Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 20, 2011
Ron Paul is not the most charismatic Presidential candidate, but this YouTube of him is worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeCpLcjxOq4&feature=g-vrec&context=G26c6ce1RVAAAAAAAAAw
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 19, 2011
Advertisements today are out of touch with the consumer. One example: Chase credit card does an ad about using their card during your vacation. How many people are taking vacations now? Especially of the kind depicted in their commercial? It feels very much like they are pandering to a elite, select group anymore. It makes me very sick to know people are flaunting this kind of wealth while most of us are struggling to get by.
Even Disney, once a mainstay in American culture is out of touch. They depict families where the kids wear new clothes (in fashion) all the time, where parents aren’t struggling to put food on the table, and where the sets look like million-dollar-plus homes. In this economy, their programming flaunts the wealth that few people have in this country, and that fewer will have in the future if Grover Norquist keeps his pledgers saying “no” to taxing the wealthy.
Even the head of the IMF, Christine Legarde, seems out of touch with reality. When asked: “What’s the worst case scenario?” (of economic disaster) she replied, “stalled growth, high unemployment, potential social unrest as a result, and financial markets in disarray.” This stunning statement is an admission that she is not aware that these things have already happened, as the word “potential” implies.
We here on the ground, and not in ivory towers, know that we have been living a different sort of life than those who are deciding policy for the rest of us. But it is embarrassing that now advertisers (businesses) haven’t picked up on the fact that it doesn’t make much sense to promote a lifestyle few can attain.
If companies want to help people spend money on their products, they are going to have to be more creative.
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org in December 18, 2011
As I have long suspected, Democrats and Republican agree on many of the same things in this country. Our strength as a nation are in our similarities. Consider this: we can build a stronger nation by cooperation rather than focusing on our division. Whosoever divides this country is not a friend to this country. Think about that the next time someone wants to label you as purely Democrat, and therefore not Republican or vice versa.
According to a study done by Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs, there is a broad general consensus in the USA, even across party lines of the following issues:
1. Every person should have equal access to opportunity.
2. Each person should work hard and help himself.
3. Those who are in real need should be helped by the government, so long as they also help themselves
4. Most people in this country agree with taxing the wealthy more.
5. Differences in income is too large, and distribution of wealth is unfair.
6. People should not go without food, clothing and shelter.
7. Government should provide really good schools for children.
8. Favor using taxes to provide early childhood education, like preschool and kindergarten.
9. Favor own tax dollars being used to help re-train people whose jobs were eliminated.
10. 73% want the government to make sure that all Americans have health care
11. 95% of those polled agreed that “one should always find ways to help those less fortunate”
12. Concern for ecology is greater than concern for economic growth, especially in young people.
Source: The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Properity by Jeffrey Sachs
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 17, 2011
Whenever I have a great idea, I have trouble sleeping. It’s bouncing around in my brain, saying “I’m alive!” and it won’t let go.
That is what happened last night, when I realized how I could use a relatively “new” technology to support the first phase of this website. Have you ever heard of Microsoft tags? Well, up until a couple days ago, I never had. A tag is basically like a bar code, but when you scan it, it takes your mobile device directly to a website. Why is this cool? Because you don’t even have to find a pen to write down a website, or type its “url” into the find field. All you have to do is scan the tag, and wahlah! You’re there.
The implications are vast. The way my mind works, I automatically start thinking how we can turn this into a fun exercise in techo-play. Let’s all wear buttons of the writeindependent.org USA logo and make them scannable tags. “Tag my flag!” you can say to your friends! Then they will get the app called gettag.mobi and be able to scan from their smart phone or iPhone, Android, or Blackberry.
If technology weren’t so cool, would we all stop being geeks? I guess geek = cool.
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 16, 2011
When I started a physical therapy clinic in 1989, I was only 28 years old but I looked like I was 19. People would ask me: “What made you think you could start your own business at your (young) age?” to which I would reply, “Nobody told me I couldn’t.”
And when I do 17 or 18 chin ups in the gym on any given day, because that is so unusual for a woman, people ask me how I do that. There are a few reasons that spring to mind: I have the grip strength of an average man and weigh very little, or I’m a genetic freak and it was just luck that G-d made me strong. But it comes back to the same mental attitude: “Nobody told me I couldn’t do it.”
Sometimes we stop ourselves from doing a spectacular thing by silently “whispering” these words to ourselves: “Oh, I couldn’t do that.” The truth is that many things we thought we couldn’t do are completely achievable, one step at a time. It took many years before I could go from three to seven chin ups. And then something kicked in one day: what’s the difference between seven and ten? Suddenly I could do ten! Take any idea and wrap your mind around it, and so long as it doesn’t depend entirely upon one other person to collaborate with you, usually that idea can develop legs.
This way of looking at things: the thought that anything is possible, doesn’t come easy. There is a price to pay for achievement because things don’t always fall into place and become amazing overnight. The second part of the equation is this: the sun doesn’t shine on everyone all the time. Each person gets his turn to feel the sun’s rays, and conversely to get soaked in the rain. When things aren’t going well, I cry. I care, therefore I cry. I do not look at this as a weakness; quite the contrary. For each time I suffer a difficulty, I realize that the tough times make me stronger or carve me deeper, which in turn prepares me for even bigger challenges ahead. There is no wasted effort in the area of feeling disappointment.
What great things lie ahead for you?
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 15, 2011
We always had the power. We don’t need to sleep in the streets. We don’t need to protest anything.
If we organize ourselves, write about what we want, and tell our representatives what we expect from our government, then we have only to elect public servants who will carry out that imperative.
When people complain about their government, they have only themselves to blame because our government was designed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. If we believed what they said, but it didn’t work out the way they promised, then maybe they lied to us. If they lied, then how do we know they won’t lie again?
Take back your vote and exercise your patriotism! Vote out the people who have disappointed you. Write in the candidates who don’t kowtow to special interests!
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 14, 2011
I know, I know. It sounds like an oxymoron: enchanting politics. So let me make an argument for why politics could be, and should be enchanting.
The premiere expert in enchantment might be Thomas Moore, author of The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, among other books dealing with the soul. His definition of enchantment is: “the transhuman voice or music rising from deep within nature or culture that seizes us with awe and spellbinding pleasure.” I have to admit; that’s about as far from how politics makes me feel most days.
Here is the problem: there is no soul in politics anymore. It is so devoid of anything real or essential, that it makes us cringe or recoil or even worse, it angers us.
In a perfect world, a person is called to civil service because he or she feels compelled to care for his/her community. If a politician spoke from his heart, it would stop us in our tracks and make us listen for a change. Instead, they often talk trash about the opponent or the “other party”, they memorize and spout talking points, they go for image rather than substance, and when they don’t know the answer, they fake their way through rather than admitting weakness.
We’re so used to hearing balderdash, we assume it isn’t worth listening anymore.
It is no wonder we are disenchanted with our politicians. They have become disenchanting.
What I would love to see is someone who shares their core sensibilities; what got them into public service and their mission in life as a result. Since politics is about serving community, then how do they see themselves fulfilling their life’s calling? And what makes them think they were called into the limelight to begin their careers as a politician?
Nowadays, when anyone comes out and says that we need to be more responsible or that congress has been behaving badly, we think they’re some kind of hero. It should be the lowest common denominator to have people in congress who speak the truth. Instead, when somebody finally says something that might favor the greater good, we get all excited over them because it’s so rare.
All of us eventually need to become political, if we are to have a life of meaning. If we are so lucky to have a long life, we reach a point of wanting to contribute to society, even if it means being a salt-of-the-earth example to others by striving to be virtuous. Benjamin Franklin worked at becoming a virtuous “full man” by practicing 13 tenets (http://dan.hersam.com/philosophy/franklin_virtues.html). It might be a good starting place for those politicians who seem to have lost their way.
A friend of mine was distraught by my suggestion that politics should be enchanting. She said that community efforts don’t always involve politics. By my definition, anything involving community was political. She gave the example of a man who ran the corner convenience store. Everyone knew him; he often gave kids free food, the parents would let him hold keys for them, he said a cheerful “hi” to passers by, and kept tabs for customers who weren’t holding cash. She insisted that he provided a community service without being political.
The problem is in thinking that politics is somehow separate from community; that it governs the people, and lords its policies over us. Instead, if we realized, as the ancient Greeks did, that a divine spirit held together our communities, we wouldn’t confer so much power to politicians, since they are only a small part of a larger endeavor.
To my friend, I say: from a quiet and reserved place, contemplate the sacred and spiritual aspect of communion. The next time you experience holiness during a community endeavor, you are on your way to bringing back enchantment to political life.
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 13, 2011
The soul hungers for beauty the way the body hungers for food.
Much like studying for a test leads to accomplishment in mundane activities, appreciation of beauty must be cultivated and fostered. Attention to the soul and its needs exercises a person’s mind toward an elevated sense of purpose.
Peak experiences
Losing the ego, merging as one.
Noticing the goodness in people.
When everyone is working together, awesome things can happen.
We are more alike than dissimilar.
When we talk about values, what about the value of life? Can we agree that war, torture and destruction are bad?
And if we can’t agree on this basic premise: that lie is good, that people are basically good, then what are we talking about when we say we’re promoting our values? Isn’t it an empty shell of a promise until we specify which values we hold?
People who have peak experiences report feeling one with the world, that they lose their sense of ego, and that they suddenly know the connectedness of all things. A person like that understands that It is impossible to separate experiences into science and the sacred.
When we talk about “values” since we should not separate our higher sensibilities from the meaning of the word, it becomes easy to notice hypocrisies like war. There is nothing noble in war if I value life.
So when is it okay to kill?
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 12, 2011
You can’t start a corporation without at least three board members because if they have to vote on something, there needs to be a tie-breaker.
So why do we have a government where one of the most important legislative bodies (if not the most important) has only two parties?
Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on December 11, 2011
I admit it: comedy makes me feel good. And to that end, I seek it out, over other forms of entertainment like sports or NASCAR, or hunting.
I can only wish I had the wit of Tina Fey who seems to be a bottomless pit of comedy, or the ease of somebody like Andy Samberg who makes me giddy just by looking at him.
I admit: I don’t watch much television. And I rarely, if ever, watch the news programs. I just don’t have the time. I’m trying to run a business with a fair amount of employees, and I take care of a special needs daughter, and I have friends who take precedence over television.
Some news is just so sad, I avoid it because it puts me into a negative state of mind. I consistently watch the Daily Show or Colbert Report because then I can handle the “news.” Not that it’s real, mind you. It’s fake, and so I take it with a grain of salt.
But then, I take everything with a grain of salt. I don’t believe anything I read or see on TV until I’ve checked and re-checked the sources, if I even have time. Remember the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
I live by those words. I learned about the tsunami in Japan before almost anyone else in California, because I just happened to be up at 4:00 in the morning and on my computer. I don’t live in the dark. Instead, I choose to be informed about the things that most interest me, and I do serious research when the need arises. I self-educate, and I don’t expect that television news programs could improve on this method.
I don’t pretend to know everything, and when people ask me a question, I would rather tell them “I don’t know” than try to bluff my way through. I know a lot about sustainable practices in gardening, and about my daughter’s ADD, specific to her and her alone. When I need help finding something out, I know how to find the right people.
This is the mark of a resilient person: someone who knows how to ask for help when they need it. No one can do a major thing alone.
