Why my lawnmowing job is the best job I've had out of school:):):)...

Things are going really well, at this point, at my job:):)...

I have an interview likely/hopefully this next week for a special education job in Kansas City, Kansas:):)...this job has given me much more opportunity to do all the extensive work that has been involved with applying for teaching jobs (transcripts, university holds, placement files, applications, two new certification tests, etc.), which has been really nice:):)...despite the lower pay and the unpredictability about whether I'll get enough hours to pay bills, etc...

But that's not the reason why my job is good:):)...

This is my best job...because of the people...and they way they relate:):)...

It's a very laid back environment...which makes us far more productive...far more work...and far less unproductive conflict...than in a place like Amarr...where pressure for productivity led to the totally counterproductive result of less productivity:):)...because it created all sorts of conflict...that just slowed everyone down:):):)...I talked about it while I was at Amarr...so I did my job...and they get to live with the consequences of their policy choices:):)...

This lawnmowing business is a much smaller business...it's a quarter of a million dollar business in assets invested, according to the big boss:):)...so it's nothing to sneeze at:):)...but it's nothing like a bigger corporation like Amarr:):)...

But it is definitely more power for the punch:):)...it's much more productive...much more friendly...much more flexible...and overall...even with the money issues for me, right now:):)...it is a much better place to work...

And the fundamental issue that makes it a nicer place to live...is that the guys are more decent and responsible...

The guys aren't perfect...noone is...

But the great thing is that I've heard the phrase, "I'm sorry" or its equivalent more at this job than I think I've ever heard at a job...it's very refreshing...

I've had at least twice when my bosses have treated me shitty...and then apologized for it...

And it is so refreshing to hear that from a boss...and not all the bullshit about how, "I have to be an asshole, because the world will fall apart if I learn to be a more decent human being":):):)...

And it means that we are all much more friends...and like each other...and work harder for one another...and with one another...

It's very much like my family's construction business back home:):):)...lots of family in this business, too:):)...and lots of family feeling even for folks who are not family, as in my family's business:):)...

The owner, John, is a really great guy:):)...he's not perfect:):)...noone is:):)...so it's almost redundant to say it:):):)...but he's a really great guy:):):)...he's definitely from a more conservative background than me, I think:):)...he hunts elk and bear and other exotic animals:):)...he loves country music:):)...though he was a big Motley Crue fan, back in the day:):)...he even has a Motley Crue tatoo:):):)...

John is what back home we'd call "good people":):)...he reminds me a lot of my uncles and my family back home:):)...his business helps him live so that he can raise a family and spend weekends hunting and camping and the stuff that he loves in life:):)...John works to live, as my Uncle Tom would say:):)...he does not live to work...

And it's a really great attitude towards life that I very much appreciate:):)...

And his crew is one of the most productive and decent that I've worked with of the many joe jobs that I've had out of school (including the group home work I did for people with disabilities)...

There are no urine analyses at this job...like there are at so many jobs...so there's not all the lying and the pretending around drug use that happens at every job I've had out of school...by most of the people I've worked with...John does not sanction drug use...people just focus their efforts doing good work...and not on the fruitless effort to make people not do drugs...which clearly does not work, if you have any familiarity with the drug culture, at all...

I am an exception...someone who does not use drugs...or even drink very much...and smoke almost not at all, any more...even though I work at a job where there are no real prohibitions against it and no effort to try to prevent it...

And I still prefer this kind of environment...where I choose to do drugs or not...not some fruitless effort to make me not do drugs which could not ever work...no matter how much people might want to make me or anyone...

And I am far more loyal to a boss like John...than I would be in a million years to all of the bosses who've tried to run my life at so many other jobs...

I work much more independently at this job than I have at most of my other jobs...with lots of feedback...much of which I appreciate and learn quite a bit from (there is so much to lawnmowing, weedeating, and landscaping that you never imagined, I bet:):)...and which is generally given nicely...even as there is plenty of foolishness and shitty behavior, at times, as well:):)...

I can see why my immediate supervisors have stuck with this job for so long...because it's a nice place to work...and having a big boss who works with you...and is not in some office far away...and who takes spending time with his family and away from the job seriously...and not just as an afterthought for when s/he's not thinking about making more money...is very important and refreshing, I must say:):)...

Most people who work too much never account for the terrible consequences it has for their lives, I'm learning...and I'm just not interested in hearing their excuses for that, any more:):)...and for acting like it doesn't matter to not constantly push my mind and body beyond reasonable limits of exhaustion to try to keep up with some hypercompetitive and unhealthy standard of existence...all because people are too foolish and stubborn to recognize the problems it creates...

But trying to cope with the terrible behavior of an advisor that had never heard of a break or a vacation that seemed worthy to him...who stayed away from home for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas so he could get more work done...

And who treated everyone around him -- me, in particular -- like shit, so that he would never have to deal with what an asshole he had become, in part because of how far beyond exhaustion he always pushed himself...

That experience taught me a lot about how someone can make a mess of their life and others' lives by pretending that driving themselves and others beyond their limits was somehow healthy or good or worthy...or whatever other stupid rationalizations that people use to ignore just how terribly they treat themselves and others in the name of their fears around their jobs, their livelihoods, and money...

I have no interest nor any plans to do that with my life...and I will keep moving in that direction until I find the a more sustainable life for me, my family, my friends, my co-workers, and everyone I deal with:):)...

And I don't give a fuck what rationalizations others have to for living a life that they hate...and which doesn't serve them or anyone else very well, in the meantime...

And I seriously appreciate that this job is more concerned with the life that a job allows one to live...rather than living the fantasy that any job, no matter how important, means something more than that life...

Much of the reason why I am frustrated with the reaction to Hurricane Katrina...even as I, of course, want the most constructive, effective response possible...in any situation like that...is that people just fail to account for this fact of life, very well...

That giving space for people to develop better, more constructive approaches to a whole range of issues...is far more effective and does far less damage than trying to force peoples' hands, as a general rule....

But the truth is that many people who were reacting to the situations in Florida...were reacting...without thinking too much at all...about the needs of those who were responsible for responding...to most effectively respond to the situation...

Which hurts those responses...it did not and does not help them...

I do understand, after dealing with a similarly serious crisis situation in my own life when I was unemployed, why people react as strongly as they do...but Kanye West was not dealing with a crisis...nor were many of the folks pushing too hard...and not giving enough space for the folks at FEMA, in New Orleans and other cities, and by the State of Louisiana and other states, to do their jobs...he was dealing with an ideological difference with President Bush about how to handle all sorts of issues...the crisis in New Orleans only being one of them...none of which he understood or understands very well it is pretty clear from his comments...

But that and all of Kanye's phony charges of racism...or arguing that the President and the Administration didn't care about what was happening in New Orleans...or Florida...or Mississippi...

Would require folks like Kanye to do what -- contrary to the Time Magazine article laughably calling him the smartest man in pop music would lead you to believe -- he is not very good at doing...

To think about it...and to understand, better, how to help...

And if you aren't or can't think about these things better...at least, in the moment...

Then the least you can do is what my job does...

Which is give people the space to do their jobs better...over time...and with as much encouragement...and as little shittiness...as possible...

That was why my high school forensics coach, Conrad Jestmore, was such a great coach:):)...

Conrad was a smart man:):)...he was not a scholar, in the way that my professors are...but he was a very smart man...he was one of the first teachers I had to challenge my early romanticism of Communism, my junior year of high school, when I had just finished a rough reading of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel's Communist Manifesto in Klaus Kolmei's A.P. History class...

Conrad was (and is, as far as I know) a big libertarian...and a strong proponent of the work and objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead and Ayn Rand's work, generally, was the basis for my junior year term paper, that year, in Elizabeth Taggart's Honor's English class)...

And though I am not a libertarian in the cast of Ayn Rand, really...her influence, like Marx's, has had a important influence on me...

But more important the ideas that Conrad shared with me that had influence on me...

Was his example...

When I competed for Mr. Jestmore...which is how I first met him...as my forensics coach...my sophomore year of high school...

Mr. Jestmore's biggest strength as a teacher and as a coach...was not in what he knew...though he knew quite a bit, really...about politics...theater...forensics and debate...

But Mr. Jestmore's biggest strength...was that when I needed independence to succeed in forensics...which I had quite a bit of in my career...

He got out of my way...

My sophomore year, my primary event was dramatic interpretation...for whatever reasons...my dramatic interp, a ten-minute cut from Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, was more successful than my other major event that year, my duo with my best friend, Mike Coupland, from the play Luv, by Murray Schisgal...perhaps because Inherit the Wind was a better play than Luv:):):)...

I was doing very well with it...and despite Mr. Jestmore's very sound reservations about my doing the piece (one of which was expressed by the Wichita East coach in a comment on one of my ballots...that I was too young to be playing two characters that were so clearly much older and more mature than me)...

Mr. Jestmore gave me room to do my thing...

And I did very well...for many years...in high school and college...

And much of that...and much of my independence, today...

Is due to the humility and decency of one teacher to trust me to find my own way:):)...

And I will never forget that:):):)...

And much of the reason I left grad school...despite a very generous stipend to do work there...

Was because of the opposite problem...

Because I had a teacher who gave me much room to do my own thing...but who, ultimately, did not trust me, enough...when I was just beginning to spread my wings...and do really profound work in my field and in several alligned fields, I believe...

As Joseph Campbell, the greatest cultural historian of the twentieth century, wrote of his own Ph.D. experience...that he left early as well...working for four years, amidst the depression, no less, on chicken farms and other odd jobs...

I outgrew the Ph.D...

Because I didn't have enough room...to do the work...and the learning...and the growing...that I went to grad school to do...

There were all kinds of advantages and disadvantages that came with leaving...

But after much thought about it...and much agonizing over whether I would make the same decision again...and much more importantly to me...whether I would advise a future student to make the same move...

I have to say that I think it was a good move, on balance...though there were many disadvantages that came with it...the rough treatment I received outside school walls being a big one...and the financial sacrafices I made being a really important one, as well...

But the biggest advantage...the independence and the room to do the work and the learning and the growing...that I needed to do...to inform and shape the kind of work that would have a lasting impact on humanity...not just a fleeting one...

Is one that made that decision, on balance, a good one, I believe:):)...

And I can confidently say now...that even if I wanted to trade in a life of fear...for a life of freedom...

I couldn't do it...

It's not in me...

I will always choose to brave the elements...to get to freedom...

Always...

"Give us us free" cries Cinque, in the courtroom sequence in Amistad..."Give us us free"...

Always...always...

I can't live any other way...

Freedom is the oxygen to live...the oxygen for my life...and I can't breathe without it...

And that is what this job offers me, more, than any of the jobs I've had since leaving school:):):)...

"Give us...us free"...

Have a good week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

We are such shitheads...

...people...

We're all so goddamned calloused toward each other...

We do it so long...we just become kinda shitheads...

And there's no way forward but by acknowledging that...

And why are we so shitty to one another?...

Because someone...many people...were shitty to us...

And so our children will say when asked why they're so shitty to one another...and to us...

And so will their children...

And their children...

Unless we take responsibility for it...

And you know what's shittiest about our behavior?...

That we're tempted to just blow it all off...

To just pretend like we're not as shitty as we really are...

Because to be better just seems so hard...

What fuckin' pussies we all are...

It's just so hawd to be betta...

And so the cycle continues...

Until we acknowledge just how shitty we treat one another...

All in the name...of being treated better...much of the time...

And that is exactly what makes us so goddamned shitty...the self-centeredness of it all...

Because the truth is...most people...think more about being treated better...than treating others better...

What shitheads we all are...

And yet...

The only way out of this mess...

Is to face it...acknowledge it...and love ourselves and forgive ourselves despite it...

Because treating ourselves and others even shittier...

Is what got us in the mess in the first place...

Fundamentally...there are two choices...

Either keep being shitheads...

Or acknowledge what shitheads we often are...love ourselves and forgive ourselves despite our shittiness...

And move forward...

Those are -- fundamentally -- our two choices...

And the most fundamental choice we will likely make in our lives...

Have a good weekend, everyone...

Love,
Ben

I have to admit...

'Can I quit now?' FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged

Things are not looking good for Michael Brown's competence, at this point...

His emails are flip...and out-of-touch...he does seem much more interested in his wardrobe than events on the ground during Katrina...he just seems not ready for that job, at all, really...

The Democratic and liberal efforts to get the Administration led me to take their defense during that time...I still think that people need to be far more constructive and far less on the attack as they were during that crisis...which made it worse, much of the time, rather than better...

But newsflash for liberals and Democrats:

Going after the Administration as a general rule undermines even credible criticisms of the Administration...stop being assholes...be more honest and fair...and you will be listened to when the shit hits the fan...

In the meantime...Michael Brown and Ray Nagin both look like they had no clue how to handle a major disaster...though, interestingly enough, I heard no criticism from Democratic quarters of New Orleans' Democratic mayor Ray Nagin who did a miserable job of leading during that crisis...

Partisan politics is such bullshit...and this is just one of the many million ways that it fucked up a really important government responsibility...

Partisans and chicken-littles the world round need to finally get a clue...attacking the opposition relentlessly does not work...nor does signalling catastrophe around every corner...it undermines your credibility...especially when you are right...knuckleheads...

My parents say that they have not lost any money on their efforts to resettle folks from Katrina at their hotel in Dallas...which is good...they and others have donated enough to cover costs and at least break even...which is good...they were just starting to make profit on that hotel...so it would have sucked to edge backwards on that...

Thanks to everyone who made a constructive effort to help those displaced by Katrina, Rita, and Wilma...and no thanks to Democratic and liberal partisans...who made responding to those crises far more difficult, not easier, with they're narrow-minded power gambles...assholes...

Love,
Ben

A courageous legacy...and a comment on how so many people are confused on what real courage looks like...

10 years ago, today...Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated...

A decade after Rabin's death, his legacy still divides

For those who don't know Yitzhah Rabin...he was the remarkably courageous prime minister of Israel who helped create the vision of a peaceful co-existence between a democratic Israel and a Palestinian state...who helped inspire so many efforts by Israeli leaders -- Ehud Barak and Shimon Perez, in particular -- to dedicate their careers and their lives to peace between Israelis and Palestinians...

The idea that Yitzhak Rabin's legacy would be debated...for someone to seriously argue against Rabin's legacy of a belief and a commitment to peace between Israel and Palestine...

Is beyond me, really...

I almost can't comprehend it...

I can't imagine how totally out of touch with realities in both lands and with the aspirations for peace that someone would have to have to denigrate Rabin or his legacy...

Which is the most courageous legacy that Israel has to offer...

I can't imagine what total cowardice it would take a person to denigrate someone who gave literally everything...to see peace in the Middle East...

Because they can't find it in their hearts to believe in that peace...

Debating Rabin's legacy of a serious commitment to peace between Israel and Palestine is like debating's the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King...or the commitment to independence for India and Indians of Mohatma Ghandi...in my book...so much do I admire and respect that man and his courage and his sacrafice...

What is wrong with people?...

What makes such cowardice possible?...

What cynicism could possibly make us so small...in a world...that is so big?...

I don't know...

I just know that I couldn't possibly settle for that world...

Or to equivocate it with a world of more courage and decency...

Margaret Mead has a much repeated, almost cliche quotation...about how to never despair that there are so few people working on the matters of the human heart that matter...that the world has always been changed by only a few people working on its behalf...

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

I've heard that quotation a million times...

Brandi and I used to joke about how cliche and yet how true it really was...

How do so many people lose such touch with their own sense of hope and idealism, I wonder?...their own sense of courage to seek change in a world that will languish in its own tragic inertia and self-fulfilling prophecies without such courage...

How do they ignore the legacies of so many people who've made our present world so possible through their own courage?...

It does put things in perspective for me...

That there are some qualities in the world...

Courage...decency...humanity...thoughtfulness...

That many people understand...and still many other fail to understand them...

And helps me see the much more tragic legacy...of Rabin's detractors...and cowardice in the world, generally...

That some people never know real courage...or decency...or humanity...or thoughtfulness...ever...in their lifetimes...

And that legacy is far more tragic...and bankrupt...

In light of the legacy of genuine courage...and vision...and hope...of a great man...like Yitzhak Rabin...

Than ignoring the courage of Prime Minister Rabin...

If most people cannot...in the span of a little more than a week...

Comprehend the deep hope and idealism and courage...

That the commeration of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin...and the death of Rosa Parks...has to offer us...

I don't know what would help them see the light, better...to open their hearts to the world of possibilities that such heroes offer us...

I just know that I couldn't possible imagine living my life...without recognizing and being inspired by their greatness...

Examples that are worthy in and of themselves...totally independent of whether everyone recognizes them or not...

Thank you, Yitzhak Rabin...for your courage...and your ultimate sacrafice...for a vision of peace...for your country...and for the world...

L'Chaim...

Love,
Ben

What's wrong with us?...

...people, I mean...

Why are we always looking for who's better?...

Who's smarter?...who's stronger?...who's got the right religion...or is religious enough?...who's got the right ideology...or is liberal or conservative or radical or communist or Islamist or Christian or Jewish or whatever enough?...who's richer?...who's sexier?...who's more powerful?...who offends us less?...who we can outcast?...who it's ok to hate?...who it's ok to kill?...

Why are we always doing this?...

What purpose does it serve?...

I know why I do it...

I do it when I don't trust people...

I try not to do it...

But sometimes it gets to be too much...

Sometimes people just shit on me, too much...

And I don't trust them...sometimes...

But the truth is...we all do...

Every single one of us...

Without exception...

So why do we do it, then?...

Maybe...it's because though we all prove ourselves unworthy of trust...at times...

We all also have a hard time acknowledging our responsibility for that...

Definitely some more than others...no doubt about that...

But I am becoming convinced that we all have a hard time taking responsibility...

Not just for how we prove ourselves less worthy of trust...

But for how we all keep that in place...

Meaning how shitty we treat one another...

And how little we account for how that makes things worse, generally...

Our saving grace, I think...is that we can't sustain ourselves on that...

And when and if we're honest enough with ourselves and one another...and smart enough about it...

We see that, better...

And we can't maintain that path...

Because we can't pretend, any more, that it's working...

We can't pretend, any more...that when we treat people like shit...

That we're really better than we are...

When it's so clear that we're not...

And when we come clean on that...

We can either forgive ourselves...and love ourselves...for what shitheads we can be...

Or we keep pretending...

But pretending doesn't make the reality go away...

It's just pretending...

And that's, really, the worst tragedy of all...

That we never learn to love ourselves...or be loved...or love one another...

For who really are...

And not who we imagine ourselves to be...or even the great people we aspire to be...

All of us...

That includes me...

You know what?...

I'm not going to do this, any more...any of this...

This life...

For anyone else...

From now on...

It's for me...

And if others happen to appreciate it...then so be it...

But my life is for me...

I've fallen short in my life...more times than I can count...worse, at times, more than others...I've done well...many times, too...

But my own final judgment of myself is the only one that counts...

And maybe if I believe that...for real...

Then I won't look to anyone else...at all...for their approval...or their love or not...or their judgment of me...

Because God knows I don't trust anyone else to know better for me...that's for goddamned sure:):)...

And God knows that my judgment is the only one that really counts for me...

I noticed the other night...talking with my father...that his approval still means far too much to me:):)...I love my dad:):)...but he and I both know that he's a great guy...and a fallible guy:):)...I know why I feel like that when I do:):)...

Or why any of us confuse other peoples' perceptions of how good we are...with the reality of how good we are...

Because...really...who gives a shit what peoples' perceptions are of how good or not we are?...

Perceptions don't mean anything, really...

Unless they are based on reality...

And yet, again and again...I read...in media accounts...in journalistic columns...even in scholarly work...

Where people persistently confuse perception with reality...where people show concern about others' perceptions of their actions...rather than the reality of whether what they are doing is good or not...

And my question is...who gives a shit?...

Has anyone's perception of you as good or bad...actually made you good or bad?...

Obviously not...

Our actions are good or bad...better or worse...based on the reality that they are good or bad...better or worse...

And everything else is just bullshit, really...

And who really gives a shit about that:):):)LOL:):):)...

But maybe we all get so wrapped up in rationalizing the bullshit...in trying to look better than we really are...

That we all just kind of lose track of whether we really are good people or not...

And I'm just tired of all that...

I've been tired of all that for quite awhile...

And I'm just coming to terms with the fact that it really doesn't matter...if you genuinely want to do good and be good...

And that often...doing good and being good...means throwing off concerns about how you look or seem good...

And just committing yourself to doing good and being good...no matter what the consequences...

Most people don't live their lives like that, really...

But they all want to appear as if they live their lives like that...

Even when they don't:):):)...

And the question we all have to ask ourselves...down deep...

Is do we just want to try to look good...even when we're not?...

Or do we actually want to be good?...to do good?...even when it's unpopular?...or when it doesn't appear to some as good?...so wrapped up are they in looking good rather than being good...

I got tired of trying to look good a long time ago...

After years of success in high school and college speech and debate...based, to a great degree, on merit...on actually being good and doing good...

But based, too much, on looking good...rather than really doing or being good...

After 7 years of that...I finally decided, as I applied for grad school...

That I didn't want that, any more...

That I was tired of doing anything in my life, any more...based on how I appeared...rather than the actual merits of my efforts...of my ideas...of myself, as a person...

The irony is that people...generally...all over the world...

Obsess about this question...

How good or not people are...how good they can be...what doing good and being good looks like...

And then we engage in all kinds of actions...

That maintain our focus on looking good...rather than being good...by expecting ourselves and others...to repress when we're thinking or doing or being bad...or less than ideal...and that keep us focussed on how we look to others...rather than how we actually are...inside and out...

And then all the most terrible crimes we commit against one another...like the Holocaust...genocide...terrorism...serial and mass murders...

All get committed in the name of how people want to appear as if they are good...or better...

With a total detachment from whether they really are doing and being good...or better...

And those crimes get committed...because people, finally, lose track, completely...of whether their lives are about doing good...or looking good...

It's all so terribly tragic...

It's the best argument for why hope and progress are, ultimately, the only possible pathes...

Because the only other route is total self-destruction...and destruction of one another...

Total detachment from what shitheads we can be...rather than just facing our shithead tendencies...loving ourselves despite them...and moving forward...

Denial...defensiveness...pretending...

These don't offer us a way forward...

At best, they offer us a way to maintain all of the same problems we have currently...

And, at worst...they make problems worse...rather than better...

And the only reason to pretend...to be better than we are...

Is to avoid consequences we don't want...and to get the things we want...

And if we want to be good, for real...

And we want others to be good for real...

Then we have to stop ignoring these things...

We have to do what our family and teachers and other good people in our lives told us we had to do when we were young...

We have to do good because it's the right thing to do...

Not because we are either scared or seduced by negative or positive consequences...

Because the latter...is about looking good...

Not about being good...

I do think that, at some level...we care about being good...

And it is that desire...deep down in our hearts...

Which is our center...our authentic center...

Our political center...our moral center...our real center in life...

And we lose track of it...

When we focus, too much, on how we look...to others...

Rather than who we are...for real...

Fallible...flawed...uncertain...scared...human beings...

Human being with limits...

Human beings who can be better...but which limits we can't entirely transcend...no matter how much hubris leads us to believe otherwise...

And it is our fantasy of our own perfectability...and our hubris to believe that we can be anything other than fallible, flawed, uncertain human beings...

That keeps us lost...on the path of looking good...

Rather than being good...

I'm tired of world based too much on looking good...rather than being good...

Because...when it comes to looking good...rather than being good...I'm always left with the question...

Who gives a shit?...really...

The only thing that matters...really...is doing good...and being good...

Everything else is bullshit...

Happy Halloween, everyone:):)...have a great week:):)...

Love,
Ben

Once again...I was wrong...

...Mighty Aphrodite is a better film than Melinda, Melinda:):)...

Melinda, Melinda is Woody Allen at some of his best, I think:):)...Will Farrell, especially, makes the movie:):)...

But Mighty Aphrodite may be Woody Allen's best film...Mira Sirvino is a total doll:):)...

This is a long-standing discussion between me and Melissa...Matt Toplikar, my director friend from Liberty Hall, our little artsy movie theater here in town:):)...and Joel Reavis, our good friend from EMU Theater...

I love Annie Hall...and Manhattan...and Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask...and Deconstructing Harry...and Everyone Says I Love You...and Love and Death...and The Purple Rose of Cairo...

But I really liked Melinda, Melinda when we saw it in the theaters...we just saw it again:):)...it was very good...but Mighty Aphrodite is a better film...

And the Purple Rose of Cairo may be better than Melinda, Melinda too...I'll have to watch Annie Hall, again...though I was really disappointed by the break-up ending...Annie Hall is a great movie...but I always say that it's like the story of Harry and Hellen before the story of When Harry Met Sally:):)...

But Mira Sirvino is classic in Mighty Aphrodite:):):)...and the script is brilliant:):):)...

And I feel deeply ashamed that I kept arguing that Melinda, Melinda may be Woody Allen's best film...

Definitely not Mighty Aphrodite:):):)...

Back to the movie:):)...

Love,
Ben

The most tragic mistake that humanity makes...

I've got plenty to think about at work:):)...

Yesterday morning...the topic was cynicism...

The saddest thing about cynicism...which is the most serious mistake that humanity makes, I think...and one that keeps us locked in so many self-fulfilling prophecies it is hard to count...

Is that it's this very sad mistake in judgment...

Cynicism is not realism...

Cynicism is a romantic idea of the world...a fantasy...of a world where everything turns out as planned...where life goes exactly as we want it to...where we never get hurt...and noone close to us gets hurt...and there is no serious pain for any of us to deal with...

A fantasy that must inevitably confront reality...

That life is full of disappointment...and unfairness...and heartbreak:):):)...

And when we encounter that disappointment and unfairness and heartbreak...

We have two fundamental choices...

Hold onto the fantasy...

Or give it up...and come to terms with the reality...

And the fantasy of humanity that trips us all up...is a fantasy of people...sometime, somewhere...in the past...in the future...in the present...

Who don't make serious mistakes...who live perfect lives...

Which does not exist...never has existed...and never will exist...

The best that humanity and our lives have to offer...is a life where we screw up...so that we can learn from our mistakes...and internalize the lessons...

And a life where we will be hurt...guaranteed...no way out of that one...

And where we forgive the hurt that people have done against us...and that we've done to others...because it is the best way to guarantee a safer, more decent, more loving world...

That's it...

That's the best that our humanity has to offer:):)...

Because we often learn lessons...by screwing them up, generally...

I'd like a world where people don't make serious mistakes...if it's possible, I'd like to see us get there...though not at the expense of holding everyone to an impossible standard...given the real limits of being a human being...

And if we doubt whether cynicism serves us or not...we should look at the places in the world where cynicism about people is strongest...where people are the least forgiving...

Traditional and much more repressive and often much more violent cultures like Palestine...Cuba...North Korea...Syria...Zimbabwe...

And genocidal cultures...like Bosnia...Rwanda...Sudan...and Cambodia...

The real question is not whether we want to find a place somewhere between these deeply cynical cultures and ourselves...but whether we want to move in the direction of more cynicism and all of the terrible consequences in our lives that come with it or not...

Desmond Tutu has written most persuasively for me on this issue...

As Desmond says...when even the most horrific crimes occur...genocide and mass murder being the most horrific I can imagine...

If those who are persecuted cannot forgive those who have persecuted them...it generally leads to another round of killing or oppression...making it all the more important to focus efforts on truth and reconciliation...on forgiveness...lest the cycle be repeated...which it too often is...throughout history and today...

Too many people just have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that bad things happen...that they are a permanent feature of our humanity...that although we would like to believe that we can live perfect lives...that that perfection does not exist...and that forgiveness of ourselves or others is the only way to come to terms with that reality...rather than persistently fighting it...with a romantic cynicism that if our fantasy that the world can be perfect can't exist...then humanity must be damned...

Rather than coming to terms with the better conclusion...that humanity can do better...even if it is not and cannot be perfect...

It is the most serious mistake that humanity makes, I think...

The mistake of cynicism...

The belief that carrying the disappointment from our romantic fantasy of perfection will somehow protect us from future disappointments...that it will somehow guard us against future disappointments...like a voodoo doll...or a charm necklace...that constantly reminds us of a world full of disappointment...and tries to ward it off...with all its power...

Desmond is right...

There is no way out of the most serious disappointments we face in life but through forgiveness...whether that be as simple as the disappointment of a love gone sour...or as serious as genocide...

It all involves letting go...of the disappointment...that has no voodoo powers to ward off future disappointment...no matter how many times we recite incantations in its name...

That's why the greatest people in humanity's history...people like Jesus Christ...the Buddha...Martin Luther King...Mohatma Ghandi...and Desmond Tutu...

Have all taught forgiveness...and love...at the center of their teachings...

Because they are the center of human existence...of human progress...of our capacity for renewal...and forward movement...

Tutu speaks from experience...it was his leadership and the leadership of Nelson Mandela -- a man who was imprisoned for 27 years for challenging a government that had systematically oppressed himself and others like him -- around matters of forgiveness that has allowed South Africa move through its terribly painful legacy of systematic apartheid...

And it is the only legacy that offers us any hope...for anything...nevertheless humanity...

Why do we make this mistake so persistently, I wonder?...this cynicism?...

It doesn't help...it doesn't make all the bad things go away in life...to the contrary...it has much to do with why so many of them stay with us...

So why do we make this mistake so persistently?...

I think it's because...hope can be painful...because it requires that we come to terms with the pain and disappointment that we've faced in the past and in the present...forgiveness takes effort...and that effort can be very painful in the moment...

But nothing compared to the pain accumulated by holding onto disappointment...

That never effectively guards against anything...and to the contrary, often brings many terrible consequences into our lives that we never imagined...

All of us have to live with bad things happening in our lives...

But only some of us...and then only some of the time...have genuine freedom in this world...

Genuine freedom only comes with love...and forgiveness...and compassion...and decency...

Everything else is one, long, persistent illusion...this romantic fantasy...that somehow we were cheated of the perfect life...that someone, somewhere is living...or that someone, somewhere has lived...or will live...

And that we got left with the scraps...

The great thing about my experiences in the world, thusfar:):)...is discovering that everyone has pain and disappointment and scraps in their lives:):)...no matter how pretty or ugly the window-dressing for all that pain and disappointment:):)...

And our emotional guards...are just window-dressing...for all that pain and disappointment...

Guards...that keep nothing out...

Except for love...and compassion...decency...forgiveness...

Freedom...

Freedom from fear...

Courage to live...

Freedom from our lower natures...

And the courage to be great:):):)...

To be big people...to be strong...to be authentically good...

And to come to terms with the fact...that being good, for real...does not involve perfection...and never has...

It involves forgiving ourselves...and others...for our failures...for the disappointments...for our humanity:):)...

Thanks, Desmond...for your courage to share the deepest wisdom...about the serious pain that humanity experiences...

And for the hope...that humanity can move past its most serious and tragic mistake...about itself:)...

Have a great weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I love my life...

...I hope you love yours:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Now playing: Superman Song...Crash Test Dummies...

Conservative intellectuals and deliberative discussion in contemporary American democracy...

The Economist -- the world's foremost conservative periodical...and certainly one if not the most intelligent conservative periodical -- writes a brilliant story on the Administration and its troubles today...

The White House under seige...

Money shot, as Andrew Sullivan would say:):):)...

"So far, the conservative revolt against Mr Bush is largely confined to the intelligentsia. Ordinary Republican voters feel no great horror about future deficits or the process by which decisions about national security are made. But they may grow more restless if evangelical preachers take against Mr Bush’s next Supreme Court pick, or if the situation in Iraq gets worse...

But the split between Mr Bush and many conservative intellectuals is “very deep and probably irreparable”, reckons Bruce Bartlett, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan, who was recently sacked from a conservative think-tank for writing a book called “The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy”. And that fury could spread to the grassroots, especially if some of the hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination make a show of sounding more conservative than Mr Bush on abortion, gay rights or immigration."

Two observations, here...first...criticisms of the Administration for not taking seriously many important conservative intellectual themes is wholly legitimate, I think...and one of the reasons that the Economist writes in this tone, I assume...is because they are among this Administration's serious, intelligent conservative critics who have watched the Administration take very little notice of the thoughtful concerns of those like themselves...

I was quite surprised, really, that I didn't read, in this article, the Economist take Secretary of State Rice and the Administration to task for refusing to take invasion in Syria and Iran off the table...since the Economist editors have made clear that they believe that this is a threat that has escalated the situations with these countries, as it did in North Korea -- a situation whose resolution, in great part by the diplomatic intervention of the South Koreans, seems to emboldened this sadly deluded Administration and its haphazard international policy -- and a policy that is terribly counterproductive...

Still...how sad that conservatives like Bruce Bartlett should characterize the soured relationship between President Bush and conservatives as "very deep and probably irreparable"...some people just never seem to learn that democracy is made up of and led by human beings...not by gods...

The President acts cynically far too often, I must admit...but he is doing his best, I believe...he's just not a conservative intellectual...he's a much less sophisticated Republican politician...who is lost, right now, because he lacks the compass that thoughtful policy-mindedness offers a more intelligent leader or observer amidst the confusion of politics, much of which has nothing to do with good policy:):):)...

Second...I very much doubt that the leading contenders for the Republican nomination are likely to be "more conservative" than the President (more conservative in what ways, I always ask whenever I hear that nonsensical way of oversimplifying complicated differences over policies that conservatives often have between themselves, even as they, like liberals, try far too hard to ignore those differences:):):)...

If by more conservative, the Economist means more socially conservative, for instance...I hardly think of Rudy Guiliani's pro-choice position and John McCain's moderate pro-life position more conservative than the President's:):):)...Guliani also supports gay rights much more seriously than the President (the couple he stayed with while his marriage was falling apart, remember, was a gay couple:):):)...John McCain is the leading supporter of campaign finance regulation, conservative opposition to which I happen to agree with...but I hardly think of McCain's position as "more conservative":):):)...

And does anyone seriously think that someone like Sam Brownback or Newt Gingrich is going to challenge McCain or Guliani in any real way for the Republican Presidential candidacy?:):):)LOL:):):)...if you do, you're far more deluded, I think, than the President:):):)...

Nope...like it or not...the next Republican Presidential candidate will come from the center...if, on the off chance, a conservative like Brownback or Gingrich was nominated, they would most assuredly lose in the general election to almost any serious Democrat nominated for the Presidency:):):)...

Guliani and McCain, from the polls I saw several months ago, at this point...so I can't vouch for their current validity...but according to those polls, either of them would likely triumph over various Democratic candidates, especially Hillary Clinton (though the last couple of months do seem to have swung left in a dramatic way that may have changed that...an unhealthy and not terribly helpful swing, in my view...but a swing, nonetheless)...John Edwards beat Rudy Guliani in one of those polls, I believe...and I would be interested in a Barak Obama candidacy...

Though I have to say, overall...and this is likely because I'm working with a much higher standard than any election I've ever observed or voted in:):):)...

But none of these candidates seem that spectactular to me, frankly...none of them are really the intellectual heavyweight and demonstrated leader that Bill Clinton was (though Barak Obama has potential for that)...

At this point...if Hillary Clinton is nominated for the Democratic ticket...and absent any change in her leadership style from her abysmal performance during Hurricane Katrina -- using valuable time in the midst of a real time crisis to set up a commission rather than getting on the phones and figuring out who she should call to help with relief efforts -- I'm voting for Rudy Guliani -- whose post 9/11 performance was a stellar contrast to the sad, pathetic leadership of Democratic New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin -- or John McCain...

Neither of the Republican candidates are ideal for me...but Rudy, in particular, has demonstrated more real leadership in a time of crisis -- a pretty important responsibility for the President, actually -- and Hillary Clinton just has so little going for her as a leader of the free world, right now, except perhaps a pretty stellar pool to choose from in supporting roles for major cabinet and advising positions...John is not as strong an executive candidate as Rudy, I don't think...but I've always been impressed with his courage to challenge his own party -- who engaged in more campaign finance abuse of the two parties, to be fair to Democrats -- on campaign finance reform...even as I disagree, today, with his perscription...

I would, of course, rather have someone like Joe Nye or David Gergen run the country:):):)...people with both leadership experience and serious policy intellect...

But, alas...I live in the real world:):):):)...

Maybe one day:):):)...

The most powerful comment in the article comes from George H.W. Bush national security advisor Brent Scowcroft...

“You encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neo-cons do it,” he said. “This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism.”

Now there's some sane, smart conservative international policy advice:):):)...

The single most important check on the hubris of this Administration, right now?...

Not the Democratic party...that's for sure...how useless they've been so often during this Administration:):):)...though I do appreciate the robust group of Democrats willing to move forward a discussion that openly criticized the mistakes of the Administration in conducting this war...

The single most important check on the hubris of the Administration...

Has been intellectuals, generally...and conservative intellectuals, in particular...as they got clearer about the problems that the Administration would seem to try to wish away, often...for lack of the kind of serious and intelligent analysis and self-reflection that folks like the brilliant editors of the Economist magazine, among many others, have been willing to engage in...

Still think politics is something that amateurs can do just as well as those who take policy thought seriously?...

This was a debate/discussion that Brandi and I had while we were both in grad school...

Brandi worked on these brilliant little efforts in citizen engagement on many important issues...race...with the National Days of Dialogue...associated with President Clinton's very important race dialogue initiative...Social Security...with a great group called America Discusses Social Security...both of which she did with one of the leading dialogue coordinators in the country and a really awesome guy, if you ever get the chance to meet him, Theo Brown:):):)...and ADSS with Carolyn Lukensmeyer, another important pioneer in dialogue work...

And then again in Kansas City...with a group called Study Circles...working on the area of policy that I was studying in grad school at the time, education policy:):):)...

Brilliant efforts, all of them...and very important in involving citizens in important policy discussions, debates, and decisions...

But the one place where I constantly objected...

Was I believed -- and believe more strongly today than I did then -- that though citizen engagement is very important on almost every issue facing America and the world today...

That there is no way that average citizens can master policy discussions in the way that serious policy thinkers can...

Any more than I can master serious physics discussions better than serious physics students and thinkers...

It just ain't possible...no matter how hard folks try:):)...

Though I speak heresy, I'm sure, of my own grad program:):):)...which railed against "expert professionalism" and its elitism...

I have no interest in expert elitism...at all, really...

But I do have an interest in discussing important issues with those who have a more serious understanding of them...policy, medicine, physics, automobiles, or otherwise...

And there is just no way to have that conversation where the say of average citizens has equal weight with the say of policy experts...even as every citizen must guard against experts claiming to "know" their lives and the issues that impact them more than they do, themselves...and against experts claiming any right to run their lives for them...which is completely counterproductive to the cultivation of a more self-governing citizenry, I believe...and citizens who are wary of such abuses of expertise should roundly criticize experts who engage in them:):):)...

Those conversations should be equitable...meaning...not everything or everyone is equal in their contributions to that discussion...

But everyone should have a say and be a part of that discussion and responsible for it...

And experts must earn peoples' trust in those discussions...as difficult a task as I'm learning that to be...

Not because they don't deserve it, more...

But because citizens who lack education in more serious matters of policy...can be just be so damned stubborn...that they have anything to learn from the more learned among them...

Against their self-interest, to be sure...

But stubborn, nonetheless:):):)...

That's why I very much respect and admire the very impressive efforts of people like Theo Brown and Carolyn Lukensmeyer...and political players like David Gergen...and Bill Bradley...

And grassroots dialogue coordinators like Brandi Fisher:):):)...

Whose work begins to bridge that gap:):):)...

Which is so very much needs to be bridged...

So that our country and our international community...can be more authentically free and democratic...

And so wiser policy...not just politics as usual...can prevail...in the many very important decisions that leaders of this country must make:):):)...

A very sincere and heartfelt thank you to conservatives and conservative intellectuals...in America and abroad:):):)...who have helped lift up that conversation in America:):):)...from an independent...who has spent most of his life as a liberal:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Why I have hope for humanity:):):)...a clarifying moment:):):)...

I was wrong...I believe in my friends:):)...I don't just love 'em:):):)...I believe in 'em:):):)...

You know why I believe in people...no matter how shitty they can be, so often:):):)...

Because laming out is just not a way that most folks can lead a life, for long...

Some people lame out for quite a long time, I must admit:):):)...I never thought I'd meet so many 40 and 50 year olds who just never seem to have grown up:):):)...nevertheless 20 and 30 year olds:):)...

But laming out is just no way to sustain a life...

Defensiveness just doesn't make much room for a way forward...meaning a vision for life that gets us somewhere:):)...

Harriet Miers announced her withdrawal from nomination to the Supreme Court, today...

First...I want to say to Ms. Miers...thanks for putting your hat into the ring:):)...and the only reason that mattered for why someone else might be a better pick, Ms. Miers, is that you just haven't done the homework to do that job...you were picked for a lot of wrong reasons...a lot of cynical ones...and it takes a lot of courage to step back from that and say, "Maybe I'm not the person for this job"...

And what is refreshing about Harriet withdrawing...

Is that it reaffirms that when it comes to important matters of serious policy...

That thoughtfulness matters...whether you agree with those engaged in the thinking or not...the thinking, itself, matters quite a bit, really...

And that is the big lesson to be drawn from the Presidency of George W. Bush...

That thought matters...everywhere...and that operating as if it doesn't...has consequences...

It is the most important challenge of this generation...to take serious thought more seriously...

And ourselves less seriously:):)...

Some of the best time in my short life, thusfar...has been reading and reflecting and thinking about the ideas of those who take such thought seriously...

And now the challenge is to share that with others...

And to expect them to take the challenge of integrating serious thought into their lives seriously...everywhere in life...

But that's where it matters...

Everywhere...

Like it or not:):)...

That's where my next great love lies, I think:):):)...in the world of serious, compassionate, decent, loving, genuine goodness and thought:):):)...

I can't wait:):):)...

My friends are going to come around this one, I'm confident:):):)...

You know why?:):):)...

Because they're great people:):):)...or at least they have the potential:):):)...

And there are, ultimately, only two directions that people can take:):):)...

Mediocrity...and that long black train backwards...

Or greatness:):):)...and constantly aspiring for it:):):)...

And my friends are not mediocre:):):)...

And there is too much greatness in their futures to aspire for anything less:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Now I understand...

I now understand just how my dad and my teachers must have felt all those years of my growing up...

Being totally taken for granted...while I whined and moaned...and generally felt entitled to whatever ideal treatment that my heart desired in the moment...with very little recognition of how hard it was for them to try to be good enough...when I was always being such a shit...though...to be fair...my dad, at least, had a steep learning curve on learning not to be such a shit, himself...and dealing with the world, as is, even with all its glaring flaws...

In particular...I realize, now, just how hard it must have been for my professors...dealing with the same...and me, as well...dealing with the behavior of my advisor, at least...but all of us, doing our best...and me taking it all for granted...not realizing just how much better some peoples' best is than other peoples...

My best is pretty goddamn good, if I can say so myself...

But goddamn if some people will never be happy until they have determined your every move before you've even made it...so easy is it to play spectator with others' lives...when you feel no real responsibility for what it must be like to be them...

That's most people, I'm learning...

My apologies to Michael Brown for the poor behavior of my fellow Americans...

And my appreciation to the American people for doing their best...even when their best is so goddamned shitty, sometimes...to folks like Michael Brown...and everyone else that they feel like they can demand results from...that they would never be able to deliver themselves...not that they give much of a shit about that or anyone else other than themselves, much of the time...

And my general one finger salute to everyone for whom my best is not enough...

Love,
Ben

P.S. Brandi...the post I was referring to in my email is Reflections on Rich and Poor...two posts down:):)...

Is it possible?...

...that my friend may be poised to take responsibility on this one?...

He seems to...

The trick will be...thinking through this one...

He ignored his first opportunity to do that...

We'll see if he does it again...

Love,
Ben

Reflections on rich and poor...

We worked the house of the rich couple, again, today:)...

And I have to say that I'm having different feelings about rich and poor, today, than I had, say, three years ago or so:):)...

I do think it's important to note that rich does not necessarily mean responsible...or good...

But I'm learning quickly enough...that poor...or middle class...don't either...

And today was an excellent demonstration of that:):)...

My boss, yesterday, says that we're going to work for this "rich bitch" whose lawn we've mowed before:):)...

We go to her house...and she's really nice to us, actually:):)...she has a really nice lawn...and nice garden:):)...and she wants to make it nice for the coming year:):)...she offers us water:):)...and is very encouraging:):)...and cuts much slack:):)...

And today...I'm noticing the contrast between this woman's behavior...and the behavior of the poorer/lower middle class boss and co-worker I'm working with, today:):)...

My boss is a pretty decent guy:):)...though he can be a real dick, too...and has been for part of the day for almost every day I've worked with him, except that first day:):)...he's not terribly bright, my boss...and seems to make almost no effort whatsoever to change that:):)...

My co-worker is almost a stereotype of poverty...he's uneducated in a serious way -- meaning, I don't think he even has a lot of high school skills...he's obnoxious...and self-centered...he's insensitive...and often rude:):)...he makes jokes that only he finds funny:):)...and though I consider him a friend -- because I consider everyone a friend, really, no matter how obnoxious -- he's, generally, terribly annoying, much of the time:):)...and definitely not trustworthy except to try to show up every day, to give his best, and then to go home and figure out how to get drunk or high...and that, it appears, is the entirety of his life...

This rich woman we're working for, on the other hand, is nice...smart...decent...sensitive -- she's catching everyone's names as best as possible...something I do that I notice most of the folks that I work with at most joe jobs don't seem to notice or appreciate very much:):)...she's not naggy...and she's really encouraging and cuts much slack:):)...

And I'm thinking about all of my friends...rich...poor...middle class...

And noticing a similar trend...the more money they seem to have or to have had contact with...the more long-term they seem to think...at least intelligent rich folks...which may be the real common denominator, here (something tells me that Eminen is not the nicest dude to work for:):)...

Middle class folks...are more responsible than a lot of the poorest folks...but meaner, generally, than their richer and more intelligent brethren...

And poor folks are often -- not always...I grew up poor and I don't think behaved this way...even as a kid -- are just obnoxious...self-centered...living only in the moment...no long-term future or plans...the basest interests in life:):)...and very little thought at all going into their lives:):)...

And I'm thinking this entire time...

I wonder if I was unfair with Greg...Brandi's husband...and his family...if I got a bad first impression and just ran with it, unfairly...I would totally understand if Brandi was angry with me because I got cynical not knowing Greg and not having any contact with him...now that I've been through that...having friends being cynical with me after not seeing them for awhile...I know now that it doesn't matter...it's not fair...and it doesn't matter how much they wanted or didn't want to see me...or how much I wanted or didn't want to see Brandi...it's not fair...

Rich folks are often pretty decent folks, I'm learning...my parents are rich...and after meeting a broader swath of people in the world, these days...I totally appreciate just how decent and wonderful they are...even with their flaws...

I hope Greg and the Raymond family are good people...for Brandi's sake:):)...and if they are...I feel like a real dick...and maybe I deserve to not have some contact with Brandi if that turns out to be the case...though I do hope she'll find it in her heart to make some contact with me, at some point...just so that I know that she's doing ok:):)...

I just wrote Brandi to apologize...if that's the case...which it very well may be...

Because I've learned for sure...in the three years I've been out of school...and worked mostly working class jobs with folks with not very much education...

Is that my professors...and educated folks, generally...were/are much more decent than I ever gave them credit for at the time...no matter my frustrations with them...the contrast with working class folks -- who tend to be kind dumb, kind of mean, and much more bossy, as a rule -- is just so stark in my head, any more...that I just can't deny just how much better my more educated professors were to work with...than any of the jobs I've had since then:):)...

The world is a lot more complicated than I ever gave it credit for...even as someone who gave much more credit to the idea that it was more complicated than most people understood than most people do:):):)...

I hope everyone's doing well:):)...

Love,
Ben

Considering a Howard Hughes existence...

We did some landscaping work for this really rich couple, today...they own Aberdeens...the big apartment complexes here in Lawrence...the woman who lived there had a little of "rich woman's entitlement complex" going on...but, overall...she was fairly nice...nicer than one of my supervisors who was kind of dick to me in the morning (when is this new?:):)...

And I thought...while I was there...

Maybe this is what I need to do...just give up this whole teaching and writing thing...it's pretty clear to me, now, that people don't like to change...they prefer the inertia...it feels more comfortable...it's easier to predict the self-fulfilling prophecy that nothing will ever get better only to watch nothing get better...than to do the hard work of making improvements in the world...

So maybe I'll just make a bunch of money...in some venture...can't be that hard, really...I'm smart...I work my ass off...I'm tough as nails...and nicer than your grandma...

So maybe I should just make a bunch of money...get really rich...and lead some really eccentric, reclusive life...like Howard Hughes...not hate people...just ignore and avoid them as much as possible...and let them hurt and destroy themselves and each other as much as they want...get out of their way...and just lead a life that I love...

Buy a bi-plane...learn how to fly...and spend a lot of time above it all...

The girl at work definitely seems interested at this point...she seems really sweet...which is my number one quality, at this point in the game (smart is great...but smart and bitchy is pretty useless for a mate or anything else, really)...

She seems to have a drug history...which is a red flag to me, these days...it usually means that someone has put off living responsibly...and has used drugs as a way to numb all kinds of bitterness that drug-users generally hold onto...drug abuse, for most of my friends, is one long place-holder for the answer to the question, "Why aren't I doing something really valuable with my life?"...

But hope springs eternal...she seems sweet enough...really sweet, sometimes:):)...we'll see...we'll hang out...and get to know one another...

It's funny...in these three years out of school...I've had a lot of time to consider all kinds of life choices...

Military service...getting rich...all kinds of options...

And it's pretty clear to me, now, that I had pretty good instincts when I originally wanted to be a thinker...and writer...and teacher...

I can't think of a better life than emulating the examples of folks like Joseph Campbell...or Albert Einstein...or Roald Dahl...or other folks like them...

If it weren't for all the various folks with so little imagination and desire to have much beyond their own self-centered pursuits in the world...that I guess I'll have to deal with whether I teach or write or not...then this would be a no-brainer...

But it's the ever-presence of more small-minded folks...that leaves me considering a more reclusive life:):)...

But its only really the thinkers of the world that do much of real substantial, long-lasting significance in this world...

Others do important jobs...and serve important purposes...

But the most important work is done by thinkers...who imagine how the world can be better in a million different ways...

And it is the one group in the world who readily welcomes change...because they aren't busy hiding from all the various problems that the world has to offer...as most people do...and especially in those professions and areas of life whose structures seem to breed inertia and stagnation...

I am clear, today, that the only person whose opinion that really counts for me is my own...

I just don't trust most people to really think enough to have an opinion that is worth taking seriously...when they do...that's a different story...but most people don't...too satisfied with a life that is safer...when you're just looking at everyone else to find out how you think about whatever...I can't think of a more cowardly, pathetic life...and it's not the life for me, that's for sure...

And people who live their lives to be tough...range from the foolish to the psychopathic...definitely can't think of a more mindless way to live your life:):)...the military and law enforcement and firefighting and other such folks that I've always respected the most are always the thinkers...and even then they either prove their mettle as thinkers...or not...the late, great Stephen Ambrose comes to mind, here...an Army man...and a brilliant military historian if you ever get a chance to read his stuff (Ambrose's undenying optimism that that the Allies would always have won World War II...that the important question was why and where...a thesis I very much agree with...has always impressed me most in him as a military historian:):)...

And as I look out into this big, bad world...after some time in it, now...outside the academe walls...

One thing seems to impress itself on me, most...

Too many opinions...not enough thinking...

It's the most serious deficit in America and the world today...a deficit of imagination...and serious, rigorous thought...

And none other is more important in this age and probably any and every age...

Thinking...and courage...

And love...

Though the best of all three of these necessarily involves the other...it's inescapable...

So maybe I won't be a recluse...I've always wondered what J.D. Salinger is so scared of:):)...now I think I know:):)...

People are a major pain in the ass...that is for sure...

But they're the only folks around...unfortunately...and it's boring playing bridge alone:):):)...

But I have to say...that at this point in my life:):)...

Time alone is definitely some of the most coveted time I have in my life:):)...

I'd like that to change:):)...

But I just haven't met the right girl, yet:):)...

I want to meet a girl...who makes me want to die inside when she leaves me...by natural causes or otherwise...every other way of loving just seems too much a waste of time:)...

Have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

A testament...to the legacy...of breaking the rules...

Rosa Parks dies at 92...

If there is anyone who demonstrates the folly...of a "philosophy" of following the rules...

It's Rosa Parks...

Thank you, Rosa...for your courage...to break the rules:)...

Love,
Ben

The challenge in front of me:):):)...

This is why the world seems so cock-eyed to me:):):)...

Majority of Americans reject evolution...

You see...at heart:):)...I'm just a scientist:):)...

My mind thinks too logically to bottom out to the lowest common denominator of most Americans:):):)...or people, generally, for that matter:):):)...

I've had the evolution/creation/intelligent design conversation a million times:):):)...

But what it all comes down to...is that the broad, undeniable consensus within the scientific community...favors evolution...and all other theories -- various creation stories...of which intelligent design is an ingenious variation on:):):) -- are interesting cultural myths to study as a part of Western heritage, world history, and world cultures...

But science, they are not...

And I am just too intellectually honest...to try to pretend that I identify very much at all with the idea that somehow my own personal or religious dogma...could ever or should ever...trump science:):):)...or deep, profound understandings of the world:):):)...

I think the reason why I see the world so different from most people...

Is that I just don't take bullshit folk theories about the world very seriously, at all:):)...

I only take seriously the most rigorous thought...

And everything else is just kind of bullshit, as far as I'm concerned:):):)...

Most people don't think like that, I'm learning...

And my thinking on that...

They should...

And they should learn to live and think up to my standards and to the standards of the best thinkers in the world:):)...

And not me or those thinkers down...to the thinking of most folks...

And that is why I don't understand most people, much of the time:):):)...

Because I just don't take stupid that seriously, really:):):)...and I don't care how seriously others take stupid...it's still stupid, as far as I'm concerned...

And I only take smart seriously...

Smart can mean that someone understands cars...or weed-whackers...or whatever...

And it can mean that they understand people...or schools...or politics...or economics...or whatever...better...as well:):):)...

But I just don't respect thinking that takes stupid too seriously...and doesn't respect, enough, the best thinking...

And my expectation...is that people should live up to that...not me living down to stupid:):):)...

And that is the long and short of it, as far as I'm concerned:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

And if you happen to be one of those people who agree with the majority in this poll:):):)...

I would suggest keeping your day job:):):)...and not trying your hand, professionally, at science, any time soon:):):):)...

Unless you have a rigorously considered scientific challenge to evolution...

And it better be good...

And not some long rationalization for why "God does exist, gosh darnit!"...

Because if this is what you're going after...scientifically-minded people want proof for your ideas...proof for which yours and other ideas can be falsified...not just asserted...and not just self-righteous pronouncements of whatever dogma you ascribe to...

And my efforts are to bring folks up to that expectation...

And to stop having intelligent people...pander down to the foolishness of average folks:):):)...

Have a great night, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Why I write the way I write...

I just heard this interview by Robert Siegel of National Public Radio with Adam Rosen of the Institute for International Economics about President Bush's nomination of Ben Bernanke to be the country's next Federal Reserve Chairman...

That reinforced why I write the way I write:):)...

Adam gave a pretty typical liberal economist's perspective...at least for a liberal in the opening years of the twenty-first century:):)...on President Bush's nomination of Ben Bernanke for Federal Reserve Chairman:):)...

Robert indicated that writers at the National Review, one of if not the most important conservative publication in the country, were expressing concern that Bernanke was not a supply-side economist...referring to the economic theory espoused famously by economists like Arthur Laffer --creator of the concept of the Laffer curve, which sought to demonstrate the marginal utility of higher tax and lower tax rates -- that low taxes and other incentives to business growth were key to growing the economy, since they encouraged savings and investment in new businesses and expansion of old businesses, increasing productivity, employment, and overall economic well-being along the way...

Thanks to Wikipedia for a nice, concise explanation of supply side economics...

Adam Rosen, of the Institute for International Economics sought to put Robert's mind to rest:):)...reminding him, as a newly appointed high priest of the field of economics:):), that supply-side economics is not taken seriously by mainstream economists:):):)...

Which is poppy-cock, of course:):)...and is Adam playing politics with an idea that he disagrees with:):)...because he's a liberal economist:):)...which generally means that he believes in things like progressive taxation (meaning high taxes on the rich and lower taxes on the middle class and poor), economic regulation, and other interferences in the economy that conservatives generally abhor:):) (and I do, too, just for the record:):)...even as an independent who has been a liberal for most of my life:):)...

And it just reinforced for me why I write about complex matters of scholarship and serious ideas as casually and as interspersed with the personal as much as I do:):):)...

First and foremost...it's because I want to humanize serious thought...I want people to see that it's real people who deal in it...not some distant, abstract idea-geek...who doesn't seem to have a soul outside of their immediate academic work:):)...and, as such...that we and all of us, really, are subject to human folly as much as anyone else...thought thinking seriously about life does tend to cut down on that folly, I think:):):)...

Also...because I want to be as open with my life as possible and as I feel comfortable:):)...

Meaning...I don't want people to just read my ideas...I want people to know about me...as a person...as someone who has a life outside of my ideas:):)...and that influence my ideas quite a bit, really:):):)...and I want to be honest that, like all scholars, likely...my personal life affects the way that I look at the world:):)...and think about it:):)...

But a big concern that some people might have about my writing, I think...is how casual it is...how unconventional it is for an academic to write so casually...and personally:):)...

And the reason that this doesn't bother me...is, first...because the personal stuff, I think, is really important actually...and I think it's important for people to know some of the day-to-day realities that shape me and my ideas:):)...and know that I test them every day:):)...that my ideas are not, at all, some kind of ideological agenda...they are ideas borne of very serious thought and real experience:):)...and that that is important to me:):)...and I think should be to everyone:):)...

But the reason why I'm not concerned about how people may disregard my ideas...based on how they're written...

Is borne out in that interview...

You see...Adam just disagrees with supply side economics:):)...and then found a creative, if somewhat deceptive, way to disregard ideas that he disagrees with:):)...

And that is just par for the course...in political and economic and other discussions, I think:):)...but in life, too, I think:)...

I sometimes do it...especially if I think I'm being bullied...and it's a clever and generally honest way to fight back in those situations, I think...to expect people to think seriously...rather than to mistake their groupthink and their bullying for serious thought...

But I try to be honest, generally, when I have a disgreement with someone...the higher the stakes the discussion...like if someone is impugning my character...the less seriously and the less respectfully I will take a disagreement...which I'm fine with, really...I think low-ball disagreements can expect some in-kindness in responses to them:)...

But, generally...I'll try to be as honest as possible about a disagreement:):)...

And...the bottom-line...with any idea...

Is that either you'll agree with it...or find agreement with it...or you won't...

That's really it...everything else is window-dressing...

Meaning...the formality or informality of the writing...the presentation...the grammar...the punctuation...

All the bullshit...eventually gives way...to the basic issue...

Either you find agreement with an idea:):)...or you don't:):)...

I heard about Ronald Coase's ideas on the internalization of extra-economic costs to a society for economic decisions (like environmenatal consequences, say) in a undergraduate macroeconomics class with a liberal economics professor, Martin Perline (one of my favorite undergraduate professors:):)...who dissuaded me of the kind of kooky thought of economist Murray Rothbard, in his book Bionomics, a libertarian tract that I was fascinated with as an undergrad:):)...

I've never read Coase, formally:):)...Dr. Perline did tell us that he had won the Nobel Prize in Economics:):)...and I found his ideas a fascinating opportunity to cut through a lot of the difficulty of getting businesses to think about larger environmental consequences from their business decisions and not at just narrow profit margins...

But I do know that Ronald's ideas are brilliant:):):)...and I don't give a shit about how he writes them:):)...or how he delivers them in a lecture:):)...or how he dresses or doesn't when he shares those ideas:):):)...

I just care about the ideas:):)...because I think they're good ones:):):)...

And that's basically how it works, I think:):)...

I can write in the formalities, too, of course:):)...I was in college of some sort for 12 years, for goodness sakes:):)...I would hope that I have the basics of grammar and spelling and other important formalities of writing down:):)...

But part of the way I write...is both to share of me, personally...meaning...how I'm feeling as I write:):)...like with smileys:):)...

And also to communicate...with the elipses...

That thinking is an on-going...never-ending...process...that it's never done...there are never finished answers...

And anyone who tells you there are...is not only bullshitting you:):)...but they're artificially shutting off the quest for better ideas...

Ronald Coase would never come up with ideas to "internalize the externalities," as Ronald might say:):)...

If he believed that all the important ideas in the world were all out on the table...no more thinking necessary:):)...

And neither would anyone else:):)...

Good thinkers and great thinkers know this...that's how they get to be good and great thinkers:):)...

But...my concern...was that not enough average folks...average thinkers...realized this...

That too many people thought that ideas were less open than all that...because they just look so neat and clean and polished up:):)...when they're written about in articles or books or wherever:):)...

When...really...when you get underneath the hood:):)...

All ideas...and all thinking:):):)...is in process:):)...and that nice, shiny engine:):):)...often has quite a few quirks that its most intimate mechanics know best:):):)...

And I just wanted as many of my own quirks out there as possible:):)...

Because I want people to realize...that anyone can do this:):)...it just takes some effort...and some desire...some practice...and a lot...a lot...a lot...of study:):):)...

And I was just thinking today:):)...as I was mowing the same lawns that I just mowed last week:):):)...

How much I love working with these ideas:):):)...

How important it is to me...

How in awe I am of people who develop genuinely new, interesting, constructive ideas...to make the world better...

And writers, generally, who inspire me to look at the world in a different way:):):)...

Adam Rosen is a fine economist, I'm sure...

But his comments were not on par with the really influential ideas of Ronald Coase...or Amartya Sen...or Fredrich Hayek...or Milton Friedman...or John Kenneth Gailbraith...or John Maynard Keynes...or Robert Heilbroner...or Carolyn Minter Hoxby...

Economists who sought/seek to explain the most difficult and important economic, political, and social phenomena...with deep, broad explanations...that are very diverse...and often in conflict...

And which all add to our understanding of the world:):)...

Adam's comments on NPR didn't really add much to that understanding, in the broadest sense...as very good an economist I'm sure he is:):)...and as much as I learned from him about Ben Bernanke...

I hope my ideas will contribute to that broader discussion in similar ways...

But I've made my peace with the fact that there will likely be people who disagree with me:):)...and probably will be on my death bed and long after I've left this tiny little planet, third from our sun:):)...

And that...either people will find the ideas useful:):)...or they won't...and everything else is just window-dressing:):)...

And in the meantime...I want to leave something of me that is more personal...more...me...than just my ideas:):)...as important as ideas, generally, and my ideas are to me:):):)...

To share of the life that those ideas are meant to help understand...and improve:):):)...

Have a good night, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I have to admit...

...the prospect of giving up on my friends depresses the hell out of me...

I've premised almost everything I think...in education policy, at least...and on a lot of domestic policy matters...but just the way I think about and care about people, generally...

...on the idea that all people can learn to think through serious issues...

That there is no need for either the contempt of those who are more convinced that people can think more and think and act better but refuse...

Or the condescending sympathy of those who are convinced that people may just not be able to think through matters better...

My premise has been that people can and need to think and, as a consequence, act better...and that better engaging serious issues with more thoughtful people gives them an opportunity to learn how to do that better...

And you would think that if I can't even do this with some of my best friends...then I just can't do it at all...

It is complicated...

These particular friends do seem convinced that such thought just doesn't apply to them...one of my better friends spends a lot of time pretending that more thoughtful ideas and movies and books, etc., just don't apply to him...that the values taught in places like school are just some vast illusion that he has somehow seen through...

A lot of people play this game, I'm learning...especially when they were less successful in school...I guess it's just easier on the ego than admitting that they just weren't as good of a student as they needed to be...even as schools and teachers must learn to better accommodate the learning needs of all students...

But I just think all this denial of the obvious reality that being smarter matters...and that it matters everywhere...no matter how important or menial the effort seems...that denying this reality just makes us all -- all of us...not just those engaged in the denial...active or otherwise -- weaker...less prepared...less able to take on important challenges in our lives and our workplaces and our communities...

I want to teach in public schools...and I want my kids to go to public schools...and I want to teach in a public university...

Not because I'm defensive of public schools...but because I genuinely believe in them...as the best opportunities for learning in schools...that folks either take advantage of or not...

Private schools are the same situation, I think...but I think public schools offer better opportunities...because they offer the better and more real-life challenge of working and learning and leading in situations with a broader group of folks...no matter how frustrating it is...which is more reflective the how the real world works...that we don't get to insulate ourselves in the real world from people who we think are dumber than us...or of a different religion...or not a true Christian...or whatever other ways that people try to insulate themselves and one another in university settings:):):)...

But the one thing that is a serious advantage for almost any school situation...where folks choose to be there...

Is that you're not dealing with the really most frustrating and fundamental difference between smarter students and less bright students...

Which is the stubborn refusal of some people to learn...no matter how much it is needed...

And since kids in public schools more often than kids in private schools, I imagine...don't choose to be there...they are more likely to rebel against learning and the learning process, I imagine...

There's some of this in private schools, as well, of course...but private schools can always kick such kids out...and then public schools end up absorbing them, often...if they can't get into other private school situations...

And that is how life works...

It would be great to think that someone we could just kick out all of the people in the world that we don't like...or don't like to work with...

But it just doesn't work that way...I've learned very much the hard way...that we often have to work with folks that we may have even imagined, at one point...as I did...that we'd never have to work with...

We just have to learn to work with all kinds of people...

The trick, though...is that we all still need to choose to learn...we just can't do it any other way...we can refuse to do or rebel against doing just about any damned thing we please, really...

And the reason why I believe in as much school choice and freedom for schools as possible...is so schools and students and parents and teachers can each and all learn to be responsible for their learning and teaching, together, as much as possible...without either expecting others to do the job for us...or rebelling against the process along the way...

But the challenge is still...that...ultimately...all students have to choose to learn...or else the process just doesn't really work, really...

And my frustration with my friends is that they want to be responsible...without really taking that responsibility seriously...they want to be in charge...without really taking seriously the need to think about how to use authority...they'd rather spend their lives defending their right not to think...no matter how adolescent and useless an instinct that is...

Than to spend it thinking about how to deal with life's challenges better...

They'd rather fuck up every challenge out of experience...and worse...do what so many less educated people do...make the same mistake over and over and over and over and over and over again...stubbornly and stupidly...rather than learning from it much more quickly by thinking more seriously about it...

They just want to defend the idea that they don't need so stinkin' thinkin'...to make it through life...than to come to terms with the obvious reality for anyone who does take thinking seriously...that thinking matters...and that...in no matter what endeavor we engage in...it impacts our ability to do it better...and to think about it better...

And the most recent round of bullshit that they've put me through...is just too much...it's just a bunch of dumbasses trying to play big people that they aren't prepared enough to do quite yet...and I've had to deal with all of the fallout...

But giving up not only seems unrealistic...and heartbreaking...since I really love these friends...it seems to be giving up on that ideal...that we all have to learn to take learning and thinking more seriously...no matter how we might foolishly argue against that idea...

But...in this case...the lesson is going to have to involve them learning to apologize when they fuck up...

Because I just don't trust them, anymore...no matter how much they fuck up...I keep coming back...not expecting apologies...assuming that they're more fragile egoes have a harder time dealing with that task...

But this time is different...they've been particularly shitty to me...

And this time an apology is due...and learning to offer it is part of the lesson they need to learn, right now...

It'll be good for 'em...but more importantly...it will be the only way that I'll know that they've learned the lesson...and they won't put me through what they've put me through in the last couple of weeks/months or so again...

And now I realize it's not too high an expectation...it's the only expectation that will change the situation between us, at this point...

I don't want to live in a world where the only people expected to learn are people who have and/or take advantage of more or better educational opportunities that others...

I want a world where everyone is expected and internalizes the expectation to learn and think and grow no matter what educational opportunities they do or don't take advantage of...and where everyone has as much freedom as possible to take advantage or not take advantage of those opportunities...so that they can learn what life is like with the alternatives...and so that they can learn better to take the better paths...as they have experiences that teach them, better, that they have much more to learn...

But there is a fundamental hump that everyone has to get over for that to happen...

People have to choose to learn...and to take learning seriously...and to take the thinking that is involved with that learning seriously...for all of that to happen...

And I have learned...with this particular group of friends...and this one friend, in particular...

That I can't make them think...no matter how important it is for them to do so...

That they can refuse to take thinking and learning seriously...for as long as they'd like...

And that we all have to deal with the consequences in the meantime...

And that they...and they're children...and everyone in their lives...will have to live with the consequences of that refusal...as long as they so choose that path...

And that will be the on-going, self-fulfilling prophecy...

Until we break that cycle...that is perpetual...as long as we don't engage that challenge and address it...

I'm not interested in that self-fulfilling prophecy...

And I've never seen a challenge that I'm afraid of taking on, frankly...ever...

So I know this is one that we can and must take on, as well...

And I'm up to the job...

But this particular one...this particular situation with these friends...

Will involve an apology...

And that is the only way forward with that particular situation...period...

And this is one self-fulfilling prophecy...that I am tired of tripping us all up...all of us...

It's gotta change...

No matter how stubbornly people who take learning and thinking less seriously...cling to their defenses about what they don't need to think and learn more and better...

I just don't give a shit what folks' excuses are...

The world is better when we all take smart more seriously...and treating each other decent, as well...which we learn the smarter we get...because smart people who don't take seriously treating people decently...really aren't that smart, afterall, as it turns out...and decent people who don't take smart seriously...are just being kind of dumb, really...

When I signed the lease on this little apartment in July...I was like, "Why in the world am I committing to this shitty little neighborhood for a year?"...

The truth was...because I didn't have time to find a new place while I was searching for jobs...and I couldn't put the leasing office off any more...

But I look around this cozy little apartment...and I think about all the strong friendships I have with all my neighbors (all of us seem to be pretty much friends...and some of us pretty close friends)...

And I realize that I love this little place:):):)...this little home I have, for now:):)...

And that I love feeling at home in my little place...the feeling of real, genuine safety...that one feels...when there is plenty of love around:):):)...

I've got to get to bed:):):)...I'm exhausted:):):)...

I'll talk with everyone later:):):)...

Love,
Ben