My kids were on fire and I had nothing to do with it...

I had an all-day inservice on I.E.P.'s (Individualized Educational Plans) today...

So I prepared an extensive lesson for the substitute, today...

And I don't know what was in the water with those kids, today...

But they were on fire...

I come back to school dying to know how they did, today...two of them got sent out of class one special education teacher tells me...so I'm a little disappointed...

But then I look at their work in class (we keep folders with all their work every day)...

And they are solving equivalent fractions left and right...they're all over it...one student has her answer space covered in equivalent fractions far and above what the question asked her to do...

I scheduled some time for them to play a game they love playing...it's called Pizza Party...and it involves pizza pieces in the form of fractions that the kids use to learn about fractions tangibly...

And it doesn't even look like they touched that game...

They just spent the whole time doing equivalent fractions...and they did me proud...

Tomorrow we talk about what went well...my para-professional, Ms. Simmons, and the sub, Mr. Rainey, were both here...and whatever they did was great...and I'd love to hear what went great from the kids, too...

Do you know how much I want these kids to succeed?...in my math class...in school...in life...

Do you know how frustrated I get with every single unnecessary road block to that success?...including and especially the road blocks they create themselves?...

I want every single kid...no matter how far behind their peers they are, at this moment...

I want them all to succeed...and to love school...

They may or may not succeed equally...

And if some of these kids take on the kind of self-motivation and big dreams that it takes to succeed in school and in life...they could surpass their peers if they wanted to...

But getting them there will take a lot of work on mine and their part...

And choosing to do so on their part...

It's the most frustrating part about being a teacher...for every teacher...that you can't choose for your students...

But the mixed blessing in that is that one or two and hopefully all of those students...will come back to report that they are not only meeting and exceeding your expectations...

But they are kicking your lilly white ass beating those expectations...

And that's when you know that you've succeeded as a teacher...

When your students are kicking your sorry little ass...

I've got work to do to get my students to take on that challenge...

And in the meantime...

I've got a classroom full of 6th grade special education students...

On fire with equivalent fractions...

As Ice Cube would say...freaking niggas every way like M.J...I can't believe today was a good day...

Love,
Ben>

I am kicking ass and taking names...

I am a born teacher, I'm convinced (though an awful lot of fuckin' work went into to my efforts)...

Things are going extremely well, here at Eisenhower...my classes are going very, very well...the behavior in my class -- which is a special ed class where at least 50% of my kids are there because of serious behavior problems that got them removed from previous general education situations -- is better than most of the general education classes I work with...and though these kids are starting out low...my goal is for them to compete with the other general ed math classes on the next Kansas math assessments...that's my goal, at least...we'll see how they do:):)...I haven't seen breakdowns on this last test for my kids, individually or as a class (though I know they did terribly since I received the practice test like two days before we were to take this pre-test, and we were nowhere close to prepared for that test)...I do know they were aggregated with the 6th grade math class that performed best among 6th graders...so we'll see...I've requested a disaggregation for my kids...and we have ambitious goals...so we'll see...

I'm working on planning a field trip this semester with the kids to interesting, exciting, and/or purposeful workplaces where they can see school-smarts (and math, in particular, as well) in action...my para has a brother-in-law who works for Mercedes-Benz...and while I'm looking into classes at University of Missouri - Kansas City, to finish my certification, I'll look at opportunities to show them around there as well:):)...

My goal is to give them the best, most interesting, most exciting, most purposeful workplace visiting experiences we can create for them to get a concrete experience of the future that education can create for them...to take them to places where math and reading and social studies and science and music and physical education and any and all school class situations might prepare them for...and to demonstrate in some concrete detail where and how school matters in their lives:):)...

And...as much as possible...to do that with people who actually believes school matters...and whose example demonstrates that...I can't say that that was exemplified very well even by most of my university professors, by my standards...but perhaps knowing that a group of kids are coming to learn that lesson might inspire some adults to reflect and understand and effectively communicate that to kids...that's the hope, at least:):)...

Least possible necessary aggression has clearly made a difference here at Eisenhower Middle School (and a school discipline system that roughly match the principles, and teachers and administrators who are supportive and ambitious)...and my own efforts, too, of course:):)...

No ivory tower bullshit for me, thank you very fuckin' much...I'm developing ideas that work...and when they don't...I face up honestly...and develop better ideas, over time...

Right now, though...I am both one of the more respected and more popular teachers at Eisenhower in a very short period of time...I'll take the first long before the second...but the second doesn't hurt, either...school's just a more honest place than most places...so popularity is not as loaded with bullshit as it is in the world outside of school...which is so loaded with bullshit, I'm surprised most people can tell the difference between honesty and their own bullshit, most of the time:):):)...

I have also decided...after much thought...and after sharing the story many times, now...

That...though I don't think that I could have done much more with grad school than I did when I was there...

That...with some experience and maturity and thought...that I would do grad school over again, today, if I could...I would have made a lot fewer mistakes as a young man...I would have put up with Tom, more...I would have recognized his good faith efforts to be a better teacher and advisor, better...I would have worked to support him, better, to be a better advisor and professor rather than leaving him and my program out of frustration...

I can only see these things in retrospect with the experience of hindsight and experience and more wisdom...which is how a lot of lessons get learned, I appreciate better, today...

I don't want to rationalize my mistakes as a grad student and as a young man growing up...fucking up my relationship with Brandi was the biggest fuck-up of that time...but there were many fuck-ups in my relationship with Tom and my professors and my fellow grad students, as well...a lot of lessons have to be learned the hard way, I'm learning...by experience...but I'd rather learn them than not...

And I don't want to rationalize just how shitty Tom often treated me when I was at KU...or how much he and Wayne, more than Jeannie (by the end, I had three co-advisors...though she did lack courage, there at the end) ignored my concerns with how my program was going when I raised them...how they condescended me, which was particularly galling to me since they were not doing academic work even close to my caliber...and, largely out of insecurity and an inability to acknowledge just how strong a thinker and a teacher I was, ran roughshot over me, much of the time...a feeling that I got used to after I left school and discovered that the whole fuckin' world is a bunch as petty assholes and son-a-bitches who treat people like me like shit all the fuckin' time (hence the reason why Zenobia Washington teaching us Billy Budd my senior year of high school is so important to me now...since this is the theme of Billy Budd...that good and decent people often get treated like shit by not-so-good-and-decent-people because they are good and decent and for no other reason)...

But the truth is that I had a lot of growing up to do and maturity that I have since gained over time that I could have done in school, had I stuck with it or had a better example...of which I had neither, frankly, at the time...so I had to learn on my own with a lot of hard knocks...and a lot of reflection...

And the biggest lesson I've learned from the whole experience...is that once the person with the highest standard (which was me, in the case of my grad school experience, of all my professors and fellow students) lowers that standard...then everyone goes to shit...everyone with a lower standard lowers it even further...as was the case with Tom and my professors and even fellow grad students, as well, after I left school...

It's time for me to consider a different program to do my certification work in, I think, since I just think my relationships with Tom and the grad school at KU are just too soured to work any more at those relationships without effort on their part (which I'm not seeing at this point)...

And I'm thinking, after that experience, that perhaps a more formal policy Ph.D. program would be better to finish my Ph.D. work in, with an advisor I can trust...and I'll be very picky about that last part, this time...I only needed to get burned on that one, once, to learn that lesson...I'm going to go back to Wichita, in the next few weeks or so, and talk with my undergrad thesis advisor, David Ericson, who is a political science professor, about who I might do a Ph.D. program with...Dr. Ericson is the professor who pointed me in the direction of Paul Peterson's work at Harvard (though I had no clue, at the time, and I don't know if Dr. Ericson did either, that his primary work is in education policy...perhaps he did)...

I like how Harvard's graduate program is set up...how much freedom it offers its graduates...

But I would rather find a public university...I genuinely believe -- after some experience in both private and public schools and universities -- that public schools and universities are better...and I would rather do any formal studying I might do in a public university as much as teach in a public school...

But finding one that I trust will be a chore...and not one that I'm in a hurry to complete since my work is far and above most professors I've ever worked with or met, I think...and I'm not worried that I'm missing out on anything, at this point, except that I might like to learn more in some classes, to do a formal dissertation and thesis, and to graduate and have my parents and others see me graduate...

I'll be thinking about it...and talking about it with Dr. Ericson when I find time to go meet with him...

I bring with me the pretty compelling ability to secure grant money, I think...and I'm sure I could likely win a Spencer grant or similar grant money for my work, especially given successful experiences as well as compelling theoretical work, at this point...so I could likely get my grad education paid for with some hard work...

And if I'm going back to school (as with finding a new mate)...I want to make sure that I'm working with the best...and in neither situation, have I been working with the best in the past, I'm convinced...

I want a mate who will support me as well or better as I would support them (a challenge that no woman has ever been able to meet at this point...and I, at least, want a woman who will aspire in a serious way that leaves Brandi Fisher in the dust...I have done so, at this point...and I want a significant other who will do the same)...

And I want teachers who will support me as well or better as I would support them...none of whom I have met, at this point...

Brandi and Tom and the faculty at KU tried...but none of them even came close to living up...

And it is my challenge to find people who will...

And if they can't...

Who aspire...

I haven't met those people yet...

But goddamn if I'm going to drop my standards just because everyone else is doing it, these days...

You know what I say to everyone rationalizing why they're being such shitheads these days?...

Fuck 'em...

I'll be holding my standards high, motherfuckers...

And you don't want to follow...

Then so fuckin' be it...

And I'll just keep racing right the fuck past you, dumbass...

Because dumbass rationalizations only last...

Until they see the break of dawn...

And dawn has to come sometime...for everyone...

That's how progress happens, I'm learning...

Some of us are just far ahead of the curve:):):)...

It's after 8PM here at Eisenhower...I should probably head home before Melissa starts to wonder where the fuck I am:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone...

Love,
Ben

You ever think...

...that maybe you understand why someone may seem and maybe are/were acting petty...when they really also might be looking out for you?...

I just got that feeling, today...

And...underneath all the pettiness...of which there is/was much...I appreciate the part of these people looking after me:):)...

You had to be there:):):)...

Love,
Ben

The court battle over vouchers...

I'm sure that this is far from the last time that we have heard this case...

Florida Supreme Court strikes down voucher program...

The U.S. Supreme Court affirm the Milwaukee voucher program over similar objections...I would be surprised if voucher advocates don't take this case to that same court...

In the meantime...what are public schools so afraid of, I have to wonder?...

Not enough money, is the best answer I've heard...

The biggest problem with that argument being the failure of liberals and others who oppose opening up the public school system to come to terms with the fact that taxation will always be resisted to fund public schools...more autonomous funding -- as with other non-profit institutions...universities being a key similar institution -- would far better serve public schools than wasting resources fighting vouchers...

Voucher advocates, I must admit, are on much surer footing when they are advocating private vouchers fundraised in the private market rather than grabbing for public money...but I also don't see why public school students and parents ought not be able to take the money with them to whatever schools serve them best...

As Paul Peterson, William Howell, Christopher Jencks, Chester Finn, and other voucher advocates have argued powerfully...

Funding of public schools, ultimately, should serve children...not schools...and when schools are failing children...children should be able to use that money to find other schools to serve them better...

More money is the consistent case made by public school officials...a case I agree with, generally (though public schools have all kinds of places where their failures create some of those money problems...lawsuits like this one being just one example)...and there is a very fine line between taxation and voluntary fundraising...one involving coercion...and the other offered freely...though American citizens are so, generally, opposed to increased taxation that advocates of more funding have to do a lot of persuading to get taxpayers to spend more money on public schools...

And, in the meantime...as with other non-profit institutions...there is no reason that public schools can't be responsible for raising money more directly and more effectively autonomously rather than through coercive taxation...though it will be a slow process getting to that point, I'm sure...

In the meantime...I and most Americans, I think, are tired of public schools using the excuse of "never enough funding" to avoid facing their failures...and the failures of students and parents, along with teachers and administrators, especially in poor districts...

Pitying students does not teach them...and learning for the future is far more important than reinforcing that kind of pity...and self-pity...

Wealth equity issues must be addressed...obviously...but they're not going to get addressed overnight...and addressing them is complex and needs to happen, much more substatially, primarily, and ultimately, I think, in the private market...rather than through government redistribution...

And ignoring the obvious -- which is the failure of too many public schools and public school students, teachers, parents, and administrators to take the highest standards of education more seriously than the politics of wealth equity -- will not earn the confidence of the public that schools want funding from in quite the same way that actually earning that trust will...by taking those standards more seriously than less important matters, like wealth equity, schools can earn public support in a way that have far more potential to raise funding and substatially improve student and teacher performance than more taxes ever could...or a greater share of the public school dollars, as this case is an attempt by public schools in Florida to maintain...superintendent pay in public schools isn't high enough, I hear...three-digit incomes are just a little paltry for those poor souls...same goes for all the lawyers who make all kinds of money off of cases just like this one and a million others (with cases ranging from special education to desegregation orders)...

Meanwhile...the measley little salaries of a beginning public school teacher, like myself, in Florida, improves not a smidge by this ruling...though the lawyers involved made plenty of income off this court battle, I'm sure...

And what gets lost in all of this...

Is the most substantial opportunities for raising standards for all kids' educations...kids in public schools...and kids in private schools...it's almost as if voucher and charter opponents would rather see private and charter schools and their students fail...rather than share the wealth...

Ironic that so many of the people we're talking about are liberals, isn't it?...

Share the wealth...except for ours', that is...

No matter...

The most substantial efforts to improve education in America, public or private...

Occurs in classrooms, not courtrooms...

It would be nice if this is where are money got spent...

But instead it gets spent on court battles like this one...

This one isn't over, I'm sure...and neither is the issue dead, by a long shot...

Though those of us who are more concerned with improving public and private schools than with the politics of the matter may want to spend more time on those substantial efforts...rather than political and legal battles over funding...

There is plenty of money in America to fund all schools and then some...by a large margin...

The real efforts in education reform...

Are around earning the trust which such money follows...

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

Love,
Ben

Coming to terms with just how rare really strong thought is...

I can't sleep...even though I have to wake up and work in just 2 hours or so...tomorrow's going to be fun, I can tell...

But I am grateful for my resurgent idealism...

I'm beginning to come to terms with just how rare really strong thought is...how rarely people aspire for it...and how important it is that people be accountable to it...because it's the only and better alternative to all our dumbass brutishness...

I do believe that everyone is capable of brilliance...but I am coming to terms with how rarely people aspire to it...which is what makes it rare more the many various alternative explanations...a biological proclivity...madness as a spark for genius...and the other million different excuses that most people have for why they don't aspire for brilliance, even though it's important in every endeavor...no matter how mundane...

People like Joe Nye stand out because they're so goddamned good...and they're so goddamned good...because they aspired...and they didn't let the nay-saying hold them back...

It's so sad...we just had a discussion, today, in our teacher inservice about why academically successful black children are accused of "acting white" by their peers...and the sad truth is that so many kids...like so many adults...are just insecure...about their intelligence and their abilities as much as about themselves...and instead of seeking to improve their abilities to deal with that insecurity...they seek to bring others down who have talents that they lack...

It's so sad...

And it is how so many people in the world, nevertheless in schools, live their lives...

And the saddest part about it...is that intelligence matters to everything we do...from international policy...to education policy...to military security...to criminology...to fixing cars...to being a decent fisherman...to being a decent teacher and parent...

It matters to everything, really...

But we all live these separate lives...

Because some of us get convinced that there are smart people and dumb people, and they are on one side of the tracks or the other...

Rather than everyone taking thought and learning seriously...

My commitment is to reducing and ending that separation and the subsequent achievement gap in schools and in life that grows out of it...

But I have to say that there is so much to overcome on that one...attitudinally as much as around changing peoples' commitments...and changing relationships between teachers and students so that they both believe this, more...and so that they each have sufficient freedom to bring it into fruition...

Creating a society where brilliance is the soft but real expectation for everyone...will take a lot of time and patience and freedom...in schools as much as in the choices parents and students make about schools...

But it is the only real alternative to a world that is constantly rationalizing its baser, meaner, nastier, dumber instincts...no matter how many people get hurt in the process...and no matter how ineffective those instincts are to accomplishing the goals people desire...

It is the "illusionism" that Joe Nye speaks of in that National Interest article...the failure of people to see how their intentions are not leading to the consequences they desire...

And as I've wrestled with whether or not to trust my judgment...my instincts...my thoughts...my idealism...

Whether it's me that is deluded and the world that is just dandy...and as I am perpetually open to the idea that there are things that I'm just not seeing, yet...

When I think about how rare it is, in the broadest picture, to read someone like Joe...or Benjamin Barber...or Stephen Ambrose...or Amartya Sen...or Abraham Maslow...or Joseph Campbell...

People who have these brilliant insights into the world...

That so few people really have...

The more confident I become that I will be one of those folks, with time...as my ideas and thinking get recognized...

Friedrich Hayek had a really hard time getting hired in economics departments until the University of Chicago hired him...

But what distinguishes folks like Hayek...and more folks like Sen or Nye or Maslow...

Is just how deep and profound their insights are for humanity...

It is disappointing for me to discover just how few people aspire to engage and develop and have such insights...

But it also makes it easier to see just who has more valuable things to say, generally...

And what's interesting...is just how much the best people get recognized, eventually...no matter where they started off...

It is good to see people aspire more...people like the teachers I work with...and my family members...and the friends I engage on various internet forums...and the various groups I've belonged to...and even my lame ass friends (they know who I'm talking about) here in Lawrence, when they have aspired...

But it is really rare to read or meet people...who's insights are so truly profound...that they change the way that you look at the world...

But I do have to say that...

If we can't create a world...where all liberals can appreciate the brilliance of a thinker like Friedrich Hayek, more...

Or where all conservatives can't appreciate the brilliance of Amartya Sen, more...

And where they try to bully one another, instead...

Then the ideas aren't for naught...that's for sure...they're the only thing keeping us afloat in this god-forsaken dysfunctional world...

But the less thoughtful bullies of the world do blunt the impact of great ideas...and make their implementation more difficult...and cause a lot of damage and havok and chaos, in the meantime...

And all for naught...always claiming credit where they don't deserve it...and always overlooking their failures...to keep their defenses in tact...to avoid constructive criticism...and maintaining the cycle...of failure and whining and blame...

Until it can finally give way to more thought...

And that's all she wrote on that one...

Either we'll learn the lessons on this...

Or we'll keep living with the sorry-ass consequences...

All of us...

Though some of us at the expense of others...

But all of us being bankrupted by the cynicism...and the lack of thought...and the lack of openness to being wrong...

For all of the hassle that this life I've chosen has caused me...which is beyond plenty, for me...

I'm glad I've chosen a life of the strongest ideas and the highest ideals...

Because every other life just seems so bankrupt, in comparison...

I don't think it has to be that way...

I think we can all learn to appreciate, better, what each of us has to offer...including our engagement...and criticism...and disagreement...when they are fair-minded and constructive...

But as we build that world...

This life of big ideas is the only one that I think I could ever inhabit and be most deeply humbled and proud of my efforts...and the efforts of like-minded folks...

And the big advantage of casting a broad net for the best ideas...

Is that it makes is so much more clear just how rare and impressive are those folks who have something really profound to contribute...

I respect all of the various doers in the world...from the janitor and the convenience store clerk...to the entrepreneur and the political activist...to the teacher and the police officer and the military serviceperson...to the scholar and the professor and the researcher...

But the people with the really big ideas in the world...who are always doers and thinkers, which is the only thing that makes great ideas possible...great thinkers can't help but being doers because its the only thing that informs better thinking...everything else is too abstract to be useful...which is the fate of the thought of most scholars and non-scholars alike...

But great thinkers and doers...are the folks in this world I admire most...

The people who change the world against all odds...and who imagine better worlds...and think carefully about how to create them and make them better...

By inspiring and leading others to take on those ideas...and make them reality...

And that is where real leadership is and always has been in the world...and the only kind of leadership that sustains itself over the long haul...

I better sleep for a little bit before I have to go to work...

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

Love,
Ben

Tired of hedging idealism with fear...

We had a first day back to school, today...an inservice for teachers...and an afternoon to work on grades...

A million new pieces of bureaucratic minutia made its way past me, today, totally overwhelming me...

And I'm thinking...

Has everyone just totally lost track of the really serious thinking and learning that should be the largest focus of schools?...

I don't mind doing less important paperwork...

But the idea that it would overwhelm our more important purposes of more serious teaching and learning in schools is just too much for me...

In so many ways...what has changed in my outlook this time around in schools...is both a grounded realism about the importance of schools and education to real life outside of schools...

And this persistent fear of being treated arbitrarily if I aspire to excell beyond the more minimal expectations of others because of a more small-minded outlook by folks like my graduate advisor, my bosses at CLO, and my bosses at Zarco (who has since apologized to me, by the way)...

My idealism to do good in the world...has been totally hedged by a fear of whether I can pay my rent...

And I just can't live that way...it's such a pathetic existence...and it leads me down the painfully stupid life that so many adults settle for of having their best years be behind them...and always waxing nostalgic for them...

I have no interest in that bullshit...my best years are ahead of me...and no more hedging that to keep a job...it doesn't matter how badly I get treated...I will always, eventually, awake from that very bad dream...

For the very same reason that I can't settle for anything else than total, real, passionate love in along-term relationship...

Because if I don't always aspire better...I will always live with the pretty sad little compromise of my best years being behind me...

And I just have no interest in that...

No matter how many assholes I face along the way...

Why in the fuck would I live my life trying not to piss off some dumbass with the wrong priorities in order to express and engage in better priorities?...

I mean, really?...

And why the fuck would we all defend this poor little compromise of a life, rather than letting go of the fear?...why would we all defend trying to scare everyone else through this life?...and why in the fuck would I give into that fear when the dumbasses who have tried to inspire it in me have no other good reason to do so except because they wanted to get their way?...

I'm not living my life that way...

I don't care how much shit I've got to sling through to set a higher standard...I sling through the shit...and I'll let people follow...

I've got to get to bed...

And I will not rest until I'm working more completely out of my idealism...loving, a significant relationship as much as with friends and family, out of that idealism...and living fully out of that idealism...

Because goddamn if life as is isn't this big fuckin' dissappointment as long as I don't...

Life is disappointing when your living out of your idealism...but at least there's hope...because you're working on making things better...

I've got to get to sleep...have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

A great international policy discussion...

Four really great essays around Bush's policy in Iraq in the Winter 2005 edition of the National Interest...

The National Interest...

It never ceases to amaze me how the most recognized authors are, generally, the ones who have the most valuable things to say...

Conservative Daniel Pipes and liberal Joe Nye write two of the four essays and they are both very nice reviews of both the the very thoughtful essay by David Hendrickson and Robert Tucker in the previous Fall 2005 edition of the National Interest...

Hendrickson and Tucker make a powerful case for both an idealism that seeks to spread democracy and freedom...and yet a serious concern about how force may be used to accomplish that...and a very powerful case that America's founders, of all ideological stripes, looked upon such efforts with suspicion...

Joe's skepticism of the idea that democracy can be forced on a population is compelling (a notion I agree with, though I think, as does Joe, that there is much good that can come -- and has come, in the case of Iraq -- with military intervention in tyrannies, as long as such interventions support and are supported by grassroots efforts and more democratic impulses within those countries...a situation that Iraq is a unique case for, rather than a general example of, and a case of where such democratic impulses must be more fully engaged to ensure that fewer innocent Iraqis and American and other soldiers die for that cause)...

Pipes calls for a modest, patient idealism in the cause of advancing democracy abroad...he is still more complacent about the problems that come with using force to promote more modern, democratic governments than I or Joe...

Daniel Pipes...Defending and Advancing Freedom...Commentary Magazine, November 2005...

...but his idealism that a commitment to democracy should be expected for Arab governments and societies is a patient and tempered one that I agree is the more useful outlook...

Pipes doesn't seem to recognize the likely, albeit complicated, causality of fundamentalist Islamist reactions and subsequence governance in Algeria and Iran from our support of modernizing dictators -- the two examples he cites of to justify American support of modernizing autocrats to avoid radical fundamentalist reactionaries taking power - and instead excuses it with the reasoning that the likely consequences from our actions justify the policy that likely created the consequences that we were trying to avoid...I, too, sympathize with the reasoning for supporting the more civilized, though dictatorial, governments amongst a terrible set of options...but I do think that America and international policy thinkers should take note of the consequences of supporting such dictators without addressing in our diplomacy the problems with those dictatorships for the people who they rule...meaning, if we want peoples in places like Algeria and Iran to turn away from fundamentalists, we better support both better governing coalitions, in those countries, with our words more than with our arms or our money, and openly criticize the autocratic tendencies of those dictatorships, as President Bush has done a very fine job of doing, I believe...

Joe points to both the very serious advances that have come with a better expectation of Middle Eastern governments and societies and the very serious problems that come with using force to advance the cause...Joe notes the advances of democracy with municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, the withdrawal of Syrian troops and elections in Lebanon, modest allowances for opposition in Egypt, and democratic progress in countries like Bahrain, Morocco, and Togo...but he is skeptical of the idea that such progress and future progress is or can be promoted through threats of military upheaval...the difficulties arising from indigineous resistance to the American presence in Iraq being the clearest caution to such a notion...

Pipes and Nye both see the powerful idealism that animates this war...and the advances its promoted...and share Hendrickson and Tucker's concern about promoting such efforts through force...though Pipes is more ambivalent about the question of whether such efforts might work, expressing some support for them in the Commentary article, while expressing doubt about whether they will be effective, long term, in Iraq...

One of the important implications of Pipes' and Nye's concerns is a powerful correction to the notion in the Administration, right now, that it will be successfully in threatenening and use military force to transform governments in Syria, Iran, and the like...Daniel seems less sure that such efforts will work...whereas Joe shares my concern that they do not work, generally, not just in the case of Iraq...a notion that has produced caution amongst most of the Administration's observers except for its most serious cheerleaders...and their thoughts are certainly corrective to Robert Kaplan's foolhardy notion of American empire...

Nye's essay is predictably brilliant...and Pipes' essay is as good as always...but what is particularly important about Pipes' comments is that he is pointing the direction to a more authentic, idealistic and democratic conservativism, in contrast with the cynical and ugly rationalizations of Robert Kaplan's thesis of American empire...

The future of the world...of America...and of American conservativism, liberalism, and independent and non-partisan thinking is around classical and important values of freedom and democracy...values that we are foolish to abandon for fantasies of world power...fantasies that both scare others in a way that undermines our credibility and leadership and the values and example we seek others to emulate, learn from, and grow with, along with Americans and our government...

And Daniel Pipes and Joe Nye illustrate why the strongest thinkers are so committed to such values...even as they share, as do I, a commitment to ending tyranny in all its forms...

Check out this discussion when you get a chance:):)...

Love,
Ben

Love happens...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What I learned over Christmas vacation...

I hung out with friends and family a lot, this Christmas...we talked a lot...I picked peoples' brains for ways to make my class more interesting...to make school a better experience for kids...

The consistent answer from friends and family was making it one where kids and students get to choose what goes on, more...reading books that interest them, and not just classic literature...activities that they like/want to do, and not just teacher directed activities...and this was from my school-smart friends and family as much as from my friends and family that struggled with school, more...

I love/d school, I would explain to friends and family...except for that last 6 months or so in grad school when my advisor got more interested in the grant money and his own schedule for me than with my education...the first two reasons having nothing at all with why I was in grad school, in the first place...which he just kind of took for granted too much, by the end...I made plenty of my own mistakes, as well...

But even though I love school and education and all the values that it seeks to impart much more than any of my friends and most people, generally...and I think I understand more than most educated folks how most people don't share these interests...and how this has everything to do with why more and less educated folks see the world so differently...

I also know what it's like to have people take my cooperation in that process for granted, so wrapped up are they in their own priorities...that they forget to ask me about mine...

And my commitment, as a teacher, is to change that relationship between teachers and students...at least between me and my students...and set the standard for everyone else...

And my friends and family gave me a lot of great feedback on that this Christmas vacation...

It's so funny...but for some strange reason...reading about Robert Kaplan writing of all the "virtues" of American empire...and all the people in the world that such an arrogant, conceited view of the world and power takes for granted...

It just has kind of chilled me out, quite a bit..

Both because I won't be bullied...by Robert Kaplan via whatever political leaders that he might encourage with such a short-sighted, nasty little worldview...

But also because it begins to help me come to terms with my limitations in changing the process...which just kind of chills me out...and helps me accept, better, that good ideas, like bad ideas, get picked up, experimented with, and thrown aside once it becomes clearer to the folks engaging them that they aren't as useful...or maintained and elaborated once it becomes clearer that they are more useful...

And all ideas work like that...for me...for everyone...

My advisor was someone who thought a lot...without having a lot of great ideas...lots of people are like that...I don't really know, really, if that's better than not thinking a lot...because I have to say that there are a million people I've encountered in my life who are far less pains in the ass and who have been far more helpful to me in developing good and better ideas than my very clever by half advisor...

All those folks back in Wichita come to mind, for me, right now...and so many folks, here in Lawrence and in Kansas City...Brandi and Melissa and a million friends come to mind around that one...

It's so sad to me to think that so much of the world gets fucked up because folks get disillusioned with school...and doing good...because of so much pressure to do more than they are prepared to do...or understand to do...or are ready to do...

And then just kind of grow to resent school and education as some kind of imposition...or useless afterthought in their lives...

All because they get pushed to hard, too fast...

Me too...but I've dealt with it better than most folks, I think...

I think my own graduate school advisor was kind of an ass, much of the time that I dealt with him...though he could be a good guy, too, when we wasn't being such a goddamned bully...and most people I encountered had issues with their advisors...I just felt like I was in a better position to walk away, frankly...I had the same issue with my undergrad and my master's advisor, truth be known...I've not had a very good experience with advisors, generally...something about having people push me around, all the time, that I'm a little put off by...I'm sure it's not just me...it's an open secret that students hate advisors and professors and teachers who act this way...it's just that, for some reason, the general attitude is that students should just learn to deal with what jackasses their teachers and advisors and professors are...which is the reality much of the time...though I bailed when it became clearer to me that my advisor had little more to offer than a degree...which was not the reason I was in grad school...I was there for an education...something that I think my advisor and many professors had lost track of being the most important priority in a university, a long time ago...totally straight-up on that one...I can't tell you how many times I heard from professors, "Just finish the degree up"...and I kept thinking, "If the only thing that this whole experience is worth is a degree, what the fuck is it worth, you fuckin' cynical bastards?...you really think professors got it all figured out?...is that how knowledge gets developed, you dumbasses?...by just gettin' the degree?"...goddamn fools...

And my friends and family helped remind me of that, this weekend...as they told me about how they'd like to have their own priorities and interests taken more seriously when they were in school...some very smart and decent folks gave me that feedback as much as folks who struggled with school, more...

So it's advice I'll take more seriously...

I wonder, sometimes...why professors and teachers and all kinds of folks in schools...can't see more clearly how much of the world gets fucked up because of our failures in schools...

How someone like Robert Kaplan and the soldiers he interviews carry around chips on their shoulders about their school experiences...because of their shitty school experiences...which is no excuse for their arrogance...it just seeks to understand it a little better...

And I'm just tired of that cycle...I want to change it...to make a start on getting everyone on the same page, better...that the learning matters...but so do the people who are doing the learning...

Problem is...

Noone seems to take those two priorities as seriously as they need to be taken...so wrapped up are most folks in short term and less important priorities...

And stubborn ass me...I just won't choose between thsoe priorities...improving the learning environment for everyone...raising the standards for everyone...and creating more space for everyone to have their say...to study around their interests, more...to have fun in school and with their education as much as they take it seriously...

And most of all...

To care about it all...

To know just how important...learning...and the people engaged in it...are...

All of them...all of it...

And that's something that Robert Kaplan is just wrong about...it's not something that can be worked through with brute force...

It's something that takes more light than heat...

Many and most problems in the world are ones that take more light than heat, most of the time...though there are always times when we need heat and deal with the heat of the situation to deal effectively with the challenges in front of us...

And Robert writes so often about heat...because he lacks enough light to shine on the situations he encounters...

Most people do this, I'm learning...they talk about and use more heat...the less light they have to shine on a situation...

And I just didn't get into teaching...or policy...or any of the things I care about in life...

To keep making this stupid mistake over and over again...just because everyone else does...someone's got to face the mistake and cut it out...and it might as well be me...

Have you ever heard Clint Black's (and Skip Ewing's...who co-wrote it) Something That We Do?...if you haven't...you should download it...or go check it out at Borders...or buy the CD...it's beautiful...I'm planning on singing it to my wife at my wedding...along with several other love songs I've got stuck away in my repertoire...

I'm tired of life with too much heat and not enough light...politics with too much heat and not enough light...schools with too much heat and not enough light...wars with too much heat and not enough light...a criminal justice system with too much heat and not enough light...

Too much heat...not enough light...

If there is any one most serious problem in the world...

This is the one...

And its the one that stands in the way of resolving all the others...

Kind of ironic, don't you think?...that so many people turn to heat...to help them to resolve their problems...

And yet it is the one most important obstacle to resolving them...

But...

There's only way to find that out, for sure...

To keep making the same stupid mistakes until you get it figured out for yourself:):):)...

Me, too:):)...

I realized this weekend that everyone wants to stop making the same stupid mistakes...they just don't know how, often...and most folks are kind of stubborn about giving up the bullshit...

But if interacting with my Grandma Sutherland has taught me anything...it's that everyone can and is, ultimately, willing to learn, some of the time, at least...and when you're lucky...more of the time...

It just takes time:):)...

Me included:):)...

Most people fuck up before they see the fuck up...some people think about the fuck up to prevent it in the future...others stubbornly keep fucking up without enough thought...

But all of us can learn to think more about our fuck ups...with the right support...for ourselves and for others...to think about them better...and how to prevent them in the future...

And we all need a lot more patience with ourselves and with each other...as we do the learning...

Did I mention that I love Dar Williams?...I do...I love her...I'm listening to her really beautiful, "O Canada Girls," right now...if Dar Williams was single and in my area, I'd ask her out in a fuckin' heartbeat...she is just so goddamned sweet...

Sleep tight, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

The ugly world of power...

What an ugly, dangerous, scary world the world of power is...

I've been reading the reviews of Robert Kaplan's new book...and half of President Bush's Christmas reading, from the reports I read...

Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground...at metacritic.com...

Imperial Grunts...at Amazon...

Imperial Grunts...at Powells...

Imperial Grunts...at Barnes and Noble...

I have a lot of respect for Robert Kaplan...

But his thesis of an inevitable (and desirable) American empire is so corrupt and dangerous a thesis that I will read his book with more than a bit of Lord Acton's famous skepticism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

Unfortunately for Kaplan and those of his ilk...American political power is already in serious decline...

And the arrogance to think that American power could or should be wielded so cynically...is repugnant in a way that I can hardly even accept comes from someone so otherwise brilliant at Robert Kaplan...

Appropriate for a book embracing the idea of American empire...Andrew Bacevich writes in the anti-imperial Nation magazine one of the best critiques such a thesis that I have read thusfar...

Robert Kaplan: Empire Without Apologies...Andrew Bacevich...Sep. 8 post/Sep. 26 issue of the Nation Magazine...

Kaplan's own chip about his place in international policy circles seems to reinforced by the chips of the American servicemen and women that he interviews and their place in policy discussions that they, like Kaplan, are not as well prepared to engage in as their more learned colleagues...

Luckily for all of us...power doesn't operate the way that Kaplan would like it to...

But how arrogant for Robert to suggest that it would...

If that thesis turns out to be true -- and it is confirmed by too many sources for me, at this point, to be too skeptical of the veracity of those who present it as such -- Robert Kaplan just lost an enormous amount of respect from a policy student who had otherwise harbored much admiration for Robert's journalism and his willingness to think outside of the box of the international policy establishment...

All those pointy-headed ivory tower scholars, those of this particularly ugly-minded ilk must reason...keeping us from ruling the world properly...as God and the American Constitution would want us to...if it weren't for all those elitist liberal professors...keeping the world from the discovering the truth of our clearer right to that power...whether we have to take that right by force or not...

How conceited and repugnant...and...luckily for the world...damned foolish...dangerous, to be sure...but damned foolish, ultimately...

In so many ways...Robert Kaplan just became everything I don't want to be as a policy thinker...his persistent whines that his brilliance is just not recognized enough in international policy circles culminate in an attempt to end-run the international policy discussion...instead of earning his place in the circles that he so desires to earn respect from...

My mistakes in my own scholarly career and life are my own...I have no interest in whining, any more, about my recognition or lack thereof (to myself, more than anything else), my experiences in grad school, or anything of the kind to somehow circumvent the much more important discussion of ideas, that is far more important than the egos of anyone...policy scholar or not...and certainly my own...

America earned its place in the world by earning the world's trust...

And it will earn its decline in the world by earning the world's distrust...

And ideas like this one will go a long way to promoting that second end...

Let's hope this and next American President and Congress learn this lesson...before much more trust in America's leadership is undermined by such arrogance...

It's very sobering to live through this political moment...a moment of such open hubris...that an honest student of power...can only hope to stay away from the nasty stuff...while we slowly and with much effort...clean the process up...

Love,
Ben

Frederick Kagan makes an excellent case for how we can win the war in Iraq...

Military historian Frederick Kagan (any relation to conservative international policy scholar Robert Kagan?) makes an excellent case in the December 19th edition of the Weekly Standard (a magazine that I had, as of late, been regarding as hopelessly partisan and thus one I was losing respect for) for how America can keep the faith and keep focussed on winning this war...rather than on giving in to our more cowardly and defeatist instincts and cut and run...

Frederick Kagan...Fighting to Win...The Weekly Standard, Dec. 19th, 2005...

Kagan argues in his article that a focus on cutting the number of troops rather than on winning the war and making a transition to Iraqi responsibility for its own security undermined the latter goal as Americans grow war-weary...and that a focus on cutting troops that does not keep the larger focus on transitioning to an Iraqi democracy where Iraqi military and law enforcement forces are responsible for their own security could likely allow a civil war to erupt that would, eventually, require a U.S. presence again, down the road...

I agree with that concern...and appreciate Kagan's very balanced and sober assessment of how Americans can remain to both train Iraqi troops to to be better prepared to more effectively undermine insurgents and terrorists militarily (which is necessary no matter what fantasies folks may have about political solutions to this situation, which are needed, of course, as well)...and to be more more professional (thus helping to prevent the kind of torture that arises out of fear and shortsightedness amongst less professional military and law enforcement forces)...

Specifically...Kagan calls for a duel strategy that includes what Andrew Krepinevich, in Foreign Affairs, calls an "oil-spot" approach to dealing with insurgents -- which sweeps insurgents from a limited number of territory that they gain strongholds in to prevent creating a permanent presence which allows them to recruit and train new fighters, to store weapons, and to strategize more effectively offensive and defensive efforts...as well as a more general strategy of securing larger tracts of territory and allowing Iraqi forces to maintain security of those tracts once Americans are able to more reliably sweep out insurgents...while holding that same territory, rather than moving from area to area with smaller numbers of troops, as Krepinevich suggests with his "oil-spot" or "whack-a-mole" strategy, the latter name given by its more skeptical detractors...

I wholly agree with this concern that we need to make sure that a transition to an Iraqi democracy makes sure that Iraqi troops can readily secure a freer Iraq with the help of Americans or else lose so many gains made in recent months in undermining the insurgency...

Kagan is right that the most important larger effort to undermine the insurgency comes from the most recent election, the participation of the Sunni minority, and (I hope) opportunities for the Sunnis to participate in a coalition government with the majority Shia who did not win a controlling majority...

Which matches our experience with successful efforts to undermine terrorism, Northern Ireland being the best example, to my mind, where opportunities for political participation created an alternative to violence that, eventually, undermined terrorist activity in Northern Ireland almost completely...

But, in the meantime, there is a need for a stronger and more professional and thoughtful military effort to take hold among Iraqi military and law enforcement servicepeople, under American mentorship, to more effectively secure a country with domestic military and law enforcement forces which would, in all likelihood, be more easily overwhelmed by the insurgency without American support...

Everyone wants American troops to withdraw, at some point, obviously...the troops, themselves, likely, more than anyone else, given the risks that they take to do that job...

But everyone involved should be more concerned at Mr. Kagan is, here, with a military effort that is long-term in its outlook and its commitment to success to assure a democratic transition that does not require further future intervention...

Left-wing and right-wing tendencies (more left than right, ironically, at this moment, I believe) toward a more isolationist, head-in-the-sand outlook on this war would result in the very same consequences that head-in-the-sand approaches have had in the past...which is more and more serious problems awaiting our recognition of our own foolishness...

And as Mr. Kagan makes clear in this article...a premature exit from Iraq would, in all likelihood, lead to losing ground on very promising recent trends in the war effort in Iraq...especially the number of those killed and injured around elections...

As Frederick writes...

"Data about insurgent attacks in Iraq do not support any sense of urgency about withdrawing either. The October constitutional referendum saw significantly fewer attacks than the January 2005 elections; 299 attacks on January 30 generating 213 casualties, versus 89 attacks and 49 casualties on October 15. Insurgents attacked only 19 election sites in October; in January they struck 88. Although the significance of such data is not clear, and other trend lines are less promising than this, there is certainly no case to be made that the situation is worsening enough to support urgent demands for immediate withdrawal. On the contrary, it appears that significant progress is being made."

Frederick is right...we need to stay the course until the Iraqis are fully prepared to take over their own security situation...this is not a video game...this is war, for real...and it is not something which responsibilities should be taken lightly because Americans are growing weary of the news reports and under the unrelenting and more mindless anti-war cries on the left...

We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to do this thing right...and that means making sure that Iraqis are ready to secure their own country...not just cut them loose because we've grown weary of their presence in our domestic politics...

Frederick Kagan makes the case far better than I can in the Weekly Standard (Dec. 19th)...because he knows better what he's doing...which you will get a very clear sense of reading the article, I hope...

A very well reasoned, argued, and genuinely balanced case, I believe...from someone who knows better what the situation looks like on the ground...and what strategies might better help us achieve our bigger objectives...and why...

In an magazine otherwise lost in its own self-righteous partisanship, folks like Frederick Kagan and David Brooks make clear why it is so important for the most intelligent and thoughtful and courageous center to hold in such a critical situation...

Because too many lives are on the line to settle for anything less...

And because the conversation bottoms out, morally and intellectually, the more we engage in adolescent wars about who has all the right answers...which is noone, obviously, to anyone responsible and smart enough to see that...

Please check out Frederick's very powerful article...

Love,
Ben

Embarking on my more scholarly career...

I've been reading two books, lately...

Joe Nye's Soft Power...which is brilliant, by the way, when you get the chance:):)...

And Robert Beattie's Nightmare in Wichita, detailing the case of our own homegrown serial killer in Wichita, Kansas, the BTK Strangler, Dennis Rader...a book that, I agree with Robert, just may well have helped smoke that little weasel out of his hiding spot...since BTK resurfaced after publicity about Beattie's book...likely to get proper credit for his work and to get his version of his gruesome history out for the public to see...

Joe's book is brilliant...and I wanted to spend the day at the WSU research library with policy journals and scholarly books all day, researching international policy and whatever else came up during that study time...but the library is shut down, today, for whatever reasons...so I didn't get a chance...I'm at the 21st and Hillside Wichita Public Library instead...reading and researching the best I can in a public library rather than in a university library, where all the best scholarly resources are at...

I want to start writing more work for my scholarly interests, more formally...and I'm wanting to research for that task...the university world has all kinds of formalities that I'm sure folks will want to see before they pay attention to ideas...so I'm gonna start writing in that way to get some articles and books published at some point, I'm decided...

But I have to say...to all the naysayers I encountered who thought that leaving school was a bad idea...

That I'm totally convinced, at this point, that there is something to spending some time in the real world...and not just having your head in the clouds...and it was one of the best decisions I made in my educational and scholarly career...Tom's opinion on the matter, notwithstanding:):):)...

It was an inconvenient time to do it, for sure, for everyone involved...but goddamn if I wasn't tired, at that moment, of having an advisor arrogant enough to think that newer and better ideas came from professors or advisors riding students to finish their programs...rather than students taking whatever freedom necessary...to develop newer and better ideas...and if that means that my life and his life gets inconvenienced, then so fuckin' be it...because the ideas are/were/will forever be far more fuckin' important than any fuckin' grant...and if you don't believe that, then you shouldn't be in a fuckin' university, in my book...because you're gaming the system for all the wrong fuckin' reasons...I just think Tom got used to that outlook...and I wasn't buying it...because school and an education actually mattered to me...and I wasn't going to treat it with less respect than it deserved...

I don't care what you call yourself...radical...liberal...conservative...Communist...Christian...theocratic...Socialist...anarchist..

I don't care what the fuck you call yourself...

You don't fuckin' decide for me how my ideas get developed...and how my education pans out...I will decide those things, thank you very much...and your input will be appreciated and duly taken...but will not decide the final direction of my education, thank you very fuckin' much...

Why people in universities can't take freedom of thought nearly serious enough too much of the time, I will never know...

But I will take it that seriously and more until you do...

Joe Nye's book is really, really good...Joe's breadth of knowledge of so many international policy events, trends, ideas, thinkers, and the political climate for ideas is really impressive...

But what really makes Joe's ideas stand out is their boldness and their broad potential for application...

There are tons of really great thinkers that Joe cites in his work...

But what stands out in Joe's work is that he has developed ideas with broad scope...and which make sense...Joe's work on soft power has been praised by conservatives like Robert Kagan, Henry Kissinger, and Brent Scowcroft because it is really top notch work...Joe is a liberal, I believe...statements like, "American soft power is eroded more by policies like capital punishment or the absence of gun control, where we are the deviants in opinion among advanced countries," seem to both endorse gun control and oppose capital punishment, implicitly...and to overestimate the degree to which European opinion of American policies should matter to us, I think...I oppose capital punishment and gun control and I think that is the best position on both issues for all kinds of reasons that I've gone into depth about and can do so again at another point...and I want the best policies, whether Jacques Chirac, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, and any other leader or nation's population likes those policies or not...

I don't agree with Joe all the time...nor do I agree with any thinker all the time...but Joe's work is uniquely strong among policy thinkers, I think, as is Benjamin Barber's, because of the breadth of both of their work and the potential applications that each of them has in a variety of different situations...Joe's work is a better guide for those seeking to use authority wisely, I believe...and Benjamin's is better work to understand the reactions to that authority and the kind of decentralized participatory democratic opportunities that might better account for the concerns of a ever-freer and more democratic world...Robert Kagan's and Henry Kissinger's work are excellent corrections to too much utopian thinking on the left about America's ability to abandon its sovereignty and autonomy and strategic self-interest to multilateral international institutions or to an overly optimistic view of forced collaboration -- which is not real collaboration at all -- in international institutions, like the U.N., especially when those institutions leave a lot to be desired, too often, with whom they let set their agendas, as is the very good case of conservative criticism of countries like Syria setting human rights policies in the United Nations...Kagan's work, in particular, is an excellent correction to the notion that matters of authority and sovereignty don't matter in an often chaotic world where actors in bad faith threaten innocent lives...Kissinger and Kagan, both, are far too cynical in their machinations around the use of power, both for my tastes and for America's interests, I believe...but they are both becoming less so, which is just right by me:):):)...

Joe's work rationalizes liberal power, too much, I believe...and Benjamin's work is an excellent and better correction to the notion of centralized power, liberal, conservative, or otherwise, on so many issues, I believe...though some kind of monopoly on the legitimate use of the hard power and force is still needed, I believe -- privatized prisons and security being a permanent and legitimate use of private power, I believe...though still needing to be subservient, I believe, to public power vested in law enforcement and the courts, despite their many, many flaws -- and I think most people would agree and which I highly doubt that Benjamin would seriously disagree with...Benjamin's focus is just more on the world, at large, than is Joe's, rather than more on governments' use of power, as is Joe's...

But the big difference between Joe and Benjamin's work and Henry and Robert's work...is that where Robert and Henry are consistently borrowing from others' ideas very good ideas...Benjamin and Joe are actively developing newer and better ones...and that is what makes them stronger thinkers, generally, I believe...even as Robert's and Henry's corrections are powerful and important ones, much of the time, I believe...

The more I deal with people who don't take thinking seriously around the most important issues we face...the more I appreciate everyone who takes the thinking seriously...with or without new and original ideas as great thinkers like Joe Nye and Benjamin Barber bring to the table...

Developing new ideas is hard work...and the hardest work, as a young scholar, used to be all the nay-saying from folks too lazy to come up with newer and better ideas of their own...now, I realize...there are leaders...and there are followers...and those folks are followers, much of the time...so as much as they bitch about how there is nothing new under the sun...they generally enjoy the sunlight, once you show them the way...

There are just some of us who are busy showing the way...while others bitch about how there's no other path...

Plato's Allegory of the Cave...how much more I appreciate it and Anthony Gethiel's Honors' English class my freshman year at Wichita State...

The challenge of the 21st Century...is that people can't be dragged from the cave to see the sunlight...because they just find their way back to the cave, which is furnished with cable TV and Cheetos, these days...people have to find their own way out of the cave and into the sunlight...to see the difference between the shadows and the light of reason...

Goddamn it's good to be back in Wichita...I love my hometown...and I love the university where I first fell in love with the world of ideas...I would love to teach at a third tier, no-prestige University like Wichita State, someday...if for no other reason than to be around folks who love ideas for their sake...because they aren't making a lot of money off of them, that's for sure...and where conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, peacefully cohabit in a really very excellent political sciece program at Wichita State, and learn things from one another, if you can believe that (one conservative professor, Ken Ciboski, taught this really excellent comparative politics class that I so thoroughly enjoyed while I was there and still learn more from -- as I review the textbooks from that class, periodically -- each time I revisit what we learned there)...and, in a lot of ways, I would prefer it to the fucked up world of scholarly fame and prestige that takes over peoples' egos, I think, too much, at places like KU and Harvard and Stanford and Yale and Berkeley and a million other places where a lot of really great thinkers live and work...

If my ideas are worth a lick, people will find me, I'm sure...and if not...then it's a pretty good sign that I should look into carpentry or something more up my alley:):):)...

I've got some books to read and some sources to track down, everyone...

Oh...and I want to take a moment, thinking about the WSU research library, to thank our head extemper, Brian White, at Wichita State and now a really fabulous forensics coach at Kapaun Mt. Carmel in Wichita, Kansas, for introducing me to the really pretty impressive scholarly journal and periodical collection at Wichita State University, while the Wichita State extempors were building one of the better sets of extemp boxes (a collection of research articles for domestic and international policy speeches in intercollegiate competitive speech and debate) in the country...I fuckin' love that library, and Brian more than any other person really introduced me to everything it had to offer...

Brian was and is, by the way, one of the first and smartest conservatives that I ever got to know, really well, and someone who gave me first-hand knowledge, at a fairly young age, of how smart conservatives can be...and how much a young liberal kid had to learn about the world...and someone who persuaded me -- along with our more socially conservative speech and debate coach, Chris Leland -- to vote for George Bush, Sr. in my very first election...not a bad vote, though I think Bill Clinton turned out to be a better President...but a really fine Republican President I think more today than I did, then...and for Kansas Republican Eric Yost, unfortunately, for Kansas Attorney General...who turned out to be one of our shittier Attorney General's, I think...but a pretty straight Republican ticket in 1992...and most of the credit for persuading a pretty strong-minded liberal Democrat to vote that way in that year goes to my friend, Brian, who is still one of the smartest and most decent conservatives that I have ever met in my life...

I have a whole lifetime of policy thinking and writing to get a head start on, this Christmas vacation...so I guess I better get on that...

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

Love,
Ben

For now...this is how I handle this kind of situation...

My friends or anyone else threaten me...or anyone I care about...we're not friends...

And they can fuckin' deal...until I get an apology...

And it persists...and you deal with the lack of active cooperation you get from me until you can learn to stop been such a fuckin' shithead...

And that is effective until the day that I show up at your funeral...or you show up at mine...

Don't fuck with me...or forgo my friendship until you learn to stop being such an asshole...

Love,
Ben

I am so pissed, right now...

Christmas ended a little too early, this year...

I have a friend who is suing another much closer friend over some damage to their property, right now...

I'm pissed off in a serious way at all the people involved, right now, because this is something that clearly could have been resolved much more readily and in a grown-up way...

Had we been dealing with grown-ups...

But we aren't dealing with grown-ups...we're dealing with three little kids who got in a fight without a grown-up around (they even had to have a grown-up in the form of a police officer come and mediate what they were too immature to mediate for themselves)...

The damage of property was a reaction against what I agree was pretty shitty treatment of this person by her two friends...it's still not excused, of course...and she owes them money, whether she likes it or not...

What makes this particular situation so upsetting is how I've been suggesting the entire fuckin' time to these three little children that they grow up and start dealing with each other like the adults that they supposedly are...

They have not, as of yet...

And a court battle looms in the distance if they continue down this terribly immature path...

I get so fuckin' annoyed with adults who can't learn to just do the right fuckin' thing and cut out the bullshit when the wrong path clearly keeps bringing on consequences that are bad news for them...

But that's the nature of trying to force our way to maturity for most kids...and not patiently modeling it for them and teaching it to them along the way...

Is that we have adults who don't quite seem to get that the real world offers them consequences whether they fuckin' like it or not...

Which is most adults and children, really...

I just get really fuckin' annoyed when the consequences are in my back fuckin' yard when I've been giving good advice on how to avoid such bullshit all along the way...

Here's to learning the fuckin' lessson and keeping the bullshit out of my life, from now on, for goodness fuckin' sakes...

Grow up...

Love,
Ben

Christmas with the Sutherlands...

I'll have to write later about my favorite little redneck Christmas ever with the Sutherland family, this year...

But I just couldn't let that last little venting post be the one up for Christmas...

Christmas with the Sutherlands was really special this year...

I spend a lot of time on the holidays looking out for younger cousins and family members...

My sister, Jenny, and I are apparently talking with one another again, which is good news...and my mom and I talked together for the first time in 3 years...also a great thing...

And there was just a lot of love shared in the Sutherland family, this year...

It's amazing to me...how...as I've learned to stop seeing peoples' humanity in terms of religion or politics or whatever...to just appreciate and support and challenge and love people for who they are...how much more I love my own life as a consequence...

My cousin, Carla, called me "enlightened" this Christmas...and I thought it was awful sweet...Carla is a particularly great cousin and family member, I have to admit...but it matters to me that at least some folks in the world appreciate what I have to offer to the world...and not always be bumping into folks who see me through their fears and insecurities about life...it's the most tedious thing about caring about almost literally everyone (we just saw footage, in my family, of Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, performing the unusual step of pleading guilty and confessing his crimes in court...I care about Dennis, because I care about everyone...but I have to say that it was pretty grotesque trying to imagine what kind of person rationalizes that kind of behavior)...that I'm constantly listening to peoples' rationalizations for why they are such dicks and why I need to be more dickish like them...it's like the alcoholic who wants you to take a swig...or the pothead who just can't smoke without someone else...everyone wants validation for their stupidity, I'm learning...and it gets tedious in the extreme constantly dealing with people trying to get me to take the rap for why they are such assholes...

And nice to have people in my life who don't expect me to be an asshole to earn their respect...

I hope your Christmas and Hanukah and New Year are as loving as mine:):)...

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

Love,
Ben

How petty can people be?...

It's Christmas...9:40PM...and I just read an email sent by a friend, today, to remind me she was taking another much closer friend of mine to court...

Can you think of anything more petty on Christmas?...how small can people be, I wonder, when I read something like I just read...

Pretty small, I'm learning...

Pathetic...

Merry Christmas, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Why Democrats lost in 2004...and why they'll lose again in 2008 if they don't get their asses in gear...

David Brooks is right...

David Brooks...Kerry, Edwards worlds apart...

...and brilliant as always...can I say that David Brooks has thoroughly impressed me over the last couple of years as a voice of sanity and constructiveness and intelligence in a sea of liberal and conservative cynicism:):):)...

Thank you, David...

David's basic observation...is that after Katrina...Kerry was obsessively anti-Bush...and John Edwards did something that Kerry didn't even do very well when he was running for President...

He was thinking...

John Edwards, according to Brooks, was talking about the pressures that economic insecurity place on families and their ability to function effectively, especially in the midst of serious catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina...

That and John's Washington Post editorial taking responsibility for his vote for the war in Iraq make him, effectively, in my mind, the Democratic front-runner...Hillary has shown almost zero leadership ability her entire tenure in the Senate except for a very safe and constructive, but also kind of no-brainer, bill sponsored publicly with the help of former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich...a shrewd move, to be sure...but a very basic bill that allowed for better sharing of medical information that involved very little political courage at all, really...that seems to be Hillary's forte, at this point...avoiding policies that involve courage...

John Edwards and Barak Obama are the two most impressive potential Democratic candidates, right now, I think...

The reason?...

Because they both have ideas about how to govern...as strange as that might seem to power-obsessed Democrats right now...

You know what Bill Clinton told John Kerry that he should have done in his election contest with George Bush that he failed to do...and which I think is the biggest reason that he lost that election...

Articulate a vision...and some big ideas about what he might want to do with all that power...

But instead John furrowed his brow...and kept his focus on winning power...and making every anti-Bush plea that his handlers wrote for him...

And this is for all the liberals who might be reading...

Do you remember what happened to John in the 2004 election?...

He lost, motherfuckers...

And if Democrats want to lose again...if I were them, I'd just keep focussing on power and give very little attention to ideas...just like they did in that election...

John Edwards is getting wise...

Because he's tired of losing, I'm sure...

But at least he's thinking...

And you know who I'm voting for in the 2008 election...

The candidate with the best ideas...

I don't know who that is...

Rudy Guliani...John Edwards...John McCain...Barak Obama...Hillary Clinton (though she's shown almost no inclination towards good constructive ideas, at this point)...Evan Bayh...

Whoever has the best ideas...

And America will be doing the same...I guarantee it...

And if liberals want to learn the lesson on this one, for good...

I'd suggest they run a power-focussed rather than an idea-focussed campaign like they did in 2004...

And if they have a Republican challenger with even a smidgeon of decent policy ideas...

Watch them beat the shit out of your candidate...

And then you'll come to me...and I'll say, "I told you so"...and you don't want that...because I'm a gloating motherfucker...especially when you do something stupid that I've been telling you to stop doing for at least 3 years, now...

And you know what the worst part is...

If you -- meaning liberals -- do run a campaign that is power-based...and you win...

You'll know you won't deserve it...

Uhh...what an icky feeling...to win something as important as the Presidency when you don't deserve it...

I guess it will be a test of just how low liberals can go...

They've gone pretty low, at this point...as have conservatives...

But it'll be a pyrrhic victory...and I won't be cheering with you...and will be, either, 1) eagerly awaiting when your candidate starts thinking and stops being an asshole...and engaging him/her until we get them there and/or 2) eagerly awaiting for the next election, when we can get rid of him/her...

And if Hillary Clinton -- the resident non-thinking candidate gets nominated...

You better hope John McCain or Rudy Guliani doesn't get nominated by the Republicans...

Wikipedia...opinion polling for 2008 Presidential election...

Because, right now...they would cleanly spank Hillary's red little ass...

And notice...the only candidate who beats either Rudy or John McCain, right now...on the Marist College poll...

Is John Edwards:):)...

Hmm...

I would suggest that Democrats start thinking more...and engaging in power gambles less...

Because...while I will buy you a beer when Republicans kick your tight little heinies...

I don't want your hear you're whining when I say you, "I told you so"...because I did...

And because I'm getting tired of Democrats acting like they have some kind of entitlement to office just because Bush is a less than ideal President...just like every President is a less than ideal President...

So a friendly suggestion to Democrats...from an independent...

Start thinking more...or get used to losin'...

Some tough love for a party with too much tough...not enough love...and far too few ideas, right now...

John Edwards has started to figure this one out...

Perhaps other Democrats can start following his lead:):):)...

Let's hope so...for the sake of the country...which deserves better than most liberals and Democrats (and conservatives and Republicans, for that matter) seem to be offering, right now...

Love,
Ben

By the way...can I say that John McCain is probably the shrewdest motherfucker on the face of this fuckin' earth...have Democrats not figured out, yet, that George Bush will not be running in the next election?...which means that we have two anti-Bush candidates for the next election...whichever Democrat gets nominated...and John McCain...so he rides the wave of anti-Bush feeling in the country, right now, and rides his favorables...and kicks the ass of every Democrat running or potentially running, right now...

"Uhh...we'll get just keep bringing down Bush's favorables and we'll beat him with any candidate"...duh-duh-duh...fuckin' dumbass Democratic handlers...you're gonna get your asses handed to you with that strategy, you fuckin' manipulative morons...and you'll deserve it...

"Uhh...we don't have to be for any good ideas...we'll just be against Bush"...fuckin' stupid assholes...the one saving grace is that once your candidate gets beat with that stupid-ass strategy, you lose your jobs, too, you fuckin' dickheads...

Political consultants and the cowardly fuckin' politicians who follow their advice are the fuckin' bane of democratic politics, today...and the only correction to their behavior that they care about is getting their asses whooped in the next election..and so be it, you fuckin' evil little Machiavellis...I hope you end up in someone's mailroom after you lose those gambles you arrogant pieces of shit...

Power obsession is a sickness..."Precious...my precious"...

Get some brains, some heart, and some fuckin' courage and walk your asses down the fuckin' yellow brick road...

And stand up and be leaders, you fuckin' cowards...

$25 for Christmas...

Well...I was able to carve out $25 to spend on some books, this year, for at least some Christmas presents this year...out of necessity, I have to put off bills until my next paycheck...there wasn't enough money whether I wanted to or not...and I don't know where I'm going to have money for my other student loan payment...but I'm sure I'll get something figured out...something always does get figured out...

I'm still in negotiations about my contract...the human resources persons offered a pretty significantly bigger amount than the school board offered...so we still have to get that resolved...if not...I'll guess the student loan folks will have to wait on their money until we negotiate an amount that I can pay...

It's only money, I always tell myself...because when you don't have any...and never have, in my case...you get some perspective on what really matters in life...I've never really been a poor person who was terribly angry about wealth inequity...and always hopeful that it would be addressed...and grew up in a family that believed not only in taking care of its own, as much as it could...but also earning its way through the world...I still know it will...you can't make it go away because you ignore it...and there are clearly major consequences for individual businesses and the economy, generally, from the politics of wealth inequity that imposes all kinds of restrictions and costs on businesses in the name of "doing something" about its sad legacy...

The truth is that wealth inequity will have to be addressed voluntarily by people...just like racism...and sexism...and every other terrible legacy in our country's history...

People's consciences have to change...not any laws...

There is no union...or law...or tax...or whatever...that will make it go away...either we will face our responsibility to create wealth equity in this country...or we will live with its sad legacy on our hearts and minds until we do...and all of the terrible consequences that it has on us and our societies, as well...

We'll figure it out, I'm confident...you can only put off your conscience and your enlightened self-interest and for so long...otherwise, you're culture begins to so degenerate that it doesn't even know who or what it is anymore...

Huh?...sounds like pop culture, these days:):):)LOL:):):)...

People have a natural need for growth beyond that kind of degeneration...poor or rich...so we'll get it resolved...I'm pretty clear...

And...in the meantime...we are responsible for the legacy of the destructiveness of financial pressure to serve our own greed...and our own desire not to get fucked over by own our creditors...by banks...and our various creditors...

It's such a sad legacy...our greed...

It's so self-serving...and hinders so much growth on all our our parts, in the meantime...it's shortsided...a part of the hyper-competitive, hyper-aggressive, ugly side of our natures...that will pass once people stop feeling like such victims...about what they "can't" do..."I 'can't help others and support greater wealth equity" so many businesses reason...I'm here to look out for profits...I have to be selfish, so many business folks, rationalize:):):)...I have no choice:):):)LOL:):):)...

Don't you feel sorry for all the poor people in business and in life who just have no choice but to be selfish:):):)LOL:):):)...it just breaks your heart, doesn't it:):):)LOL:):):)...

We are all such dumbasses, I swear:):):)...oh well...we learn...we fuck it up...we get better:):):)...

It's very much what Dr. Martin Luther King finally came to realize with the civil rights movement...civil rights, Dr. King started to realize, was a matter of changing hearts and minds:):)...there were elements of civil rights that inevitably meant changing the law...because they had to do with how the law and how policy affected African Americans...and how African Americans affected the law and policy...the Voting Rights Act...voting in the South...the murder of civil rights activists...

And something had to be done to improve and change segregated conditions in the South and all over the country...and while forced integration has certainly had a mixed legacy, at best...it served a purpose...

In retrospect...conservatives...like Bill Buckley...and others...who argued -- without racism, I don't think -- that forced integration would just inflame racial antagonisms, more, were probably right...and certainly blacks and whites, alike, have taken issue with the still-remaining legacies of forced integration, like forced bussing...but that particular period in our history -- when National Guardspersons were needed to integrate blacks and whites in public schools and public universities -- is over...the on-going legacy of court-orders in schools around desegration and using force, generally, to resolve race matters -- the NCAA very bad ruling around the use of Native mascots by college sports teams is one that comes to mind, here -- is the darker side of an otherwise noble effort to integrate blacks and whites and teach us to live together...it was a compromise...but a compromise that we have to move beyond, now, into an era where we choose to care for another because it's the right thing to do...and not because we're forced to...

I don't know why so many people fail to learn that very simple and important maxim...

Might doesn't make right...

But they do...persistently...and totally take for granted the wisdom that comes with it...

Does Pope Benedict really believe that if he fires priests and scholars who are gay or who disagree with his belief that homosexuality is a sin...that he'll make homosexuality go away?...or that he'll lead the Catholic Church to believe that way?...and that perversion will finally be eliminated from the fold of the Church?:):):):):):) (the naivete of such a belief makes me chuckle a little:):):)...

Apparently so...though he's a damned fool for thinking so...

Because...in all likelihood...either, 1) Catholics will just start leaving the Church...or 2) Catholics will start changing the way the Church makes decisions...

And in the meantime...really brilliant Catholics, like Father Thomas Reese, are left out of some really important conversations on behalf of the Church -- though I have no doubt Father Reese's thinking will win the day on this, long term...the Catholic Church will become completely irrelevant without open debate and discussion at its center -- by his less brilliant brethren...

Homosexuality is not going away because Pope Benedict forces out priests who are gay...or priests who don't believe that homosexuality is a sin...or who want to have an open debate about whether it is a sin, as Father Thomas Reese -- a far smarter man and a far better Catholic than the Pope...and a serious scholar of the Church institutions -- was advocating at America magazine, before he was forced out...

What the Pope...and the President...and so many liberals and Democrats...and so many people, generally, who try this route fail to recognize...

Is that trying to force a question in your direction, generally -- when the question is a matter of conscience and not a matter of immediate danger -- undermines your credibility...it doesn't make your detractors or their concerns go away...

And that will be true around wealth equity, as well...

Companies that sell their soul for profits -- like Walmart -- are dealing with the consequences of those policies, now, as communities like Lawrence, foolishly, I believe, try to keep them from expanding in our town...because of their reputation with employees and competitors...

And those practices...which have very little to do with real competition, which is about improving and generating value...and are a reflection of the merit of goods and services...not of weasly effots to hurt competitors...they have everything to do with hypercompetitive practices to rationalize self-centered ends...not competition based on merit meant to help others...no reason for me or anyone else to support those practices, whether they come from Wal-mart or any other business or political action group or any other individual or group...

Sam Walton's story is pretty impressive, though, if you get a chance...

Sam Walton...Wikipedia...

I'm just getting a chance to absorb it, right now...

Most rich folks, like Sam...and my parents...have been fucked over along the way...so when they fuck others over...I think they often think it is just part of the game...which is what keeps it going, of course...and the reason why we need to call a spade a spade to get it to stop...but, like my father...Sam Walton was a good man...a really, good man, really...if you check out his biography...a man who started with very little...and built a pretty impressive collection of stores that do so much for so many Americans every day...a man who believed -- for good reason -- in free enterprise and who opposed Communism, funding scholarships for Central American students to study in America and nurture those values, and stem the tide of Communism in this part of the world...

He was ruthless...as were Rockefeller...and Carnegie...before him...and as Gates is, as well, after him...and most major and often minor business people...

But they are also hard-working and often brilliant...and innovating...

It's time for this legacy to end...the cutthroat competition...the hypercompetitiveness...the ugly side of markets and capitalism that is so self-defeating...both of the nurturing of values that support free markets and free societies...but also of those markets, as cutthroat competition has so many terrible consequences for the market -- regulation that limits innovation, consumers and competitors that are cheated, taxes that produce resentment amongst those who pay them often begrudgingly and hurts more general generosity around issues that Americans and others otherwise care about, support for big government on the left that often fuels the self-delusion of both poor communities and greedy capitalists, alike, and has led to a very tragic legacy of too many failed and repressive leftist socialist and communist governments in the the world to count...and the illusion that socialism can really create the equity that it promises...which, of course, it can't...

I can't tell you how many conversations I have with Canadian leftists who refuse to acknowledge, honestly, the problems their health system has with shortages, rationing, and problems with their research and development...all to defend the very worthy commitment to equity that socialism offers...

The United States, on the other hand, has one of the finest health care systems in the world...largely because of our commitment to the free market...and all the ways that Americans take for granted how markets care for their needs...even as it does so at far too much expense to all of us...especially poor folks like me:):):)...

And...the United States has one of the most promising and voluntary efforts to create universal access within this far better health care market...the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, I believe, both reported within the last year about efforts by major health insurance companies and providers to find a path to universal access, as a very wise effort to come to terms with the legacy of wealth inequities in the health care system...and to preserve the many wonderful qualities that a free market health care system provides...

But that will not be enough, obviously...

Businesses and financial groups of all kinds will need to follow suit...

And begin taking economic equity seriously...

They will, I'm confident...it will just take time...as more and more people become aware -- if you read David Brooks, these days, it's very touching how committed a conservative can become to resolving issues of wealth equity -- their consciences will be pricked...as Martin Luther King said they would and needed to be during our earlier civil rights period...

We have Martin to thank, in large part, for why this most recent round of fruitless political warfare over economic issues -- as is much of the what has been going on, lately, between Democrats and Republicans and in various courts, as much as the war in Iraq -- has not taken a far worse turn...

It was Martin's commitment to a world whose conscience would be pricked around matters of wealth inequity that animates the best of wealth equity commitments, right now...amd serves as alternative to the more manipulative efforts of radicals and liberals that seek, fruitlessly, to muscle their way to minimal equity...rather than commit ourselves, freely, to full equity...

It is Martin's legacy that has, largely...led to richer nations forgiving debt...that inspires the bulk of folks who attended Live 8...and the support of efforts like the funding of international aid efforts to deal with AIDS, and tuberculosis, and malaria, right now...and support for more equitable school funding...

Though I should make clear that these efforts really will have to transfer...slowly...progressively...to voluntary and decentralized and market-driven approaches -- indendently run public and charter and private schools, in the case of education...and private, non-profit efforts, in the case of international aid -- to funding such issues and resolving matters of wealth equity...they may provide an important stop-gap, right now...but such measures also produce resentment, as long as peoples' consciences are not pricked...as consciences are pricked, that kind of resentment becomes less of a problem...but the potential of voluntary and decentralized fund-raising is still foregone....government funding simply does not have nearly the fund-raising potential that voluntary efforts by decentralized and diverse institutions have within a healthy market...decentralizing international aid and schools and health care efforts...and leaving their funding up to the American people and peoples of the world to either step up to take care of...or to be responsible for the consequences when they don't...private fundraising not only has far, far more potential ability to raise more money for such efforts, and to begin to deal with wealth equity issues inherent in them...but freeing up the economy will mean creating more money to spend on such efforts...

The scared, bullying liberal approach of regulating and taxing the economy is a long-failed approach...that has been giving way, for a quite a long time, now, to a liberal and conservative and independent and non-partisan commitment to a freer economy and the economic benefits that provides...as well as the benefit of having decentralized institutions that are each individually responsible for the results they achieve...

And, similarly...equity efforts in that economy will best be achieved by free people making free commitments...

To follow Martin Luther King's lead...

To allow their consciences to be pricked...

And to start doing the right thing...

And they will:):):)...

You know why I'm so confident of that?...

Because no matter how many very terrible mistakes humanity has made over the course of its history...

It always finds a way to clean them up...

And this generation will be no different...

Right now...it is just a matter of finding our way...

And find our way we shall...

Merry Christmas, everyone...it's now, officially, December 24th, here where I am:):):)...

I have so much more to write on this issue...about non-profit and for-profit markets in education and health care and other areas of critical importance to wealth equity...about the psychological benefits of such an approach to poor and rich people, alike...about becoming whole and decent human beings...about communities and societies that take responsibility for ourselves and each other...freely...without coercion...

About the path to our being better people...a path of freedom...of free will...as every major religion I'm familiar with tells us is needed for people to choose moral and good lives...

As Jesus believed and lived a life of that commitment...

Can you think of one person that Jesus tried to take down to make the world a better place?...

I can't...not one...

What a great man he was...and Happy Birthday to him...

Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls...Merry Christmas, you old Building and Loan...

Merry Christmas, George...

Merry Christmas, everyone...and Happy New Year...

And to all my Jewish friends...Happy Hanukah, here in a couple days...I'll be lighting candles, at some point, this year...mabye with my very Catholic family, this year...just to spice things up, a bit:):)...

And Happy Kwanzaa...I don't think I'll be making my peachy bread pudding, this year, for Kwanzaa...as I have for past Kwanzaa's:):):)...but maybe I'll find some time to reflect on the reason for that season, this year, as well:):):)...and maybe we can do some Kwanzaa celebrations with my very redneck family, this year:):):)...

And Happy New Year...I have no plans for New Year, this year...I'll have to talk with Melissa and see if she's going to be back in town for New Years (she's in Milwaukee with her family, right now:):):)...Merry Christmas, Melissa:):):)...and Judy and Melissa's dad and Melissa's brother:):):)...

And Merry Christmas to all of you:):):)...and your families:):):)...and families all over the world...

This year...when my mom's family sings Let There Be Peace on Earth...it will be a very special time to sing that song, I think...as I hope we all hope for peace...as we navigate a world that is far too often too nasty and violent and destructive and hyperaggressive and hurtful...

Have a nice holiday, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben