Imagine

Amazing how simple and profound, and eminently, without a shred of doubt most important it is, to just be a solid and loving human being.

Incredible how simple most of the world's problems are. And how simply they are resolved. Once the heart and mind become clearer about just how crazy our basest impulses make us. And how crazy and a mess, as a consequence, the world becomes. How simple and profound love and integrity make us genuinely stronger in almost every way conceivable. All of the ways that it does so. And just what exactly that simple purpose in our lives has to offer us.

Unfathomably and so simply remarkable how easy it is to make this world better. For ourselves as much as anyone else. Once we get clear about what impulses have undoubtedly made it worse. On all of our parts. And how the confusion about that can be easily dispelled. With just a little clarity about what strength the best that our hearts and minds have to offer. And what strength really looks like. For those who are afraid that they are otherwise. All of us, that is. Until the more serious and real strength that love and integrity have to offer become a seemless expression of our lives.

Once we get clear about all of that. Imagine the possibilties.

Just who on earth could it be?

Adults are a funny lot.

Much of the time. For the long train of humanity's history. Most of us, when we're honest, are like children. In much bigger and more stationary packages. Creating endless confusion and mayhem for young people and old people alike. With all our limitless nonsense and outrageous bullshit.

And we are notorious for more than bullshit, I'll have you know. Often it is our life commitments, by God. With ourselves and with one another.

And, far too often, we take too little, if any, responsibility for the lot of it. Regularly. As a matter of common course.

And then we pose, so often. Persistently. So tough, so brave, so very, very, very infallibly good. For all the same folks. Our parents. Our friends. Our children, most of all.

And impersonate people that are all that we are not. And pretend that it was someone else who created all that confusion and mess. And misled that fearful and hardluck world in the process.

I am most certainly guilty. More guilty than most, very likely. Because I am so very good, I will have you know. Just ask those who really know me.

And then, all the while, at a fever pitch, we wonder, in all sincerety, why the world is such a persistent, unremitting mess.

And marvel, aghast and dumbstruck, out loud and often, "Who on earth could it be, I wonder, who made the world as it is?"

Blessed

Our first day back at Capital City, yesterday. I am so unspeakably blessed to work with this crew. Easily, some of the most amazing people I've ever had the pleasure of spending any time with, at all, my entire life. These people inspire the shit out of me. And I love them all so thoroughly.



Sometimes our lives are so blessed and we don't even know it.

Love y'all.

Truth or Dare

If truth is stranger than fiction, then people are stranger than fiction lets on.

The beaten path

In all its economic, technological, and cultural abundance, humanity has a million and one opportunities to screw itself out of life being more decent, and happy, and peaceful.

And if there's one thing about humanity you can count on: it never wants to waste an opportunity.

The human tragedy

The single most tragic and frustrating of human experiences, for those who might like to correct it, is that, tomorrow, all forms of genocide, oppression, serious violence and intentional harm to our fellow man could end in a moment. All that awaits is for us to choose to do so. It can without a shred of doubt be chosen otherwise. But, persistently, we choose our meaner, more demonizing, more aggressive, more predatory, more destructive impulses. Because we are convinced, at long last, that they, finally, will save us from all that. When it is, generally, our meaner, more demonizing, more aggressive, more predatory, more destructive impulses that we need to be saved from. What is tragic is that it is all avoidable. Every single bit of it. But we refuse to avoid it. For fear that doing so means that we will be subject to its self-destruction.

Evolution. She's a bitch. But maybe she's not done with us yet.

What bin Laden has wrought

A very nice description of America since 9/11.

The long road home

And a moment to pause and reflect on the changes that day has wrought.

Food for thought

What we look like to the outside world.



Food for thought. If there's still room for that in America, these days.

All praise to the Gods

Ownership of TV sets falls in U.S.

It's beginning to sink in, for me, that much of what constitutes politics is animated by people with strong opinions, about something, and approaching deadlines. And a need for an audience. In the press. In academia. In Washington.

And all with a desperate desire to be important. Whether they do any good or not.

And when you watch them all working in a frenzy to no clear and apparent end, it all becomes all that more ridiculous. And far too often tragic.

Self-importance. New religion in these parts.

All praise to the Gods.

Revenge

"But several Muslim authorities said today that the sea burial in fact violated Muslim tradition--and warned that it could help trigger calls for revenge from militant Muslims...

..."And Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque declared: 'It is not acceptable, and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea,' adding that the action 'might provoke some Muslims.'"

Be careful what world you wish for. You just might get it.

Adventures in liberal democracy

As someone who grew up a peace activist and otherwise leftist, I have relunctantly and slowly come to agree with many of the fairly insightful observations in this column by Alastair Crooke, British diplomat and former MI6 officer in the Middle East.

Why the demise of the Middle East 'peace process' may be a good thing

It is pretty clear, today, that Islamists, of different stripes, and Hamas and Fatah, in Palestine, have been playing a very different game of international politics than the West with often very different aims. And, too often, these days, sadly, they have been learning that game from us. Just with far more brutal commitments. All with the very same and foolish insecurity underneath it all. Just one that liberal democracies should know better, about, today, given their vastly and unquestionably more serious success in the world, on almost every single important front. The fear that freedom and compassion and all of the highest of humanities values make them weak. And that only the persistent and unrelenting use and projection of force will cure that fear. When it is very clear, from the long length of history, that that perscription has never and will never do anything of the sort. And the long road of progress in liberal democracies and human civilization and cultural evolution has been as a matter of the most serious commitments of liberal values and common purpose, when reasonable and made possible, among humanity's various cultures, nations, governments, and people. Today is no different, in that respect. What is at stake is how long we will take the opposite conclusion seriously when it has clearly undermined almost all of our various important independent and common objectives.

What I like about Crooke's analysis is that he is clearly still committed to some kind of peace between Israel and Palestine, which, I agree, is the only long term, sustainable commitment that will not mean security threats for either Israel or Palestinians in perpetuity and some kind of just end to 100 years of warfare between these parties.

It also may very likely signal the future shape of a liberal democratic order, whose main threat, today, is Islamism, Islamic terrorism, and autocratic power players who both resist and are hostile to liberal democratic values and culture and manipulate and pose serious threats to important liberal democratic institutions, like the United Nations and the liberal democratic press. Physically, that is liberal demcracy's most serious threat. But, perhaps more pressing a threat than that, is a liberal democratic culture that seems all too convinced that perhaps all those liberal commitments have betrayed them and that their more illiberal brethren in the Islamic, Communist, and other worlds have had it right, all along, that liberty is their greatest threat and force their greatest friend. Even when it clearly undermines them. That foolish and cowardly insecurity is perhaps more of a threat to liberal democracies, today. Because it feeds all of the rationalizations that make the terrorism and dictatorship and threats from all of its real and autocratic enemies, today, possible at all. And that fact is perhaps the most tragic fact of all in the early 21st century. Liberal democracies triumphing as the one most serious commitment of humanity's future and brightest light. Only to be dimmed by their own insecurity that they were perhaps wrong about all that made them great.

This particular commitment of my youth - to a peaceful liberal order - was borne out of both the peace commitments of my youth and the post-Soviet euphoria that the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled, and rightfully so, a final vindication of a peaceful, liberal democratic world order.

9/11 was, indeed, as many conservatives argued, at the time, a wake up call that history was not finished. And that peace and liberal democracy were hardly its unquestionable victors, as a matter of its ongoing commitments, even as it was undoubtedly the most ingenious, strongest, most abundant, and contributing model of society and governance devised. Even, in other words, as liberal democracies were still clearly its strongest and most contributing participants. Irony has abounded in 21st century liberal democracy. And acknowledging that irony is, perhaps, the clearest road forward for liberal democracies stuck in their own fears of what they are and what they are best.

Crooke, in this article, tries to forge an outlook for how peace in the Middle East might still arise out of the ashes of a process that has seriously stalled, at this point, absent some real commitment by combatants to peaceful coexistence.

The alternative has been a destructive and irrational game of power politics, particularly by Palestinian terrorist groups and their political representatives, by my lights, and by Israeli and Palestinian partisans who opt for power politics over more genuine cooperation and collaboration, and any and all parties who have sworn off each and every opportunity for a peace agreement that would end the occupation of Palestine and end the killing of innocent Palestinians and Israelis at every turn.

And as someone who recognizes that one of the chief purposes of democracy is to provide peaceful alternatives to violence to resolve political conflicts, I have very little patience and no truck at all with the use of violence to manipulate peaceful or more democratic negotiations.

The Israelis leadership opted for stalling for better negotiating position, it appears, in the last round of talks. And Palestinians leaders, it appears, think that they can do an end run around reasonable negotiations with Israelis through the United Nations. A notion that is as ridiculous as it is counterproductive to a workable settlement.

And, at the end of the day, the intransigence of those not genuinely committed to peace is responsible for the deaths of so many innocent Palestinians and Israelis.

The general failure of Muslim cultures to respect the commitments to peaceful engagement and respect for differences inherent in liberal democratic values and institutions is one of the more serious problems that liberal democratic cultures face as a fact of national and international security commitments, today. But the failure of liberal democratic cultures to respect those same values and commitments, their own values and commitments, ironically, is their much more serious and self-governing responsibility which gives cover for the lack of respect for those same values among illiberal cultures and governments.

I do not care how many apologists for violent manipulation of those processes that Palestinians and Muslims have in the West. And I don't care how many apologists there are for the less violent and but still destuctive and counterproductive manipulation of liberal democratic discussions and processes with power and pressure politics in liberal democracies that feed the rationalizations for these violent thugs. At a certain point, when you rationalize the deaths of your own people or your own allies in the name of abstractions of politics or value, it becomes hard to tell if you are friend or foe, frankly. And, at a certain point, when illiberal impulses, as much as illiberal values or commitments or institutions, have so undermined societies' capacities for maintaining any real peace, security, economic strength, cultural contributions, and all of the other purposes that our illiberal impulses have undermined, free and unfree peoples need to rethink that path of destruction and self-destruction.

And that is the challenge the West faces, today. How do we deal with countries and groups who still pose threats who may or may not learn to respect liberal democratic values, but who are more than willing to manipulate those same liberal democratic values and institutions? And how do we learn to live up to our own values and end the legacy of manipulating those same values, commitments, and institutions in our own societies which lend rationalization to their manipulation in illiberal cultures and societies and make far harder our ability to build a peaceful and secure liberal democratic order that can successfully bring more peoples, cultures, government, and various people into its fold. To grow stronger, not weaker, ironically. And to do so by embracing its most serious strengths. It's commitment to freedom and compassion and common purpose in humanity, and all of its highest values that humanity's most base impulses often mistake for weakness in their perpetual insecurity and their failures of liberal democratic maturity.

That is the question we face, today. Let's see if we can find workable answers.

Osama Bin Laden out of the picture is not a bad start towards that end. But looking to our own honest commitments and failures is the most serious road forward.

Or just how noble we've become

When Bad Things Happen to Do-Good People

"If Mr. Mortenson’s apparent fall from grace stems from a failure of character, it also has the ancillary benefit of showing us that the world is indeed a good deal more complicated than merely taking tea with our enemies. That global realities of entrenched money and power, diametrically opposed ideologies, religious conflict and centuries-long geopolitical animosities can render change nigh on impossible, so why try? It confirms the good judgment inherent in our own inaction. It certainly allows me to live another day without getting off the couch.

They say that schoolyard tune of 'Nya nya nya nya nya!' is universal; the same melody and intonation the world over. One likes to think that as one gets older, the impulse to stand over another and sing it while pointing like some scornful and victorious Marvelette diminishes. Maybe we just find other ways to do so."

Such a noble species, ain't we?

Megan McCain speaks some gentle truth

I have to say. I do not usually take Meghan McCain seriously on political matters.

But on this matter, I think she's right. And has some personal experience to validate it that I think should be taken seriously by a media that, I agree, is seriously out of control, right now.



Why should Meghan or anyone have to defend that they are not mean enough to be a journalist? When did mean become the standard against we judged quality journalism?

And what does that say about our culture and its direction if that is the standard?

It is true that as a culture we can be too nice about all sorts of matters. That we can be naive about the state of the world. About human nature. About all sorts of things. I'm certainly guilty. Everyone is, at some point in their life (and all points of their life, if they were honest with themselves about real and possible limits of understanding about the world).

But when did empathy somehow become to source of all of our misunderstanding, is my question? Rather than the source of the largest bulk of our understanding about people other than ourselves?

It's like saying our brains are the source of most of our mistakes. Which, of course, they are. Since that is the part of the human anatomy responsible for decision-making. But they are also responsible for all of our honest and constructive understanding of the world, as well. Since they are responsible for the same. And losing ourselves in some notion of our brains as the source of our weakness because it is responsible for most of our mistakes as a species, is about the dumbest form of a dog chasing its tail to catch its backside of any notion that this damn fool species might just settle upon.

Obviously, there are a lot of directions this conversation can take us in that point us to the limits of empathy in understanding the world and others around us and in acting consistent with a wiser understanding of the world. As there are with the limits of almost any means of understanding or organizing the world. Including the rule of law. The limits of which, as much as anything else, have been a serious and important part of the development of liberal democracies and liberal values over time.

What I know, at this moment, is that I agree with Meghan that the national media in the United States is both seriously out of control in its treatment of all of its subjects. Self-congratulatory, generally, about its own behavior. And, simultaneously, discordant on so many issues of national import that is makes it extremely difficult to either get anything done on matters of common purpose or to develop consensus and common purpose and common standards of conduct that so many in the media or so bound and determined to undermine and bully and abandon in favor of whatever trends seem to suit their fancy. All while they bemoan those same lack of standards or the absence of this or that law that they favor.

It's more than a bit bizarre to watch, frankly, after some time.

If there is one reason for why Americans have expressed so little confidence in their national political institutions it is both the behavior of those institutions that does not seem to resolve important issues of national significance, and, much more importantly, the unwillingness of members of the media to ever allow or actively work to identify consensus and common purpose to tackle and resolve such problems.

And then, out of the obsession with the power vaccuum that behavior creates, more aggressive, mean-spirited posturing looks to be the only real option.

Even when the world watches that option playing itself out and so many people ask, legitimately:

"How, exactly, has this made things better?"

It hasn't, is the truth, I'm pretty clear. And Fox News and Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are as guilty as Bill Maher or Rachel Maddow or CNBC. And I don't care how much they try to weasel their way out of this one by blaming the other guy, it has turned our national conversation into some ugly, distorted version of something more decent and honest and worthy of American democracy and our liberal values and heritage. What we've adopted, as of late, is something more worthy of Weimar Germany, before the Nazis. It's not the same thing. But neither should we be strutting with pride in that direction, either.

It's been worse, to be sure. Can't get much worse than a Civil War. But neither does that make it ok. Civil war is not ok, either, except when unavoidable, as it likely was in our own history. And politics as culture war is neither unavoidable or an honest or decent or worthy way of conducting a democracy. Especially the birthplace of modern liberal democracy.

And whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we are responsible for the sorry mess of things, today. And Americans will have to say different if they want something more worthy.

Perhaps they don't. And perhaps I'm wrong. In which case, I, for one, at least, will be joining the masses of apathetic Americans who have thrown in the towel on this politics and just grateful that I have sufficient freedom to do so in this great country.

But it seems a damned shameful way to conduct things, in the meantime.

My experience is that those who approach the world as one long fight interpret that world and others around them very differently than a world where less aggression predominates and those who seek to build that peace. Interpretations of foreign policy before and after World War demonstrate this propensity to see threat and danger and fear in every direction in ways that create the same. Fear of a world that is unsafe made unsafe by that same fear. And it is the most repeated and unfailing folly of the species homo sapiens in their long, predatory, and all-too-aggressive history.

Perhaps we have evolved beyond our sense of something more genuinely decent. Perhaps aggressive and mean-spirited is the wave of the future.

All I know is that every single group or ideology who has taken that direction, rather than giving some honest parameters to liberal democracy, has taken those same democracies and cultures in some fairly ugly directions, generally. And they, too, thought they were doing what was best, often, as well as what was in their self-interest.

Only to discover that they had hurt a lot of people along the way. And leave history teachers, like myself, to get all that sorted out for the world.

Be nice to get some of that sorted out ahead of time, perhaps. Avoid the unnecessary harm to ourselves and one another. For all of our sakes.

What would George Washington do?

The kids and I are studying party politics for our district document based assessment. And George Washington came up.

Washington is a President whose reputation, with me, up till this point, was not as an intellectual. Washington was the good guy. The guy who gave up power voluntarily after successfully leading the Americans in battle.The guy more concerned about getting the country off on the right foot than with his own personal ambitions.

But then I happened on Washington's Farewell Address while trying to find documents for the kids. And this is what George Washington had to say about party politics:

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is the truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural and party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindle the animosity of one part against another, foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it from bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

It's easy for people to lose themselves in party passions and prides of all various sorts. It's also often destructive for no particular purpose, at all. Other than the one conjured in the moment.

It seems to me, at least, given how ugly and irrational our debates have gotten, that this is one of those moments.

Not the first time. Won't be the last. Not good for any of us, either.

Perhaps we have all outthunk one another.

Perhaps we have outthunk ourselves.

Perhaps we have outthunk noone but ourselves.

Perhaps all that is a tad more foolish than we might want to admit.

And perhaps, deep down, those are the real stakes involved today.

What would George Washington do?

Not this, I'm pretty sure. Not this.

You know who I'm voting for?

You know who I'm voting for?

No clue. We'll see who can rise above the bullshit.

You know who I'm voting against?

Dicks. Like this one.

Trump brings media blitz to NBC, 'steamrolls' Meredith Vieria on birther issue

And the dicks who blamed Meredith for this guy being a dick.

And every dick who blames compassionate folks for all the dicks in the world, like themselves, being dicks.

And like Bowles and Simpson said. I'll be voting against dicks in both parties. Believe that.

Fuck off, dicks. I don't care what direction you come from.

You've fucked up my country.

I want nothing to do with you assholes. Right or left.

Fuck off.

And go learn something real in the world, you prick.

Fuck you and your cause.

For real, dicks.

I don't want anything to do with the lot of you.

For reals, homey.

What to do with Libya, the Middle East, and whole damn world

By far, the strongest thoughts I've seen on the situation in Libya and liberal interventionism, more broadly.

By merely bolstering the weaker side, we are prolonging Libya's civil war

He's definitely right, by the way, about the failures and limitations of liberal interventionism. This is where, for all his faults, President Bush was far stronger than his successor. And what will likely lead me to vote Republican and for whatever candidate can promise to be more thoughtful about such situations and fully committed when they engage in warfare, of any kind, when they do.

Liberal democracies need to keep all options open when dealing with the baddest of bad actors. A muscular unilateralism or multi-multilateralism. A U.N. sanctioned liberal interventionism. Bilateral or multilateral diplomacy. Whatever commits the world to liberal values, defends liberal democracies, removes bad actors, when possible, and otherwise makes the world a freer, more peaceful, more prosperous, better place to live.

The only real questions at this point, are:

1) Does this situation in Lybia warrant any intervention (I still lean in favor, though I am persuaded that many people likely understand this situation and region far better than me and many of those voices oppose this intervention, perhaps for good reason; thank God for thoughtful liberal debate and discussion and people far smarter than me about such matters, that's all I gotta say).

2) If we are engaged in such interventions, are we going to fight to win or put our men and women in uniform in harm's way without any real guarantee of victory, even when we have the real capacity to guarantee just that?

There's probably more that I just don't understand well enough. That's most questions of import, I'm convinced, at this point, as far as I'm concerned.

But one thing I do know, at this point, is that if liberal democracies do not make clear that they are the dominant force in the world, someone else will. And they won't be our friends. That doesn't justify any and every intervention. And my advocacy for this intervention could very likely turn out to be wrong.

But there does, I believe, need to be a more serious, mature, thoughtful, open, engaged, reliable and credible debate and discussion about such matters in government, by major media outlets, in universities, and in all places where genuinely thoughtful and serious folks have such discussions, or should be having those discussions, even when they opt for politics, in its lowest and least trustworthy forms, instead.

There needs to be, I believe, some kind of consensus that begins to evolve out of this conflict, between liberal and conservatives that can have the American and liberal democratic peoples fully on board when we do commit to such actions so our brave men and women in uniform do not give their lives in vain.

And some sense of gravity and seriousness that matters of life and death, for everyone, and particularly for those in the armed forces, are, without even a hint of question, more important than our petty debates about who is going to get more money for themselves or whichever purposes that happen to suit their fancy.

Our debates in politics need to reflect the seriousness of the matters that they entail. And if all Americans are not going to give them that kind of seriousness, then those who are supposed to be the grown-ups in such debates need to start acting like them.

Simon Jenkins does a nice job of doing just that in this piece.

The question is (for all of us, myself especially):

Can the rest of us?

Searching for some good faith (and Bobby Fisher, but he's since ate it)

It's so funny. In an age obsessed with proving just how badass and unforgiving it is, you have two parties and their ideological brethren who have, as R. Emmett Terrell alludes to, here, likely unintentionally, bumbled through America's unipolar moment. Both of whom and their Presidents have needed much room for failure and forgiveness.

And I'm pretty sure they are both in solid good faith.

Obama's Crazy War

If this were late 1940's Europe, we would just begin the process of giving up imperialism as a rationalization of endless warfare and conquest and power and move on to something more democratic.

The problem we face, today, however is quite significantly different. How do you simultaneously provide for national and collective security, commit the world to a liberal order, be able to affect change, especially with the baddest of bad actors, without powers capable and willing to exercise the power to do so? Or populations that will back them?

Good question, is the answer to that one. And two Presidents doing their best to offer answers. Internationally sanctioned multilateralism, in the case of the current President (even, as Terrell points out, if he skips his own Congress and Constitution). Or multi-multilateralism, using NATO and other willing partners - coalitions of the willing, someone once called them - when the U.N. or other bodies become ineffectual.

If there's one thing I've learned, in this time. There is no one group that's got anything figured out for good. So if you think you're one of them, think again. The thinker thinks to himself. And so goes the lot of us.

Attention: Team America

Secretary Clinton, Victor Davis Hanson, and everybody else for that matter.

As per Libya, the Arab Spring, and all the rest:

Obama: No U.S. Ground Troops Will Be Deployed To Libya

As much as possible, the President's best case scenario should be our policy. And while the President's caution is understandable, given the propensity for worse case scenarios, all options, including the use of overwhelming force, should be on the table.

Enough petty bickering.

Time to start acting like a team, Team America.

The world needs leadership.

Let's show them some.

Before it is too late

Gwynne Dyer, one of the strongest international security columnists I have ever encountered, has an excellent suggestion for making sure that Mohammar Gadhafi does not defeat Lybia's rebels and crush democratic hopes in Lybia.

The Libyan Revolution's Best Hope: Egypt?

"The Libyan revolution is losing the battle. Col. Moammar Gadhafi's army does not have much logistical capability, but it can get enough fuel and ammunition east along the coast road to attack Benghazi, Libya's second city, at some point in the next week or so. His army is not well trained and a lot of his troops are foreign mercenaries, but the lightly armed rebels cannot hold out long against tanks, artillery and air strikes.

Even sooner, Gadhafi's forces will attack Misrata, Libya's third city and the last opposition stronghold in the western half of the country. It will probably fall after some days of bitter fighting, as Zawiya eventually fell. And if Zawiya's brave and stubborn resistance is repeated in the two larger cities then they will both suffer very large casualties, including many noncombatants, in the fighting.

What happens to the rebels and their families after active resistance is crushed will be much worse. When political prisoners in Abu Salim prison staged a protest at jail conditions in 1996, Gadhafi had 1,200 of them massacred. All the people now fighting him, or helping the Libyan National Council that organizes resistance in the east, or just demonstrating against him, will be tracked down by his secret police. They and their families are doomed.

The collapse of the democratic revolution in Libya will also gravely damage the prospects of the "Arab spring" elsewhere. Rulers in other Arab countries where the army is also largely made up of foreign mercenaries (Bahrain and several other Gulf states, for example), will conclude that they can safely kill enough of their own protesters to 'restore order.'...

...U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was not being entirely honest when he said that a no-fly zone could not be imposed without the prior destruction of all Libya's surface-to-air defenses, which would require a lot of bombing. It would be perfectly possible to enforce the no-fly ban from the air, and only attack Gadhafi's ground-based defense systems if and when their targeting radars locked onto the enforcing aircraft.

Nevertheless, Gates is right to reject the no-fly solution, for two reasons. First, it wouldn't stop Gadhafi's advance. Second, if it were done by American and European air forces, it would undermine the Arab sense of ownership of this extraordinary revolt against tyranny. It would be pure gesture politics, to make the onlookers to the tragedy feel better about themselves.

What is actually needed is active military intervention on the ground and in the air by disciplined, well-trained Arab forces, sent by a revolutionary Arab government that is in sympathy with the Libyan rebels. So where is the Egyptian army when the Libyans need it?

Egypt has an open border with the rebel-controlled east of Libya, and just one brigade of the Egyptian Army would be enough to stop Gadhafi's ground forces in their tracks. The Egyptian air force could easily shoot down any of Gadhafi's aircraft that dared to take off, especially if it had early warning from European or American AWACS aircraft.

The Egyptian Army would probably not need to go all the way to Tripoli, although it could easily do so if necessary. Just the fact of Egyptian military intervention would probably convince most of the Libyan troops still supporting Gadhafi that it is time to change sides.

Arab League support for the intervention would not be hard to get, and the Libyan rebels are now desperate enough that they would quickly overcome their natural distrust of their giant neighbor. As for internal Egyptian politics, what better way for the Egyptian Army to establish its revolutionary credentials and protect its privileged position in the state than by saving the revolution next door?

It is very much in the interest of the Egyptian revolution that Gadhafi does not triumph in Libya, and even more that the forces of reaction do not win in the broader Arab world. For the first time since Gamal Abdul Nasser in the 1950s, the giant of the Arab world would also be its moral leader.

It would be nice if the Tunisian Army could intervene from the west at the same time as the Egyptian Army went into Libya from the east, but it is a far weaker force belonging to a far smaller country: Tunisia only has twice Libya's population, whereas Egypt has 12 times as many people. No matter. Egypt would be enough on its own.

Only do it fast. A week from now will probably be too late."

They need to act quickly.

If they do not, many, many brave Lybians will be sent to slaughter. While those with the means to help them stand paralyzed on the sidelines.

If noone helps these rebels, the tragedy will be more serious than any 24 hour cable news celebrity will ever be able to explain away.

Some masterful chillaxin'

For all the right reasons and their close associates, I am taking a much needed break from the world of politics and all other all-too-serious things in the world for a some much deserved time for chilling out and wooing women. I might return if I have something useful to say. Not likely for awhile, in other words.

In the meantime, enjoy the masterful chillaxin' from the master of chillaxing.

You will be missed, David Broder

The Broder We Knew

In an era that soberly addresses very little other than its own ego, David Broder made public service in journalism a serious endeavor.

Rest in peace, David. You will be missed.

Someone had to say it

The most honest and credible description I've heard about Paul Krugman in the short and unfortunate time I've known of that man.



Take it away, Alan. Someone had to say it.

How about that for a little honesty?

Alan Simpson makes awesome feel humble.



How refreshing to have anyone in Washington talk about sacrafice. And to get honest about how our self-centeredness will be our downfall - in our government, as much as in our personal lives - if we can't get ourselves cleaned up.

How refreshing to have someone call us out - all of us - on our bullshit.

Screw your political gamesmanship. Get straight about doing what needs to be done do long before it advances your career ambitions.

And those who play otherwise have no business leading everyone else around by the nose.

So says Alan Simpson. A rare breed in Washington D.C. and in the popular culture of any variety, these days.

A grown up. And proud of it.

There's hope for us yet.

Who can you trust in politics?

Finally. People I can trust in politics.



What a rare and welcome treat.

It has nothing to do with party.

It has to do with who is serious and honest.

How refreshing that some people still believe that means something.

Th-Th-Th-Th-That's all folks

After another weekend with The Blindside and a long enough and often too-thoughtfully-involved career, at this point, helping kids get their lives turned around, I have made a decision about the world and about my life.

I think, largely, that the world is a good and decent place. I think, at least. I've had much reason to doubt that, these days. But I still think that to be so.

I've spent a good portion of my adult life studying all the places - in America and around the world - where the world does not seem to be and often very much is not a very good or decent place. Or at least a much scarier, more brutal, more manipulative and self-centered, and otherwise unfriendly place than I believed it to be, as a kid. So I know plenty of that exists in the world. I'm not naive about that big, bad world. Or, at least, I'm less naive, today, for better or for worse. I wish I was more naive about the world, anymore, these days, is the truth. But I suppose I'll have to settle for just focussing my life on the good stuff in life and leave it at that.

I just genuinely believe, generally, that the world and people are better, more decent and all the rest than we give them credit. And I think, generally, the world is a decent enough place to be when you do what you're supposed to do (whatever that might be, I suppose) and when you go out to do some good in the world and, generally, do something worthwhile with your life.

I've spent enough time, at this point, seeing all the places where that's not true. Where people get sometimes some very short ends of sticks. Where life can be tragic. Where it's not fair. Where it's not happy. Where bad guys get the girl and nice guys finish last. And all that.

That world's plenty out there, that's for sure.

I just don't want to live that life, is the truth. I find it all kinda self-centered and self-involved and just not at all the kinda life I wanna live or the people I wanna be around, is the truth. They aren't the kinda people I like to be around, today, nevertheless as a matter of life.

And I guess I've just decided I've done all that plenty, at this point in my life. You could spend you're whole life with your focus, there, I suppose. With an eye to the cynical and disappointing facts of life.

But, why, really? Has it ever once made me feel better, I ask myself? Or has my life ever really gotten substantially better, meaning in my overall feeling about life, from having my focus there? Has anyone's, really?

No, is the answer to all of those questions. At least not in my experience.

And I guess I'm just at a point where I'm tired of questioning all of that. Or contemplating it all. Except as a matter of limited and not-terribly-serious focus in my life.

Having a nice life isn't all that tough. It's just about doing it. And spent a good, long enough time with the alternatives - namely, thinking about all the shit in the world that isn't so nice - to know that that kind of focus in life is just kinda miserable, is the truth. Especially when many of the people who make it so just don't seem so interested in it being any different. Because they create much of that misery, is the truth. And why that misery needs to be my problem, with so little I can do about it, I have no clue, at this point.

There's something about spending your life helping people, especially people who either want or don't want the help, and plenty of people don't want the help, at least not right now, and maybe ever, for some folks, that I realize that I don't have to worry about stuff I can't control, anyway, if I don't wanna. And I don't wanna, anymore. Except as a passing fancy, I suppose. But nothing to get my panties in a wad about.

Anyway. I watch the Blindside and I look at that lovely family and I think to myself, "That kinda life is just good enough for me. And more than any other way I look at the world, that kinda people is who I identify with, more than anything else, at this point."

And it's not about politics. And it's not about money. And it's not about anything really except good people who don't mind doing some good and just having that be that. And not losing their heads in a world that could drag them in one direction or another at any moment they might let them.

I'm done with all that. I want a life where I do good. Period. And perhaps do some other things along the way.

Anyway. For some reason I felt like saying it out loud. If only just to remind myself of the one lesson that has really sunk in from all this work, at this point. That being happy doesn't really have to be so complicated, is the truth. It's just up to us.

And as Porky Pig once wisely opined, Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-That's all folks.

No, really. Honestly. Thats all there is to it.

Thanks, Porky.

I gotta life to go spend some time with.

A modest question for the times

One question, it was occurring to me, today, that everyone might ask themselves - no matter what side of what lines they identify with - these days, is:

How do I look to someone who is not me? Often, it is not flattering. Just ask me. I have a lifetime enough to share, on that front.

The film, The Blindside, I think, offers the most convincing and realistic idea, I've seen, of bridging worlds that might otherwise resist bridges. In America, at least.



The book is excellent, as well, by the way. But the movie captures the real story in that story:

How do we bridge worlds that often feel, and often are, so far apart, in America, today?

Lots of folks resisting bridges these days. Often this just impacts our money. For those in the political world, that seems to be the real priority, these days. Perhaps the only one, from the looks of it, sometimes.

But, too often, in the world, today - Israel and Palestine come to mind, as do violent political and criminal matters in any number of countries in the world, today - this impacts life and death for many, many people.

Not all people will accept bridges. In which case, when life and death are at stake, we will have to settle for guns, instead, sadly.

But in those places where bridges can be built, in America and in the world, fewer guns are needed and fewer people die.

So while we're all pulling out our weapons and setting our sites on the other guy, we might ask ourselves, for a moment, that question:

How do I look to someone who is not me? And what has that done to make things better in the world or make them worse?

Something to think about.

If anything, just to have something to do while we tear each other apart.

Perhaps we all might build ourselves up a little bit better, this time around.

But what happens when there's no magic?

The American Thinker has a fascinating column on how things have changed from 1900. And whether they have, in fact, changed for the better.

"Federal spending. In 1900 federal spending was $0.5B. In 2000 it was $1,789B . Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900 is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today.

The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist in 1900; it was established in 1965.

Federal taxes. A federal income tax did not exist in 1900; it was unconstitutional, and would remain that way until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913. The first 1040 form included one page of instructions, and appeared to apply to both individuals and businesses. Today's 1040 instructions for individuals runs 155 pages, with no guarantee that you won't have to fill out other forms and consult other instructions.

Federal regulation. There were few enough federal regulations in 1900 that the government did not do anything special to keep track of them. That changed in the middle of the New Deal. The Federal Register, the master list of federal regulations, came into existence in 1936. In that year it had 2,620 pages of regulations. The next year it had 3,450. In the year 2000, it had 83,294 pages.

Cabinet Departments. There were seven cabinet level departments in 1900: State, Treasury, War, Navy, Justice, Interior and Agriculture. All but Interior (1849) and Agriculture (1889) were established prior to 1790.

In 2000 there were 14 cabinet departments, including 9 created after 1900: State, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce (1903), Labor (1913), Defense (1947), Health & Human Services (1953), Housing and Urban Development (1965), Transportation (1966), Energy (1977), Education (1979), and Veterans Affairs (1988).

In 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was established, making the current total 15 departments. If the "cabinet level" positions are included (excluding the Vice President), the total is 20. The cabinet level positions (excluding VP) are White House Chief of Staff, Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Constitutional Amendments. The first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) and the 11th were passed prior to 1800. The 12th was passed in 1804. In the next 109 years, only three more Amendments were added to the Constitution; all three were passed in the five years between 1865 and 1870 and related to ending slavery and establishing the rights of ex-slaves. The last 12 Amendments were all passed between 1913 and 1992. There are now 27 Amendments.

Federal Bureaucracy. The following sampling of government agencies did not exist in 1900. (The years given are when the agency was established. When a range is given, it includes the related pre-cursor agencies.)

FDA, Food and Drug Administration (1906-1930)
FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1908-1935)
Federal Reserve (1913)
IRS, Internal Revenue Service (1913)
FTC, Federal Trade Commission (1914)
BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (1920-1972)
FCC, Federal Communications Commission (1934)
SEC, Security and Exchange Commission (1934)
Social Security (1935)
Medicare and Medicaid (1965)
EPA, Environmental Protection Agency (1970)
OSHA, Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (1971)
DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration (1973)
FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Administration (1979)

Crime and Punishment. In 1900 there were no Federal laws against drugs. None. In fact, you didn't even need a prescription for medicine. Now, of course, the Federal government outlaws marijuana even where a state government has made it legal (over the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas, by the way), and has the FDA, DEA and other departments of armed men ready to enforce those laws and regulations. More generally, the federal departments we normally associate with law enforcement, the FBI and BATF for examples, did not exist at all in 1900.

In 1900 there were about 100,000 people (1 in 760) in U.S. prisons. In 2000 there were about 2 million (1 in 140). The incarceration rate increased over 400%.

In 1900 there were 1.2 murder victims for every 100,000 people. The rate has been over 10 per 100,000, and in 2000 it was 6.1 per 100,000, an increase of over 400% compared to 1900.

Generally, the federal government has stepped into law enforcement in a big way since 1900. Unfortunately, we did not become safer, either from criminals or from zealous prosecutors and lawmen. More of us get locked up. More of us get murdered. Four hundred percent more of us."

It's a fascinating read. And a welcome question mark for those convinced that the world changing means a world getting better.

Perhaps the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Perhaps the world just changes. For better and for worse.

Hard to know, ain't it?

So why are partisans so convinced that they made the magic happen?

Because when there's no magic, there's no reason to celebrate those who didn't make the magic happen.

And in the history of the world, that has meant celebrating those who have often made much tragedy happen in its stead.

And perhaps we have something a little better to offer than all that.

Check, please

Caroline Baum provides dead on analysis of the current economic debate. And the crossroads that has been, literally, forced upon the liberal democratic world, at this point, by the unbending, manipulative propaganda and pressure politics - and the utter lack of concern with the consequences of either - of the various partisans.

Macroeconomics Stuck in the Dark Ages

"Economists have been debating the pros and cons of fiscal stimulus since the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes diagnosed the problem as one of inadequate private investment and prescribed public spending, financed by borrowing, as the cure.

The discussion hasn’t advanced very much in eight decades. Sure, economists have devised elegant mathematical models that purport to show that $1 of government purchases translates into -- take your pick -- no increase in gross domestic product (the multiplier is zero, according to Harvard’s Robert Barro) or $1.50 of GDP (a multiplier of 1.5, according to Berkeley’s Christina Romer, who was chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers when the $814 billion stimulus was crafted in 2009). They haven’t really proven anything.

Keynesian economics went into hibernation in the latter part of the 20th century following an array of stimulus failures on the part of both Democratic and Republican administrations in the 1970s. The only thing the spending stimulated was stagflation.

In the 1980s, inflation came down, the Berlin Wall came down, economists thought the volatility of the business cycle had come down, and the notion of government as the solution went out of vogue.

Keynesians All

All it took was a good financial crisis for the Keynesians to come out of the woodwork.

The debate over fiscal stimulus went viral last week (at least in the geek world) with an economic forecast from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), a counter from Stanford University economist John Taylor (he of the Taylor rule), and an addenda from Goldman yesterday.

The Goldman gang projected an economic drag (that would be the opposite of stimulus) on GDP growth of 1.5 to 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters if House-passed budget cuts of $61 billion for the remainder of fiscal 2011 become the law of the land.

Asked about the Goldman forecast Tuesday following testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke demurred.

“Our analysis doesn’t get a number quite like that,” he said. “Two percent is an enormous effect.”

He could have added: “especially when the rest of government is growing.”

Wrong on Everything

“Total government spending is up 6.7 percent in 2011 from 2010,” Taylor told me in a telephone interview.

Defense spending is rising, as are non-discretionary outlays for programs such as Medicare and Social Security that are on automatic pilot.

The proposed cuts would reduce non-defense non-security discretionary spending, a teensy share of the federal budget, back to 2008 levels.

In a Feb. 28 blog post, Taylor said Goldman’s analysis was “wrong.” He criticized it for failing to consider the beneficial effects that expectations of lower future deficits and smaller tax increases would have on the economy. He criticized the methodology for relying on the same “large multiplier theory” used to justify the 2009 stimulus. And he criticized the assumption that proposed spending equates with actual spending, which trickles out over time.

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, the Goldman analysis was spot on.

‘Alchemists and Quacks’

This fundamental disagreement among professional economists about whether government spending helps or hurts represents the state of the art, or science, today. In what other science do practitioners design a treatment plan based on inconclusive proof that the medicine does any good?

There are no control studies in economics, no way to hold everything else constant to determine the impact of one variable, no way to falsify conclusions that models spit out. Financial Times columnist John Kay, writing yesterday about risk modelers, referred to them as “alchemists and quacks.”

A bit harsh, perhaps, but he’d probably hold macroeconomic models in the same high regard.

Whenever oil prices spike, modelers instantly project how much the increase will subtract from GDP growth. No mention of why prices are rising. Is it the result of a supply shock, which results in higher prices and reduced quantity demanded, or an outward shift in the demand curve, which equates with higher price and quantity demanded? There is a difference.

Known Knowns

In microeconomics, which is the study of how individuals and firms interact in specific markets, certain truths are self- evident. Which doesn’t mean economic planners can see them. Governments across Asia right now are using subsidies and price controls to ease the pain of higher oil and food prices even though their actions will exacerbate the crisis.

Goldman countered Taylor’s critique with a clarification. The projected 1.5 to 2 percentage point hit to GDP was to the quarterly annualized growth rate, not to the level. Thanks for that.

As I said before, we entered the 21st century with macroeconomics still looking for an Age of Enlightenment.

Five thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, medics used leeches to suck the blood of ill patients, believing the practice could cure everything from fevers to food poisoning.

Today’s physicians have largely forsaken bloodsuckers for modern medicine. It’s about time macroeconomics emerged from the Dark Ages as well."

The caveat, here, is that many partisans are just fine to argue that the economics debate is cover for partisanship that they have no intention of resolving. Scientifically or otherwise. In which case, Caroline's allusion that, if partisans are going to resign us to such a fate, the notion that economics, as a matter of objective scientific pursuit, must be abandoned, is the only honest conclusion.

Postmodernists on the left have argued the same for years. But the troubling part of that argument is that the only logical alternative is that more naked, or even more covert, power politics is substituted for honest science or debate or discussion. Not the most promising future for democratic discussion. But one that many on the left would characterize as progress. Because they say so. And with very little appeal to something more objective or for which broad consensus of any kind can be achieved.

Hence the current political period.

It is true, from what I've seen, that unemployment rates did seem to drop after Franklin Roosevelt took office. Very, very slowly. And with a long period of double-digit unemployment well into New Deal policies. Validating elements of the New Deal legacy. I've long believed that the strongest feature of that legacy was a commitment to temporary and as limited as possible government intervention in the face of true economic emergencies, like the 25% unemployment that Franklin Roosevelt faced upon taking office.

But the experience of America, at least, in the latter half of the 20th century, and really the experience of Europe, Japan, and most liberal democratic economies, is that Keynsian and neo-Keysnian policy has not fared well for economic growth, at least. Even if it provided cover for more wealth redistribution, which many Keynsians and leftists may support, it has not, and cannot possibly be, a substitute nor is it any kind of rational priority over economic growth, since growth is what creates the wealth that might otherwise be distributed. Killing the goose for the golden egg, as conservatives would argue. And which the current economic malaise seems to bear out. For someone who is honestly open-minded about what policies make for better economic results.

The truth is, I believe, that most Keynsians are committed leftists. And will be so despite the consequences. A problem that the right shares as well, to be sure. But one for which there is no other possible honest solution outside of naked power politics with no honest engagement - of the sort that has become commonplace in America today - absent a more objective policy discussion.

What I know is that this direction looks neither enlightened, as Caroline makes reference, nor like progress of any substantive sort that looks recognizable to me.

It certainly has not hastened progress in this economy, at this point, to anyone with eyes.

Perhaps progress is just a matter of who has the best narrative to justify their naked power politics, as leftists argue. No matter what happens to the world, in consequence.

In which case, as someone who was a committed liberal for most of my life, this direction looks like no kind of honest progress at all.

I most certainly have my doubts about the certainty that too many religious conservatives, in particular, bring to their politics, as well.

But it does seem to me to be a fairly serious hijacking of a democratic process for the priorities of the fringe to drive out a consensus of the more genuinely moderate and independent, thoughtful, and open-minded of the culture. The very same hijacking that characterized Weimar Germany, similary by both the right and the left, out of the same fear that liberal values had made Germany weak, in the lead up to Nazi rule.

It very much seems like a culture that has turned itself on its head. And that eats itself alive, simultaneously, with its own self-certainty and self-doubt.

Something needs to give, is the bottom line. And an objective and honest discussion of policies and their consequences seems like as good as any to find resolution of our perennial political battles. Outside of naked power politics.

A path forward that does not feel very much forward-moving at all.

Perhaps permanent and unbending mutual hostility and opposition is the future of democratic politics. Perhaps the future is blind assertion of power and not any kind of honest democratic discussion and debate in an honestly committed marketplace of ideas.

In which case, I'm with the folks voting against the assholes of the bunch.

All of them.

Until bullshit is not the only plate on the menu.

No rest for the ruthless

Someone needs to read some Montesquieu.

The Most Ruthless Usually Triumph

"Yet here we come up against a hard fact of life, beyond individuals; one which we must try to understand when looking forward - not only in Libya, but perhaps throughout the realm of Islam. Ruthlessness works. And in almost every revolution in history, the most ruthless faction eventually triumphed.

Chance, or what looks like chance, can also come into this. In their several ways, Robespierre of France, Hitler of Germany, and Pol Pot of Cambodia, overplayed their hands. Lenin, Stalin and Mao did not: each bequeathed a regime of monstrous tyranny to his successors.

While it is impossible to predict the course of history in narrative detail, that is not what 'learning from history' is about. History seldom repeats itself, in any melodic sense, but repeats itself constantly in rhythm and themes. We should grasp, for instance, that the American Revolution was almost unique in history, for ending so well. We should also grasp why. It was, from beginning to end, under the leadership of highly civilized men, governed by a conception of liberty that was restrained and mature."

Apparently David Warren has not figured out that the point of liberal democracy is not to beknight such facts of history. It is to challenge them in every way possible. Including as a matter of historical record.

That was the point of Montesquieu's and Madison's commitment to checks and balances. It also happens to have been the point of the 20th century. And the entirety of liberal democratic history. When we stop acting like it wasn't.

And the historical record, at this point, is that the most decent and humane countries are the most powerful countries. And that is the way it will remain. As long as we let those who would rationalize ruthlessness say what they like, but don't pretend that they have more to say than they do.

And make sure the truly ruthless have no opportunity, at all, to do anything of the sort.

Getting it right

The direction of more honest progress.

Enterprise, Not Greed, Creates a Better World

It involves getting this question right.

To be better

Finally got around to seeing this, last night.



The single most inspiring story I've seen for the work we do.

Thank you for your example, Leigh Anne Tuohy.

You inspire me to be better.

One worthy of your heart

If there is anything that teaching and studying people has taught me, it is that, for all the complexities that naturally arise out of life, having a nice, decent, successful life is actually much easier and more common sense than so many of us make it. Myself included.

And, ultimately, we either choose to have that life or not.

A nice life is the life I've chosen, at this point. And I'll let others choose their own path.

Everything else is beside the point, as far as I'm concerned.

Home is where the heart is, as they say.

And the question I ask myself, these days, is what kind of home have I made myself?

One worthy of my heart, I hope.

Nice to be home.

Choose wisely. And, if not, as is generally the case. For everyone. Choose again.

Life is full of clusterfucks, is the truth. Plenty of unfairness in the world. Plenty of unnecessary tragedy. Plenty of bad breaks and failures and life that just doesn't go quite right, is the truth.

And in the face of that, you can either work to make the world, and especially your little place in it, a little better, more genuinely decent and good, more beautiful, whatnot.

Or you can resign yourself or perpetuate the clusterfucks in life.

It's up to you.

And all us get to live with those choices.

Choose wisely.

And, if not. As is generally the case. For everyone. Choose again.

Rules is rules (good intentions, roads to hell, and all the rest)

Just had yet one more meeting centering around the ratcheting up of enforcement and compliance on any number of ridiculous paperwork requirements for our IEP work.

I was just sharing with another teacher in the building, a teacher I really respect for her ability to reach and touch kids, while we talked about ways to improve classes, that what drives me crazy about all this bullshit is that there is limited time we have in a week to do all the things that might make a difference in kids' lives.

But that time is persistently eaten up and the enthusiasm and enjoyment and commitment to the work persistently undermined by the ever increasing levels of ridiculousness around paperwork and the rules meant to leverage what, for real, outside of improving the egos of those doing the leveraging, I will never, ever in my life really know.

And I'm quite sure, given the circularity of answers always given - which always boil down to, "Because I said so"; no matter the unintended consequences, apparently - I will likely never hear an answer meant to make any real sense beyond defending itself.

Because those doing the work every day know that the ever increasing paperwork and emphasis on compliance, generally, does not one real lick of good. And does much bad, creating much aggravation and cutting into time to do those things that might do real good on the job. And, ironically, is the very thing that most of our kids are trying to desperately get out from under.

It's all very Alice in Wonderland, is what it is. Life in America is more than a tad Orwellian, these days, as everyone disregards any honest discussion about anything these days in lieu of very confidently asserted ideological certainty. It's kinda bizarre watching it, honestly, when you are just as confident that the assholes doing it are, generally, more strange and foolish for doing it and disregarding anything that might contradict their Very Confident Understandings of Everything Ever Known.

It's very much like studying or watching the warfare and political intrigue between Protestants and Catholics, or Sunni and Shia, or Christians and Muslims, or whatever many variations of ego pretending to be something better than it is to strut its way through human history, as if strutting really made it more true or good or whatever bullshit people have conjured for themselves, these days. And all days.

It's kinda funny and strange to watch an Administration that does not dare speak the namesake for American independence - for fear that the world will just go to pot and a hell of a lot worse than the fine, upstanding one all the leverage and power-mongering has so thoroughly created - pressure an Egyptian government to embrace freedom. Or else. It's all a little loony, after awhile, is what it is.

Where I come from, we just say it just don't make any damned sense, is the truth.

But like the Administration before it, this one cynically calculates that if they just do whatever they damn well please with their leverage and blame the other guy for anything that goes wrong, in lieu of something more decent and humble and respectful and honest, then everything will be hunky dorey. What must be avoided at all costs is something that might involve them learning something from the folks they so loathe just is not humanly possible that they could learn anything at all, apparently.

One does not learn from the De-veel and his terribly sexy, but power-hungry minions, after all. Meaning all of us. Yeah, you heard me. I just called you sexy.

It's just a little insane, really, all the bullshit. All the self-righteous assertions of power. Because I said so.

And not a goddamn bit o' good to show for it.

Except for the ones that I can just repeatedly assert. Against any contrary claims. Because I'll just ignore all the claims to the contrary. As my little sister once wisely opined, "Na-na-na-na-na."

It's all so grown up, I can hardly stand it.

What I know is that it is that the bullshit is thick, these days, in every quarters.

And it makes life wearisome for everyone else who has to live with it.

Because the overweaning egos of so many who clamor for power for any number of purposes just cannot to bring themselves to consider admitting that they might be wrong. About any goddamn thing. Which, of course, is what makes them so right. Because they have so thoroughly banished from their consciousness anything that might resemble anything even in leagues with wrong.

It's all so damn noble, is what strikes me. I just can't fathom how much more noble a species could get, frankly. What without patting itself on their-all-too-humble backs. What's a species so awesomely humble supposed to do, you know?

Rules is rules, I suppose. No matter how much we fuck shit up in the name of them. And our right to use them for whatever purpose our noble little hearts desire.

Sounds like an Egyptian regime I know of.

Perhaps those folks in Egypt are onto something.

A more genuine and humble path forward

Janet Daley, one of the stronger political columnists on the international scene I have encountered, of late, has an excellent articulation of what the future of a more humble vision of liberal democratic government and its role in our lives might begin to look like.

The Big Society starts with our wedding vows

"I can recall a time when the Big Society meant something more than spending cuts. It was a positive thing: an argument that seemed to grow naturally out of the original analysis of British society as being “broken” (remember that?). It was tied inextricably to a particular view of the relationship between personal and social responsibility. It was about families and parents and neighbourhoods, and the extent to which private choices impacted on communities. It was part of a moral vision – or, to put it in the language of political manipulators, of a compelling “narrative” that was persuasive enough to be worth developing...

...The Prime Minister is planning to redress that this week. He wants to reassert (we won’t call it a 'relaunch') the moral tenets of the Big Society in order to make it clear that this is not just austerity with a human face, or a fancy name for taking power from local government by handing over its functions to outside agencies. It is still a moral vision of a country in which ordinary people accept that responsibility for each other and for society at large is a significant part of their everyday lives.

All of which is perfectly fine. If ever there was a moment to reiterate the more profound intention of creating a different approach to governing, and to link it definitively with a morally conscientious purpose, this is it.

But I think there may be a gap in the logical chain which David Cameron will find it hard to fill. The most obviously sincere commitment that he made during his period as Leader of the Opposition was to his support for marriage and the family. His insistence that marriage needed to be recognised in the tax system because it was of irreplaceable value seemed to ring true to his personal experience. It also seemed courageous precisely because it was contentious and defiant of media fashion. (Indeed, he defied quite a few media inquisitors to stand by it.) In itself, these statements were a testament to his character, but they could have an even greater significance for the Big Society prospectus, because marriage is the quintessential example of that 'moral vision' which Mr Cameron is hoping to reinvigorate.

There is dissension over this matter within the Coalition, both from Nick Clegg, who doesn’t think government should talk about personal relationships at all, and from George Osborne, who has a real problem with the idea of marriage being recognised in the tax system – even though it will not constitute a financial advantage for the married but only a removal of the present disadvantage.

So the message has been muted. Marriage may be talked about in terms of its usefulness as a successful child-rearing operation: the evidence is now overwhelming that the children of married parents have better outcomes in virtually every category of life experience. But it is not presented as the linchpin that might help to make sense of this mysterious thing that Mr Cameron is trying to offer: a national life in which responsibility for the general good is accepted by individuals who see themselves as part of something larger than themselves.

And yet that it precisely what marriage is: a public declaration that you are prepared to undertake a commitment not just to each other but to the wider community. By its very official, legally accountable nature, it is the perfect model of the intersection between private and public responsibility...

...Marriage is not just a sexual relationship between two people: it is the joining of two families. (An affirmation, as Ruth says to her mother-in-law in the Hebrew Bible, that 'your people shall be my people'.) It is a commitment of continuity with the past generations in the presence of whom you make that declaration, and to the future generations that your union may produce. And that network of conjoined families – of the extended circles attaching to the couples who have pronounced that their relationship extends beyond their own interests – is the beginning of community.

This is where private life, and the responsibility that it entails, meets the wider life of the society. It is not an intrusion into personal relations for a government to acknowledge the importance of marriage: it is a refusal to accept the breakdown of social life into fragmented, disconnected atoms with no obligation to any larger entity outside themselves. If Mr Cameron really wants to restore the moral foundations of the Big Society, he should summon up his nerve and repeat the bravest thing he ever said."

As someone who has incomparably and gratefully benefited from the intersection of many families and the remarkable life lessons and examples, good and bad, and all the love that each has had to offer, this conception of community and the more humble role that government might play in our lives rings far truer a conception than any I have heard, on the left or right, as of late.

May something so humble, and thus so powerful, offer us a more genuine path forward. For all of our sakes.

What the fuck are you gonna do about it?

Darkening gloom

"Moderates and liberals in Pakistan are still reeling from the assassination of a liberal politician, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province, by one of his own bodyguards. Mr Taseer was murdered, shot in a hail of bullets at a posh shopping centre in Islamabad, apparently because he dared to speak out against a repressive anti-blasphemy law which is used to intimidate the weak—mostly fellow Muslims, but also religious minorities, including Asia Bibi, a poor Christian woman whom he had defended.

More disturbing than Mr Taseer’s death, however, was the deafening silence from the powerful in its aftermath. Lawyers showered his traitorous bodyguard with rose petals. The killer has become a hero. It has been almost impossible to find a judge who will dare take on the case. In parliament no senator would lead a prayer to commemorate the slain politician. Almost none of Pakistan’s articulate and educated liberal voices have dared speak out in his defence. Even Mr Taseer’s allies mostly stayed away from his funeral. By contrast, in Lahore on Sunday, I was caught up in a huge crowd of Islamists celebrating noisily the death of the hated liberal. A burst of anti-American sentiment following the arrest of a mysterious gunman in Lahore has somehow merged with this further rejection of secular values.

Now comes another reason to be gloomy. After Mr Taseer, it has widely been reported that Sherry Rehman, a Karachi-based female politician who has talked of reforming the blasphemy law, would be next on the religious thugs’ list. Ms Rehman has since locked herself away. On February 3rd Pakistani newspapers reported that she had been persuaded to withdraw any plans she might have had to table a bill for the law’s reform.

The same day, just as miserably, newspapers reported that a 17-year-old schoolboy, also in Karachi, had been arrested and charged with blasphemy. His sin? Apparently he had written something objectionable while doing an exam, although nobody can be told what it was he wrote (lest they be charged with committing blasphemy-by-repetition). The invigilator felt obliged to report it. The school authorities did so too. The police got involved. This is insane. To any reasonable observer, it is deeply troubling when state authorities decide to arrest a child for something written, however bad the taste, in an exam paper. The boy apologised. But, according to Pakistan’s law, as a blasphemer he could now be executed.

For moderate Pakistanis, proud of living in a country that has defied military rule, ensured the return of democracy and promoted the interests of its people against meddling outsiders, it is troubling to see thuggish radicalism spreading in such a fashion. Hateful and intolerant ideas are being spread by madrassas and by excitable news organisations. Increasingly, many Pakistani women feel compelled to cover their faces or to stay at home. Those who should be speaking out in defence of liberal, progressive ideas are becoming too frightened to defy the men with guns—or to break the terrifying silence of their fellow citizens."

Hmm. Sounds like a few other countries I know of, these days.

Not to worry. You're bullying is way different than their bullying.

Your bullying is good. Their bullying is very, very bad.

Or is it the other way around?

Hard to keep track, these days.

It's all for good reason. Or for bad reason. Or for some reason.

Whatever reason.

Gets me what I want, now doesn't it?

And makes the world a better place.

That's what we call this world where everyone gets their way. With just enough fear.

Progress.

And if we call it progress, it just must be.

I mean. After all.

What the fuck are you gonna do about it?

Kids in cowboy hats

This man of few words - but what he does with those few - even makes the boys from Liverpool go down smoother.



But you gotta admit. Tykes in cowboy hats make everything go better.



Sing it, kids.

Irony and the language of mad gods

U.S. terror threat at highest since 9/11: Napolitano

"Al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric who is U.S. citizen but left the country in 2001 and joined al Qaeda in Yemen, has been tied to plots against the United States over the last two years.

The group has claimed responsibility for the 2009 Christmas Day thwarted attack aboard a U.S. airliner and a more recent attempt to blow up two U.S.-bound cargo planes with toner cartridges packed with explosives.

Al-Awlaki also communicated with a U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who in November 2009 allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed 13 and wounded 32. Leiter said that it appeared to be more 'inspiration rather than direction.'"

Irony, apparently, is the language of mad gods inspiring truth far stranger than the pale imitation of fiction.

Why kids still believe

You know why kids still believe, more than adults, so often, that life and the world can be better than it is, I think?

Because when kids are bullied or bully one another, they know that it's wrong.

But when adults bully one another, they call it whatever they please.

What Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria and all the rest of us are deciding, right now, is:

"Is that really how we want it to be?"

Perhaps we can do a bit better

It's so funny watching this stupid, petty, godforesaken mess of humanity, these days. How much they try to get their hands on power and take credit for progress that generally happens despite them, more often than not, sadly. Stupidly. But sadly, still.

It's so funny to watch all the ego masquerading as something better than itself. All so it doesn't have to face it's own shittiness.

My own, too, of course. I've been guilty more times than I can count, honestly. Everyone has, is the truth. When we're not bullshitting. It's those who can't face that truth that you really need to be concerned about, honestly. Fred Phelps comes to mind. So does Kim Jong Il. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And that Chinese government. And the broadest swath of American politicians, these days. And most days, is the truth.

There are signs of hope. A Tunisian public that knows real oppression well enough to know that freedom isn't a four letter word. And Egyptians and Yemenis and Jordanians who know better than to wait on petty, sniping Americans to come save them. Even as Iraqis and Afghanis benefit from the half-ass bumbling of an American government and public too stupid and scared to just embrace the very cause they lost lives for in those conflicts. Many American soldiers, I've noticed, are not so stupid and scared, to embrace the freedom they fight for. A lot of teachers and firefighters and other such folk, too, I've noticed. A lot of cops seem to prefer more freedom for people, is my experience. But so few of us, today, seem willing to say so out loud.

For fear that the world will go to shit, if we do. I mean, far more shitty than we've already made it, of course. The fear that always rationalizes our worst instincts. Because we are far too shitty to ever stop imagining just how much far more shitty we could possibly be.

How stupid and mean and self-centered are we, you wonder? As stupid and mean and self-centered as we wanna be, is the truth. And, from there, springs all our problems, of course.

I guess I've decided that a humanity that behaves that way deserves its own misery, is the truth. Until they can face up to what jackasses they are. That's the only way I've ever learned, at least.

Perhaps we are more enamoured of our pride. But pride has consequences. Enjoy them, I suppose.

If humanity can't embrace it's better angels because it's too afraid of its own demons, it deserves the hell on earth it creates, I suppose.

Until it has the courage to embrace something better.

And no matter how many ways you talk your way around that one, that is the only courage that has ever been worthy of the name. Everything else, no matter how we talk ourselves around it, is the consequence of the alternative.

And everything else is what we get until we find that courage.

The only way around it is to put down the threats and the will to overpower and to be decent to one another.

But that will only happen when we find the courage to do just that.

Hitler and Stalin, as it turns out, were not so different from us as we flatter ourselves to believe, is the truth. They just were more committed to the logical endpoint of this very same reasoning.

They went to greater extremes, you might say. They were more radical. They were more consistent in their principles, as modern day would-be Stalins and Hitlers, on the right and the left, might say.

And that makes us so much better, let me tell ya.

Or perhaps it makes us not quite as shitty.

Either way, the way forward should clearly be in the other direction. When we aren't rationalizing our inner Hitlers and Stalins.

Humanity sets up the impossible task that all its members must be Jesus for them to stop falling short of Hitler and Stalin. And then spends the rest of its existence justifying why they just can't be that dude in their own lifetimes.

And makes a mess of itself in the meantime.

What a stupid way to run a species, don't you think?

Perhaps its the only way to run a species.

Or perhaps that's just one more line of bullshit in a long succession of bullshit.

Perhaps the reason we don't do better is because we're afraid of ourselves. And one another.

Perhaps we can do a bit better than that.

What do you do for a species too stubborn to listen?

Sometimes, all you can do for humanity is just let them all fall on their own swords.

If we'd stop being such dicks, that is

What do you do with a world, I've been asking myself, lately, where people have decided to perpetually act like dicks and ignore all the consequences from what perpetually acting like dicks results in in the world?


Gaffe-Prone Biden Embarrasses Nation Yet Again By Sneezing During Meeting

Been thinking a lot, lately, about how it's acting like dicks, and the constant and ever-creative-and-sophisticated-sounding justifications for acting like dicks, that is so clearly responsible for most of the world's avoidable misery, when you step back from it and aren't busy making ever-creative-and-sophisticated sounding justifications for doing so.

But in a world where people keep going down that path and can just pretend that they aren't responsible for any of the bullshit it creates, what do you do?

If everyone is doing it and they know that they just don't have to take responsibility for it if they don't wanna, and that they have some lame ass justification for it laying around here, somewhere, what the hell do you do with such lame asses, I've wondered.

If shaming, and jailing, and pressuring, and what-not not only does not keep them from being such pricks, until they're willing to give it up, but it makes us all into a bunch of callous pricks in the process - and a political and popular culture that reflects what shitheads we've all become - and always has, what can you do with all that prickishness, you have to wonder?

Talk about it honestly, is about the only thing I can think of. Write about it. Joke about it. And laugh about it. And what remarkable dumbasses we look like for doing it. How miserably it's failed to make things better.

And how it has so often - the economy comes to mind, right now, but really just about any issue you can name, right now - made everything we said we wanted to be better far worse in the process.

And, more importantly, makes us all far worse, in the process.

And do what you can to stay away from the dicks. And then let all those dicks fall on those swords they've been living by.

And spend time and stop taking for granted all the folks who love you, for real, no matter what.

Anyway, that's about all I can come up with, at this point.

Now I remember why I valued loving people, so much, as a kid. Because they're nicer people to be around, is the truth. Generally. When they're not being dicks, too, that is. Yeah, I know. Me, too. Thanks for reminding me, asshole.

It's really not all that complicated, when you get down to it. Dicks are shitty people to be around, is the truth. And they fuck up most of what is fucked up and could be otherwise in the world.

And if it weren't the entirety of the goddamn species, you'd give up on the whole lot of them. But since it is, until it isn't, what the fuck you gonna do, you know?

Hope that they don't blow themselves up, I suppose. And remind them that when the world gets shittier, it just might be the human species that's responsible. No matter where their stubby little fingers are pointed.

And maybe offer them a vision of the future that is a bit less shitty. And maybe even a pretty decent future. If we'd stop being such dicks, that is.

Real progress doesn't need permission

The scent of jasmine spreads

Tunisia protests: 'The fear has gone...I've been waiting 20 years for this day'

Egypt scene of chaos as protests escalate

Thousands in Yemen Protest Against the Government

Because real progress means less fear and repression. Not more.

And no amount of bullshit will ever make that go away.

Your heart and the most essential truth, so says this heart

The most important wrestling we do in our life, I'm convinced, at this point, is the wrestling we do with ourselves. With our conscience. With our dreams. With our fears and insecurities. With our hearts. With our minds.

And at the end of all of that, if we're wise, I think, is making what can be better - in our lives and in the lives of other around us - better. For real.

And out of that wrestling is our best. Each of us. The best we have to offer. For ourselves and for everyone else.

The rest - the fighting, the threatening, the hurt imposed, the will to overpower, the self-centered efforts to get our way at the expense of others, the use of fear and force, except when real danger is present (and distinguishing between what is real and what is not is the essence of the strongest efforts to wrestle with one's conscience) - these are all both fruitless and self-involved.

And like all fruitless and self-involved things in the world, they make our lives worse rather than better.

We are welcome to them. And we are welcome to their consequences. And whether we take responsibility for the consequences or not, we are responsible for them.

But the real and wonderful opportunities in life, for ourselves and for others, come from wrestling with oneself and one's own thinking and acting in the world.

And once you've done that, the world is really not all that difficult to navigate, at all. It is just a matter of to thy own heart being true, as the English poet would say.

And no other greater wisdom could be truer. Until it proves itself otherwise to that same heart. As a matter of fact. And as a matter of fact of how the world should be.

And that is the most essential truth of any life. So says this heart.