Lift Up Your Hearts!

The more I learn about Julian Assange, the more I like Terry Jones.

They're both inconsiderate, irresponsible idiots in my book, though each started with good intentions and the belief that his actions were righteous and courageous.  But Jones had the grace to back off when he saw that his Koran-burning threat stunt was endangering innocent lives around the world.  Assange is using the threat of further, more dangerous WikiLeaks revelations to fend off prosecution on, among other things, rape charges.

There is a place for whistle-blowing, and shedding light in dark places sometimes requires great courage and controversial actions.  But if you want to be a hero rather than a two-bit blackmailer, it’s wise to break no more laws—civil and moral—than absolutely necessary.

One who lays his life on the line for the sake of others may be a hero, but the sacrifice of other people’s lives, even for a great cause, is a less clear path.  That’s why the right to make such decisions is generally given to regulated, designated authorities, like the military or police forces.  Being made up of human beings, they may make disastrous mistakes, and can be corrupted, but on the whole they are safer holders of that power than unregulated, untrained individuals and mobs.  There’s a good reason vigilante action is feared—and illegal.

On the day after Election Day^* I felt some commentary to be necessary, so I struggled to find something about our political system that is better now than in the past.

I considered the 19^th Amendment:  that’s a significant improvement.  But I’m not so old that I was ever disenfranchised because of my sex, so it doesn’t really count.

The 26^th Amendment did make a difference in my life, but I have mixed feelings about that one, seeing as extending the voting age downward corresponded with an upward movement of the age of responsible maturity.

Much about our political system has taken a turn for the worse during my lifetime.  (I’m not saying it was always better—we’re not longer literally tar-and-feathering our opponents.)  But one positive change I am thankful for on this third day of November is openness.

I hate the in-your-face media and constant coverage that have produced campaigning-by-sound bite and taken away any vestige of private life for those seeking to enter political service.  But recent years have also brought—through media coverage and through legislation—more light and transparency to government and to the people who run it, and that is a very good thing.

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made — John Godfrey Saxe

True.  But both sausages and laws are good things, and the call of people like Michael Pollan and Temple Grandin for slaughterhouses to have glass walls finds its parallel in political Sunshine Laws, the Freedom of Information Act, and other efforts to bring government out of the shadows of the smoke-filled room.^**  Transparency and openness bring some difficulties and inefficiencies, but do much to prevent, detect, and excise rottenness, be it in our food supply or in our government.

That’s something that’s better now than in the not-so-distant past, and I’m thankful.

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I’m also thankful this morning that Daniel Webster is going to the House of Representatives from Florida—and with an overwhelming victory.  I was not able to vote for him, as we are not in his district.  But I’ve respected him for many, many years even though there we certainly have our areas of disagreement.  Quoting from the Orlando Sentinel, which despite their liberal inclinations endorsed conservative Webster,

Mr. Webster was a Republican state legislator for nearly three decades whose civility and statesmanship earned him the admiration of Democrats. He wasn't just a nice guy; he was effective. He played a leading role in raising education standards, reforming welfare and opening lawmaking to more public scrutiny.

Webster credited the results to his grass-roots support and his decision to run a positive campaign.

"Most of the time, negative campaigning works, and a lot of people cringed when I said I would run a positive campaign. We just felt like it was the right thing to do," Webster said. "I'm not going there to change places with the Democrats. We've got to do things differently. We've got to change the process."

It’s refreshing to see good character and a positive outlook win over bombast, negativity, and lots of money.

On a more personal note, Daniel Webster was also largely responsible for the legal protection home education enjoys in Florida, and for that I will always be very, very thankful!

"Harm reduction," a new term to me, though not a new concept, is a controversial approach to social problems, in which illegal, immoral, or otherwise harmful behaviors are attacked, not at the root, but at the branches:  distributing condoms to slow the spread of AIDS, needle exchange programs for drug addicts, and legalized prostitution, for example.  It is palliative care: attempting to ameliorate the symptoms of an apparently incurable social disorder.

Whether you approve of the idea or think it only exacerbates the problem—like Needle Park in Zurich, one of Switzerland's early experiments, which succeeded in reducing AIDS infections and drug-related deaths, but attracted addicts and professional drug dealers from all over Europe—the following story is heartwarming.  It brings to mind Mother Teresa, who, if she couldn't cure the ills of the lowest and the poorest in Calcutta, at least gave them the touch of a loving hand, and a clean, safe, comfortable place in which to die.

Meera Bai's story has a title shocking in itself:  Why I Help Addicts Shoot Up.  A nurse, she works at Vancouver's InSite:  "a safe, health-focused place where people inject drugs and connect to health care services – from primary care to treat disease and infection, to addiction counselling and treatment."

InSite has been shown to be a successful public health initiative in more than 30 scientific research reports published in peer-reviewed medical journals. Such reports demonstrate that InSite users are more likely to seek long-term addiction treatment and to stay off the street, than users who choose to inject outside. The HIV rates in [Vancouver's Downtown Eastside] are on par with many African nations. Such blood-borne diseases are spread by sharing needles—something that is banned at InSite. And instead of using puddle water from urine-soaked alleys, participants are provided with sterile water, which reduces various kinds of horrific infection.

Clean supplies, safe rooms, friendly staff supervision during injection and compassionate nursing care help injection drug users to learn how to value their bodies, and thus themselves, even as our society generally tells them they are worse than useless. The choice to stop using drugs is a decision that many addicts cannot even imagine making, but InSite provides reachable steps toward a healthier life, offering participants a chance at redemption of both body and soul.

It's where I choose to work as a nurse—and as a Christian. Trying to follow the command of God to seek out and care for those in need of mercy has led me to find grace and pass it on among these people in the streets of the Downtown Eastside, the very definition of a marginalized population.

Something about seeing people at their lowest and most desperate, half-clothed from turning tricks for drugs while hating themselves for it, opens into a profound level of intimacy. I am blessed to enter the darkest place of people whose sins are far more public than those of the rest of us. Constant humiliation makes the people I work with especially vulnerable, and vulnerable in almost every way: to violence, to exploitation, to false hope and finally to despair. When allowed into these dark places, it is my privilege, and that of all InSite staff, to communicate worth and love instead of judgment and scorn.

The day nurse asks me to keep an eye out for a specific participant—a regular who comes in several times a day. She hadn't been seen yet. Later that night, the woman finally comes in, and she's beaming. "I went to see my daughter today! And I didn't use all day! F---, soon I'm gonna get off this s---!" We break out in applause and cheers, celebrating her triumphs with her—as she mixes her drugs to take in a few minutes in our facility. Other participants in the room are excited as well; two of them come over to hug her.

Another regular later chats with me in the treatment room as I dress his abscess, trying not to cringe away from the overwhelming odour he emanates. "It would have been my anniversary with my wife today, if she hadn't gone missing. We've both been down and out, but she took care of me out here. Now, I got nobody to talk to. This is the first human touch I've had today." I look up, startled. I am wearing gloves, holding my breath, cleaning his sores with a 10-inch sterile Q-tip. Even this, my deficient attempt to heal, is taken as love by a man desperate for human connection. I am ashamed.

I finish dressing the wound, clean up, remove my gloves and give him a hug. I hop up on the treatment bench next to him and we sit together and talk for another 15 minutes: about life, love and faith. He says goodbye, and then asks for a referral to an exit program. I give it to him. He knows the referral is merely one point along our journey together, and that I will listen to his story whether he goes to the program or not. As a Christian, I know that his life is part of God's real story of redemption. InSite is one of the few places where I get to hear it openly spoken, with trust, without judgment.

Well, it's beyond "fair use" to quote the whole article!  I do recommend reading it all, though.  (H/T John Stackhouse)

 

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal:  War Stories from the Local Food Front. by Joel Salatin (Polyface Inc., Swoope, Virginia, 2007)

Until now, I've written more about Joel Salatin than I've read by him:  almost a year ago in Strange Bedfellows?  Not Really, and three months later in my review of The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Wanting to correct that sin of omission, I grabbed the only one of his books available in our local library:  Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.

On every side, our paternalistic culture is tightening the noose around those of us who just want to opt out of the system.  And it is the freedom to opt out that differentiates tyrannical and free societies.  How a culture deals with its misfits reveals its strength.  The stronger a culture, the less it fears the radical fringe.  The more paranoid and precarious a culture, the less tolerance it offers.  When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol. — Joel Salatin

Salatin wants to opt out of a little more of the system than I do, but I hear his cry.  You could call him bitter, but if you consider the miracle that is Polyface Farms, you have to wonder why our government is working so hard to stamp out such elegant, inexpensive, healthy, delicious, and truly "green" (in a conservationist sense) endeavors.

There's another whole blog post in the answer to that—involving sustainable agriculture, home education, midwives, family businesses, free-range kids, raw milk, and even the Duggar family—so for now I'll move on to the quotation section of this review. Otherwise I'll never get it back to the library tomorrow today, when it's due.

The quotes are selected from collection of pink sticky notes bristling from pages all over the book, as I marked passages I found especially interesting.  Unfortunately, they're rather random, and generally miss the most important thrust of the book, which is that

• Both governmental regulations and societal expectations (i.e. the belief that governmental regulations guarantee safe food) have devasted small, local, sustainable agriculture, because they greatly favor large corporations and factory farming.
• Governmental regulations and inspections do not, in fact, promote a healthier food supply, because the big guys (from Archer-Daniels-Midland to Wal-Mart) can afford high-powered attorneys and lobbyists, and because too many bureaucrats are more concerned with healthy paperwork than with healthy food.  (When you read about what the bureaucrats and  big companies did to the very word "Organic," you will no longer be so happy in that section of your grocery store.)
• Small, local, sustainable agriculture is our best hope for producing safe (from salmonella to bioterrorism threats), healthy food.  And taste!  Don't forget about taste!

When it comes to trying to protect our food system, both from internal carelessness and external attack,

[T]he things we're moving heaven and hell to stop are not the things we need to be concerned about.  The stuff that we turn a blind eye to and don't even care about is the bigger problem.  We really do worry about the wrong things.  And we devote precious resources inspecting, measuring, and vilifying the antidote to the wrong things.

Did you really think food regulations were all about ... food safety?

I spoke with an attorney who represents one of the largest food businesses in the world.  He came to the farm for a visit, a delightful gentleman. ... He said he would put it to me straight, "People don't trust the large corporations.  If you're a large corporation, you need that trust to survive.  How do you get that trust?  You create a system that makes it look like you care.  People want to see you doing something that protects them. ... But, and here's the other part of the equation, if you're the chief executive of a large business, you don't want to pay for it.  Instead, you wine and dine politicians to convince them that they will curry favor with their constituents if they demand this program.  Now you have people's faith without having to pay for it."

 And what did you think an ambassador's job was supposed to be?

Allan Nation, editor of Stockman Grass Farmer magazine ... took a group of American grass farmers to Argentina to tour the world's best grass-based farms and ranches.  When the American ambassador found out a group of American farmers and ranchers was in town, he invited them over to the Embassy for refreshments.

"What are you all doing in Argentina?"  he asked.

"We're here to study grass-based agriculture and see firsthand how to finish beef on grass instead of in feedlots," replied Nation.

At that point, Nation said the ambassador nearly kicked them out of the embassy, proclaiming, "Don't you understand why I am here?  I am here to make Argentina quit grass-finishing beef and begin using corn in a feedlot."  There's the good o' USA, friend of environmental agriculture, respecter of other cultures.  Yessireee.

Salatin may be strident at times, but he's not a conspiracy theorist.

At the risk of sounding completely naïve, I will say flat out that I do not sense a conspiracy behind this effort.  Like so many other government plans, this is another well-intentioned idea with incredibly terrible consequences.  I happen to believe that when the food police say raw milk will kill you, they actually believe it.  When they say my outdoor chickens are dangerous to the Tyson houses, they sincerely believe it.  When they say consumers are too stupid to make food choices, they actually believe it.  I think people sincerely believe a lot of stupid things.  This is just stupidity, not conspiracy.  It's a fraternity of stupidity, to be sure, but we need not label it a conspiracy.

I've never worried much about eggs and salmonella—always let the kids lick the cake bowl and eat raw cookie dough, if they beat me to it.  But I'm less worried about the eggs I scooped from under the hen myself at a local farm than about the free box of factory-farmed eggs I picked up at Target.  The recent salmonella outbreak, due to tainted eggs from large, federally regulated egg farms, makes even more significant the following story of Salatin's encounter with a health department representative who had accused his unwashed eggs of carrying salmonella:

Although she admitted that the regulations did not require washing, she simply sniffed and said, "An unwashed egg is inedible."  Then I told her we did in fact culture the eggs, including the manure, and they were clean.  It was like talking to a fence post:  "An unwashed egg is inedible."  End of discussion.

I hung up and immediately the phone rang, even before I could take my hand off the receiver.  I answered and it was Allan Nation. ...  He and his wife, Carolyn, had just returned from a fact-finding trip to Europe, with a heavy emphasis on range poultry in France.  Without any prompting from me, he started the conversation with, "Hey, guess what?  In France, you can't sell a washed egg.  If it has to be washed, it must go into a pasteurized product in liquid form.  Only unwashed eggs are legal to sell as shell eggs."

More about eggs in Europe:

I was showing my eggs to a chef once and he wanted to buy them right away.  To be perfectly transparent, I warned him that in the winter they wouldn't be as deeply orange as they are in the green grass season. ... He immediately cut in.  "Oh, that's no problem.  In chef's school in Switzerland we had recipes for March eggs, recipes for June eggs, and other recipes for October eggs in order to accentuate the nuances of that particular season's eggs."

Of animals, people, and politics.  One reason I like Salatin is his rejection of the political boundary lines that are hardening like arteries in our society and constricting the healthy flow of ideas:  Republicans and Democrats are both helpful—and hurtful—to his cause.  His views land him squarely on both the Left and the Right.

When the only interaction between people and animals is in a pet situation, it jaundices the historical and natural relationship between the two. 

Amazingly, the [animal rights activists who object to] abortions in the third-trimester of a bovine pregnancy tend to support that action in humans. ...

... It's as inconsistent as the pro-lifers eating disrespected, factory farmed meat out of Costco ... The people who should be most concerned about respecting and honoring animals are the members of the religious right.  Instead these folks defend the right to abuse animals, to disrespect their chickeness and pigness.  And they even applaud their own ability to find the cheapest food.  I wonder if they think the best church comes from hiring the cheapest pastor.

What good is the freedom to worship, the right to keep and bear arms, and the freedom of the press if we don't have the freedom to choose what to feed our bodies so we can go sing, shoot, and speak?  The only reason the founding fathers did not grant the freedom to choose our food was because it was such a basic, fundamental personal right that they could not conceive that special protection would be needed.  Granting citizens the right to choose their food would have been similar to granting them the right to see the sun rise, or to breathe.

We believe that our pluralistic society is stronger for allowing home schooling and private schooling alongside public schooling.  Our culture is stronger by letting people buy different kinds of cars or none at all; have health insurance or none at all; build a house or none at all.  The freedom to opt out of the mainstream paradigm is the cornerstone that preserves the minority view, differentiating between top-down societies and bottom-up societies.  Our opponents favor coercing consumers to buy only government-approved food, thereby denying opt-out freedoms.

[Modern society thinks] we can save things from the top down ... but ... the only safety comes in our communities, our homes, our families, from the bottom up. And these institutions must be free to experiment, to innovate.  I confess that I do not hold optimism for our culture as a whole.  Indeed, we are destroying agrarianism and seeing the same political graft and moral debauchery that brought the Roman culture to ruins.  I am, however, optimistic about the power of one.  The strength of you and me and others, touching our spheres of influence, taking individual responsibility.

And finally, this is a minor side story, but I love it:

I have a friend who at 13 decided he wanted to cut firewood for a living.  His family had an old 1965 International loadstar dump truck with a two-speed rear axle.  A little big for his age, he began cutting firewood—yes, with a chain saw.  He could drive that truck as well as any adult, and delivered a load to a customer in Waynesboro about 15 miles away.

A neighbor saw the load being dumped and walked over to ask for one himself.  The boy said he'd be there the following Saturday with the load.  He cut the wood after school and in a week had another dump truck load.  He arrived at the man's house on schedule.  The customer was dubious about the boy's ability to back the truck around a crooked driveway, swing set, picnic area, and dump it onto a concrete pad in the corner of the back yard.

The boy assured the customer that it was no problem and proceeded to back the truck expertly right up to the pad.  He dumped the load and pulled out.  What I didn't tell you was that this man happened to be a city policeman, and this week happened to be in uniform because he was getting ready to go to work.  When he got ready to pay the boy, he asked him:  "Son, how old are you?"

My friend, who confesses that his heart skipped a beat when he pulled in and realized he was delivering wood to a policeman's house, just looked down from the cab and confidently but with a mischievous grin responded, "How old do you want me to be?"

Taken aback, the policeman asked him, "Do you have a license?"

To which the 13-year-old replied, "I have a couple, but I'm not sure I have the one you're interested in."

Completely enthralled by the whimsical youngster, the policeman said, "Listen son, I'll follow you to the edge of the city limits.  And please, please don't drive that truck back into this city."

Two weeks later, the boy had another load to deliver to Waynesboro.  As luck would have it, when he entered the city, there on routine traffic patrol was his firewood customer friend.  They locked eyes, and the policeman just shook his head, took off his hat, and covered his eyes.  Now there is a true public servant.  That boy could drive that truck as expertly as any adult.  Ho could anyone deny this self-motivated, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boy his firewood business?  To be honest with you, I wouldn't let my 13-year-old do this.  And it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.

But for crying out loud, must we criminalize everything we don't think is wise?

I wasn't going to write about the two recent examples of September 11-related hysteria run amok, because (a) there has already been too much reaction, and (b) believe it or not, the fate of the world does not hinge on what I write on the Internet.  But in another context I was invited to share my opinion, and you know how I love to get double duty out of the effort it takes to write.

First, the "Ground Zero mosque" flap.  Whether a mosque, or Islamic center, or church, or store, or apartment building, or library, or strip club is built in New York City is none of my business.  Nor is it the business of 99% of the others who have weighed in on the issue, including President Obama, foreigners, and talk show hosts.  It is New York City's business, at whatever level zoning regulations are made. If the neighbors object to a proposed project, they have the right, and possibly the duty, to oppose it at zoning board hearings, to write letters to local papers, to make local speeches, to go from door to door with petitions.  My opinion is irrelevant, as is that of the President of the United States.

The second bruhaha hits closer to home, because Terry Jones is in Florida, not much more than two hours away from me. I've been trying to ignore him, because he seems to be the kind of person who revels in publicity, be it positive or negative.  (Like rebellious teenagers, and like terrorists.)  His actions should also have been none of my business:  he's not my pastor, nor my neighbor, and I would no more forbid him to burn a Qur'an—or a cross—on his own property than I would forbid the building of a Mosque within sight of Ground Zero, even though both get people hot under the collar.  But he and the news media together have made it my business, threatening my family, my state, and my country.

Fear and anger make people do very unwise things, and one of the unwisest is the willingness to set aside the Constitution, the very foundation of our country.  I was asked about using hate speech laws to shut Jones down:  the very idea chills me to the marrow.  Freedom of speech is one of our greatest treasures, and that includes the freedom to say very unpopular things.  Even hateful things.  Labelling someone's opinion, however much you think it wrong, as "hate speech," and trying to control it, makes a very wide gate though which totalitarianism can enter.

Refusing to outlaw something is not the same thing as approving or deeming it wise, however.  And in the case of Jones, he himself has deliberately made his actions public business.  The First Amendment notwithstanding, there is precedent for controlling some forms of speech:  laws against slander/libel, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded but flame-less theater, and giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" in time of war, for example.  Jones is most definitely doing the last, giving credence to the enemy's propaganda and deliberately undercutting both military and civilian efforts to promote peace.

If there is anything good about his motives, he is at least incredibly stupid and not acting in accordance with his professed faith.  I haven't read much of the hoopla, but I did catch that he responded to questions of offense with the retort that he, himself, is offended when "they" burn the American flag, or the Bible.  What he obviously misses—besides the idea that we're supposed to love our enemies, or at least behave better than they do—is that an insult to the Qur'an is not nearly the same thing as an insult to the Bible, let alone to a flag.  To a Muslim, if my understanding is correct, it would be more like spitting on the consecrated Host.  The book itself is sacred.  I don't know if that applies to translations, which aren't considered the "real thing," but I suspect the insult would be taken similarly by most Muslims.  And the analogy I made probably wouldn't mean anything to Pastor Jones, since I suspect his church doesn't have a sufficiently high view of Communion to understand it.  But my point is, his analogy is flawed, maybe fatally.

I heard great story about a Canadian medical team in Afghanistan, known for its very good treatment of Taliban prisoners.  Explaining this, the doctor pointed out that, first of all, it was the right thing to do; second, since the battle was over a difference beliefs and values, it was important to act upon those values at all times.  That's also the attitude of the U.S.-based aid organizations that I know about, even though the Taliban is attacking them, verbally and physically.  And, come to think of it, that's the attitude of Jesus on the Cross, which one would hope would give Rev. Jones food for thought.

What's more, the doctor said, good actions, especially in the face of danger and provocation, will cause a cognitive dissonance between what the soldiers have been told by the Taliban and their own experience, which might lead to them questioning Taliban authority.  The Taliban knows this, of course, which probably explains their antipathy towards those who are sacrificing themselves to bring health, education, and infrastructure to these countries.

Jones, however, is doing exactly the opposite; I'm quite sure the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other militant Islamic groups are thrilled with his Qur'an-burning plan, no matter how personally offended their members might be.  There are better ways to express your belief that not all religions are equally true, or good, or beautiful (and with that I agree), without making your own look odious, and defaming the name of Christ.

I blame the news media, also.  We would have been much better off if Jones had been ignored, but he makes great copy.  The vast majority of Americans, who think he's nuts, and who are bending over backwards to say so, in word and action—are just boring.  The press is pouring (metaphorical) gasoline on Jones's flames.  Freedom of the press is another essential First Amendment right, but I do wish we all had more common sense.

Today's Mallard Fillmore comic inspired this post, which Li'l Writer Guy had actually been working on in the background ever since a conversation we had about the subject last night.

Mind you, I don't know any of the details of how it will work, and am only commenting on the theory that children should be covered on their parents' health insurance until they are 26 years old.

It shows the hazards of exposure to pop culture that I was tempted to respond to this idea with "WTF?"  Language I would never speak begins to look harmless as an acronym, and one commonly in print at that.  But I digress.

There are at least two issues here.  One is the need to address the health care gap many young people experience when they begin their adult lives.  An affordable source of insurance for those who are, as the Japanese so elegantly put it, "not in education or employment," opens up intriguing possibilities for self-directed learning, volunteer work, internships, and other ways of independent exploration that could better prepare a person for college, grad school, or a good career fit.  Too many people move mindlessly from high school to college to the workplace without gaining the life skills necessary to get the most out of them.

On the other hand, this is yet another instance of the bizarre phenomenon of extended adolescence.  Parents are not only paying for a college education for their children, but many are covering their graduate school expenses.  Worse, the schools expect this, and require information on parental income for scholarship applications.  (I think universities have some nerve mocking "helicopter parents" while freely expecting their money.)  Now the parents' insurance is expected to cover their children long after those children should be on their own.  We have come a long way, and not all for the better, from the days when teenagers—some of them quite young—routinely married, held responsible jobs, raised children, and supported families.  You can say all you want that it takes more education to acccomplish that in today's society, and I'll mostly agree, though I'll add that the amount of time given to acquiring that education is shockingly and unnecessarily high.  But in any case it cannot be good that we've removed a decade of strong, healthy, exuberant and enthusiastic youth from the years of independence and productivity.

The Obamas' Federal income tax return for 2009 is now media fodder.  (Another reason not to run for president.)  They made a lot of money, though it didn't come primarily from your pocket unless you bought one of his books.  But here's what I want to know:  Does our president support his words with his actions?

One of my complaints about politicians is their penchant for enhancing their reputation for generosity by being charitable with other people's money.   (See the Daley Ponderings discussion about Davy Crockett.)   Oddly enough, the more a politician is known for wanting to spend tax money on charitable causes, the less willing he seems to spend his own money in a similar fashion—a lesson not easily forgotten if one has lived in Massachusetts.  As I reported in How Much Should the Rich Pay in Taxes?,

• In 2007, President George W. Bush and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $923,807...and donated $165,660 to charity—or 18 percent of their income.
• Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned between $200,000 and $300,000 a year between 2000 and 2004, and they donated less than 1 percent to charity. When their income soared to $4.2 million in 2007, their charitable contributions went up to 5 percent.

Here's the question:  In 2009, were the Obamas as generous with their own money as they want to be with ours?

First take, the simple answer, from their 65-page long tax return.  Adjusted gross income:  $5,505,509.  Charitable contributions: $329,100.  That's a paltry 6%.  Not very impressive, considering that the Christian minimum is 10% with more expected of those who have more to give.  Not that we all live up to that, but it is nonetheless the standard.  Surely one should be able to expect more from the nation's #1 political role model.

Take two, digging deeper.  Neither the AGI nor the charitable deduction reflects President Obama's Nobel Prize winnings of $1.4 million, which he gave away entirely.  (One of the recipients, by the way, was Greg Mortenson's Central Asia Institute.)  This changes the figures dramatically:  income $6,905,509, charitable giving $1,729,100, a much more impressive 25%.

So—are they generous folk with their own money?  You can call it either way.  Perhaps it would be better to judge by next year's filing, as it's arguable that the Nobel Prize introduced an anomaly into the system.

But the biggest lesson here is not a judgement on the Obamas' personal versus public charity, but how easy it is to grab either the 6% or the 25% and run with it much further than it deserves to be taken.

I try not to say too much about our current Federal administration, even though much of what they are doing scares me.  (Yes, this is restraint.  Believe me.)  So when they say something I actually like, it's fun to be able to acknowledge it.  (HT Margaret Gorodetzer via Facebook, and Joan Lowy/the Huffington Post.)

With the caveat that I haven't investigated the story at all, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is my current hero for his recognition that walking, biking, and public transit are important ways of getting from one place to another in daily life, not just recreation or the last refuge of losers who have lost their drivers' licenses   Talk is not action, but it's a beginning.

LaHood says the government is going to give bicycling – and walking, too – the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and the selection of projects for federal money. The former Republican congressman quietly announced the "sea change" in transportation policy last month. "This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized," he wrote in his government blog.

LaHood's blog was accompanied by a [Department of Transportation] policy statement urging states and transportation agencies to treat "walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes." It recommends, among other things, including biking and walking lanes on bridges and clearing snow from bike paths.

The new policy is an extension of the Obama administration's livability initiative, which regards the creation of alternatives to driving – buses, streetcars, trolleys and trains, as well as biking and walking – as central to solving the nation's transportation woes.

Alas, this is just a recommendation, but it's an attitude that needs supporting.  A sane transportation policy is long overdue that sees beyond "more roads and bigger."

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan,  by Greg Mortenson (Viking Penguin, New York, 2009)

I knew before finishing Three Cups of Tea that I wanted to read the sequel.  Stones into Schools is even more wonderful.  For one thing, Mortenson has found better help with the writing, so the story is crafted in a riveting, compelling fashion.

Most of all, though, the story itself is riveting and compelling.  While autobiography was a necessary and interesting part of the first book, this one is more about the work of the Central Asia Institute than about Mortenson himself.  In an inversion of the usual approach taken in books about institutions, here the pyramid of emphasis gives the most prominence to the people at the bottom of the organizational structure.  Perhaps the greatest strength of the Central Asia Institute is the extent to which the principle of subsidiarity is honored:  the work is handled at the lowest competent level, which means most of it is in the hands of the Afghanis and Pakistanis themselves.  The Americans handle the overall organization and fundraising, at which it must be admitted we are much better than at dealing with the intricacies of getting things done in a culture that is completely foreign to us.

The Russian invasion of Afghanistan; the rise and fall and rise of the Taliban; the devastating earthquake in Kashmir; the tensions (and war) between India and Pakistan; the unselfish goodness and the tragic, pig-headed stupidity of American intervention—see these from the inside, and never look at a map of that part of the world in the same way again.  Learn what unbelievable sacrifices the "backwoods," tribal peoples will make to gain an education for their daughters, and how much they appreciate schooling for their sons that does not include militant, Taliban-backed, Saudi-funded, extremist indoctrination.

What pleases me most about Stones into Schools is the clear fairness of it all.  In the acknowledgments section, there are as many D's after the politicians names as there are R's.  Mortenson excoriates and praises American policy with an even hand, according to the results he sees.  And while he is careful never to take any funding from the U. S. government for fear of jeopardizing the credibility of his organization, he is happy to work with the military to promote peace and understanding.

Prior to those meetings [with military personal, from service academies to high-level officials], my judgment of the American military's conduct in Afghanistan was harsh and rather uncompromising—and even after these encounters, I still have my objections.  Between June and November 2006, for example, the U.S. Air Force ... dropped roughly 987 bombs on Afghanistan....  The resulting civilian casualties generated deep revulsion among the Afghan people.

Nevertheless, as I experienced the equivalent of sharing three cups of tea with the U.S. military, my perspective began to change.  In a way, each side had something to teach the other, and we both wound up emerging wiser and enriched by the encounter.  In the end, I also came away with the conclusion that the military is probably doing a better job than any other institution in the United States government—including the State Department, Congress, and the White House—of developing a meaningful understanding of the complex dynamics on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The progress that the military has made began under President Bush, and continues under President Obama.  The Central Asia Institute's supporters are as "red" as they are "blue."   They are school children collecting Pennies for Peace, and high-ranking military leaders.  Is there something here that can unite our sorely divided country?

I often recommend books, but I rarely say, "everyone should read this book."

Everyone should read this book.

Most of all, every American should read Stones into Schools.

Indoctrinate U (On the Fence Films, 2007)

Indoctrinate U has been on my "watch list" for a while, but I hadn't been able to make myself take the time. It's not available from Netflix, but I found it on YouTube, in nine parts of about 10 minutes each.  Today it came up on my "get this done today" list, so I thought I'd watch one or two of the segments. But they don't end in good places, and anyway I got hooked, so I watched the whole thing.

This documentary on discrimination, intolerance, and anti-diversity in American higher education is obviously not a high-budget film, though I'm sure it's better in the original format.  I agree with Janet's comment that "it only pointed out the problems and didn't discuss any causes or better yet, idea for fixing the problems," and fear she may be right that it might be more divisive than helpful.  Nonetheless, it's an important film to watch for anyone attending, planning to attend, or sending money to a college or university.  I am not advocating staying away from college; but do be aware of the larger picture.

Although the film looks with some nostalgia on university life in the 1960's, there was plenty of intolerance for diversity of thought even then, though it was not, as now, enshrined in the bureaucracy, and the hard sciences (where I was) were mostly free of that, at least as far as the students were concerned.  Our professors had a hard enough time teaching us math and physics, and didn't feel that taking time for political discussion would help us understand differential equations any better.  I'm told by math professor friends that that has now changed.  One, who has taught both in the United States and in Africa, expressed frustration that her American university required her to teach her not only calculus, but also the importance of African mathematics.  I'm not sure what "African mathematics" might be that is important for a university math major to learn (I missed it in my classes), but I wouldn't be surprised if in the future the important mathematicians are African—because her African students are eager to learn the content, not the politics, of math.

The investigator for Indoctrinate U has been criticized for his confrontational approach, but while I do think one cannot expect to see a university president without an appointment, as journalists go, he was about as mild and polite as you can get.

Yes, the film is one-sided, and not only because they couldn't get anyone from the university side to talk seriously with them.  It presents, however, a side that is not usually heard—indeed, is often censored, mocked, threatened, and attacked—and can be forgiven for being a little strident.

Here is the first segment; from there YouTube will provide links to the remaining eight.  Be patient with the first couple, as at least I found the emphasis on affirmative action less interesting than the general topic of free speech on campus, which is more clearly presented in later parts.  (There is a small number of profanities—quoting from a threat to a student and from the title of a play—that are bleeped out if you get the "clean" version, but the download versions are unaltered.)

I wish they had made more of a distinction between public and private colleges.  To me, there's a huge difference between what a private school chooses to allow or forbid, and what a taxpayer-funded school does.  But in either case, if the school is presenting itself as a bastion of diversity, tolerance, and academic freedom, evidence to the contrary needs to be heard.  Caveat emptor.

Is there a solution?  Confronting the universities with their own stated diversity policies is a start:  Janet had some success at her school that way.  In the long run, I think the biggest difference will be made by India and the Internet.  American universities have long enjoyed near-monopolistic dominance in their field.  However, as it did for their manufacturing and information technology counterparts, that privilege is coming to an end.  When people have choices, change happens.

Article 1, Section 2 of the U. S. Constitution lays the groundwork for conducting a periodic census in order to provide proportional representation in the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.... Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons....

This was modified somewhat by the 14th Amendment, to wit

Representatives shall be apportioned  among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

This week we received in the mail, not the census form itself, but a letter from the U. S. Census Bureau informing us that the form would be delivered soon.  In it we are told the reason we should "fill it out and mail it in promptly."

Your response is important.  Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need.  Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

How did we get from determining appropriate representation in the Federal government to getting our "fair share" of governmental programs that we "need"?  Surely this inversion of John F. Kennedy's Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country borders on travesty.

Then again, I know that the true value of the census is not representative government, nor the people's pork, but to provide future genealogists with information about their ancestors.  I used to think the census takers asked too many nosy questions.  Funny how one's perspective can change.

Three Cups of Tea:  One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin Books, New York, 2007)

Greg Mortenson, the son of missionary parents, had a happy childhood in Africa, but his return to the United States as a teenager was rough, and it took him a long time to find his way.  As he tells it, it took a dramatic failure to lead him to his calling—but I disagree that someone has failed who has not succeeded in climbing the infamous K2 because he expended too much time and energy rescuing a climber in distress.  Whatever you call it, from that point in 1993 on, Mortenson's energies would be spent on a different form of rescue:  building schools and promoting education, especially for girls, in the remote, impoverished villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Mortenson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009; even President Obama's most enthusiastic supporters cannot read Three Cups of Tea without entertaining a doubt or two as to the wisdom of the Nobel Committee's final choice.  (The Nobel Committee overlooked Gandhi, too, so their peculiar judgement is not without precedent.)

The book is not especially well-written; I can't help thinking that David Oliver Relin's English teachers laid a little too much emphasis on metaphors and descriptive adjectives.  But the story is far too compelling to allow any sins of style to distract for long.

Mortenson's fumbling, single-handed efforts became the Central Asia Institute, which struggled slowly and painfully, through war, natural disaster, political disaster, war, kidnappings, death threats, war, treacherous terrain, treacherous criminals, and war to bring quality, secular education—and incidentally bridges, water works, hope, and a reason to love, not hate, Americans—to the desperately needy tribes of Northern Pakistan, and later Afghanistan.  It is a four-star (highest) rated charity, according to Charity Navigator, although its recent explosive growth (thanks in good measure, no doubt, to this book) may strain it a bit for a while.  But the groundwork appears as solid as the love and respect Mortenson has earned, from once-timid village girls, fearsome warlords, and the highest political, military, and religious authorities.

I am not a pacifist.  I reluctantly acknowledge that military intervention is sometimes necessary.  But I can't help thinking that if our government bothered to understand and appreciate other cultures and peoples the way Greg Mortenson has, we wouldn't keep getting ourselves interminably entangled in unwinnable wars.  They're listening to him now, so perhaps there is hope for a turnaround.

Mortenson has a new book:  Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Stay tuned:  there are only 14 people ahead of me on the library's waiting list.

Those in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas might note that Mortenson will be speaking at public events in both places this April.

The Occasional CEO is one of my favorite non-family blogs, not only because Eric Schultz is a good writer, but also because he is a good compiler:  He's great at weaving into a coherent essay the common threads from varied sources I'd never find on my own.  His most recent post, with the unassuming title of Odds and Ends, led me to Paul Campos's excellent Wall Street Journal article, "Undressing the Terror Threat."

Both essays are well worth reading in their entirety.  The first quote box below is from Mr. Schultz; the rest are Mr. Campos's words.

[W]e are buried by data, and are constantly searching for ways to separate signal from noise....Someone wants to take flying lessons: that’s noise.  Someone wants to take flying lessons but doesn’t want to know how to land the plane: that’s signal.  Similarly, someone gets on an international flight, pays cash, and checks no bags—that might be signal.  Someone sews explosive into his underwear: Signal.  Panic.

The question is, how much do we pay to find out?  What’s the real risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist in America?  And if 1,900 Americans [under age 65] die today from a variety of preventable causes, how much are we willing to invest to save those lives?

I'm not much of a basketball player. Middle-age, with a shaky set shot and a bad knee, I can't hold my own in a YMCA pickup game, let alone against more organized competition. But I could definitely beat LeBron James in a game of one-on-one. The game just needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and when I score, I win.

We might have to play for a few days, and Mr. James's point total could well be creeping toward five figures before the contest ended, but eventually the gritty gutty competitor with a lunch-bucket work ethic (me) would subject the world's greatest basketball player to a humiliating defeat.

The world's greatest nation seems bent on subjecting itself to a similarly humiliating defeat, by playing a game that could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

(1) The game lasts as long as there are terrorists who want to harm Americans; and

(2) If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win.

These rules help explain the otherwise inexplicable wave of hysteria that has swept over our government in the wake of the failed attempt by a rather pathetic aspiring terrorist to blow up a plane on Christmas Day.

As to the question of what the government should do rather than keep playing Terrorball, the answer is simple: stop treating Americans like idiots and cowards.  It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts:

(1) America is a country of 310 million people, in which thousands of horrible things happen every single day; and

(2) The chances that one of those horrible things will be that you're subjected to a terrorist attack can, for all practical purposes, be calculated as zero.

No amount of statistical evidence, however, will make any difference to those who give themselves over to almost completely irrational fears. Such people, and there are apparently a lot of them in America right now, are in fact real victims of terrorism. They also make possible the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardice—the cynical exploitation of fear for political gain.

Unfortunately, the politics of cowardice can also make it rational to spend otherwise irrational amounts of resources on further minimizing already minimal risks. Given the current climate of fear, any terrorist incident involving Islamic radicals generates huge social costs, so it may make more economic sense, in the short term, to spend X dollars to avoid 10 deaths caused by terrorism than it does to spend X dollars to avoid 1,000 ordinary homicides. Any long-term acceptance of such trade-offs hands terrorists the only real victory they can ever achieve.

It's a remarkable fact that a nation founded, fought for, built by, and transformed through the extraordinary courage of figures such as George Washington, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. now often seems reduced to a pitiful whimpering giant by a handful of mostly incompetent criminals, whose main weapons consist of scary-sounding Web sites and shoe- and underwear-concealed bombs that fail to detonate.

Terrorball, in short, is made possible by a loss of the sense that cowardice is among the most disgusting and shameful of vices. I shudder to think what Washington, who as commander in chief of the Continental Army intentionally exposed himself to enemy fire to rally his poorly armed and badly outnumbered troops, would think of the spectacle of millions of Americans not merely tolerating but actually demanding that their government subject them to various indignities, in the false hope that the rituals of what has been called "security theater" will reduce the already infinitesimal risks we face from terrorism.

What then is to be done? A little intelligence and a few drops of courage remind us that life is full of risk, and that of all the risks we confront in America every day, terrorism is a very minor one. Taking prudent steps to reasonably minimize the tiny threat we face from a few fanatic criminals need not grant them the attention they crave. Continuing to play Terrorball, on the other hand, guarantees that the terrorists will always win, since it places the bar for what counts as success for them practically on the ground.

 

In Forgetting the Unforgettable, I remarked on how ordinary were my diary entries when the Berlin Wall was breached.  In a subsequent comment, Stephan mentioned that he barely remembers the event, despite living so close to Germany.

Soon thereafter, while taking my customary walk and listening to a history lecture on my trusty mp3 player, I was reminded that the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred when I was the age Stephan was when the Wall fell.  I have no memory of the event whatsoever, nor of any particular anxiety because of the imminent threat of nuclear war.  We had "air raid drills" in our elementary school, but that was nothing new; they were a normal part of school, like the equally-frequent fire drills.  If the adults in my life worried about the situation, none of that filtered down to me.  My life comprised surviving fifth grade, playing with my friends, and enjoying my new baby brother.

Curious, I delved into the journals that my father had kept, hoping there would be entries for October 1962, and there were.  I looked forward to hearing how he and my mother had dealt with the fears that, I'm told, caused families eating breakfast to wonder if they'd still be alive at dinnertime.

He had written absolutely nothing.

The closest thing to a political comment came on November 6:  "This was election day, and therefore a holiday.  We voted a little before 9 a.m....Most of the evening was spent in front of the television set watching election returns."  No mention of the results, nor how he felt about them.

As for the rest, he wrote a wonderful chronicle of everyday life.  He wrote about the speed-reading class he was taking in the evenings, the meetings of the Beukendaal Volunteer Fire Department (almost 50 years later, it's still volunteer, and still uses yellow trucks!), and a little about his job (not much, since much of that was Classified).  He noted my three-year-old brother's reaction to his smallpox vaccination ("Nothing serious, just a little fever that makes it obvious he is not feeling real well"), and my reaction to my first Civic Music Concert ("I think Linda truly enjoyed it.  I am sure part of her enjoyment came from the fact that she went somewhere new and part from the fact that she stayed up late.  On the other hand, she has always liked classical music, and has recently been exposed to The Fire Bird Suite^* in school.").  He chronicled Saturday errands in town with his son, a visit to Rochester to see his father ("All three children behaved beautifully!"), and a Columbus Day holiday venture in which he took my Girl Scout troop climbing in the Adirondack Mountains ("All the troubles of going up were forgotten on the top and the girls were soon busy admiring the view and eating lunch in that order.  They were all thrilled at being on top and for many it was a new experience....Just as we were almost packed up to leave, the skies opened up and we got rained on....At least they know why we said to bring a change of clothes."), and Hallowe'en ("Linda's costume this year was a parking meter.  She made a box that covered her head with an opening in front and a rotating disc in the opening that indicated the time left on the meter.  She wore the aluminum-colored shirt and gray slacks that she wore last year as her suit of armor....[My brother] wore the clown suit that Lynn made for Linda at about that age.").  He spoke of raking leaves, turning the compost heap, and planting bulbs, of making applesauce from two bushels of apples we had picked ourselves at a cost of $3.50, and of the unusually warm weather (October 18: "We still have not had a killing frost.").  There were always repairs to be made:  to the car, to the baby seat, to the radio ("mostly by replacing a tube"), and of course there were school meetings ("Social Studies...tries to be as timely as possible, especially with regard to government.  'A big part of 5th grade is getting the children interested in something other than themselves.'").  There were lovely evenings by the fire, with popcorn and games, and visits to and from friends and neighbors.

But there was no politics.  It hard to imagine that the subject did not come with their friends across the bridge table, but if it did, I did not hear it—and I did eavesdrop from time to time.  I think back then it was considered more important to protect children from the harsher realities of life, and we weren't immersed, as children are today, in a sea of unrelenting media coverage.  Those were also the days when politics, religion, and one's ailments were not considered suitable topics for general conversation. 

My parents were both intelligent and well-educated folks, and my father especially loved history.   But of their political views they said little, and I'm not all that sorry for it.  They believed so strongly in the secret ballot that they almost never revealed for whom they had voted.

Later in life, however, my father did make one memorable political statement that expresses both the climate of the times and his own personality.  "They told me," he intoned, "that if I voted for Mr. Goldwater for president, our country would become mired in a war in Vietnam.  Well, I did vote for Mr. Goldwater, and sure enough it came to pass, just as they had said."

Where were you 20 years ago today?

My own journal entry is remarkably filled with the mundane details of life with two young children.  There is one exclamatory sentence, "Would that every day could be like this!" but it was referring to Heather's having awakened with her alarm clock, showered, dressed, made her bed, cleaned her room and finished all her chores before school.  Not as momentous as events on the other side of the world, but a personal triumph.

I chronicled the minutia of my own work: volunteering at the local middle school, sewing patches on our Indian Princess vests, making Bay Punch, and writing letters.  I mentioned Porter and Janet's Indian Princess meeting in the evening.  There was even the recurring whine about school, in this case my frustration with Heather's fifth-grade teacher, who, I thought, was putting undue restrictions on the books the children were allowed to read in class.

Mrs. C. responded to my letter, and the response was not at all what I had hoped.  She praised the required books as “Sunshine State Young Readers Award” winners (which means little more than that a lot of kids voted that they liked the books) and defended restricting the kids to those books during English reading time, “because I then can control what books the students are reading, feeling confident they are reading from an approved list.”  I don’t object to her wanting to have some control over the reading the kids do in school, but I do object to her using an “approved list” without exercising good judgement.  Even Newberry Award winners are not necessarily all good, and there are plenty of good books excluded from each list.  The Sunshine State awards are heavily biased toward modern books; I don’t believe a deceased author has a change of winning.  Perhaps Mrs. C. really does think that astral projection and high school romances are good topics for fifth graders to read about, but I’d rather hope it isn’t so.  She could at least admit that Little Women, Robin Hood, and similar books are also good reading, but she will not include those in her “approved” reading.  Even Heather is frustrated by this; she is beginning to be able to tell a junk-food book when she reads one.  We talked about it a bit; perhaps she will become frustrated enough to be willing to “play the game.”  She can pick out an “approved” book to read for the restricted 10 minutes, then set it aside until the next day and spend the other reading times with a more appropriate book.  It’s silly to have to do that, not to mention frustrating to leave a book in the middle, but it may be the only way.

Only at the end of my entry did I mention the momentous occasion of the day, and my reaction was characteristically subdued.  When something almost too horrible to think about has been a given for most of your life, it is hard to believe that change is really happening.  Unlike Porter, I had not been through Checkpoint Charlie with all its horrors, but I remembered well the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and feared that Eastern Europe's new freedoms would be short-lived.

Today the East German government announced that its citizens were free to travel to any country, whenever they want to.  This is the most remarkable news I ever expected to hear.  It is in the government’s best interest; the only way they can reasonably slow the exodus of East Germans through the recently more relaxed borders of other East European countries is to give some assurance that things may be getting better at home.  But the East German government has not been known for being reasonable, and they could have started building walls between their country and the others.  Let us hope that “hardliners” in the USSR and other Communist countries don’t get so fed up with reforms that they take over to “save” their countries.  Except for Albania, I expected East Germany to be the last country to reform.

The next day I wrote, "I wish I knew what K. and G. are thinking.  How exciting to be in Germany (and within sight of the border) in these times.  People are dancing on top of the Berlin Wall."   There were friends of ours who were on sabbatical in Germany.  For Christmas that year, they gave each girl a piece of the Berlin Wall.  They were, and maybe still are, too young to fully appreciate the significance of those gifts, more precious in their own way than moon rocks.

It is the gift, and curse, of each younger generation, not to appreciate the horrors that have gone before.  CNN's report on today's upcoming festivities was clearly written by someone for whom the events remembered are mere history.  The human face of what East Germany was like with the wall in place is completely missing in the report.

[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, the first former East German to lead the reunified country, will join former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in a symbolic walk through the point where the first people crossed the Wall on the night of November 9, 1989.

It's a shame Ronald Reagan can't join them: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"