Moving forward

Not a bad reflection on how this torture question might be addressed.

The Right Way to Deal With Torture's Legacy

I'm tired of vindictiveness driving policy in America.

Time for something better.

Turning this ship around

Before you know it, your speech could be offensive

How refreshing to read a column genuinely committed to liberal values, rather than illiberal values that have masqueraded shamelessly, lately, as liberal.

Note to illiberal elements of both the right and the left:

We are turning this ship around. Prepare yourselves.

Hell yeah

You thought honest academic inquiry was dead, huh?

It's because you're looking in the wrong place.

What Was the Civil War Really About?

You want honest, open debate about important political and historical matters?

Look to elementary and secondary schools.

Joe Nye, eat your heart out.

Getting honest about the stakes

At least Jackie Chan is getting honest about the stakes involved in this debate.

Jackie Chan's China comments prompt backlash

"Chan told a business forum in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for China's authoritarian mainland.

'I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not,' Chan said Saturday. 'I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.'

He went on to say that freedoms in Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies 'chaotic.'"

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Jackie is speaking squarely about the dilemma in Western societies, today, when we are not bullshitting ourselves.

Does progress in liberal societies mean more control or more freedom?

Liberal would imply freedom. And all of our history would point in exactly this direction.

And, as Jackie's comments highlight, if not, what will this mean for less free parts of the world?

It's a question that free societies need to take a long hard look at.

Do we value our freedom? Or take it for granted.

Something tells me Jackie's comments, here, do not reflect the best answer we have to offer.

Taking our freedom for granted

How to Raise the Standard in America's Schools

I love that the free marketplace of ideas lets Walter Isaacson have all the opinions that he wants. What I don't love is journalists like Isaacson using that freedom to add yet one more layer of bureaucracy on America's schools on the foolish notion that a Federal law will make things all better.

I have a suggestion for Walter Isaacson. How about a set of national standards for the quality of reporting that occurs in America, with Time, Newsweek, and the U.S. News and World report being the very lowest standard possible, as any relatively experienced speech and debate competitor will readily acknowledge.

Walter, the day you will accept the Federal government telling you how to report and publish your opinions is the day I will accept the Federal government telling me how to teach.

Until then, either take liberal values seriously, or don't expect that you will be taken seriously.

There's a reason the Founding Fathers fought for liberty. No matter how many Walter Isaacsons in the world take their freedom, and, more importantly, the freedom that others cherish, forever for granted.

What makes us stronger

Concordia University American history professor Jim Burkee makes the argument that I plan to make my teaching and writing career.

Liberty-loving Gen-Yers will reshape politics

Do you realize how important it is to have just one person really believe in you? That is the power of teaching and a strong heart.

And that is what will turn the tide on cynical power politics.

That and a genuine commitment to liberal values and the powerfully strong consciences and more honest strength that it produces.

Those who think power politics reflects strength should study its masters. Hitler, Stalin, and every figure who has sought unrivaled predominant power has reasoned this way.

And they have all failed.

Because strength is not found in our power, primarily. It is found in the values that animate that power.

And it is on those values that young people have been nourished, whether those obsessed with power politics like it or not.

And that is exactly how liberal values are supposed to work.

And that is what makes us stronger.

Because I do

I've decided that I don't care what those scared little bitches in the political world, say. I take love seriously.

I'm writing that goddamn book.



Katie Sutherland, the lead for Pearl and the Puppets, is a math teacher in Glasgow, England. You gotta check out her Youtube where her students have shown up to support her. And after watching the incomprehensible mess that more cynical folks have made of the world in the last 8 years, It's refreshing that maybe some people with heart are preparing to right what's wrong.

Why do I care about this stuff so much?

Because I do.

Deal with it, bitches.

Soul music

I think Lily just about sums it up.



Or how about an answer to cynicism in the world of celebrity.



Who'd Have Known runs through my heart all day long every day, at this point.



If you've not had the pleasure of the company of Lily Allen, I would suggest acquainting yourself.

And while you're at it, Joshua Radin might melt your heart if you allow him.



And Pearl and the Puppets will make you smile.



Nice to know that the music world still has a soul.

Making it happen

As the immortal Hoki Poki once said, that's what it's all about.

How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business

"Joe Steffy is off to Overland Park, Kan., this week to do a PowerPoint presentation on his business, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn. He's a 23-year-old small-business man with a goal of $100,000 in sales by 2012. Joe also has autism and Down syndrome and is nonverbal. When he gives his talk, he will push buttons on an augmentative speech device to deliver the words. His audience will be parents who fervently hope their own special-needs children will be able to work, too.

Joe's parents, Ray and Janet, didn't agree with the school district assessment in their home town of Louisburg, Kan., that said Joe would never be able to work or live independently. "I'm one who can easily get ticked off,' says Ray. 'That ticked me off. We saw more in Joe than that. We set out to prove to the school that he had capabilities.' They came across kettle corn while on a trip to Alaska and realized that all that popping, scooping, and serving suited Joe's love of work.

The path to Joe Steffy's success was not an easy one; Ray Steffy worked closely with Dave Hammis, an advocate for self-employment for people with disabilities in Middletown, Ohio, who trains business owners, government employees, and parents on how to make use of state and federal programs. The Steffys wrote up a business plan and helped Joe secure $25,000 in grants from programs like Social Security Administration's Plan to Achieve Self-Support program (PASS).

In 2005, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn was born. Sales have grown from $16,000 in 2005 to $50,000 in 2008, both from selling at festivals and from delivering popcorn to local outlets. Joe has five part-time employees, and his parents help out with driving and other tasks. Pop and everyone that works with him knows whatever Joe wants to do you let him do, because he's the boss,' Ray says. 'If he wants to pop, he'll shove Dad out of the way and pop...

...'It's been hard work, from the standpoint of physical work,' says Ray Steffy, who is 67. 'But a parent with a child like Joe has a choice. You can either kick in and do this kind of thing, or you can sit and fret emotionally with the amount of energy, worrying about what's going to happen to them.'

The payoff for that effort, as far as the Steffys are concerned, has been priceless. They see their son make a local popcorn delivery, accept payment, fold it, and put it in his pocket. When he walks out, his dad says, Joe looks 3 inches taller than when he walked in."

This is the standard for special education and education, generally, to which I aspire.

With so much to lament in life, it's the Joe Steffy's of the world that inspire me.

Saying thanks (some resolution for cynicism)

I've been dealing with some cynicism, here as of late.

Anyone who has ever had any expectation that the world is going to be any certain or ideal or better way is likely to go through some cynicism in their lives. It's inevitable in a world where people and life often fall short of even our most cherished expectations.

Life is FUBAR. Often. That's why I love that movie, I suppose. Because that's my conclusion, too. If you spend enough time with the roughest edges in life - terrorism and despotism come to mind - you come to realize that life is often incomprehensibly FUBAR and tragic in some places in the world.

And when you deal with gangs and violence and the seedy underside of life as I often do in a job where a good proportion of the kids I work with are either in the criminal justice or family law systems or they are well on their way - a special education school for kids with behavior and mental health issues is often euphemism for "education for kids with the most fucked up problems" - or if you study law enforcement, domestic security, international security or any of the most dangerous matters in the world - you often gain a much greater appreciation for the nicer, more decent parts of the world. You come to appreciate all of those places where people generally behave and treat one another better.

That's the point of Saving Private Ryan, if you're watching carefully.

All kinds of fucked up things in the world. All kinds of things to keep open a clear eye for often harder truthes.

But knowing that there is FUBAR out in the world does not, in the least, mean that we should not appreciate the nice things, the decent things, the good things.

To the contrary.

If you are someone who deals with the rougher edges in life more regularly, as I do, you come to appreciate just how much most of us take those nice things for granted. And how much they really matter in life.

In my life, at least.

And I frankly cannot imagine trying to live a life where they did not.

And, for that, I am grateful to all the decent people in the world who have taught me, raised me, helped me, and kept me safe. Soldiers, cops, teachers, ministers and Sunday School teachers, my parents, friends and family, and everyone who has pitched in to make my life better.

And all of us could stand to appreciate and, perhaps, say thanks to some of those people in our lives, as well.