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6.18.2005
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2005
Becoming the Things We Had Hoped to Find
And after they had explored all the stars in the universe and all the planets around each sun they realized they were alone, and they were glad, because they would now have to become all of the things they had hoped to find.
Lanford Wilson
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6.17.2005
FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2005
Earthquake
There was an earthquake in Los Angeles yesterday. It was so tiny I didn't even know we had an earthquake. I came out of a meeting and a friend told me about it. I then remembered I had heard a little creek in the window. I got in the car and CNN was reporting on it like the city had collapsed. Wolf Blitzer, an expert at talking without having anything to say, went on and on and on about the earthquake. It was actually amazing to listen to him. He was every bit as worked up as if aliens had just visited the planet. As a result, everybody's mother called them from around the country to make sure we were OK, mine included.
Meanwhile, no one called the 8,300 people who died of AIDS yesterday to see how the hell they were doing. Probably because no one reported it. This is the American media's richter scale. 1.0 becomes 10.0 and 10.0 becomes 1.0. The real stories don't get reported and the non stories do.
The media is way more dangerous to us than any earthquake will ever be.
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6.15.2005
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005
Believing In Ourselves
USA Today Reports that, "Japan and France are jointly researching a new supersonic passenger plane to succeed the retired Concorde, but with up to three times as many seats and the potential to fly the Tokyo-to-New York route in six hours, officials and reports said Wednesday." The plane is expected to reach speeds in excess of 1,500 miles per hour, making a trip from L.A. to New York possible in under two hours. Their plan is to have it in service by 2015.
These are the kinds of great initiatives the United States used to undertake. If we're wondering how to create jobs, there it is right there - create new industries, in the tradition of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, instead of whining about jobs going overseas - jobs that are part of America's past anyway. It is a sign of America's malaise that she has no great industrial dreams anymore. She is self-focused. Gripped by fear and insecurity. Unable to imagine.
We need leaders who can remind us of who we really are, and of what we are really capable once again. Even as they try to destroy the institutions he established, this, more than anything, is what Franklin Roosevelt did for the United States of America. He made us believe in ourselves in our darkest hour. We need leaders who will help us believe in ourselves once again, and if they refuse to show up, then we must believe in ourselves without them.
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6.14.2005
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2005
To Be Misunderstood
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow, speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. -- 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood ? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
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Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Oven Fried Chicken and Civil Rights
Congressman Duncan Hunter yesterday on how a prisoner is fed at Guantanamo Bay - "he'll get oven fried chicken, he'll get rice pilaf, he'll get double vegetables, he'll get pita bread, and he'll top that all off with (a glass of milk)." Does that mean that now we can round up anyone we want - you or I included - and detain them for as long as we want without charging them so long as we give them oven fried chicken, rice pilaf, and pita bread?
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6.13.2005
MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2005
Wisdom and Doubt
Are you ever beset by a feeling of doubt about your political views or your world view? Ever wonder if maybe George Bush's plan to spread democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere is not as misguided as we are told to believe? Ever wonder if maybe Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly and carry a big stick" is better than Gandhi's teaching that we should never resort to violence, ever?
I read something on Saturday that felt right to me - "Only the truly wise doubt their wisdom."
This, it seems to me, is what distinguishes you from George Bush. You are willing to entertain the thought that you may not be right. He seems not to be able to do that. This, to me, makes you wiser the wiser human being.
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6.12.2005
SUNDAY JUNE 12, 2005
Nothing, Something, and Everything
I went to a great reading of a play last night entitled, "Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark," which benefited two human rights groups - Speak Truth to Power and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. The play focused on real individuals around the world who have done the most unbelievably heroic things to defend human rights and to oppose those who would abuse them.
In the United States, the question of social conscience comes down to whether we will do a walk or do a bike ride or write a check on behalf of the poor or the hungry or the abused - in essence whether we will do something instead of nothing. In China, or Iran, or Guatemala, the question of social conscience comes down, not to whether a person will do something, but whether they will do everything. There are no bike rides for free speech in China. You either stand in Tiannenmen Square and get shot to death or you do nothing. In Iran, there are no black tie gay rights dinners. You either come out and get tortured and imprisoned for the rest of your life, or you do nothing.
The question of social conscience in most of the world is, will you do everything? There is no good reason that should not be the question here in the United states too. Our spiritual illness comes from a standard of living that is too high and a standard of conscience that is too low. I am not trying to spread guilt here. The integrity of our character depends on the fulfillment of our conscience. When our conscience does not measure up in our own souls, there is spiritual sickness. There is a void. We try to fill that void with material things. Food. Sex. Drink. Real happiness becomes elusive.
I daresay that these people who do everything are happier than those of us who do nothing, or who struggle with just doing something. They know a kind of inner fulfillment that those who never go the distance can never know.
It is in our self-interest to do everything. This is why we HAVE a conscience in the first place. God did not endow us with conscience to feel guilty. God endowed us with conscience that we might know when we our souls are unfulfilled.
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