Dropping the Ball

Dear Reader:

The good professor can't get to posting this week,but the title of this post isn't in reference to his failure to do so, but to the ball that will drop tomorrow night in Time Square when we usher in another year. I'll admit that New Year's Eve is a bit depressing to me. It is one of those holidays rife with expectations that can only be depended upon to disappoint, like Valentine's Day. But then I'm a fan of a really good regular old Thursday, and not days with so much pressure attached.

If you are a regular reader of this blog (thank you!) then you know that we cover a lot of topics. We give a lot of thought to lofty ideas and discussing everything from the current political sex scandal to the fall of the Roman Empire. I thought about rehashing some stories we'd blogged about this year in one of those cliche 2012 story montages. But if you really care what we said all year, it's in the archives.

So instead I thought I'd close out the year in a way that I know my partner will appreciate as well. We wish you the joy of living your authentic life, embracing simplicity, and exuding peace and love in all your actions in the coming year. We hope that you learn continuously so that your mind may stay strong. We hope that you love passionately, that your heart may stay young. We hope that you appreciate and take your health seriously so that your body may be powerful for many years to come. We hope that the coming year treats you kindly and that you do the same to everyone you come in contact with.

Happy New Year.

Theatrical Redemption

From prequels to musicals. We are having an entertaining interlude during the holidays. I saw Les Miserables this evening. My daughter and I had seen the Broadway version many years ago and it was the highlight of our trip to New York. We'd been awaiting this new version eagerly for months.

Much has already been written about the acting and singing in this film version of the much loved classic. I thought Russell Crowe held his own nicely as Javert and his voice was better than what I had expected. (Besides didn't Pierce Brosnan teach us all that we can be entertained by actors with less than stellar singing voices?) Anne Hathoway's portrayal of Fantine is heartbreaking and her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" (filmed in one continuous take) will doubtless win her an Oscar nomination if not the little gold statue itself. Unlike most movies where there are song sequences, the musical numbers in this version of the iconic stage production were not added later in studio recordings but are, instead live vocal performances that were captured during shooting. Hugh Jackman is a memorable Jean Valjean in a role that allows him to play on many of his acting strengths.

If you've seen and loved the play, you'll enjoy seeing the story played out against a stunning backdrop with sweeping backgrounds that lend a sense of drama and grandeur to the piece.

Is it the music that keeps people flocking to this story? Is it the complexity of the story? The messages of hope, love, or perseverance? That is how the story is sold on the movie's current website. But to me it has always been a story about the difference between two religious polar opposites: legalism and grace. In Javert we see a Pharisaical character who is obsessed with adherence to obeying the letter of the law. Debts must be paid, in full, with as much attending pain as possible. There is no room for forgiveness.

In Jean Valjean we see the antithesis of that. We see grace. Redemption. Love and forgiveness where punishment could be rightly demanded. In Valjean we see the person we would hope to be. In him, as well as several side characters, we see self sacrifice. One forgiven who is then capable of granting forgiveness. One who having been forgiven much, loves much. (Luke 7)  His depth and understanding of grace seems beyond most of us when finally having his nemesis handed over to him to do with as he would he offers Javert escape. In the end Javert having no grasp of anything but a cruel and heartless legalism kills himself to end his agony of not being able to align his world view with the world offered to him by the man he'd hunted over the years.

The book is most likely my favorite of all the things I've ever read. Victor Hugo could not have imagined what a gift he'd given to the world when he penned it.

A Word For Prequels

Our Good Readers:

I saw the Hobbit this weekend.  Twice.  Some friends of mine and I had a tradition of seeing all of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies together.  So, even though they now live 5 hours away, we kept the tradition of seeing Tolkien come to the big screen by seeing it together.  Saturday evening and late Sunday morning.  Well, we saw it together, technically.  They’re married to each other, and with no babysitter available, it became a situation where I saw it with her on Saturday night and with him on Sunday morning. 

It was worth it to see it twice.   It is a well-made movie, itself one of three films.  Yes, it may have more appeal to Tolkien purists and fantasy fans, but it was a good movie nonetheless.  It has a rich portrayal of dwarven characters, and given that they’re bigger than hobbits, you may forget for a while that dwarves are shorter than humans.  The casting and acting are good, the vistas magnificent, the storyline pretty crisp and follow-able, and it has some new and interesting characters to go along with some favorites from the LOTR movies.

Yes, it has some feel of the Star Wars movies, with these Hobbit movies (this is the first of three), being made after the big events of the LOTR.  However, it hasn’t been SO long that the actors and so forth have to change much (although airbrushing and makeup are needed, no doubt), and the same characters can make their appearances here and it seems natural.  One is excited for these prequels, because even though the general storyline is known, and the ultimate outcomes as well, there are still plenty of mysteries, surprises, and unusual things.

Don’t let critics sway you beforehand or be daunted by its approximately three hour length.  It has a good mix of character interest, action, epic story, and hints of foreshadowing.  We may have become a bit jaded these days with what seems like a glut of fantasy books and games and movies (something lovers of fantasy from 30 or 40 years ago could scarcely have imagined), but set aside any jaded feelings and go watch a good movie!

And for those of you clutching your chests that the “serious professor” is writing about an “escapist movie,” ah, you don’t know then how much I enjoy feeding my hobbyist side, for I have many interests.  It’s not just about saving the world, you know, it’s also about enjoying it! :)

And besides, on Christmas Eve, how many of you were going to be in the mood for a policy/serious post anyway? LOL  Enjoy the holiday everyone!  And nope, I don’t have my shopping done yet.  Must be off to it!

Ubiquitous Weapon Dystopia

Good readers:

Madame is indisposed, so you get me for a special bonus post. 

What are we filling our lives with?  Do we have space?  When do we just BE?

I was thinking of this when I had dinner with a buddy of mine who has a lot of stress in his life: traveling often, doing two jobs and one occasional job on the side.  We went to Cracker Barrel tonight as a storm was scheduled to come in.  My friend said he was content just to sit by the fire there and drink hot tea and talk.  He said it calmed him.  We have both been deployed in the last few years, and know the longings for home.  My longing when I was deployed was to imagine sitting in Panera and drinking hot chocolate from a ceramic mug and revel in the fact that neither I nor anyone around me in Panera was armed.  When I came home, that reality calmed me.

Those who seem to revel in the prospect of many or most people being armed, that it will make people “safe,” should try living it for an extended period.  You will likely find it far less appealing than you think.  Far from feeling safe and secure, the tension will ripple through everything.  The maddening variables take their relentless, stressful toll on you: Who has the more lethal or dangerous weapon or weapons?  Who gets to use it or them first?  What about IEDs, rockets, mortars, explosives, truck bombs, or even gas or biological?  How do you know who the enemy is until the very last second when it is often too late? 

And you have to sleep sometime.  What weapon that you have can guard you when you are asleep?  If you sleep fitfully, half alert, you can feel what that does to you, mentally and physically.  You can feel the years coming off your life and the mental and emotional rearranging you might never be able to put back to what it was before.

And let’s not even mention when weapons are used.

Good people under that kind of stress can snap.   It is so easy to get tired, to draw the strings too tight for too long.  We are not meant to live under that stress.  See how you feel when comrades, people on the same side, have a misunderstanding, when tempers flare from exhausted people whose adrenals have nearly burned out from the stress.  It’s a special kind of tension to be in the midst of armed people of the same side when they point their weapons at each other and no one wants to back down.

And that was with large numbers of people forced to work together, with minimal distractions or outside responsibilities, against a common “enemy.”  What would be the case in this hyper-individualistic society, where people are alone or in very small groups? 

A society should be careful not to let its desire to preserve life and security come at the cost of the character of that life.

Blood and Sand

Madame,

Well said about the importance of width and breadth in one’s relationships.  Readers would do well to heed your wise words.

That is not the first time I have said that.

It will likely not be the last.

The tragedy in Connecticut has had many words these past few days.  Words that show we, MAYBE, are FAINTLY beginning to make some connections to the similarities and repetitiveness.  Making us look at ourselves, perhaps.

That will be a good thing.

More barriers, more restrictions, more guards, more surveillance, more guns?  I’m not sure that is the answer, especially because it’s not sustainable fiscally, emotionally, or societally.  If a disconnected culture like ours becomes gun-toting every day, most everyone will eventually be a victim, even if people manage the stress, which is doubtful (and as if this culture needed any more stress).

And we already have enough distance in our relationships, enough disconnection in this society.  Ours is a cultural disease, one born of income disparity, yes, but also from what the culture values in reality—or doesn’t.  It isn’t just that someone is 19 times more likely to die in a mass shooting in the US than anywhere else in the industrialized world, it’s also that the chance doesn’t change, but only gets worse.  It might happen once or twice in a developed country elsewhere, but it happens with horrific regularity here.  Not primarily just because we’re bigger, but because we sensationalize things and make copycats want to one up what’s been done previously.  But more to the point, we breed—and discard—growing legions of loners and semi-loners who are either empty inside or feel that there is no place for them, or even that there is no place worth being.

We sew distrust and despair and lay seeds for mental illness and perpetuate too often a culture of violence and other symptoms of societal breakdown.  We might have wide ranges of social media “connections,” but they are often atomizing and fragile.  The local connections are often missing, and life feels too cheap despite our blustering words.  Instead of being our biggest strength, our biggest fear becomes other people. 

We need expansive discussions about all this,  not simplistic ones about guns/no guns.

As a closing thought for this post, I have a question about the tragedy in Connecticut.  Where were the men? And especially, where were the trained men (ex-military and ex-police)?

Food for thought about the gender silo that elementary education in particular has become.  The teaching career has not only become a poor woman’s path of service, but has become over-feminized along the way.

Connecting more dots.

Assembling Your Tribe

 My dear intrepid Professor J,

Christmas is coming on and this housewife is struggling to put forth anything stimulating for either you or our readers to peruse this week.  But as this is a time for friends and family, I thought that something from my personal blog might suffice until Santa and his elves can come through with the order I've placed for time and inspiration. And peace. Always an appropriate Christmas wish...though this year it is much more of a prayer.


I was at a wedding recently and the bride and groom had written their own vows (Why do people insist on this?) and promised to be each other's "best friend."
 
I cleared my throat and squirmed in my seat. That's kind of a lot of pressure. And there is a gender gap about it. If you ask a married man who his best friend is, he will more often than not (especially if she's standing there) name his wife (Don't even get me started about what that says about the lack of male bonding and support in our culture). Ask a woman the same question and without hesitation, no matter who is there, she will name the woman to whom she most regularly complains about her marriage. She isn't insulting anyone, she just knows the difference.

 Life is long, if you are lucky, and complicated if you are breathing. Among other things you are going to need friends, mentors, confidantes, counselors, travel companions, work out partners, lovers, people to challenge you, people to accept you, inspire you, prod you, hold your hand and kick you in the pants. You are going to drain a single human being, putting all those expectations on them.

Take a deep breath right now and exhale the word "release" into all of your relationships...Release your death grip, release your expectations, release the people you care about from obligation.

There. Doesn't that feel better? 

You don't need one person. You are going to need a tribe. This idea is promoted by Sir Ken Robinson in his book, Element. He is specifically speaking of finding the people who share interests in your creative ventures. Those people who encourage you and share a passion for something with you. Musicians, for example, seek out other musicians to learn from, teach, and share with. It's why people with common interests form associations and clubs. If you are married to someone who has no interest in your passion for SCUBA diving or Star Wars then you already know how important your outside alliances can be.

I'd take it a step further than Sir Ken. Depending on your family circumstances, mobility, etc. you may need to fill family positions with people unrelated to you. If you have a parent who isn't trustworthy or family members who are distant, you should seek out friends for support. A friend of mine is a new mom and fairly new to town. So last year when she was pregnant with twins our coffee group became surrogate sisters dishing up advice. She dubbed us her Village People . Whether you believe it "takes a village to raise a child" or not, it certainly takes a village to keep mothers out of psych wards world wide.

I imagine my friend list as concentric circles narrowing toward the center like a target. The extremely small and carefully guarded center, I call The Inner Sanctum. Remember the ending of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Making it to The Inner Sanctum is like that. These are people who have proven they can be counted on to keep confidences, give sound advice, listen, and provide encouragement. I'm also more than happy to do all of those things for them. You know immediately in your own mind who these people are for you.

Are you holding on to a relationship where you are doing all the work or one where you feel emotionally exhausted after spending time with that person? Think of relationships as investments. You are investing your time, interest, and attention in someone. Don't waste your time making big emotional investments in people who don't have your best interest at heart, are unreliable, or untrustworthy. Do a gut check. You know who these people are too. You may not be able to cut them loose completely for a variety of reasons, but you can limit access. It may take a while for some people to reveal their true character. Don't ignore red flags.

People drift in and out of our lives for all kinds of reasons. The game changers come to stay. They make time for you no matter how busy they are. They have a genuine concern for your well being. They refuse to allow distance or any other obstacle to come between you. They are also rare.

Choose wisely.

Tricked-Down Economics

Madame M:

Rear guard actions and coping mechanisms.  How long will they hold up?  Worker burnout is on the rise, as those who remain after cuts feel the stress of more work.

The middle class’s share of total income shrank 17% from 1970 to 2010.  Their share of total assets (including houses) did even worse.  Banks, financial institutions (Wall Street), large corporations—and of course, the executives and boards that profit by them—made sure their lackeys in  Congress wrote the rules and made the changes, including ever lowered tax rates and generous tax rules, to favor them. 

Many well-paying jobs were deliberately killed and sent overseas, not because the manufacturing plants weren’t profitable, but because the kings of greed mentioned in the previous paragraph wanted even more profits.  When a community is hit by the loss of well-paying jobs, it has a negative multiplier effect: teachers, firemen, policemen, and others, not to mention many small businesses, get cut back.  Wages fall far behind the cost of living for the average person, as people spin out of the middle class and into the lower class.  The effects cascade.  Multiply that by thousands of communities, and you have America today.

Ironic that those who fret about “foreign control” are all too willing to vote in “free trade” candidates so multinational corporations can sell America off—and sell them out—and transfer economic control.

Did the executives take the pain and the cuts as well?  On the contrary, they increased to sickening opulence while the Lazaruses waited for scraps.   CEO pay for many European corporations averages no more than 7-10 times the average worker.  Even as recently as 1978 here in America, CEO compensation was “only” 26 times that of the average worker’s wages.  By 2010 (not a very good year, if one will recall), it was 205 times. 

It is one thing to truly globally compete, and comparative advantage certainly has its place.  But this idea that giving more money to people at the top who already have tremendous amounts, who have benefited ultra-tremendously the last 40 years while the middle class has declined, is ludicrous.  They don’t “create jobs,” as 5 minutes worth of serious consideration would tell you; otherwise, we’d be swimming in jobs the last 12 years, and that certainly isn’t the case (as the Congressional Research Service found out, tax cuts for the wealthy DON’T help the economy or create jobs; you don’t hear about the study because Republican congressmen suppressed it).  As Tina Dupuy of Cage Syndicate wrote in an article September 5^th of this year, “Trickle-down economics is a pyramid scheme.  The idea of those at the bottom sacrificing their retirements benefits (pensions, Social Security, Medicare, etc.) so that the top tier can pay even less in taxes” is sold to people that somehow they too will become rich if taxes for the rich just get lower.

Too many of us seem magically ensorcelled by the above mantra.  Even though  signs of decay are all around us: 1) Worst wealth inequality in the industrialized world, 2) poverty rate that has skyrocketed to nearly 16%, 3) top 1% of Americans own almost half of the nation’s wealth and yet only 5% of the nation’s debt.  As Dupuy says, “we’re fatter, sicker, further in debt, and using the most illegal drugs in the world.”

“Don’t punish success”, the men who do the spin for the wealthy say.  “Don’t regulate, that is punishing those who would create jobs in a free market and makes them withhold jobs out of uncertainty.” 

It’s a lie.  While there is at times maddening and excessive regulation (George Will is notorious for fishing up the instances), what the above spin is for is merely to deflect you the people from having your creature—government—do anything to those who are bleeding you slowly to death.

The simple mathematics is that those at the top don’t exist in enough numbers to create demand and stimulate the economy by their spending, even if they wanted to do so.  That can only come from many millions of middle class consumers with spendable money who by that spending create demand for products and services, and with that demand, even more jobs.

That has a proven track record, and it’s also socially stable and long-term sustainable.

Family Therapy for 300 Million

Professor J,

Boy, your opening paragraph is loaded! The last statement is interesting but I'm relaxing this week and hardly in the mood to divert attention to the theological untangling that would require. I might ask "Where's the love?" though.

We are looking more and more like the family who is willing to spend all the inheritance money on lawyers just so our dysfunctional side of the family can win. We may even burn down the old homestead in the process. No matter. We don't even know how we all ended up in the same family together and we are now willing to sacrifice whatever familial relationship and good will that use to exist to be right.  Our ever constantly shell shocked ears are now only attuned to rhetorical explosions in sound bites.

And to draw from an old joke we have in the south about not hiding our crazy relatives in the attic, but bringing them right into the parlor to show them off, each side now not only isn't embarrassed by the bombastic things that are said, but more and more it is proudly embraced. We have sent our crazy uncles to legislate on our behalf. What's worse--we are starting to lose touch with a standard for rational behavior.

Half of the family wants to disown the other half, and we are barely on speaking terms. The Hatfields and McCoys would just be so proud.

We need family therapy. Tough love. A Dr. Phil/ Uncle Sam who would force us to look each other in the eye and listen while we work toward solutions. Of course even with the hardest work and best intentions relationships with people who are truly toxic to us can't be saved. We are all feeling a severe lack of trust and rampant insecurity.  Perfect for an economic nervous breakdown.

The problem is we are all going over the cliff together in the same boat, crazy uncles and all. Kind of a high price to pay to be able to say that "our side" didn't give in. Which is going to sound pretty silly on the way down.

Apathy or Extremism

Do we Americans really peg the meter from either apathy or polarization?

Yes, we have often been rather apolitical, but when exactly did we become so extreme?  The perception of so many is similar to the woman in Nebraska who wrote to her newspaper that “public good” is something that “begins in the womb (not to mention marriage between one man and one woman)…(and that) the Health and Human Services mandate that forces coverage of the intrinsic evil of sterilization and birth control is an abomination.  Therefore, we may come to civil war of a sort, because many of us would rather die in jail than burn in hell.”

I won’t begin to dissect the insinuations and assumptions in all that.  Yet it’s demonstrative of the pressure cooker society where problems escalate and things change—many perhaps not for the better—and views become “my way or no way.”

Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald said on 11/8/12, it’s the anger, the irrational, extreme, blinding anger: “A platform of fear-mongering, xenophobia, demagoguery, and inchoate anger so extreme as to make Ronald Reagan seem almost a hippie in comparison.  It has embraced the politics of pitchforks and bomb-throwing wherein candidates must compete with one another to see who can say the most bizarre and outrageous thing—and where moderation is a sin against orthodoxy....(an orthodoxy) that demonizes the rest of us to appeal to a very few.”  And as Robert Reich said on 11/11/12, many white males, especially those over 40, have become “a tinderbox of frustration and anger, eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other peddlers of petulance, including an increasing number of Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames.  That hate-mongering and attendant scapegoating—of immigrants, blacks, gays, women seeking abortions, our government itself” diverts us from seeing that we “depend on each other in order to survive.” 

There is lots of barely hidden racism and prejudice of all sorts.  From those watching change and not liking it.  Watching color and ethnic and other “domination” start to slip away (their perception, instead of an alternate perception of becoming “more diverse”).

There is also a gender gap.  The wives aren’t going to let hubby know what’s going on.  And if you think they are going to tell the truth to some phone pollster while hubby is in the next room, well…

All of which makes those white males even angrier, as none of what is happening or results “makes sense.”

Never mind, of course, that “red” states receive, on average, far more federal government money than they pay in federal taxes, and yet traditionally have poor government services.  The situation is opposite in the “blue” states.  There’s two counter-intuitives for us to mull over.  Makes all that talk of “takers” and “moochers” seem a little silly.  As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post put it on 11/15/12: “Those who are most ardent about cutting government spending tend to come from parts of the country that most rely on it.”

As more than one commentator has put it, secession might be a good thing for the rest of the country after those seceding would go.  But such talk, while perhaps natural to feel, merely allows extremists to feed off each other in symbiosis and codependency.  And we let them.

Sitting back apathetically and HOPING some vague “it” will be taken care of, is delusion.  We must stay engaged. 

And we must all feel, when talking with or thinking about our fellow Americans: “If you are truly a patriotic American, I care about what happens to you even if you hate my guts.”

Discerning that is incredibly difficult in this climate, however, for so much seems like marked, almost criminal selfishness and willful blindness.   The kind of blind zealotry that burns all to the ground in its zealousness.

This is going to be a tough period, no doubt about it.