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.

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.

A question for our cynicism

If we are so cynical that we do not care or pretend not to care about the consequences of our behavior on other human beings and the world outside of ourselves, does that, in fact, mean that our behavior has no consequences?

And do those consequences care that we do not care?

Do we?

Do I?



The better I understand, the more I care.

And the more I care, the better I understand.

And so goes the virtuous circle of life.

One life at a time.

The space between our ears

Some egos are so enormous, I'm learning, that very little decency or honest sense could possibly fit in the vast space within the ears or hearts they occupy.

'If maybe that fellow who was shooting everybody — if he had had some friends and family around him, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.'

I am in awe of the inspiring courage and grace of John Green, the father of 9-year-old Christina Green, who died in last week's tragedy in Tuscon, AZ.

As Jeff Jacoby eloquently writes:

"In the eight days since the deadly shootings in Arizona, the nation has been engulfed by a tidal wave of rhetoric and reaction, much of it unnecessary, ungracious, or unfortunate. But amid the flood of words, two voices have spoken with an uplifting decency and grace that should make them memorable long after the hue and cry of the past week has ended.

One of those voices was that of President Obama, whose remarks at the memorial service in Tucson Wednesday night were humane and eloquent, unmarred by the acrimony that has ricocheted back and forth in the political echo chamber. The president spoke movingly about each of the victims whose lives were cut short. He gratefully hailed by name those whose heroism and quick thinking prevented even more lives from being lost. And with no hint of self-interest or rationalization, he urged all Americans not to 'use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other.’

Not even the president, however, could match the goodness, dignity, and large-heartedness of John Green, whose 9-year-old daughter, Christina, was the youngest victim of suspect Jared Loughner’s rampage.

Speaking through tears as he was interviewed on NBC’s 'Today' show and on the Fox News Channel, Christina’s father refused to pin his daughter’s murder on the 'climate of hate' and 'vitriolic rhetoric' so many others were eager to indict. Unlike the local sheriff who seized the moment to smear Arizona as 'a mecca for prejudice and bigotry,' John Green said the killings were 'such a rare thing to happen in Tucson, Arizona, which is a wonderful city — and the northwest side is a wonderful community.'

The chattering class spent much of the past week calling for new laws and tighter regulations. There were proposals for (among other things) a ban on carrying guns within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress, resurrecting the long-discredited broadcast Fairness Doctrine, funding more outpatient clinics to treat the mentally ill, and prohibiting ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. John Green endorsed none of them. 'We don’t need any more restrictions on our society,’ he said. 'New laws and limitations cannot prevent every horror, and if we want to live in a country like the United States, where we are more free than anywhere else, we are subject to things like this happening.’

No one would have faulted Green if, in his heartbreak, he had raged against the monster who shot Christina. Instead he expressed gratitude for 'the friends and family we have surrounded ourselves with,’ and added, with almost incomprehensible generosity: 'If maybe that fellow who was shooting everybody — if he had had some friends and family around him, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.'

Americans talk too much and think too little, especially when it comes to the sins and sorrows of others. There is 'a time to keep silence and a time to speak,' Ecclesiastes teaches. When a tragedy like the one in Tucson strikes, most of us would do well to keep silence, and leave the speaking for those with the humanity and wisdom to say something meaningful."

In honor of Christina and John Green.

When we look for what's best

A reminder of what we can accomplish when we look for what is best in ourselves and each other.



All dark paths lie elsewhere.

Time to use our freedom for something worthwhile.

No more No more Mr. Nice Guy

World's awash in assholes. Time for something better in this world. For all our sakes.

Something beautiful

It's been beyond time, for a long time, that we took responsibility for the ugly direction our country and world has taken. Turn things around. Make the world genuinely better.









As I watch the blame game in full swing, might I suggest that in lieu of left or right, on this matter, that we consider the example of someone like Jack Johnson. Or Stephen Covey. Or their example, perhaps. Someone like Jesus of Nazareth.

And focus on the beams in our own eyes.

I'm as guilty as anyone else. I aspire for love and understanding. And I've fallen, too often, into anger and impatience. My whole purpose, at this point, is to help us all see how there is much to discover and understand from one another. And I've fallen short of that too often to count.









Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed in a similarly scared, aggressive and hateful period.

Gabrielle Giffords avoided that fate, thankfully. Six others, including a 9-year-old girl, did not, sadly.

It is time we take responsibility for the ugliness. To give it up. And make the world something more beautiful. For real.

It is possible. It's just about us getting honest with ourselves about us.

And isn't that the most important truth of all.

Sing it, Jack.

On forgiveness

There is nothing more satisfying for the soul than facing someone who insults your dignity openly to your face, kicking the shit out of them several times over in your mind, and then forgiving them and yourself nonetheless.

Or perhaps there is nothing more satisfying for the soul than forgiving others and yourself.

Or so say those with satisfied souls.

High tide or low tide

Notice the low tides, here.

111th Congress Averaged 25% Approval, Among the Recent Lowest

111th Congress - Nancy Pelosi 23%
110th Congress - Nancy Pelosi 25%
103rd Congress - Tom Foley 25%
102nd Congress - Tom Foley 27%
109th Congress - Dennis Hastert 30%

Meaning, Democratic, up front, on the top 4. And with the 5th, those who most favored increased government intervention and power in the lives of Americans.

I would bet you'd find a similar trend among Presidential approval ratings.

Meaning, either Democrats and the 109th Republican Congress are right that really what America needs more of is more government control and intervention in their lives, no matter what Americans have to say about the matter. Or that what they need is more Democratic control and intervention and not Republican control and intervention, an interpretation many lefists champion. Or that they need more Republican control and intervention, an interpretation that many right-wing folks favor.

Or that the American peoples' sense that Congresses that have increased government control and intervention in their lives - right and left - are moving in the wrong direction and that what they need is less government control and intervention in their lives is the best interpretation of events.

And I have to say that though I do not romanticize Americans and their politics, I do think that last interpretation is the strongest one.

And the one that will win the day, regardless, no matter how much we try to spin or leverage it otherwise.

Your teachers were right. There really are realities that exist quite independent of our opinions about them. And this is one of them.

And thank God, or whatever might tickle your fancy, we live in a relatively free country where we can voice those opinions as openly and freely, as possible.

So that something more genuine might win the day. And our hearts.

Win or lose, Nancy, Tom, and Denny, I'll still be with you, at least. No joke, homefries.

Sometimes, though, poorer ideas need to lose favor.

And stronger ideas, and the people who need them as much as those who offer them, need to thrive. So we can better look after everyone. For real.

Especially for those looking out for everyone.

Speaking of which. Lay it down, Jack.

The proof, and getting about the business of making better pudding

Tony Blankley has a poignant observation about the temper of the times that is the temper of every era where those who would entertain their baser impulse to overpower in lieu of honest engagement has taken hold.

A Public Voice for Private Virtue

"In that context, I was struck this weekend by the words of the great Christian theorist and historian of the last century Hilaire Belloc that I read in his book 'The Elements of the Great War, The Second Phase' (written in 1916.)

He observed that when the most profound issue may face a nation, there is the danger that 'the lesser should conquer the greater, the viler the more noble, the more changeable the more steadfast, the baser the more noble ... We know, upon the analogy of all historical things, small and great, that the less creative, the dullest and the worst elements may destroy, and has frequently attempted to destroy, the vital, the more creative and the best."

The proof is in the pudding, is the bottom line. And the pudding of this era of our romance with power is looking pretty curdled, at this point.

Perhaps better thought about such proof and getting about the business of making better pudding might be in order.

Our story

This is a story of needless tragedy. And what can be done to end it. It is a human story. As old as homo sapiens have been telling stories. And as long as they have been ignoring their own wisdom.