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Saturday, June 04, 2005
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2005
Michael Jackson
It is unbelievable to me that nearly everyone has a passionate opinion on the Michale Jackson case and almost no one has any passion when it comes to the millions of children who will die of AIDS and hunger this year alone. The top stories on CNN yesterday as heard in my car were the Michael Jackson case, tapes of the "runaway bride's" "frantic" phone calls ("we have them here, exclusively") and an update on the finger in the Wendy's chili case. Clearly the American television media has lost its mind and is out of touch with any semblance of what is really happening in our world.
As for Michael Jackson, if the airtime that has been dedicated to whether or not he inappropriately touched ONE child had been dedicated to the millions of children who have not been touched or cared for by ANYONE - who have been completely abandoned and forgotten about by most of the world, we could be on the road to eradicating hunger and AIDS and the other things that will kill them. Perhaps if Michael Jackson were accused of molesting a starving child in sub-Saharan Africa those poor kids would be getting some global attention.
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Friday, June 03, 2005
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2005
Lost Children
On the way out of the movies last night we came across a little boy - maybe four years old - hesitating at the exit doors. We held the door open for him. I watched him walk out tentatively. I looked around for an adult. Didn't see one. He looked confused. "Are you OK, buddy?" I asked. That's all it took to open the floodgates. He was lost. "Are you with your Mommy or your Daddy?" I asked. "Mommy," he said with his quivering lips and his teary, tight-clenched eyes. "Everything's gonna be OK," I said. Just then someone came out and said they knew where his mother was and pointed her out and once he saw her everything was fine. Cute little kid. Quick, happy ending.
I woke up last night thinking about that incident and then immediately of Africa. There's not one child lost there. There are millions. They're not wandering the courtyard of a movie theatre. They're wandering dirt roads looking for food and water. They're not lost for a moment. They're lost forever. They're not going to find Mommy because Mommy's dead. And Daddy too.
But the biggest difference of all is that there ain't no strangers coming to help them. I remember a line we had for the AIDS Vaccine Rides. "We are riding for total strangers. We hope, if the tables were turned, they would ride for us."
We need a massive project on a scale never before dreamed to help every single one of these kids. We ought to be banging our fists about it. We ought to be conducting hunger strikes. We ought to be as God-damned angry about it as we seem to be able to get over any number of stupid little sagas that litter the daily news. There is no excuse for this kind of massive wanton disregard for millions of children. No excuse whatsoever. And if we had people of real courage in leadership it wouldn't be allowed to continue unaddressed. If we had Gandhis and Robert Kennedys and Martin Luther Kings leading us it would be getting adressed with the proper level of anger and action.
Well we need those kind of people again - across the board - not just in politics, but in most of our social institutions, instead of the windbags that are running them all now, doing nothing but puffing up their own resumees.
Yes, I'm a little angry today. And for God-damned good reason. We all ought to be.
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Wednesday, June 01, 2005
THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005
SECOND POST
John Bolton Video
I encourage you to screen this brief video of John Bolton. I have to say, it is disturbing to think that this kind of man is even being considered - let alone seriously considered, as our ambassador to the world body.
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THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005
Boldness
A friend sent me this statement yesterday by Karl von Clausewitz, 1780 - 1831: "Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank." I have found this to be true in almost every institution I have encountered. The more one has to lose, the less likely they are to risk. Ironically, this is even true - perhaps especially true - of institutions that claim to be agents of change. They have bold and daring mission statements but no bold or daring leaders willing to live up to them. This is why transformation is much more likely to occur from outside the system than from inside. And I define "inside the system" very broadly and "outside the system" very narrowly.
Almost anywhere there is institution, there is institutionalized mediocrity.
Bravery is a rare thing. Courage is a rare thing. And make no mistake about it, courage and bravery are what it is going to take to change the world, because those who have an entrenched interest in the world as it is - those with position, status, and the comfort of the status quo - those who have fancy titles they can throw around at cocktail parties - are going to fight like hell to keep things the way they are. It is no mystery what it will take to change things. It will take boldness. And each step of boldness will have to be an act of personal courage.
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2005
A Little Bird
Yesterday a little bird died in our yard. I dug a little hole and buried the little thing. Once upon a time the atoms that made up that little bird were part of a star. In a few months, that little bird will become blades of grass, or a little leaf of dodonea, or part of one of the branches of the pine tree on which it used to perch. Perhaps some of it will be ingested by earth worms. And perhaps another little bird will come along and eat that earth worm, and a little part of that bird will become a little bird once again. Everything is alive and everything is connected. Things transform. Things resurrect. Everything is miraculous. Anything is possible. And the things you think are dying are really the things that are being born.
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Tuesday, May 31, 2005
TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2005
Possibility
Werner Erhard used to say that it was not the end of the world that he feared most, it was the world staying the same dreary monotonous place, day after day and year after year. I read the news this morning - the Vice President predicting that the Iraq war will be over by 2009, more bombings there yesterday that killed thirty people, and I get that same feeling I had when I was eight years old watching Walter Cronkite night after night after night talking about the war in Vietnam. This was the world into which I was being cast - a world where nothing ever changed and no one seemed very concerned about making it change, and everyone was resigned to things the way they are and adults with no imagination were running the show and I hated it." I knew instinctively that eight year-olds could do a better job of running the world than the adults that had lost any real, true sense of hope or possibility.
I am excited about our future, because I know that in their heart of hearts people have hope, even if their leaders are tired and without it. I believe deeply what Soren Kierkegaard said:
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for a passionate sense of what might be, for the eye, which ever young and ardent sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility! This is the nectar we must bring to people. Not a fight. Possibility. Not this left vs. right ranchor. Possibility. Not Bush bashing. Possibility. People are thirsty for it. And when it comes to them they will recognize it for what it is, immediately, and they will know that it is distinct from anything else out there. They will embrace it. And the world will never be the same.
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