Yeah, I know, an atheist isn't supposed to say that. (Whose rule is that, again?) But my choral group performed the chorus "For Unto Us a Child Is Born" from Handel's Messiah this year, and since my regular post this week fell on Christmas, I thought I'd talk about that piece. As an artist, there isn't a more eloquent way to express what it means to me than to play it:
Hands down, this is one of my favorite pieces of music, and always has been. And here, it is performed here by one of the premier groups in the world. But, of course, I'm a non-believer (thus the idea behind the #AtheistEar series) and I approach a piece like this differently than a believer would.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
The tradition I was raised in taught that this verse is a prophecy from the prophet Isaiah, who lived about 800 years before the time of Jesus. Handel includes it in his Christmas oratorio because many Christian traditions hold that this prophecy referred to the birth of Jesus, and while that is certainly not how the Jewish people read that passage, it was considered to be a major argument legitimizing Christianity as a sect of Judaism in its earliest days.
Not being a person who believes in the existence of the supernatural, of course I don't accept the Divinity of this story as Gospel (get it?), but the evidence seems to indicate* that there was actually a human being at the center of the Christmas story. Who he was, when he was born, and what his name was are up for debate; who wrote the stories and sermons attributed to him may be an open question; but at the very least, it's safe to say that a small group with a dynamic leader did teach some pretty radical ideas in that corner of the Roman Empire about 2,000 years ago.
I've written recently about the darker, more gruesome side of the Gospel story (see "There Is Power In the Blood"), but for the sake of the Handel piece, I'm only going to focus on the uplifting side today. From a secular humanist point of view, the core teachings attributed to Jesus Christ are pretty important ideas.
After all, he is supposed to have said "Love your neighbor as yourself," which is the essence of the Golden Rule. And his answer to the follow-up question, "But who is my neighbor?" is an undeniably important foundation of a peaceful society. (You might Imaginea more modern artist singing songs about that ideal, too!)
While Christians certainly don't own the original copyright on the idea of universal brotherhood, their influence on Western civilization had a lot to do with the way they championed the idea of using love and forgiveness as the central driving force of human life instead of power and wealth.
It is my opinion that Christians are at their best when they remember the ideals that they share with humanists and progressive or liberal elements of other faiths, and fight to protect the weak against the wealthy and powerful - as Jesus commanded them to do. Of course, I'd be happier if they did that because it is the rational and moral thing to do without the weight of a commandment from a divine character in their mythology... but these days, I think the side of decency needs all the allies it can get, regardless of why they're on that side.
Remember, from where I sit, the entire Christmas story is pure mythology. Aside from the existence of Jesus, there is no reason to believe that any of the accounts given in the Bible are accurate or factual. I know the fact that I see it that way is offensive to some, and I don't say it to be mean-spirited. But I mention it because being fiction doesn't take away from the relevant parts of the story. Dickens only wrote fiction, so there was no actual Ebenezer Scrooge - yet the transformation of Scrooge is still something that I find inspiring. Dr. Who is wildly fictional, but I still take a great deal of joy in the humanist ideals expressed through those stories.
Keep that in mind when I tell you that I enjoy singing a piece like this chorus from Handel's Messiah. I may not believe the same literal story you do, but I believe in the same goal. And I recognize that your intention when you celebrate is to glorify the person who you see as the source of the moral fabric that binds us together, whether I see him that way or not.
For all the pain and terror that can be pinned on Christianity in the course of Western history, Christmas is a festival that tries to focus on that message of love and hope. When Christians stay true to that message, they are at their best, and in our divided, diverse, and often combative world, it's important for all of us to be reminded of that.
* I recommend starting with Bart Ehrman's 2012 book "Did Jesus Exist?" for as neutral an assessment of the historical evidence as you are likely to find.
Here's a little holiday gem from crooner Bing Crosby, off his hit White Christmas collection, Merry Christmas. See if you can guess what I want to say about it while you listen!
Call me old fashioned, but if a number one hit holiday album can't reference death (4 times) and imprisonment (twice), then it just doesn't feel festive.
But seriously, this was a hymn we would occasionally pull out - usually around Father's Day - and plod through lugubriously in order to honor the fathers in the congregation. I was actually surprised to find it on a Christmas album, because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the birth of Christ. Then again, this was recorded in an era when doctors said smoking was good for you, so there's that.
The lesson I took away from this song when I was a kid was probably not the lesson intended by the "fathers" of the church. (Which faith? Depends on which fathers...) As we gloomily intoned verses about our fathers chained in prisons dark, we were living in the salad days of Reagan's "shining city on a hill," waking up from the Baby Boom years. For all of the references to "dungeon, fire, and sword," it occurred to me that this song didn't really apply to my family:
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark, Were still in heart and conscience free How sweet would be their children's fate If they, like them, could die for thee
Millenials probably recognize that notion - "you kids don't know how good ya got it, do ya?" But since my father hadn't suffered any of the things in the song, the message clearly wasn't directed at me. If anything, these words seemed to be directed at my father - "look at the sacrifices of those who came before," it sang. Not that I don't appreciate my father, but the most gruesome ordeal he had to put up with was me. That hardly fits the sentiment of the song.
I could almost see my grandfather, who had served in World War II, shaking his head at the relatively painless brush with Army life my dad had endured and putting that generational guilt trip on him. Of course, I've since learned that both of my grandfathers had relatively safe tours in their war, compared to what their Civil War grandfathers endured - so maybe this song was meant to put the guilt trip on them by their fathers... and so on, back to a time when Christians actually were persecuted for their faith. (Which raises the uncomfortable point that the worst persecutors of Christians on this continent were other Christians.)
Even at that age, though, this idea started to smell at bit off. For one thing, even though the American Revolution was painted as a war fought for freedom - particularly freedom from the state religion of England - that wasn't really the point of that war. If anything, you could make more of a case that the Revolution set the stage for our secular Constitution, which is something we quarrel about to this day.
The one takeaway from this song that I really could get behind, then as now, was this verse:
Faith of our fathers, we will love Both friend and foe in all our strife; And preach Thee, too, as love knows how By kindly words and virtuous life.
This idea gets a bit broken up by the rhyme scheme, but I read it as a statement of what the "faith of our fathers" is supposed to be, and I actually quite like it. If I may take the liberty of restating that verse:
"We will love both friend and foe as we all struggle along, and demonstrate our values 'as love knows how' - through being kind and true to our principles."
Call me a sucker for festive holiday tunes, but that speaks to this secular humanist. I won't be pulling this one out to sing around the tree, but at least with that interpretation, I can live with it.
But you can keep the guilt trips and the torture for another holiday.
I was not a "child of the '60's" by any stretch of the imagination.
My exposure to the 1960s was solely through the filter of my very straight-laced parents and their record collection: Dean Martin, The Monkees, Glen Campbell, Cher, Peter, Paul and Mary, and... Leonard Nimoy. Yes. THAT Leonard Nimoy. The Way I Feel (you should find the LP some time and check it out). We had a couple of Beatles records, but as I later discovered, they fell out of favor after John Lennon's remark about being "bigger than Jesus" - and that copy of Rubber Soul was as close as I got to "counter-culture" until high school. Thinking positivity If you wanna be with me I'll take you to the promised land Come on baby take my hand Stop Draggin AroundOf course, I did grow up in the 1980s, and nostalgia for "flower power" was all the rage. I missed a lot of that because our family lived out in the sticks, and we didn't have a VCR until 1989 - so while my friends were into the Vietnam-era war pics and Cheech & Chong, I was mostly sitting home, not a part of the whole scene.
Not that I wanted any part of it - that silly hippy-dippy drug culture stuff was for sinners. I was deep into my church and considered myself above all of that nonsense. I saw myself as above it all, and I resisted "temptation" like a good boy. I've been lost in the name of love And we kill our brothers daily in the name of god We'd better chill before we take on some tribulation And if we realized Then we'd make a little love now sing What The Fuck Are We SayingPuberty changes things. That is an intentional understatement.
It was easy to dismiss the New Age philosophy and all of the political talk of the 1960s with the benefit of hindsight (and lots of coaching from Grandpa and my church family), but hormones bring home a truth that is hard to ignore. Feeling my body take over my mind in so many ways made me understand that "control" is not simply a matter of following rules. I began to recognize that the things people feel are real to them - and unless you've felt what they feel, you can't judge them. My mama said That it's good to be fruitful But my mama said Don't take more than a mouthful And my mama said That it's good to be natural And my mama said That it's good to be factual Always On The RunAfter I started questioning my principles, I was freed to explore things that I had always disdained. Music was the most exciting area to explore, because it felt both defiant and safe; I could try out crazy ideas without necessarily DOING crazy things. I could listen to stories and feelings and see places and pieces of history that had passed me by while I was trying to fit the world inside my Bible.
Some things are easier to get into than others, though, and a lot of the really revolutionary, underground, and radical stuff from the Summer of Love and the early 1970s still shocked my sensibilities. I couldn't get into Lennon's politically charged anthems, I couldn't grasp Jimi's wild guitar work, and I really had no idea what to make of Zeppelin. There were singles that I liked, but there was so much out there - and much of it was so FAR out there - that I couldn't figure out where to start.
And there was another wrinkle to this musical blockage.
A white Southern Baptist kid never feels comfortable with certain things. What it is they are uncomfortable with will vary, but for me, it is Soul music. It's not that I don't like it, but rather that I become self-conciously hyper-aware while I am listening to it that I am an awkward white kid, and that something deeply sexual is happening that I should probably not be exposed to. Much of the Sixties vibe revolves around an exploration of Soul. Sometimes it's more Blues, sometimes it's covered up by the bombast of Rock; but underneath it all is the sexually charged subtext of black people and their freedom from the Puritanical roots that my ancestors instilled in their descendants. So many tears I've cried So much pain inside Baby it ain't over 'til it's over So many years we've tried And kept our love alive 'Cause Baby it ain't over 'til it's over It Ain't Over Til It's OverAll of which brings me to my point: why Mama Said is such an important album to me. With all of these many paragraphs of prologue, you might be expecting something deep, but like the counter-culture, and hippies, and free love and drugs, there's really not much beneath the surface.
There is an important thing inside all of us that sets limits. For people like me, those limits can sometimes be deeply ingrained, almost like a moat, and it takes something special to bridge the gap to the other side. Lenny's sophomore album made these things safe for me.
That was all I needed. You say you can't trust me Have you tried? You say you don't love me That's a lie There are so many so many rainbows That we were to climb But baby baby why can't we survive? We've got to get our heads untangled And free our state of mind The Difference Is WhyLenny's music is not deep - the lyrics border on vapid, and the rhymes are sometimes forced to the point of ridiculousness. The music has been widely criticized as being derivative of Hendrix and Zeppelin, and there's no doubt that this is true.
But.
For a white suburban Southern Baptist kid intimidated by his sexuality and the wide world he was facing, Mama Said gave me a place to relate and unwind. It didn't matter that this guy was singing - in falsetto! - about sex, because it was relatively harmless. (At least compared to Prince.) And it didn't matter that the guitars were only a little loud (courtesy of Slash), because these songs rocked! It felt to me like what it was for Lenny: a celebration of a lot of really good things.
The trouble with hippies is that they tend to be shallow and frivolous. But somehow, the magic of this album was that it didn't have to be deep or important. It wanders through Fields of Joy, and if you learn to relax, you will find that the limits you set for yourself don't have to be shattered to be softened. You don't have to destroy yourself to grow. You can just take it as it comes.
And there's really nothing wrong with that at all.
I have no doubt that the city of New York has changed considerably in the nearly 25 years since Lou Reed recorded his album of songs about it - but I would be willing to bet that these songs still describe it pretty well. It's hard to know how well without going, but I do live in Baltimore, and it isn't hard to imagine some of these dark snapshots being taken on the streets here.
Because even though they grow up, die off, move away, or find Jesus in the course of a quarter century, people don't really change.
The man if he marries will batter his child and have endless excuses The woman sadly will do much the same thinking that it's right and it's proper Better than their mommy or their daddy did Better than the childhood they suffered The truth is they're happier when they're in pain In fact, that's why they got married. - Endless CycleAt the top of the liner notes, it says "This album was recorded and mixed at Media Sound, Studio B, N.Y.C., in essentially the order you have here. It's meant to be listened to in on 58 minute (14 songs!) sitting as though it were a book or a movie." That's not a bad description at all.
The scenes alternate between angry rockers and bitter down-tempo scenes of life in the Big City. He kicks off with his starker, more realistic take on West Side Story, and then goes to a Halloween Parade - first retelling the Shakespeare story with hoods and thugs, then listing the colorful & wild characters he has watched drop dead of AIDS. As he alternates through each scene, Lou describes the familiar, banal, and frustrating humanity crammed together into any large urban environment - complete with the glimmers of hope.
But they're only glimmers. Manhattan's sinking like a rock, into the filthy Hudson what a shock They wrote a book about it, they said it was like ancient Rome The perfume burned his eyes, holding tightly to her thighs And something flickered for a minute and then it vanished and was gone. -Romeo Had JuliettePeople don't change. The names do, the faces do, and sometimes their stories play out in a place that has been cleaned up, rebuilt, or improved. We tell ourselves that things can get better - and we try to make it better - but people don't change. They act selfishly, and almost universally put their short term pleasure ahead of any long term benefits they might get out of life. They sacrifice their health in favor of distraction, and they complain about the surroundings they create. There's no such thing as human rights When you walk the N.Y. streets A cop was shot in the head by a 10 year old kid named Buddah in Central Park last week The fathers and daughters are lined up by The coffins by the Statue of Bigotry You better hold on something's happening here. -Hold OnThat's not good news, in itself. But the idea is that as shocking and horrible, and full of irony as that song is, it still feels familiar and immediate. Things don't change much in 25 years because there really is only so far down you can go. I always hear people talking about how we going to hell in a handbasket as if these kinds of things are new. They aren't. They've always happened. You can't depend on no miracle You can't depend on the air You can't depend on a wise man You can't find them because they're not there You can depend on cruelty Crudity of thought and sound You can depend on the worst always happening You need a Busload of Faith to get by -Busload of FaithBad things will always happen, because People don't change. But we keep trusting that someone will save us. We keep thinking it could get better if the right leader or the right team would come along and show all those bad guys a thing or two.
And while you may not get the references made in some of these songs to events and people from 1989 - Oliver North, Kurt Waldheim, Jesse Jackson and even Rudy Giuliani- Lou's name-checking still holds its weight as he describes the world they helped shape.
It's a world you live in.
Well Americans don't care for much of anything Land and water the least And animal life is low on the totem pole With human life not worth more than infected yeast Americans don't care too much for beauty They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach And complain if they can't swim -Last Great American WhaleThis is an ugly album, and an angry one - it's a photograph of each of us, living in a rundown world we inherited from people who wanted to think they were giving us something better. It's disappointment and disgust, a stark look at ourselves, whether we live in cities or not. But in the middle of it all there is a persistent, defiant hope. He never quite comes out and says it, but you can tell Lou thinks that he is better than this rat-infested garbage pit he sees all around him.
Maybe it wouldn't be so disappointing if we all weren't capable of better. Romeo Rodriquez and Juliette Bell didn't have to make the choices they made, after all, and neither do you.
It might be fun to have a kid I could pass something on to Something better than rage, pain, anger and hurt I hope it's true what my wife said to me She says Lou, it's the Beginning of a Great Adventure -Beginning of a Great AdventureThe truth is that's how we make it better. People don't change, so it's up to us to make them better from the Beginning.
Maybe following that glimmer will lead us out of the trash.
There's three sides to every story: Yours Mine the Truth. - Cupid's DeadSometimes we're just too clever for our own good.
Extreme is a band that has suffered from straddling a line between down-to-earth and over-the-top. They clearly had the chops and the musicianship needed to rule the earth, but they wanted something else. And what they wanted was something that you can't come right out and ask for: your fans have to figure it out on their own.
I'm a hapless romantic St-t-tuttering p-poet Just call me a Tragic Comic 'Cause I'm in love with you - Tragic ComicI'm one of the many fans and critics who consider their best effort to have been the album entitled (somewhat ambiguously) III Sides To Every Story. It was their third, following up their breakout hits More Than Words and Hole Hearted. If the world was a fair place, then III Sides would have been the homerun the band needed to hit. It showcases one of the world's best guitarists without being a "guitar" album, and it blends thoughtfulness, spirituality, and humor in a wickedly funky metal confection.
The band tried to pull off something really difficult with their concept. After all these years, even a fan like me isn't entirely sure what the message was, or what it all really means. I know that there are parts that I really get, and others I don't. I'm never entirely sure I'm comfortable with what it says.
Mr. Goody Two Do you really thing the world Can be Black, White, and Jew?
...Mr. Music Man Don't turn your back on me? Cause I'm the one with the gun - Peacemaker DieAt first glance, this bold and disturbing stance seems obvious. Clearly, since this is a concept album about politics and belief, and since the first "side" of the three - Yours - was not meant to reflect the band's own opinions and beliefs, you can't take this bravado and swagger at face value. For these songs, they ought to be painting a picture of the Other Guy - the one we're supposed to be against.
This world ain't big enough for two And I've got my sights on you - WarheadsOh, yeah - that guy is an aggressive jerk. That's YOUR side, alright. Not mine. I know people like him, so "Your" side is about him, right?
That works to a point. But then you see something of yourself in that Other guy:
"Make love/not war" sounds so absurd to me We can't afford to take these words lightly or else our world will truly Rest in Peace - Rest In PeaceWait a minute - I hold to that sentiment myself. Even though the threat of Soviet-inflicted Armaggedon is even less likely now that it was in 1992, I know that we can't afford to neglect our own defense. Maybe these guys consider me to be that Other guy? And yet, I'm also far from the Warhead described in the opening track.
This second-guessing goes on throughout the whole album; what are these songs trying to tell me about the band? Or about myself?
Picture a world without any color You couldn't tell one face from another I can't understand why we fight with our brother - Color Me BlindJust when you think you've got it figured out - which side is which - they throw in something that doesn't fit. Are they hippies? No, because why would hippies put Color Me Blind on "Your" side? Maybe they're trying to show that both "sides" have some balance? Maybe they're trying to show that there's common ground between the "sides"?
But then there are the chilling moments, where you see something horrific and alien in the Other side. I still get goosebumps from the sick feeling of being inside the mind of a violent extremist as the band plays a sample of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech over the repeated leit-motif of "Peacemaker Die." I know exactly where the gunshot is, and I still jump when I hear it. If I identified with "Your" side up to this point, I would be suddenly forced to realize something horrible about the person that "Your" side describes.
All the world's a masquerade made up of fools and philosophers Were it to rain on our charade, all washes away, except for our true colors - Stop The WorldHow many listeners were put off by this inherent confusion, I wonder? And how many missed the larger point because they either took the lyric at face value as something the band really believes, or pushed away from what they took to be criticism of their own beliefs? Judging by the sales figures, a lot of people didn't get it.
Which is sad, because there is a lot of goodness here. I suspect the disappointment from the way this album was received led to the frustrating compromises the band made on their next release; a so-called "grunge" album that their more loyal fans saw as a "sell out" move. I'm just glad they had the courage to take this risk, and give us this album first. It must have been a real conflict to decide to do so.
And conflict is really what this whole thing is about. While the conflict on Your side is harsher and more threatening, Mine is more open and accessible. This side is the questioning, sentimental side.
If I had one wish It wouldn't be hard to choose Seven Sundays in a row 'cause that's the day that I spend with you - Seven SundaysI think we can all recognize the hopefulness and futility that comes from trying to sort out our place in a world that seems downright crazy. We all think we're just good, average folks trying to make our way through; we all want to rely on someone stronger and smarter than us to pull us through; and we all want to escape from the glad-handing charlatans trying to take advantage of us.
But even here on what should be common ground we have a problem to sort out, because of all of this religious imagery and language. Seven Sundays could be a sweet song for your steady girl - or it could be about a relationship with God. And that duality gets more overt when you compare it to the aggressive R. Lee Ermey father that opened the album. Just what exactly are they trying to say about God?
Oh Daddy please Take me with you, where you going Oh Daddy please Come find the time, come watch us growing - Our FatherI used to only listen to the halfway point of this album - something which has changed, or I wouldn't rightly be able to call this a "pound for pound" album. I used to get mad or bored with the more religious and heavily orchestrated songs from Our Father on - but now I don't.
I would get mad because it sounded (in my younger days) as if the band were urging me toward some kind of religious answer. I would get bored (later on), just dismissing this section as an attempt to deal with Daddy issues. Now I see that, like the other sections, we have the same mix of conflicted points of view that we saw in the first half.
So I start off every day Down on my knees I will pray (for a change in any way)
But as the day goes by I live through another lie if it's any wonder why!
Am I ever gonna change? If I say one thing then I do the other It's the same old song that goes on forever - Am I Ever Gonna Change?After years of listening, pondering, wondering, supposing, and rethinking, I still don't really have any answers. But I do think these guys were onto something 20 years ago. I think there is an important lesson here and that it still applies. I don't pray, but I recognize that prayer is an externalized form of meditation. We humans keep looking for answers outside of ourselves; we keep hoping to change others - whether their minds or just their behavior - as if that alone would make everything better.
But the world keeps spinning, and I keep getting sucked into the same arguments with the same kinds of people. Anger begets anger, frustration breeds contempt, and no one ever feels like their "side" is fairly represented.
Maybe the real solution to the puzzle is to let someone else have the last word.
Am I ever gonna change? I'm the only one to blame When I think I'm right, I wind up wrong It's a futile fight that's gone on too long.
Despite all of the hair pulling over "job-killing legislation" and blame-throwing about sending jobs overseas in our national discourse lately, you'll notice that no one has any real plan for getting people back to work. I suspect the reason for this is that unemployment these days has less to do with tax codes or trade agreements than it does with something we tend to like - Innovation.
The thing about innovation is that it is driven by a desire on the part of the innovator to Do Less Work. To be fair, it is also driven by a desire to improve safety and efficiency, but the pressure to come up with new ways to do more with less is ancient. Whoever built the first water-driven mill wanted to save time and strength previously devoted to grinding grain by hand, feed more people, and make more money. It worked. Mills grew into elaborate (and often dangerous) enterprises used in all kinds of manufacturing during the Age of Industrialization, and pressures from labor costs and safety measures drive the need to replace human workers with machinery. That pressure has increasingly driven the story of the past century or two, and isn't going away any time soon.
I'm not here to tell you that the continued and accelerating mechanization and automation of our world is "good" or "bad" - just that it's inevitable. And these are just a few of the obvious ways it's going to change in the next decade or two:
Truck Driving - I've talked with my friends about the Google Car, and how I think that within 5 years of hitting the open market, it will become unreasonably expensive for a human to afford the insurance needed to operate their own vehicle. Many people are skeptical that these self-driving cars are even possible, or that independence-minded Americans would "go for that" - but the technology has been growing up around us for at least a decade (sponsored by DARPA) and Americans have proven time and again that they'll buy anything if you convince them it's "safer" than what they have.
And while driving jobs won't go away overnight (there are nearly 1.5 million Teamsters Union members who will fight it), when it comes down to time, safety, and fuel costs, they won't be able to compete with the progeny of a Roomba and a TomTom in a Peterbilt. My guess is that long-haul cargo trucks will go automatic first, and local Fed-Ex or UPS delivery folks will hold out longest. And somewhere in there Zipcar will launch the first Johnny Cab.
Manufacturing - We've already gotten used to the idea of factory jobs disappearing; it's cheaper to pay a machine that doesn't worry about health insurance and retirement benefits to make stuff, after all. But a relatively simple innovation in 3D Printing is set to take even that away - or decentralize it and put manufacturing into every home. I guess it depends on your point of view.
This is one of those ideas that no one seems to see coming. Applications in food design and medical techniques have begun to creep into the public eye, first; and since plastic is already pretty easy to work with, it's likely that the marketing angle that hooks most of us is that you'll never need to run out to the dollar store to pick up little plastic doodads - just download them on the web, and print them out here. There's even a Makerbot on the market already.
Soldiering Surely this is a profession that will ALWAYS need people, right? Or have you been paying attention? Surely, you don't think the "future" isn't already here?
Just don't tell the U.S. military in Iraq... or the mercenary manufacturers. If that doesn't make you feel safe and secure, remember that they'll always need pilots to remotely guide these robots in the battlefield... oh, wait. Forgot about the Google Car.
Sales - Yeah, you might tell me that the ship has sailed on this one. The whole "Internet will replace stores" thing was debunked in a 1995 Newsweek article, wasn't it? (So, Mr. Stoll, what do you say these days about Amazon, eBay, and PayPal?)
But buying is just the end point of sales; won't we always need people to explain products to people and convince them to buy? Probably not. If anything, the runaway success that Google and Facebook have had in just the last five years ought to make you reconsider that career in retail. Some will still be able to make a living scripting and filming the adverts, but the sales floor will be your house, and when you click the PayPal button your new product will either print out on your 3D printer, or catch the next Johnny Cab to your door.
So what will we be able to do? Are there any jobs left? Are we going to let the robots take over? What will we do?
Small-scale, specialty farming is already a hobby in many places - perhaps more people will do things like this Garden Pool in their yard? Energy generation will likely continue to be profitable; getting decentralized, small-scale solar, wind, and geo-thermal will not only run your fridge and game systems, but provide you with income. Of course, maintaining those things is work, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that most people would rather leave that to machines, too, eventually.
So what's left? Reading, writing, music, gaming; we seem to have an endless capacity for entertaining ourselves. Will all of this mechanization and free time finally provide for everyone and tame our conflicts? Will we start taking serious steps into space? Or will we devolve into one of the many dystopian possibilities?
I don't know. I hope for the brighter visions. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy what I do.
Making things better is difficult and boring work. Breaking things is easier. The natural tendency to pick the easier path can be called "entropy". Our most important job - assuming we want to live in a safe, beneficial civilization - is to fight that entropy, and that means working on improving ourselves and keeping to the moral codes that society is built on.
We all need to apply this advice to ourselves, and to how we relate to others - whether they are people we know and talk to, or people we watch via the various media.
Assume good intent. It's always easy to find "evidence" to "prove" that someone else wants to take that easy entropic path - and it's impossible to deny that we all feel the urge to break everything down and start from scratch. But it is vital that we not act on that "proof". Act as though everyone really is working toward the same goal - never give them the excuse they need to decide that cooperation is pointless.
Don't settle for shortcuts or shorthand. What do phrases like "special interests" mean? How often are "some people" or "many people" accused of some action? How often are "most people" attributed with certain thoughts or beliefs? We all use these shortcuts because "everyone knows" what we're talking about - but it's too easy to fool ourselves into making assumptions that aren't true.
Don't confuse attitude with substance. The other side will ALWAYS seem smug to you, especially when they are right about something. The attitude of either party about their "correctness" does not affect that "correctness" in any way.
Don't act out of destructive frustration.Calling it "revolution" just jazzes it up. We all need to act out of a sense of constructive cooperation. We all want the same things - freedom, prosperity, happiness - and those are not limited commodities. NOBODY has the whole solution - that's why we form groups and argue. Argument itself, like cultivation or home maintenance, is necessary, difficult, and often messy work.
I hope that I'm helping. I trust that is your intention, too.
When Bill Watterson retired from writing the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip on December 31, 1995, I was just one of the millions of people who were heartbroken.
In his biography of Watterson, "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip", Nevin Martell tells us what we already knew: I was not alone in that state. But in reading this book, I discovered something that hadn't ever occurred to me before about Watterson's retirement. This discovery hit me between the eyes as I read about Watterson's life, and saw the interviews recounted by Martell; it wasn't just a discovery about Watterson, or about myself, but about all of us.
What I discovered was what Bill Watterson tried to tell us, both before and after he left us behind and went off to do whatever it is that he's doing now.
Chances are that you found Calvin and Hobbes to be a deeply resonant piece of American art. It wasn't just funny, or "sweet", or merely entertaining - it was important to us. His biographer moans about how difficult it is to "track down" the elusive artist, but Watterson's work gave us everything he wanted to say to us about himself, and we loved it. This comic strip is one of the few things that people say they love that they truly DO feel love for. It's one of those few things that we can all instantly picture or can retell to our friends. I've been an office worker my entire adult life, and of all the comic strips hung on walls or doors, Calvin & Hobbes is the only one I have seen in *every* office (even some where such personalizations were strictly forbidden).
And this is as true in 2010 as it was in 1995... all without much in the way of promotion or marketing.
A lot of people may remember Watterson's position on licensing; for those who don't, I can tell you that Mr. Martell does a great job of conveying it through Watterson's words, and through the words of his publishing syndicate. I know I have always felt a little disappointed that there is no C&H merch to be had anywhere; no key chains, no magnets, no plush toys or plastic figurines. And even before picking up this book, I knew as well as anyone that there were literally millions of dollars to be made from such licensing.
A comic strip "Garfield", by comparison, makes literally Billions of dollars from sales, licensing, endorsements, movies ... the list goes on. Martell talks a bit about that, too, to give us an idea of the level of industry that can be generated around a strip, and to give us an idea of the amount of pressure on Watterson to take this path. All of the "big name" strips have some level of this going on... But when was the last time you bothered reading a Garfield comic strip? Or any of the Brand Name strips, really. Did you laugh? Smile? Remember anything about it after putting it back down?
Watterson tried to tell us how he felt about all of this, and he was nearly universally criticized for it. He told us through interviews, in the strip itself, and in one of the rare speaking appearances he made before going into self-imposed exile. Whether the criticism came from other comics writers snubbed by his words, or from would-be marketers wishing he'd let Calvin hawk cereal or allow Hobbes's face on a line of kid's underwear, or even from casual fans like myself who thought they'd look witty and cool with Calvin's class photo pictures on a t-shirt - no one really understood that Watterson had a very clear idea of the gift he wanted to give to us. More importantly (and more to the point of posting this blog): no one understood what he wanted in return.
Bill Watterson only wanted to write his comic strip, and be successful enough at it to support his family.
But, you will argue, why couldn't he do that AND give permission so we could have all the stuff, too? The answer to this is the epiphany I had reading this book. I have written before about how the internet is changing our economy, and have spoken privately to my friends about the ways in which I feel our hyper-marketing "free" market system destroys the very things we find to be of value.
Some of you have heard me talk anecdotally about how hard it is for us to find products that we can all eat (due to allergies) or fruit juices that have actual fruit in them. There are multiple movies and books available to describe the ways the food industry corrupts the products we try to buy in the name of efficiency and "broad appeal". And we all know how often (and awfully) it happens in the entertainment business - do I need to queue up some Disney sequels or the Star Wars Christmas Special?
It was Watterson's personal and professional integrity and his complete focus on and control over his strip that made it what it was. And he was right that industrializing it would have destroyed it.
Our obsessions with celebrity are not news. The desire of industry to exploit that obsession is not news. Even the story of someone trying to avoid the corrosive influence of fame and money is not news. Kurt Cobain put a shotgun in his mouth in 1994 for the same reasons that Bill Watterson cited when he walked away from his world renowned comic strip, and many of us shrugged and said, he's just another spoiled rock star. So where's the "so what" in this? What's the big lesson?
The lesson is that it can be done. Watterson did exactly what he wanted to do with his life: he gave us 10 years of top-notch art, in daily 3-panel and weekly 9-panel installments. He changed us; he affected us; and, as friends often do, he moved on to do something else.
Bill Watterson achieved the real American dream. He did it with class and grace, said thank you, and then walked away. He never exploited us, nor has he allowed anyone else to do so. And when the world sat at his feet begging him to take millions of dollars more to keep going - he knew that doing so would be a lie and a cheat. It wasn't what he wanted to do, and I have no doubt that if I sat at my desk sticking pens into my Hobbes(tm) pencil sharpener, I would not be any happier than I am when I find a copy of "Something Under the Bed Is Drooling" tucked under my kid's pillow.
There are two ways to lose your dream. One is to try and fail; the other is to succeed so wildly that you destroy everything you wanted in the process. I'm glad that Bill Watterson got his dream; and I'm grateful for the 3,160 dreams that we got from him.
A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend described George W. Bush to me as "a decent man you just happen to disagree with politically."
I would tend to describe just about anyone in our elected government that way - though their "decency" may be a fragile thing at times. But her dismissal of the very real problems that I had (and still have) with the Bush Administration bothered me, and I wanted to find a way to address them without being snarky or simply argumentative. Contrary to the picture some of my friends like to paint of me, I never "hated" George W. Bush. I think it's important to remind people of that, but it's hard to separate my strong disagreement with the things he did from the man himself.
Today, that same friend posted this video, which gave me something direct to address:
Since Mr. Bush laid out the points that he seems to think are most important, and capture the best snapshot of his terms in office, I'd like to address them - Point by point:
Quitting drinking at age 40 - this is, of course, an admirable thing to do. It shows a strength of character, and he clearly relied on his strong relationship with his wife and his faith in Jesus to make this change and make it stick. From where I sit, I can see that he essentially replaced the crutch of alcohol with the crutch of his relgion.
That's fine in and of itself - I'm a big proponent of letting damaged people use the tools they need to use to overcome their shortcomings. I also disagree with those who say that a President should not wear his faith on his sleeve the way Mr. Bush often did; if it is truly a part of you, your faith should not be something you hide or avoid mentioning. My only "disagreement" with Mr. Bush's religion is that it is not right for me, and there are other Points where it affected his Decisions in ways that it should not have done.
Running for President - When Mr. Bush ran for President, I was a tired, shift-working burnout serving in the USAF in England. As a distant ex-pat grappling with how I felt about Libertarianism, and wearied by years of anti-Clinton rhetoric, I wasn't ready to vote for the Republican party's theory of "reducing government", but I figured that it would either be a) successful, and therefore worthy of consideration, or b) a failure which might prod the country in a more Centrist direction.
Later, I read about Karl Rove's underhanded tactics (told from John McCain's POV in David Foster Wallace's "Up, Simba" essay), and the cutthroat dishonesty that Mr. Bush engaged in to get the GOP nomination; it was an illuminating discovery, but by then, of course, the damage was done. None of it was, technically, "illegal", but it was dodgy, and I recognized enough of the same in 2004 to be doubly angry at our so-called "two party" system.
But you can't deny that the American populace finds the idea of an affable "good ol' boy" to be appealing, and W. was thoroughly qualified to play that part.
Selecting senior staff - I allowed myself to be optimistic in 2001 when Gen. Colin Powell was added to the Bush team. Never mind that he was one voice among a dozen others that included already-discredited former Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney (an essay for another day, I'm afraid). Never mind that Karl Rove was already known as "Bush's Brain" and that Grover Norquist - the man who said "My goal is to cut government...down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub. " - was planning the destruction of the American government from within.
Education reform - "No Child Left Behind" is often touted as the Bush Administration's one success. Holding teachers accountable for their students' performance and breaking the Unions' death grip on any reform effort are both admirable goals, in my opinion. But as a single "success" it is hardly compelling.
Over the years, I have asked everyone I find who liked and supported Mr. Bush to tell me what else he accomplished. So far, no one has come up with an answer.
Stem Cell research - This is not a debate I enjoy. Finding a legal precedent for the beginning of human life is emotionally wrenching, and the impact of the decision on other lives is horrifying, no matter which way it falls. The only thing in this debate - like the debate over the legality of abortion - which seems certain is that the law must either trust individual doctors and women to make the right decision in each case, or must arbitrarily decide in advance what that "right decision" is, and find a way to intrusively enforce it.
It's a lose-lose situation.
9/11 - There was a moment after the attacks when all Americans were on the same page, and felt the same way. For me, that ended on 9/15/2001, when Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announced (without any evidence) that he intended to get revenge on Saddam Hussein for the attacks. I can't find a reference to that speech, but CBS dug up notes that were more revealing in 2002.
The following points Mr. Bush mentioned in his video all stem from bad decisions made at the urging of his most trusted advisors. Going into combat was debatably the correct move in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. The lasting debacle that is Homeland Security is a testament to the kind of "big government" that Mr. Bush was elected to bring down, and while in the context of "winning" (an idea that was never defined or given a tangible goal) in Iraq the Troop Surge was the right decision, it would not have been necessary if not for the earlier mistake of invading Iraq in the first place.
Re-election - 2004 was a frustrating time for me. Everything I had seen the Bush Administration do to that point told me that the next four years would be equally, if not more awful. And yet, when the Democrats handed us the turd sandwich that was John Kerry, and the American people failed to demand a third option that wasn't on the menu, I began grasping for hope. In the debates, Kerry dismantled Bush point by point, while perversely making him look like the better candidate; Bush spoke of love for each other and our fellow man, and actually gave me a glimmer of hope that his second term would be marked by humility and compassion.
It wasn't.
Tax cut plan - When we got our check - which my lovely bride still refers to as our "Dirty Bush money" - we had to ask: where does this money come from? Did it come out of the welfare checks that would have gone to the "welfare queens" that conservatives hate so? Nope; they're still ahead of us in line at the grocery store buying foods we can't afford. Did it come from subsidies that we shouldn't be paying for "oil exploration" or for small farmers - like ConAgra?
Apparently it came from all of those places where you don't see spending happening; roads, bridges, schools, state and local services, and infrastructure.
At least we got a big screen TV out of the deal, right?
Global AIDS initiative - This really does seem to be a success; at least the 1.7 million Africans benefiting from it might think so. What I find interesting is that no one seems to think of it when they talk about Mr. Bush's successes. Obviously, his opponents wouldn't want to admit that it's a Good Thing(tm)... but it's worth wondering why his supporters wouldn't tout it more loudly.
Unless it simply goes against everything they believe in; tax dollars going to save the lives of brown people in foreign lands without any discernable profit to the U.S.
Mr. Bush: I applaud you for this success.
Then there are the areas where Mr. Bush regrets his failings:
Social Security - I've written and spoken many times about how I agreed with Mr. Bush's approach to this, and how it bears a more rational look from all sides.
Immigration - This, too, is often overlooked as part of the Bush Administration's plans. A real Comprehensive Immigration Reform which would welcome those who want to become a legitimate part of our Dream, and find ways to secure our border against criminals, thugs, and smugglers is still needed. I still hope that we'll be able to look past our racist and nationalistic instincts, and past our petty desire for some kind of "justice" against those who have committed a relatively minor crime, and come up with a solution.
Katrina - This was a difficult issue for everyone. On the one hand, the U.S. President doesn't control the weather, and obviously can't be expected to anticipate every emergency that crops up. Personally, I ignored a lot of the criticism of the immediate response from the White House because so much of it seemed to come from political animosity and misdirected fear; at the same time, there were a lot of bad things that happened or didn't happen because the government was unable to perform its mission.
I saw Katrina as a symptom of the success of Grover Norquist's goal to reduce the government to something that could be drowned in a bathtub. New Orleans showed us that a bathtub is the least of our worries. If we don't invest in public infrastructure, and ensure that the organizations that oversee its maintenance are kept up to date and efficiently managed, we could all end up in a similar situation. There is no way to know in advance whether it will be a hurricane, an earthquake, wildfires, or some other disaster. Global Climate Change scientists have been warning for decades that storms and weather patterns will become more severe AND more unpredictable. Without good government, we will be unprotected.
Katrina did not show me that the Bush Administration was "bad"; it showed me that good government is important.
"...Putting ideology aside" during 2008 economic crisis - This is a point where I agree with Mr. Bush. I agree with him wholeheartedly that the ideology he espoused did not have the answers needed to protect us from the economic crisis. He may not be willing to admit it - his GOP successors certainly don't - but the ideology of "unregulated financial products" that he championed throughout his presidency caused the crisis, just as clearly as uncontrolled speculation caused the 1929 crash.
Thanks to Annie for posting Mr. Bush's video. I intend to read his book, and if moved to do so, may write about it. But I am grateful that Mr. Bush was able to lay out the points that are important to him. It gave me what I have long needed to help define his presidency, and to rationally describe my reaction to it.
I promised I would write about Ron Paul's economics approach, but I'm having a hard time finding the angle I'm looking for. It seems we don't have the vocabulary yet to express where I think we are in the evolution of economics. I've written before about this new kind of "free market" that we seem to be developing:
Instead of manufacturing, sales and service are our bread and butter. Marketing, transportation, and information; these are what the U.S. really thrives on, now. Look at our most successful companies, like Google. They "manufacture" a product which they give away for free, and yet their value has continued to rise...
Anyone with a ~$500 set-up can record, polish, and release an album of songs, and can set up a shop online to sell (or give away) their recordings... [several artists] have offered free downloads of their music, and toured "on demand", making money from shows that were sold out before they were booked, and from selling CDs and DVDs online - again, directly to their niche market.
In a way, we have become more purely Capitalist... and at the same time, with the means of production (almost) freely available to everyone, we have also become more purely Communist (without the purges and bread lines). So what gives? What do we call ourselves in an age where you make a profit from giving your stuff away?
Even money isn't really the "coin of the realm" any more. What is money, after all, but a digital record on a computer of a value that has been mutually agreed upon? What was our last decade of supposed "wealth creation" but a gigantic inflation of that value, which failed when enough of us stopped trusting that it was real?
The coin of the realm - the thing that drives our lives and determines our worth to each other - is information. Not just any information, but information that can be trusted. If you think about it, trust is the only thing that has any real value any more; if you don't believe you will get a return on your investment or be rewarded with a safe and comfortable retirement, you won't invest and you won't remain loyal to one company. If you don't believe that your government will protect you and the world in which you make your livelihood, you won't support it.
I don't claim to be very knowledgeable about economics. I understand a lot of the same "basic common sense" things that most of you understand: supply & demand, and interest, and return on investment. But I also understand that there are a lot of concepts that seem to work counter-intuitively. Insurance seems like a bad idea, gambling on whether the money I give to the company will ever benefit me; yet it's the only investment we made that survived the collapse last year. It's tempting to believe Dr. Paul's claim that getting rid of the intrusive and ineffective government will improve our lives, and yet without the government, all of our "free and unfettered" businesses would have dissolved along with their imaginary wealth, taking the rest of us with them.
But again, I don't think we have the vocabulary to describe what is really happening to our world. We talk about Government and Markets, Corporations and Individuals, "special interests" and "activist groups" as if they are not all the same thing: groups of people trying to get by, get along, or get one over. We all fit into those same groups in some fashion, and no matter how innocent or virtuous we try to pretend we are, we all try to balance our own welfare and that of our fellow humans according to whatever beliefs we identify with most strongly. (Some of us even include non-humans in that balance.)
Dr. Paul spends a lot of time trying to identify with a group of people we Americans call our "Founding Fathers." In passages too numerous and generic to quote here, he calls upon all of us to trust in their mutual vision for this country. He calls on us to protect our freedom and liberty, as those founders would have done. Freedom from what to do what, he would leave up to you to figure out, which plays into the American conceit that as long as you leave me alone, whatever you do is your choice. But these Founding Fathers didn't have a unified approach to things, either.
As Sarah Vowell discusses in her exploration of the Puritans who founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, The Wordy Shipmates, there were a lot of contradictions involved in the founding of our country. The Puritans were a people who believed strongly in personal integrity, industry (in the original sense), and morality - but also in self-sacrifice and the common good. Check out this passage describing a government built on their ideals:
"The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good."
That passage is an enigmatic encapsulation of what America is all about. It sums up exactly what I was trying to describe in my earlier post on government, and depending on how you read him, that social compact is either the summation or antithesis of Dr. Paul's entire life of public service. Any American running for public office builds on that idea, whether advancing it or demonizing it. It unifies and divides us, all in one sentence, and that self-contradiction is what makes our country so beautiful and frustrating all at once.
It was written by John Adams in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Reading Dr. Paul's book, I can appreciate his criticism of our government. We've drifted away from John Adams's ideal, whether from the idea of "voluntary association" or from the idea of "common good" - our systems and institutions have been corrupted by the worst impulses of the free market. But I don't trust his solution: to remove Government from the equation.
When you have a government that looks like the one Adams described, it is the extension of the will of the people it governs to operate in everyone's best interests. The reason we don't have that is because of apathy and neglect from the voting public; the participants who ought to be controlling the government. Dr. Paul should be calling for more involvement IN government, not freedom FROM government.
That is where the Founding Fathers agreed. They wanted to claim more direct control over their own lives and affairs, not throw away control altogether. Our government is supposed to be an extension of our own self-control; it is supposed to reflect our will and our desire for integrity, industry, and personal responsibility. I suspect that the reason we are all so unhappy with it is that it is doing just that.
As for economic theories, I think the new coin of the realm - information and trust - will move us in the direction we need to go. In that sense, Dr. Paul is right; no government body can dictate that trust or earn it through corruption or political wrangling. But that will mean we need figure out better ways to determine who and what to trust. Perhaps that will mean less Government, but it will definitely mean smarter government - and a voluntary involvement in the common good.
Dr. Ron Paul ran for President about eight years too late, in my opinion. That is to say, if you believe in libertarian ideas and would like to see someone who holds them dear in the White House, it would have been better for him to run in 2000 than in 2008.
In 2000, I was weary of the Clinton era. I was tired of the baseless lunacy of the burgeoning Right Wing Media franchise and their constant attacks on the President, and I was tired of the unprincipled sleaze of the man in the White House. I was interested in the Libertarians because they seemed to reflect the common sense, middle ground that I felt I occupied. And the prospect of a Third Party rising that would allow people like me to support the traditional "lefty" causes (ie, be "socially liberal") and the traditional "righty" ideas (ie, be "fiscally conservative") was very attractive.
Dr. Paul's 2008 campaign seemed to be trying to build on that appeal. But by 2008, I was weary of hearing politicians claim that what they wanted was common sense, only to see them fail or get into office and begin pandering to one extreme or the other. It was easy to see where Barack Obama stood, and I respected (and still respect) his willingness to take a centrist position; and his party, while far from perfect, seemed willing to back him up. It was easy to see where John McCain wanted to stand, but his party seemed determined to continue what I see as the simultaneous bloat and erosion of our Federal government - and they had a history of betraying McCain in the past (see "Up, Simba!" for David Foster Wallace's fascinating analysis of the 2000 campaign), a pattern which Palin's nomination as VP seemed to guarantee would be their future strategy, as well.
In 2000, I would have readily embraced Dr. Paul's campaign ideas, but in 2008, I saw him as a tired snake-oil salesman, trying to ensure a Republican victory using discredited memes to lure independents away from Obama's platform. I didn't see any new ideas, just a lot of complaining about the way things were; I didn't see any solutions. And when I have expressed that opinion, supporters of Dr. Paul's revolution have told me to read his book. Considering his Third Party status, and the treatment given to Third Party candidates by the press, it's entirely likely that I didn't get a complete picture of what Dr. Paul was trying to communicate to us.
So, when I opened the book, I was looking for those solutions. I was looking for a vision of what we could realistically do to move in a better direction. I expect a little "Utopian exaggeration", and I expect more than a little criticism of the status quo. But what I want to see is more than that. I want to see how we're supposed to fix things.
I want to see the plans for what we're supposed to build.
What I Found
On the surface, there is much I agree with in Dr. Paul's book. I appreciate his anti-war stance; ironically, when I made many of these same arguments, I was labeled a pacifist liberal sissy by many of my friends and family. Dr. Paul is certainly none of those things. I also applaud his rejection of the creation of laws and federal institutions which have unintended consequences or are unenforceable and needlessly burdensome on our society. I agree with his analysis that many of our government's laws and policies intended to help the unfortunate and unite our wildly different demographic groups have in some cases served to perpetuate the problems they aim to solve.
But underneath some of these ideas, I see some dangerous mistakes. Dr. Paul makes some basic assumptions about what government means and about the basis of our economy which seem rooted in the past. It's good to know our history, but to ignore the direction that mankind is headed, and the fundamental changes that technology is bringing about is a fatal flaw.
I intend to explore some specifics in the next post, but I wanted to make it clear that I did not set out to pick a fight with libertarians or with Dr. Paul's supporters. I read this book hoping to learn whatever truth it was that motivated so many to support his dark horse campaign. There is a lot here to get excited about, and I don't want to seem like I am opposed to everything said here; no one is perfect, after all, and I don't expect anyone ever will be.
However, it would be wrong and foolish to ignore what I see as glaring errors in judgment. So, now that I've spent two "introductory" posts explaining the background, and trying to head off some of the more distracting possible responses, let's explore what those errors are...
I have had an epiphany. I realized that I was wrong: we are NOT in the middle of a Revolution.
Revolutions are bloody, messy things that occur when the dissatisfied forcibly remove those at the "Top", and suddenly realize that it's much more fun to be a Revolutionary than it is to run a government. Revolutions are about what happens at the Top... and what we're doing right now is happening from the bottom-up. Sort of.
You see, this whole Internet fad seems to have taken a big leap forward the last couple of years. It's still full of cranks and flame-warriors... but instead of sniping at each other in newsgroup forums about which Star Trek was best, they are somehow beginning to work together to build Truly Useful Things. They've come up with a handful of simple ideas that have led to the creation of the world's largest encyclopedia, they've shaken the foundations of print media, and they've elected a U.S. President.
If you're not impressed yet, then check out this NPR story about some of the ideas that people are coming up with to handle all of the information being generated these days. Some ideas are of the "gee whiz" variety, but some are truly useful. Applications like Facebook and Twitter have been exploding the last couple of years, as most of you are well aware, while most of the innovations have had to do with new ways to shop or gossip, there are some gems out there - like Kiva.org - that have come up with ways to make a real impact on the lives of those who need help most.
And now it is the U.S. Government's turn. We are standing at the very beginning of the real change, but I think it is safe to call this new "Transparency" the Greatest Innovation in Government in the last century. Terms like "Transparency" and "Government 2.0" are, technically, buzzwords; but the substance behind them is that the Government is beginning to give information out to the Nerds of the world to make of it what they will.
A bunch of my friends have been skeptical of the impact that all of this will have. House Minority Leader John Boehner scoffs openly at the Obama Administration's efforts in his Freedom Project blog (ironic, since he is both blogging and Twittering). But notice that even his scoffing isn't about the use of the technology as much as it is a criticism of the Government's websites: "As with most things government tries to do, it turns out that private citizens and entrepreneurs can do it better." He is talking about the launch of the Government's Recovery.gov website there, and the similarly addressed Recovery.org, which is run by a private firm, and has used the Government's data to create an even MORE Transparent site than the Government was able to create!
Despite the scoffing, it is this kind of competition to "do better" that makes Transparency so powerful. It turns out, a LOT of people are eager to "do better". A LOT of us don't want to rely on the slow moving Bureaucracy to do it for us. And now that the information is being made freely available, there's no telling where we're likely to go with it. And this is funny when you consider what the LAST "Great Innovation of Government" was.
That last Great Innovation happened 125 years ago, when a little known Republican "machine" politician named Chester Arthur was sworn in as U.S. President after the assassination of James Garfield. Arthur reformed the Civil Service and basically gave us the Bureaucracy that we all complain so much about these days. At the time, it was a huge improvement, bringing all of the shady deals and corruption of the system out into the light. Over time, many have learned to "work the system", and my generation saw the greatest growth in voter apathy in our nation's history.
But now Transparency promises to reveal the inner workings of the Bureaucracy in a way that will revolutionize (there's that word again) things as drastically as the Bureaucracy did at the turn of the last century. And there's no need to wait; this isn't a distant future we're talking about. Go check out Tweetcongress.com, and get your representatives lastest thoughts. Or check out the White House blog, where you can find their latest websites and even access their raw data.
Or if you're not that savvy, just make sure that some of your friends are blogging about this stuff like Brian, Andrea, and Marvin are doing. You might be surprised at what you learn.
Of course, if you *want* to sit on your couch and gripe in front of the TV, that's still an option. Have a good time! We'll be over here, Revolutionizing the ways we run our Government.
Okay, here's how this works: I look at patterns. I see stuff happening, and I tell you - all of my friends and companions - what I see coming. Then you get to behave in a mocking, name-calling, or patronizing manner until I turn out to be right...then, it all starts over again.
For example: 20 years ago, I was a Star Trek geek marveling at the cool tech that I saw coming (cell phones, laptops, CDs/mp3s, GPS, etc.) ... and I earned the scorn and derision of my peers and adults for believing that these things would eventually get here. Many wedgies - few dates. And yet, here we are approaching 2010, and a lot of the stuff I was mocked for believing in is being sold at WalMart for under $400. But I'm still considered a geek.
I accept that there will always be naysayers. "That'll always be too expensive." Or "There will never be a market for that." But I've been right often enough about the conclusions I draw from what I see going on in the world that it gets old. And the truly distressing thing to me is that the things I am predicting - things I hope will happen soon enough to make a difference - have been given some unfortunate political stigmas.
Now, for many of you, politics is just another team sport. You have your favorite team, and you tend to let your thinking drift along the direction that your "coaches" tell you it should drift. Anyone disagreeing with you is either biased or misinformed, because your team is the best. And Heaven Forbid that anyone imply that YOU are biased or misinformed, because then the blood will flow!
Well, I don't have a team. I'm not vain enough to think of myself as a "referee", even for the sake of this lame analogy; and really, I'm not even a fan of the sport. I don't really care what political labels you associate with various issues.
Instead, I look at patterns; I see which way the wind blows, and I see the shadows that indicate rocks under the water. When you ask me - either directly, or by making observations of your own in my "hearing" - I will gladly share my opinions with you. All I ask in return is that you accept that I'm not stumping an "agenda" or trying to give some meaningless victory to the "other team".
After 9/11, a lot of people asked me "Why do people hate Americans?" Maybe it was insensitive of me to do so, but I answered that question honestly: "We are seen as too fat, too arrogant, and too powerful. We bully the world into doing things our way, and leave them the scraps. Most people resent that, and some feel moved to blow themselves up to teach us a lesson."
The response I got was not what I expected. I hoped for at least, "Gosh, how can we show people we aren't all like that?" What I got was, "Why do YOU hate America?"
I'm still pretty ticked off by that reaction. It's that "shoot the messenger", "for us or against us" mentality that made the last 8 years a frustrating slog. And it was that mentality that turned me off to candidate after candidate, until I was left with the one that showed some faith in an America that could handle constructive criticism.
It was hard for me to decide to support Barack Obama - not because he was black, or because he was young, or because I disagreed with his ideas. It was hard because he is part of a particular "team", and I knew that supporting him would identify me with that team.
But in the end, it was more important to me to be true to the objective decision that I had to make. It was more important to ask hard questions of those who insist that they have a lock on common sense. I have found that those who bray the loudest about their common sense have trouble answering those questions. Here are a small handful of them:
Question 1: Why is it okay to spend a trillion dollars, taking money out of the pockets of good, hard-working Americans and saddling our children with a nearly insurmountable financial burden to send our troops to Iraq... but it's NOT okay to spend a trillion dollars, taking money out of the pockets of good, hard-working Americans and saddling our children with a nearly insurmountable financial burden to fix all of the stuff that's broken because the last administration was preoccupied with invading other countries?
Question 2: Why do you argue that I can't have electric cars or solar powered houses because "there isn't a market for it", even though there are apparently markets for:
*a tobacco industry that sells an otherwise useless weed to people who then die from the effects of using the product *a food industry manufacturing nutrition-free crap that contributes directly to our growing heart problems, diabetes, and obesity? *oh, and don't forget those low-mileage, high capacity SUVs and trucks that are used as commuter cars - there is apparently a market for those, too.
Question 3: Why are we "a Christian nation with Christian values" until someone points out that Jesus said the opposite of whatever argument you're making... and then suddenly you're an "independent pragmatist and non-religious free-thinker"?
Question 4: Can you tell me the difference between "creating a large bureaucracy to suck TAXES out of our pockets to pay for health care for poor people", and "creating a large bureaucracy to suck PREMIUMS out of our pockets to pay for health care for poor people... after paying for bonuses for corporate executives"? (Hint: both suck.)
I don't believe that any one person or group of people has all the right answers. I expect that the team I've given my support to this year will make some mistakes. When they do, I'll call them on it.
But the other team has had the ball since 1994, and the patterns they've created lead to some pretty unpleasant conclusions. Before you sneer at me and dismiss my opinions, I need you to recognize that I have a pretty good track record, and the patterns are there for everyone to see.
And much like me, the patterns don't care what team you're on.
Bobby had enlisted in the Army in his hometown of Winter Park, Florida.
He did well in training, and ended up applying for a special school, hoping to become a pilot. The Army being the Army, he had to agree to taking a bunch of tests and special classes to qualify, and there was a pretty good chance he wouldn't be selected for pilot school... but he decided to go for it.
The specialty training include aircraft engine mechanic courses at Luke Field, located southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. The class was difficult, but Bobby was smart, and he didn't spend a lot of time and energy getting wasted after hours and on weekends, like some of his friends did. He preferred spending time at a church he had found. A church that hosted "mixers" on Friday and Saturday nights. Church mixers that had girls at them.
That is where he met Nancy.
Bobby and Nancy went out a few times, usually with Nancy's best friend -- whose name was Bobbe! -- and one of her boyfriends. Nancy was only 17, but Bob (it was too confusing having two "Bobbies") had also met her parents at the church, and they trusted him. Bob had even been to their house for Sunday dinner a few times.
Things were going just swell (his words, not mine). Bob and Nancy liked each other quite a lot, but she was still in high school. And being in training for the Army, he didn't know for sure where he would end up next. It was technically peacetime, but the Army was building up. There was talk of the trouble across the Atlantic, even though most Americans thought it was best to stay out of it.
They decided not to worry about it, and to take their time. It was a mature decision. And then Bob was selected for a special class he in California. He would be back after a few weeks, but maybe this meant he would get to learn to fly! So, he said goodbye to Nancy and promised to write to her often.
Not long after that, America was attacked, and everything changed.
There was confusion; there was fear. There were a lot of things happening all at once. Nancy's letters to Bob were frantic; she didn't know where he was, or if the rumors were true that California was next. She hadn't heard from her brother, a Technical Sergeant stationed in the Philippines. All she knew was that she loved Bob, missed him fiercely, and wanted him to be back safe with her.
By the time Bob managed to get a letter through, things had calmed somewhat. People at least knew the basics: the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor; the U.S. had declared war. The West Coast was not under attack. Nancy's brother, Richard, was safe for the time being, though he would be wounded in a sniper attack and end up the war as a guard at the POW camp in Papago, AZ.
Bob had also been turned down for officer training and pilot school. But this would turn out to be good news, because, as a high-scoring mechanic, Bob would spend the rest of the war at Luke Field, maintaining the trainers for the pilots of the P-38's.
And so, on the 28th of June, 1942, Bob and Nancy were married.
You could argue that without December 7, 1941, they might not have decided to wed. It's possible that without the shock of war, and the fear of losing each other, they might have drifted away and only been pen pals. But some things are meant to happen. After all, Bob did eventually learn to fly.
