Did you know that originally Margaret Mitchell was going to call her "Gone With The Wind" heroine Pansy instead of Scarlett? Did you know Lincoln loved radishes and hated turnips? Did you know Beethoven deleted entire passages from his Fifth Symphony?
One way you and I know such trivial-to-triumphant facts is by coming across private papers years later. It's like peeking behind the curtain of history. Very much like coming across old newspapers in which the reporters are agonizing over the outcome of some distant battle whose every detail you and I now know.
There's a god-like feeling here, because unlike anyone back then, you know exactly what's about to happen.
Talking about God -- something hard for me not to do -- there is a growing legion of scientists who have decided it's time to end this modern stalemate between science and religion. Scientists like Tielhard Chardin hypothesized evolution is a cosmic process that is leading to the ultimate stage of development: God Himself. Then there is Francis Collins whose work directing the Genome Project has similarly concluded that evolution can be best understood as "theistic evolution."
Now entering the arena is Professor John Polkinghorne, elementary particle physicist and President of Queen's College, Cambridge. With the theory of quantum mechanics, he finds in its lack-of-predictability room for how God can "intervene in the world while still operating inside the universal rules of nature He initially set in motion."
Becoming an Anglican priest, Polkinghorne is one of those thinkers who is perfectly comfortable conflating science and religion in one profession. He sees the design of nature, universal morality, the everyday sense of hope, the perfection of mathematics and the very notion of God, not as "proofs of God's existence" like he medieval scholastics attempted, but rather as "signals of some transcendence."
Looking for an antidote to the transient trivia of the day's news about which you have virtually no control...? Try curling up with some of Polkinhorne's articles in scientific journals where he puts to rest the high-paid cynicism of fellow academics like Richard Dawkins. Polkinghorne quotes the celebrated Princeton quantum-mechanics physicist Freeman Dyson who said: "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."
Of course, there's another way of approaching humanity's recurring question/taunt: If-you're-there-god-why-don't-you-show-yourself? This is the Lenten/Easter season for Christians. Find a local Christian who passionately embraces and lives their faith, then watch them engage in this solemn season. Oh? You say you don't know any Christians like that? Well, they ARE hard to find. But keep looking, because if you do, it may be like coming across one of those long-misplaced private papers serious seekers are always seeking....
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
MORE DOTS THAN WE KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH
Smart people are always talking about connecting-the-dots. It's true, isolated facts and stats are useless until some someone can discover what the patterns therein are saying to us. As individuals and especially as a nation in an age of exponential change.
Now consider for a reflective moment the difference between dot-connectors like say a medieval farmer and a 21st C sociologist. One has only a handful of home-grown dots to work with; the other has millions of new print and digital dots being published from around the world every day. Whose task is tougher? Leaving that subjective choice to others, can we agree on this much...? Today there are so many dots of data, it's like having a thousand-piece puzzle being dumped on us every new morning. And while we have banks of whirring computers to help us, for at least a little while longer, the human brain must still be the final puzzle-solver.
What, however, are most of these brains working on these days? Bustling think-tanks bustle with legions of bustling brains, yes. Still, The Wall Street Journal has taken time out to report how many of our brains have been weighing such weighty dots as who would make a better president: Charlie Sheen or Sarah Palin. Which has to make some of us think of crazy Nero fiddling while Rome burned. [Oh, if you're curious, 44% of Democratic voters chose Charlie over Sarah while 37% of Republican voters chose Charlie over Barack. Neither Tiger Woods, Chris Brown, nor Lindsay Lohan were among the Journal's galaxy of dots].
Other hotly reported dots in the news this month almost beg for a fiddler to play to them....
While there are Romes from Milwaukee to Tripoli burning, Americans still had time to sit by the tens of millions in front of a new vomit of reality shows, richer-than-ever game shows, and the Los Angeles Times report that while 91% of all cosmetic surgeries are for women, the number of aging-boomer-males is growing rapidly.
With dots like these one has to wonder if "the voice of the people" is still earning the right to be taken seriously. Voices currently used to jeer teacher & police pension plans, to find evil in any government agency not currently affording them benefits, and to argue we have a Kenyan-raised Muslim socialist leading us to ruin from his unearned office in the White House.
To coin a phrase: Different dots for different dimwits.
As the tide of history continues to shift in problematic directions, "we the people" have been blessed/cursed with more dots than we know what to do with. Now either we get better at selecting the ones worth connecting, or we best give our best elected dot-connectors the loyalty they need to do a job we're too distracted to accept.
* For those who want to remember >> memorylane.com
* For those who want to keep abreast up >> ted.com
Now consider for a reflective moment the difference between dot-connectors like say a medieval farmer and a 21st C sociologist. One has only a handful of home-grown dots to work with; the other has millions of new print and digital dots being published from around the world every day. Whose task is tougher? Leaving that subjective choice to others, can we agree on this much...? Today there are so many dots of data, it's like having a thousand-piece puzzle being dumped on us every new morning. And while we have banks of whirring computers to help us, for at least a little while longer, the human brain must still be the final puzzle-solver.
What, however, are most of these brains working on these days? Bustling think-tanks bustle with legions of bustling brains, yes. Still, The Wall Street Journal has taken time out to report how many of our brains have been weighing such weighty dots as who would make a better president: Charlie Sheen or Sarah Palin. Which has to make some of us think of crazy Nero fiddling while Rome burned. [Oh, if you're curious, 44% of Democratic voters chose Charlie over Sarah while 37% of Republican voters chose Charlie over Barack. Neither Tiger Woods, Chris Brown, nor Lindsay Lohan were among the Journal's galaxy of dots].
Other hotly reported dots in the news this month almost beg for a fiddler to play to them....
While there are Romes from Milwaukee to Tripoli burning, Americans still had time to sit by the tens of millions in front of a new vomit of reality shows, richer-than-ever game shows, and the Los Angeles Times report that while 91% of all cosmetic surgeries are for women, the number of aging-boomer-males is growing rapidly.
With dots like these one has to wonder if "the voice of the people" is still earning the right to be taken seriously. Voices currently used to jeer teacher & police pension plans, to find evil in any government agency not currently affording them benefits, and to argue we have a Kenyan-raised Muslim socialist leading us to ruin from his unearned office in the White House.
To coin a phrase: Different dots for different dimwits.
As the tide of history continues to shift in problematic directions, "we the people" have been blessed/cursed with more dots than we know what to do with. Now either we get better at selecting the ones worth connecting, or we best give our best elected dot-connectors the loyalty they need to do a job we're too distracted to accept.
* For those who want to remember >> memorylane.com
* For those who want to keep abreast up >> ted.com
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
SOULS HAUNT THE LIBYAN DESERT FROM ROME TO ROMMEL
For the young among us, the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Tobruk and Tripoli are new. Faraway, first-time headlines which our president is currently striving to turn into good news for both America and for a dangerous region of the world with which we must somehow learn to live.
And yet, these same sands have been fought and bled over from Rome to Rommel. From ancient days when Rome and the Carthaginians vied for supremacy here; to WWII days when Churchill's General Montgomery and Hitler's General Rommel met in one of the war's great turning points. So no, there's little that's new here. Hundreds of thousands of souls have perished across these same wastelands, dreaming of the same great victories.
It wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate many of these souls died in the expectation there would be a life beyond this one. An intuition most anthropologists find in virtually every society throughout the history of our species. But until recently, the matter of soul was left to theologians, their fellow academics like neuroscientists considering souls outside their purview of study or interest.
Lately, though, serious scientists are taking a second look. To them, the possibility of a soul in and beyond human consciousness is "more than curiosity in the paranormal." Prize-winning researchers like Professor Peter Fenwick of the University of London call this: The Science of the Soul. Gathering the tools of science -- from EKG's to MRI's -- Fenwick and others around the world are investigating what happens during the thousands of reported near-death-experiences (NDE's).
Fenwick reports: "We need some new theories about the causation of NDE's. You can't say these are transcendent experiences, because the people are unconscious. You can't say they are psychological, because the brain isn't working. But you can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in; and if the brain function won't support the experience, then you have to argue that mind and brain are separate..."
Such hypotheses suggest to some that what theologians call "soul" has something to do with this mind-separate-from-brain state. It is a state which has been reached in various ways throughout history from monks in meditation to shamans with psychedelic herbs. The multi-million-dollar Blue Brain Project (constructing an artificial man-made brain) may in time get its own crack at the mysteries of consciousness and out-of-body-experiences.
There is this old prediction: "When the last scientist reaches the ultimate truth about the human soul, he'll find the first theologian is already there." Who is to say for sure. Although we can say for sure that these very same African sands hold the mummified remains of pharaohs who -- along with their people -- passionately believed their remains included a soul that was now destined to live forever.
Long after these current desert struggles slip into history, these desert beliefs will continue to haunt presidents and generals, believers and non-believers alike...
And yet, these same sands have been fought and bled over from Rome to Rommel. From ancient days when Rome and the Carthaginians vied for supremacy here; to WWII days when Churchill's General Montgomery and Hitler's General Rommel met in one of the war's great turning points. So no, there's little that's new here. Hundreds of thousands of souls have perished across these same wastelands, dreaming of the same great victories.
It wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate many of these souls died in the expectation there would be a life beyond this one. An intuition most anthropologists find in virtually every society throughout the history of our species. But until recently, the matter of soul was left to theologians, their fellow academics like neuroscientists considering souls outside their purview of study or interest.
Lately, though, serious scientists are taking a second look. To them, the possibility of a soul in and beyond human consciousness is "more than curiosity in the paranormal." Prize-winning researchers like Professor Peter Fenwick of the University of London call this: The Science of the Soul. Gathering the tools of science -- from EKG's to MRI's -- Fenwick and others around the world are investigating what happens during the thousands of reported near-death-experiences (NDE's).
Fenwick reports: "We need some new theories about the causation of NDE's. You can't say these are transcendent experiences, because the people are unconscious. You can't say they are psychological, because the brain isn't working. But you can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in; and if the brain function won't support the experience, then you have to argue that mind and brain are separate..."
Such hypotheses suggest to some that what theologians call "soul" has something to do with this mind-separate-from-brain state. It is a state which has been reached in various ways throughout history from monks in meditation to shamans with psychedelic herbs. The multi-million-dollar Blue Brain Project (constructing an artificial man-made brain) may in time get its own crack at the mysteries of consciousness and out-of-body-experiences.
There is this old prediction: "When the last scientist reaches the ultimate truth about the human soul, he'll find the first theologian is already there." Who is to say for sure. Although we can say for sure that these very same African sands hold the mummified remains of pharaohs who -- along with their people -- passionately believed their remains included a soul that was now destined to live forever.
Long after these current desert struggles slip into history, these desert beliefs will continue to haunt presidents and generals, believers and non-believers alike...
Monday, March 28, 2011
TONY BENNETT - PHILOSOPHER IN THE KEY OF C
Tony Bennett and I are old enough to remember WWII. I mention this, because WWII was the last time most people still were born and died within the same 50-mile radius. Small farms or towns or city neighborhoods.
With the war, and the corresponding explosion of transportation technologies and migration habits, all that changed. More than ever, Americans have become a people on the go. Rather than having the same home, job and circle of friends, there are many of each throughout our lifetime. Now, when Tony sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he's reflecting a national fact of life. What's more, we're not only leaving our heart throughout this vast land, but also this vast planet.
Consider all those neighborhoods, careers and friends you left behind. You can remember each of them, and very likely each of them can remember you. Your "heart" actually beats in countless distant places and people. Giving it more wings and less roots than at any time in the history of the human heart.
Which brings us to this thought: Are we better or less for this? While the question can be addressed by philosophers, sociologists, economists and clergy, let the political scientists have a crack at it.
In recent years they've been looking at the consequences of this mobility on our stability as a functioning democracy. When the Founding Fathers created this government, it was still a 50-miles-radius world. How has the system held up under such exponential changes? True, there's been a "wave of democracy" sweeping the world ever since WWII, but these democracies have had an uneven success rate. Including ours.
To function as intended, a democracy has to find ways-and-means that allow the will-of-the-people to find expression that is fair, just, and viable. But while our living constitution has provided for this for generations, this generation may be witnessing a break point. Because in this generation, the distance between the will-of-the- people and the agenda-of-the-government has been chocked with thousands of unelected, unseen and virtually unrestricted power-players.
Too many to count, they go by such names as advisers, strategists, media consultants, poll-takers, lobbyists, and dirty-tricksters. Each a pro, each a player, and each for sale...! Your "will" is hardly of much concern; the "welfare" of the nation is of even less concern; the name of the game they play with such skill is winning. Winning your vote, or your rage or your silence when and where they need it most.
So while Tony reminds us how our hearts have been left behind in all those places and people in our life, our hearts have increasingly become chess pieces moved around by unelected to-the-highest-bidder experts whose interest in democracy is most likely defined in dollars.
When you think about it this way, your "heart" could almost break....
With the war, and the corresponding explosion of transportation technologies and migration habits, all that changed. More than ever, Americans have become a people on the go. Rather than having the same home, job and circle of friends, there are many of each throughout our lifetime. Now, when Tony sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he's reflecting a national fact of life. What's more, we're not only leaving our heart throughout this vast land, but also this vast planet.
Consider all those neighborhoods, careers and friends you left behind. You can remember each of them, and very likely each of them can remember you. Your "heart" actually beats in countless distant places and people. Giving it more wings and less roots than at any time in the history of the human heart.
Which brings us to this thought: Are we better or less for this? While the question can be addressed by philosophers, sociologists, economists and clergy, let the political scientists have a crack at it.
In recent years they've been looking at the consequences of this mobility on our stability as a functioning democracy. When the Founding Fathers created this government, it was still a 50-miles-radius world. How has the system held up under such exponential changes? True, there's been a "wave of democracy" sweeping the world ever since WWII, but these democracies have had an uneven success rate. Including ours.
To function as intended, a democracy has to find ways-and-means that allow the will-of-the-people to find expression that is fair, just, and viable. But while our living constitution has provided for this for generations, this generation may be witnessing a break point. Because in this generation, the distance between the will-of-the- people and the agenda-of-the-government has been chocked with thousands of unelected, unseen and virtually unrestricted power-players.
Too many to count, they go by such names as advisers, strategists, media consultants, poll-takers, lobbyists, and dirty-tricksters. Each a pro, each a player, and each for sale...! Your "will" is hardly of much concern; the "welfare" of the nation is of even less concern; the name of the game they play with such skill is winning. Winning your vote, or your rage or your silence when and where they need it most.
So while Tony reminds us how our hearts have been left behind in all those places and people in our life, our hearts have increasingly become chess pieces moved around by unelected to-the-highest-bidder experts whose interest in democracy is most likely defined in dollars.
When you think about it this way, your "heart" could almost break....
Sunday, March 27, 2011
SO WHO ARE THESE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE & PLACES??
Among today's pop phrases are "the beautiful people" and "the beautiful places." Right from the start, we have a problem here. This small word "beautiful" is expected to bear the incredible burden of describing so many differing concepts of beauty. Just not fair. The word begs for help. Just like the word "red" gets help from: burgundy, ruby, scarlet, crimson, cerise, vermilion, and so on.
But, stuck all by itself, "beautiful" has been kidnapped lately by the likes of: Paris Hilton...Lady Gaga...Donald Trump ...George Clooney. Then there's: Las Vegas...The Riviera...London...Hawaii. We can do better. At least it's worth a try. I'll start by trying right here. Maybe you can join in.
As for "the beautiful people" in my life, a few strangers come to mind who won't make any Top Ten lists. I'm thinking here people like that cab driver in New York who took his job so beautifully serious that he had plumped up the back seats with Oriental cushions, added pull-down shades to the windows, piped in soothing music, and scented the vehicle with a faint luxurious fragrance. All in all, he made the perilous dash through Manhattan streets a rare pleasure instead of a regular terror. Now to me that's a "beautiful person."
Precious others come to mind who will also be unknown to you. To most anyone. But these select few have earned a line in my personal address book. And if your book is anything like mine, these few find their way there largely because of the conspicuous beauty with which they have gifted our lives. Dear family and friends who have given the small word "beauty" a palpable meaning that will surpass any headline out there.
As for "the beautiful places," most of us upon reflection will think of venues not on any travel brochure. Right now I'm thinking that branch from that stately Sycamore tree which just reaches our bedroom window. Every spring a pair of friendly Cardinals sing to me from there in the morning. My very own, no-cost "beautiful place." And because you too have such "beautiful places" in your life, you'll understand why I end here with this wish. That poets not copywriters would start defining the "beautiful people & places" in our world.
But, stuck all by itself, "beautiful" has been kidnapped lately by the likes of: Paris Hilton...Lady Gaga...Donald Trump ...George Clooney. Then there's: Las Vegas...The Riviera...London...Hawaii. We can do better. At least it's worth a try. I'll start by trying right here. Maybe you can join in.
As for "the beautiful people" in my life, a few strangers come to mind who won't make any Top Ten lists. I'm thinking here people like that cab driver in New York who took his job so beautifully serious that he had plumped up the back seats with Oriental cushions, added pull-down shades to the windows, piped in soothing music, and scented the vehicle with a faint luxurious fragrance. All in all, he made the perilous dash through Manhattan streets a rare pleasure instead of a regular terror. Now to me that's a "beautiful person."
Precious others come to mind who will also be unknown to you. To most anyone. But these select few have earned a line in my personal address book. And if your book is anything like mine, these few find their way there largely because of the conspicuous beauty with which they have gifted our lives. Dear family and friends who have given the small word "beauty" a palpable meaning that will surpass any headline out there.
As for "the beautiful places," most of us upon reflection will think of venues not on any travel brochure. Right now I'm thinking that branch from that stately Sycamore tree which just reaches our bedroom window. Every spring a pair of friendly Cardinals sing to me from there in the morning. My very own, no-cost "beautiful place." And because you too have such "beautiful places" in your life, you'll understand why I end here with this wish. That poets not copywriters would start defining the "beautiful people & places" in our world.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
ARE YOU ONE OF THE WORLD'S CODE-BREAKERS?
A disparate legion of dogged cryptographers helped the American Navy in the defining battle of Midway in1942, and British command turn the tide of U-Boat battle in the Atlantic by 1943.
But let it be said that all throughout history -- in peace as well as war -- everyone of us is speaking in code. The unique code by which we happen to think of our world and convey our thoughts about it. What codes? Let us count the ways, for they are in everyday use even without our being fully aware we are using them.
Consider some examples; then consider why outsiders have such trouble translating them.
There is that language peculiar to regulations-bound government bureaucrats...that sometimes stilted jargon known as educationese... hospital talk...lawyer talk...clergy talk...theatre talk...Hollywood talk...Vegas talk...farmer talk...kids talk. Lets be honest. The very same word can be used by each but conveying their own particular meaning. Try for instance simple words like "proper" and you start to get the point.
Seven billion of us on the same planet with very much the same anatomy and needs. Oh but how complicated the task of communicating at those deeper levels where alone we can authentically relate with one another. And one of these complications is our habitual use of our favorite codes. The irony here is that we spend a lifetime acquiring these codes -- by who we are and what we do -- then end up mostly preaching-to-the-choir.
Democrats and Republicans...Christians and Muslims....Blacks and Whites... nation and nation...rappers and balladeers...and damn near everybody in a Democracy or on Facebook.
What then to do? There is this classic first-rule in debate: "Define your terms." Good place to start, because unless we go in with the same understanding of terms like "proper," "facts," "evidence," and"success", we're always going to come out shaking our head uttering those same disastrous words: "They just don't get it!"
Funny how it usually takes a disaster to overcome the disaster of those disastrous closing words.
But let it be said that all throughout history -- in peace as well as war -- everyone of us is speaking in code. The unique code by which we happen to think of our world and convey our thoughts about it. What codes? Let us count the ways, for they are in everyday use even without our being fully aware we are using them.
Consider some examples; then consider why outsiders have such trouble translating them.
There is that language peculiar to regulations-bound government bureaucrats...that sometimes stilted jargon known as educationese... hospital talk...lawyer talk...clergy talk...theatre talk...Hollywood talk...Vegas talk...farmer talk...kids talk. Lets be honest. The very same word can be used by each but conveying their own particular meaning. Try for instance simple words like "proper" and you start to get the point.
Seven billion of us on the same planet with very much the same anatomy and needs. Oh but how complicated the task of communicating at those deeper levels where alone we can authentically relate with one another. And one of these complications is our habitual use of our favorite codes. The irony here is that we spend a lifetime acquiring these codes -- by who we are and what we do -- then end up mostly preaching-to-the-choir.
Democrats and Republicans...Christians and Muslims....Blacks and Whites... nation and nation...rappers and balladeers...and damn near everybody in a Democracy or on Facebook.
What then to do? There is this classic first-rule in debate: "Define your terms." Good place to start, because unless we go in with the same understanding of terms like "proper," "facts," "evidence," and"success", we're always going to come out shaking our head uttering those same disastrous words: "They just don't get it!"
Funny how it usually takes a disaster to overcome the disaster of those disastrous closing words.
Friday, March 25, 2011
SO OK WHAT ABOUT THIS THING WISDOM?
There are scattered across our planet sprinklings of desert retreats, mountain monasteries, island hideaways, and Tibetan caves where wise men and women go to be wise.
In contrast, there are scattered across this same world great metropolitan centers of learning, research, and laboratory investigation. The wise men and women here have opted to be in the middle of things rather than isolated from them.
That first corps has traditionally been in pursuit of great truths about Life; the second, more about Living. The first are usually labeled philosophers; the second, scientists. The first don't usually reject the works of science, but try to incorporate them; the second don't always judge the works of philosophy functional enough to incorporate. And so these two groups of wise people are regrettably in only occasional communication.
It wasn't always this way. In earlier times, the world's wise people considered philosophy and science to be simply different sides to the very same coin of life. Somehow along the way, we've sorta lost that sense of wholeness. In modern times, so many more facts, statistics, discoveries, theories -- we just had to start specializing. Only you have to wonder if by specializing we also had to departmentalize?
It's our specie's great good fortune to periodically produce those minds who can travel the paths of both philosophy and science, entranced with both the things beyond us and at the same time the things around us. In the West one thinks of a Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza, al-Biruni, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, Hawking, Chardin, Collins, Sagan, and that next college kid who will soon burst upon the world scene.
Eventually, any serious consideration of these rare fine minds has to tease out this question: What have they taught the rest of us mere mortals...? Surely, much more than can be summarized here. In fact, we mortals would do best by not trying to summarize them as much as trying to live them. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what the 7 billion of us are trying each in our own way each new day.
But wait. Seven billion? How can anyone hold a reality that large? Well, here's a thought. Start by dividing us into our two fundamental philosophical-scientific characteristics. Each new day of our lives, all 7 billion of us are either seeking or saving something. Seeking new achievements, successes, power and conquests. And when we're not, we're saving, protecting, preserve, and holding on to what we already have. Seek-and-save...! Seems like we've been at this since the very beginning. Even before there were philosophers and scientists to explain it to us.
In contrast, there are scattered across this same world great metropolitan centers of learning, research, and laboratory investigation. The wise men and women here have opted to be in the middle of things rather than isolated from them.
That first corps has traditionally been in pursuit of great truths about Life; the second, more about Living. The first are usually labeled philosophers; the second, scientists. The first don't usually reject the works of science, but try to incorporate them; the second don't always judge the works of philosophy functional enough to incorporate. And so these two groups of wise people are regrettably in only occasional communication.
It wasn't always this way. In earlier times, the world's wise people considered philosophy and science to be simply different sides to the very same coin of life. Somehow along the way, we've sorta lost that sense of wholeness. In modern times, so many more facts, statistics, discoveries, theories -- we just had to start specializing. Only you have to wonder if by specializing we also had to departmentalize?
It's our specie's great good fortune to periodically produce those minds who can travel the paths of both philosophy and science, entranced with both the things beyond us and at the same time the things around us. In the West one thinks of a Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza, al-Biruni, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, Hawking, Chardin, Collins, Sagan, and that next college kid who will soon burst upon the world scene.
Eventually, any serious consideration of these rare fine minds has to tease out this question: What have they taught the rest of us mere mortals...? Surely, much more than can be summarized here. In fact, we mortals would do best by not trying to summarize them as much as trying to live them. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what the 7 billion of us are trying each in our own way each new day.
But wait. Seven billion? How can anyone hold a reality that large? Well, here's a thought. Start by dividing us into our two fundamental philosophical-scientific characteristics. Each new day of our lives, all 7 billion of us are either seeking or saving something. Seeking new achievements, successes, power and conquests. And when we're not, we're saving, protecting, preserve, and holding on to what we already have. Seek-and-save...! Seems like we've been at this since the very beginning. Even before there were philosophers and scientists to explain it to us.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
LIZ TAYLOR, AN EXCEPTION PROVING A RULE
In philosophy there is the principle of duality (everything has its opposite); in life there is the adage the-exception -proves-the-rule. The recently deceased Hollywood icon, Elizabeth Taylor, implies the first and surely proves the second. In most theatrical careers, the "opposites" are celebrity vs talent. In her celebrated career, she conflated these opposites. She was both all at the very same time!
This occurred to me as I was entering a Chicago area theatre for a promising production of Elton John's "Aida." Just outside was a magazine rack of gaudy, tattletale magazines; inside was a gifted cast of dazzling performers. The magazines illustrate everything glitzy and gaudy about pop celebrities; the show projects everything solid and scintillating about talented artists. Too bad too few Taylors to prove the two can actually co-exist.
The pathology to the tell-all Hollywood junk papers is so manifest as to be ludicrous. Concoct the wildest scenarios, quoting the usual imaginary "insiders," then to hype sales kick your menus up a notch. Instead of the old focus on celebrity's glamor, instead go for the gritty. The vulturous paparazzi now get their fattest checks for candids catching the stars in their worst moments. Over-weight, over-served, over-faithless. It's not coincidental that vampires are so popular these days, for these publications survive on sucking the blood out of these celebrity lives week after gruesome week.
In happy contrast, the show inside turns out to be one more testament to talent. Not a celebrity in the entire cast. Instead, just talent from lead to walk-on.
So god bless you, Liz, for both your celebrity and especially your talent. Making the two come together was your 60-year gift to us. Not likely to soon happen again in quite the same wonderful way....
This occurred to me as I was entering a Chicago area theatre for a promising production of Elton John's "Aida." Just outside was a magazine rack of gaudy, tattletale magazines; inside was a gifted cast of dazzling performers. The magazines illustrate everything glitzy and gaudy about pop celebrities; the show projects everything solid and scintillating about talented artists. Too bad too few Taylors to prove the two can actually co-exist.
The pathology to the tell-all Hollywood junk papers is so manifest as to be ludicrous. Concoct the wildest scenarios, quoting the usual imaginary "insiders," then to hype sales kick your menus up a notch. Instead of the old focus on celebrity's glamor, instead go for the gritty. The vulturous paparazzi now get their fattest checks for candids catching the stars in their worst moments. Over-weight, over-served, over-faithless. It's not coincidental that vampires are so popular these days, for these publications survive on sucking the blood out of these celebrity lives week after gruesome week.
In happy contrast, the show inside turns out to be one more testament to talent. Not a celebrity in the entire cast. Instead, just talent from lead to walk-on.
So god bless you, Liz, for both your celebrity and especially your talent. Making the two come together was your 60-year gift to us. Not likely to soon happen again in quite the same wonderful way....
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
THAT COSMIC MESSAGE FROM OUR OWN ALARM CLOCK
You just knew not to call her much before ten in the morning. Why? As she so eloquently put it: "I enjoy the delicious rhythm of my morning routine..."
In her case that featured turning on her music, savoring her two cups of coffee over her three newspapers, and carefully studying the birds who visited the several feeders placed strategically just outside her kitchen window.
When you think about it, isn't her little morning rhythm an attractive definition of our lives? Rhythms, there are always rhythms. Once established, we cherish them. Once lost, we almost perish without them. Some of the rhythms are obvious: The 9-5 of the regular workday...8-3 of the school day...sunrise-to-sunset of the newborns day....4-days-on-1-day-off for our first responder's day...sleep-in-the-morning-work-at-night for the actor's day. Each rhythm an almost sacred given for the participant. A rhythm that helps define their life.
There are others as well. The farmer's life is the rhythm of the seasons...the city dweller's is work-5-days-fun-in-the-weekend...then there's the 50 weeks a year waiting for those two weeks of vacation. Our modern electronic media have now added the incessant 24/7 rhythm of news-round-the-clock, compelling leaders and citizens alike to live faster and decide quicker.
To the Ancients and later in the Old Testament, the rhythm of human existence was often defined by the will and whim of angry gods. In the New Testament, there arrived the new rhythm of a loving god who calls us to be with him after life. By the time of the American Revolution, many of the Founding Fathers distilled the Biblical rhythm into the image of god as a great cosmic clock-maker, who set the world running for us to take over from there.
As Ecclesiastes declared: "There is a season for everything." A time to plant, a time to reap, a time to love, a time to die. How we catch the cadence of these rhythms is in the end a matter of personal choice. Our cosmologists explain how the rhythms have existed from the time time began. Our philosophers explain how we have been destined to either discover what they are, or on the other hand, to define what they are for ourselves.
Who's to say...? Probably each time-traveler for themself....! But before another cosmic minute ticks, could this be the appointed time....?
In her case that featured turning on her music, savoring her two cups of coffee over her three newspapers, and carefully studying the birds who visited the several feeders placed strategically just outside her kitchen window.
When you think about it, isn't her little morning rhythm an attractive definition of our lives? Rhythms, there are always rhythms. Once established, we cherish them. Once lost, we almost perish without them. Some of the rhythms are obvious: The 9-5 of the regular workday...8-3 of the school day...sunrise-to-sunset of the newborns day....4-days-on-1-day-off for our first responder's day...sleep-in-the-morning-work-at-night for the actor's day. Each rhythm an almost sacred given for the participant. A rhythm that helps define their life.
There are others as well. The farmer's life is the rhythm of the seasons...the city dweller's is work-5-days-fun-in-the-weekend...then there's the 50 weeks a year waiting for those two weeks of vacation. Our modern electronic media have now added the incessant 24/7 rhythm of news-round-the-clock, compelling leaders and citizens alike to live faster and decide quicker.
To the Ancients and later in the Old Testament, the rhythm of human existence was often defined by the will and whim of angry gods. In the New Testament, there arrived the new rhythm of a loving god who calls us to be with him after life. By the time of the American Revolution, many of the Founding Fathers distilled the Biblical rhythm into the image of god as a great cosmic clock-maker, who set the world running for us to take over from there.
As Ecclesiastes declared: "There is a season for everything." A time to plant, a time to reap, a time to love, a time to die. How we catch the cadence of these rhythms is in the end a matter of personal choice. Our cosmologists explain how the rhythms have existed from the time time began. Our philosophers explain how we have been destined to either discover what they are, or on the other hand, to define what they are for ourselves.
Who's to say...? Probably each time-traveler for themself....! But before another cosmic minute ticks, could this be the appointed time....?
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
WHO HAS IT BETTER: CAVE OR CONDOMINIUM MAN?
History's saints and seers often see human existence in sharply different ways. Gift or accident. Joy or tragedy. One thing they can all agree on: Irony....! In tracing the long trajectory of human development from cave to condominium, there may be no greater irony than this: In conquering our ancient fear-of-the-unknown, we are left with the even greater fear-of-the-known.
Exactly how has this come about? Well, that's the irony. Humanity seems designed to seek more and more knowledge about its world, but now that we possess it in quantities greater than ever before, we seem frightened more than ever before. [Genesis speaks about not eating of the "Tree of Knowledge," but trying to jibe that message with this irony may be another subject].
Now if this irony strikes you as getting too theological, not at all. We experience it every day of our remarkably informed adult lives. Engulfed 24/7 by television, newspaper, and Internet coverage of the news of the world, there's not much "knowledge" not being dumped into our living room laps. Notice, though, how it accumulates faster than we typically know what to do with.
Intense up-to-the-minute exposure to wars, terrorism, financial chaos, natural disasters, climate crises, diseases we never heard of before, prescriptions killing their own users; plus the usual suspects like street crimes, drug crimes, schoolyard crimes, sex crimes, and the relentless gorge of political showboating and celebrity burn-outs,
Our psychiatrists speak of the modern refuge of "cocooning." More and more of us seeking less and less of this gorge. Behold our guarded condominium compounds, gated communities, back-yard patios instead of front-porch swings, not to mention those cheaper opiates callously called "reality shows."
This anxiety-of-abundance has come to replace the medieval plagues. Little escape from its strangling fingers. But now here's where one irony breeds another. If medieval times looked to the forces of heaven and hell to explain their world and their existence, modern times often look the other way. Rather than up, down.
Down into our psycho-biological selves -- our libidos, our genes, our DNA. Once more humanity properly seeking more and more knowledge. Only now it confronts a new set of questions. Which may be the better way to cope with the world in which we move? Were the medievalists on to something by looking to forces bigger and beyond our-self ...? Or can science do better by looking mostly within our-self...?
To tame this irony of human knowledge inciting as well as informing, these good questions require good answers.
Exactly how has this come about? Well, that's the irony. Humanity seems designed to seek more and more knowledge about its world, but now that we possess it in quantities greater than ever before, we seem frightened more than ever before. [Genesis speaks about not eating of the "Tree of Knowledge," but trying to jibe that message with this irony may be another subject].
Now if this irony strikes you as getting too theological, not at all. We experience it every day of our remarkably informed adult lives. Engulfed 24/7 by television, newspaper, and Internet coverage of the news of the world, there's not much "knowledge" not being dumped into our living room laps. Notice, though, how it accumulates faster than we typically know what to do with.
Intense up-to-the-minute exposure to wars, terrorism, financial chaos, natural disasters, climate crises, diseases we never heard of before, prescriptions killing their own users; plus the usual suspects like street crimes, drug crimes, schoolyard crimes, sex crimes, and the relentless gorge of political showboating and celebrity burn-outs,
Our psychiatrists speak of the modern refuge of "cocooning." More and more of us seeking less and less of this gorge. Behold our guarded condominium compounds, gated communities, back-yard patios instead of front-porch swings, not to mention those cheaper opiates callously called "reality shows."
This anxiety-of-abundance has come to replace the medieval plagues. Little escape from its strangling fingers. But now here's where one irony breeds another. If medieval times looked to the forces of heaven and hell to explain their world and their existence, modern times often look the other way. Rather than up, down.
Down into our psycho-biological selves -- our libidos, our genes, our DNA. Once more humanity properly seeking more and more knowledge. Only now it confronts a new set of questions. Which may be the better way to cope with the world in which we move? Were the medievalists on to something by looking to forces bigger and beyond our-self ...? Or can science do better by looking mostly within our-self...?
To tame this irony of human knowledge inciting as well as informing, these good questions require good answers.
WHO HAS IT BETTER: CAVE OR CONDOMINIUM MAN?
History's saints and seers often see human existence in sharply different ways. Gift or accident. Joy or tragedy. One thing they can all agree on: Irony....! In tracing the long trajectory of human development from cave to condominium, there may be no greater irony than this: In conquering our ancient fear-of-the-unknown, we are left with the even greater fear-of-the-known.
Exactly how has this come about? Well, that's the irony. Humanity seems designed to seek more and more knowledge about its world, but now that we possess it in quantities greater than ever before, we seem frightened more than ever before. [Genesis speaks about not eating of the "Tree of Knowledge," but trying to jibe that message with this irony may be another subject].
Now if this irony strikes you as getting too theological, not at all. We experience it every day of our remarkably informed adult lives. Engulfed 24/7 by television, newspaper, and Internet coverage of the news of the world, there's not much "knowledge" not being dumped into our living room laps. Notice, though, how it accumulates faster than we typically know what to do with.
Intense up-to-the-minute exposure to wars, terrorism, financial chaos, natural disasters, climate crises, diseases we never heard of before, prescriptions killing their own users; plus the usual suspects like street crimes, drug crimes, schoolyard crimes, sex crimes, and the relentless gorge of political showboating and celebrity burn-outs,
Our psychiatrists speak of the modern refuge of "cocooning." More and more of us seeking less and less of this gorge. Behold our guarded condominium compounds, gated communities, back-yard patios instead of front-porch swings, not to mention those cheaper opiates callously called "reality shows."
This anxiety-of-abundance has come to replace the medieval plagues. Little escape from its strangling fingers. But now here's where one irony breeds another. If medieval times looked to the forces of heaven and hell to explain their world and their existence, modern times often look the other way. Rather than up, down.
Down into our psycho-biological selves -- our libidos, our genes, our DNA. Once more humanity properly seeking more and more knowledge. Only now it confronts a new set of questions. Which may be the better way to cope with the world in which we move? Were the medievalists on to something by looking to forces bigger and beyond our-self ...? Or can science do better by looking mostly within our-self...?
To tame this irony of human knowledge inciting as well as informing, these good questions require good answers.
Exactly how has this come about? Well, that's the irony. Humanity seems designed to seek more and more knowledge about its world, but now that we possess it in quantities greater than ever before, we seem frightened more than ever before. [Genesis speaks about not eating of the "Tree of Knowledge," but trying to jibe that message with this irony may be another subject].
Now if this irony strikes you as getting too theological, not at all. We experience it every day of our remarkably informed adult lives. Engulfed 24/7 by television, newspaper, and Internet coverage of the news of the world, there's not much "knowledge" not being dumped into our living room laps. Notice, though, how it accumulates faster than we typically know what to do with.
Intense up-to-the-minute exposure to wars, terrorism, financial chaos, natural disasters, climate crises, diseases we never heard of before, prescriptions killing their own users; plus the usual suspects like street crimes, drug crimes, schoolyard crimes, sex crimes, and the relentless gorge of political showboating and celebrity burn-outs,
Our psychiatrists speak of the modern refuge of "cocooning." More and more of us seeking less and less of this gorge. Behold our guarded condominium compounds, gated communities, back-yard patios instead of front-porch swings, not to mention those cheaper opiates callously called "reality shows."
This anxiety-of-abundance has come to replace the medieval plagues. Little escape from its strangling fingers. But now here's where one irony breeds another. If medieval times looked to the forces of heaven and hell to explain their world and their existence, modern times often look the other way. Rather than up, down.
Down into our psycho-biological selves -- our libidos, our genes, our DNA. Once more humanity properly seeking more and more knowledge. Only now it confronts a new set of questions. Which may be the better way to cope with the world in which we move? Were the medievalists on to something by looking to forces bigger and beyond our-self ...? Or can science do better by looking mostly within our-self...?
To tame this irony of human knowledge inciting as well as informing, these good questions require good answers.
Monday, March 21, 2011
WHEN FREE SPEECH BECOMES CARE-FREE WE ALL LOSE
In societies that pride themselves with the right to free speech, the right itself doesn't automatically make you right. To test the premise, listen a few hours to the ramblings of the free-speechers in any ballpark or corner saloon. In principle, free speech is indispensable to a free society; at the same time, care-free speech is not.
When push comes to shove, we all understand what prompts our speech. Our Values! Those everyday principles and passions we hold most dear. Our Values are the prism through which we understand our world. Which is why the very same set of facts put before ten citizens will likely be seen in ten different ways.
Examples abound. Just two will do.
* The chatter of free speech that accompanies any presidential decision to take military action ~ Pearl Harbor made WWII an easy call. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Libya are far less easy. But here's the thing today's generations have little experience with. That long-embraced Value: "Politics ends at the shoreline." Any decision to commit American forces demands debate; but once made, needs support. Sitting in those bleachers, in those saloons, in the other party, or on the talk-shows can be valuable dialog until it becomes divisive ranting.
Which is where this Value thing crowds into the frame. If we value collective success, we need to give collective support. Ask any solder in any war zone or any commander-in-chief in charge. But, in contrast to other times, today most free-speechers have little palpable contact with these life-and-death decisions. Rather than the nationwide rallies and blood-drives of the past, more likely there are nationwide grumblings and protest-marches.
Finding the right balance between being right and being loyal is never easy. But at the very least, you have to value a balanced society in contrast to just a loud one.
* Then there is the chatter of free speech that accompanies any look at any entitlement program ~ Medicare and Medicaid were initially heralded as the actions of a caring society. They were seen as a manifestation of what is best in democracy -- the common welfare. Over time, though, many today have lost sight of the Value of valuing human life. And so it is that any debates about entitlements now begin with the figures, rarely the feelings.
No one can deny the soaring costs and terrible flaws. Yet how can anyone ignore the obligation of a righteous society to meet he righteous needs of its people? Tanks, bombers, missiles -- no argument! How then can there be so many arguments over lives, medicines, care? Most speakers speak against government waste, but when pressed many are found to be actually speaking against government commitments.
Once again, an invitation (obligation?) to use the right of free speech not only to vent what is wrong with us, but to vindicate what is best about us.
When push comes to shove, we all understand what prompts our speech. Our Values! Those everyday principles and passions we hold most dear. Our Values are the prism through which we understand our world. Which is why the very same set of facts put before ten citizens will likely be seen in ten different ways.
Examples abound. Just two will do.
* The chatter of free speech that accompanies any presidential decision to take military action ~ Pearl Harbor made WWII an easy call. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Libya are far less easy. But here's the thing today's generations have little experience with. That long-embraced Value: "Politics ends at the shoreline." Any decision to commit American forces demands debate; but once made, needs support. Sitting in those bleachers, in those saloons, in the other party, or on the talk-shows can be valuable dialog until it becomes divisive ranting.
Which is where this Value thing crowds into the frame. If we value collective success, we need to give collective support. Ask any solder in any war zone or any commander-in-chief in charge. But, in contrast to other times, today most free-speechers have little palpable contact with these life-and-death decisions. Rather than the nationwide rallies and blood-drives of the past, more likely there are nationwide grumblings and protest-marches.
Finding the right balance between being right and being loyal is never easy. But at the very least, you have to value a balanced society in contrast to just a loud one.
* Then there is the chatter of free speech that accompanies any look at any entitlement program ~ Medicare and Medicaid were initially heralded as the actions of a caring society. They were seen as a manifestation of what is best in democracy -- the common welfare. Over time, though, many today have lost sight of the Value of valuing human life. And so it is that any debates about entitlements now begin with the figures, rarely the feelings.
No one can deny the soaring costs and terrible flaws. Yet how can anyone ignore the obligation of a righteous society to meet he righteous needs of its people? Tanks, bombers, missiles -- no argument! How then can there be so many arguments over lives, medicines, care? Most speakers speak against government waste, but when pressed many are found to be actually speaking against government commitments.
Once again, an invitation (obligation?) to use the right of free speech not only to vent what is wrong with us, but to vindicate what is best about us.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
THE GREAT REVIVAL ONLY PARTLY REPORTED
Something big is going on all around us in the Western world. It's not exactly new, because in many ways it's actually very old. One way to reconcile these apparent opposites is with the term: Revival.
While institutions like governments, schools and religions function in defined and formal ways, revivals like this are often so unofficial yet so widespread they have no name. So they sometimes get under-reported. And yet hundreds of millions -- usually young, but not always -- are exhaustively invested. It's a revival of a grass-roots phenomenon that once flourished throughout old Europe. Masses of believers flocking -- heart to heart and soul to soul -- on holy pilgrimages to holy places where everyone became one spirit, one totality.
Back then the throngs gathered both physically and spiritually. Today it's physically and digitally. This hurricane of collective, inter-acting human energy can most often be found at mega-concerts and on the social-media. Countless millions almost daily gathering, feeling and connecting without a single institution running the affair.
What's big about what's going on here is that both these tactile and digital connections are unofficially bonding countless millions who better understand and experience these activities than almost anything else in their everyday citizen's life. A staggering, egalitarian force-field which can ignite everything from making international stars (think Bono, Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan).... to international causes (think missions to Sudan, Haiti, and now Japan)...to international uprisings (think Tunisia, Egypt, Libya).
There isn't a politician or prophet who wouldn't lend their soul just to get a piece of this action. However, it's not for sale. It just is. It just emerges from somewhere within the psyche of the zeitgeist. It just rolls and rumbles through everyone on board. Watch the kinetic way audiences joyously sway, sweat and sing to the lyrics of their concert gods! Watch the digital way a post or a video on the Net can go instantly viral across the entire globe!
Yes, something big is happening here. As usual, though, it's happening so big and so bold that it's far beyond the learning curve for anyone outside its reach. Some stare in puzzled wonder. Others try to write a column or a book about it. Still others try to teach courses about it. The rest simply do it.
Amid all the energy and excitement of this 21st C revival, one caveat. In the past, the gathered masses on pilgrimage were looking to get in touch with something bigger and outside themselves. Today, the gathered masses in concerts and on the social media are usually trying to get in touch with what is inside themselves. Two different journeys of discovery. One is in many ways over; another is just now unfolding....
While institutions like governments, schools and religions function in defined and formal ways, revivals like this are often so unofficial yet so widespread they have no name. So they sometimes get under-reported. And yet hundreds of millions -- usually young, but not always -- are exhaustively invested. It's a revival of a grass-roots phenomenon that once flourished throughout old Europe. Masses of believers flocking -- heart to heart and soul to soul -- on holy pilgrimages to holy places where everyone became one spirit, one totality.
Back then the throngs gathered both physically and spiritually. Today it's physically and digitally. This hurricane of collective, inter-acting human energy can most often be found at mega-concerts and on the social-media. Countless millions almost daily gathering, feeling and connecting without a single institution running the affair.
What's big about what's going on here is that both these tactile and digital connections are unofficially bonding countless millions who better understand and experience these activities than almost anything else in their everyday citizen's life. A staggering, egalitarian force-field which can ignite everything from making international stars (think Bono, Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan).... to international causes (think missions to Sudan, Haiti, and now Japan)...to international uprisings (think Tunisia, Egypt, Libya).
There isn't a politician or prophet who wouldn't lend their soul just to get a piece of this action. However, it's not for sale. It just is. It just emerges from somewhere within the psyche of the zeitgeist. It just rolls and rumbles through everyone on board. Watch the kinetic way audiences joyously sway, sweat and sing to the lyrics of their concert gods! Watch the digital way a post or a video on the Net can go instantly viral across the entire globe!
Yes, something big is happening here. As usual, though, it's happening so big and so bold that it's far beyond the learning curve for anyone outside its reach. Some stare in puzzled wonder. Others try to write a column or a book about it. Still others try to teach courses about it. The rest simply do it.
Amid all the energy and excitement of this 21st C revival, one caveat. In the past, the gathered masses on pilgrimage were looking to get in touch with something bigger and outside themselves. Today, the gathered masses in concerts and on the social media are usually trying to get in touch with what is inside themselves. Two different journeys of discovery. One is in many ways over; another is just now unfolding....
Saturday, March 19, 2011
THERE'S PATRICK BUT OH THEN THERE'S JOSEPH
It's said that all stories are true; and that some even happened. This one is both.
Everyone knows about St Patrick's Day, March 17. But this is March 19, St Joseph's Day. In honor of the great Irish saint, people wear green. In honor of the great St Joseph, Italians wear red. Especially Sicilians who have over the centuries created a unique festival in the saint's honer: The St Joseph Day Table.
Like most Italian-Americans, I remember the "table" as a child traveling with my parents to Little Sicily (the old near north-side of Chicago). Very much like those sepia scenes from "The Godfather," this neighborhood just east of the River and north of Chicago Avenue spilled over with gregarious residents of modest means. Greeting friends, shopping mom&pop stores, and nodding to the parish priests.
During the first half of 20th C Chicago, these same small streets were also known for the brutal crimes of the local Black Hand (mafioso); and yet, even they poured out to contribute to the great "table." It was usually in one of the prominent locals' home where sprawling tables groaned under the weight of foods donated in the saint's name for the local poor.
Today Chicago is dotted with Italian ristorantes and trattorias, some with national recognition for their haute cuisines. However, Italian-Americans have the right to laugh a little at the pretensions of these elegant eateries, for we will tell you there is nothing more elegant in the realm of Italian foods than those devotedly prepared and donated for the annual local St Joseph Day Table.
The sight of it is a visual and gastronomic explosion of little pleasures. Countless varieties of antipasti...pastas ...fishes of all kinds...salads of all tastes...specialty dishes invented just that week by their proud creators...and bounties of pungent Mediterranean pastries. Because it is Lent, everything before you is meatless.
Back then, every neighbor contributed something; both from their kitchen and their heart. It was the community's way of turning toil into beauty, the beauty of giving back. For while we all oohed and awed and ate on this family-festive day, it was understood everything was now blessed by the parish priest and to go to the poor.
America is a nation of nations, so that each nationality's traditions find their way into the scene. A good thing, too, for traditions are the glues that help hold the fabric of this coat-of-many-colors together. It's true that most people attending today's St Joseph Day tables are of an age, an age that remembers these as a precious part of their own development; and yet, youngsters show up here too. Maybe just out of obligation or curiosity. But watch them watch the elders for awhile, and something seems to happen.
With each bite, with each smile, the young and the old find themselves a little more in touch. And in a nation so diverse and sometimes so angry with one another, touching like this can be a very good thing....!
Everyone knows about St Patrick's Day, March 17. But this is March 19, St Joseph's Day. In honor of the great Irish saint, people wear green. In honor of the great St Joseph, Italians wear red. Especially Sicilians who have over the centuries created a unique festival in the saint's honer: The St Joseph Day Table.
Like most Italian-Americans, I remember the "table" as a child traveling with my parents to Little Sicily (the old near north-side of Chicago). Very much like those sepia scenes from "The Godfather," this neighborhood just east of the River and north of Chicago Avenue spilled over with gregarious residents of modest means. Greeting friends, shopping mom&pop stores, and nodding to the parish priests.
During the first half of 20th C Chicago, these same small streets were also known for the brutal crimes of the local Black Hand (mafioso); and yet, even they poured out to contribute to the great "table." It was usually in one of the prominent locals' home where sprawling tables groaned under the weight of foods donated in the saint's name for the local poor.
Today Chicago is dotted with Italian ristorantes and trattorias, some with national recognition for their haute cuisines. However, Italian-Americans have the right to laugh a little at the pretensions of these elegant eateries, for we will tell you there is nothing more elegant in the realm of Italian foods than those devotedly prepared and donated for the annual local St Joseph Day Table.
The sight of it is a visual and gastronomic explosion of little pleasures. Countless varieties of antipasti...pastas ...fishes of all kinds...salads of all tastes...specialty dishes invented just that week by their proud creators...and bounties of pungent Mediterranean pastries. Because it is Lent, everything before you is meatless.
Back then, every neighbor contributed something; both from their kitchen and their heart. It was the community's way of turning toil into beauty, the beauty of giving back. For while we all oohed and awed and ate on this family-festive day, it was understood everything was now blessed by the parish priest and to go to the poor.
America is a nation of nations, so that each nationality's traditions find their way into the scene. A good thing, too, for traditions are the glues that help hold the fabric of this coat-of-many-colors together. It's true that most people attending today's St Joseph Day tables are of an age, an age that remembers these as a precious part of their own development; and yet, youngsters show up here too. Maybe just out of obligation or curiosity. But watch them watch the elders for awhile, and something seems to happen.
With each bite, with each smile, the young and the old find themselves a little more in touch. And in a nation so diverse and sometimes so angry with one another, touching like this can be a very good thing....!
Friday, March 18, 2011
THE JAPANESE FIFTY
One of the few messages humanity applauds in common is "be all you can be!" Crafty little shibboleth that seems to fit everything from Army recruitments to camp revivals. Trouble is, the message gets so garbled among so many of its listeners. What actually does it mean to-be-all-we-can-be?
Seems it has something to do with drawing deep from within ourselves for what is most important in there. Our knowledge, our skills, our devotions, our willingness to put everything on the line for a worthy cause. For the impossible dream. However, this is where the message gets translated differently. From the Spartans to the Nazis, war is what brings out the best in us. From the ancient prophets to today's new agers, self-discovery is the answer. From Wall Street bankers to used car dealers, closing the sale is the name of the game. From poets to psychologists, finding a fulfilling love. For the terminally ill, finding a reconciling death.
For anyone absorbed in their own everyday toil and troubles, they can look across the Pacific to the Japanese Fifty. Fifty first-responders who have apparently volunteered to enter the nuclear danger zones and try taming the beast. Whatever comes from this extraordinary commitment, anyone who is safe in their own comfort zone is obliged to pause here. Is this not one of those exceptional moments when we are witness to what our artists strive to report to us what is best about us?
Michelangelo's "David," DaVinci's "Last Supper," Beethoven's "Eroica," Wilder's "Our Town," Chicago Mayor Daley's "Millennium Park," Mom's family dinner every Thanksgiving.
For billions of us over the centuries, the Book of Genesis has been a touchstone. It has been studied -- as the word of God or at least the words of inspired seekers -- for its explanation of why there is so much good in humanity side by bloody side with so much that is evil. The answers layered inside its strange passages seem to be looking for a connection between what is best and worst about us.
The Japanese Fifty did not likely ever read Genesis. And if they did, they may not see any connection. But, by finding within themselves what is best, they may be telling the rest of us that what is worst need not prevail after all...!
Seems it has something to do with drawing deep from within ourselves for what is most important in there. Our knowledge, our skills, our devotions, our willingness to put everything on the line for a worthy cause. For the impossible dream. However, this is where the message gets translated differently. From the Spartans to the Nazis, war is what brings out the best in us. From the ancient prophets to today's new agers, self-discovery is the answer. From Wall Street bankers to used car dealers, closing the sale is the name of the game. From poets to psychologists, finding a fulfilling love. For the terminally ill, finding a reconciling death.
For anyone absorbed in their own everyday toil and troubles, they can look across the Pacific to the Japanese Fifty. Fifty first-responders who have apparently volunteered to enter the nuclear danger zones and try taming the beast. Whatever comes from this extraordinary commitment, anyone who is safe in their own comfort zone is obliged to pause here. Is this not one of those exceptional moments when we are witness to what our artists strive to report to us what is best about us?
Michelangelo's "David," DaVinci's "Last Supper," Beethoven's "Eroica," Wilder's "Our Town," Chicago Mayor Daley's "Millennium Park," Mom's family dinner every Thanksgiving.
For billions of us over the centuries, the Book of Genesis has been a touchstone. It has been studied -- as the word of God or at least the words of inspired seekers -- for its explanation of why there is so much good in humanity side by bloody side with so much that is evil. The answers layered inside its strange passages seem to be looking for a connection between what is best and worst about us.
The Japanese Fifty did not likely ever read Genesis. And if they did, they may not see any connection. But, by finding within themselves what is best, they may be telling the rest of us that what is worst need not prevail after all...!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
NATURE TRUMPS HOLLYWOOD
Seems most of us have slipped lethargically into the safer world of make-believe, subconsciously insulating ourselves from the scarier world of reality. We surround ourselves at the end of the day with the virtual realities of movies, television, good books and bad sitcoms. Not hurting anyone this way, just getting-away-from-it-all.
So OK, the human race has always sought needed diversions when it could. Only these days, the diversions available to us have grown epoch in both numbers and immediacy. One of the most popular being the horror and disaster movie. Hollywood has pretty much perfected an art that millions of us love.
No need to dwell on the over-worked psychological reasons we love them. It's escaping into horrors and disasters we know we can always leave safely behind. Except when something like Japan...!
There simply aren't enough Spielbergs and Camerons in tinsel town to get even close to the real-life horror and disaster of that ruptured island. Depression and war survivors here have seen some of this in their own lives, but few of today's younger generations. The immensity of the tragedy is hard to comprehend when you suddenly realize this time it's real. This time you just can't leave it behind in the movie theatre.
Apocalyptic doomsayers can be mostly ignored; they've been working the doom gig much too often. We might do better to at long last peek outside the bubbles of our safe cities, safe shores, and safe sense of exceptionalism. When we do, there's no escaping the inescapability of our vulnerability. Title, wealth, power, celebrity -- in the raging face of nature-unleashed, we're all equally frail, equally vulnerable.
Fear, though, is not the lesson here!
To discover our own bone-deep fears is simply the key. Now comes the chance to open the door. To fearlessly look into our fears. To consider our ever-so-sheltered vulnerability. To honestly take the measure of our little selves on this large planet. Right now about the only ones who have are some astronauts, philosophers, theologians, poets and clergy. I mean, their job descriptions include stepping out of bubbles!
Weeping at the sights in Japan may be our best opportunity to do the same. To see ourselves in a larger light. Whether that light be shed by the wisdom of the prophets or the Darwinians, there's something much larger than us going on here. Are you starting to notice too....?
So OK, the human race has always sought needed diversions when it could. Only these days, the diversions available to us have grown epoch in both numbers and immediacy. One of the most popular being the horror and disaster movie. Hollywood has pretty much perfected an art that millions of us love.
No need to dwell on the over-worked psychological reasons we love them. It's escaping into horrors and disasters we know we can always leave safely behind. Except when something like Japan...!
There simply aren't enough Spielbergs and Camerons in tinsel town to get even close to the real-life horror and disaster of that ruptured island. Depression and war survivors here have seen some of this in their own lives, but few of today's younger generations. The immensity of the tragedy is hard to comprehend when you suddenly realize this time it's real. This time you just can't leave it behind in the movie theatre.
Apocalyptic doomsayers can be mostly ignored; they've been working the doom gig much too often. We might do better to at long last peek outside the bubbles of our safe cities, safe shores, and safe sense of exceptionalism. When we do, there's no escaping the inescapability of our vulnerability. Title, wealth, power, celebrity -- in the raging face of nature-unleashed, we're all equally frail, equally vulnerable.
Fear, though, is not the lesson here!
To discover our own bone-deep fears is simply the key. Now comes the chance to open the door. To fearlessly look into our fears. To consider our ever-so-sheltered vulnerability. To honestly take the measure of our little selves on this large planet. Right now about the only ones who have are some astronauts, philosophers, theologians, poets and clergy. I mean, their job descriptions include stepping out of bubbles!
Weeping at the sights in Japan may be our best opportunity to do the same. To see ourselves in a larger light. Whether that light be shed by the wisdom of the prophets or the Darwinians, there's something much larger than us going on here. Are you starting to notice too....?
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
ICONS BY THE DOZENS
Sometimes great words are squandered. Using them too easily and too often drains them of their power. Take "iconic" for instance.
At one time it was reserved for towering historical figures (Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Lincoln). Ever since Hollywood became iconic, it's been manufacturing icons by the celebrity-magazine minute. Largely because movies are one of the last experiences people of all ages and races share in common. Collectively coming to the same conclusions about the same characteristics we seem to value most.
There is suave as in James Bond...sensuous as in Marilyn Monroe...hilarious as in Inspector Clouseau...the ruggedness of Clint Eastwood...the volatility of Al Pacino...the humor of Tina Fey...along with the sirens of the month like Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz.
Unlike the cozy neighborhood movie houses of another time, today's young audiences drive miles to large cineplexes from which they can select one of a dozen concurrently appearing icons on the screen. Even though the icons have to share that screen with the prerequisite car-chase, explosion, bedroom, urinal, and rapid-fire computer hacking scenes, some of the characters emerge as handy role-models for impressionable audiences.
Hollywood has created a grand collective archive of the mind from which we often draw our images of our values. You can tell a lot about a person by the films and film stars they applaud. When the studios manufacture an icon that can span the different generations and shifting times -- well, that's breaking the bank! A big fat bank from which follows national tours...network interviews...ghost-written bios...maybe a few high-profile performance before popes, kings and dictators...and then the ultimate payoff: spin-offs and syndications.
But here's the funny thing. While some of these fictional characters reach iconic heights across the world, factual characters like presidents and prime ministers struggle valiantly to become iconic in the eyes of their people. Tasks far more crucial, yet far more complicated. The leaders have to do what the icons on the screen don't -- come down to the people and answer their questions.
Well, there is one way for a leader to become an icon, but its price speaks poorly for the rest of us. Die in office...! In a world always teetering on one brink or another, there's always this hope. That we can find good leaders who deserve our respect this side of the grave...
At one time it was reserved for towering historical figures (Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Lincoln). Ever since Hollywood became iconic, it's been manufacturing icons by the celebrity-magazine minute. Largely because movies are one of the last experiences people of all ages and races share in common. Collectively coming to the same conclusions about the same characteristics we seem to value most.
There is suave as in James Bond...sensuous as in Marilyn Monroe...hilarious as in Inspector Clouseau...the ruggedness of Clint Eastwood...the volatility of Al Pacino...the humor of Tina Fey...along with the sirens of the month like Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz.
Unlike the cozy neighborhood movie houses of another time, today's young audiences drive miles to large cineplexes from which they can select one of a dozen concurrently appearing icons on the screen. Even though the icons have to share that screen with the prerequisite car-chase, explosion, bedroom, urinal, and rapid-fire computer hacking scenes, some of the characters emerge as handy role-models for impressionable audiences.
Hollywood has created a grand collective archive of the mind from which we often draw our images of our values. You can tell a lot about a person by the films and film stars they applaud. When the studios manufacture an icon that can span the different generations and shifting times -- well, that's breaking the bank! A big fat bank from which follows national tours...network interviews...ghost-written bios...maybe a few high-profile performance before popes, kings and dictators...and then the ultimate payoff: spin-offs and syndications.
But here's the funny thing. While some of these fictional characters reach iconic heights across the world, factual characters like presidents and prime ministers struggle valiantly to become iconic in the eyes of their people. Tasks far more crucial, yet far more complicated. The leaders have to do what the icons on the screen don't -- come down to the people and answer their questions.
Well, there is one way for a leader to become an icon, but its price speaks poorly for the rest of us. Die in office...! In a world always teetering on one brink or another, there's always this hope. That we can find good leaders who deserve our respect this side of the grave...
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
WE'RE ALL EXILES. REALLY!
The forbidding spectacle of carnage in Japan is making thousands of survivors exiles from their old homes and towns and perhaps even nation. There will be those who see in this apocalyptic disaster warnings to humanity that it dare not peek into the cosmic powers of the gods, lest we destroy ourselves.
And yet, doomsayers have been saying this ever since we peeked into fire. Our doom, when and if it arrives, may come with a whimper we as yet have not knowledge of, rather than with one of the many bangs we currently fear.
Still, this notion of being an exile is haunting. We have no need of Armageddeon disasters to experience the pangs of exile. They knife through us every time we're compelled to leave our old home. Home defined as: Place of birth...neighborhoods in which we lived...homes in which we grew...jobs in which we matured ...friends in whom we invested. When we have to leave any of these, we Chicagoans are thereby exiles!
Some have the capacity to fix their eyes on what's up ahead. Opportunities gleaming in the light of bright new tomorrows and mayors. America, unlike older civilizations, has always been inclined this way; hence always a sunrise nation. Others have a yearning not to forget. In many ways, they are obliged not to forget. These are those among us who often busy themselves with everything from annual reunions to everyday clubs, from photo/video archives to family trees, from memoirs to autobiographies, from casual to systematic reminiscing.
We are a Janus-like species, lured by both what we have left and by what we are entering. It is the delicate balance between these twin lures which helps define who we are and how we live. But while conventional wisdom suggests it is mainly the old who look back, it is often the young who can best see the connection. Consider politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. They built so much of their agendas on a "renewal" of what America once was. Or take writers like Studs Terkel,Thornton Wilder and John Steinbeck who so brilliantly plumbed the depths of our yesteryears in spinning their narratives about our future years. Or filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and Martin Scorsese whose aesthetic power traces directly back to their ability to understand the way-we-were.
For some, being an exile is a lonely, discomforting obligation. Always sensing little whispers that "you are of another place and time." But Chicago looks in all the wrong places when we assume exiles are only those who wander other shores, longing to return home. Consider the suppressed energy of this longing, crackling just beneath the everyday surface of those around you. Those "misfits" whose family ties, social values, spiritual dispositions, and, yes, changed neighborhoods and traditions have all left them a little like the stunned survivors wandering the streets of a forever-altered Japan.
Exiles do the best we can. And, Mr Mayor-elect, we look with anticipation to a new Chicago which can still remember the-way-we-were...
And yet, doomsayers have been saying this ever since we peeked into fire. Our doom, when and if it arrives, may come with a whimper we as yet have not knowledge of, rather than with one of the many bangs we currently fear.
Still, this notion of being an exile is haunting. We have no need of Armageddeon disasters to experience the pangs of exile. They knife through us every time we're compelled to leave our old home. Home defined as: Place of birth...neighborhoods in which we lived...homes in which we grew...jobs in which we matured ...friends in whom we invested. When we have to leave any of these, we Chicagoans are thereby exiles!
Some have the capacity to fix their eyes on what's up ahead. Opportunities gleaming in the light of bright new tomorrows and mayors. America, unlike older civilizations, has always been inclined this way; hence always a sunrise nation. Others have a yearning not to forget. In many ways, they are obliged not to forget. These are those among us who often busy themselves with everything from annual reunions to everyday clubs, from photo/video archives to family trees, from memoirs to autobiographies, from casual to systematic reminiscing.
We are a Janus-like species, lured by both what we have left and by what we are entering. It is the delicate balance between these twin lures which helps define who we are and how we live. But while conventional wisdom suggests it is mainly the old who look back, it is often the young who can best see the connection. Consider politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. They built so much of their agendas on a "renewal" of what America once was. Or take writers like Studs Terkel,Thornton Wilder and John Steinbeck who so brilliantly plumbed the depths of our yesteryears in spinning their narratives about our future years. Or filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and Martin Scorsese whose aesthetic power traces directly back to their ability to understand the way-we-were.
For some, being an exile is a lonely, discomforting obligation. Always sensing little whispers that "you are of another place and time." But Chicago looks in all the wrong places when we assume exiles are only those who wander other shores, longing to return home. Consider the suppressed energy of this longing, crackling just beneath the everyday surface of those around you. Those "misfits" whose family ties, social values, spiritual dispositions, and, yes, changed neighborhoods and traditions have all left them a little like the stunned survivors wandering the streets of a forever-altered Japan.
Exiles do the best we can. And, Mr Mayor-elect, we look with anticipation to a new Chicago which can still remember the-way-we-were...
Monday, March 14, 2011
WHOA...! DOES THIS MEAN YOU & I REALLY COUNT?
Lets face it -- the consequence of the individual has been, for most of human history, of no real consequence. With the exception of the very few (tribal chieftains, pharaohs, popes, and conquerors) the very many are largely innate backdrops to the historical narrative.
Some 19th C historians came up with the great-man-theory arguing some individuals shape the course of history more than history shapes them. Little doubt in the case of an Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Luther, Henry VIII or Hitler. In the case of 21st C America, young Americans may even be appropriating this notion on their own behalf (while only 12% of adolescents thought they were "important" in 1950 polls, their number in 2010 spiked to 90%).
The celebrated CBS-TV news magazine "60 Minutes" just tossed a big log on the fire heralding the individual. Seven years after the US invaded Iraq -- with Colin Powell testifying at the UN there was "indisputable evidence for biological weapons" -- the source for that history-altering invasion finally appeared before the cameras.
Given the facts as CBS presents them, behold one small individual who changed the history of our world...!
Like other small individuals before him -- a Serbian terrorist in 1914, John Wilkes Booth in1865, Harvey Oswald in 1963 -- a no-name Iraqi defector was able to convince the entire US national intelligence complex. Thousands of CIA operatives, satellite surveillance, and computer banks were apparently superseded by the whispered reportage of one hitherto un-vetted individual.
Different lessons can be sucked out of this episode. Perhaps Locke and Jefferson are right -- we-the-people are the ultimate name of the game. Or maybe it all comes down to the dubious victory of human intuition and angry retribution versus the sophisticated cognitive machinery of modern science. Or perhaps it simply confirms the ancient adage: "man plans and the gods laugh."
Here's one more possibility. A recent Gallup survey searched for those individuals high on the "well-being-index." For all those individuals heralding the significance of the individual, you just got your man. The winner of this index is Alvin Wong. Gallup reports he's a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married with children, living in Hawaii, making $120,000 a year.
Maybe now we can all watch to see how Alvin plans to change the history of OUR world...
Some 19th C historians came up with the great-man-theory arguing some individuals shape the course of history more than history shapes them. Little doubt in the case of an Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Luther, Henry VIII or Hitler. In the case of 21st C America, young Americans may even be appropriating this notion on their own behalf (while only 12% of adolescents thought they were "important" in 1950 polls, their number in 2010 spiked to 90%).
The celebrated CBS-TV news magazine "60 Minutes" just tossed a big log on the fire heralding the individual. Seven years after the US invaded Iraq -- with Colin Powell testifying at the UN there was "indisputable evidence for biological weapons" -- the source for that history-altering invasion finally appeared before the cameras.
Given the facts as CBS presents them, behold one small individual who changed the history of our world...!
Like other small individuals before him -- a Serbian terrorist in 1914, John Wilkes Booth in1865, Harvey Oswald in 1963 -- a no-name Iraqi defector was able to convince the entire US national intelligence complex. Thousands of CIA operatives, satellite surveillance, and computer banks were apparently superseded by the whispered reportage of one hitherto un-vetted individual.
Different lessons can be sucked out of this episode. Perhaps Locke and Jefferson are right -- we-the-people are the ultimate name of the game. Or maybe it all comes down to the dubious victory of human intuition and angry retribution versus the sophisticated cognitive machinery of modern science. Or perhaps it simply confirms the ancient adage: "man plans and the gods laugh."
Here's one more possibility. A recent Gallup survey searched for those individuals high on the "well-being-index." For all those individuals heralding the significance of the individual, you just got your man. The winner of this index is Alvin Wong. Gallup reports he's a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married with children, living in Hawaii, making $120,000 a year.
Maybe now we can all watch to see how Alvin plans to change the history of OUR world...
WHOA...1 DOES THIS MEAN YOU & I REALLY COUNT?
Lets face it -- the consequence of the individual has been, for most of human history, of no real consequence. With the exception of the very few (tribal chieftains, pharaohs, popes, and conquerors) the very many are largely innate backdrops to the historical narrative.
Some 19th C historians came up with the great-man-theory arguing some individuals shape the course of history more than history shapes them. Little doubt in the case of an Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Luther, Henry VIII or Hitler. In the case of 21st C America, young Americans may even be appropriating this notion on their own behalf (while only 12% of adolescents thought they were "important" in 1950 polls, their number in 2010 spiked to 90%).
The celebrated CBS-TV news magazine "60 Minutes" just tossed a big log on the fire heralding the individual. Seven years after the US invaded Iraq -- with Colin Powell testifying at the UN there was "indisputable evidence for biological weapons" -- the source for that history-altering invasion finally appeared before the cameras.
Given the facts as CBS presents them, behold one small individual who changed the history of our world...!
Like other small individuals before him -- a Serbian terrorist in 1914, John Wilkes Booth in1865, Harvey Oswald in 1963 -- a no-name Iraqi defector was able to convince the entire US national intelligence complex. Thousands of CIA operatives, satellite surveillance, and computer banks were apparently superseded by the whispered reportage of one hitherto un-vetted individual.
Different lessons can be sucked out of this episode. Perhaps Locke and Jefferson are right -- we-the-people are the ultimate name of the game. Or maybe it all comes down to the dubious victory of human intuition and angry retribution versus the sophisticated cognitive machinery of modern science. Or perhaps it simply confirms the ancient adage: "man plans and the gods laugh."
Here's one more possibility. A recent Gallup survey searched for those individuals high on the "well-being-index." For all those individuals heralding the significance of the individual, you just got your man. The winner of this index is Alvin Wong. Gallup reports he's a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married with children, living in Hawaii, making $120,000 a year.
Maybe now we can all watch to see how Alvin plans to change the history of OUR world...
Some 19th C historians came up with the great-man-theory arguing some individuals shape the course of history more than history shapes them. Little doubt in the case of an Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Luther, Henry VIII or Hitler. In the case of 21st C America, young Americans may even be appropriating this notion on their own behalf (while only 12% of adolescents thought they were "important" in 1950 polls, their number in 2010 spiked to 90%).
The celebrated CBS-TV news magazine "60 Minutes" just tossed a big log on the fire heralding the individual. Seven years after the US invaded Iraq -- with Colin Powell testifying at the UN there was "indisputable evidence for biological weapons" -- the source for that history-altering invasion finally appeared before the cameras.
Given the facts as CBS presents them, behold one small individual who changed the history of our world...!
Like other small individuals before him -- a Serbian terrorist in 1914, John Wilkes Booth in1865, Harvey Oswald in 1963 -- a no-name Iraqi defector was able to convince the entire US national intelligence complex. Thousands of CIA operatives, satellite surveillance, and computer banks were apparently superseded by the whispered reportage of one hitherto un-vetted individual.
Different lessons can be sucked out of this episode. Perhaps Locke and Jefferson are right -- we-the-people are the ultimate name of the game. Or maybe it all comes down to the dubious victory of human intuition and angry retribution versus the sophisticated cognitive machinery of modern science. Or perhaps it simply confirms the ancient adage: "man plans and the gods laugh."
Here's one more possibility. A recent Gallup survey searched for those individuals high on the "well-being-index." For all those individuals heralding the significance of the individual, you just got your man. The winner of this index is Alvin Wong. Gallup reports he's a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married with children, living in Hawaii, making $120,000 a year.
Maybe now we can all watch to see how Alvin plans to change the history of OUR world...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
SAVING JAPAN, AT LEAST THE LANGUAGE
The disaster in Japan. One more brutalizing reminder to this bickering little crowd we call humanity to start realizing how fragile and interdependent we really are. And yet, humanity has been punched in the mouth with such reminders before. Like, do you remember the Black Plague in the 14th C? the influenza pandemic in the 20th C? Katrina in the 21st C? Sure you do, but has very much changed about our species since then?
Not so that anyone could seriously notice. In exact sequence, we are stunned, horrified, slowed, and then on to whatever's next. Hardwired to shut down our pain receptors in order to keep surviving.
Still, we can no longer deny our interdependence. Watching the tides rise in California from the tsunami in Japan says it all. And so does the Internet on which almost all 6 billion of us are now digitally inter-woven. Including even the reluctant Luddites who delude themselves they are not caught up in it simply because "I don't use it."
The Internet is virtually Biblical. If the classic definition of God is being everywhere at every moment...well, you see where I'm going. Still, the Internet's critics have latched onto a particular linguistic attack. The Internet's quickie messages and truncated lexicons are killing our languages. All this Facebook and Twitter shorthand is enough to give every literature professor this side of Lybia cardiac arrest. Also assuring the reading public there will never likely be another Shakespeare, Emerson, Whitman, Steinbeck or Tennessee Williams again.
Even with a snarl or two about where today's Silcon Valley wunderkinds are Pied Pipering us, personal experiences say otherwise. Even granting the insipid hyphenated words and denuded beauties to our language, two facts are hard to ignore >>
First, many of us on Facebook and Twitter are now in tender touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of friends and family long lost; plus new friends and comrades recently discovered. Consider this -- in lieu of idle chatter over dinners about golf scores, pension cheats and Charlie Sheen, the Internet lets us tap into distant minds and hearts still actually fascinated with the art and science of conversation and investigation...!
Second, thousands of Internet websites offer the full texts of entire speeches vs cable-pundit-soundbites; direct video encounters with important authors and scholars vs skewed second-hand reviews; a multiplicity of in-depth dialogs among the kind of keen minds we last heard in our last advanced college courses....!
From Japan to California to wherever we live -- we're connected. And wisely used, the Net can make that connection almost Biblical.
Not so that anyone could seriously notice. In exact sequence, we are stunned, horrified, slowed, and then on to whatever's next. Hardwired to shut down our pain receptors in order to keep surviving.
Still, we can no longer deny our interdependence. Watching the tides rise in California from the tsunami in Japan says it all. And so does the Internet on which almost all 6 billion of us are now digitally inter-woven. Including even the reluctant Luddites who delude themselves they are not caught up in it simply because "I don't use it."
The Internet is virtually Biblical. If the classic definition of God is being everywhere at every moment...well, you see where I'm going. Still, the Internet's critics have latched onto a particular linguistic attack. The Internet's quickie messages and truncated lexicons are killing our languages. All this Facebook and Twitter shorthand is enough to give every literature professor this side of Lybia cardiac arrest. Also assuring the reading public there will never likely be another Shakespeare, Emerson, Whitman, Steinbeck or Tennessee Williams again.
Even with a snarl or two about where today's Silcon Valley wunderkinds are Pied Pipering us, personal experiences say otherwise. Even granting the insipid hyphenated words and denuded beauties to our language, two facts are hard to ignore >>
First, many of us on Facebook and Twitter are now in tender touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of friends and family long lost; plus new friends and comrades recently discovered. Consider this -- in lieu of idle chatter over dinners about golf scores, pension cheats and Charlie Sheen, the Internet lets us tap into distant minds and hearts still actually fascinated with the art and science of conversation and investigation...!
Second, thousands of Internet websites offer the full texts of entire speeches vs cable-pundit-soundbites; direct video encounters with important authors and scholars vs skewed second-hand reviews; a multiplicity of in-depth dialogs among the kind of keen minds we last heard in our last advanced college courses....!
From Japan to California to wherever we live -- we're connected. And wisely used, the Net can make that connection almost Biblical.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
TAKING A KNIFE TO TIME
Time is one of the more insistent themes among novelists, poets, clergy, lovers and elders. There is broad agreement among them that time cannot be stopped, extended, altered or even totally understood. Time simply is what it is, slipping away tick by ineluctable tick.
But it can be divided....!
Each of us has this knife in our possession; a blade that can be slammed into the tick of time, dividing it in half. Everything that came before; now, everything that comes after. It's that conscious split-second when we know (at least sense) that from now on, everything will be somehow different.
The moment comes in different ways to different people. That starry night you first fell in lust...that spangled day you got your degree...that morning you promised to love till death do us part. Or perhaps it was your first promotion...your first time in Paris or Rome...your first child...your first drink...your first cemetery...possibly that service you attended or that book you read or that secret you never wanted to learn.
There really are before & after markers in our lives. Often several, although usually one towers above the rest. And what is true in our lives is also true in that of entire populations.
In the West, we divide all history with BC & AD. Or maybe with the rise of Rome & the fall of Rome. Before Luther & after Luther. Before the printing press & ever since. In the history of the United States it used to be before & after the Civil War. However, in today's generations it may be before & after WWII, before & after the computer, or maybe even before & after Rock n Roll.
Harmony seldom makes headlines, so we may not always know when an intersection has been reached. One of the Big Band Era's (30s-40s) most popular singers Helen O'Connell put it neatly. When interviewed later in life by an admiring reporter, she smiled: "If I had only known I was living during an 'era,' I might have enjoyed it more!"
Which is to say that frequently these markers are simply taken for granted. Only understood upon later reflection. Often silly little things like the time I realized I wasn't the only kid on the block who couldn't dance; that chocolate ice cream was really not the world's favorite flavor; my buddies' religions made as much sense as mine did; all that penny candy I loved was actually worth just about that; oh, and the guy doesn't always get the girl as in the movies
Now that I think about it, the most startling marker might have been the day I read Virginia Woolf's toss-off line: "For most of history, Anonymous was a women."
But it can be divided....!
Each of us has this knife in our possession; a blade that can be slammed into the tick of time, dividing it in half. Everything that came before; now, everything that comes after. It's that conscious split-second when we know (at least sense) that from now on, everything will be somehow different.
The moment comes in different ways to different people. That starry night you first fell in lust...that spangled day you got your degree...that morning you promised to love till death do us part. Or perhaps it was your first promotion...your first time in Paris or Rome...your first child...your first drink...your first cemetery...possibly that service you attended or that book you read or that secret you never wanted to learn.
There really are before & after markers in our lives. Often several, although usually one towers above the rest. And what is true in our lives is also true in that of entire populations.
In the West, we divide all history with BC & AD. Or maybe with the rise of Rome & the fall of Rome. Before Luther & after Luther. Before the printing press & ever since. In the history of the United States it used to be before & after the Civil War. However, in today's generations it may be before & after WWII, before & after the computer, or maybe even before & after Rock n Roll.
Harmony seldom makes headlines, so we may not always know when an intersection has been reached. One of the Big Band Era's (30s-40s) most popular singers Helen O'Connell put it neatly. When interviewed later in life by an admiring reporter, she smiled: "If I had only known I was living during an 'era,' I might have enjoyed it more!"
Which is to say that frequently these markers are simply taken for granted. Only understood upon later reflection. Often silly little things like the time I realized I wasn't the only kid on the block who couldn't dance; that chocolate ice cream was really not the world's favorite flavor; my buddies' religions made as much sense as mine did; all that penny candy I loved was actually worth just about that; oh, and the guy doesn't always get the girl as in the movies
Now that I think about it, the most startling marker might have been the day I read Virginia Woolf's toss-off line: "For most of history, Anonymous was a women."
Friday, March 11, 2011
THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF ENERGY & WHAT WE DO WITH IT
In physics there's a law called The Conservation of Energy (energy in the universe can never be destroyed). No such law in sociology. But there is something about our daily output of human energy that beckons us to at least examine it and its consequences.
Every morning of every day in every land, people get up and do what they do. With passion or out of habit, with purpose or no longer remembering why, with value to the society or not. The point is, this seething worldwide energy from out of 6 billions lives may be able to be prioritized. Not as a law, but as a point of reference.
Chances are most of the world's populations can agree there are some top-priority doers out here. Legislators legislating, judges judging, teachers teaching, doctors doctoring, nurses nursing, ministers ministering, sales people selling, lawyers lawyering, parents parenting, creative talents creating, first-responders responding, and municipal workers from cops to firefighters to street crews holding it all together.
Next down are those important people whose importance is often open to argument; at least among those they impact. Wall Street bankers, corporate boards, political lobbyists, journalists, public relation handlers, television executives, bloggers and tweeters. Whereas that first echelon looks kinda solid, this second tier of energy can often render as much harm as help.
Next down our professional athletes, fashion models, social elites, and those revolving celebrities who are famous for being famous. These members of the world's population generate enormous bodies of energy in our midst, with debatable results to our midst. The ironic thing is how so many of the rest of us invest so much of our energy into their energy that a lot of good energy is squandered in between their egocentric headlines.
At the lowest Dante-level of society come those who hardly lack energy. These are among the busiest of our fellow man. Generally the underworld in every society. Organized crime members, con men, street thugs, gang members, drug pushers, and assorted deviants. It's often said -- and said wisely -- if they ever marshaled their energies into socially approved activities, there's no telling how far their talents would carry them. And us.
It's a bit presumptive to prioritize human energy this way. Still, there's one energy field few will deny top place. Love...! The love of one human to and for another is without question the greatest, yet most mysterious, human action under and in heaven. Without it, there would be little left to prioritize.
Every morning of every day in every land, people get up and do what they do. With passion or out of habit, with purpose or no longer remembering why, with value to the society or not. The point is, this seething worldwide energy from out of 6 billions lives may be able to be prioritized. Not as a law, but as a point of reference.
Chances are most of the world's populations can agree there are some top-priority doers out here. Legislators legislating, judges judging, teachers teaching, doctors doctoring, nurses nursing, ministers ministering, sales people selling, lawyers lawyering, parents parenting, creative talents creating, first-responders responding, and municipal workers from cops to firefighters to street crews holding it all together.
Next down are those important people whose importance is often open to argument; at least among those they impact. Wall Street bankers, corporate boards, political lobbyists, journalists, public relation handlers, television executives, bloggers and tweeters. Whereas that first echelon looks kinda solid, this second tier of energy can often render as much harm as help.
Next down our professional athletes, fashion models, social elites, and those revolving celebrities who are famous for being famous. These members of the world's population generate enormous bodies of energy in our midst, with debatable results to our midst. The ironic thing is how so many of the rest of us invest so much of our energy into their energy that a lot of good energy is squandered in between their egocentric headlines.
At the lowest Dante-level of society come those who hardly lack energy. These are among the busiest of our fellow man. Generally the underworld in every society. Organized crime members, con men, street thugs, gang members, drug pushers, and assorted deviants. It's often said -- and said wisely -- if they ever marshaled their energies into socially approved activities, there's no telling how far their talents would carry them. And us.
It's a bit presumptive to prioritize human energy this way. Still, there's one energy field few will deny top place. Love...! The love of one human to and for another is without question the greatest, yet most mysterious, human action under and in heaven. Without it, there would be little left to prioritize.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
THE NO-ESCAPE EXCITEMENT OF OUR GLOBAL VILLAGE
Not even today's Luddites, still bah-humbuging technology, can argue no longer. The Internet -- fed by and feeding on a gazillion digital devices -- has changed our world! our brains! our humanity! This is one of the very few revolutions in the history of mankind that really warrants the title.
But in so saying, we are merely saying the obvious. Vastly more important is how do we evaluate this revolution? A question which will be answered and re-answered many times in the coming years. But there's already one answer staring us in our face. It is the two faces of the Internet. One that's smiling, the other that's frowning.
The smiley face takes enormous and justified satisfaction in seeing how the worldwide net has, well, netted us all together. As of 2011, there are only remote jungles and mountainsides left where the net has not yet reached. Peoples of every region, race, gender, age, religion and political persuasion can now instantly reach people they would never have otherwise known, people who have so much to offer them, people from their blessed past, people who can and are impacting their amazing future.
The Global Village has arrived and burst into digital life in ways the old futurists could never have fully imagined.
If there is some one word for this extraordinary human phenomenon it's probably: Connectivity.
How then can there be any frowning face to this wonder...?
Perhaps the face I see frowning is really just puzzled. It's the puzzle to the implications of Connectivity itself. Surely it's historically the very first time such immediate contact, such powerful interaction, has been granted the human race. It speeds news, knowledge, cures, even revolutions. And by that very speed, our species finds itself hurtling into bold new frontiers together. And yet, there's still a reason for that frown.
Possibly it expresses an eternal question: How much do we lose by what we gain...? In this case, the loss of those old dis-connects of time and space that once stood between them and us. Between the deluge of distant news and disasters, and our own little living rooms. Between all that's out there and what our brains and hearts back here can hold at one time.
There was a time when the murder and child abuse in the other town...the tsunami and earthquake in the other nation ...the relentless horrors somewhere else didn't reach us quite as quickly back here. Quite as horrifically. If nothing else, in such days we may have had the small luxury of sleeping better at night. A luxury perhaps earned at the cost of news we didn't really need.
But in so saying, we are merely saying the obvious. Vastly more important is how do we evaluate this revolution? A question which will be answered and re-answered many times in the coming years. But there's already one answer staring us in our face. It is the two faces of the Internet. One that's smiling, the other that's frowning.
The smiley face takes enormous and justified satisfaction in seeing how the worldwide net has, well, netted us all together. As of 2011, there are only remote jungles and mountainsides left where the net has not yet reached. Peoples of every region, race, gender, age, religion and political persuasion can now instantly reach people they would never have otherwise known, people who have so much to offer them, people from their blessed past, people who can and are impacting their amazing future.
The Global Village has arrived and burst into digital life in ways the old futurists could never have fully imagined.
If there is some one word for this extraordinary human phenomenon it's probably: Connectivity.
How then can there be any frowning face to this wonder...?
Perhaps the face I see frowning is really just puzzled. It's the puzzle to the implications of Connectivity itself. Surely it's historically the very first time such immediate contact, such powerful interaction, has been granted the human race. It speeds news, knowledge, cures, even revolutions. And by that very speed, our species finds itself hurtling into bold new frontiers together. And yet, there's still a reason for that frown.
Possibly it expresses an eternal question: How much do we lose by what we gain...? In this case, the loss of those old dis-connects of time and space that once stood between them and us. Between the deluge of distant news and disasters, and our own little living rooms. Between all that's out there and what our brains and hearts back here can hold at one time.
There was a time when the murder and child abuse in the other town...the tsunami and earthquake in the other nation ...the relentless horrors somewhere else didn't reach us quite as quickly back here. Quite as horrifically. If nothing else, in such days we may have had the small luxury of sleeping better at night. A luxury perhaps earned at the cost of news we didn't really need.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
UNLESS YOU LOOK, YOU MAY NEVER SEE THEM
Strolling Chicago's stunning Michigan Ave can be a gusto of little joys. The soaring buildings, the whoosh of traffic, mostly the hurrying people. People-watching in large cities is an art form that not only belongs to the tourist. Heading for the classic grays of the Tribune Tower this morning, I could see and sense the world itself on metaphoric display.
On one extreme, the seething surging masses with important agendas and deadlines. These are the people who, the world over, make things happen. Sales...contracts...elections...headlines...sometimes even revolutions. On the other extreme, the easier gait of those down here with little more on their mind than buying a new jacket or meeting an old friend for lunch.
What helps distinguish these two are the eyes and the hands.
In the case of the hurrying deal-makers, the fierceness in their eyes tells you a lot. They have things to do and places to go. Some of these very same people may be making a few headlines in the Trib's morning editions. Good for them; and usually good for us. The world will always need doers.
Those other folks, well it's their hands which often tell their tale. Be sure to check. These are those who seem to have just enough time on their hands to slip theirs into his or hers. Mind you, not too many down here on frenetic Michigan Avenue have the opportunity or the inclination. But some do. Like the visiting husband and wife pausing to share some small delight others pass by taking for granted. Also, the mothers and fathers cradling their child's tiny hand into theirs. Also, the young lovers who kinda have a monopoly on the poetry of touch.
But wait...! There's another part of the hand-holding Michigan Avenue -- world? -- population. If, that is, you take the time to look for them. It's the vintaged members of this panorama. A little older, a tad slower, but they appear to have the time to look at time. The time of their lives. And so it is their veined hands, one in the other, hold tighter. Yet at the same time, lighter. Lighter and brighter in that spirit of "ahh" which appears to have brought them out here today.
In today's world -- from Michigan Avenue to the streets of Cairo -- it is the young who have both numbers and history on their side. Precisely as it should be. However, until science can find a cure for death, these wonderful young people owe themselves the privilege of looking at what and who they too will eventually become...
On one extreme, the seething surging masses with important agendas and deadlines. These are the people who, the world over, make things happen. Sales...contracts...elections...headlines...sometimes even revolutions. On the other extreme, the easier gait of those down here with little more on their mind than buying a new jacket or meeting an old friend for lunch.
What helps distinguish these two are the eyes and the hands.
In the case of the hurrying deal-makers, the fierceness in their eyes tells you a lot. They have things to do and places to go. Some of these very same people may be making a few headlines in the Trib's morning editions. Good for them; and usually good for us. The world will always need doers.
Those other folks, well it's their hands which often tell their tale. Be sure to check. These are those who seem to have just enough time on their hands to slip theirs into his or hers. Mind you, not too many down here on frenetic Michigan Avenue have the opportunity or the inclination. But some do. Like the visiting husband and wife pausing to share some small delight others pass by taking for granted. Also, the mothers and fathers cradling their child's tiny hand into theirs. Also, the young lovers who kinda have a monopoly on the poetry of touch.
But wait...! There's another part of the hand-holding Michigan Avenue -- world? -- population. If, that is, you take the time to look for them. It's the vintaged members of this panorama. A little older, a tad slower, but they appear to have the time to look at time. The time of their lives. And so it is their veined hands, one in the other, hold tighter. Yet at the same time, lighter. Lighter and brighter in that spirit of "ahh" which appears to have brought them out here today.
In today's world -- from Michigan Avenue to the streets of Cairo -- it is the young who have both numbers and history on their side. Precisely as it should be. However, until science can find a cure for death, these wonderful young people owe themselves the privilege of looking at what and who they too will eventually become...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
HAY WHAT'S THIS ABOUT THE GENERATIONS???
What's it like taking a lateral pass in a football game or a relay throw from the outfield in a baseball game? Strangely, something like being one of the honorees at your old school, looking out at a student body entirely new to you. And yet, even several generations apart, experiencing the power of the connection between you.
Perhaps it was just the physical proximity that day. More likely it was the psychological bonding. Those students and I were individual moving parts to a social whole which if meshed just right could serve the nation in its time of need. The success of any great nation has much to do with how well its generations can pro-actively connect.
Trouble is, generations are so innately different. Those coming up have little understanding of how-it-was; those beforehand have little patience for how-it-is. The infamous gap...! However, occasionally it's wondrously bridged. Sometimes by leaders (a Kennedy or John Paul II). Sometimes by celebrities (a Sinatra or the Beatles). Perhaps by popular movies (a Casablanca or Star Wars). Maybe simply by shared foods like pizza and technology like cellphones. Even disparate generations can't live totally isolated from one another in the same land.
At one time there may have been social glues that bonded us more tightly. Not because of nobler efforts, mostly because there were fewer options by which to go our separate ways. Only a few national magazines (a Life and Saturday Evening Post); only a few TV networks; only a limited number of sport leagues; only a small cluster of Hollywood studios. Connections were simpler when options were fewer.
Today we have the beauty and the burden of 1001 voices, each speaking from their own niche of the market place. No longer any need for us to all read, watch or listen to the same things, when the number of things available is now virtually infinite. Little wonder the voices I and those students hear on a regular basis are so improbably different. At one time, the market wanted to find what made us the same; then go after that "America." Today, the market wants to find out what makes us so many different "America's;" then splice and dice us by age, gender, race, religion, region, politics, car we drive, clothes we wear, and pretty soon DNA codes we harbor.
All the while global computer banks are vetting and profiling us by our billions of 24/7 Facebook and Twitter activities. Welcome to the next brave new world! At one time kids like those students that day dreamed this very dream. Now that it's here, the psychological connection I felt with them has only to pass this test....
....can the extraordinary diversity which energizes their generation somehow relate to the extraordinary uniformity that electrified ours?
Perhaps it was just the physical proximity that day. More likely it was the psychological bonding. Those students and I were individual moving parts to a social whole which if meshed just right could serve the nation in its time of need. The success of any great nation has much to do with how well its generations can pro-actively connect.
Trouble is, generations are so innately different. Those coming up have little understanding of how-it-was; those beforehand have little patience for how-it-is. The infamous gap...! However, occasionally it's wondrously bridged. Sometimes by leaders (a Kennedy or John Paul II). Sometimes by celebrities (a Sinatra or the Beatles). Perhaps by popular movies (a Casablanca or Star Wars). Maybe simply by shared foods like pizza and technology like cellphones. Even disparate generations can't live totally isolated from one another in the same land.
At one time there may have been social glues that bonded us more tightly. Not because of nobler efforts, mostly because there were fewer options by which to go our separate ways. Only a few national magazines (a Life and Saturday Evening Post); only a few TV networks; only a limited number of sport leagues; only a small cluster of Hollywood studios. Connections were simpler when options were fewer.
Today we have the beauty and the burden of 1001 voices, each speaking from their own niche of the market place. No longer any need for us to all read, watch or listen to the same things, when the number of things available is now virtually infinite. Little wonder the voices I and those students hear on a regular basis are so improbably different. At one time, the market wanted to find what made us the same; then go after that "America." Today, the market wants to find out what makes us so many different "America's;" then splice and dice us by age, gender, race, religion, region, politics, car we drive, clothes we wear, and pretty soon DNA codes we harbor.
All the while global computer banks are vetting and profiling us by our billions of 24/7 Facebook and Twitter activities. Welcome to the next brave new world! At one time kids like those students that day dreamed this very dream. Now that it's here, the psychological connection I felt with them has only to pass this test....
....can the extraordinary diversity which energizes their generation somehow relate to the extraordinary uniformity that electrified ours?
Monday, March 7, 2011
ADMIT IT -- YOU HAVE FAVORITE PART OF THE NEWS TOO
Don't know if any national pollster ever called and asked your opinions. None ever did me. Making you wonder exactly who and why the people they poll are supposed to represent us. But if I were to take these psuedo-scientific surveys seriously, here's one question I'd ask you, thereby learning a great great deal about you:
Which section of the newspaper and/or website do you read first...?
* If you answer the op/eds, I'm guessing you're an idea person. Someone who sees the clash of values in the marketplace of ideas as the through-line to the historical narrative of your times. Be they sensible or non-sensible, these are the driving forces to the age in which you find yourself
* Many people turn first to the sports pages. Here a variety of satisfying emotional outlets. Perhaps your unfulfilled appetite for physical glory, or the voyeuristic gratification for the power of conquest, or maybe just the feeling of psychic safety in a make-believe world of mathematical order
* The business pages grab many people's attention first. Rarely the poor; mostly the well-to-do looking to understand new and better ways to do well in this capitalist economy. If only these experts could spin their wisdoms for you about what tomorrow holds as well as they do reporting what yesterday did
* The obituaries have a compelling interest for some. Rarely the young for whom death has no meaning. Usually the elderly for whom death is no longer an un-recognizable phantom. The obits tell you who among your friends have left this mortal coil, what seems to be the current age limits on life, oh and also some small reassurance that you still haven't reached yours
* Personally I go straight to the comics. Perky...concise...funny...but at the same time sorta wise in the way these little characters comment on the foibles that are us
After-thought. The reason I don't start with the business pages is they always seem a tad silly. Seem to play weather forecaster for the economy, when we all know how little weather forecasters can forecast much of anything! Calvin Coolidge once said something my dear Father also believed: "The business of America is business!" Two things about that gospel have always bothered me: (1) Big business is so often mostly about the business of making us want things we probably don't really need; (2) successful big business surely prove the enormous value of capitalism, only so little of that value ever trickles down to the workers and consumers.
You can see why I find the comics easier to read....
Which section of the newspaper and/or website do you read first...?
* If you answer the op/eds, I'm guessing you're an idea person. Someone who sees the clash of values in the marketplace of ideas as the through-line to the historical narrative of your times. Be they sensible or non-sensible, these are the driving forces to the age in which you find yourself
* Many people turn first to the sports pages. Here a variety of satisfying emotional outlets. Perhaps your unfulfilled appetite for physical glory, or the voyeuristic gratification for the power of conquest, or maybe just the feeling of psychic safety in a make-believe world of mathematical order
* The business pages grab many people's attention first. Rarely the poor; mostly the well-to-do looking to understand new and better ways to do well in this capitalist economy. If only these experts could spin their wisdoms for you about what tomorrow holds as well as they do reporting what yesterday did
* The obituaries have a compelling interest for some. Rarely the young for whom death has no meaning. Usually the elderly for whom death is no longer an un-recognizable phantom. The obits tell you who among your friends have left this mortal coil, what seems to be the current age limits on life, oh and also some small reassurance that you still haven't reached yours
* Personally I go straight to the comics. Perky...concise...funny...but at the same time sorta wise in the way these little characters comment on the foibles that are us
After-thought. The reason I don't start with the business pages is they always seem a tad silly. Seem to play weather forecaster for the economy, when we all know how little weather forecasters can forecast much of anything! Calvin Coolidge once said something my dear Father also believed: "The business of America is business!" Two things about that gospel have always bothered me: (1) Big business is so often mostly about the business of making us want things we probably don't really need; (2) successful big business surely prove the enormous value of capitalism, only so little of that value ever trickles down to the workers and consumers.
You can see why I find the comics easier to read....
Sunday, March 6, 2011
THE LAST BEACH
After the last bomb I found myself on the last beach.
A long spindly stretch of sand hiding just beneath the early morning mist. The ocean lapped at it with quiet blue- white waves, while the breaking sun smeared it with melting red hues. It was good. But it was lonely. Was I to be the last one here? Even more puzzling, was I really here?
It's always said your life flashes across your consciousness at this point. Hollywood has been clever about it. Optical bursts too fast to focus, yet too authentic to deny. My beach suddenly detonated into long-lost faces and feelings. You know, like in some of your dreams. Only I was awake.
My Father's last weak smile from his hospital bed...my Mother's joyful tears as we re-visited the old neighborhood one more time... wisps of my kid brother, Jerry, Billy and Katy giggling as of old in those long ago Depression streets of Chicago...Sister Francis writing grand predictions on my 8th grade graduation picture...a blur of faculty-and-friend faces which populated the next many years. So many so remembered yet so dead.
It's the kind of beach you've never walked before, yet it's fiercely familiar. Firsts are inevitably pieces in these places. That important first date you rehearsed for...the first prom in which you tried so hard to excel...the first job, boss, car, home...the first girl you fell in rapture with, only later to learn she committed suicide at the age of 33 when she become pregnant by an un-named member of the president's cabinet.
I studied my beach. So all that was going on...?
Then later, real love. Joan... children...grandchildren...community...dreams...time...life itself. Nesting and nestling into love with each of them became the center of your galaxy. A remarkably un-remarkable galaxy so small and private, yet at the same time spinning within and resonating to the universe itself. How exactly such a life-long synergy? Very likely like a series of whirling concentric circles within which you stand. An extraordinary writer once strode this same beach, and gave these words to his experience --
"...My little friend just received a letter addressed in a funny kind of way. It read: Jane Crofut, Crofut farm, Grovers Corner, New Hampshire, New England, United States, North American continent, Western hemisphere, world, universe, the mind of God. And ya know what...? The letter reached her just the same!"
A long spindly stretch of sand hiding just beneath the early morning mist. The ocean lapped at it with quiet blue- white waves, while the breaking sun smeared it with melting red hues. It was good. But it was lonely. Was I to be the last one here? Even more puzzling, was I really here?
It's always said your life flashes across your consciousness at this point. Hollywood has been clever about it. Optical bursts too fast to focus, yet too authentic to deny. My beach suddenly detonated into long-lost faces and feelings. You know, like in some of your dreams. Only I was awake.
My Father's last weak smile from his hospital bed...my Mother's joyful tears as we re-visited the old neighborhood one more time... wisps of my kid brother, Jerry, Billy and Katy giggling as of old in those long ago Depression streets of Chicago...Sister Francis writing grand predictions on my 8th grade graduation picture...a blur of faculty-and-friend faces which populated the next many years. So many so remembered yet so dead.
It's the kind of beach you've never walked before, yet it's fiercely familiar. Firsts are inevitably pieces in these places. That important first date you rehearsed for...the first prom in which you tried so hard to excel...the first job, boss, car, home...the first girl you fell in rapture with, only later to learn she committed suicide at the age of 33 when she become pregnant by an un-named member of the president's cabinet.
I studied my beach. So all that was going on...?
Then later, real love. Joan... children...grandchildren...community...dreams...time...life itself. Nesting and nestling into love with each of them became the center of your galaxy. A remarkably un-remarkable galaxy so small and private, yet at the same time spinning within and resonating to the universe itself. How exactly such a life-long synergy? Very likely like a series of whirling concentric circles within which you stand. An extraordinary writer once strode this same beach, and gave these words to his experience --
"...My little friend just received a letter addressed in a funny kind of way. It read: Jane Crofut, Crofut farm, Grovers Corner, New Hampshire, New England, United States, North American continent, Western hemisphere, world, universe, the mind of God. And ya know what...? The letter reached her just the same!"
Saturday, March 5, 2011
OLDEST LOVE/HATE AFFAIR IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Among those words we use so freely yet so imprecisely is government. Exactly what is it? why is? how should we understand it as a part of our lives?
Perhaps the simplest definition is this. It's "them!" unless it's satisfying our needs and then it becomes "mine!" We perceive this institution mainly in terms either of what it is taking from or doing for us at the moment. The doing is perfectly fine -- highways, air traffic controls, meat & milk inspections, free public schools. The taking is not fine at all -- speed limits, security screening, rules and regulations, and most especially taxes.
As usual, the notion of government is a political football. Right now the team with the ball is busy asserting "government is too large." And while most Americans seem to share that shout, they don't much like other institutions either. Only 45% have a positive view of labor unions, only 47% feel good about big business, and up to 70% of us no longer attend religious services.
To better evaluate institutions like government, consider what it's been up to lately:
* It just released 5000 hours of Oval Office audiotapes, not only of presidents Nixon and Kennedy, but all the way back to the days of Franklin D Roosevelt. On our give/take scale, these tapes will probably be giving us some unknown facts while taking away some long held legends
* It recently reported the development of a prototype electronic hummingbird which can conduct surveillance via a tiny camera as it flies in and out of windows or perches on nearby tree branches. On our scale, this probably gives added security while taking away additional privacy
* With the latest White House budget proposal, critics from both parties argue it's loaded with "middle-class welfare," because it leaves largely untouched the senior entitlements of social security, medicare and medicaid. The give and take here? Well, as usual that depends on whether you're looking at it from under or over age 65
When it comes to government, Americans have been arguing over it from the get-go. Most of our ancestors came here to get away from governments they didn't like or didn't like them. Opponents to government and government policies have, ever since, been called either freedom-fighters or terrorists (see Valley Forge in 1778, Gettysburg in 1863, and the Chicago riots in 1968 for specifics). Either that or simply listen to President Obama and Speaker Boehner during their next press conference.
On the other hand, think about this. Belgium has just broken Iraq's modern-day record for 250 consecutive days without a sworn-in government. Here's guessing the bottom line give/take test in these two countries has something to do with how much uncollected garbage sits in front of their homes. Say, what about yours...?
Perhaps the simplest definition is this. It's "them!" unless it's satisfying our needs and then it becomes "mine!" We perceive this institution mainly in terms either of what it is taking from or doing for us at the moment. The doing is perfectly fine -- highways, air traffic controls, meat & milk inspections, free public schools. The taking is not fine at all -- speed limits, security screening, rules and regulations, and most especially taxes.
As usual, the notion of government is a political football. Right now the team with the ball is busy asserting "government is too large." And while most Americans seem to share that shout, they don't much like other institutions either. Only 45% have a positive view of labor unions, only 47% feel good about big business, and up to 70% of us no longer attend religious services.
To better evaluate institutions like government, consider what it's been up to lately:
* It just released 5000 hours of Oval Office audiotapes, not only of presidents Nixon and Kennedy, but all the way back to the days of Franklin D Roosevelt. On our give/take scale, these tapes will probably be giving us some unknown facts while taking away some long held legends
* It recently reported the development of a prototype electronic hummingbird which can conduct surveillance via a tiny camera as it flies in and out of windows or perches on nearby tree branches. On our scale, this probably gives added security while taking away additional privacy
* With the latest White House budget proposal, critics from both parties argue it's loaded with "middle-class welfare," because it leaves largely untouched the senior entitlements of social security, medicare and medicaid. The give and take here? Well, as usual that depends on whether you're looking at it from under or over age 65
When it comes to government, Americans have been arguing over it from the get-go. Most of our ancestors came here to get away from governments they didn't like or didn't like them. Opponents to government and government policies have, ever since, been called either freedom-fighters or terrorists (see Valley Forge in 1778, Gettysburg in 1863, and the Chicago riots in 1968 for specifics). Either that or simply listen to President Obama and Speaker Boehner during their next press conference.
On the other hand, think about this. Belgium has just broken Iraq's modern-day record for 250 consecutive days without a sworn-in government. Here's guessing the bottom line give/take test in these two countries has something to do with how much uncollected garbage sits in front of their homes. Say, what about yours...?
Friday, March 4, 2011
HATE TESTS...? HERE'S ONE HARD TO AVOID!
OK, here's a test. Not my test; our test. We take it every day, only we don't usually take time to grade our results. Here's your chance.
The global media -- print, voice, video, digital -- is a 24/7 avalanche of totally disjointed events. But look carefully, because there just may be some coherence in all this chaos. Terrorism on the high seas...violence in the Middle East...traffic pileups on the expressways...immigration clashes at our borders...protesters in state capitols and at funeral services...politicians and pundits declaiming...drug wars raging...Oscar winners prancing...students seaching....Charlie Sheen and Fox News being, well being Charlie Sheen and Fox News.
What in all the world is coherent about all this chaos...?
Here's how some of the great minds of history have tried to answer. Plato suggests its humanity struggling to find its way back to the soul-life it was before being here. Augustine argues its humanity striving to find rest by resting back with its God. Nietzsche concludes there is no God to go back to. Darwin and his modern defenders find that survival is the one consistent coherency to all this animal and human struggling.
Whether we buy any or all of the above, perhaps we can all agree on one thing. Seen from a distance, this seething, relentless maze of daily energy has some of the look of some enormous ant or bee colony. Action, effort movement wherever we look. It's unceasingly kinetic as far as the eye can see and the ear can hear.
In the case of the ants and bees, there's always a focal point and a rationale for everything that's constantly happening. The Queen! As we look to grade this media test we're taking every day, we have to wonder. Is there some kind of intelligible throne around which all this planetary activity is organized as well? Even a Darwinian may have to pause over that possibility....
The global media -- print, voice, video, digital -- is a 24/7 avalanche of totally disjointed events. But look carefully, because there just may be some coherence in all this chaos. Terrorism on the high seas...violence in the Middle East...traffic pileups on the expressways...immigration clashes at our borders...protesters in state capitols and at funeral services...politicians and pundits declaiming...drug wars raging...Oscar winners prancing...students seaching....Charlie Sheen and Fox News being, well being Charlie Sheen and Fox News.
What in all the world is coherent about all this chaos...?
Here's how some of the great minds of history have tried to answer. Plato suggests its humanity struggling to find its way back to the soul-life it was before being here. Augustine argues its humanity striving to find rest by resting back with its God. Nietzsche concludes there is no God to go back to. Darwin and his modern defenders find that survival is the one consistent coherency to all this animal and human struggling.
Whether we buy any or all of the above, perhaps we can all agree on one thing. Seen from a distance, this seething, relentless maze of daily energy has some of the look of some enormous ant or bee colony. Action, effort movement wherever we look. It's unceasingly kinetic as far as the eye can see and the ear can hear.
In the case of the ants and bees, there's always a focal point and a rationale for everything that's constantly happening. The Queen! As we look to grade this media test we're taking every day, we have to wonder. Is there some kind of intelligible throne around which all this planetary activity is organized as well? Even a Darwinian may have to pause over that possibility....
Thursday, March 3, 2011
YEAH THAT'S RIGHT; I'M A TEACHER NOT THE ENEMY
Something important, perhaps even historic, is going on in America right now. Just like the Middle East is experiencing a seismic shift in its culture, so are we in ours. Well, actually there are always seismic shifts going on here; but this one is a little different. This one's about teachers. You know, those under-paid civil servants who have for so long been paid so little trying to do so much that no one ever bothered to pay much attention.
Apparently that's changing. Recently the media has swung an intense and intentional spotlight on how we get so much for doing so little that state economies are being relentlessly raped by our over-padded salaries and especially our over-valued pensions.
How exactly did we change from the image of gentle, caring, low-salaried civil servants to some politicians' newest villain in the battle for saving America? One explanation: there are some pretty embarrassing examples of lousy teachers hiding behind dubious tenure laws just long enough to reap fat, double-dipping pensions. However, that's an embarrassment that can be equally attributed to many workers in the private sector as well; only their story is not as handily available on the public record. The second explanation is more calculated: if today's plutocrats, individually and corporately, are to avoid the righteous slash of the deficit hawks, it's probably a good idea to find a spotlight to put on someone else.
Over a century before atomic weapons and global terrorism, H.G. Welles already spelled it out for us: "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."
There isn't a mayor or a governor who doesn't say much the same thing, speech after speech, campaign after campaign. Just as likely, there isn't a responsible parent who doesn't agree. But now here's where this latest seismic shift does a 180...! Instead of living up to the pledge to close the nation's education gap with better schools and better teachers, suddenly it seems better to widen that gap by making schools and teachers the problem, not the solution.
Lets face it, for every bad teacher this new deficit crusade correctly spotlights, 10 better teachers are now hearing that their profession will probably remain poorly understood, poorly supported, and now poorly respected as well. Why this sudden public backlash...? Because suddenly about 10% of teacher ranks have been found giving too little in the classroom, and getting too much in their pensions.
That 10% is unacceptable. OK, so here's the deal. That 10% should feel the wrath of the deficit hawks. However, at the very same time, so should that same 10% in every corporate office, Wall Street bank, lobbying group, and government operation in the land. In other words, isn't it time every American in every field of endeavor agree that every one of us needs to accept our responsibility for how this latest seismic shift plays out? So lets confront our history together, throwing no stones we ourselves don't deserve.
Apparently that's changing. Recently the media has swung an intense and intentional spotlight on how we get so much for doing so little that state economies are being relentlessly raped by our over-padded salaries and especially our over-valued pensions.
How exactly did we change from the image of gentle, caring, low-salaried civil servants to some politicians' newest villain in the battle for saving America? One explanation: there are some pretty embarrassing examples of lousy teachers hiding behind dubious tenure laws just long enough to reap fat, double-dipping pensions. However, that's an embarrassment that can be equally attributed to many workers in the private sector as well; only their story is not as handily available on the public record. The second explanation is more calculated: if today's plutocrats, individually and corporately, are to avoid the righteous slash of the deficit hawks, it's probably a good idea to find a spotlight to put on someone else.
Over a century before atomic weapons and global terrorism, H.G. Welles already spelled it out for us: "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."
There isn't a mayor or a governor who doesn't say much the same thing, speech after speech, campaign after campaign. Just as likely, there isn't a responsible parent who doesn't agree. But now here's where this latest seismic shift does a 180...! Instead of living up to the pledge to close the nation's education gap with better schools and better teachers, suddenly it seems better to widen that gap by making schools and teachers the problem, not the solution.
Lets face it, for every bad teacher this new deficit crusade correctly spotlights, 10 better teachers are now hearing that their profession will probably remain poorly understood, poorly supported, and now poorly respected as well. Why this sudden public backlash...? Because suddenly about 10% of teacher ranks have been found giving too little in the classroom, and getting too much in their pensions.
That 10% is unacceptable. OK, so here's the deal. That 10% should feel the wrath of the deficit hawks. However, at the very same time, so should that same 10% in every corporate office, Wall Street bank, lobbying group, and government operation in the land. In other words, isn't it time every American in every field of endeavor agree that every one of us needs to accept our responsibility for how this latest seismic shift plays out? So lets confront our history together, throwing no stones we ourselves don't deserve.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
THE GREATEST REALITY SHOW OF ALL!
Over the last 10 years or so, reality has shifted meaning. It once referred to what our senses or imaginations considered real to us. Everything from that juicy slab of prime ribs on a dinner plate all the way to those juicy characterizations on a theatre stage. Lately, however, the word has been hijacked by bizarre television shows. Shows whose actors we talk about the next day as if they were real. Even more bizarre, the bizarre would-be actors the networks stick in front of cameras pretending their behaviors and conversations are important to us
Most bizarre of all, to some of us they really are...
In a wave of controlled despair, I decided to look into the reality that is my own family. Ancestry blogsites abound. What I found was a real "reality show." Just like you can, I discovered some of the early roots to the family name. Seems to bubble up from the eastern Mediterranean over 1000 incredible years ago. Greek, Turkish, Armenian -- hard to be exact. But the name first appears in written history in 1058 AD in the Byzantine capitol of Constantinople, shortly before that city watched torrents of European Crusaders invade the nearby Holy Land.
So far, so good. I mean, why should I care about some hunky island survivor or ditsy housewife on a screen, when I can virtually touch my ancestral roots back to an age when knights, caliphs and emperors strode the world?
Just as you can, I dug deeper. The written record shows the Byzantine emperor Isaac Commenus bequeathed lands to the Spatafora family in one of his domains: The Kingdom of Sicily. There the Spatafora name [meaning to-bear-swords-in-public] prevailed over the next 50 centuries. Dukes and duchesses, saints and sinners, the name of villages and the label of vineyards. For extra flavor, I even learned that in the 19th C, Al Pacino's grandfather married a Spatafora from the fabled Sicilian town of Corleone; and in the 20th C, Hitler's munitions minister Albert Speer married off his son to a Princess Spatafora from the Sicilian city of Catania. Dad, who was born in Sicily in 1897, would have loved to have heard such stories!
But back to reality-television....
Tonight there stands before the glazed eyes of America yet another cacophonous cadenza of silliness, yet another slate of television misappropriating the notion of "reality." Oh but wait -- there's an antidote available. Find an ancestry blogsite on the Internet, and see if you too can excavate the long-lost majesty to your own name, your own past, your own familial reality. It's gotta be better than "The Housewives of New Jersey" or any of the other chintzy hunk-and-ditz programs. Please, tell me I'm right....!
Most bizarre of all, to some of us they really are...
In a wave of controlled despair, I decided to look into the reality that is my own family. Ancestry blogsites abound. What I found was a real "reality show." Just like you can, I discovered some of the early roots to the family name. Seems to bubble up from the eastern Mediterranean over 1000 incredible years ago. Greek, Turkish, Armenian -- hard to be exact. But the name first appears in written history in 1058 AD in the Byzantine capitol of Constantinople, shortly before that city watched torrents of European Crusaders invade the nearby Holy Land.
So far, so good. I mean, why should I care about some hunky island survivor or ditsy housewife on a screen, when I can virtually touch my ancestral roots back to an age when knights, caliphs and emperors strode the world?
Just as you can, I dug deeper. The written record shows the Byzantine emperor Isaac Commenus bequeathed lands to the Spatafora family in one of his domains: The Kingdom of Sicily. There the Spatafora name [meaning to-bear-swords-in-public] prevailed over the next 50 centuries. Dukes and duchesses, saints and sinners, the name of villages and the label of vineyards. For extra flavor, I even learned that in the 19th C, Al Pacino's grandfather married a Spatafora from the fabled Sicilian town of Corleone; and in the 20th C, Hitler's munitions minister Albert Speer married off his son to a Princess Spatafora from the Sicilian city of Catania. Dad, who was born in Sicily in 1897, would have loved to have heard such stories!
But back to reality-television....
Tonight there stands before the glazed eyes of America yet another cacophonous cadenza of silliness, yet another slate of television misappropriating the notion of "reality." Oh but wait -- there's an antidote available. Find an ancestry blogsite on the Internet, and see if you too can excavate the long-lost majesty to your own name, your own past, your own familial reality. It's gotta be better than "The Housewives of New Jersey" or any of the other chintzy hunk-and-ditz programs. Please, tell me I'm right....!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
THERE'S OSCAR, AH BUT THEN THERE'S JAMES
Four hundred minutes after the 2011 Oscars, I can't remember most of the names. But 400 years after the 1611 King James version of the Bible, millions of us can remember not only its names. Its passages. And especially its hopes. Such is the difference between the fleeting and the foundational.
The King James translation of the ancient texts was famously eloquent, a beautiful instrument for conveying the vision of the Biblical writers to the English-speaking peoples of the world. Not that Moses, Solomon and Jesus exactly spoke this way -- they didn't -- but what they did say was now imbued with a lofty lyric which has strummed the heart strings of 20 long generations.
Not only among the congregations in the pews, but among the legions of novelists whose own language has continued to be inspired and shaped by this 400-year-old lyric. To be sure, the fourth centennial will be different than the third. In 1911, the King James version was extolled by leading public figures like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as "America's national book, the text that more than any other has affected the life of the English-speaking societies of the world."
Since 1911, two enormous shifts have occurred. First, the Bible is no longer memorized and read aloud by students and public figures. Second, the King James is now accompanied by dozens of other translations, each more contemporary, yet each stylistically less stunning. Our language and faith have both suffered accordingly
In 201l, the English-speaking nations are perceptibly less focused on the things of heaven, and more on the things of earth. At least so it would appear in the emptier pews in Western Europe and even the United States. , The lyric proclaimed in the 400-year-old King James Bible has been in part drowned out by the multi-cultural, secular sounds of our more pragmatic times. Oscar can lure 40 million viewers on a single night; a televised Bible reading will not even make it to the networks.
And yet, the words of the original Biblical writers -- crazed or inspired, your choice! -- have never been out of print. And the King James version has never been surpassed within the borders of the English language. Matched perhaps by Shakespeare, but never surpassed.
And so it is for those new to James to ask themselves why it has outlived anything Oscar can hope to achieve. Could it be it actually IS the greatest story ever told? in the greatest lexicon ever penned? One struggles to find among our great scientists any who can explain the cosmos with greater power than: "And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day...."
The King James translation of the ancient texts was famously eloquent, a beautiful instrument for conveying the vision of the Biblical writers to the English-speaking peoples of the world. Not that Moses, Solomon and Jesus exactly spoke this way -- they didn't -- but what they did say was now imbued with a lofty lyric which has strummed the heart strings of 20 long generations.
Not only among the congregations in the pews, but among the legions of novelists whose own language has continued to be inspired and shaped by this 400-year-old lyric. To be sure, the fourth centennial will be different than the third. In 1911, the King James version was extolled by leading public figures like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as "America's national book, the text that more than any other has affected the life of the English-speaking societies of the world."
Since 1911, two enormous shifts have occurred. First, the Bible is no longer memorized and read aloud by students and public figures. Second, the King James is now accompanied by dozens of other translations, each more contemporary, yet each stylistically less stunning. Our language and faith have both suffered accordingly
In 201l, the English-speaking nations are perceptibly less focused on the things of heaven, and more on the things of earth. At least so it would appear in the emptier pews in Western Europe and even the United States. , The lyric proclaimed in the 400-year-old King James Bible has been in part drowned out by the multi-cultural, secular sounds of our more pragmatic times. Oscar can lure 40 million viewers on a single night; a televised Bible reading will not even make it to the networks.
And yet, the words of the original Biblical writers -- crazed or inspired, your choice! -- have never been out of print. And the King James version has never been surpassed within the borders of the English language. Matched perhaps by Shakespeare, but never surpassed.
And so it is for those new to James to ask themselves why it has outlived anything Oscar can hope to achieve. Could it be it actually IS the greatest story ever told? in the greatest lexicon ever penned? One struggles to find among our great scientists any who can explain the cosmos with greater power than: "And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day...."
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