Integral Journeys for Pilgrims, Poets, Fools and Saints

Connecticut's Best and Brightest?

2010-08-01T12:49:00.005-04:00

The folks who would like to replace Governor Rell and Senator Dodd in order to change Hartford and Washington DC share a common problem. Each offers some version of "business as usual" to connect his or her opponent to the respective dysfunctional cultures of state and national government and then engages what any voter who can read without moving his or her lips can see as "campaigning as usual."

Each candidate selects from a common menu: quoting opponents out of context, tinting opponents' least flattering photos for an evil, unattractive image (oooh, clever!) sharing partial truths, and making it clear that the opponent engages negative campaigning and tells lies. The Foley and Fedele campaigns are so similar their respective contents could be exchanged and the ads would work—and that’s true of the Molloy and Lamont campaigns as well. Oh, and just when it seemed the McMahon campaign might be refreshingly above the fray, their one-issue postcard attack on someone who’s not officially their opponent yet arrives.

These change agents are homogenous and blind to their homogeneity. Despite superficial differences in content, we can hear the same conventional, two-party, political voice speaking through each of them. They’re doing and saying what candidates always do and say—in the name of change. They may be decent parents and potentially harmless outside of their political ambitions—and apparently good at something that makes them money as well, but if their campaigns do represent them, they are either painfully unaware of the idiocy embodied therein, or they’re aware and are unable, unwilling or unequipped to let that idiocy go. If their campaigns don’t represent them, well, I don’t even know how to finish that thought in a few words.

We’ve needed a “none of the above” selection on the ballot for decades, which allows voters to exercise what is both an obligation and a privilege, while not being reduced to voting for the least dislikeable candidate. The current batch of Connecticut candidates are poster children for that selection. To quote the former First Lady, “Just say no.”

What Do You Call It When...

2010-02-26T09:13:00.002-05:00

. . . a government . . .

. . . agrees to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of money it doesn't actually have, and end thousands of lives to attack a country that is thousands of miles away, after supporting the country's dictator for years . . .
. . . then publicly changes its rationale for the attack each time a previous rationale is discredited . . .
. . . agrees to spend hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn't actually have to bail out financial institutions that are in trouble because of their own mismanagement and greed, and automobile manufacturers whose shortsightedness and poor quality rendered them unable to compete on their own...
. . . is dominated by two political parties, which, despite their at times very real philosophical and policy differences, behave with exactly the same level of stagnating partisanship and schoolyard-bully idiocy when they hold a majority in the legislature . . .
. . . whose elected and appointed officials have access to what is arguably one of the best healthcare plans on the planet, are categorically unable, over almost half a century, to provide even barely adequate healthcare opportunities for tens of millions of their constituents, and explain away this historical failure by pointing their fingers at the other political party . . .

For starters, it's a shame, and it's actually very complex. Most of our government officials and the media who report on them are in so far over their heads, and know so little about their own conditioned biases, that it takes a strong desire and a lot of work just to find out and understand what is actually going on--locally, nationally and globally.

Many of these folks are well-intentioned and honest, within the limitations of what their respective amusement park admission tickets allow them to experience and talk about. But until they realize that the horses they ride just go up and down as the carousel goes round and round, they are nothing more than Thomas Merton's "anonymous authority of the collectvity" speaking through the masks of government and journalism at their respective worsts.

Of course, this is true for all of us, but the politicians, journalists and pundits speak through powerful media as voices of authority, or, at least, truthfulness, and that comes with some responsibility.

I'm waiting to hear one or more of these folks say something like, "This is amazingly complex, and right now I don't have the solution to it. And I don't know anyone who does. But trust, that finding and implementing the best solution, or even a good solution, is the driving passion that fills my waking hours and my dreams."

We need leaders who work to uncover truth, and then speak truthfully. And then act with integrity.

Rethink Afghanistan

2009-10-31T10:42:00.005-04:00

Robert Greenwald's Rethink Afghanistan is appropriately named. Not "Abandon," or "Destroy," or "Remove the Taliban From" or "Liberate," but "Rethink."

US veterans of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, former CIA agents, current Afghani men and women, former Soviet military leaders who were defeated in Afghanistan, and others paint a bleak picture for any chance of military success.

The documentary clarifies the identities and missions of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and raises some serious questions and offers some prospective answers to the most effective approaches for combatting terrorists, if, in fact, that is the purpose for our presence in Afghanistan and around the world.

The documentary is available online in 6 segments, approximately 12 minutes each, and also as a DVD.

Highly recommended if (re)thinking is something you find valuable.

What You Don't Do

2009-10-16T14:40:00.002-04:00

You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind.

You don't pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger.

You don't harass John Rambo as he walks into town.

You don't get better, good, personal or even intelligent service from Wells Fargo Bank just because they got $25,000,000,000.00 in TARP funds.

And for Josh's supervisor at Wells Fargo Mortgage, you don't get a raised seal on an Executor Appointment Letter when it comes through a FAX machine.

You don't necessarily get an education just because you get a degree.

Assholian Resistance

2009-08-20T08:58:00.009-04:00

My sister, Anne Marie, passed away on March 17, 2009 at the age of 55. Her death was unexpected, and a long backstory preceded it (as is true for any death).

A good friend and fellow poet/multi-genre artist, Mar Walker, has honored Anne Marie online at the following sites:

Memorial Blog
Poetry Performance
Quilts

My own writing and reflections around Anne Marie's death are still emerging and very raw. Most of my energy after her burial has been directed toward settling her estate, which is a eufemism for dealing with vendors, creditors and attorneys.

My euphemistic partners include New York State Electric and Gas, Citibank, American Express, Macys, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, State Farm, the IRS, the New York State Police, the Westchester County Medical Examiner, the New York State DMV, Franklin-Templeton, TIAA-CREF, West Asset Management and Verizon, among others.

While my sister died in some debt, and creditors have every right to recover what is theirs, the diverse levels of competence, compassion, reason, and systemic chaos within high-tech, low-consciousness bureaucratic infrastructures, while not surprising, ranges from very frustrating to absolutely infuriating as I go about my executor's "due diligence."

If you were to guess and rate the above institutions from lowest to highest in terms of competence, compassion and reason, what might your ratings be?

I will have much more to say about this in coming months, and, probably years. For now, my top three experiences have been with the New York State Police, TIAA-CREF, and the NYS DMV. The IRS did a slow, methodical and competent job as well.

My own personal work (i.e. my ongoing development) continues to manifest through this process as I attempt to hold the perspectives of the individuals on the other phones, who are doing as they are told in order to do and keep a job--a position for which I have both empathy and compassion, even as they misplace files, ask for the third time for a death certificate, or having received it, continue to write to my sister, five months after being notified of her death, opening with, "We do not understand your reluctance to pay your balance" (Allied Interstate on behalf of Verizon Wireless, August 6, 2009).

"Well, shit. I'm sorry. Everything seems harder since I died on St. Patrick's Day. And the mail service, nevermind the internet connection, is just horrible inside this box below the earth on top of my mother and next to my father. I will do my best to overcome my reluctance. In the meantime, I hope that the $88.97 I owe does not force you to lose any ring tones or permanently end your calls."

I'm pleased to say that while I thought of this response, I didn't write it or pick up the phone (although I came verwy, verwy cwose). My inner asshole has only emerged and dominated two of quite a few challenging conversations, and as unevolved as this may sound, in both cases the recipient got 1) what he deserved and 2) off easy.

But I'm striving to stay conscious and keep the assholian episodes to a minimum--all the while seeing myself with more and more clarity and honoring the joy and sorrow that such clarity brings.

I feel lucky to have Marianela (and some great friends) in my life through this. She sees me at my best and worst and still loves me. Even more impressive: she still likes me. Thanks, esposa.

Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to Lyman Bostock

2009-03-27T18:55:00.002-04:00

[I wrote this on the morning of March 17, 2009, and did not get to edit it until today. While some AIG bonuses have been returned since then, the essence of what’s below will remain relevant for a long time].

When Lyman Bostock began the 1978 season with the California Angels, he perhaps tried too hard to live up to his 2.7-million dollar, 5-year contract—a huge number back then—and batted .150 during the month of April—about half the average that had earned him the salary. What he did next was unprecedented: he offered to give back his April salary to Angels’ owner, Gene Autry, because “If I can't play up to my capabilities, I don't want to get paid for it.” When Autry refused, Bostock donated his month’s wages to charity.

By mid-September of that season, he had raised his average to .296. He was tragically murdered in a case of mistaken identity on September 23, 1978.

Missing from the debates and dialogues around the AIG bailout bonuses are the cognitive, moral and ethical worldviews of the men and women who receive our money. It is easy and perhaps appropriate to vilify the faces of Treasury; it is expected that the right will point to the newly arrived administration and the left will point to the departed; and it is both fair and predictable that AIG’s new leadership remind us that we are a nation based on law, bonus contracts fall under the law, and governmental interference with those contracts would create a dangerous precedent at the very least.

Law emerges due to the moral reasoning and ethical values of a given culture, and by definition is at best a step or two behind the leading edge of ethical reform: prior to 1865, the law allowed slavery; prior to 1920, the law prevented women from voting; and right now the law is wrangling over whether sexual orientation is a valid basis for conveying or denying specific civil rights.

Law evolves as humans evolve through ever-more-inclusive worldviews—from ego-centric (it’s about me); to ethno- or group-centric (it’s about us, where “us” may be family, gang, company, union, industry, religion, nation, etc.); to world-centric (it’s about all of us on the planet); to universal or everything-centric (it’s about the universe/creation). Folks who hold those self- or group-centric worldviews, often quite literally cannot see beyond themselves or their groups, and are primarily interested in how the law affects them as individuals or groups. The dynamic is actually more textured and less linear than this depiction, but you get the point.

Add to this the basic developmental truth that cognitive development is essential, but not sufficient, for moral development (e.g. Hitler, Madoff, et al.), and we get “brilliant” minds who commit horrible acts in order to further an individual or group agenda—not to equate those two men, but rather to show the diverse guises cognition can take when governed by moral stagnation.

Beyond the useful and valid essence of contract law lies the ethical dilemma created when taxes collected across a broad spectrum of millions of competent workers making five-figure annual salaries, or who were making five-figures before they were laid off, are transferred to a few thousand individuals whose incompetence and/or carelessness is clear, and many of whom will receive five-, six- and seven-figure bonuses, in additional to their five-, six- and seven-figure salaries.

What accounts for the distinctly different worldviews of Mr. Bostock thirty-one years ago, and those who would dispense and keep the bonuses in question here in 2009 is an overdetermined mix of individual and cultural values, beliefs and behaviors arising within and causing to arise the intricate infrastructure of the 21st-century planet: it’s complex.

The “right thing,” like beauty, is in the eye of the ego-, group-, world-, or universe-centric worldview. Right leadership, however, needs to act from the most evolved worldview available in order to serve the broadest spectrum of constituents. Those at AIG do not hold the most evolved view available and they are not the broadest spectrum of constituents. Even now, those who are returning some of the bonuses do so in response to an outraged populace. Lyman Bostock responded to something inside of himself.

Long Time, No Nothing

2009-03-21T11:38:00.001-04:00

Changes unfolding.

Stay tuned.

Obama or McCain? Myth, Reason and Context

2008-10-27T16:59:00.009-04:00

Victimization in the Greatest Country on Earth

In undue fairness to George W. Bush, the United States of America began its downward slide to second-rate (that may be generous) nation status a good number of years before he took office. As a president with no vision, manipulated by the authors of the Project for the New American Century—portions of which became the essence of his National Defense Strategy, oblivious to the unmistakable directionality of an evolving humanity, and with an ignorant arrogance common, but not universal, among those born into privilege, he simply accelerated, exacerbated and guaranteed the slide. The difficulties he faced in his family of origin notwithstanding—he had both privilege and pressure, he’s responsible for a lot and his lot: he ran for President, won twice, and found himself in way over his head, a poster boy for Robert Kegan’s research and book.

Some folks still embrace the idea that this country is the “greatest country on earth,” and not without good reason. I’m glad I was born here, grateful for what came with that birth—and despite its imperfections, still believe in the possibilities of this democracy. While the evidence is in that in specific areas like education, national emergency management, healthcare and national security we do not hold “first-rate” status, most people I know, Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian and Independent, are, in fact “pro-American,” and despite their disagreements on large and small issues, are happy to be here. Caveat: there are lots of people that I don’t know.

Other folks suffer a frightening, visceral, negative reaction when they hear or read that “greatest nation” idea, also not without good reason. I’ve been embarrassed by and lots of people have suffered at the hands of our elected officials: national security lapses leading up to September 11, 2001, essentially unilateral pre-emptive war in Iraq, the inability to respond to Hurricane Katrina, voter disenfranchisement, incomprehensible national debt, growing trade deficit, and the current unraveling of economy (along with the socialized rescue plan by the very government whose debt is incomprehensible, and which would never socialize healthcare—more on this below) would seem to indicate that “greatest” may be a bit hyperbolic. These folks, whether Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian or Independent, tend to feel victimized and tend to blame the other party(ies) for their woes.

As we prepare to elect the person who is foolish or brave enough to take over this mess, and if we are willing to listen carefully as we prepare, we can hear a not-so-subtle message of “American-citizen-as-victim” pervading the candidates’ statements—John McCain began the third debate with this language, and Sarah Palin bludgeoned us with it throughout the vice presidential debate, the news reports, and the pundits’ opinions: the average American is a victim of corporate greed; the banks and Wall Street are the victims (creators too?) of the economic unraveling; Democrats are the victims of eight years of this Republican administration (as are many Republicans, according to John McCain and Sarah Palin); and all of us are the victims of too much government intervention in our lives (but so many of us now clamor for government intervention to end this).

Some hard-working, honest, intelligent and good people have fallen victim (i.e. suffered through no fault of their own and due to the negligence, incompetence or dishonesty of some individual or group), and have every right to feel wronged. But here’s the problem: inherent in accepting and playing the role of victim is the belief that some authority figure somewhere is going to save you and make things right—regardless of who or what that figure is. This is a child’s, and not an adult’s worldview. Children are often literally powerless in the world that adults give them, and they have the right to trust that the adults who made the mess will also clean it up. Chronological adults who are still waiting for the government or God to fix everything are simply contributing to the mess.

More to the point, I believe in both government and God, but before any reader can understand what I mean by this, he or she has to understand how I hold my belief, and what I mean by those two “g-words.” Despite attempts to use “socialism” as a scare word during the current campaign, any government, regardless of its technical identity, has a socialistic component. Government—our elected officials and those appointed by them—are charged with doing for the people what it doesn’t make sense for, or what would be impossible for, individuals to do for themselves. Interstate highways systems and the military come to mind as two examples, among many, that are socialized in the United States. The people give money to the government through taxes, albeit begrudgingly, and everyone gets to drive on the interstates that get built, and be protected by the armed forces. We call this infrastructure and national defense; when we attempt to provide a similar system for healthcare, opponents call it socialism, as though it’s a bad thing. Every functional family and community I know of is socialistic in some areas, and capitalistic in others. Regarding the other “g-word,” that’s an exposition for another posting.

Conservative/Regressive – Liberal/Progressive: What’s a Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, Green or Independent to Do?

Okay, quick overview of how I’ll use those first four words, and done well, I’ll alienate almost anyone who overly identifies with any one of them. To be conservative is to desire and/or act in a way that attempts to keep things consistent—with the comfort of familiarity and the safety of predictability—the way things are, the way they have been, and the way we want them to stay. To be regressive is to desire a return to the way things used to be—inevitably in a way that serves fewer people well. To be liberal is to desire and/or act in a way that attempts to liberate us from the status quo—the way things are, and attempt to improve things. To be progressive is to liberate in such a way that history proves the liberation did, in fact, improve things.

Of course, these brief definitions do not get into the nuances of the words. One can be liberal and/or conservative depending on the issue (e.g. a social liberal and fiscal conservative). Both “liberal” and “conservative” have mythic dimensions to them, and are used by the “other” as the worst possible insult (e.g. “bleeding heart” or “tax and spend” liberal). Readers are invited to apply the definitions above to their issues of choice. I don’t use either word as an insult.

Thesis: if we’re honest, in varying degrees, each of us is conservative, and each of us is liberal on a variety of issues, and we define conservatism and liberalism based on how we value things from our unique worldview: the moderate/modern Democrat or Republican is too liberal from the traditional Republican perspective and too conservative from the postmodern Democratic perspective. The labels have relevance only in the context of the worldview of the person using them. Neither hard-core conservatives nor hard-core liberals can see this. Those italicized words don’t come from some middle point between conservatism and liberalism, but from a emerging integral process-perspective that has transcended them both while including the essential (not stereotypical) value of each.

A difficult truth for conservatism (trust that the difficulties for liberalism are in the next paragraph): in most cases, the conservative agenda of today is the liberal agenda of yesteryear. Disagree? In the 1700’s liberal North American colonists from Great Britain attempted to liberate themselves from the status quo rule of England. We now call this the American Revolution, and those left-wing, pro-freedom-of-religion crazies (among other issues on their table), our “Founding Fathers.” In the years leading up to 1920, the liberal agenda fought for women’s suffrage—attempting to liberate women from the status quo that denied them the right to vote, while conservatives tried to keep things the way they were—woman should not vote. In the early 1960s, liberals attempted to pass and succeeded at passing the Civil Rights Act, while conservatives opposed it. Do any conservatives today oppose the core results of these three issues in the 21st-Century U.S.A.? That’s a question for another posting.

A difficult truth for liberalism (as promised): not all attempts to “liberate” are, in fact, progressive (i.e. a historically borne-out improvement on the way things were—as were the three examples in the above paragraph). Try this one on: the English, Spanish and Portuguese explorers, among others, who decided to colonize what we now call North, Central and South America, attempted to liberate—sometimes with prayer and sometimes with dismemberment, rape and slaughter—the native peoples from their “savage” and “pagan” ways. The colonizers believed that their national and religious myths were more advanced than what they perceived as the magic beliefs of the civilizations and tribes they encountered here. While the language gets slippery here, 20th- and 21st-century attempts to impose what both Democrats and Republicans call “liberal democracy” on Vietnam and Iraq by liberating the Vietnamese from Communism and the Iraqis from secular dictatorship and theocratic tribalism have resulted in lots and lots of dead people on all sides, but mostly on the sides of the alleged beneficiaries of the liberations.

In fairness to some liberals, not everyone who is called a liberal is, in fact, one. During the protests against the Vietnam war, while some of the protestors were, in fact, progressive, and attempting to “liberate” the U.S. government from it’s fear-based attempt to spread democracy and self-determination at gunpoint, many were in fact, not even conservative—not trying to maintain the status quo and keep what works, but rather, were simply self-centered pre-adolescents (regardless of chronological age) who said to their government, “you can’t tell me what to do.” That’s not liberalism or conservatism. That’s immature, impulsive, opportunistic whining based in a pre-mythic, magical worldview.

History bears this out: neither conservatism nor liberalism always gets it right (duh), but when liberalism gets it right, some years or decades or centuries later, conservatism is trying to protect and keep it safe, whatever “it” is. True progress, real development, that which stands the test of time (as do those far out ideals like racial and gender equity), is directional, evolutionary (gulp), and ongoing—the Big Bang is still banging and Creation is still creating. We (i.e. life on earth) are a creative process that didn’t take a nanosecond and end some 13.6 billion years ago, or take six days and end ____ years ago (fill it in if you dare, but don’t let your local geologist, archeologist or cosmologist see it).

Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed did their respective things centuries before “modern,” “rational,” “scientific” worldviews emerged, and reason transcended and included myth. Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, et al. all did their things before the interpretative, contextual postmodern perspectives emerged and exposed modernity’s own “myth of the given,” both transcending and including the great gifts that modernity brought. And right now, postmodernity’s own flaws (and gifts) are dancing within the illuminating spotlight of an emerging integral perspective that is able to see, understand and appreciate the “dignities and disasters” of each of these and other preceding worldviews—all the while knowing it will be transcended and included by the next emergent worldview.

For those of you who are offended by the religious allusions above, the odds are that you’ve confused the mythic level (stage) of religious belief with religion itself. Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris make some good arguments, many of which are essential and with which I agree. Each of them mistakes mythical worldviews on religion and spirituality with religion and spirituality themselves. Ken Wilber calls this a level/line fallacy—confusing a single developmental level of something (in this case, religious belief) with the entire line or category (religion). To use an oversimplified example from the Judeo-Christian tradition, the mythic level of belief reads the Bible as a literally true story. Modern and postmodern levels of belief read the same stories as parables: metaphor and allegory.

Regardless of labels, humans have grown, are growing and do grow toward increasingly more complex and inclusive worldviews. If you doubt that, and just as one, simple, significant and somewhat superficial (in the big picture) example, look at the skin pigmentations and genders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives today, and contrast them with those same two characteristics forty years ago. And that’s just the growth in forty years. Trace it back on a global scale 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years and more, and take a look at the ongoing liberation from limited, self- and ethno- centric ways of being.

Cut to the Chase: Obama or McCain? Myth, Reason and Context

With good reason, the economy has everyone’s attention right now. Some of us (that’s “us” as in U.S. citizens regardless of political party) will vote based on where we think we’ll get the best tax status, healthcare, job or educational opportunities. In other words, what’s best for me and my family right now? Some of us will vote on military issues, especially, but not only concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (realizing that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent there and on the consequent medical and psychological care (when the latter is provided) of tens of thousands of maimed and traumatized veterans is money that will not be available to create jobs, educate children, repair infrastructure, etc.). Some of us will vote based on where we think the country will be led in relation to local, national and international/planetary issues by the new President—including, but not limited to, the economy.

None of these reasons for voting is right or wrong, but each is different from the other, and as stated above move from less complex and inclusive to more complex and inclusive. The first wants to know what’s in it for “me,” especially right now, financially—self-centered and short term, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, especially when that “me” is suffering and struggling. The second is taking a slightly larger look, seeing how one type of spending actually puts lives at risk around the world, and takes money away from other domestic issues. The third takes in a longer term, larger, and ultimately more complex view. Here’s the difficulty: it makes sense to take care of oneself and those closest to you; sometimes the best way to do that is to pay more attention to the bigger picture—how everyone fares, and for how long. Not everyone is able to do this—to make this leap.

All right, here’s the apologia—the context-provider. I’m a second generation New York (now living in Connecticut), Catholic Italian-American, heterosexual male, which, for good or ill, qualifies me in some circles as a “white guy.” I’m married to (gulp) an immigrant (i.e. someone who did what my grandparents did, but from the Dominican Republic rather than from Italy, and like them, came here with no English), who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, who votes, and who earned her Associate’s, Bachelor’s Master’s and Doctoral degrees since 1997—reading, writing and speaking her second language, English, throughout this educational process. She, her parents, and her siblings have very different perspectives than many U.S. citizens on the Spanish decimation of the native Taíno culture in the Caribbean after Columbus arrived, and of the two 20th-century U.S. military invasions of the Dominican Republic (kind of like how U.S. citizens feel about Pearl Harbor and September 11). Her post-Columbus ancestors were a mix of African slaves, Spanish colonizers and Native Taínos.

What I’m getting at here is that despite the tricky camera work and careful selection of mainstage performers, the vast majority of folks accusing Barack Obama of befriending a terrorist, using his middle name to instill fear in the hearts of those who are old enough to vote but incapable of critical thought, and agreeing with select Republicans that conservative U.S. citizens are pro-American and progressive citizens are something other than that, are white, conservative, Christian and scared. I know. I know. You’re reading this, you support McCain-Palin and you’re not those three things: read the sentence again, especially the parts about “vast majority” and “critical thought.” It's not that there are no white guys (like me) supporting Obama—there are plenty, it's that there are very, very, very few brown, black and yellow faces in those crowds screaming with glee when McCain-Palin supporters smear Obama with deliberately misleading allusions to his middle name, absolute lies about his religious background (all the more despicable because the lies suggest that something would be wrong were he a Muslim and not a Christian), and his ties to a guy who protested U.S. policy when Obama was eight years old.

The species is evolving. Granted, our technology is evolving faster than our moral, values and ethical development, so it’s possible (and common) for tribal, ethnocentric and nationalistic hooligans to get their hands on sophisticated tools of destruction and create lots of suffering—whether those tools are machetes, handguns, automatic weapons, atomic bombs, jet planes, or water, dogs, electrical wires, hoods, humiliation and fear (in the presence of a digital camera).

The current president joked to his “base”—which he described as the “haves and have mores,” on camera, at a white-tie fundraiser, about not being able to find those WMDs. John McCain joked, upon hearing himself say the words, “bomb Iran” in an attempt to parody the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”—bomb, bomb, bomb—bomb bomb Iran. And while I still think Bill Clinton needs a boot in the ass for his arrogantly stupid sexual exploits in the Oval Office, allowing his opponents to make that idiocy the focal point of much of his second term, if I had to choose between the next president having inappropriate oral sex in the Oval Office or joking publicly about issues the essence of which is killing and maiming men, women and children, as both George W. Bush and John McCain have done, I prefer that the leader of the free world practice sexual rather than slaughter idiocy. Neither, of course, would be best.

Barack Obama grasps and speaks about a much more complex and inclusive America and world than does John McCain. The straight-talk, Maverick, Main Street, folksy approach is alluring, but nostalgic at best. Some people who voted for the current president said they felt he was the type of guy they could sit down and have a beer with, and that’s fine. My guess is that I might enjoy the beer with George as long as the conversation stayed away from politics and he has no authority over anything outside his family.

The good ol’ boy from CT and TX is a swaggering, straight-talking, no-nonsense, right-and- wrong, good-and-evil kinda guy—a complete stranger to complexity, nuance and any real practice of inclusion—despite his own upbringing, one in which he himself was often excluded. What has happened in and to the United States on his watch is staggering. Arrogant in good times, lost and inarticulate under pressure in bad, he is proof that we need a president who brings more to the table than family history or “regular- guy” charisma.

Barack Obama has shown calm and focus while under attack; he should not be punished for being eloquent; and as with any elected official, I’m sure that once he’s in office, I’m going to disagree with some of his decisions and policies. But beyond even the hope and change of which he often speaks, trust and worldview are the key ingredients for me in his bid for the White House. He shows evidence of understanding the complexity of that for which he is asking, through both his language and his demeanor. John McCain does not.

Barack Obama was confident enough to ask a veteran member of the Senate with extensive foreign policy experience far beyond his own to be his running mate. John McCain selected a running mate who has
only limited local and state governing experience. We don’t need any more interesting characters running the country. We need men and women with character.

Vote Obama on November 4.

What Speech Were You Listening To?

2008-03-25T19:28:00.006-04:00

The initial post for this blog on September 11, 2007 attempts to set the stage for the general approach that subsequent posts will take. To the point, while there are some facts and solid objects out there, they tend to be beheld through a wide variety of eyes, ears, noses, mouths, skin surfaces, experiences, beliefs, values and an array of other influences. Even more to the point, when we listen to or read someone's opinion on something, we usually learn a lot more about the opinionator than about the object of his or her attention.

Case in point: some readers read that last sentence, and thought, "Well, du-uh," and others thought, "Wow! I never realized that before. Cool!" Actually neither of these is completely true, since I'm not sure enough people read this to validate my use of the phrase "some readers."

Be all that as it may, Barack Obama spoke about race last Tuesday, and if you haven't listened to or read his speech, you can do so, respectively through the appropriate linked words in this sentence. Much has been written and spoken about the senator's speech over the past week, and my Catholic elementary school side feels a bit of guilt about adding to the cyber talk, but as I mature, I'm letting more and more of that guilt go, so here goes.

Most columnists and pundits that I've read or listened to have spoken as if the speech were a fact or a solid object--they seem to know what it means and what it is. I believe it's safe to say that Senator Obama, after lengthy preparation, vibrated his vocal cords in specific patterns, and his vibrations found our inner ears, which also vibrated, and we interpreted those vibrations according to a set of criteria that most of us don't understand ourselves. Okay, that's an oversimplification, and it ignores the transcript, but it's more-or-less true in its attempt to summarize the speaking-listening-interpreting process.

Disclaimer: I subscribe to and read the New York Times. Because lots of people think it's a prime example of "the liberal press," and lots of others think it has become too moderate--even conservative, it seems to be balanced in that it annoys people across the political spectrum. I'm going to limit my comments here to recent columns in the Times and one other source, not because the Times covers the whole spectrum (which is not my goal), but because they essentially prove that Barack Obama delivered not one, but many, many speeches on March 18.

William Kristol, whom some readers (there I go again, ever the optimist) may recall is a leading neo-conservative, architect of the Iraq War, and Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, commented on one of these March 18 speeches in his March 24 Times column. He delivered a Marc-Antony-riles-the-Plebians-against-Brutus-and-Cassius-while-seeming-to-praise-both-men type column, poking Obama with praise as "accomplished orator," "able politician," and "ambitious man," before "shuddering" at the prospect of a "heated national conversation about race," when what the country needs "are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling." As a reader, I assume that Mr. Kristol includes the Iraq debacle under "economics [how else we might spend our money], social mobility [who goes to war and who sends them], education [how, who, and to do what for whom], and family policy [especially with regard to the families of the 4,000 dead and over 20,000 maimed Americans, who served in Iraq]."

Contrast this with the speech that Maureen Dowd heard and commented on in her March 19 Times column. She begins by calling the speech she heard "[i]n many ways...momentous and edifying," but after pointing out her evidence for those adjectives, Dowd uses other modifiers--"naïve and willful," in reference to Obama's refusal at first to address the issues around Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko. She suggests that in the face of "ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity," the senator stepped down from the pedestal amid a talk on black and white, and recognized the gray area--a recognition that will, in her estimation, strengthen him as a candidate.

But strengthen him in whose hearts, eyes, and ears? While I haven't read their blogs and columns, I sense that those colorful characters featured in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Spring 2008 Intelligence Report might have heard or read a speech other than what Ms. Dowd or Mr. Kristol commented on, but as Mr. Kristol notes in his column, "Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain." If I had more time, I'd spend it with those two sentences, as they come from a wealthy, powerful white guy. Suffice it to say that I'm sure the 888 active hate groups identified in the SPLC report would agree with him.

Finally, Times columnist Bob Herbert, in his March 25 Times column, calls the speech he heard "Powerful..." and suggested that it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country — and in as many other venues as possible." Herbert acknowledges that the speech was political, but also "legitmate and powerful," and that "it ought to resonate with fair-minded Americans, regardless of whether they support Mr. Obama for president," where it seems that "fair-minded" refers to Americans who heard the same speech as Mr. Herbert (as opposed to what Mr. Kristol heard, or even Ms. Dowd).

What speech did you hear or read?

Dance Band on the Titanic

2008-03-17T06:41:00.003-04:00

I thought this posting would emerge from an almost-finished draft that deals with the gender and race issues in the Democratic presidential campaign, and the gender issue concerning the "proper" role of the spouse (i.e. wife) in the latest edition of the powerful-politician-goes-sexually-astray story.

As important as these issues are, however, and I believe they are very important, this post will address money and how we spend it (or how it is spent by others for us).

More to the point, the Iraq war's inevitably costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion, and the federal government's bailout of the financial world's private sector, beginning with Bear Stearns and ending...who know knows where, when or with whom, are coming out of my (our collective) pocket. I'm almost embarrassed to add those now trivially obvious and tedious tidbits: our peerless leaders choose to spend our money as they do and not on the 40+ million Americans who don't have access to affordable, competent health care and the continuing third-rate public education that is available to many children in these United States.

To paraphrase the late Harry Chapin, the president and legislators from both parties comprise an off-tune dance band on the Titanic, and most of us are content to dance along or watch as wallflowers as the band plays on. Who do we think we are and what in the world are we doing?

Two years ago I published This Open Eye, a collection of poems that marked the third anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad. The longest poem in the book, "Common Thread," provides five perspectives on America. To mark the 5th anniversary of the hit tune, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I've posted the poem below--one perspective for each year. The blog formatting doesn't allow some of the indents and line breaks that the poem should have, but I'll live with that:

Common Thread

1. Gulf War Vet

I deploy to Iraq in ’91 to get that
bastard Hussein out of Kuwait and we
rain hell on Baghdad forty days and
forty nights nonstop though we never
do get him. A desert
storm for sure.
A dozen years later and
I’m dyin’, and find out I got killed over there—
Reagan says Hussein is cool, sells him
choppers, bombs and dual-use hardware,
Rumsfeld shakes his hand, and in ’84, my
CIA pals help him gas Iranians. Commerce
okays 21 batches of anthrax,
and in ’86 only my country refuses
to condemn Iraq’s chemical warfare.
Now
I’m dyin’, creatin’ half-orphans and a widow, and
can’t get a straight answer about
depleted uranium in my own ammo.

My country—
‘tis of thee, I sing.

2. Baghdad Doctor

I was 28 when Saddam purged the Baaths
and Communists in 1979. I healed people,
protected my family. When
Saddam attacked Iran in 1980, the
Americans removed us from their list
of terrorists—even opened
diplomatic relations, gave us loans,
subsidies and military intelligence. When
Saddam slaughtered the Kurds between
1987 and 1989, the presidents,
Reagan and Bush, barely blinked.

When they finally chased Saddam’s
army from Kuwait, the Americans bombed
my city day and night for more than a month—
targeted our water, electrical plants, hospitals
and roadways—
killed two of my children.
Their sanctions killed individual Iraqis over
half a million times with starvation, malnutrition
dirty water and lack of medical supplies.
American
and British planes bombed my country almost
every week for the next decade. Clinton’s
missiles killed Layla al-Attar, our beloved
artist, and her husband, creating wounded
orphans.
The world envies America’s six- and
seven-figure incomes, while American taxes
bring Iraq the need for six- and seven-figure
body bags.
Never satisfied with what
they’ve created or destroyed, the Americans
attacked my country again in 2003, killing more
thousands of civilians—my wife this time. The
American general says they don’t do body counts.

Since they captured Saddam my country
remains a war zone—
if this quarter century
is a taste of freedom and American democracy,
I’d prefer to have my children and wife back
under the dictator. I hate him, but at least
we were safe. At least there was order. In
the 1960s, an American Army veteran wrote
that freedom really means nothing
left to lose. I guess my country
and I are just about free. Americans
slaughtered each other almost a century
after their own independence—an independence
they had fought for freely. How can they think
they can force democracy here—
even if some
of us do want it?

3. Teheran Teacher

The American cowboy president says
my country turns on the axis of evil. Twenty
years ago his father sold Saddam Hussein
mustard gas and anthrax, which he
used against my people and his own.
His father sold Saddam helicopters and
cannons, and the presidents before him
protected our corrupt Shah, and
now the Americans look at the mess they’ve
made in Iraq—and they say the Iraqi people
must clean it up themselves. I pray
the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq
live in peace. My anger is with Saddam and
Reagan and the Shah and the Bushes—people
like them—who are these men and women
who order killing so easily?

4. Kurdish Rebel

From 1973 through 1975, America, Israel and Iran
supported our fight against Iraq, but when Saddam and
the Iranian Shah agreed to close their borders against
us, the Americans cut off their aid, and watched as
Saddam destroyed villages and slaughtered 100,000
of my people with chemicals. After the Americans
removed him from Kuwait, they encouraged us to rise
up against him, but denied us access to captured
weapons. U.S. warplanes circled above as Saddam’s
helicopters slaughtered my brothers. Why
did the Americans do this?

5. Vietnam Vet

Somehow, Charlie’s rounds missed me—
I survived Tet in ’68 and two tours with
Agent Orange.
Lost eight years on my discharge
to Jack, José, and Mary Jane, but
got lucky with a consolation named
philosophy and a woman named
Sophia and brought JoAnn, Nick
and Chris into the world.
Actually—
into New York. When Y2K
fizzled, JoAnn was a semester from
her MSW, Nick and Chris were a
year apart at St. John’s, and
Sophia and I immersed ourselves
in good fortune.
Actually—she
immersed herself. I couldn’t believe
it, but I soaked up what I could
until
the second jet hit the south tower
and cremation by fireball left
nothing of Sophia to put in an urn
or a coffin or the ground, and left
three half-orphans and a hole in
my heart that I’ll never fill or
close
but through which I’ve
seen for the first time the millions
of holes that I helped leave in
the hearts and landscape of
Vietnam, and the holes in the
hearts and landscape of Iraq,
and the holes in the hearts of
young Americans and their
families
and I want to disinter
Johnson, Nixon and Reagan,
grab McNamara, Clinton, Cheney,
bin Laden, the Bushes, Hussein,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice
and the rest by their throats, and drag
each one through every heart that’s ever
been stopped or broken by their
distant orders to kill in the name of
freedom, royalty, democracy, oil, or a
God they have never known despite
their claims to the contrary.
Fightin’ infidelity.
Fightin’ Communism. Fightin’
terrorism.
Let me tell you—
I’ve been there and never once
held a concept in my crosshairs—
never once saw a soldier’s or
civilian’s body broken by a 60-
millimeter idea, rocket-propelled
precept or bunker-busting belief.

Yeah, I survived Charlie and Dow
Chemical, got lucky with Sophia’s
love and my heart broken open with
her incineration, and now I live with
knowing it took a hole in my own heart to
see the holes in the hearts of others,
and what I wish for my kids—for
JoAnn, Nick and Chris—what I wish for
what survives of Sophia on this earth—
rather than endorse more slaughter
in their anger and fear, in their loss
and despair—what I wish for my
kids and your kids and all kids—
is that they can take
their own broken hearts and help
open the hearts of others—
before they’re broken
or stopped by
those of us who kill
so easily.

Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC

2008-03-11T20:37:00.003-04:00

Now that Eliot Spitzer has submitted his application for partnership with Clinton, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, his book deal and lecture tour won't be far behind. While much has been made of Mr. Spitzer's falling from grace around the same time that the Vatican validated new ways to fall for the 21st century, evidence seems to indicate that the revised Catholic sin catalog will have little impact on his secular, albeit Jewish, worldview.

The New York governor's application to the firm has led some to believe that should he be accepted, the partnership's name would become Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, moving the newest member ahead of two of the three established partners. Unnamed partnership sources have attributed this likelihood to "the absence of both sexual misconduct and a graduate degree on former Connecticut governor Rowland's resume" and "you know, that whole gay thing with the Jersey boy, who should feel lucky just to be here."

Mr. McGreevey's agent, however, contends that the former New Jersey governor's name should remain second even if Spitzer makes the cut, citing McGreevey's two graduate degrees (to Spitzer's one) and pointing out that "it takes quite a bit more courage and chutzpa to masquerade as a heterosexual husband, father and public servant while having a homosexual affair with a political appointee than it does to simply sneak around with high-priced call girls."

While Mr. Rowland had no comment and the Spitzer entourage was still engaged in damage control, Rowland's agent referred to the prospective change as a typical Democratic political move. When asked if he had any advice for New York's falling leader, Mr. Clinton smiled and suggested that he knew all too well what "waiting to exhale" feels like, perhaps inadvertantly citing Terry McMillan's novel in his attempt to depict his common experience with Mr. Spitzer.

Elsewhere, both the Big East and the Ivy League merchandising departments were positioning themselves to reap the inevitable profits from this latest limited liability culprit. On the undergraduate level, the two leagues are tied: Rowland and Clinton graduated from Villanova and Georgetown, respectively, while Spitzer and McGreevey earned their degrees from Princeton and Columbia. On the graduate level, Spitzer graced Harvard Law, McGreevey both Georgetown Law and he earned a degree in Education from Harvard, and Clinton attended Oxford and received his J.D. from Yale--giving the Ivies a 3 to 1 edge over the Big East.

University College at Oxford has not commented.

The prevalent rumor that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are considering seceding from the United States in order to form the Tri-State Democratic Republic has not been corroborated.

Prince Harry Parallels in America

2008-02-29T10:20:00.004-05:00

Prince Harry is leaving Afghanistan.

BBC and the New York Times reports agree that the 23-year-old who is third in line for the British throne, requested active duty, was turned down for Iraq by the British military because it was too dangerous, and was sent to Afghanistan under the condition that the British press, which knew of his deployment, would not publicize it.

When The Drudge Report released the information this week, the British military determined that knowledge of the prince's whereabouts might encourage direct attempts on his life by the Taliban, further endangering him and the men and women with whom he serves under already dangerous conditions.

The strong parallel between this story and the ongoing, similar sagas of the children of the American President, Senators and Congressional Representatives is remarkable. I've lost count of how many sons and daughters of the U.S. elected officials who fund the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq currently serve in those war zones. It's a credit to the Department of Defense, the politicians, and to the American press that no one knows the whereabouts of the progeny of the American ruling class during this fight against terror.

May they continue their willingness to serve, and like Prince Harry, understand that their very presence--should it be widely known--could jeopardize the lives of those less-privileged souls alongside whom they battle the enemy. May they be willing to depart the front lines for their own safety and for the greater good.

Say It Ain't So

2008-02-14T07:30:00.004-05:00

Behind the truth around Mr. Clemens' having or not having used steroids and/or HGH remains the learned, polarizing biases that many of us, unknowingly or deliberately, embrace.

One bias is the hero-worship that surrounds our sports and entertainment stars. How many others called to testify in a Congressional hearing spend a few days visiting with legislators and signing autographs before giving their testimony? Another bias is just the opposite--here's another case of a mega-rich superstar (in this case, sports, but the bias works with entertainers and corporate officers just as well) who thinks he or she is above the law, and who walks through life with an arrogance based on professional success.

The most disturbing aspect of this case from my perspective is not the alleged use of performance-enhancing substances. This is a problem, has been for years--in professional, collegiate and high school sports--and it's not going away soon. The cultural (i.e. American rugged individualist, win-at-all-costs whether in sport, business or war) forces at work here are immense, need to be addressed, and are not the focus of this posting.

The most disturbing aspect of this case is that the disagreement between McNamee and Clemens is not a nuanced, self-serving interpretation of different points of view on a given set of facts. Beyond questions of how much or when, is did they or didn't they. One of these two men is lying. Period. For whatever reasons, either the trainer is making this all up or the pitcher is denying behavior in which he engaged--which brings us to another bias: conventional wisdom says that the pitcher has more to lose and therefore, reason to lie. What's a more-or-less honest person to do?

If McNamee is telling the truth, he is in far over his head financially and in terms of public status, and will be hated by many (and respected by some) for bringing Clemens down. If Clemens is telling the truth, to the extent that he is vindicated, he will still always have that asterisk next to his name in many people's minds. Again, one of these two men is lying.

While it's not my intention here to place a higher-than-normal standard for honesty and trust on a former-police-officer-turned-athletic-trainer or on an athlete-turned-star-role-model-philanthropist, I would like them to qualify for at least the normal standard.

I am reminded of the character, Red, played by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, who reminds us that in prison, everyone is innocent--nobody did what he was sent away for. Every inmate has been wrongfully accused and convicted, framed, unjustly prosecuted.

If the trainer's accusatons are true, Clemens and McNamee are inmates in a prison that they built together: winning at all costs, preserving what they already have--including reputation, shifting blame, and denying accountability. If Clemens' denials are true, he's sharing a cell in a prison he didn't build.

And finally, the architects of this prison are Major League Baseball, led by Bud Selig's hands-off approach, all of the owners, and every player, trainer and supplier who played a role in dispensing performance-enhancing drugs.

Qualified to Succeed W and Bill?

2008-02-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

The home page of today's New York Times online includes an article entitled, "Friends Say Drugs Played Bit Part in Obama's Young Life." The essence of the piece seems to conclude that at worst, Senator Obama may have slightly exaggerated the role of pot, alcohol and cocaine in his early life (it is obligatory for any candidate to have the "obstacles-overcome" plank in his or her personal platform), and at best, he simply told the truth about his adolescence to the best of his memory.

This posting could turn into a a treatise on hermeneutics--specifically exploring content and context of authorial intent and reader interpretation through layers and layers of contexts within contexts within worldviews within worldviews--of both the above article and Senator Obama's Dreams From My Father, but such is not my authorial intent for this post (within the respective contexts of the article and my worldview--I've not read the book). What do he and his close friends remember, how accurately do they remember it, what is their intention in speaking out (tell the truth? support the candidate? avenge some real or imagined adolescent slight?)?

Who cares?

If the above comes off as a bit abstract and borderline scholarly, fans of crass concreteness take heart: the current Decider-in-Chief has admitted to addressing his own adult addictions (as opposed to the Senator's alleged school-age indiscretions) through faith and fitness--Jesus and the gym; his predecessor engaged in Cigar-based-Cunnilingual-Nonsex in the Oral-Orifice-Oval Office (that doesn't quite work, I know, but that's the point).

Even if the Senator from the great state of Illinois spent most of his adolescence stoned--and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that he did--that behavior would seem to confirm, rather than call into question, his fitness for the Presidency in light of the behavioral standards set by the two most recent individuals to have held the job.

What's good for the two white guys is good for the black guy, at least in this particular instance. W's substance abuse and Bill's early-onset sexual indiscretions preceded each of their respective ascendencies to Leader of the Free World (although by January 2009 Mr. Bush may have devolved that moniker to Co-Leader, Also-Ran, or Honorable-Mention). Senator Obama's winning or losing the Democratic candidacy should have nothing to do with his adolescent behavior--even if he was just a really good kid who's now trying to gain some street cred.*

I look forward to voting for either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton in November. I have not hitched my wagon to either campaign yet. Neither his skin pigmentation and ethnicity nor her chromosone arrangement will determine my vote.

*Relevant nonsequitur: an excerpt from the currently-being-revised edition of The Quality of Effort (expected availability, November 2008) regarding the impact of my own adolescent "non-history" with drugs and alcohol:

"...I did not smoke, drink, use drugs ...during my high school days. I had my first drink when I was of legal age, and I’ve never smoked or used recreational or performance-enhancing drugs.

"I realize that some readers will respond to the above with respect, some with doubt, and some, especially those with a somewhat more adventurous adolescence than I had, with pity for such a naïve, conventional, even puritan experience, but I share this to neither brag nor complain, but to preface the contents of this chapter. As a kid I believed that my chances for success were better without tobacco, alcohol and drugs, and admittedly, I felt it was 'unfair' when some of my friends, who did smoke or drink, enjoyed significantly more athletic success in adolescence than I did. Still, I believed I was doing what served me best.

"Funny then, that years later, when some parents challenged our school’s policies on smoking, drinking and drugs during my tenure as athletic director... and they asked me to try to view the policy through the lens of my own behavior as an adolescent, they simply refused to believe me when I told them the truth. One father asked where the no-smoking policy left his children since he gave them smoking privileges when they turned sixteen. I tactlessly responded that perhaps he could find a privilege that didn’t carry an illness-and-death warning from the Surgeon General on its packaging. Only when a good friend on the coaching staff, who was a three-sport local legend with a reputation for partying as hard as he played, stood up and endorsed the policy, were these parents willing to accept it.

"My words then and my writing now were and are not intended as snide swipes at these parents. As were the parents who supported the policies...these were good people who loved their kids, and were exploring that wonderful owner’s-manual-less experience of parenting" (pp. 77-78).

Nine Months: New Birth or Slow Death?

2008-02-03T11:07:00.000-05:00

While it makes sense at one level to identify the Democratic party in the United States with a more liberal perspective and the Republican party with a more conservative view, a more nuanced exploration finds that (any) one can hold a conservative, moderate or liberal perspective within either party--e.g. the current battle among the four remaining Republican candidates concerning who is the "real" or "most" conservative, and the less dramatic, but nonetheless engaged debate between the two Democrats regarding who owns the most progressive or liberal agenda.

Pundits from both parties have more or less agreed in recent days that there are greater differences of real substance among the four Republicans than between the two Democrats.

We can further nuance the candidates' stances on specific issues--e.g. one can be a fiscal conservative and social moderate or liberal: more and more citizens and even an occasionally courageous candidate are willing to break from traditional party stereotypes and distance themselves from their tribe on specific issues. It's worth noting that whether one claims a liberal or conservative worldview, the breaking (liberating oneself) from the party of choice is by definition, a liberal move.

Conservatism attempts to conserve--to keep safe what we have, to embrace tradition, what we know, and what brings us comfort. Liberalism attempts to liberate--to break our ties with the past, and venture forth into new ways of being. Healthy forms of both are essential; unhealthy forms of both are dangerous, regardless of the political party in which they emerge.

Another way to say this is that the liberal breakthroughs of the past become the conservative treasures of the future. Prior to February 1870, conservative views prevented black males who were former slaves from voting, but the 15th Amendment liberated us from that view. Prior to August 1920, conservative views prevented women of any color or previous condition of servitude from voting, and the 19th Amendment liberated us from that view. Here's the fun part: while liberalism made those two amendents possible in 1870 and 1920, respectively, conservatism, in the least ideological and most basic meaning of that word, is the power that in 2008 embraces, protects and honors the right to vote for all American citizens eighteen and older.

When Senators Clinton and Obama had their moment of warm, fuzzy mutual admiration in their first one-on-one debate last week, just their appearance on the stage--regardless of what each of them might say as the debate began in earnest, was an image of liberalism: a black man, who 138 years ago, would not have been allowed to vote, and a woman, who 88 years ago lacked that same right, now running for the highest office in the land. That same week the four Republican candidates looked and behaved like the white guys who have traditionally held that job.

Having written that, however, I believe it's important to move beyond the easy equation of "white guy" and "conservatism" (or "minority" and "liberalism"--note Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice). Senators Clinton and Obama could relax a bit because those other two white guys, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, had dropped out of the race, and had taken with them some views that were even more liberating than any that the two senators proffered.

Reminders abound that values, ideology and perspective are neither skin-pigmentation nor chromosome-based. Among the important questions that every voter needs to ask--as the primaries continue and as November 4 looms almost exactly 9 months, a human gestation period, away, is this: What gives you more reason to believe in the best of what this country has to offer: a sharp departure from, or a subtle continuation of, the America we've been for the past eight years?

Do you prefer the labor required to nurture a new birth or the engaged apathy involved in continuing to abet an already emerging slow death?

Vote early and often!

Gender, Color and Fragmented Pluralism

2008-01-12T11:37:00.000-05:00

Woe to the Democratic Party in the United States.

Even as the George W. Bush presidency persists in laying the groundwork for selecting the next titular leader of the free world from the opposition party, that party itself (i.e. the members, leaders and candidates) has opened the door, and is in the process of perfectly machining and lubricating the hinges, that would give the Republicans twelve straight years in that white house.

"What do we want?" The first woman president! "When do we want it?" Now!

"What do we want?" The first black president! "When do we want it?" Now!

"What do we want?" A truly progressive president! "When do we want it?" Well, we really don't, and we're not even going to invite him to the debate in New Hampshire!

While the argument can be made that the Clinton and Obama campaigns will stop disemboweling each other as soon as one of them emerges as the official Democratic candidate, and the party can pray (to the extent that their liberal base allows prayer) that the loser will not feel a Liebermandate (with far worse odds than Joe had in Connecticut), it bodes unwell that many folks are focusing on first black and first woman rather than on who truly has what it takes (and yes, that deliberately avoids words like experience, hope, faith, savvy, political capital, commitment, strength, etc.) to both lead the country with integrity and clean up the diverse and inclusive mess that he or she will face.

And we haven't even mentioned the current New York City mayor yet.

Interim Apologia: In the interest of full disclosure and with a nod to gross simplemindedness, it may be easy to assume that a white guy like me can much more easily dismiss those two prospective firsts because all the presidents thus far have had sexual organs and skin pigmentation similar to mine (generally speaking, and as far as I know). Very few, if any, of them have shared my worldview, however, and if on February 5 and November 4 I believe that the best candidate for me, this country, the planet and the univation is a brownish-yellow transvestite with an eighth-grade education and an integral worldview, s/he is getting my vote. Admittedly, those specific characteristics are improbable, but I mean that metaphorically in the context of the last seven years.

Of course race and gender are essential issues. Our human world, however, is one in which brilliant intellects have consistently produced technology that the average value system and stage of moral reasoning is not yet ready to handle. Our ancestral tribes used rocks, slings, spears and arrows, and they depleted land with their hunting, foraging, and horticulture; our tribes today, be they nation-states, ethnic clans or fundamentalist believers, use bullets, bombs, chemicals, jets and nuclear weapons, and deplete natural resources with technological abandon, albeit with an ever-so-gradually emerging awareness. I don't care about the specifics of hair texture, eye shape, skin pigmentation or genitalia as long as a candidate recognizes the issues and courageously, strategically, and post-partisanally (new word!) addresses them.

What the Democrats face is the unhealthy version of the postmodern pluralism that literally made the civil rights and women's movements possible--a worldview that was not only "global" as the modern world was, especially for profit-based endeavors, but also "pluralistic" in that it recognized and honored all the lesser known stories that often did not make it into the Western male version of, well, everything. Alas, while pluralism in so doing takes a necessary evolutionary step, unless it takes the next step into universal pluralism--honoring all these stories as parts of a greater whole, it will produce the gender-, race- and ____-based (name your favorite) fragmentation that we see now with the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

Come on, you two kids, get it together. Rise above the fray. Schedule a joint press conference without your staffs, and honor each other. Then continue a robust campaign on the issues. Continue down the path you're on, and the beneficiary will be an independent or Republican candidate.

Oh, and fire whoever in your respective campaigns is responsible for fanning these divisive flames.

New Year's Questions

2008-01-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year.

This time next year we'll be preparing to swear in (and at) a new leader of the free world, so to speak, and this begs the question, "Can a new temporary resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have any true impact on the damage done to and by this country during the past eight years?" Feel free to adjust that eight according to your own individual biases.

Whether this prospective tenant happens to be another white, Christian male, or a black or a woman, he or she will only get elected/selected/ appointed as a result of a perceived image that appeals to a majority of voters, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof, and this guarantees that he or she will either truly live on the cutting edge--able to speak to diverse cultures, ethnicities, income levels, genders, sexual orientations and developmental worldviews with integrity and in a language that each recognizes and understands, or that he or she literally embraces and lives in the worldview that the majority of Americans inhabit, as does the current tenant, who despite some requisite postmodern rhetoric, behaves through the mythic-rational perspective that has caused most of our major problems, and which is incapable of resolving them.

As our late, quintessential minority, Audre Lorde, so insightfully pointed out, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," or as virtually every developmental researcher discovers, each subsequent stage of development resolves some issues created by the preceding stage, and creates new issues of its own.

I've been asking myself too many questions for years now, and since I suffer from a belief that suggests that many issues become more pressing at real or imagined transition points such as the beginning of a new year or a change (or the appearance thereof) in leadership, I thought I'd share some of these questions with you.

Are you tired of all those programs that offer the secret to generating income beyond your wildest dreams, and is what you truly desire, as you move from one substitute gratification or substitute sacrifice to another, an experience that instead generates ongoing insight into who you truly are, whether or not you have or remember wild dreams?

How much do you identify with yourself as male or female; gay, straight, trans- or bisexual; tall, short, broad or narrow?

Are you defined by your skin pigmentation, hair texture, eye shape, or first language? Does your personality really exist, and if it does, are you aware of it?

Do you see yourself as a fundamentalist, moderate, liberal, agnostic or atheistic believer, and are you determined to convert the rest of us? Along these same lines, do you embrace Creation, Intelligent Design, Evolution or some politically correct, bland blend of them all, and if so, why? Do you believe literally, metaphorically, or allegorically, and can you see the value of each?

Do you learn best through a visual, auditory or kinesthetic approach? Are you hooked on phonics or whole language? An can you imbrase the long-turn value of invented speling?

Whether you're a dyed-in-the-wool, dead-in-the-water, or temporarily tatooed Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Socialist, Independent or Other, who is really the cause of all this suffering?

Do you feel that the answer to all our problems is for every child, woman and man to pull her- or himself up by the bootstraps or velcro fasteners and take responsibility for life; or is it the institutionalized racism, sexism, bigotry and poverty that keep us down, and that must themselves be taken down?

Were you victimized decades ago by a school system that recognized linguistic and rational-mathematical competence, but ignored your artistic gifts? Or have you been victimized more recently by progressive educators who let students discover their own gifts at their own pace, and never challenged your linguistic skills and rational abilities?

Do you think sustainability is a legitimate planetary issue? Is the globe warming? Are our natural resources polluted and on their way to depletion? Is fossil fuel finite? Is there a population crisis? Or are all these "issues" subtle strageties in an anti-capitalist plot?

In the feeling-thinking wars, where do you reside? Have you jettisoned your intellect in order to feel more fully? Do you think that feeling is just too touchy-feely in this post-9/11 world? What do you think about how you feel, and does it matter? How do you feel about your thoughts?

These will suffice now to scratch the surface of some general areas of concern as we count down to what may be the end or the continuation of the Project for the New American Century as our national worldview.

We get to choose. More questions to follow.

Happy New Year, again.

Everything We Need

2007-12-24T10:31:00.000-05:00

While perusing the Winter 2007 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report this past week, a song melody and the words, "number one in America" emerged from the recesses of a memory stored away sometime in the mid-1990s when I picked up a copy of singer-songwriter David Masengill's CD, Coming Up for Air. I knew of his work both from WFUV-FM in New York, and from having seen him perform at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow.

The third song on the disc, "Number One in America," a wonderful almost-eight-minute perspective on race in America, provides some insight into the songwriter's roots in Bristol, Tennessee and among other things, ponders what it will be like when "a black is President." Three of the song's final four stanzas depict a poor white family in a K-Mart on Christmas Eve and what happens when the youngest of three children selects a "black-skinned doll" as her one toy. The first time I heard the song, among some other very powerful images this particular scene riveted my attention. After the fifth (or fifteenth) listening, I wanted to know more about that K-Mart family, and this poem emerged in December 1997:

Everything We Need
(for David Masengill)

Twenty-five windless degrees
allows each miraculous flake
a perpendicular freefall to a
starring role in a white Christmas
Eve, which lets Lawrence leave
his third job four hours early
and thirty-six before he has to
work again.

Uneven crunch of workboot sole on
snow recalls his childhood joy at
snowflakes only visible in amber
glow then fading past the streetlamp's
jurisdiction. He stops,
watches them fall within
the stilled boots' perfect silence,
then turns toward the bus stop.

Aboard, back seat seduction long
gone, he sits behind the driver,
imagines a car and just one job,
checks his pocket for the cash,
rests his hand where he feels it.

Eight familiar stops bring Lynn
aboard, the kids in tow, Larry bouncing,
Lisa glowing with the season: Daddy,
Daddy, Santa Claus is coming! He
smiles, hugs and kisses, feels the
tug of love, the slap of scarcity—
a full heart and thin wallet
competing for his consciousness.

K-Mart looms bright red as they
step down, wish the driver
Merry Christmas, follow the
store's beacon, its promise
of domestic perfection.

Inside, Larry and Lisa dash
toyward, Lynn's reminder lost
in the shopping sprawl: One
each—remember, only one each.
Lawrence marvels at her smile,
tries to return it through his
sense of deficit. It's okay,
she tells him. It's okay with
them; it's okay with me. We
have everything we need.

Larry grabs a basketball,
thirty-five dollars;
Lawrence finds one for
fifteen that Larry likes
as much; Lisa hugs a
twelve-dollar doll, its skin
much darker than her own.

They check both toys for
cracks and blemishes, find
none, pay $28.96; nearsighted
cashier glimpses doll-hugs and
ball-bounces celebrations. Smiles.
I'm sure we have some white dolls left.
Yes, Lynn replies, you do, but
Lisa wants this one. The cashier
shakes her head, says, Kids.
Will there be anything else?

Lawrence wishes he could say yes,
feels Lynn's hand, comfortable
on his arm; gazes at Lisa and Larry,
whose eyes envelop him in their
pure joy; mysterious tears
roll forth and he understands
now that it is okay.
No, he says, we have
everything we need.

From Who Lives Better Than We Do (From the Heart Press, 2001)
Copyright © 1997 by Reggie Marra

Steroids, Hurricanes and Terrorists: a Systems Approach

2007-12-16T11:16:00.000-05:00

As dramatic as the media coverage of George Mitchell's report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball may have been, and as amazing (and understandable) as Commissioner Bud Selig's understated response to the report (and to MLB's ongoing drug crisis) has been, both the media drama and the commissioner's understatement were predictable for anyone who no longer believes that magical wishful thinking is the most effective remedy to the pressing issues of any given day.

Contrasted with cycling's and track and field's fallen heros and heroines, baseball's millionaire gladiators--and I'm writing here about those who actually have used banned substances--will pay ever-so-slightly, if at all, for their transgressions. No Marion Jones hits for them. These men were victimized by a culture and an infrastructure that rendered their behavior unavoidable. They cheated because the environment demanded it.

It was a systemic failure--baseball's failure, the players' union's failure, the teams' failures and the owners' failures. How could anyone expect an individual elite athlete to withstand the pressures that come with the expectations that come with playing baseball in public for lots of money? Those players who don't cheat are the true enigmas--they're the ones who should be investigated. They must be doing something wrong to resist what their counterparts have so readily embraced.

Remember Hurricane Katrina? No one at FEMA, or at any state or local agency did anything wrong (although the poor who insisted on living where a hurricane might hit surely must bear some responsibility). Systemic failure that's still obvious right now in many areas devastated two years ago by that storm again reared it's ugly head. Brownie did a heckuva job, resigned, then pointed out how all the systems failed--except the one that allowed an unqualified individual to head FEMA.

Do you recall September 11, 2001? Then National Security Advisor Rice has made it very clear that, you guessed it, a systemic failure--especially during the Clinton administration--made that day possible, and that she, her boss and their colleagues would have moved heaven and earth to prevent what happened that day had they had better intelligence. According to her, the system dictated that the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" was simply a historical document, and not one that should raise concern about an imminent threat, although she's less clear about what the system had to say about the June CIA communications entitled "Bin Laden Attacks May Be Imminent" and "Bin Laden and Associates Making Near-Term Threats."

Damn systems, I swear. Responsible for thousands of deaths--allow terrorist attacks, can't provide competent aid in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and now encourage scandal in the national pastime--and all of those traumatic arguments that have already begun among sportscasters and fans.

What's an individual to do? Are there even any individuals left?

When things go wrong, I mean.

The Cutting Edge (of What, for Whom?)

2007-12-11T06:18:00.000-05:00

Almost everywhere we look as we head into the latter stages of the first decade in the 21st century, we find experts on "the cutting edge" of everything from medical technology, human consciousness, sales and marketing, communications, the arts, bathroom remodeling, educational strategies, having it all, and that one missing bit of knowledge that we all need in order to have it all.

Developmental models, including, but not limited to Maslow's work with needs, Kohlberg's and Gilligan's respective research on moral reasoning, Loevinger's and Cook-Greuter's studies of self-identity, Fowler's stages of faith, Graves' work, continued by Beck and Cowan, on values, and Piaget's early work with cognition, begin with a somewhat oblivious creature who has no sense of self, grows into an ego-centric (me!) individual, and then into an ethno- or group-centric (us!) member, and perhaps into a world-centric (all of us!) citizen, followed by a Kosmos-centered (all that is!) Self, at which point everything that arises is the Self.

Each of these researchers studies a different developmental line or intelligence, and employs very specific language for that unique exploration, and their findings uncover anywhere from six to twelve or so levels through which an individual might grow. Don Beck and Chris Cowan assigned colors to designate the levels of values that Graves' research first discovered: Beige, Purple, Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow and Turquoise, the meaning of each not relevant for this discussion (interested readers can refer to the links in the October 9 post on this blog to find out more).

What we find in our "cutting edge" world is that each of these levels or stages of growth has its own cutting edge--essentially, that final series of steps that will give us a taste of the next stage: Purple's cutting edge is a glimpse or taste of Red, Red's is a hint of Blue, and Green's an insight into Yellow. To further complicate matters, each developmental line or intelligence carries its own content, so despite being "hosted" by the same structure of consciousness, the cutting edge of an ego-centric values system is not identical to the cutting edge of an ego-centric self-identity.

All of us, this writer included, recognize a personal cutting edge when we gain insight into something that is new and capable of pushing us to the next stage of our growth, transcending and including the previous stages--even if a million other people on the planet have resided in or even grown past that stage already.

So, beware. When you're presented with a "cutting edge" solution, innovation, gift, tool--anything at all--be sure to explore for whom and of what it is truly an edge.

Post Thanksgiving Post

2007-11-27T20:10:00.000-05:00

Since this post is a bit late, it will be abbreviated as well. I realize I have a lot to be thankful for, and that most readers (if there are any) would prefer the short version, if they're willing to look at any version at all.

So, I'm thankful for quite a lot, and for all the people I love and who love me.

And for all the communities to which I belong, either in the flesh or in cyber space, including I-I, WSC, SDi, IONS, AAP, AARP, CCT, NSA-CT, NSA, and although I'm not down there much anymore, HVWC (this is not an exhaustive list).

Oh, and let's not forget MM-MPhDLPCCPT.

Veterans Day

2007-11-12T13:15:00.000-05:00

November in Falluja

She sits with
a soldier she doesn't
know, C-17 en route
to Germany. Her
son
twenty
brain-injured
head locked in place,
lies before her.
She scratches her
eyebrow with the
ring finger on
her left hand.

Going Home

Near Kirkuk
five soldiers watch
or work
while two wheel
the blood-soaked
gurney from the
inflated O.R. The
sergeant's leg
amputated
and discarded, time
will tell if
he
will
be
as well.

Give It Back

Commander-in Chief
photo op over
we learn the
vehicle that crushed your
legs and pelvis was
American driven. Your
Purple Heart a mistake,
you have to
give
it
back.
Your
splintered bones,
real--
those
you get to keep.

Balad to Landstuhl

Sardines in the C-17
can, soldiers who
can't sit or stand, lie
shoulder-to-shoulder
five across, four deep,
medical charts
strapped to their chests.
Red lights in the cargo
bay cast a surreal glow
as mortars
explode on base
outside
the plane.

Sisters in Arms

Danielle Green
Chicago South Side
high school All-American
free ride 1,106 points
Notre Dame
psych major
class of '99
U.S. Army 2002
Specialist
Iraq

Dawn Halfaker
Ramona, California
four-year starter
West Point
class of '01
Lieutenant
Miltary Police
Iraq

Rocket
propelled
grenades

Danielle's
left arm
at the elbow
medical retirement
master's program in
school counseling

Dawn's
right arm
at the shoulder
promotion to
Captain, Congressional
internship

Sisters in Arms
without them

George W. Bush
New Haven, Connecticut
Yale cheerleader Air
National Guard
Harvard MBA
reprises pilot role
taunts the men
who would
take arms,
Bring
them
on.
_________

Poems from This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do
Copyright (c) 2006 by Reggie Marra

Acknowledgements:
"November in Fallujah," "Going Home," and "Balad to Landstuhl" emerged from "The Wounded" by Johnny Dwyer. New York Times Magazine. March 27 2005, pp. 24+. Photographs by Lynsey Addario/Corbis.

"Give It Back" emerged from the February 2005 story, widely reported in the media, of USMC Corporal Travis Eichelberger (and the similar stories of 10 other Marines), whose Purple Heart was revoked after it was learned that a 67-ton American tank, and not an Iraqi vehicle, had crushed him in his foxhole.

"Sisters in Arms" emerged from "Two Women Bound by Sports, War and Injuries" by Juliet Macur. New York Times. April 10, 2005, pp1+. Photographs by Doug Mills, Peter Thompson, Suzy Allman, and Shawn Baldwin/The New York Times, Joe Raymond, and the Army Athletic Association.

"Useless Teacher": A Case in Point

2007-11-01T15:58:00.000-04:00

Joan Hurley, a friend and colleague, was named Connecticut State Teacher of the Year last month, the penultimate step in a process that began with her being honored first at the University of Hartford Magnet School, then within the Capital Region Education Council (CREC), and which now puts her in the running for the "national title."

Besides being an extraordinarily committed, focused, and gifted third-grade teacher, Joan brings to her work, as do many teachers I've been fortunate enough to work with, a solid knowledge of and intuitive sense around state standards, curriculum development, learning styles and multiple intelligences, among other tools of her profession, tools that have only vague, general meaning for those of us whose familiarity with third-grade classrooms is limited to our eight-year-old former selves, our roles as parents, or both.

I had the opportunity to spend just over three weeks in her classroom as a teaching artist several years ago, and was able to participate in and witness first-hand her attention to the inner "workings" and outer behaviors of her students, the level of responsibility they shared in constructing the learning environment and theme through which they would engage the content that the state education department deemed was theirs to know, the genuinely democratic process they'd engage when inappropriate behavior arose among them, and the subtle balance of structured activity and freedom to explore that held it all together.

Joan loves her work. She has a fiery spirit around her educational philosophy, a strong aversion to those who know less but are in a position to dictate how she does her job, and an opportunity now, amid all of the blessings and curses that an "anything-of-the-year" award brings, to make some noise and help more kids.

Among the curses, minor though they be, have been some of the comments that followed the October 31 front-page story in the Hartford Courant. Among the 33 readers who had posted their thoughts on that paper's online forum before I wrote this entry here, 26 were congratulatory and positive, and written by a mix of people--some of whom know Joan, and some of whom do not.

The 7 other comments ranged from curious to ridiculous to mean-spirited in my reading of them. Here's one from "Curious" in Palm Harbor, Florida:
"I'm sure the kids all feel great about themselves, but is there any teaching going on? Are they learning anything? How do they do in their subsequent schooling? Any stats? Just wondering."

Another, "NCLB" from Bristol, CT wrote:
"SISSY has this right, I can only imagine if a male teacher was buying his students sheets for their beds, new winter coats & (did I read this?) taking students to doctor appointments under the guise of being a passionate and caring teacher. This "teacher of the year" is being cited by former students and anyone else who can justify her need for student approval."
SISSY wrote:
"According to the report, this lady teacher is "throwing kisses"......If this were a male teacher, he'd be under arrest for some sort of assault under the umbrella term of sexual harassment and attempted child molestation laws with its (metaphorically) "politically correct" applications."

And my title credit goes to "Now Get Back to Work" from Lincoln, RI, who wrote, simply:
"useless teacher"

While a very capable and early developmental level to which I still have wonderful access would like the chance to respond to each of these with varying levels of sarcasm, smugness, and an egoic, macho and unnecessary intention to defend my friend, I can't help but remember my own words in the initial entry that set the tone for this blog on September 11, 2007:
"Trust that your inquiry and any conclusions you may reach or hypotheses you may develop will provide as much, and probably more, insight into yourself than into the poem or the poet."

The "teacher-of-the-year" story was simply a trigger that provided an opportunity to vent for our fellow passengers in Palm Harbor, Bristol and Lincoln (I left out the one from "Eternal Sunshine" that commented on Joan's hair in the photo that accompanied the article). Each of these writers had something inside of them that responded as they did to a newspaper article that celebrated a wonderful teacher and human being who earned a professional honor.

Good for you, Joan.

Oh, and if I were going to allow that early developmental level to surface and respond, I might suggest that my friend, "Eternal Sunshine," move beyond the pictures and read the text. I might suggest that "Sissy" and "NCLB" learn to read excerpts and attempt to understand them within the context in which they appear. And perhaps that would apply to "Curious" as well. Does my friend from Palm Harbor simply assume that since the teacher is honored and the kids feel good about themselves, no teaching or learning could have taken place? Is that what happens in Palm Harbor?

Just wondering.

Hazardous Journey

2007-10-25T15:11:00.000-04:00

This past Wednesday evening, I spoke by phone to a cousin who lives in California, zip code 92128. I was relieved to hear his wife's voice, and then his, and he told me that their home, although the entire area was shrouded with smoke, was two miles from one edge of the "Witch Fire," the largest of the wildfires scorching Southern California this week, and that it seemed as if they would be okay.

Okay or not, their situation, along with those of Peter and Faith, Floyd and Marion, the three-year-old with the swollen-shut eye (all from the previous three posts), and the millions of other journeys on this human path, reminded me of Ernest Shackleton's invitation to join his 1914 exploration of the South Pole. I first became aware of Shackleton's language while listening to Bill Plotkin speak at an Animas Valley Institute seminar some years ago. He joked that with a little revision, the ad that Shackleton had placed in a London newspaper would serve well for the vision quests that he and the Animas guides offered.

Shackleton's ad: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

Bill was only half-joking. In Soulcraft: Crossing Into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library, 2003) he offered this revision as a possible ad for a quest: "Men and woman wanted for hazardous journey. Bitter cold and intense heat, long hours of complete darkness, boredom, no food, constant danger, encounters with the unknown, return in same condition doubtful. Vision and more hardships await in case of success" (330). Anyone who has enacted a vision quest can vouch for the literal and metaphorical truths in that description.

Anyone who chooses to live a conscious life, and I mean really pay attention to all of it to the extent he or she can in any given moment, can grow into a worldview that can vouch for these truths as well. Not one of us needs to create an enemy in order to embark on a hazardous journey. No one needs to drop a bomb, crash a plane, fire a gun, throw a punch, sarcastically criticize, or passively dismiss to live a daring, challenging, attainable life worth living.

All any one of us has to do (yes, the italics are literally true and a painfully ridiculous understatement) is to fully engage body, mind, soul and spirit to commit to finding out what our unique self is called to do during the time it has to do it, and what our true identity is within and beyond this calling, and we will have the grand adventure that is already ours. But we have to pay attention because the fire and the cancer and the arthritis and the hurricane and the flood and the heart attack and the accident and the depression will try to distract us from time to time, and not one of them is the journey that we're hoping for. Any one of them can suffice as a painfully distracting detour from or an attention-holding guide on the journey. We get to choose.

That's enough for now. I need to pay attention and see what it is I'm not paying attention to right now.

Peter and Faith

2007-10-17T12:39:00.000-04:00

I attended a memorial service for Peter this past Sunday. Although we didn't see each other regularly since we met in August 1996, I always enjoyed his presence, and, against the backdrop of our canoeing, walks in the woods, New Years Eve and birthday gatherings, diner breakfasts and poetry readings, I think it's safe to say he enjoyed mine as well.

On that August evening, I saw him seated at a table at Dr. Java's, a cafe in Bethel, CT--at the time, the home of the Wednesday Night Poetry Series (WNPS), which is now the longest running weekly poetry series in the state. I had met his wife, Faith, the month before at the Sunken Garden Festival and she invited me to check out the goings on at Dr. Java's.

With his roots in Astoria, Peter was quick to point out that although we may have a New York Italian connection on the surface, Yonkers was not quite the same as being from the city. When I suggested that many Manhattanites felt the same way about Queens, we both laughed at my attempt to bond in not being from Manhattan if I couldn't do it by being from New York.

At first I thought of Peter as Faith's husband--corporate background, now consulting, and occasionally, and then regularly and humorously hosting the poetry series. But then I heard him read his poetry, and got to read some of it myself. The first two, "Friends," about his friend 'Grif,' and "Growing Old in New York," a riveting vignette of his aging parents, beckoned me to see him in a different light. Unfair, I thought, that this fiercely bright, wickedly funny, technologically savvy, table tennis ace (yes, all that and more) could write.

And while I'm tempted to say that the emergence of cancer in his pancreas early in 2006 was unfair as well, I know that it was not. Amid the shock, disbelief and uncertainty of the diagnosis, Peter analyzed the options for surgery, treatment, doctors and hospitals with every one of his talents. He calculated each step with Faith, and made it clear that he was going to be one of the cancer survivors who beat whatever statistical odds there were to beat (which he did, though not quite soundly enough for those of us who love him).

I consider myself lucky and blessed to have known him, although as an avowed atheist, he might cringe a bit at the "blessed" part. I learned that when I feared I might be imposing after his surgery, showing up at their home to chat was exactly the right thing to do; and that when I thought it might be too much, he jumped at the chance to walk in the woods for a couple of miles and then have lunch. When Faith called me after he wound up back in the hospital with an infection unrelated to the cancer, and asked if I could visit, Peter greeted me from behind his lunch tray with a strong desire to clarify if I were there as his babysitter or playdate.

The last time I saw him out and about, we had breakfast at a diner while his car was serviced, and he offered his humble, experienced perspective as a stepdad for three when I shared my own stepdad worries and fears. In response to an email in which I expressed my intention to see him at the opening of his and Faith's photo exhibit at the Newtown library (yes, an accomplished photographer as well), he wrote back that Faith thought it might be best if he not attend, because of, in his words, "You know--germs." I can hear his voice smile, and see his face and the gleam in his eyes as he emphasizes that last word.

The memorial service took place at his stepson, Michael's, home. Family and friends from various times and places in his life, piles of food, photographs, a video, and spoken and written messages of love and remembrance, hosted in an authentic, grounded, honest, devastated and loving way by Faith. More than once, and usually with some ironic twist and a smile, the words "arrogant" and "atheist" popped up. I believe that atheism is a valid stage of spiritual development--way past fundamentalism and not quite mysticism, and that arrogance is in the perception of the beholder.

So, Peter, like it or not, we are New York Italians and poets, you're an atheist who chose to marry Faith, and I love you and miss you.

Floyd, Marion, Major League Baseball, et al.

2007-10-09T06:28:00.000-04:00

With Marion Jones's coming clean this past week regarding her steroid use, and with Floyd Landis's illegal performance enhancement stripping him of his Tour de France title, and with the gradual, persistent, layered and labyrinthine implosion of the big muscles in Major League Baseball, and with the ongoing problem with steroid usage in interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics (especially, but not only, in football), and with whatever other substance abuse is going on in sport that has yet to surface in the media, perhaps genuinely concerned parties need to look at the issue not more closely, but in a different way.

In The Quality of Effort in 1991 I made the following general points about drug-enhanced performance in sport:

Such performance cheats the athlete of ever knowing what he or she might have achieved without the drug.

It burdens the cheater with the knowledge that he or she does not deserve the honor, although this burden may not be felt immediately, and may only become conscious if and when the athlete develops ethically to the point that such behavior is wrong.

It also cheats opponents, irreversibly, of much more than a ribbon, medal, trophy or plaque. To use track and field as an example, this type of cheating is also a theft that steals from others the unique experience of crossing the finish line first, taking the victory lap, and standing on the winner's stand in real time to be acknowledged by those who witnessed the victory.

Athletes are often motivated by loyalty to a team or tribe (school, community or other organization); by a self-centered desire to satisfy personal needs by any means necessary, regardless of consequences; by a willingness to work and sacrifice for a greater good (God or country); by a desire to be one's best by working hard, setting goals, and discovering the optimum strategic approach to achieving them; or even by a desire to be in community with others who enjoy the same sport. The best coaches (and athletes) are aware of each of these motivators at some level, be it conscious or not.

It is possible that one's loyalty to team, tribe, or greater good might be so strong that cheating appears on the horizon as a viable option, but it is within that second motivator above, that self-centered desire to do what it takes without guilt or remorse, that drug-enhanced performances emerge. Understanding the issue requires a more complex, integral approach than many sports administrators and journalists have taken. I do not mean this in the sense that we should feel sorry for those who cheat; they should be held accountable according to the relevant criminal and civil laws and organizational bylaws. I mean it in the sense that anyone who is truly interested in addressing and stopping this type of cheating in sport needs to understand the array of individual, cultural and social factors that lead athletes to cheat.

The above five "motivators" are loosely based on the values research done by Clare Graves and continued today by Don Beck and others.

The Lens Through Which We See

2007-09-11T12:37:00.000-04:00

The lens through which we see ourselves, others and the world at large is focused and colored by a broad and deep array of interior, exterior, individual and collective perspectives. Our personal beliefs, physical bodies, day-to-day experiences, cultural (in the very broadest meaning of that word) experiences, natural environment, and the social infrastructure within which we live our lives are among the influences that create and influence these perspectives.
A poem for you:

This Open Eye
Swollen shut the right
eye seeps semi-clotted
blood that streams
and blotches a map of
hell across the three-
year-old face. Wide
open, the left eye
appears injury-free--
untouched, but
ultimately more
lethal.
Through this open
eye the child sees
the world that has
closed the other.
From This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do
Copyright (c) 2006 by Reggie Marra

What happened to this child? What I'd like you to consider are the myriad influences that inform your intuitive or analytical responses to this question and to the poem itself. What perspective(s) may have led the poet (in this case, me) to write the poem at all, and write it as I did? Trust that your inquiry and any conclusions you may reach or hypotheses you may develop will provide as much, and probably more, insight into yourself than into the poem or the poet.

This is the spirit in which this little chunk of cyberspace begins. I don't know where (or if) it will go from here.

Thanks for reading this far.