How To Privilege Moments in History

Today I spoke with a friend who was present for President Obama's historic innauguration. His story about the enormity of his experience was remarkable to hear. And my friend - an older white man - spoke also about the need to be present when history is made, that that is what living is all about.

While I appreciate his sentiment about living life within the pulse of history - I think for many people the concept of being "present when history is made" sounds exclusive - as if it is the stuff of the lives of those who are privileged enough, or just plain lucky enough, to manage to be in the right place at the right time. Or to be a Forest Gump & accidentally stumble into historical moments. However - history is being made every minute of the day in every little corner of the world. It is true that our cultural ideology privileges historical events that can be photographed, filmed, dated precisely, documented and otherwise readily & neatly cataloged as the REAL stuff of history. The REAL important stuff of record.

And that's the key word - Record. But recorded history has - & always has had - blind spots. For example, for generations history textbooks have been written about the history of the world as if women didn't exist. Often as if NO minorites existed. History books have privileged the stuff of men, usually white - wars, politics, inventions, explorations etc. Tangible, recordable stuff. For generations history failed to look between the cracks of such bias at other important societal forces as work.

This has changed in recent years - finally. Textbooks are beginning to insert into the old narratives "new" information about the lives, experiences & contributions of women & minorities. Books are changing, curriculums are changing - but - in light of this man's comment to me today about life being lived by participating in historical events I thought - mmmmm - I wonder if his words, albeit unitentionally, still speak to a certain bias of thought. In other words, privileging the recordable. The tangible.

For many Americans, such as myself, the innauguration was something to be experienced electronically. We were not present. Our heads, our bodies did not help to create the mass of humanity now recorded by photographs and film, documenting the day for posterity. But we were still a part of the story. CNN.com reported that its circuits were overloaded during the innauguration. Well - guess what!? I helped to overload them! My contribution to the day!! I will not be able to tell my grandchildren about the day I stood in the cold to be present to usher in President Obama, but I can claim to have overtaxed CNN.com's resources - my historical story between the cracks of bias. Trying to watch an innauguration vie the internet instead of television - a first for many?

And what about people who took off from work (no small sacrifice today) to stay at home to watch the event on television? They were living their part of history as best they could in support of their new president. And . . . what about those who literally could not afford to take time off from work to watch or attend the innauguration lest more bills be left unpaid. Their un-able-to-watch situation is also part of the Obama innauguration story - Obama's historical moment in the midst of economic meltdown. For the un-able-to-watch folk this was a moment to be shared with fellow Obama supporters in spirit - "only?"

I do appreciate my friend's sentiment about the excitement of actually being THERE, in the moment. I once experienced a moment of privileged history myself - in the moment, in the place, in the presence of Nelson Mandela. And yes, it was a wonderful, unforgettable thing. But living is also about participating in any way you can. Making the effort to do so in the best way that you can is equally the living of life - in the cracks of properly recorded history - often the truest lived story behind the official story.

YEAR OF THE MELTDOWN

Happy New Year, everyone! Americans are famous for customary greetings that bear little relevance to events or context.  By all accounts, the New Year will be anything but happy. For some, 2009 will be called, “Year of the Ox.”  In my book, it should be called, “Year of the Meltdown” … in more ways than one.

The Economy
Since the first of the year, 100,000 job cuts have been announced including: 30,000 at Circuit City, 5,000 at Microsoft, 6,000 at Intel, 2,500 at United Airlines, 11,000 at General Electric, as examples.

According to Futurist.Com, our economic problems are "deep and structural and even cultural. It has to do with energy, with lifestyle, with the shape and form of what we build, and with global politics, and more."

In Florida, for example, our local supermarkets stock oranges from California and vegetables shipped from Chile, Mexico, and Peru.  Most of this produce is grown locally, transportable to market at little cost, and far cheaper than inferior store-bought varieties.  Yet, local growers are struggling or going out of business. Why? It seems chain stores favor a procurement model that ignores long distances, higher energy costs, inferior quality goods, and impacts on local economies. Hardly a model of efficiency, one would think.

James Howard Kunstler of Clusterfuck Nation says we should "prepare for the end of current global commerce as currently conducted, prepare psychologically to downscale, take a time out from immigration, prepare for a lot of paper “wealth” to disappear, prepare for a psychology of resentment."

America’s Defense Meltdown
Our country supports an annual defense budget of $600-700 billion and rising but gets less bang for the buck with each passing year.  We have the fewest number of navy combat ships, submarines, and combat aircraft, and the smallest number of personnel in uniform at any time since the end of World War II.  Why are we spending more and getting less?

According to Winslow Wheeler, "In Congress they're interested in jobs and campaign contributions. In the Pentagon they're interested in various political and bureaucratic agendas. They're not paying attention to the lessons of combat history … we should only fight when we truly have to fight rather than pursue agendas and political dogmas and help politicians posture as patriots."

Global Climate Change
In March of 2002, a giant ice sheet known as Larson B broke away from Antarctica and went adrift. According to global climate scientists, the Antarctic continent as a whole warmed at the same rate as the rest of planet.  Local conditions, however, are another matter of special concern:  The western peninsula warmed at a rate five times faster than the rest of Antarctica. Ice sheets such as Larson B hold back the glaciers behind them.  If they were to collapse completely, scientists say, the entire western ice shelf would fall into the ocean … resulting in a 16-foot rise in sea level.

In 2009, an even bigger chunk threatens to break away.  The Wilkins Ice shelf, roughly equal in size to the State of Connecticut, is literally “hanging by a thread” and “could go at any minute,” according to the latest observations.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science.  The Bush administration sought to further undermine public understanding of the issue by censoring the findings of climate scientists.  Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to influence the debate.

Apparently, a little propaganda money goes a long way.  This comment from a conservative blogger is representative of how public opinion is shaped by good ol’ boys:

CB (12-20-2008 at 9:35 AM): I am an outdoorsman and a conservationist. I support clean air, water, etc. What I object to is the leveraging of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas and not a pollutant, into anti-capitalist redistribution schemes.

... and some of my best friends are [fill-in the blank].   When a conservative blogger makes a statement like this, claiming to appreciate the outdoors while debunking climate science, it reminds me of a pedophile who says: “I like children.”

Shadows of the Indignant Desert Birds
There will always be shrill voices resistant to change. Public policy debates have an aspect of “advertising jingle” to them.  A catchy melody repeats endlessly on the radio over months and years, then plays continuously inside the head long after the product has disappeared from the store: “Its not how long you make it, its how you make it long.” Once firmly imprinted, it is difficult to reshape public opinion.

Or perhaps one can look at the issue of changing public opinion from the perspective of a psychotherapist whose client engages in reckless behaviors.  An addict clearly knows the risks of substance abuse but is unable to break the habit in emotional terms, such as a chain smoker who reaches for another cigarette after being told of dire health consequences.  Even when understood intellectually, it is hard to change old habits and perceptions.

For those of us who read scientific studies, the data may seem compelling, but how do we convince others who don’t study graphs and maps, who listen only to long imprinted jingles?

And then there are lobbyists trying to protect their dirty franchises. They would have us focus attention, not on the data points clustered around a trend line, but on the statistical outliers … the confounding dodge and feint.  Once imprinted, only a catastrophe will change minds.

There will always be voices from a bygone era still hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are difficult at best. We can understand these quirks of human nature with all due patience, but we are running out of time, and there is little wiggle room left.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I hope he fails

I've called him all kinds of names, from Limpboy to liar to Rush the magic blowhard. This time Rush Limbaugh has left me at a loss for a proper pejorative. I guess that puts me in the drivers' seat as a "driveby journalist" but when I listen to him this time, listen to him saying he hopes Barak Obama fails as president, hopes the "liberalism" he represents fails and pretends it's all about the kinds of people Obama appoints, the decisions he makes, I can only descend into obscenity.

He blames Obama, he says, for a policy that includes massive bailouts and the nationalization of the private sector. I shouldn't have to point out the distortion or the irony. The "Liberals" he says, were out to get Bush even before Bush ruined the world so it's fair, even though Bush and his fake war were supported massively by such straw men as the New York Times, even though the economic policies Rush supports have failed consistently for 30 years.

Hoping Obama succeeds is "affirmative action," it's "supporting incompetence," it's advocating "socialism." He's the "last man standing" says he, but it's all about a better America for his nieces and nephews. I wish he were the last man standing -- against the wall, because if Obama fails to undo what people like Rush and the pirates and buccaneers he supports have done, the country will only be worth living in for the heirs of plutocratic bloviators and the world will be in ruins. If Obama fails, we all fail.

Was anyone ever so thoroughly dishonest, completely reprehensible? Perhaps yes. Did anyone ever make so much money at it, maybe not. Behold the man who hopes you lose your job and your home because it offends hisReaganoid ideology. Here's the man who avoided the draft because his anus was sore, here's the man who tries to pin a drug charge on his housekeeper. Here's his 51,000 square foot home on the Atlantic ocean in Palm beach where he sits in the sun and complains about being a victim. You bought it for him, because you hate America, because you hate justice, because you're a coward, because you think bigotry is cute, because you're afraid someone will pull the rug out from under your miserable life if you don't side with the people who kidnapped America and held it for ransom.

Our country faces a world economic crisis as dangerous as anything we have faced. You and I are more likely to lose everything we have than at any time in the last 80 years; Rush isn't. In fact the worse it gets, and as he says, he hopes it will, the more material he has and the more support he will get from those who insist we need more of what Reagan and the two Bush's gave us.

If Obama succeeds, if we succeed in turning around the economy, stopping the biggest incursions on personal liberty in our history and in extricating ourselves from the war Bush started for his own reasons, Limbaugh will become as embarrassing and repugnant as the equally popular Father Coughlin did in the 1930's when it became obvious that his policies were indistinguishable from Hitler's. It can happen. We can be rid of him. Yes we can.

This land was made for you and me.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."

-Barak H. Obama, 1/20/2009-

And isn't it time someone affirmed that fact? In a country that still, in many states, requires religious belief as a test for office; in a country where accepting Jesus of Nazareth as a savior as a requirement for public office is on the books in at least one state, isn't it time our leaders stood up for the freedom of religion we have been promised?

Cherche la slime

There is a broad and thick trail of slime following Mr. Cheney out of Washington and indeed if we could follow that trail, history could actually reflect what happened over the last 8 years, but sadly, Cheney seems to have succeeded in establishing a separate agency, outside the executive branch but funded by it, that is as invisible, yet as massive as the dark matter physicists are in love with these days. In short, the evidence that might foster indictments has disappeared, some reported destroyed. Of what remains, only that which Cheney allows to be viewed by posterity will be released. Cheney and Bush may have left behind a Temple of History as filled with booby traps, poison arrows, rolling boulders and pits of quicksand that no future historian, with or without fedora and bullwhip can penetrate.

District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a US District Judge often sympathetic to the legal arguments of the junta, has written a 63-page opinion stating that:

"Congress drastically limited the scope of outside inquiries related to the vice president's handling of his own records during his term in office."

In other words, the National Archive will no longer be able to determine what's important to keep of the records not yet shredded or destroyed. Dick Cheney's legacy will be what he wants it to be, not what it is, and in the language of Tense Logic: p→GPp “What is, will always have been.”

Why Respond to Disrespectful, Non-Serious Comments?

When we receive posts obviously written by those who don't mean us well, why not just ignore them rather than respond? A blog isn’t an invitation for others to call the blog’s authors names or write flippant, disrespectful comments. Differences of opinion are fine, but it’s clear that somebody who posts a comment merely to call a poster names isn’t trying to advance an intelligent viewpoint. If you respond, you’re doing exactly what they want you to do. Please ignore them. I don't even bother reading comments written by people with trollish handles -- it saves me time and spares me annoyance.

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL!

Much of the country is experiencing frigid, record breaking cold and the eastern US is especially hard hit. Watching the news, it seems Northerners pretty much take this in stride, but for those of us south of the Mason/ Dixon, this kind of weather is a real shock.

My water pipes partially froze last night and we were downn the single digits. I can’t remember the last time it was this cold here. The only saving grace this morning is that the sun is out and we aren’t expecting precipitation until Sunday. Which is a good thing since a couple of inches of snow usually means the highway gets closed. Of course, if Sunday’s rain turns ice, then we can listen on the scanner to the demolition derby on the surface streets.

These fountains in Myrtle Beach, SC and Atlanta, GA. respectively are testaments to the fact that is as cold as (_______________________) fill in your own comparison. Just the fact that these two fountains were running at the time they froze testifies to the fact that this weather is indeed a rarity in these parts.

We have two beagle type dogs who are “outside” dogs, mostly because they came as adult strays and were never housebroken. Last night, we laid down newspaper in the mudroom, threw down an old blanket and brought them in for the night. Amazingly they waited to “toilet” until they went back outside this morning.

We’ve been filling the bird feeder three times a day and I’m not sure if the birds or the squirrels are getting the most of it, but, hey, they all want to live. We also have woodpeckers here so we put out suet for them.

I have to go out today. I don’t want to, I’d rather stay here in my cozy little hobbit house with the woodstove crackling and cranking out all sorts of heat, but I have to. I have put off grocery shopping for several days, hoping for a rise in the temperature. Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I guess I’ll search the attic and other nooks and crannies for a pair of gloves, a scarf and a hat. Then I’ll use the remote start for my car to warm it up before I go out…

I’m sure anyone up North will read this and laugh at my whimpiness, but I hate the cold!

Poor George

My jaw has been dropping often enough that I've got bruises. After getting over Frist's announcement that Bush has left the world a better place than when he oozed into office, I find that all the major failures of his administration were things, like his personal fortune, he inherited: or so says Fox News.

Bush inherited the 9/11 attack. Bush inherited a recession and the tough times on Wall Street, according to Martha MacCallum and Wendell Goler. Either they deserve the Nobel Prize for physics for having invented a Causality Reversal Time Machine -- or a week in the pillory. I'm sure they'll get neither.

Isn't it interesting how Bush can be given credit for turning around the recession they blame Clinton for, while all the while they claimed there was no recession, but that the "libs" were simply talking down the thriving economy? Interesting, of course is my polite way of combining words like fraud, deceit and lie.

Isn't it interesting that Bush chose to do nothing about terrorism, to essentially disband all investigations into terrorism and ignore direct warnings about terrorism; isn't it interesting that he did inherit the USS Cole attack and did essentially nothing; isn't it interesting that Fox can run it through the Roger Ailes Reversotron and blame this on Clinton, whom they attacked for attempting to retaliate against al Qaeda with cries of "wag the dog?" Interesting indeed.

Far more than interesting though, is the question of how and why Fox continues to produce propaganda for the small minority of people who still think W & C0. are victims. I think the answer may well be found by asking ourselves: whom do the lies benefit and who can afford to produce and distribute them?

The healer

"A man can smile and smile and be a villain" or at least he can heap praise on one. That Mussolini made the trains run on time has become a metaphor for the practice of singling out certain isolated actions of an otherwise un-praiseworthy person in order to dismiss any clear view of the whole man.

That particular kind of smile is visible on the face of Bill Frist as he tries to portray our outgoing president as a savior of millions. George Bush is a healer, he says. I know, but be careful that nothing flies into your mouth while it gapes in amazement. No, he's not talking about the hundreds of millions of lives, perhaps billions of lives affected by his economic policies nor the uncounted lives of Iraqi civilians who he has killed or maimed, the millions exiled, the millions forced into fear and abject squalor, he's talking about the lives he's saved in Africa.

While millions have been hacked to pieces, raped, dismembered and starved in Africa without any interference by the United States of America, Bush has none the less committed 15 billion dollars to fight AIDS, according to smiling Bill Frist. Some, of course question the accounting and questionable accounting is the most visible Bush family trait as has been demonstrated. No mention makes Frist of any number of lives that might have been saved by advocating condoms to prevent infections because that, of course, would offend the Christian Right. God, after all, provides sinners so that we can be saintly in our condescension and preventing the infections just gets in the way of God's plan.

Frist has the nerve to continue on and on about how Bush has done wonders for education and health care and I'm sure it's not that he's a damn liar or that he lives on another planet that he doesn't realize that Bush failures in these departments contributed heavily to the fact that Frist is no longer the Majority Leader. That Bush and Frist and their party of God are saintly men, misjudged by sinners and Liberals, is an article of faith for Republicans but they're no different than other men. It's just that faith makes liars of us all.

UNPACKING A PACK OF PICKLED BANKERS

Shocking! The announced breakup of CitiGroup, I mean.  Once the largest bank in the world with trillions of dollars in assets under management, this once mighty giant is splitting in two.

In my previous reincarnation, Citi was my venture capitalist and single most important client, whose Board-of-Directors commissioned films, time-critical financial reports, and computer-simulated decision models from your humble servant, (O)CT(O)PUS.  Mentored by the legendary Walter Wriston, my relationship with Citi continued through the chairmanship of John Reed.

The break up of Citi marks the passing of an era, and my metamorphosis from human to cephalopod is now complete.

So here is the joke:

Two women were walking through a forest when they hear a voice.  Investigating, the women discover the voice coming from a frog.

"Help me, ladies!” begs the frog.  “I am an investment banker who has been cursed by an evil witch.  If one of you will kiss me, I'll return to my former state!"

The first woman grabs the frog and stuffs it in her handbag.  The second woman, aghast, says, "Didn't you hear him?  If you kiss him, he'll turn back into an investment banker."

The second woman replies, "Sure, but these days a talking frog is worth more than an investment banker!"