.
I admit that hydrofracking, mountain top removal and deep sea oil drilling make me nervous. I don't like the risks involved. Still, as I sit here writing these words on my recently recharged laptop, like anyone reading these words on the web, I need the juice. Some day I know we will have a better energy alternative, but at the moment we don't. While I don't think there is any sane and careful way to mine for coal by removing the tops of mountains, there are both safe and unsafe ways of extracting oil from the ocean and gas from the ground. Until we develop safe and cost-effective renewable energy sources, we need to focus our attention on mining fossil fuels as carefully as we can. The high throughput economy that ensures our comfort and quality of life cannot be maintained without risk. But reluctantly accepting risk does not mean we have to accept recklessness or stupidity. While we certainly need energy, we also need to preserve our ecosystems and clean drinking water.
Unlike an earlier proposed state policy, the new one bans hydrofracking anywhere near major water supplies. The watershed surrounding New York City's upstate water system will remain free of these practices. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), under the proposed new state policy:
High-volume fracturing would be prohibited in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds, including a buffer zone;
Drilling would be prohibited within primary aquifers and within 500 feet of their boundaries;
Surface drilling would be prohibited on state-owned land including parks, forest areas and wildlife management areas;
High-volume fracturing will be permitted on privately held lands under rigorous and effective controls; and
DEC will issue regulations to codify these recommendations into state law.
There are a number of important issues that must still be addressed if we are to avoid a slow-motion landlocked version of the BP oil spill in the Gulf. The first is, what happens to the high-pressure liquid that is injected into the ground, after the gas is released? How do we make sure it is collected and de-toxified before it is released back into the environment? Who pays for the monitoring and inspection of gas extraction processes and the costs of any infrastructure or equipment required to keep the process from destroying ecosystems?
There is little evidence that this or any other industry is prepared to spend the money it would take to do this correctly. It is not even clear that there is a safe and cost-effective way to extract New York State's deposits of natural gas. Nevertheless, while this may be wildly optimistic on my part, I see an opportunity here to determine if there is a way to do this right. It would be terrific if we could learn how to manage such a gas extraction process and demonstrate it to the rest of the nation. If we could identify the technologies and regulatory practices that would reduce the odds of catastrophe, natural gas is a good replacement for oil and coal. While it must be seen as a bridge fuel to a renewable energy economy, it has many economic and environmental advantages over other fossil fuels.
Ending the ban on hydrofracking allows Governor Cuomo to present himself as a pro-business elected official. Creating an advisory committee including prominent environmentalists allows him to demonstrate his commitment to environmentally sustainable development. What is the likely outcome of all of this? It may be that New York State will not see much hydrofracking because a careful and well-regulated extraction process will scare developers away. Why come to New York and put up with all those rules, when you can operate in the Wild West environment of Ohio and Pennsylvania? There is also the small matter of EPA's national study of hydrofracking due out in the fall. We may see some federal policy on this practice before too much longer.
Once again Andrew Cuomo may have found the political sweet spot of this controversy: ending the fracking ban while discouraging its practice. Perhaps Andrew's first name really is "Governor" as many New Yorkers have long suspected. However, in my view, this governor is doing far more than following a politically expedient course of action. He is forthrightly seeking to demonstrate that economic development and environmental protection can and must be integrated. New Yorkers consume a lot of energy, and upstate New York has been in economic decline for decades. Those are issues the governor must address. However, we also need to protect our lands and drinking water from environmental damage. The economic costs of a damaged water supply in New York City would more than offset the economic benefits of natural gas extraction. Moreover, while we can replace natural gas with other forms of energy, there is no substitute for water. We humans are biological creatures requiring water to survive.
Sustainability management requires that we learn how to power our economy while protecting our planet. The hydrofracking issue gives Andrew Cuomo an opportunity to become a sustainability governor. All New Yorkers should want him to meet that challenge.
The kids are out of school. Your neighbors are whistling on their way to work, greeting you with an enthusiasm peculiar to warm weather. And if you hear one more person ask you about your summer vacation plans, you will throw a U.S. map and atlas at them.
You don't mean to be grumpy. But darn it, you are miserable in the oppressive heat, your kids are home for 90 consecutive days, and you are don't have the stamina to pretend you are giddy that summer has arrived.
Ian A. Cook, M.D., the director of the Depression Research Program at UCLA, names five causes of summer depression in an article published by our friends over at WebMD:
1. Summertime SAD.
You've probably heard about seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which affects about 4% to 6% of the U.S. population. SAD typically causes depression as the days get shorter and colder. But about 10% of people with SAD get it in the reverse -- the onset of summer triggers their depression symptoms. Cook notes that some studies have found that in countries near the equator - like India - summer SAD is more common than winter SAD.
2. Disrupted schedules in summer.
If you've had depression before, you probably know that having a reliable routine is often key to staving off symptoms. But during the summer, routine goes out the window -- and that disruption can be stressful, Cook says. If you have children in grade school, you're suddenly faced with the prospect of keeping them occupied all day, every day. If your kids are in college, you may suddenly find them -- and all their boxes of stuff -- back in the house after a nine-month absence. Vacations can disrupt your work, sleep, and eating habits -- all of which can all contribute to summer depression.
3. Body image issues.
As the temperature climbs and the layers of clothing fall away, a lot of people feel terribly self-conscious about their bodies, says Cook. Feeling embarrassed in shorts or a bathing suit can make life awkward, not to mention hot. Since so many summertime gatherings revolve around beaches and pools, some people start avoiding social situations out of embarrassment.
4. Financial worries.
Summers can be expensive. There's the vacation, of course. And if you're a working parent, you may have to fork over a lot of money to summer camps or babysitters to keep your kids occupied while you're on the job. The expenses can add to a feeling of summer depression
5. The heat.
Lots of people relish the sweltering heat. They love baking on a beach all day. But for the people who don't, summer heat can become truly oppressive. You may start spending every weekend hiding out in your air-conditioned bedroom, watching pay-per-view until your eyes ache. You may begin to skip your usual before-dinner walks because of the humidity. You may rely on unhealthy takeout because it's just too stifling to cook. Any of these things can contribute to summer depression.
Alrighty, so now that we have a full list of what is contributing to our depression, what do we do about it?
A version of this piece originally appeared on Psych Central.
The road to hell may or may not be paved with good intentions, but the road to failure surely is. Take a good look at the people you work with, and you'll find lots of Good Starters -- individuals who want to succeed and have promising ideas for how to make that happen. They begin each new pursuit with enthusiasm, or at the very least, a commitment to getting the job done.
And then something happens. Somewhere along the way, they lose steam. They get bogged down with other projects. They start procrastinating and miss deadlines. Their projects take forever to finish, if they get finished at all.
Does all this sound familiar? Maybe a little too familiar? If you are guilty of being a Good Starter but a lousy finisher -- at work or in your personal life -- you have a very common problem. After all, David Allen's "Getting Things Done" wouldn't be a huge bestseller if people could easily figure out how to get things done on their own.
More than anything else, becoming a Great Finisher is about staying motivated from a project's beginning to its end. Recent research has uncovered the reason why that can be so difficult, as well as a simple and effective strategy you can use to keep motivation high.
In their studies, University of Chicago psychologists Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach examined how people pursuing goals were affected by focusing on either how far they had already come (to-date thinking) or what was left to be accomplished (to-go thinking). People routinely use both kinds of thinking to motivated themselves. A marathon runner may choose to think about the miles already traveled or the ones that lie ahead. A dieter who wants to lose 30 pounds may try to fight temptation by reminding themselves of the 20 pounds already lost or the 10 left to go.
Intuitively, both approaches have their appeal. But too much to-date thinking, focusing on what you've accomplished so far, will actually undermine your motivation to finish rather than sustain it.
Koo and Fishbach's studies consistently show that when we are pursuing a goal and consider how far we've already come, we feel a premature sense of accomplishment and begin to slack off. For instance, in one study, college students studying for an exam in an important course were significantly more motivated to study after being told that they had 52 percent of the material left to cover, compared to being told that they had already completed 48 percent.
When we focus on progress made, we're also more likely to try to achieve a sense of "balance" by making progress on other important goals. This is classic Good Starter behavior -- lots of pots on the stove, but nothing is ever ready to eat.
If, instead, we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained but heightened. Fundamentally, this has to do with the way our brains are wired. We are tuned in (below our awareness) to the presence of a discrepancybetween where we are now and where we want to be. When your brain detects a discrepancy, it reacts by throwing resources at it: attention, effort, deeper processing of information and willpower.
In fact, it's the discrepancy that signals that an action is needed; to-date thinking masks that signal. You might feel good about the ground you've covered, but you probably won't cover much more.
Great Finishers force themselves to stay focused on the goal, and never congratulate themselves on a job half-done. Parents can help create Great Finishers by reminding their children to keep their eyes on the prize, and by being careful to avoid giving really big rewards for hitting milestones "along the way." Encouragement is important, but to keep your kids motivated, save the effusive praise and the major rewards for a job well -- and completely -- done.
Look down at your feet -- would you know if you have a bunion?
Many people know the term 'bunion' and that it occurs on a foot, but don't know exactly what a bunion is.
Most people think a bunion is an abnormal growth of bone at the base of the big toe. This is incorrect (at least in most cases). A bunion is actually a structural problem where the big toe joint becomes subluxed and drifts towards the smaller toes. A displaced bone, called a metatarsal, becomes prominent on the inside of the foot. The bunion simply refers to the enlarged prominent 'knobby' area.
Bunions may progress in size and severity. A bunion may start of as minor issue and, over time, may develop into a severe disfiguring foot deformity. See below:
So if you have bunion, here are 10 important things you should know, as you consider treatment:
Not all bunions are painful.
The medical term is hallux abducto valgus.
They come in different sizes: small, medium, large or severe.
Genetics. You may have inherited your grandmothers feet.
They occur more often in women than men.
Pointy-toed shoes and high heels may result in bunions.
Bunions may get bigger over time, or not.
The bunion may cause problems with the lesser toes.
Non-operative treatments are mostly aimed at treating the symptoms.
Surgical treatment goals are to realign the natural position of the toe.
When to seek treatment?
There is not a specific point when bunion sufferers 'must' start treatment despite the bunion severity. Some people begin treatment with the smallest bunion while others neglect the condition until severe. Reasons to seek medical treatment are:
Presence of Pain? Pain and discomfort is the most common reason to seek treatment. Pain directly on the bunion is a symptom of direct shoe pressure. Joint pain suggests arthritic degeneration. Pain on the ball of the foot is concerning for altered foot biomechanics and a sign of a bigger problem. Pain should not be ignored.
Interference with Activity? Some people wait until a bunion interferes with activities before seeking medical treatment and I think this is a mistake. Impact activities (such as running, tennis) may be more challenging to perform. If left ignored, simple everyday walking may become problematic. You should take measures that keep you active and healthy.
Inability to Wear Certain Shoes? In this subset of patients, it's the sheer size of the bunion preventing fashionable shoes that motivates treatment -- not pain. These patients have learned to live with discomfort but chose fashion over foot health. Clearly, inability to wear shoes is a valid reason for intervention.
An Unsightly Bunion? Foot care experts are less concerned with cosmetic appearance as they are about pain, activity restrictions and overall foot function. Often insurance companies only cover medical bunion treatments if pain is present, regardless of size.
Overlapping toes? When the second toe has overlapped the big toe, it's an obvious indicator of a global foot problem, and is often associated with collapse of the foot. Interestingly, these problems are not always painful as the condition develops overtime and the pain may be muted, or patients have accepted a certain amount of foot discomfort. The driving force for treatment becomes secondary problems such as metatarsal stress fractures or inability to fit shoes.
How to limit progression of a bunion?
It is important to understand that not all bunions become worse (or bigger). Some bunions never change in size. Others may progress onto a major foot deformity. Genetics play a big role and you may be 'destined' to develop a 'bad' bunion. Below are non-surgical measures to mitigate pain as well as limit the progression.
Smart Shoe Selection: Avoiding shoes that are bad for your foot health may be the best preventive measure you can take. Pointy toes shoes directly pushes on the big toe inappropriately, and in my opinion are 'bunion formers.' If the bunion becomes irritated, then spot stretching the shoe limits symptoms. High heels may also contribute to bunions due to altered foot mechanics -- so limit time in them. Flip flops are considered a "poor footwear" choice by most health care professionals. Minimalist shoes seem to be a better lightweight alternative.
Counteract Muscle Spasms: Muscle spasms within the foot are often due to a muscular imbalance, and an important warning sign that muscles are trying to stabilize bone structure. Strained muscles are less effective at stabilizing the foot and a bunion may progress. Deep massage and mineral foot soaks ease tension in the foot.
Foot Strengthening: It's important to keep your foot muscles strong to counteract the muscular imbalance. Perform simple toe exercises daily -- such as picking up marbles (or a handkerchief) with your toes. Commercially available toe exercising devices may have therapeutic benefits but studies do not exist demonstrating efficacy.
Arch Supports: Bunions and foot deformities tend to occur in people with flat feet and/or ligamentous laxity. Arch supports provide extrinsic structure and promote a more 'proper' alignment and may limit bunions from getting bigger. Over the counter inserts are a good first start. Doctor-prescribed molded orthotics have the benefit of being custom to your foot and therapeutically tweaked.
Pain Medication (Oral & Topical): Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication is commonly recommended to decrease pain and inflammation. Topical treatments also help manage inflammation and pain symptoms. Capsaicin cream/ointment (derived from spicy chili peppers) is a potent pain reliever that works via a neurochemical pathway. Be sure that the skin overlying the bunion is intact, otherwise capsaicin will cause an intense burning sensation. Topical products containing methyl salicylate distract the pain perception by causing cooling/warming skin sensations. Topical corticosteroid cream may temporarily reduce inflammation and should be used intermittently because it may cause thinning of the skin as well as hypopigmentation.
Bunion Padding: A pad limits direct pressure and may prevent the pain cascade altogether. Chronic bunion inflammation can result in deeper bone problems, so prevention is beneficial. More importantly, a properly placed pad may provide a physical blockade that prevents the bunion from pushing out. Pads may be composed of felt, moleskin or gel.
Toe Spacers & Bunion Splints: The purpose of this intervention is to physically place the big toe in a more normal position. A toe spacer (often made of silicone) is worn while walking. A bunion splint is a useful device (worn while sleeping) to physically realign the big toe.
If you have a bunion, do what it takes to take care of your feet and prevent progression. If the above measures don't help, then surgery may be inevitable.
This past Sunday the New York Times did a magazine cover story based on the ideas of gay sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, whom it referred to as America's leading sex advice guru (really?), about how infidelity just might save monogamy, the idea being that monogamy is tough and it's about time we acknowledged it. Savage argues that couples should be far more understanding of infidelities and even discuss them before they happen so as to receive each other's informed consent, should that prove appropriate to the relationship. Couples should trade in the straightjacket of strict monogamy, which essentially doesn't work, and instead seek to be 'monogomish,' that is, being essentially faithful but allowing for outside liaisons which just might prevent the dissolution of the primary relationship.
Yawn. What a bore. This is what passes for news in the world's leading publication?
The New York Times would devote an ocean of ink to an idea that has been unsuccessfully argued by scores of 'experts' who have caused couples untold suffering by arguing for open relationships that have later been destroyed by jealousy and woundedness?
Indeed, the argument for open relationships goes back to the beginning of time, its most famous modern advocate being the celebrated British philosopher Bertrand Russell who wrote long letters to his wife about his consensual infidelities. But his open-mindedness could not surmount his jealousy when his own wife starting taking lovers. When Dora had a child by another man, he left her, later commenting, "My capacity for forgiveness, and what might be called Christian love, was not equal to the demands I was making on it... I was blinded by theory." Their daughter Kathleen Tait pithily remarked about her parents' strange marriage, "Calling jealousy deplorable had not freed them from it... both found it hard to admit that the ideal had been destroyed by the old-fashioned evils of jealousy and infidelity."
The great British writer Iris Murdoch was the same. Her husband John Bayley wrote a memoir of their 40-year marriage called Elegy for Iris. He explains that his wife would not allow her marriage to curtail her freedom or her need for adventure. She insisted by being allowed to have lovers and pursued other men intermittently. Still, she wanted to be married because she desired the comfort, companionship, and sense of safety that marriage offered. Bayley was not happy with the arrangement but felt he had no right to object. "In the early days, I always thought it would be vulgar -- as well as not my place -- to give any indications of jealousy..." So he buried the terrible pain it caused him all in the name of relationship enlightenment.
But convinced he has actually stumbled on something novel, Dan Savage, breaking new ground in the New York Times, adds more. He believes that we have crippled men by expecting them to be monogamous. "The mistake that straight people made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitarian and fairsey." According to the New York Times Savage believes that "the feminist revolution, rather than extending to women "the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed," we extended to men the confines women had always endured. "And it's been a disaster for marriage."
Aha.
In other words, the modern expectation for men to finally evolve from being indulgent boys and adolescents and become gentleman -- honoring their commitments and not breaking the hearts of the women who are devoted to them by cheating on them -- has been a disaster for marriage.
Hmmm. I wonder. Has Savage discussed his theory with women? Does the average wife believe that her husband ought to have 'a release valve' (I love these plumbing metaphors) that is not her?
Let's be clear. Yes, monogamy is challenging and does not come naturally. But neither does studying for an SAT, waking up at the crack of dawn to go to a job, or even remaining hygienic, for that matter. I suppose that cave men probably did far more of what came naturally. No doubt bopping a woman over the head with a club and taking her by force came much more naturally that having to wine and dine her, slowly wooing the commitment from her. But men have thankfully become civilized. Today we expect men to try and live honorably and live by their commitments. And the first commitment a man makes in marriage is to treat his wife like she is special, loved, and the one and only. And when a husband has sex with another woman, whatever Dan Savage things, it makes her feel discarded, secondary, and useless.
One woman I spoke to expressed it best. When I asked her why she had left her husband who had cheated on her twice, though I tried and keep them together, she told me, "It changed the nature of the relationship. Before he did this I felt like I was good enough. Now I feel inadequate, and it's now what I got married to feel."
Savage would probably respond: Exactly. That's what I'm saying. We need to explain to this wounded wife that by her husband cheating he was never doing so because she was not good enough. He was not rejecting her, per say. Rather, it's that monogamy, in Savage's words, has "drawbacks," including "boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted." I suspect, however, that the wife in question would respond, "Oh, really. Well, I want a husband who makes the effort to find me interesting, keep our love-life fresh, and who finds variety in exploring my sexuality and endless capacity for erotic fantasy. And if a man is not willing to make that effort, I'm better off with the company of a cat."
Indeed, spurious arguments like those made by Savage, now given so much credence by the New York Times, is what has driven so many women off of men. Three quarters of all divorces today are initiated by women, and one third of all women of marriageable age are single. Why? Because they're tired of men who want to act like boys. Who have wandering eyes. Who watch TV at night rather than make love to them. Who lose their sexual focus, and who treat them like they're not attractive or interesting. Dan Savage might say this is inevitable, that men are hard-wired to require lots of different women. I've heard these arguments ad nauseam from hard-core evolutionists who tell us that men are genetically wired to inseminate everything with a pulse.
But I'm sorry. I am a man. Not a brute. And my actions are in my control. And if I screw up I cannot blame my nature but rather my bad choices. Period.
Savage is wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Men, like women, are intimacy seekers. The men whom I know who had affairs had them primarily to find someone who made them feel good about themselves and to open up to emotionally. Men cheat out of a sense of brokenness. That's why the most common refrain among married men to their mistresses is, "My wife doesn't understand me." And he thinks that some other woman would, when all along he could have made the effort to open up emotionally to his wife and find new erotic opportunities within the confines of monogamy.
Yes, there are marriages that crumble due to boredom, just as there are business that lose their customers due to a lack of imagination. But every company like IBM, or even Blackberry for that matter, whose stock is currently tanking because of a lack of imaginative new products, there is an Apple computer that continues to innovate and expand and broaden its customer base. And for every husband like Anthony Weiner who tweets his junk to strangers there are husbands who wrestle with a straying eye to always find new beauty and depth in their wives. Rather than masturbating to porn their take their wives personally to shop for clothes, telling them what looks great on them. Rather than fantasizing about other women during sex, they ask their wives to reveal to their most secret and dangerous fantasies. Any husband who has ever tried it knows that a woman's fantasies are far more elaborate and exciting that a man's.
In the final analysis the reason why the Savages of this world are so misguided is that monogamy actually accords with our deepest nature. What we all seek in marriage is the synthesis of novelty and intimacy. We want a lover who is also our best friend. We want an erotic bond that is both fiery but also friendly. It is a subject to which I devoted a full-length book, "Kosher Sex," and it is eminently doable.
What we don't want is to have to choose. We don't a husband who is our partner, reliable and supportive, but is not simultaneously our lover, passionate and electrifying. We want a wife who is a nurturer and who is caring. But we also want to her to swing with the chandeliers. This may sound like a tall order. But it is no more challenging than asking people to focus on the professional while also excelling at the personal. Human beings are capable of this and we sell ourselves short when we so minimize our expectations. People should be well-rounded and it is the job of us relationship and sex advisors to give them the encouragement, the tools, and also the definitive knowledge that it can be done.
But advice columnists like Dan Savage, who have a shallow understanding of what eroticism really is, are doing their readers an injustice when men to devolve back into the bad behavior that has all too long characterized the male species.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the international best-selling author of Kosher Sex, Kosher Adultery, and the Kosher Sutra. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Yesterday all across America we celebrated the action taken by 56 white men in Philadelphia in 1776.
How oppressive were the British toward the colonies? Were there summary executions for dissenters?
Were leaders disappearing at the hands of midnight death squads? Was the real issue for which men were willing to put their lives on the line merely being taxed without being represented? I could not get these questions out of my mind while I watched the wonderful fireworks in Narberth, Pa surrounded by families and fireflies. These are really worthwhile questions in a time when the U.S. has over 700 military bases around the world and we are not generating the kind of love and respect for our power and might that we would expect. Are we not in all these places to help people? Would we ever contemplate becoming an overreaching empire like the British?
On the other hand, for the magnificent principle of equality and justice articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. serves as a source of inspiration, a light of hope for those oppressed. Its words are deeply associated with the Statue of Liberty proclaiming our caring for the poor and downtrodden. Equality and compassion for some odd reason seem to stimulate respect.
The powerful words of the Declaration remain alive to the extent we realize their depth. "We hold these truths to be self evident." Is that really so? It is not self evident to the eyes or intellect that "all men are created equal." Obviously some are smart and some less gifted, some tall and some short. And, when it was said, surely it was not an obvious "is" but merely a very idealistic "ought." There were great disparities of wealth and influence in the 18th century. Without property, particular skin color, or gender there was not even the pretext of equality. But from the eye of the heart that sees the dignity of the soul, "all are equal." The ideal was placed into history and continues to generate positive change.
This principle of the equality of the soul has become the gold standard of social justice from that moment onwards. It is not based on what is seen with the eyes, but what is understood by wisdom.
That is is why it is actually wisdom that was being celebrated yesterday.
At first glance, the idea of "machine to machine" communication seems like a social network for cyborgs. But it's actually a very practical way for devices to exchange data in service to humankind.
I learned a lot about "M2M" last week during a visit to Sprint's M2M Collaboration Center in Burlingame. The facility, which opened in October, is where the company and its partners test out and show off all sorts of devices that are interconnected via the company's cellular data network.
Examples range from ATM machines or vending machines that use the network to validate financial transactions to storage tanks that phone home when they need to be filled or serviced. I saw a bathroom scale and blood pressure monitor from Ideal Life with built-in cellular modems so that they could automatically report data to a health care provider or loved one. There were a couple of electrical smart meters on hand that send usage data back to the utility company and even an electrical charging station from Blink that uploads usage data to a Web page.
In an interview (click to listen), Wayne Ward, vice president of Sprint's Emerging Solutions Group, said that many M2M systems in the business sector are designed to collect information about "the health and welfare of their machine," such as alarm information, statistics, utilization and power consumption. Also, some GPS-enabled devices can report their location, which is not only important for portable assets (like vehicles), but as a security tool for stationary machines to make sure they haven't been moved or stolen.
Ward also mentioned "digital signage" that changes depending on time of day, products being promoted and even who is looking at the screen. The facility has a large high-definition screen with a camera on top that attempts to figure out who is looking at the screen. It doesn't try to recognize you by name, but attempts to record your gender and approximate age. In addition to keeping records, it could also push specific products. I can imagine these at grocery stores analyzing the girth of customers and recommending low calorie foods for some.
Examples of consumer M2M products include gaming devices, tablets, laptops and e-readers. In other words, "anything that is not a phone." Some versions of the Amazon Kindle e-reader use Sprint's network to transfer books from Amazon's servers to the device.
There are also automotive products. Greg Bott of Trimble Navigation said the company has tens of thousands of modules connected to the Sprint network that inform fleet operators in real time about how their vehicles are being operated. I don't know what cellular network it uses, but Inthinc offers a product called Tiwi that helps parents monitor where and how their kids are driving by reporting through a Web portal, email and text messaging. Parents can even set up a "geo-fence" to find out if their child is driving outside of a designated area.
Even though Sprint was the first U.S. carrier to roll out phones with higher speed 4G technology, not all of its systems use its fastest network. There are 4G systems for use with video and other high-bandwidth applications, but there are also 3G and old 2G systems that are much slower than 3G and 4G.
Many M2M applications, said Ward, only send a few bytes of data, so there is no need for high speed communications. Older "2G" systems are not only cheaper to operate but cheaper to make, smaller and more energy efficient. I was shown one 2G data modem that's small enough to imbed in a large wristwatch, which is more than fast enough for systems like alarm monitoring, application control, blood pressure monitors, asset tracking or other applications where only a small of amount of data is being exchanged.
Depending on how you define M2M, the market could eventually be bigger than "P2P" (person to person) because there are more machines in the world than there are people.
Sam Lucero of ABI Research said there were about 22 million M2M connections in the United States in 2010 and 88 million worldwide. By 2015, he projects the market to grow to 90 million domestically and 364 million globally. Lucero, however, is only counting devices with cellular connections that enable "largely automated connections between the remote device and a back-end infrastructure for the purposes of monitoring and control." Other definitions include a much wider range of devices, such as e-readers where the connection and the service plan is embedded in the device and invisible to the user.
Also, there are ways for machines to connect besides cellular, including Wi-Fi, hard-wired Ethernet and even old fashioned telephone modems.
And, of course, there is no reason why machines can't help facilitate human communications. In the future, you'll be able to arrange meetings with friends and colleagues by asking them to "have your machine call my machine."
This story first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. You can read more from Larry Magid at LarrysWorld.com and SafeKids.com
It breaks my heart to see a child struggling with normal kid activities because they are overweight.
As a nutritionist, I know the path that child is involuntarily on and the terrible set-up that his current lifestyle truly is. Still, I have stood in line behind that overweight family and watched the responsible adults order for the child exactly what they should be avoiding.
These pre-pubescent children are the size and shape of 40-year-olds and the 40-year-olds taking care of them can't see it. But do I intervene? Nope. Do I step up and say, "They do have salads here you know, perhaps that's a better option".
No. Instead, I stand there feeling nauseated and worried for the child. I look away; it's none of my business, right?
I heard a story recently that stopped me in my tracks. One overweight nine-year-old was told by another, fitter boy, "If you don't stop eating those fries and pop, you will get fatter".
It may have been the "er" that did him in. I know it was painful to hear. I also believe that the comment was not intended to hurt, it was intended to help, but still, the damage was done.
The fry-eating boy was hurt; the commenter boy was baffled. Both mothers were mortified, each for their own reason. Everyone left the situation stunned.
But the truth was told here and it shouldn't have been shocking. In some ways, it may have provided a defining moment for the french-fry-eating boy that could positively change the course of his life. The content of the comment should have been something he had heard before and not news. The person delivering the information should have been someone whom the boy loved and trusted and delivered in a gentler fashion, but it wasn't.
Some poor, honest, straight-shooting kid had to do it. The brave deliverer of the bad news learned the worst lesson, I am afraid. Don't tell the truth. Look away and pretend you don't notice because that's what we do in our culture when we are afraid to hurt someone's feelings. Even though, doing so gently could save them a whole lot of pain in the long run.
I am not sure that I will react any differently the next time I stand witness to the fast-food abuse. I don't know that there is any reasonable way to react in this one on one and personal situation. After all, if I take the most hopeful interpretation of the moment, this really could be the only time all year that the child in question gets his burger, fries with gravy and a shake.
I doubt it but I have to tell myself that in order to be able to swallow my own lunch. Plus, I'm just not sure what else to do. I am open to any ideas.
What is there to say about true-crime books? They're fun. They can be intellectually compelling, and, like the fictional variety from Hammett, Cain and that crowd, they're more often than not rooted in the far side of respectability or polite society. Most every writer wants to write one. The trick is to come up with the right crime, the right crook or issue. Here are ten of my favorites that helped get me through "Reasonable Doubt: The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, and the Trial of Chris McCowen":
More than 2 million couples will get married in the United States this year alone. Several hundred thousand of these couples should reconsider, postpone their weddings or not get married.
Shocking new statistics released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau suggest that Americans may no longer need marriage. For the first time ever, fewer than half of the households in the United States are married couples. In the past decade, the number of unmarried couples increased 25 percent as more people chose to cohabitate. A Pew Research Center study last year put it more succinctly, finding an increasing number of Americans now believes marriage is "becoming obsolete."
This is a dangerous conclusion. It's true that far too many marriages, as currently constructed, end up disastrously. But with some common sense societal changes at the front end, marriage can still serve a vital purpose for a vast majority of adults.
Interestingly, around the same time the Pew study came out, the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, in their annual report on the health of marriage and family life, affirmed that more than three-quarters of Americans still believe marriage is "important" and that more than 70 percent of adults under age 30 desire to marry someday.
So it's clear that a majority of us still crave to be married. It's like we are hard wired to search after that person with whom we can spend the rest of our lives -- even in the face of these dire marital statistics.
I'm not trying to say that marriage is not in trouble. I am trying to say that there are some clear answers to the question of how marriage can get uniformly more satisfying for the people involved. And this I firmly believe: When done right, marriage can be the greatest institution on earth.
In his best-selling book, "The Social Animal" New York Times columnist David Brooks says that "by far the most important decisions that persons will ever make are about whom to marry, and whom to befriend, what to love and what to despise, and how to control impulses." He cites multiple studies that have found a strong correlation between the stability of good relationships and increased life happiness.
But the skill of choosing a marriage partner has often been treated as relatively unimportant in our society and a whole lot less complex than it actually is. And herein lies the secret of why marriage has often turned out so disappointingly for so many.
It's frighteningly easy to choose the wrong person. Attraction and chemistry are easily mistaken for love, but they are far from the same thing. Being attracted to someone is immediate and largely subconscious. Staying deeply in love with someone happens gradually and requires conscious decisions, made over and over again, for a lifetime. Too many people choose to get married based on attraction and don't consider, or have enough perspective to recognize, whether their love can endure.
When people choose a partner unwisely, it's a source of enormous eventual pain. During my 35-year clinical career, I "presided over" the divorces of several hundred couples. I never experienced a single easy one. If one or both partners didn't get clobbered by the experience, any children involved often felt deep emotional sadness and loss. Sometimes this sadness kept impacting these people for years -- even decades.
A significant amount of research data, including an in-depth report by the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, buttresses my clinical impressions that parental divorce (or failure to marry) appears to increase children's risk of dropping out of high school. Moreover, children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological problems and other mental illnesses. And ultimately, divorce begets divorce; i.e., when you grow up outside an intact marriage, you have a greater likelihood of having children outside a marriage or getting a divorce yourself.
I have often suggested that more pain in our society comes from broken primary relationships than from any other source. If we could ever reduce the incidence of marital breakup from 40 to 50 percent of all marriages to single digits, I suspect it would be one of the greatest accomplishments of our time.
Of course, no one intends to be in an unhappy marriage. Bad marriages don't just happen to bad people. They mostly happen to good people who are not good for each other.
And inspiring marriages don't happen by accident. They require highly informed and carefully reasoned choices. Commitment and hard work are factors too. But after decades of working with a few thousand well-intended and hardworking married people, I've become convinced that 75 percent of what culminates in a disappointing marriage -- or a great marriage -- has far less to do with hard work and far more to do with partner selection based on "broad-based compatibility." It became clear to me that signs which were predictive of the huge differences between eventually disappointing and ultimately great marriages were obvious during the premarital phase of relationships.
When two people have a relationship which is predicated upon broad-based compatibility, there is every reason to be optimistic about their long term prospects. A marriage of this type has virtually no chance of becoming "obsolete."
If all of us together can focus on the challenge of getting the right persons married to each other, it just might change our society more than anything else we could do. Goodness knows, when marriage is right, little else matters nearly so much.
"He is such a pleasure to be around since starting his meds."
-Mother, 16 year old son
Medications can truly helpful for adults and teens with problems such as anxiety, moodiness, eating disorders, anger or attention issues. Millions of scripts are written every year and many people benefit. So, do we just run to medicate an adolescent when he or she starts to show symptoms during a divorce? Aside from potential side effects, medicating reflexively may cause you to miss what's really going on. Here is a part one of an overview that can help you get it right. For a more complete treatment of this issue, look at my Intelligent Divorce book series which focuses on the well being of your children.
The teenage brain is a developing organ that won't reach maturity until twenty-five or so, and the psychological roller coaster of emerging independence and sexuality can be daunting for girls and boys alike. Add a divorce, and figuring out what's going on psychologically can be tricky. While your adolescent may be inherently inconsistent, moody, or test limits, during a divorce there are additional pressures to deal with over which he has little control -- the dissolution of his family as he knows it, perhaps warring parents or just worries about what the future may hold.
So how do you tell the difference between an upset teen and a teen that needs treatment, and maybe medication?
Four important questions can help.
First, does your child's problem precede the divorce? Some kids are by nature anxious, moody or inattentive. You may already have him in treatment for ADHD or another diagnosis. For kids like this, the stress of divorce can worsen an already existing problem. Anxious kids can become more anxious, depressed kids more depressed and so on. A good therapist or doctor can assess what is going on. It may be that your child will benefit from counseling, where she can express her concerns, learn adaptive techniques and feel strengthened. It may be that you and your ex are contributing to your child's stress and that the therapist can help you contain your differences to times when your teen is not present. This may take off a big burden and lighten up the symptoms that you have been concerned about.
The second question is related to the first. Does my child show evidence of extreme moodiness, extreme anxiety and the like? You should take careful note if your child stays in bed an excessive amount, or goes for long periods of time without showering or changing clothes. Or is she so anxious that she can't fall asleep or get her homework done because she is worrying all the time. Be on the lookout for flights of manic energy, sleeplessness and grandiosity. In these instances, you might be up against a bigger problem than mere teenage moodiness. Mood and anxiety disorders tend to run in families so get a handle on the mental health history of your extended family - and inquire about your ex's side as well. If your child is adopted, you will have to dig further: did the biological parents have these issues?
Psychological problems, whether they are mood or anxiety disorders, attention deficit or other issues, are defined not just by the symptoms but also by how the problem actually impacts basic functionality. If you notice that your son is acting depressed, but he's far from suicidal, he does well in school, he has good friends and an active social life, and he generally gives off an attitude of contentment, you are most likely dealing with normal teenage angst. If your daughter is anxious and complains about the divorce or your parenting, but lives life well, she is probably okay. Complaining is not a psychiatric diagnosis. If, on the other hand, your son protests constantly that he's "fine", but you clearly witness that he's having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, his friends are no longer calling, and he's lost interest in what used to give him pleasure, this well may be an actual depression. And some kids become "very good" in divorce, like super kids because they are so anxious. Be aware that your child may be so worried about her situation that she will do anything not to rock the boat. This can be a cause for concern.
The third question is about drugs and alcohol. Is my child self medicating? The typical adolescent in America has access to alcohol and many kinds of drugs. He may claim that marijuana "cuts the edge off" or that drinking lets her bond with her friends. Or, it may all be in secret and behind your back. Be careful. I have seen too many casualties from chemically dependent teens, including poor grades, depression and even fatal car accidents. Twenty five years of practice has made me very sober about alcohol and drugs. If your child is using significantly, normal treatments won't touch the core problem.
The fourth question is hard to answer for yourself because you as a parent are in the thick of it: how badly are we - as parents - hurting our children because of our inattention, anger, self preoccupation, moodiness or the way we pull them into the middle of our conflict? When this fourth question is answered strongly in the affirmative, you will almost certainly need outside help. In cases like this, it is a shame to medicate a kid when he or she is overwhelmed by realistic pressures from home. Therapy and/or medication takes a back seat to the divorcing parents working on getting their act together and if this can't happen because the acrimony is too intense, then just know that meds and therapy may work, but it is a sad second choice.
Now let's assume that you have answered the four questions and have brought your child in for an assessment. Often the first stop is your pediatrician who knows your son or daughter well and can help find a therapist who can do a job for you, such as a psychiatrist, a psychologist a social worker or a drug counselor trained in dealing with teenagers.
In Part Two of this blog, to be published shortly, we will look at how treatment decisions are made and give you a handle on how to work with your mental health professional to make sure that your child is getting the best of help. There are a number of treatment strategies available, and not all require pharmaceuticals. If, however, medication is required, you will need to be reassured that proper steps have been taken to ensure minimal side effects and an effective treatment.
The goal is to help you teen gain the strength and stability to deal with obstacles that are getting in his way, be it a troublesome divorce, a girl breaking up with him or just the challenges of being an adolescent (not easy). Your son or daughter should look back at this moment as a time that you stepped up and got them the help they needed, when they needed it.
Italian historian Silvano Vincenti, known for his scheme to dig up the bones of Lisa Gherardini, the presumed model for the Mona Lisa, is trying to bring the iconic painting to Florence in 2013. While no official request has yet been made -- Vincenti is hoping to get 100,000 people to sign his petition and to marshal the support of the Italian parliament -- the Louvre has already refused, with painting department director Vincent Pomarèdetelling AFP that the Mona Lisa is "extremely fragile and travel risks causing irreversible damage."
Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
While its potential trip to Florence has been nixed, the Mona Lisa has traveled in the past, and ARTINFO France has compiled a list of its journeys -- both authorized and unauthorized.
1911 - 1913
The Mona Lisa -- which Leonardo da Vinci began painting in Florence in 1503 and took with him to France, where it entered the collection of French king François I -- made an illicit trip to its hometown four centuries later. In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by Vincenzo Peruggia, a museum employee who kept the masterpiece under his bed for two years before taking it to Florence and trying to sell it. Silvano Vincenti's current request for a loan of the Mona Lisa in 2013 is intended to commemorate the centennial of the painting's recovery in 1913.
One of the stranger episodes in French cultural history, the theft of the painting caused a huge scandal, especially since no one at the museum noticed that it was missing until an artist planning on sketching the portrait found a blank space on the wall. Initially, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was accused of the crime and arrested. After questioning him, French police also held Pablo Picasso, who was a friend of Apollinaire's, but ended up releasing both men after a few days. When caught two years later, Peruggia said that he wanted to return the painting to its country of origin, and got off with a very light sentence in an Italian court.
1938 - 1945
With the possibility of war with Germany looming in 1938, French officials hid the Mona Lisa for three days before returning it to the Louvre when the Munich Agreement seemed to lessen the danger. When France declared war in 1939, museum officials packed up the painting in a double-walled crate and moved it to various secure underground locations in the Château de Chambord, the Château d'Amboise, the abbey of Loc-Dieu, and the Ingres Museum in Montauban. The painting then migrated to a spot under the Louvre conservator's bed before hiding out in the Château de Montal in southern France. Finally, after the war's end, la Joconde returned to the Louvre in June 1945.
1963
In January, French culture minister André Malraux accompanied the Mona Lisa to the United States. The loan was made directly to then-president John F. Kennedy and a special viewing was held at the National Gallery for the president and his cabinet, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the diplomatic corps. At the National Gallery, the painting was guarded around the clock by U.S. Marines and over 500,000 people came to see it over 27 days. The Mona Lisa was then shown at the Met, where it attracted 1.2 million visitors. Just two years ago, former Met director Thomas Hovingrevealed in his memoirs that a faulty sprinkler system sprayed water onto the painting when it was locked up in a secure storeroom in the museum at night. No damage was done thanks to the protective glass.
1974
The last time it was on loan, the Mona Lisa headed to the Tokyo National Museum and to Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Over 1.5 million people saw the painting in Tokyo, which is still a record for exhibition attendance at a Japanese museum. The triplex glass box that now houses the Mona Lisa was a thank-you gift from the Japanese.
Click below for a video of Mona Lisa's arrival in the U.S. and its reception by President Kennedy:
Popular film and television has relied on stereotypical portrayals of Muslims and Arabs since its existence. There is, however, a quiet revolution afoot inside television and film, and the predictable box of the Muslim-as-terrorist is slowly fading. But will this shift make a difference in ending America's growing prejudice toward Muslims?
Neuroscience, a field that has itself been undergoing a quiet revolution, may provide some of the answers. Over the last two years I have been presenting at the Muslim Mental Health Conference on how recent advances in neuroscience and social psychology might help us to understand how anti-Muslim prejudice can be reduced in the media. The project has now morphed into a policy brief as part of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding's "Navigating a Post 9/11 World: A Decade of Lessons Learned," a series of research papers that seek to set a new direction for America and Muslims globally.
How Stereotypes Change
What we know about stereotyping has evolved considerably over the last 25 years in the wake of the "affective turn" and the use of noninvasive fMRI scans. The affective turn refers to the realization that human behavior is dictated by emotion over and above reason. Neuroscientists can now paint a clear picture of what happens in the brain when someone deploys a stereotype. The vast majority of the time, stereotyping occurs automatically without conscious reflection. It calms the fears and anxieties built up about an "out-group," which is of course conditioned by a complex set of social, educational and other factors.
Neuroscientists have found, after strapping people to fMRI scans to measure changing levels of fear that images of out-groups elicit, that stereotypes are very malleable and capable of changing rapidly. Early theorists of stereotypes knew this all along, such as Walter Lipmann when he pointed out that stereotypes are the result of individuals conforming to situational demands and social customs, and not necessarily the result of deep hostilities held toward a particular "out-group." Stereotyping is an emotional response to a perceived threat to the buildup of stress.
Importantly, neuroscientists have found that the introduction of positive images of "out-groups" does indeed lower levels of fear of the other, and it reforms the hardwired automatic processes. In one study conducted at a predominately white college, students were inundated with a flood of negative images of African Americans seen in ghettos and in gangs. Researchers found a spike in automatic stereotyping toward the entire category of African Americans. The researchers then introduced hundreds of positive images of African Americans seen at churches and in family and professional settings. The introduction of these images resulted in a lowering of fear and a significant drop in the level of stereotyping the students experienced toward African Americans on the whole.
Perhaps the most profound real world example of this research is found in the so-called "Huxtable effect" -- or the capacity of television's "The Cosby Show," to transform white prejudice toward blacks. While the Huxtable family in "The Cosby Show" made it easier for Americans to see blacks in positions of mainstream success and leadership, it did not erase prejudice toward African Americans by any stretch. It did, however, make it less and less acceptable to express prejudice openly in the popular media. During the height of anti-Muslim sentiment over the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque controversy" in August 2010, Katie Couric speculated as to whether a "Muslim Cosby Show" would help lessen prejudice toward Muslims in America. She asked this question at the right time.
The Changing Media Portrayal of Muslims
Not surprisingly, a majority of Americans receive information about Muslims and Islam primarily from the media. As Jack Shaheen, a leading writer on Arab and Muslim media stereotypes has documented, more than 200 movies have portrayed Arabs and Muslims in prejudicial scenes, often when the plot has nothing to do with Arabs or Muslims since 9/11. When Hollywood blatantly excludes multi-dimensional portrayals of Muslims, it can lead to harmful stereotypes in the real world. It also leads to hate crimes and jeopardizes all those who "look Muslim." In a recent report by the Brookings Institution, researchers found that negative media portrayals of Muslims harms our capacity to effectively build citizen diplomacy with Muslims outside of the United States.
Over the last five years, major television dramas such as "Law and Order," "CSI" and "Grey's Anatomy" have begun to introduce Muslim characters -- and when they do, their ratings tend to increase. The now completed show "24" had, by Season 7, reformed the "Muslim-as-terrorist" frame by introducing several positive Muslim characters, including a particularly interesting Muslim imam that offered spiritual consolation to the show's main character, Jack Bauer, when he became critically injured. In ABC's crime drama television series "Bones," Season 5, a Muslim medical Doctor who had served in the Iraq war is introduced. In Showtime's "Sleeper Cell," a Muslim FBI agent infiltrates a terrorist cell and recurs as a leading character throughout the show.
More nuanced Muslim characters that go beyond the stereotypical frames are a good start, yet neuroscience shows that we need significantly more positive and multidimensional content to effectively reduce prejudice. A shift in media portrayals to showing Muslims as emotionally complex, nuanced and humanizing can itself be a catalyst not only for reducing stereotypes about Muslims, but also for improving American citizen diplomacy with Muslims internationally and domestically. A shift in positive images can promote a greater sense of positive identity development for American Muslims, and it will improve our democratic processes by giving the public access to portrayals that further positive and inclusive Muslim-West relations.
I am 44 today. Yes, the fireworks are really just for me, and the nation is only celebrating my birthday. At least that's what mom always told me.
Birthdays always put me in a reflective mood and this one is no different. I live in one of the richest countries in the world. I have all the food I need and then some, hence the club membership. My loving family and I, including my three year-old doppelganger who storms through life with joyful abandon, live in a solid brick house with window treatments. My friends, whose sense of humor makes my stomach ache with laughter, show up when it really counts. I own a pair of Manolo Blahniks. And yet, there is a giant hole in my life.
At this point, many of you are rolling your eyes. What can this self-centered, unbelievably spoiled woman still need? Doesn't she know there are people dying of malaria living in mud huts in Cambodia because they don't have clean water? How about people right here in the U.S. who haven't worked in 14 months, wondering how they are going to feed their kids?
Please stay with me.
What I want for my birthday is something that will undoubtedly help all of those struggling families here and abroad. And I bet it's what many of you long for, too: Politicians who make decisions together for the common good of the country. A government that does so without name calling, arbitrary partisan line-drawing, and with a nobless oblige that elevates men and women capable of guiding our country through its rough patches. I'm not just looking for the anti-Weiner. I'm talking about statesmen.
For most of my adult life, I have kept my opinions of politicians and politics to myself. That was what I was taught at journalism school. And I followed it to a "T." As a TV reporter and anchor, I never hinted at my political affiliation, donated to a candidate or attended partisan rallies. I never wore a cross on-air so as not to alienate viewers or my employer, and I tried to the best of my ability to report the facts. A report should say that "President Obama and the Republican House battled over the debt limit today." Not "the president was a dick."
It wasn't until after I spent years getting "the grieving widow on the set," reporting on location at natural disasters, crying on national television during 9/11, interviewing presidents, Congressmen and celebrities that I realized that putting on the pundit hat, along with a cape and a tiara, could be a powerful thing. Maybe my opinion, not just reporting, could change the way our elected officials act for the greater good.
Now the rhetoric rolls off of my tongue. Politicians need to pledge today to clean up their acts, take responsibility to put the needs of the needy before their own drive to be reelected, stop pointing fingers and acting like kindergarteners who don't know how to compromise. Put your nose to the grindstone and keep us the superpower our blood, sweat and tears have made us. Why? Not only because you need to do it, but because I've earned the right to say so.
As not just a pundit, but a media executive and CEO of a woman-owned business, I implore you: Get the unemployed back to work; pay those Minnesotans who work hard for our country; and stop taking so many recesses. Goodbye crotch shots, goodbye government shutdowns, goodbye selling Senate seats for personal gain.
A Facebook friend who follows my musings wrote on my wall, "Happy birthday, you lib." It set me back a bit. I do not describe myself as a Liberal. I don't think, reading this, that you would say my ideas are particularly partisan, because I'm not. I am adopted and pro-life. Those two facts are inextricably linked in my soul. I am willing to pay more taxes to help the poor. As you learned, I have more than enough. I am a proud, practicing Catholic, despite the prominent pedophilia scandals and the paucity of female priests. I want women to earn as much as men. I vote Independent, which means that because I live in Democrat dominated DC-land, my vote never counts.
We all have opinions derived from life experiences. You may despise mine. Hey, I may despise yours. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we put our personal differences and vitriol aside. Help make this country we are celebrating today stronger, more educated and globally responsible.
I bet you know that I know the fireworks aren't really for me. On the Fourth, all Americans -- from purple mountains to fruited plains -- no matter what their beliefs, celebrate this great nation. It's time we join together, harness our pride and encourage our leaders, many of whom are falling down on the job, to fight for those who don't have a voice.
Naughty, funny boys have dominated the big screen for a while now. They frolic through Judd Apatow's and Adam Sandler's comedic masterpieces, charming with little boy smiles and hidden hearts of gold they unearth for the right blonde. I'm not saying Knocked Up and Just Go With It aren't hilarious. They are -- which is why I'm so happy that finally the girls are getting to have some fun, make some noise and win playing the same game.
We tell ourselves that every woman can be her best self, whatever that means for her, no matter what societal expectations are, but that idea is represented pretty rarely in Hollywood. Which is why I, perhaps perversely, was completely inspired by Cameron Diaz's new chick-com, Bad Teacher. Slight spoiler alert here, but the gist of the movie is that Diaz plays a scheming, drinking, toking, short-skirt-wearing bitch who -- wait for it -- isn't forced by society to reform or atone for her misdeeds or even sacrifice herself, her interests or career for romance. Be yourself, really yourself, not some sanitized version, and get to enjoy your day-to-day life, employed and loved? That's more of a revolutionary message than you might think.
Bridesmaids was a breakthrough, earlier in the summer comedy season, because it featured an all-star female comedienne lineup and guys who were simply there to set up jokes, be the butt of jokes or inject a little awwww into the situation. The film was widely and rightly appreciated for Kristen Wiig's, Maya Rudolph's and Melissa McCarthy's roll in dirty scatological hilarity. Wiig was brilliant. The fact that she wrote a movie with a bunch of raunchy female characters dominating the screen and dealing with disagreements that have nothing to do with their romance issues was a triumph.
But why did Wiig's Annie have to be such a loser in life? I couldn't help wishing that her character could have had a few more wins by the end of the film. She got her best friend back and a commitment-less kiss from a nice guy. But she was still living with her mother, with no career prospects and an affinity for baked goods. She got to be funny, in a vanity-free, kooky, go-for-broke way, but the movie stopped short of also allowing her to be enviable, to get to a better place. Where Diaz's Elizabeth gets to be herself and, basically, win, Wiig's character loses, as if purporting that no woman as devoid of vanity, social niceties and funding as Annie could possibly be accepted in our society.
Horrible Bosses, opening this week, features Jennifer Aniston as a sexually harassing boss from hell who won't take her engaged employee's no for an answer. Yes, he decides to kill her, but if she played one more plucky, looking-for-love nice girl, she would have probably killed herself (metaphorically!) before long. Aniston is an actress whose comedic and dramatic ranges are seldom challenged to their fullest; but when she's actually presented with a role as rich as her talents, like this one, she simply seduces. The film also stars Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx -- A level talents all -- but Aniston, her comic gifts unleashed by the uninhibited wickedness of the nasty dentist she plays, steals the show. The men bumble around; she soars.
Is it a dubious victory, winning the right to play bad? Nope. It's the only way to stop being objectified. Otherwise female characters remain trapped in a safe Plexiglas box, designed to make the men in the audience and the studio boardroom feel comfortable. If every girl on screen learns how to stop being so darned neurotic or how to trust her own beauty or listen to her heart so she wins the super guy, or is patient and tolerant enough to put up with the antics of an overgrown frat-boy while he realizes just how swell life could be with her...then we're not telling stories about real women. We're telling stories about concepts of women, stereotyped psychographic pastiches rather than people. Whereas dramatic roles for women have always reflected a depth and range, comedic ones have lagged. Complicated women are much more typically at home in award season " good for you" films than in " enjoy yourself" summer flicks.
Bad Teacher works because Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey so unflinchingly. She doesn't try to become a nicer person, she doesn't discover that, golly, she really does love teaching. Elizabeth lives by her own rules, of which there are very few, looks smokin' hot while doing so, knows it and uses it to her full advantage. She does recognize a true vocation by the end, and it puts her unladylike habit of assessing people honestly to good use. The only lesson she learns? The only one she needs to: that she is pretty awesome just as she is and doesn't need to change her body, her attitude, or dumb herself down for happiness. And that car washes with scantily clad women are lucrative.
Bridesmaids liberated the whole idea of chick driven ensemble comedy by letting funny women play off each other, boys on the sidelines, while netting almost $150 million domestic, so far. Bad Teacher gambled that a strong, sexy female could carry an R-rated comedy and won: The movie, which cost only $19 million to produce, made $31 million in its opening weekend. Despite marketing materials obviously designed to play into male fantasies, 63% of the audience was female. Will Horrible Bosses continue the streak? Seems like a fair bet. To paraphrase Tina Fey, another funny lady not afraid to ruffle feathers: bitch is the new box office, baby.
As a Uyghur, an indigenous people of Chinese-occupied East Turkestan, who have a splendid music and song tradition, I just love great music and songs. Not only do I enjoy great music and songs of the classical Uyghur Twelve Mukam, I also enjoy Western classical music and opera. Beethoven is amazing. Mozart is just fantastic. And the voice of Andrea Bocceli is definitely sent from heaven. They give me inner peace, relieve my daily stress and make me feel as if I am in a perfect world where different ethnic, racial, religious, social and cultural groups live in peace, love, justice and harmony, and where death and destruction are alien to all.
I rarely listen to rock music because it tends to give me a headache, disturbs my peace and makes me feel as if I am in a world of turmoil and anarchy. But I confess I do have an exception. It is the Irish rock band U2, the only rock group whose music and lyrics I like because of the political message the band conveys. I purchased one of U2's albums a decade ago and still listen to it when I drive. I listen to the album to put me back to the political reality of this world in which the struggle between good and evil continues with no end in sight and the oppressed peoples' yearning for freedom from their oppressors continues unabated.
One particular song on this album I like very much is "Sunday, Bloody Sunday". I knew this song was about a bloody crackdown on one Sunday in Northern Ireland by the British security forces a long time ago; but, I never came to understand the true meaning of this song until Chinese security forces opened fire and killed an untold number of peaceful Uyghur protestors in Urumchi on Sunday July 5, 2009. After this tragic day, I checked the lyrics and the history of the song. I couldn't help but realize the similarities between the two mass murders both of which occurred on a Sunday.
On their respective Sundays, the Irish and the Uyghurs peacefully took to the streets and demanded freedom and human dignity from their occupiers and oppressors. On both days, the barehanded protestors, risking their lives, courageously faced the security forces of the occupying powers armed to their teeth. On both occasions, they were fired upon indiscriminately and killed in cold blood. On both days, truth was suppressed, voices of change and conscience were silenced, justice was crucified, human dignity was trampled, human rights were denied, human lives were extinguished, and evil triumphed and won the battle of the day. These two infamous days became what is known to the Irish and the Uyghurs as - "Bloody Sunday".
It is undeniable the deaths of both Irish and Uyghurs were tragic on two separate Sundays decades apart but their sacrifices were noble and not in vain. In the case of the Irish killings, the British government twice investigated the situation and finally concluded the killings were both "unjustified and unjustifiable". Though it was late, in the end, justice was done for the lost souls on that Sunday in Northern Ireland.
In the case of Uyghur killings, the Chinese government didn't give a full account of the Uyghurs killed, arrested, detained, and disappeared, and didn't attempt to address the root causes of Uyghur grievances. Instead, the authoritarian government in Beijing promoted the Chinese security chief who ordered soldiers to massacre the unarmed Uyghurs and turned East Turkestan into a police state. Instead of coming to terms with its brutality and finding ways to reconcile with the Uyghur people, the authoritarian regime in Beijing executed 37 more Uyghur youths; some of whom were only teenagers.
The British government was probably compelled by its moral obligation to truly and fully investigate the killings in Northern Ireland and was finally convinced that only a peaceful dialogue with the Irish people in this occupied territory could resolve and end the painful conflict in Northern Ireland. As a result, the British government initiated a dialogue with the opposition groups in Northern Ireland and eventually reached the Good Friday Agreement by means of a referendum of the Irish people, which guaranteed their political, social, civil, religious and cultural rights. This agreement effectively ended the decade-long bloody conflict in Northern Ireland.
However, the Chinese government has never had such a moral obligation to investigate the Uyghur killings or the political will to initiate a peaceful dialogue to finally resolve the East Turkestan Question. It is simply an immoral regime, which rules one of the world's biggest countries with the largest population with an iron fist. It is a government that got power by the barrel of the gun and intends to rule China with that gun as long as its authoritarian rule is secure. The Chinese regime is always ready to kill peaceful protestors and crush their legitimate demands for freedom, human rights and democracy in order to ensure its survival. It was the same when Chinese students peacefully took to streets in Beijing and protested at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. It was the same when Tibetans protested in Lhasa on March 10, 2008. It was the same when Uyghurs protested in Urumchi on July 5, 2009. One massacre after another defines the over sixty years of rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
This July 5 will be the second anniversary of Urumchi Massacre. But how many massacres do we need to face from the Chinese regime in order to live with human dignity, enjoy our basic freedoms and democratic rights? And when will justice be done for the lost souls of Uyghurs on that Bloody Sunday nearly two years ago? When will the CCP come to its senses and rule with the consent of the governed instead of committing mass murder? How long do we need to wait for that day to come? How long must we sing this song - Sunday Bloody Sunday? Another ten years? Another 50 years? Or another 100 years? We don't have 100 years. We don't have 50 years. And we can't wait even for ten years. While the struggle is long and difficult, and many have sacrificed their lives on that Bloody Sunday nearly two years ago, we will continue to struggle until we can proudly say, "We have overcome," just like the Irish and all the oppressed peoples who finally got their freedom.
"You've been trying to write yourself into America," my dear friend Teresa Moore said after she read an early draft of the essay I ended up submitting to the New York Times Magazine.
I first met Teresa in 1999, when I was a high school senior and wanted to freelance for YO!, short for Youth Outlook, the monthly magazine she edited. She was my very first editor, the one who can most attest to how much I struggled with writing, with finding just the right words, phrases and punctuation (should I use a comma or a dash or a semi-colon?) with trusting the texture and timbre of my own voice. Then and now, Teresa was always exacting, always insightful.
"You're still trying to write yourself into America."
Indeed, I am, perhaps now more than ever.
Beyond the fireworks, parades and barbecues, Independence Day, the 235th birthday of the United States of America, carries a whole new meaning for me this year. Personally, it has meant telling my story in hopes of illuminating the stories of countless undocumented immigrants across the country. We tell stories, after all, to recognize ourselves, our common humanity, in each other. I grew up here. This is the place I call home. I love America. For our small team here at Define American, it means living up to our mission of elevating the conversation around immigration. Stripped of polarizing politics and heated, angry rhetoric, immigration has been one of the evolving stories of our country since its inception. That America is "a nation of nations," built on an idea and "founded on the printed word," is cause for continued celebration and much-needed reflection.
And as we celebrate our country's birthday and reflect on how we define American, I'd like to honor the heroes -- the everyday American heroes -- in my life. They are members of my personal underground railroad, the principals and pastors, the coaches and colleagues, who refuse to sit back and allow undocumented immigrants like me to slip into the cracks of a broken system.
They are the ones who, early on, recognized the America in me; who, in the case of Peter Perl, a senior manager at the Washington Post, risked his own career to ensure that I had mine and that I kept on growing; who, in the cases of Pat Hyland (my former high school principal) Rich Fischer (my former high school superintendent) and Jill Denny (my former choir teacher) all educators, guaranteed that I got an education like the rest of the students who showed up at Mountain View High School, regardless of my undocumented status; and who, in the case of Teresa Moore, whom I confided my secret to years ago, when the guilt and shame, the fear and frustration of working as an undocumented immigrant in the nation's capital weighed heavily on me, encouraged me to keep writing -- to keep telling stories.
I am an American, in my heart if not on paper, because of them. There are Peter Perls, Pat Hylands and Teresa Moores all across America. They define American.
Today in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted in my hometown of Philadelphia. Every year, we celebrate that act of bravery. I don't need to tell you that we live in a very difficult time. I know how easy it is to turn off the news because so much of it seems so bad. But our strength and our greatness as a people -- our character as Americans -- is all about facing adversity and turning challenges into opportunities. It may sound like a cliché, but it's true -- every epoch of history brings with it struggles and challenges -- every moment in history is the best of times and the worst of times -- every generation faces down new challenges that seem to threaten its survival.
I am not pessimistic. I know, and you know, that we will endure, because we have the power to face the time in which we live with honesty and integrity, returning to the values that shaped us as a nation. Values of fairness and equity, values of compassion and generosity, values of courage and strength.
Armed with such values, you have the power to be of service by taking up a cause in your community and making a difference in the outcome of an issue that will change lives. You have the power, through service to others, of learning the skills of leadership and consensus building.
And when you do this with others -- your power, your strength as humanitarians -- will increase exponentially.
Margaret Mead, a pioneer in the field of anthropology, studied how people come together to make a life that is rich in strong relationships and joy. She gained powerful insights from her work about human behavior. Among her many writings, there is a line that I always turn back to -- "Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have."
As I think of all of you today, I think of those words and I imagine how much service can come from us -- how much power you possess collectively to change your communities and to touch the lives of so many people in ways that are important and meaningful. I think of my many friends who fight for our freedom in a literal way around the world. Hoping that America can stand as a beacon of hope and inspire others to fight for freedom. Others of you work here at home to make sure that we are progressing as a nation and constantly expanding the rights of our people, and making sure that individuals and our government hold true to that promise forged on this day.
And still others write to me to say that they are not doing enough, and I say to you, by struggling each day to not allow yourself to be like everyone else, to exert yourself as an individual and be who you are, while being open and engaged with your neighbors, by raising your children with such values, you are indeed being great Americans and doing so much to ensure that the next generation of leaders will make us proud. I thank each and every one of you for your service and for the times when you inspire and push me to do more.
I encourage you to look around and to see in each other what Margaret Mead saw -- the energy of caring people -- the only ones who can, in fact, change the world.
You have the power. Despite all of the bad news, take the time and, in a disciplined way, think positively about our government and about our way of life each and every day. Treasure the freedom that we have as individuals and as a community. We live in a democracy that has not only achieved greatness, but done so in a spirit of compassionate service to others, here and abroad. Don't take our freedom for granted and don't impugn the character and values of those who take views opposed to your own. Find ways to strengthen that freedom in your own lives and in the life of your community.
I feel July 4th almost daily. The blessing to wake up in America and, even though I love my travels and enjoy so many other countries, I come back to her, good old USA, and feel a debt that I am inspired to pay back for the privilege of being born in the greatest nation in the world. My love affair continues, and with each day I fall more and more in love with her, her people, her natural beauty and the struggle, sometimes ugly, to be and become the freedom that we seek.
So while enjoying the fireworks, BBQs with family and friends and perhaps even talking about how screwed we are and how we should do more, just remember we are lucky we can even say such things with openess and freedom from fear. Remember the strength of our nation, and that together, we can help to make her all that she can be.
What are the chances? That a child surrounded by illiteracy, shuffling between his family's new life in Lisbon and their roots in the countryside, will have such an intense appetite for words that he relishes pages from discarded newspapers, seizes on fragments of Molière in a guidebook, and will one day create parallel worlds in which an entire nation goes blind, in which Jesus apologizes for God's sins, in which death suddenly stops occurring. These worlds, fantastic as they are, turn out to be uncomfortably like our own.
What are the chances? That a writer whose early efforts were greeted with harsh criticism (or mere silence) leaves the literary world behind to concentrate on journalism, returns in his 50s to pen novels that capture the imagination of European writers and critics, is celebrated for political bravery and artistic originality and crowned with the Nobel Prize for literature.
José Saramago (1922-2010) was this child, this writer, and in Small Memories he has provided us with a collection of memories of his childhood and adolescence. The recollections don't follow a linear path, but instead touch lightly on lives framed by poverty and frequent brutality. But in Saramago's retrospective imagination, these are also lives infused with dignity, affection and deep connection. The author knows the tricks that memory can play, and on some matters he has taken great pains to test his recollections against recorded facts. Saramago is fascinated by the vagaries of remembrance, at one point wondering if certain memories he had were really his.
Although his parents moved to Lisbon when he was just 18 months old (his father was to be a policeman) Jose continued to shuffle between Portugal's capital and Azinhaga, his native village. The village was the "cradle in which my gestation was completed, the pouch into which the small marsupial withdrew to make what he alone could make, for good or possibly ill, of his silent, secret, solitary self." The reader is introduced to various family members: a father consumed by jealous rage; grandparents who are hardened, stoic workers but who keep the weakest of their piglets warm by bringing them into their bed for a few nights. The author's mother is long-suffering, but she is also the young woman who, on passing through a doorway, forgets she is carrying a jug of water on her head because she has just received a proposal from her future husband. "You might say that my life began there too," Saramago writes, "with a broken water jug."
After relating this incident of the broken jug, Saramago tells the reader that his older brother, Francisco, died at age 4 in the spring of 1924, some months after his mother brought them to Lisbon. The author wonders about his memory of his brother, the "happy, sturdy, perfect little boy, who, it would seem, cannot wait for his body to grow and for his arms to be long enough to reach something." "It's the summer or perhaps the autumn of the year Francisco is going to die," Saramago writes, adding it's "my earliest memory. And it may well be false."
I was unprepared for the piercing sadness of this hazy recollection, steeped in sorrow but told in the same calm, matter-of-fact style as Saramago's other childhood recollections. From the loss of his older brother we are led to a memory with a "fierce and violent truth": Saramago's brutal encounter with a pack of older boys who, holding him down, thrust a metal wire into his urethra. The horror and sadness of the wounded little boy, blood streaming from his penis, is startling in the context of the quiet charms of the volume as a whole. Francisco is dead; little Jose has no one to protect him. The physical wounds will heal, but the longing for the missing brother -- and a concern for those who are vulnerable to all sorts of brutality -- will always remain.
Shortly after relating this incident, Saramago recalls his older friend, the "prodigious shoemaker," also named Francisco, who asked the young author-to-be if he believed there were other worlds, where other possibilities were realized. When Saramago first decided to write a memoir, he tells us that he knew he would want to write of his brother. Bringing the forgotten back through words is the writer's alchemy, his power to create when faced with the harshness of the world.
Saramago, a poet, journalist and diarist in addition to being an acclaimed novelist, knew that words mattered a great deal -- that they can even point to one's destiny. The writer's paternal family name, for example, was de Sousa, and the author tells us it was a town clerk's joke to register his surname as Saramago -- the name for a wild radish eaten by the poor in harsh times. The boy grew into his name, taming his wildness but always remaining faithful to his roots in poverty. Small Memories is an expression of that fidelity, a small but nourishing last gift from a great writer.
Last July 4, I decided to assemble a list of some notable musicians, arrangers, impresarios and singers in the world of jazz who had passed their 70th birthday. Many are thankfully still with us, enabling us to formally acknowledge and take a moment to revel in their past accomplishments.
A number are still actively engaged, robustly performing in their own current endeavors. Music is a rejuvenating tonic, so it is not surprising to see several of these stalwarts going strong well into their nineties, still capable of producing some special moments of magic. My hope, as a follow-up to last year's list, is to make this an annual celebration. An informal honor roll posted on my blog www.notesonjazz.blogspot.com, acknowledging these artists and their contributions to the music; a listing of their names and ages, categorized under their respective instruments or specialty.
This past year, I was personally fortunate enough to have witnessed some fine performances by some greats of this music. Ninety Year-old pianist Dave Brubeck playing at the Tarrytown Music Hall, just months after undergoing heart surgery, showed he could still produce some memorable moments. Octogenarians Bucky Pizzarelli and Jim Hall mesmerized the audience at the Guitar Heroes exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, as part of a series that honored the great Italian American guitar luthiers of the past. The 2011 Jazz Journalist Association Awards in New York City, featured 85 year-young piano legend Randy Weston entertaining the astute crowd of fellow musicians and writers with his own special approach to the instrument. The irascible conguero Candido Camero, who turned 90 years old this year, created a stir at a JJA gathering as he played his congas with his infectious smile and the enthusiasm of someone half his age. The JJA, at its annual awards, has consistently bestowed honors to the veteran players who have stood the test of time, sometimes to the chagrin of some younger deserving players. But just as new shoots take root in the fertile soil left by the earlier generation, the younger players are standing on the shoulders of those who came before them, and will soon enough have their turn.
We are all well served to acknowledge those who paved the way, and it is my hope that we honor these dedicated artists while they are still with us and able to bask in the deserved glory.
This year tenor titan Sonny Rollins, who is 80, was named tenor saxophonist and musician of the year at the JJA awards ceremony. Another venerable tenor saxophonist, Jimmy Heath, 84, garnered the JJA's lifetime achievement award for his body of fine work.
The accomplished arranger Bill Holman, another vibrant octogenarian, received the honors for best arranger of the year.
Despite our joy for those still with us, we continue to lose some of the great heroes and pioneers of this music. A partial list of those we lost last year includes; the rock/fusion keyboardist T. Lavitz who passed at the young age of 54. The Poet/Singer Gil Scott Heron was recently lost at the age of 62. The violinist Billy Bang, who posthumously took the best violinist in jazz award at this year's JJA ceremony, was only 64. Jazz/Funk guitarist Cornell Dupree was 68. Pianist Ray Bryant and soul/jazz organist/singer Trudy Pitts were both 79. Jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln died at the age of 80. The great "Take Five" drummer from the Dave Brubeck band, Joe Morello was lost at the age of 82. The trumpeter/composer Bill Dixon was 84 and the expressive saxophone voice of James Moody who passed at 85 will be sorely missed. The well known pianist and educator Dr. Billy Taylor sadly left us at the age of 89. We also lost the seminal English pianist Sir George Shearing and the trombone sound of Buddy Morrow both were 91. Finally trumpet player Eugene "Snooky" Young left us at the ripe old age of 92. I am sure there were more that I missed.
Despite these tragic losses, jazz has proven time and again that it is a durable art form, a resilient performance art that is beyond categorization. As I have stated previously, jazz is an art form that has become the most internationally cooperative means of communication in the world today. I truly believe this. On this fourth of July let our passion continue this yearly celebration of these communicators -- those who have been and continue to be so instrumental in bringing us this music we love so much.
Many of the jazz legends continue to actively perform, teach and sustain the art through their tireless pursuit of making music and carrying on the tradition. Jazz is a living organism that is constantly evolving. It is arguably the only true indigenous American art form and as such it needs to be nurtured and supported by our active participation, especially in these austere economic times when public funding for the arts is being perilously withdrawn.The best way we can honor them is to continue to support the music by experiencing their "live" performances. Some currently touring or performing artists include Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Randy Weston, Ramsey Lewis, Gerald Wilson, Phil Woods, McCoy Tyner, Gary Bartz, Lew Tabakin, Bunk Green, Charles Lloyd, Gato Barbieri, Lee Konitz, Gary Peacock , Archie Shepp and Richard Davis to name just a few.
Here is my expanded list of veteran players, all at least seventy years of age, who in some way helped shape the music. I am sure I am missing some important players and my apologies for any inadvertent omissions. I welcome comments from readers who may know of deserving musicians who I should add to this list so that it can be more complete next year. A great big thank you to each and every one of this years celebrants.
Pharaoh Sanders, Gary Bartz, Peter Brotzmann, Roscoe Mitchell and Bennie Maupin (70), Arthur Bythe, Hamiet Bluiett, Wilton Felder, Joe McPhee, Charles McPherson, Carlos Ward,Paul Winter and Lew Tabakin (71), Odean Pope,Zibigniew Namyslowski, Charles Gayle, Sonny Fortune and George Braith (72) James Spaulding, Charles Lloyd, Carlos Garnett, Joseph Jarman (73), Archie Shepp, Nathan Davis, Frank Strozier, Jim Galloway and Nick Brignola (74) Klaus Doldinger, John Tchicai, Gary N. Foster, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and Don Menza (75), Giuseppi Logan, Jimmy Woods, Houston Person, George Coleman and Bunky Green (76), Lanny Morgan, Gato Barbieri and Wayne Shorter (77) Lol Coxhill,Sadao Watanabe, Charlie Davis and John Handy III (78) Phil Woods, Bill Perkins and Plas Johnson Jr. (79) Sonny Rollins (80), Ornette Coleman and Gabe Baltazar (81),Joe Temperley, Harold Ousley, Herb Geller, Frank Foster and Benny Golson (82) Lee Konitz (83), Big Jay McNeeley, Med Flory, Dick Hafer, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Heath and Red Holloway (84), Marshall Allen ,Sam Rivers, Hal McKusick and Earle"Von"Freeman (87), Frank Wess (89), Yusef Lateef (90), Harold Joseph "Hal""Cornbread" Singer (91) .
Connie Crothers, Stanley Cowell, Armando"Chick"Corea, Mike Nock and David Burrell (70), Herbie Hancock Bob James, Charles Brackeen and Roger Kellaway (71), McCoy Tyner, Mike Longo, Joe Sample, Gap Mangione, Jon Mayer and Joanne Brackeen and Warren Bernhardt (72) Denny Zeitlin, Steve Kuhn and John Coates Jr. (73), Eddie Palieri and Kirk Lightsey (74), Les McCann, Carla Bley and Harold Mabern (75), Ramsey Lewis, Pat Moran (McCoy) and Pat Rebillot, Ran Blake, Don Friedman,
Oliver Jones, Ellis Marsalis Jr. and Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) (76), Dave Grusin and Misha Mengelberg (76) Cedar Walton, Paul Bley, Bengt Hallberg and Larry Novak (78), Jack Reilly, Walter Norris, George Gruntz and Michel LeGrand (79), Horace Parlan, Muhal Richard Abrams, Derek Smith and Amhad Jamal (80), Frank Strazzeri, Cecil Taylor, Richard Wyands, Claude Bolling, Barry Harris and Toshiko Akiyoshi (81), Horace Silver and Junior Mance (82) Freddie Redd, Martial Solal and Mose Allison (83), Dick Hyman and Claude Williamson (84), Randy Weston (85), Barbara Carroll (86), Paul T. Smith and Johnny Otis (Veliotes) (89), Dave Brubeck, Al Vega and Marty Napoleon (90), Bebo Valdes (92), Marian McPartland (93).
Steve Swallow (70), Ed "Butch" Warren, Don Thompson and Eberhard Weber (71), Mario Pavone (72), Larry Ridley, Reggie Workman and Charlie Haden (73),Ron Carter and Chuck Israels (74), Buell Nedlinger and Henry Grimes (75),Gary Peacock and Cecil McBee (76), Bob Cranshaw and Jack Six (78) Ron Crotty and Richard Davis (81), Jymie Merritt (85), Eugene "The Senator"Wright (88),Howard Rumsey (94), Coleridge Goode (96).
Eddie Henderson, Palle Mikkelborg and Chuck Mangione (70), Enrico Rava (71), Marvin Stamm and Hugh Masekela (72), Guido Basso (73), Ed Polcer and Ernie Carson (74), Chuck Flores and Ted Curson (76), Bobby Bradford (76) Donald Byrd (78), Jack Sheldon and Dusko Gojkovic (79), Alphonso "Dizzy" Reese, Louis Smith and Ira Sullivan (80), Sam Noto and Kenny Wheeler (81), Carl "Doc" Severinson (83), Joe Wilder and Uan Rasey (89),Clark Terry (90) Thomas Jefferson (91),Gerald Wilson (92 ).Lionel Ferbos (99) he will be 100 years old on July 17th.
Jerry Hahn (70), Ralph Towner (71), Gene Bertoncini and Joe D'Iorio (74), Sonny Greenwich (75), Ed Bickert (78) Kenny Burrell (79), Jim Hall,Joao Gilberto and John Pisano (80), Eddie Duran,Martin "Marty" Grosz, Bucky Pizzarelli (85) ,Mundell Lowe and Johnny Smith (89).
James "Dick" Griffin and Wayne Henderson (71) Billy Watrous (72), Grachan Moncur III, Philip Elder Wilson and "Big" Bill Bissonnette (74), Roswell Rudd (75),Julian Priester (76) Curtis Fuller (76) Locksley "Slide" Hampton (79), Bob Brookmeyer (81), Santo "Sonny' Russo (82). George "Buster" Copper and Conrad Janis (83), George Masso and Urbie Green (84) and Eddie Bert (89), Herbie Harper (91).
Drummers/Percussionists:
Billy Hart (70), Andrew Cyrille, Ginger Baker and Pierre Courbois (71) and Idris Muhammad (71), Bernard Purdie, Issac "Redd" Holt, Nesbert "Stix" Hooper and Tony Oxley (72), Pete LaRoca (Sims), Horace Arnold, Paul Ferrara, Daniel Humair and Edwin Marshall (73), Louis Hayes, James "Sunny" Murray, Charly Antolini, Colin Bailey and Roy McCurdy (74), Albert "Tootie" Heath and Chuck Flores (76), Donald "Duck" Bailey (77), Ben Riley and Ray Mosca (78), Mickey Roker Frank Capp and Grady Tate (79) Paul Motian and Ronnie Bedford (80),) John Armatage (81), Hal Blaine, Jimmy Cobb, Charlie Persip (82),Roy Haynes and Samuel "Dave" Bailey (85), Armando Peroza (87),Percy Brice and Al Harewood (88), Foreststorn "Chico" Hamilton (89), Candido Camero (90) and Edward "Butch" Ballard (92).
Janet Lawson (70), Astrud Gilberto and Al Jarreau (71), Mary Stallings (71),Etta James, Ruth Price and Ellyn Ruker (73), Nancy Wilson, Carol Sloane, Karin Krog and Sathima Bea Benjamin (74) Marlene Ver Planck and David Frishberg piano/vocals (78), Freddy Cole and Mark Murphy (79), Helen Merrill ( 81),Gloria Lynne (79), Annie Ross (80), Sheila Jordan and Ernestine Anderson (82), Cleo Laine,Jackie Cain and Ernie Andrews (83),Tony Bennett (84) Bill Henderson and Jimmy Scott (85) Bob Dorough (87) Jon Hendricks (90), Herb Jeffries (97).
Artists on Other Instruments:
Bobby Hutcherson and Roy Ayers, vibraphonists (70) Lonnie Liston Smith, keyboardist and Hubert Laws, flautist (71) , Perry Morris Robinson, clarinetist (72) Gunter Hampel, multi-instrumentalist, Charlie Shoemake, vibraphonist , Dave Pike, vibraphonist/marimba and Mike Maineri, vibraphonist (73) Hermeto Pascoal, accordion & keyboards (74) Reuben Wilson, organist (76) Joe Licari, clarinetist, Sonny Simmons sax and English Horn, Warren Chiasson vibraphonist (77),Michael White, violin and Emil Richards, vibes and percussion (78) David Baker composer/cellist (79), Frank Marocca, accordion and Sam Most, flautist (80),
Pierre "Pete" Fountain and Rolf Kuhn, clarinetists and Paul Horn, flautist (81), Bernard " Acker" Bilk, clarinetist, Peter Appleyard, vibraphonist and Andre Previn conductor/pianist (82), Teddy Charles (Cohen), vibraphonist and Bob Wilber, clarinetist (83), Terry Gibbs, vibraphonist and George Wein, Pianist/ Concert Promoter (86), Rudy Van Gelder, recording engineer (86), Buddy DeFranco, clarinetist (88) ,Jean "Toots" Thielmans, harmonica/guitar/whistler (89), Pete Rugolo, piano/ French Horn/ arranger/(95).
Composer/Arrangers/Producers :
Don Sebesky, arranger/trombone and Milcho Leviev (73),Quincy Delight Jones, composer/arranger/ trumpet (78), Claus Ogerman conductor/arranger, Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, composer/director/pianist (81), Clare Fischer Composer/arranger/pianist/organist (82), Lennie Niehaus, composer/arranger/saxophonist (82), Bill Holman, arranger/composer/saxophone (84), Johnny Mandell, composer/arranger and Gunther Schuller composer/conductor/French horn (85), Orrin Keepnews, producer (88), George Avakian, producer (92)
My sincere best wishes for a happy and healthy Fourth of July to all of you and thank you for your tireless contributions to the music we all love.
PS: A great big thanks to the wonderful photographers and fellow JJA members Fran Kaufman http://frankaufman.com/and John Abbott http://johnabbottphoto.com/ for graciously allowing me to use their amazing images for this years list.
"The future doesn't belong to the faint hearted; it belongs to the brave." -- Ronald Reagan, President of the United States
This quote, and the conversation it stimulated, began germinating on July 4th, 2008 on the Haditha Dam, in Iraq. I was travelling via convoy to the dam on a resupply mission when I bumped into a friend from college, Miles Bower. Our convoy engines hummed in the background as we greeted each other in a sweaty embrace. It seemed bizarre, standing with a friend I had known for almost a decade, talking about the holiday, and what our buddies were doing at the beach that weekend while looking out over the Euphrates River.
We spoke about friends headed to Afghanistan, those getting out of the military and the heroes who never came home. We exchanged thoughts and ideas on ways to continue contributing to the mission both in and out of the Marine Corps. The shared camaraderie of the military and our experiences in combat had come to define us, and we knew there was still much work to be done at home and abroad. Ultimately, we said our goodbyes. I climbed back into my Humvee as sand and plumes of "moon dust" clouded inside the vehicle. That conversation lingered in my mind, and has for the past three years.
235 years ago, a consortium of patriots gathered in Philadelphia, probably having similar discussions to what we spoke about on top of the dam, and ended up changing the world. This is what makes America so great, and I believe what our founding fathers dreamed of happening when they declared Independence. This Fourth of July, we acknowledge the past, celebrate the present liberties we utilize daily, and recognize the efforts and sacrifices of the men and women who stand, ever vigilant, protecting those rights. The freedom we declared on July 4th, 1776 was wrought with patience in creating policy, determination against a seemingly unyielding foe and the unequivocal spirit of putting words into action.
This determination and fighting spirit, that emboldened Francis Marion and Thomas Paine, has been handed down to our leaders fighting in the cities of Iraq and the mountains in Afghanistan. Like our founding fathers, today's guardians of freedom continually apply their sweat and blood to preserve this as the land of the free and home of the brave. Daily, they are making a difference in the lives of so many Americans.
Jonathan Kuniholm is also familiar with Haditha and the Euphrates. While on an operation there, he was blown up by an IED and lost his arm. Since his injury, he has dedicated his life to research in prosthetics; advocating for our wounded and bringing technology of today to assist amputees. His efforts have enabled so many other wounded to return from Iraq and Afghanistan to pursue life, liberty and happiness.
Graduating from college, Paul Rieckoff enlisted in the army. In 2001, he would earn an officer's commission and on September 11th he was at ground zero participating in rescue efforts. He would continue his training, then deploy to Iraq, conducting combat operations in Baghdad. Returning home, and recognizing the myriad issues facing our service members, he founded and became the Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), an advocacy group dedicated to improving lives of veterans and their families who fought in those wars.
Captain Greg Galeazzi is the youngest of seven children. Service and sacrifice are a part of his family's genetic code. His father served in the navy, and his three older brothers are all combat veterans who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. Greg always admired his brothers, and knew in college that he, too, would serve in the Army. It was only natural that he followed their example. It was two weeks before he was due home from Afghanistan and would finish his career when he was struck by an IED, losing both legs and severely wounding his arm. Greg will recover, he will keep fighting; this is the man he is, and the caliber of family and support he has around him. Even at home, he continues to lead from the front, inspiring me and so many others. His dogged persistence to push through his traumatic injuries will not impede his progress to achieve his life goals.
Travis Manion grew up outside of Philadelphia, not far from where our founding fathers met. He was a three-sport star athlete who attended the Naval Academy and graduated a Marine Corps officer. He deployed back to Iraq in 2006. He served side by side with the Iraqi army on a transition team. They fought during the surge to help crush the insurgency and bring the opportunity of these unalienable rights to a country that never had it. Travis never came home. He pledged his life and sacred honor for his brothers in arms. In his death, his family founded the Travis Manion Foundation, impacting lives and honoring the fallen by challenging the living. Travis' selfless sacrifice was recognized this past Memorial Day by our president.
Throughout history, during times of injustice, our brave citizens and service members have not sat back, but rather stepped up. Many of them have immersed into society, continuing the mission. Others names have joined our heroes of the past and are etched on marble slabs at Arlington. At each historic moment, there was the power of one voice that brought us together, capturing our spirits and energizing us to make a difference.
It is Jonathan, Paul, Greg, Travis and their families, and countless others who fought to preserve the freedom we enjoy this weekend. It was one voice that was heard on July 4th, 1776, declaring our independence to the world. It echoed again on September 11th, 2001, as we mourned the loss of our loved ones, declaring relentless termination of terrorism. This pursuit spanned years of war in distant countries and recently culminated under the cover of darkness by our elite SEALs; further supporting our American ethos that if we say it, we will do it.
During these moments we are born again; as a united nation. We can never lose this spirit and we can never, ever forget the sacrifices of so many. The promulgation of this sentiment is powerful. In one voice, with one action, our founding fathers, our presidents, our citizens and our nation's young warriors have impacted so many others, and so can you. Don't allow patriotism to be a trend exhibited over a weekend, but rather a continual manifestation of a thought transferred into action.
The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy or the United States Marine Corps.
Sitting in a jail cell or in a Florida court room, Casey Anthony has become a TV reality star. Hair pulled back, sometimes teary but face mostly flat, she's become someone people around the world can't seem to get enough of. The daily trial tidbits have become a pop-culture phenomenon around the world. In a way, it's a 21st century take on the ancient Roman gladiator games -- murder as public spectacle. Through endless news feeds on multiple venues, you can watch good-versus-evil with an ability to render judgment, giving every witness, every emotion, every piece of evidence the proverbial thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The trial has become fodder for countless in-person and on-line discussions.
It's like the compulsion of watching a train wreck -- you're horrified but fascinated at the same time and can't seem to pull your eyes away. Above all, you're curious -- what does death really look like, how did it happen and who is responsible? It's a real-life "whodunit." The Casey Anthony trial is a never-ending trail of duct tape and decomposing tissue, wild parties and dysfunctional family dynamics, suicide attempts and sexual allegations. In all of those compelling bread crumbs, it's hard to remember that you're being taken down a path that, ultimately, ends in the murder of a small child, a child whose life was taken from her, stuffed into a garbage bag and dumped in the woods. That's not a destination most people want to arrive at. They'd rather enjoy the spectacle along the way. The outcome becomes not a way to evaluate justice for a toddler but as a reason to throw a "Verdict Watch Party."
What's going on here? How did we become so removed from the terrible truth behind all this courtroom drama? In our culture today, events are trumpeted with special musical intros and bold, red-lettered graphics. Everything is a news-flash; everything is spectacular. We're bombarded with attention-getting tactics and we do pay attention. We pay attention to it all and become numbed to what's really going on underneath. With continuous news-feeds and on-the-spot interviews, we're taken time and time again to the scene of known disasters and unknown mysteries, like who killed little Caylee. With such repetition, we can become immune to the true emotional impact. When disasters and tragedies become just one more spectacle, we react like spectators, watching while we're eating chicken casserole or surfing the Net, looking for entertainment.
Over-sensationalized, we become desensitized to horror. It becomes just another factoid to absorb, analyze and discuss. Joining with others, we become part of a wave of cultural phenomenon and ride the collective momentum. The more detached, dispassionate and analytical the group becomes, the easier it is to dissolve into that established normalcy and the less likely we are to feel the horror on an individual level. We stop thinking as a person and begin to react as part of a crowd.
Perhaps it's time to take back our individual humanity and stop joining it to the greater collective. Empathy and compassion are highly personal responses. They swell up out of our individual experiences, values and deeply-held beliefs. When pressed by media manipulation and the ensuing group-think, we need to react individually. We need to feel individually for individual people and individual situations.
There is another way to lose yourself in a public spectacle, like the Casey Anthony trial and that is to become so identified with it, you lose a sense of yourself. You start to inhabit the world of the trial and put on hold what's happening in your real-life. You can't seem to stop yourself from checking the progress online. Every banner, every broadcast lead-in has to be meticulously attended to. It's like experiencing the vicarious thrill of a roller-coaster ride. It's all the adrenaline rush of real danger without having to put yourself in actual danger.
Somehow, I think Caylee Anthony, even the entire Anthony family, deserve more than that. They are being flayed open and exposed publicly. The destruction of their privacy deserves a certain measure of respect. These sorts of tragedies are shoved in our faces on a regular basis but we can still choose to respond individually, as well as compassionately, resisting the temptation to turn it into a legal sporting event so we can cheer and boo with a crowd of our friends. We can resist turning it into an inwardly-focused, voyeuristic catharsis, taking the emphasis off of a dead child and putting it vicariously onto ourselves.
Casey Anthony will be judged by how she responds in her trial. We will be judged by how we respond to her trial. At this point, the verdict is still out.
Independence Day is a great and proud day in our country's history, one in which we might benefit from reflecting on what independence really means. My experience suggests that most people who proclaim independence are living an illusion and actually wind up denying themselves the very freedom they are seeking.
What about you? Do you like to think of yourself as independent? Do you have friends who also like to think of themselves as independent? If so, I respectfully suggest that you both may be pursuing a myth.
In my experience coaching and consulting with thousands of people, I have found that most people are seeking freedom and settling for the myth of independence. If we could solve this riddle, I think we would go a long way toward solving much of what pains us in today's world of volatile economics and vitriolic politics.
Merriam-Webster tells us that being independent means a few very different things. The first definition, "not subject to control by others" or "not affiliated with a larger controlling unit" is workable for the most part and reflects the meaning and significance of Independence Day.
However, the next several definitions point out some deeper challenges; for example, "not requiring or relying on something else ... (or) someone else" is pretty much a non-starter for darn near every one of us. It's not until the fourth definition that we find the real source of the problem I want to address today: "showing a desire for freedom."
The Independence Myth
If you consider yourself to be independent, try this little test: do you make your own clothes? Ever? Did you raise your cotton? Do you make your own sewing needles? You get the drift; just about all of us are dependent on others for a wide variety of life's necessities, ranging from jobs to clothes. We're even dependent on other people following some basic "rules" -- on which side of the yellow line would you like to see others driving?
The lesson here is more about freedom than it is about independence. If you like to think of yourself as independent, could you imagine substituting the word freedom, the experience of being free, for independence? Would you like to think of yourself as free, of having freedom? One definition of freedom might have something to do with the freedom to experience your well-being independently of what others might say or do.
I know this may sound goofy to you, but stop for a moment and ask yourself what it means to be free: I am referring to true freedom, the only freedom that you have 100-percent control over, regardless of your physical circumstances, the only freedom that no one can take away from you. Perhaps the best way to understand the concept, and more importantly, the power of the difference, is to consider the life of Victor Frankl.
How To Be Free Regardless Of Your Circumstances
Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist working in pre-World-War-II Vienna, helping troubled people who were considered suicidal. His work was incredibly successful and caught the attention of some prominent thinkers in Germany.
As the war grew, he wound up being deported to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp, along with his wife and parents. They were quickly separated and sent to different camps. Frankl himself was transferred to several, including Auschwitz and Turkheim (near Dachau). All of his family members, except his sister who escaped, died in one of the concentration camps.
On his arrival at Theresienstadt, he was selected to live, rather than be immediately executed. Once that decision was made, he was sent to the "showers," where he was stripped, completely shaved and clothed in prison garb that intentionally was the wrong size (large people were given clothes way too small, while small people were given clothes way too big). He quickly reasoned that the process was intended to strip the individual of any sense of being, importance or relevance.
Next up, the Nazis gathered up his huge collection of research, records and writings, and burned his life's work in front of him. From there, he endured all manner of cruelty and inhumanity, including various forms of physical suffering and torture.
Along the way, as he struggled to maintain his sense of self and his dignity, he came to formulate some compelling thoughts and bits of awareness, which together allowed him to live, and to exude a dignity that the Nazis could not extinguish.
For Frankl, the critical realization came as yet another indignity was forced upon him. That realization was about freedom. His simple yet powerful realization goes like this: "Freedom is that place in time just after they do something to me, and just before I choose my response."
The following are some quotes from Victor Frankl's seminal work, Man's Search for Meaning, which was published in 1946, after his long ordeal in the various concentration camps. You may find something profoundly resonant with these quotations, something which seems ever more current in today's challenging times:
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
As we move through the coming days and months of unsteady economic challenges and the prospects of more partisan strife, I encourage you to remember that as bad as things are, you still have a choice about how you respond. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that the shenanigans being pulled off politically or economically are anything close to fair or that what the Nazis did to Frankl was fair or just. However, you still get to choose how you respond.
Try following Frankl's advice: think about where you are headed in your life, what experiences you are having, and what choices you can make about them. How could you choose freedom even in the worst of circumstances? How could you change yourself?
If you can master theses simple questions, you may find that you can achieve freedom in a highly interdependent world.
How about you? What is the freedom that you seek? What are you doing to create that experience for yourself?
I'd love to hear from you, so please leave a comment here or drop me an email at Russell!@russellbishop.com.
Russell Bishop is an educational psychologist, author, executive coach and management consultant based in Santa Barbara, Calif. You can learn more about his work by visiting his website at www.RussellBishop.com. You can contact him by email at Russell@russellbishop.com.
Like most civic holidays, the meaning of the Fourth of July has been diluted. As Memorial Day has gone from honoring sacrifice to the official start of summer, the Fourth of July is a celebration of life, fun, family and charred meat.
I don't have a problem with that. I love fireworks.
But there are times when the meaning of Independence Day demands deeper reflection. It's usually when we find ourselves in trouble -- Vietnam, launching a war over WMDs that were a fiction of geopolitical strategists.
As our current wars, one hopes, wind their way toward some kind of resolution, the trouble we find ourselves in today -- and the need for a reflection on independence -- is the dimensions of its meaning.
I'm struck by the absence of irony in among those who exalt our independence at the same time they work to apportion its benefits.
Be free... unless you claim sovereignty over your own body, marry in combinations that don't fit the definitions derived from personal interpretation of scripture, believe in the life-changing research into stem cells, or choose to create families outside the norms of mom and dad and the kids.
Then...
This is America, my friend -- which means I have the freedom to demand that you curtail yours. I know what's best for you -- because my God and the framers of the Constitution say so.
It's a certainty that has led us lately to probe the minds and intentions of long-dead men who wrote a document that continues to shape lives in a world they could not have anticipated any more than we can anticipate the rules for the colonization of Venus.
Their courage and incandescent brilliance duly noted, so is their fallibility -- evidenced by their consensus that blacks count three-fifths of whites and women are not to be trusted with the same rights as men.
The Declaration of Independence was a statement that we intend to run this place the way we want. The Constitution was the blueprint for how we're going to do it.
That blueprint cannot be a literal guide more than the blueprint for a Model T can be a guide to building a Lexus. But the basics are still the same -- a motor, drive shaft, four wheels and a steering wheel.
So let's keep it simple.
That part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" still means exactly what it says. To the extent that I don't harm others or the common good, independence means my life, my liberty, my happiness.
If we're a country that truly believes in freedom, then we're a country that lets each of us shape our independence around our own definitions.
"Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be," General Douglas MacArthur said in August 1962.
I've often thought about these words and whom we owe for our nationhood. Do we owe those who put their lives on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence? The many who joined military service in the various wars America has engaged in or had to fight? Of course - but the picture is much bigger than veterans and founding fathers.
Regular Americans who vote, who pay taxes, who respect the rights of those who lose in contests, who pursue their passions without harming others, who support a system that constrains the power of the presidency, who contribute money to their local playhouse or little league, who get involved in their children's education, who volunteer, or who just become part of the glue holding together a complex society are those who we owe thanks to for supporting the country. And going a bit further, we owe these folks whether they are straight, gay, or any other complexion. There's a lot of diversity in our society -- and the straight crowd never gets things done on their own, whether they are conscious of it or not.
Speaking of the military though -- and the military in my view do deserve our respect, particularly enlisted men and women who don't get the officer perks -- the services are finally becoming an inclusive big tent operation.
This past year, President Obama started the process of dismantling Don't Ask Don't Tell - and thus is shrinking the gap between the norms of the military and the more tolerant and inclusive norms that are increasingly becoming the law of the land throughout the country. Gays and lesbians have always been in the military services, just hidden. I even had the privilege of getting to know Faubion Bowers, one of the gay but when serving closeted staff assistants in Japan to General Douglas MacArthur, some years ago.
But gay soldiers, gay janitors, gay think tank types, gay race car drivers and baseball players, gay writers and cops and firemen and architects, gay teachers, gay boy scouts, accountants, and gay chamber of commerce members all can feel the drama of "duty, honor, country" pulse through their hearts and minds as much as any other person - and America seems to be getting just to the edge of being able to respect this.
A year and a half ago when President Obama spoke at the annual Human Rights Campaign gala, the room was full of soldiers - some in uniform and some not. I advised a close friend who is a captain in the Air Force to think through the consequences of being outed if he wore his mess dress to that dinner. Wherever the President went, there was a ton of media - and that media is not required to respect the private rights of people at a public event. He ended up going in civvies - and leaving his uniform at home. We took pics of it hanging on my wall.
Because of the absurdity and immorality of Don't Ask Don't Tell, my friend could not honorably and without threat to himself salute his Commander in Chief in uniform at a DC dinner.
This idiocy is soon coming to an end. Obama delivered - with enormous assistance from Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, Senators Carl Levin and Joseph Lieberman, former House Member Patrick Murphy, among others.
President Obama should consider speaking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in the spring of 2012 so that those soldiers who had to lurk in the audience as someone other than who they were can wear their uniforms and be proud of serving the nation and showing that straight or gay, they are as committed to duty, honor and country as any other soldier - or any other member of society.
It used to be in vogue to study and chat about "the civil-military gap" in DC think tanks. I remember senior fellow John Hillen, then of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing about thirteen years ago that the esprit de corps of the US military would be seriously wounded if gays in service were allowed to reveal themselves. This scholar strongly defended the widening gap between military norms and those norms of tolerance and inclusion that were spreading in American society.
(Admiral Mike Mullen receiving standing ovation at Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal signing ceremony; official White House photo, Pete Souza)
Fortunately, that kind of thinking seems to have been pushed to the periphery - and humor about these tectonic civil rights shifts are helping to make sure that duty, honor and country can be embraced openly by all in military service.
As a small example, at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, I ran into a General I greatly respect, General John Allen - who is succeeding General David Petraeus as Commander of the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. General Allen was in full, fancy, mess dress - lots of colorful medals and ribbons; quite dashing. I saw him, and somewhat loudly yelled, "Jon!" And he yelled just as loudly "Steve!" One of us gave the other a manly bear hug -- can't remember which.
And standing next to us was AP's Anne Gearan as well as Admiral and Mrs. Mike Mullen. Mullen chuckled and said "Don't Ask Don't Tell."
Great moment - but the point is that the gap between "us" and the military is disappearing, and this is good for American society.
Duty. Honor. Country. I'm a patriot. My gay Air Force friend is a patriot. My non-gay General friend about to take the reigns in Afghanistan is a patriot. Seth Myers, who performed that night at the Correspondents Dinner and took some whacks at President Obama, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and particularly Donald Trump is a patriot.
Has to be said again. Duty, honor, country -- Seth Myers was just brilliant. He did his part for the country that night.
Happy July 4th - and a salute to everyone - everyone in the big tent - who has helped move this country forward.
We have so much further to go. America is stuck in some ruts and has had some serious dips and shown some key economic, military and moral limits that have punctured its mystique. But I feel that America has a creative edginess that may help to undermine cynicism and get the country on a healthy, productive course that everyone has a hand in.
As controversial a man Douglas MacArthur was, he had a way with words - and these particular words of duty, honor, and country -- I feel -- apply to all of us.
-- Steve Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons. Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic and is Founder and Senior Fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation
This post is also appearing on the Voices page of The Atlantic.
"That's my home." My heart whispered this thought 15 years ago while looking down at the streets of Pakistan. The plane had just left for New York from Lahore and I was glued to the window, teary eyed. If leaving my country was distressing, not knowing if I would ever return was agonizing. And all the agony was due to one single fact: I was an Ahmadi Muslim and Pakistan's constitution had shunned me as a second-class citizen.
Just two weeks later, I dragged my bones to watch the Fourth of July (1996) fireworks at the New Jersey Shore. Back then it was not "my celebration" so all I remember from that evening is loud music, a huge crowd, and a stranger who thanked me for making room so he could watch the fireworks.
On July 4, 2011 though, as an equal citizen of the United States, I am celebrating something I failed to appreciate 15 years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The language and substance of our constitutions and declarations has a deep impact on our psyche.
To that end, much of Pakistan's tendency toward extremism is traceable to 1974, when an odious constitutional amendment declared millions of Ahmadis (a sect of Islam) as non-Muslims. A decade later, the state passed Ordinance XX to make it punishable by law for an Ahmadi Muslim to discuss his faith in public, identify his place of worship as a mosque, or even convey the Islamic greeting of peace. This constitutional amendment has also inflicted significant injury on Pakistan's Christian and Hindu minorities.
Pakistan's constitutional inequality not only classified millions as second grade citizens but it also poisoned the masses. Today, a ten-minute inflammatory sermon can make many feel obligated to kill a neighbor belonging to a minority group.
So it's natural for me to note how our US Constitution sweetens the American psyche towards the principles of equality, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness championed in the Declaration of Independence. Even though more than 80 percent of Americans attest to an incomplete understanding of our Constitution (according to a 2011 Time Magazine poll), this document and the principles it establishes instill tolerance for "the different" in our minds.
Born Americans may not be able to name all the articles and clauses of the Constitution, but they've been taught its ethic for most of their lives. It is instilled in them. It allows passionate debates over sensitive issues like whether a woman has a right to abortion or not, whether children born to illegal immigrants are automatically eligible for US citizenship, whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, or whether a mosque should be built near ground zero - instead of applying duct tape over the lips of a minority position.
No wonder millions flock to the American shores. The United States accepts more legal immigrants every year than all other countries combined. In 2008, over a million people were naturalized as US citizens, mainly emigrating from Mexico, India and China.
Talk to Muslim Americans and you will hear just how valued, how precious, this tolerance is to them. Some would strongly disagree with the American foreign policy, and some would lament about a personal experience of discrimination. But in my experience, all would agree on one thing: that the United States provides them with more freedom, more security, more opportunity, and more peace than the country from which they emigrated.
Since that day on the Jersey shore, I have made it a habit to make room for my fellow citizens wherever I can. It's only my way to reciprocate to you, America, for you have made room for millions of immigrants like me and provided us the opportunity to live with equality, justice, and freedom.
I still get teary eyed thinking about my homeland; particularly with all the mayhem in the name of religion. But, whenever my plane takes off from the Baltimore-Washington Airport, I look down at the rooftops and my heart says, "That's my home, that's my home."
Faheem Younus is an adjunct faculty member for religion and history at the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He can be reached at Faheem.Younus@Ahmadiyya.us
As we celebrate the 235th anniversary of our existence as a nation, we have many things for which to celebrate and be thankful. One of the bedrocks for our country which I most appreciate is the way we have maintained our sense of religious freedom and kept to the tenets of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Through life experience I have learned that our commitment to religious freedom requires renewal with each successive generation. Never can we take for granted that all of our citizens will understand and appreciate this crucial component of our history.
In the current era of expanding religious diversity and pluralism, a striking number of our fellow citizens are voicing their opinion that we are an exclusively Christian nation with little room for other faith traditions. I have often wondered if there is something more to this attitude than a simple quest for religious purity. Scott Bader-Saye partially addresses this question for me in his book Following Jesus in a Culture of FEAR (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids: 2007). Bader-Saye raises for me the question of whether such Christian exclusivity could be built upon a foundation of fear, a fear that other religions will push Christianity from the center of the public square. As I read Bader-Saye's book I wonder if such ways of thinking are symptoms of the ever-present fears of life in a post 9/11 world. It seems to me that we may be at a societal crossroads at which we are faced with a choice between the embrace of religious diversity or the development of a Constantine-like city-state that is governed by the tenets of the scriptures. Yes, I recognize that life will never be as simple as an either/or decision, but the implications of these decisions are significant for me.
During the early years of my professional career as a Navy chaplain I learned a very important lesson about religious diversity. In 1980 when I was a young lieutenant chaplain I was asked to participate in a retirement ceremony for a Navy captain. Without thinking very much about my constituents at the ceremony, I offered a prayer with a closing something like: "In the name of Christ our Lord." Afterward the newly-minted retiree came up to me and calmly said that though he was thankful that I had participated, he was a practicing Jew who did not appreciate my prayers for him that were concluded in Jesus' name. That day I became aware of how much I had offended one of God's children. Through this experience I learned that the context of ministry for a military chaplain, who in this case happened to be a priest of The Episcopal Church, was radically different than that of the parishes I had served in preceding years.
During the next 24 additional years of my active service to the men and women of the Armed Services I became mindful that my vocation was to be a religious leader called to care for all uniformed men and women, regardless of their religious affiliation, or lack of same. As a practicing Christian chaplain I learned to be very judicious to distinguish between prayers offered in public government and military command functions from prayers offered for my own Christian faith community.
When I took the commissioning oath as a Navy Chaplain Corps officer I began to realize that I had made a commitment to care for the religious needs of all those committed to my care, not just the Christians. Over time I learned to ensure that my people always had access to appropriate religious support and simultaneously could be protected from inappropriate religious incursions. I learned that the religious needs of each Marine, Sailor, Coast Guardsman, Soldier, and Airman always took precedence over my own needs. Though on occasion, I have offered prayers that would not include the name of Jesus, this by no means implied that I had any less of a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus in my life. It only meant that I was mindful of the diversity of religious traditions of others for whom my prayers were offered.
Within the public square, whether it is in the local city hall or in an Army battalion formation, I have come to believe that the religious needs of the person or persons to whom I offer ministry are of higher importance than my own religious needs. Prior to granting my ecclesiastical endorsement to Episcopal clergy who seek to serve as military chaplains, they must affirm for me that they are so well formed and mature in their Christian beliefs that they are not threatened by those whose beliefs may be different from theirs. This part of their Christian formation includes an understanding that they are not overwhelmed by a need to impose their beliefs upon another person within the military service.
Frequently I hear the supporters of religious diversity calling for tolerance and coexistence. I have concluded that in our country the demands of dynamic pluralism render religious tolerance and coexistence as inadequate. If our country is to continue to be the celebrated nation many of us have come to cherish, I realize that we may want to take our attitudes about religious diversity to the next level. That next level is the embrace of religious respect and intentional inclusion. With an appreciation of American history, there are plenty of reasons to believe that through the exercise of religious respect and inclusion that we will be a stronger and more united country.
I recognize that the tension between religious diversity and Christian exclusivity can at times be difficult. My best hope is that this tension will be marked by a spirit of creativity. I believe that as long as we ensure that there is an honored place at the table of civic life for all persons of all faiths, we will fulfill our responsibility to continue to make our great country a place where all citizens are valued and appreciated.
Bishop James "Jay" Magness is Bishop Suffragan for Federal Ministries of The Episcopal Church. Based in Washington DC, he is responsible for the pastoral care and oversight for armed forces chaplains, military personnel and families as well as oversight of federal hospitals, prisons, and correctional facilities. He retired from the U.S. Navy in 2003 in the rank of Captain, serving as command chaplain of U.S. Joint Forces Command and fleet chaplain for the U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Prior to those assignments, from 1997 to 2000 he was on the Navy Chief of Chaplains' staff as personnel manager of the Navy Chaplain Corps.
Do your part to make a difference on Independence Day!
Parades, barbecues, picnics and a three-day holiday weekend! As Independence Day approaches, many Americans are making plans or thinking about what they want to do. I strongly suggest you consider adding a charitable component to your celebrations!
This year the good ole USA celebrates 235 years of independence! One doesn't have to be a great lover of history to realize that the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) had a pretty good idea when they decided to put their faith in a free county as well as their fortunes and in some cases their lives. These "revolutionaries" definitely made a difference. And by declaring our independence, this decision, in many ways, led directly to the creation of the nonprofit/philanthropic sector because there wasn't a king or queen to provide support for hospitals, libraries, schools, churches, poor houses, etc. The colonists in signing their names to that document in essence created the nonprofit sector in which more than 12 million of us work (that is 9 percent of the work force) today!
Today there are many ways you can give back philanthropically to celebrate and embrace the independence spirit that created this sector so long ago! Here are a few suggestions.
Military
What often comes to mind on July 4 are the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Here are some ways to make a difference:
Most veterans' organizations have some sort of ceremony or celebration during the July 4th holiday. Check in with your local VFW or American Legion to find out what is happening in your community and how you can participate or help.
Take time to send a letter or care package to a solider. This can be easily accomplished by following the suggestions and tips on the Any Soldier website. Many soldiers never received mail or a care package; by sending something you are telling the soldier you have not forgotten.
Fireworks and Community Events
Community celebrations abound around the July 4 holiday. Macy's is again providing financial support to insure the July 4th Fireworks Show over the Hudson River in New York City occur. Brad Paisley and Beyoncé will be performing and definitely making a difference (note: you can watch the festivities on NBC at 9 pm EDT).
On the west coast, Microsoft along with Starbucks are again providing the financial support to insure Seattle's fireworks show happens. These two corporate giants are working together to make a difference in their community.
However due to the economy in many cities, including my beloved adopted hometown of Chicago, fireworks displays are canceled. That doesn't mean you can't have a celebration, it just means it might be a bit different. Consider these options:
Most communities have a parade and/or community celebration. These types of events need volunteers to help with the organization of them as well as people to participate and be supportive. By attending your community's celebration of the July 4th holiday you will be making a difference!
Many cities and towns have sporting events, such as softball tournaments, marathons, kickball tournaments and golf outing, to raise funds for much needed projects in the community. Consider participating in a charitable event to raise money for worthy cause. Again, you will be making a difference!
Shopping
Yes, I know it is hard to believe that shopping could make a difference for the Independence Day celebrations but it is true. This year Old Navy will once be offering an opportunity for shoppers to give back. From July 1 - 4 Old Navy will be collecting everyday items such as socks, t-shirts, flip flops, etc. for the men and women who serve in the military via Operation Care and Comfort. Customers donating personal care items, Old Navy merchandise or $5 cash will receive 10 percent off their purchase.
Many other companies will be doing similar things to honor our service men and women; pay attention and shop for a cause over the Independence Day Holiday Weekend!
Family
We often heard it said that nothing is more important than family. Take the time this holiday weekend to spend it with family members. Make an effort to get together to talk, listen to stories and simply be in each other's presence. That is what our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) worked so hard for 235 years ago -- to provide opportunities for a better life for their families. Take advantage of what they fought for all those years ago.
Here are five recommendations and tips on easy ways to make a difference on this Forth of July holiday weekend:
1. Write a letter to a soldier or talk to a veteran who served; thank them for what they are doing for the USA.
2. Go to the cemetery and read the headstones of those military service men and women who died; quietly thank them for the ultimate sacrifice they made.
3. Support your community by attending community functions; sometimes just showing up makes a difference!
4. Organize with a good old fashioned picnic with your neighbors and friends celebrating being American. Take up a collection at the picnic for one of your favorite causes or charities. Ask folks to donate $5, $10 or $20 to make a difference!
5. Take time to read the Declaration of Independence; by simply reading what our country's founders wrote long ago, you will be making a difference!
Bonus Tip: Often times in our communities we have soldiers returning from service. Make an effort to be present for those homecomings by attending in person or sending a note. Either way, you will be making a difference!
This July 4, the United States celebrates the 235th anniversary of the declaring ourselves free from a monarchy. The Founders made a difference and every day since Americans have found a way to do the same. What will you do this Independence Day Holiday to make a difference?
I've often thought about these words and whom we owe for our nationhood. Do we owe those who put their lives on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence? The many who joined military service in the various wars America has engaged in or had to fight? Of course - but the picture is much bigger than veterans and founding fathers.
A year and a half ago when President Obama 
没有评论:
发表评论