It’s ironic that painting is working so well because I really do understand how life is its own creative canvas. The things one does with one’s life and with the people around one, the way one exercises compassion and problem-solving— compromise and all that— it’s just the most beautiful thing. I just saw an article on environmentalists and awards that were given to them, and I thought about what those people had done and were doing. Those are really pieces of creativity! It’s a hell of a lot more courageous than what I’m doing, because it’s just direct. It’s direct life—not about a product you hope to sell. They didn’t do that thinking they were going to get any kind of reward.
Bush cheated his way out of serving in Vietnam and into declaring war on Iraq. Are we surprised to learn that he used the gays to win in 2004, deflecting attention from his expensive and ruinous war?
A passage from Laura Bush's memoir, Spoken from the Heart, out next week:
"In 2004 the social question that animated the campaign was gay marriage. Before the election season had unfolded, I had talked to George about not making gay marriage a significant issue. We have, I reminded him, a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay. But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead.”
In reality, it is obvious that the Church hierarchy knew of this problem but they were caught by surprise to the public outcry over their complicit behavior and cover-ups. I like to welcome the Catholic Church to the modern of age of accountability and transparency!
Goldman's 14 Business Principles: Our clients' interests always come first. Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow.
Our assets are our people, capital and reputation. If any of these is ever diminished, the last is the most difficult to restore. We are dedicated to complying fully with the letter and spirit of the laws, rules and ethical principles that govern us. Our continued success depends upon unswerving adherence to this standard.
Our goal is to provide superior returns to our shareholders. Profitability is critical to achieving superior returns, building our capital, and attracting and keeping our best people. Significant employee stock ownership aligns the interests of our employees and our shareholders. We take great pride in the professional quality of our work. We have an uncompromising determination to achieve excellence in everything we undertake. Though we may be involved in a wide variety and heavy volume of activity, we would, if it came to a choice, rather be best than biggest.
We stress creativity and imagination in everything we do. While recognizing that the old way may still be the best way, we constantly strive to find a better solution to a client's problems. We pride ourselves on having pioneered many of the practices and techniques that have become standard in the industry.
We make an unusual effort to identify and recruit the very best person for every job. Although our activities are measured in billions of dollars, we select our people one by one. In a service business, we know that without the best people, we cannot be the best firm.
We offer our people the opportunity to move ahead more rapidly than is possible at most other places. Advancement depends on merit and we have yet to find the limits to the responsibility our best people are able to assume. For us to be successful, our men and women must reflect the diversity of the communities and cultures in which we operate. That means we must attract, retain and motivate people from many backgrounds and perspectives. Being diverse is not optional; it is what we must be. We stress teamwork in everything we do. While individual creativity is always encouraged, we have found that team effort often produces the best results. We have no room for those who put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the firm and its clients.
The dedication of our people to the firm and the intense effort they give their jobs are greater than one finds in most other organizations. We think that this is an important part of our success. We consider our size an asset that we try hard to preserve. We want to be big enough to undertake the largest project that any of our clients could contemplate, yet small enough to maintain the loyalty, intimacy and the esprit de corps that we all treasure and that contribute greatly to our success.
We constantly strive to anticipate the rapidly changing needs of our clients and to develop new services to meet those needs. We know that the world of finance will not stand still and that complacency can lead to extinction.
We regularly receive confidential information as part of our normal client relationships. To breach a confidence or to use confidential information improperly or carelessly would be unthinkable.
Our business is highly competitive, and we aggressively seek to expand our client relationships. However, we must always be fair competitors and must never denigrate other firms. Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business. We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both in their work for the firm and in their personal lives.
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin.
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters - the black protesters - spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.
Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.
Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.
Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.
Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.
Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”
Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
I find myself in agreement with David Brooks' column this morning on how - unwittingly - the Obama administration was forced into the kind of big government action required to cope with several huge crises, after years of negligence and drift. I can see how easy it was for the FNC-RNC to wheel out their exhausted tropes of anti-government rhetoric and for Paul Krugman, say, to wheel out his own pro-government radicalism. None of these elements were cheerful about a "Goodbye To All That" presidency, and they've done their best to extinguish it. I happen to think that Krugman has much more of a case right now, because the circumstances almost require the drastic measures he favors. But, yes, the comfort zone of all these advocates is well within the abstract and kabuki world of "freedom or tyranny", more government or less. And that has affected the perception of the new administration among independents especially.
But they're all wrong. This administration's actions are defensible for the large part from the perspective of the actual circumstances we face: a collapse of the extreme free market capitalism of the last twenty years and the implosion of a neo-imperial post-Cold War foreign policy in the mountains of Afghanistan and the deserts of Mesopotamia. To recognize this, and to defend it from ideological attacks, is, in my view, the real conservative position today.
What should matter to conservatives is the empirical data, the specific circumstances, and the least worst practical way of grappling with social and economic and political problems. That's why I see the work of, say, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, Jim Manzi, Conor Friedersdorf, Fareed Zakaria, Bruce Bartlett, Jon Rauch, and on a good day, Ramesh Ponnuru (among others) as admirable and well within the contours of conservative discourse - and why I find Andy McCarthy, Powerline, Instapundit, Glenn Beck, Stephen Moore, Bill Kristol, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and all the toujours l'audace reality-free fanatics to be the antithesis of conservatism as I have long understood it. (The deeper argument here is in The Conservative Soul.)
But I disagree with David's world-weary resignation over this, and his reluctance to support the Obama administration as it represents the pragmatic center in this day and age. The truth is: Obama has not caved to the left's understanding of the role of government. In reality, the healthcare reform was a moderate enterprise, made radical in the public consciousness by a cynical bid to propagandize the whole debate by the FNC-RNC axis. Same with the handling of the banks, the financial regulation bill, the stimulus, and the recalibration of US foreign policy after the failed belligerence of the Bush-Cheney years. If David doubts the moderation of Obama, he might ask his colleague, Paul Krugman, or read more Glenn Greenwald.
Even yesterday, Obama did not batter Wall Street. He asked them to "join" him in rescuing capitalism from itself and restoring the confidence of ordinary folks with retirement accounts in Wall Street. His September 2009 speech to Congress on healthcare reform was just as balanced and sane and moving. I feel absolutely no remorse - and considerable pride - in supporting him as a pragmatic end to the red/blue, pro-government/anti-government debate that has dominated for so long to so little practical effect.
It seems to me that if, as David notes, it is history that has allowed the perception of Obama's "big liberalism" to take hold, then it is the duty of moderate conservatives to resist this narrative, not cave into it. And that means the uncomfortable task for real conservatives of stoutly defending this president as the best option we now have. The epistemic closure on the right is how other conservatives still manage to blind themselves to the pragmatic virtues of this president's remarkable 15 month record at home and abroad. Our job is to insist that the debate continue and that criticism of Obama be based on empirical reality, not ideological fantasy. If we do, we have a president open-minded enough to listen. But if we give up, the old divides win.
So buck up, David. And get back to defending Obama when it is appropriate (which, so far, has almost always been the case). You'll lose friends; enrage colleagues; alienate long-time allies. And in the end, you'll enjoy it.
This is a great time for conservative thought - because it can be clearly disengaged from conservative power and the conservative movement. No fucking surrender.
There is an old Zen saying that you can try to explain to someone how an orange tastes, but how can you describe it, really? Until you’ve tasted an orange, you have no way of truly knowing. And once you’ve tasted one, what is there to say?
The last week has seen a lot of analysis of the Tea Party Movement. It's a Republican rump, according to the NYT, and a national majority, according to Pat Caddell. My view is that it's so amorphous that you can slice it any which way. A minority of Americans seem enraged by the Obama administration in ways that are hard to explain. But many Americans also retain a healthy distrust of government and debt (even though they keep voting for lower taxes and more spending). They have a real point. Over the last decade, it is surely evident that big government has come back with a vengeance. And one has to grasp that part of the tea-party anger is pent up from the Bush years. Most of the rational tea-partiers accept that the GOP has been as bad - if not worse - than the Democrats on spending, borrowing and the size and scope of government in recent years. They repressed this anger during the Bush years out of partisan loyalty. Now, they're taking it all out on the newbie. It's both fair and also unfair.
It's fair because Obama is a liberal who believes government can and should help the poor and disadvantaged and has proven it by providing access to insurance for the working poor. But it's unfair because Obama's fiscal and governing record is massively distorted by the impact of the bank meltdown, the steep revenue-killing recession, and the stimulus. Until its last months, the Bush administration could claim no such excuses for its awful debt-management. The big Bush jumps in discretionary spending, the big leap in entitlements under the unfunded Medicare D program, the long nation-building wars put off-budget, and the huge claims for executive power dominant in the first term: all these are far more damning to my mind than Obama's pragmatism in grappling with an economic collapse or even the healthcare reform, which at least formally claims to reduce the deficit and pay for itself (unlike Bush's Medicare-D). Even the protests at the manner in which the health reform was passed are disingenuous. The Medicare-D process - involving holding the vote open for hours and brutal arm-twisting on the floor of the House - was far, far more cynical and brutal.
And this is why, despite my own deep suspicion of big government, I remain unmoved by the tea-partiers. Their partisanship and cultural hostility to Obama are far more intense, it seems to me, than their genuine proposals to reduce spending and taxation. And this is largely because they have no genuine proposals to reduce spending and taxation. They seem very protective of Medicare and Social Security - and their older age bracket underlines this. They also seem primed for maximal neo-imperial reach, backing the nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, favoring war against Iran, etc. Only Ron Paul, peace be upon him, extends his big government critique to the military-industrial-ideological complex.
So they are truly not serious in policy terms, and it behooves the small government right to grapple with this honestly. They both support lower taxation and yet bemoan the fact that so many Americans do not pay any income tax. They want to cut spending on trivial matters while enabling the entitlement and defense behemoths to go on gobbling up Americans' wealth. And that lack of seriousness is complemented by a near-fanatical cultural alienation from the modern world.
In my view, this confluence of feelings can work in shifting the public mood, as seems to have happened. When there is no internal pushback against crafted FNC propaganda, and when the Democrats seem unable to craft any coherent political message below the presidential level, you do indeed create a self-perpetuating fantasy that can indeed rally and roil people. But the abstract slogans against government, the childish reduction of necessary trade-offs as an apocalyptic battle between freedom and slavery, and the silly ranting at all things Washington: these are not a political movement. They are cultural vents, wrapped up with some ugly Dixie-like strands.
When they propose cuts in Medicare, means-testing Social Security, a raising of the retirement age and a cut in defense spending, I'll take them seriously and wish them well.
Until then, I'll treat them with the condescending contempt they have thus far deserved.
I respect this President but he must be pressured to act as quickly as possible to change this un-Constitutional and un-American law. Read about the brave protest led by Lt. Dan Choi at the White House today.
Here's the text of the memorandum issued by Obama tonight directing hospitals to allow same-sex couples visitation rights and medical power of attorney.
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
SUBJECT: Respecting the Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate Decision Makers for Medical Emergencies
There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean -- a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them.
Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides -- whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives -- unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.
For all of these Americans, the failure to have their wishes respected concerning who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf has real consequences. It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients' medications and medical histories and that friends and certain family members are unable to serve as intermediaries to help communicate patients' needs. It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall.
Many States have taken steps to try to put an end to these problems. North Carolina recently amended its Patients' Bill of Rights to give each patient "the right to designate visitors who shall receive the same visitation privileges as the patient's immediate family members, regardless of whether the visitors are legally related to the patient" -- a right that applies in every hospital in the State. Delaware, Nebraska, and Minnesota have adopted similar laws.
My Administration can expand on these important steps to ensure that patients can receive compassionate care and equal treatment during their hospital stays. By this memorandum, I request that you take the following steps:
1. Initiate appropriate rulemaking, pursuant to your authority under 42 U.S.C. 1395x and other relevant provisions of law, to ensure that hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid respect the rights of patients to designate visitors. It should be made clear that designated visitors, including individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies), should enjoy visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those that immediate family members enjoy. You should also provide that participating hospitals may not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The rulemaking should take into account the need for hospitals to restrict visitation in medically appropriate circumstances as well as the clinical decisions that medical professionals make about a patient's care or treatment.
2. Ensure that all hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid are in full compliance with regulations, codified at 42 CFR 482.13 and 42 CFR 489.102(a), promulgated to guarantee that all patients' advance directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies, are respected, and that patients' representatives otherwise have the right to make informed decisions regarding patients' care. Additionally, I request that you issue new guidelines, pursuant to your authority under 42 U.S.C. 1395cc and other relevant provisions of law, and provide technical assistance on how hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid can best comply with the regulations and take any additional appropriate measures to fully enforce the regulations.
3. Provide additional recommendations to me, within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, on actions the Department of Health and Human Services can take to address hospital visitation, medical decisionmaking, or other health care issues that affect LGBT patients and their families. This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
You are hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
It’s important in all practice to realize that you’re the one that’s creating the ground for it to happen. Not that you are it, or that your ego identifies with it, but that you can take responsibility for having created the fertile ground for this thing to happen. You know, the correct theatrical lights and costumes and feeding it with the right energy so that the magic happens. I think that’s important, to take credit for it. It adds confidence and strength to the practice.
--Richard Gere, "Everything's About the Heart" (Spring 1996)
I heard Rick Hanson speak on Sunday night and was very impressed with what he had to say about the relationship between the brain, our minds and happiness. Bottom line: we are what we think. The more we live in fear, the more that part of the brain will be stimulated and we will be upset about life. The more grateful and loving we are, the more that part of the brain will physically thicken and we will feel more happiness. However, this is not a Pollyanna, "power of positive thinking" approach from the 1970s. Rather, this is a grounded, scientific and Buddhist look at happiness.
While driving around in LA today, I heard the most riveting account from an insider in this Catholic priest sex scandal. The segment, "The Confession," is so insightful and worth listening to, as this former priest, Patrick J. Wall, tells all about his role as a trouble-shooter for the Church as it tried to cover up its numerous priest scandals, all while the protecting the hierarchy and assets of the institution (and not doing much for the victims).
Also, one of the best movie documentaries that I have ever seen is this Oscar nominated film, an up-close-look at a predatory priest who was moved from church to church in California, sexually-abusing countless kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scW90Q6Z_OM
My sense is that there is a very real problem among Western Buddhist practitioners. We are attempting to practice meditation and to follow a spiritual path in a disembodied state, and our practice is therefore doomed to failure. The full benefits and fruition of meditation cannot be experienced or enjoyed when we are not grounded in our bodies. The phrase from the early text, when understood fully, implies not only that we are able to touch enlightenment with our bodies, but that we must do so--that in fact there is no other way to touch enlightenment except in and through our bodies.
It’s ironic that painting is working so well because I really do understand how life is its own creative canvas. The things one does with one’s life and with the people around one, the way one exercises compassion and problem-solving— compromise and all that— it’s just the most beautiful thing. I just saw an article on environmentalists and awards that were given to them, and I thought about what those people had done and were doing. Those are really pieces of creativity! It’s a hell of a lot more courageous than what I’m doing, because it’s just direct. It’s direct life—not about a product you hope to sell. They didn’t do that thinking they were going to get any kind of reward.
