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2011-03-05T09:59:00.000-05:00

Helicopters and Hospital Wars

2011-03-05T00:02:00.004-05:00

The hospital behind my house has been taken over by one of the biggest hospitals in the country. It has a helipad that was used for emergency landing by the five major hospital systems in the area, until now. Now that well lit helipad is the base for the Cleveland Clinic helicopter, exclusively and the other helicopters have to use the parking lot, "the other helipad". You can see it in the picture behind the orange cones. There is a hospital war going on in my neighborhood. All of the hospitals are placing facilities here because people in this county have insurance and money to pay for expensive care. Within a few miles of my house, I will soon have dozens of doctors offices, an urgent care, and three hospitals. For my view of what's happening here. Check out
www.medinahelicopter.org. It might explain why our health care costs are going up. These duplicate facilities are cheap to build.

While helicopters are needed in emergency situations, they do crash more frequently than airplanes. This particular helipad is way to close to residential areas and people coming and going in the parking lot! The other helipad/parking lot is surrounded by trees and buildings and it is dark at night. There is also an unlit cell tower in the path.

This video was taken from my backyard just before the helicopter lifted off.

Ohio's Senate Bill 5

2011-03-04T20:52:00.006-05:00

I have been a teacher for well over 3o years in Ohio, and I see the passage of this latest bill is a huge insult to all of us in the profession. Yes, teaching IS a profession and we are professionals. We do not deserve to be treated like children who are naughty and need our fingers smacked to keep us out of the cookie jar. Policemen, firemen, social workers are professionals too. As far as that is concerned, NO ONE who works for a living should be denied the right to organize and strike if they feel it is necessary to improve their working conditions or get a decent wage for their labor. This bill is a slap in the face to just about everyone.

Teachers are expected to do a multitude of things that used to be the job of parents, churches, communities, and the "private sector" as well as raise test scores and maintain discipline. Now we are being blamed for state deficits. The claim seems to be that PUBLIC EMPLOYEES are greedily robbing everyone else of their "HARD" earned money, and that the taxes we pay (public employees pay them too) are going into the pockets and pension plans of teachers, police officers, social workers, firefighters, EMTs , nurses, etc. If THEY didn't demand so much, we wouldn't have these deficits and this big government. Privatize education and get rid of the unions and everything would be just hunky dory.

Well, sometimes you get what you ask for, and the proponents of this bill may very well get two systems of education in this country, the private one and the public one. Then if they want their children to attend a good school, they can pay for it out of their own pockets. If you can't pay for the good school, your child will get public schools that are poorly funded with over crowded classrooms and poorly trained teachers. Certainly, this bill will make young people think more than twice about going into debt $20,000 or more to enter this profession. The same is true for police officers, firefighter, EMTs, social workers. Those veteran teachers who are hanging on after they could retire, mentoring young teachers, teaching education courses for little pay as a part-time job, or working part-time or as substitutes will quit. Then we will see how the law of supply and demand works in the public sector. I remember when we have had teacher shortages, especially in the fields where there is the most demand. Merit pay is going to fix this they think, but I don't know how you determine the merit of someone who can wipe the noses of a class full of kindergartners with a smile, or patiently explain for the 40th time in one day how to solve an equation or create a citation in a term paper. I would love to see any of those legislators who passed this bill spend one month in a classroom. If they say they have been there, then I would like to know why they left.

Republican leadership at both the state and national level has refused to even consider raising taxes to pay for the debt. Yet, the debt is so large that no amount of cutting will keep it in check. Why? Because, they say, " If we increase taxes, we will slow job growth and the economy." Well, if the bill passes, they have just given a tax increase in the form of pay cuts and increased insurance premiums to a lot of people. This takes money out of the economies of local communities, not only hurting the public employees, but those who depend on the purchases made by these employees. Schools and safety services have already been cut until they can't bleed anymore. Yet, they are expected to find more cuts.

The Tea Party groups have made taxes the issue, but I think we need to look elsewhere for the root of the problem. I pay about 30% of my income in taxes and health related insurance premiums, about evenly divided between the two. My pension fund pays some of my insurance as well, and my husband is on medicare. Then the government is using a large chunk of what we pay in taxes to pay for health care for the elderly and those who don't have health care. Then if we become ill, we pay a deductible and about 20% of the costs in addition to the money going from our income to pay for insurance and the taxes. Duh! Gee, I wonder why our taxes are so high? Then you can look at the banks, auto companies, stock and housing speculators this country has bailed out and the two wars we are paying to fight that IMHO we shouldn't have gotten into anyway, the wealthy who are hiding their money off shore, the underground drug and illegal worker economy that is the one of the largest businesses in the US, pays no taxes, sucks up a lot of tax money trying to stop it, and corrupt politicians that are stealing our tax money and failing to pay taxes themselves. I can think of lots of ways to solve the deficit problem.

But Republicans don't really want to solve it, they couldn't blame it on the unions anymore. There wouldn't be anything for Glen Beck to talk about and the Mother Grizzly would have to go back to Alaska instead of leading tea party rallies. Politics just wouldn't be politics if we actually tried to SOLVE the problems. No, lets just blame it on the public employees and if they don't like it, -----

Maybe they should run for office and throw the bums out! Haven't we been here before?

Ohio State - Political Cartoons
"Uncle Sam Walks the Plank." eHistory @ The Ohio State University. last visited (March 04, 2011)

Egypt and other "Allies"

2011-02-01T20:11:00.003-05:00

"It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty."- Martin Luther King Jr.

So the people of Egypt are demanding freedom and jobs! That is what most of us want, freedom to express ourselves, some control over our lives and the means to live; enough to eat, money to care for our families, education for our children, health care. Oh yes, I forgot to mention clean water. Most of us don't demand to live in luxury, but we do like some security and comfort. The United States spends billions of dollars every year on arms for our "allies", training for their soldiers and maintains a "balance of power" in strategic areas of the world. Often we arm the very countries that will later have revolutions and use the arms we have given them against us,their neighbours or against their own people when they demand the freedom we say America supports. Egypt gives us cause for reflection on American foreign policy. The tear gas lobbed at the protesters was made in America and the dictator they are protesting against is the one we supported. We fear the arms we gave them getting into the "wrong" hands. Perhaps we should reflect on the words of Dr. King and give the kind of aid to citizens in other nations that we would like to receive if we were in their place. I believe in the golden rule, and I would prefer bread to bullets any day of the week. Power to the people of Egypt! If the wrong people gain control, we have only ourselves to blame. It is hard to do much damage with a meal or a job that will provide for a family. People who are employed and well fed tend to avoid revolution. On the other hand, people armed and hungry tend to use their weapons against someone. It is time to change our foreign aid to something we and the rest of the world will find palatable.

Medical Monopoly

2011-01-16T15:09:00.004-05:00

I haven't written on this site for quite some time. Interestingly my last post was on health care and that is what has prompted me to write again. This time it was a helicopter buzzing for 15 min. several times a day just a few yards from my backyard that prompted me to examine what was going on with health care in my own community.

It isn't so much the noise and the fact that it vibrates my windows, but the motivation of the institution that has their helicopter stationed here that bothers me. I have lived here 26 years behind the helipad and never once complained. Medical helicopters save lives. We all know that.

But this was a community hospital before the Cleveland Clinic Foundation bought it out and the helipad was available to all of the medical helicopters in the area, 5 by my count within 30 miles of Medina. None of them were stationed here in a residential section of town with little space for expansion. Flights were from the hospital out to trauma centers or to the CCF or University,Rainbow babies and Akron Children's Hospital. The helipad served Medina and the surrounding area. The CCF helicopter will be going from Medina out to pick up patients within a 250 mile radius and returning to Medina to sit on the helipad awaiting an emergency call from either our hospital or another Ohio hospital, maybe even from neighbouring states.

Now maybe I am just a cynic, but it appears the Cleveland Clinic is attempting to create a health care monopoly, not only in the Cleveland area, but expanding South with their purchase and plans for Medina General Hospital. They are avoiding creating new facilities or closing services in the costly areas of the inner cities where citizens often have no health care or are on government provided plans like Medicare or Medicaid, and instead gobbling up hospitals that would strategically place them where there are many wealthy suburbanites with health insurance. They will leave the trauma care to the likes of Metro and Akron General while taking away their competitions' most lucrative patient base with competing facilities linked to the CCF.

Trauma is expensive for hospitals.

"Individual trauma centers are historically expensive to operate. Patients require helicopters, high-end equipment and top-notch surgeons to be ready at a moments notice. And often, trauma patients cannot afford the services they receive, making the trauma department a money-losing area for many hospitals.

For example, about 7 to 9 percent of MetroHealth's patients are trauma but those patients make up about 16 percent of the system's uncompensated care. MetroHealth, which is supported by Cuyahoga County taxpayers, serves some of the highest volumes of poor patients in the region." Sarah Jane Tribble, The Plain Dealer

Within a short walk from my house and the MGH/CCF there is now a new urgent care center associated with University Hospital and there will soon be a new Emergency room built by Summa Hospitals associated with Akron General. CCF has plans to expand and improve their emergency room. We do have emergencies here in Medina County, but I think this is more a matter of intense competition to gain market share more than an effort to serve the community. One wonders about the future. What if the CCF wins the competition? What if they have their monopoly? Is NE Ohio putting all its eggs in one health care basket? Didn't we learn a lesson from Lebron James? When you have a national reputation (in this case a worldwide reputation) community takes a back seat to ambition. When the Clinic decides to dump us what players will be left to pick up the pieces of our health care, and who will play in the Medical Mart we are building?

So while I may complain about the noise of helicopters, the rest of you should be concerned and ask questions about what the Clinic has in mind for the Cleveland area. The are expanding to Du Bhai, and have looked around for other university partners,

Some Thoughts on Health Care Reform

2009-08-15T16:02:00.004-04:00

Health care expenses for all of us will continue to increase.

Our population is aging
There are more expensive treatments being developed
Neonatal care has improved, and it is expensive
Our population is less fit and our diet is worse
Drug and alcohol addiction is increasing

If no health care reform takes place government expenses for it will continue to increase tremendously. The status quo will be more expensive than reform. Under the current system, government is paying for the highest risk people while the insurance companies make a profit on those who are cheapest to insure. We are not going to let people die on the streets because they do not have insurance. That means that either we will pay for it through our taxes or increased costs at hospitals that serve uninsured people in emergency rooms.
The government pays the majority of the costs for people with the highest health bills; elderly, disabled, low income children. The government also pays when the insurance runs out or people exhaust their savings and ability to borrow.

Health care reform must address:

Wellness and prevention- Community based programs that provide nutrition counseling, fitness advice, well baby clinics, prenatal care, education and screening for common diseases and conditions, reproductive and genetic counseling. Much of this can be done through small groups in hospitals, community centers, schools, senior centers, libraries, etc.
Efficient service delivery- School health programs for children, on -site health care providers in senior centers and senior apartment complexes. Support for caregivers should be increased. Maintaining a severally disabled individual at home is less expensive and in most cases more desirable than putting them in nursing homes, but there is little support for caregivers.
Training additional health care workers- Government grants to train doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals. We must find ways to encourage young people to go into this field. We need more training programs.
Research and development- Additional government investment in disease prevention and treatment. Businesses that use government supported research to create new drugs, etc should have a limited patent protection period.
Tort reform and malpractice insurance- less litigation and more accountability. Better safety procedures to prevent errors.
Patient records, billing, confidentiality and access to information-patient records should belong to the patient and be portable, and digitized.
Mental health and addiction treatment- Should be available on equal basis with treatment for physical conditions.
Insurance regulation-insurance companies should no longer be able to cherry pick clients. They should not be able to refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Treatment research- government must research effectiveness of treatments. This is the only way to prevent the research results from reflecting the bias of those profiting from the treatments. This research should be available to the public in terms that the average person can understand.
Limits on drug advertisement to doctors and the public. Should be limited to providing the facts.

Finding the Center

2009-08-09T19:45:00.005-04:00

I haven't posted here for quite a bit. It isn't that I'm no longer watching the political free for all, just that I'm tired. Tired of all the hurtful things that we say about each other, tired of the promise to reach across the isle being shoved aside to get votes and news coverage. Tired of the members of Congress who do try to discuss the issues being drowned out by the words of the radicals and reactionaries. I'm not just talking about the disruptive right messing up town hall meetings; I'm also talking about the liberal left pouncing on anyone, even conservative Democrats, who expresses even the slightest hesitation to spend, spend, spend, on social programs and economic stimulus. I posted a comment in response to an Orcinus post about Blue Dog Democrats. Someone suggested I was a "concern troll", another called my post sanctimonious (Well , maybe it was a bit). I tried to clarify my meaning today. Not sure if it will help to convince the posters that I am not a troll. It isn't that I oppose health care reform, or helping out those hurt in this economic mess, its just that I don't think we are doing a good job of analyzing the problems ,and everyone knows that the first step in solving a problem is deciding what it is?

My friend Charles and I have a lot of political discussions. He's a mostly Republican; I'm a mostly Democrat. One thing we can agree on is that both of us care about this country and its people. We often agree on other things too. We believe in doing volunteer work to help others, the importance of a good public education system, and that children are being brought up in a world that is more violent, and less nurturing than the one we were brought up in. He's a devout Christian; I'm a UU, but we agree that the values we share are not reflected in most of the mass media. We agree that the war on drugs is failing, but we disagree on how to fix it. We agree that the health care system is in shambles, but we disagree on a public system. We could probably agree that, regardless of how it is funded, fixing it will require a major overhaul, and a change in behavior for Americans regarding diet, exercise and drug and alcohol use. His son is a medical researcher, so I think we could agree that our government should spend more on research to prevent and treat diseases like Alzheimers, cancer, diabetes, etc. We both believe in taking care of our natural world. He is a member of the farm bureau and despite my decision to be a vegetarian, I have to admit that he knows more about animal welfare, and caring for our land and water than I do.

The point of this post is that both Charles and I are in the middle, and no one is listening to us. Not to either one of us, because I think he would want the people shouting at the town halls to be quiet and talk about how to fix health care, and I would like the liberals to stop throwing money at every problem instead of carefully analyzing the situation and deciding how to fix the problems. Maybe the Blue Dogs represent us both.

Obama in Cleveland

2008-11-03T09:32:00.022-05:00

Clevelanders came out in mass last evening to support Barack Obama for President. I was fortunate to get a good spot in the crowd to catch the enthusiasm and hope that everyone was counting on to bring a victory in this Tuesday's election. Standing among the thousands gathered there, praying together with the Rev. Otis Moss, listening to our National Anthem, reciting together the Pledge of Allegiance and singing “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land” with Bruce Springsteen one couldn’t help but reflect on the diversity of the crowd and the urgency that we all feel to heal the divisions in this nation and pull together for a brighter future.

If Senator Obama wins Ohio tomorrow, the economy and Ohio’s position as second in the nation in unemployment will certainly be a factor, but the possibility of having a leader who will bring this nation together has been the energy that electrified his campaign from the very beginning. Ohio has seen more than its share of divisive and negative politics over the years. The reason we are a swing state is that our population reflects the tremendous diversity of the country providing ample opportunity for politicians to point out and capitalize on our differences. The crowd last night was desperate for the message that Obama gave us, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.” His appeal is to the America we can be when we work together, and that is a welcome change for a state that has been one of the major political battlegrounds .

We have heard a lot of criticism of Obama as being all lofty rhetoric and idealism. Yet traveling on the Interstate past farms and suburbs, riding on the rapid transit, standing among the tall buildings, I was reflecting on the tremendous idealism of our Ohio ancestors, people who came here with hope, dreams and a can do attitude. This city, this state, this nation wasn't built by cynics; it was built on dreams, hopes, and faith that if we worked hard together we could do anything. No particular group can take credit for the wealth that was passed on to this generation. It came to us because of the hard work of people who overcome tremendous differences and obsticles to create a better life for all of us. We have to believe in us again and somehow, we have to come overcome our differences to pass it forward for future generations.

Yes we can!"
I may be an idealist, but I believe in the people of the United States of America.

Be sure to vote!

See the Cleveland.com Video below.

Working Across the Aisle

2008-10-02T18:29:00.004-04:00

American voters have heard a lot this campaign season from both presidential candidates about the need to work in a bipartisan fashion, but neither candidate truly supported a bipartisan approach to resolving the economic crisis we faced this week. Both took the usual approach of accepting a flawed bill proposed by the Executive Branch and tacking on some perks and pork to sweeten the deal. They then crossed their fingers and hoped that the revised bill could garner enough supporters who would hold their nose and pass it despite the churning in their gut and the ire of their constituents.

The real leadership came from representatives in the House who examined the bill, unearthed its many flaws and sounded alarm over the unprecedented power it placed in the hands of the Executive Branch. A small group of Democratic and Republican representatives refused to be bullied and frightened into submission. They balked at their leadership’s insistence that it was the Bush way, jazzed up a bit with some constituent candy, or imminent doom and destruction at the hands of the wrathful free market god. They courageously voted NO on the bill. Then they talked and creatively proposed intelligent alternatives to the administration plan.

As I write this, some Republican representatives are going to the Rules Committee to request permission to add an amendment to the bill that would significantly reduce the pork that was added by the Senate while also limiting the power of the Executive branch and taking back power for the Congress in oversight and approval. The Democratic opposition to the bill, led by Ohio’s own Marcy Kaptur and Peter DeFazio (OR) proposed a totally different plan that would pay for the bailout with a tax on stock trades while attempting to stabilize the market by increasing the FDIC limit and changing SEC mark to market valuation of assets.

While the plans proposed by the Democratic and Republican holdouts in the House are different, they have some things in common.

They limit the power given to the Executive Branch and reclaim power for the Congress

They cut the amount of government money that is given to the Secretary of the Treasury upfront and make him or her more accountable to Congress for the way it is spent.

Neither bill includes pork and perks totally unrelated to the immediate crisis. It isn’t that some of those perks and pork barrel projects aren’t worthy, it’s just that they shouldn’t be lumped together so that they can’t be fairly debated and passed on their own merit.

In fairness to the leadership, some changes were made to the president’s proposal that improved it, but they pushed their colleagues to pass it and acted like officers of the Executive Branch instead providing creative leadership to the Congress. It’s time we had a Congress that can work across the aisle to protect the American taxpayers from an Executive Branch that has usurped power that wasn’t given to it under the Constitution. It is time for our Representatives to work in a bipartisan manner to solve problems instead of playing politics with legislation. Their constituents deserve bills that they can understand, strong bills that address the issue instead of bills that are so encumbered by amendments and weakened by compromise that they are ineffective. The best solutions aren’t created by throwing a little of everyone’s ideas into a bill with hundreds of almost incomprehensible pages of legalism and passing it. Then when it doesn’t solve the problem, the parties blame each other for the failure.

The best solutions come from creative problem solving by people of good faith with respect for each other even when they offer different approaches to solving the problem. Creativity, problem solving and respect, and courage that’s what I saw in the deliberations of some members of the House this week. Unfortunately these were not qualities I found evident in their leadership.

Lipstick and Pigs

2008-09-10T08:36:00.002-04:00

I don't fault Senator Obama for slamming McCain for trying to pass off Bush's failed policies as change. My only problem with it was his use of the cliche. I'm tired of all the cliches thrown around by the politicians. If they are going to throw around insults, they should at least be original.
So let's help them out. - How about -It's like dressing a snake in a robe but it still slithers. Not so good?- give it your best shot. How about some of the other cliches thrown around this campaign season?

Obama and Taxes

2008-09-07T11:30:00.005-04:00

I was out campaigning for Obama yesterday, and I was impressed with how well Senator McCain's campaign ads and attacks are working to convince voters that if Obama wins the election, they will have huge tax increases. One elderly lady living in a subsidised senior citizens housing complex was a registered Democrat, but she was going to vote for McCain this year because she was convinced that if she voted for Obama all the prices would go up because businesses would pass tax increases onto consumers.

The voters need some education about income inequality in the United States and the effect the Bush tax cuts combined with an expensive war have had on our national debt. The only problem is, it takes more than a 30 second sound bite to explain economics and the philosophical basis for a progressive tax code. Unfortunately, the attention span of the average voter seems to be pretty short. Maybe they need some graphs and charts. It seemed to work for Ross Perot. The picture above is a graphic representation of the Gini Coefficient, a measure of income distributuion, for various countries. The darker blue and purple colors show more inequality and the lighter yellow and green more equality. Compaired to other industrialized democracies, the U. S. doesn't measure up.

Now I can understand the top 3-5% of the population being against the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. I can even understand voters being reluctant to tax anyone, after all, no one likes to pay taxes or bills. But what I don't understand is how voters with average intellegence and a decent education can believe that McCain or Obama will fix the problems we face without either raising taxes for someone or going fruther into debt as a nation. We've all spent enough time at our kitchen tables trying to balance our budgets to know that if income doesn't equal spending you have to get another job, tighten your belt or go into debt. Maybe the voters really believe that the mavaricks, McCain and Palin will cut out all the "Bridges to Nowhere" in the budget and find a lot of hidden cash to balance things. ( Didn't Alaska keep that money?) Sorry, I just don't buy it. Congress has never been very good in the belt tightening department. Even with Sherrif McCain and Deputy Palin in D.C. packing pistols and riding herd on Congress, the budget isn't going to balance unless the taxes are raised for some of us or we hock our national treasures and our childrens' future in pawnshops around the world.

Back to the issues - PLEASE!

2008-09-07T10:49:00.003-04:00

I am so sick of all the coverage that involves the personal lives of the candidates for President and Vice President. I'm sick of the news media looking for scandal and trying to guess at how our gender, race, ethnicity, religion, region of the country, age, marital status, previous voting behavior, etc. will influence our votes. I'm sick of the campaign ads that say little more than my opponent is _______________ and I love American and will work for you so vote for me. Think of all the worthless media time that is spent in this. This democracy needs something besides red meat (sarcastic slams) and whipped cream (junk food for the brain) from the mass media if it is going to be healthy.

You have to get up pretty early in the morning and look hard for a balanced diet to help you with the difficult task of voting in this election. This morning, I happened to be awake at 6AM and caught an AARP forum on C-Span that included statements by both candidates on health care and social security. After each candidate spoke, they answered questions- intelligent questions. Interesting that the major channels have seen fit to give us hours and hours of garbage, covered Rick Warren's forum on faith and politics in prime time but can't find time to show this when most of us are awake. If you want to see the video click here for Obama and here for McCain.
The links to the video are not actually working as I write this, but they may be up later.

Women's Suffrage

2008-09-06T15:12:00.004-04:00

My mother was born in 1920, the year women got the right to vote. My grandmother was 40 years old at that time. Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's Secretary of State gave a speech during the Democratic convention on the fight by women to get this right. You can hear it by going to the Buckeye State Blog. I am grateful for the women of the past who fought for my rights, and I am energized by the increasing number of women who are standing up to take leadership roles in our communities, our state and our nation. It is heartening to see so many women getting actively involved in the campaigns this year. We have much to say!

Governor Palin and Women's Issues

2008-09-05T08:45:00.006-04:00

Now that I am over the shock of having Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket, I have been pondering my own reaction to Senator McCain’s choice of running mate. Here are some of the thoughts I have been having, and I am wondering whether other women, regardless of party affiliation, have been having them too.

The campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin may finally force this nation to engage in a much needed dialogue related to sex, gender and the roles women and men play in our society. One of the things that struck me while listening to Palin’s speech was that this topic was not really mentioned at all except to imply that the cultural norms and expectations for women should not apply to her except when they were applied in ways that would help her get elected.

I can’t help but compare the absence of dialogue on gender issues to the way we have discussed race. We claim that sexism is over, that we have moved beyond it just the way we would like to pretend that race doesn’t matter. Barack Obama’s candidacy and our reactions to it prompted him to declare the need for a national dialogue on race in America. Unfortunately, only his wife, Michelle, not Senator Clinton or Governor Palin, has spent much time talking about the difficulty of balancing career and family.

There are those who would like women to be quiet and to pretend that the expectations related to sex and gender are unrelated to the problems faced by our families and communities. Women politicians and feminists want to talk about cracking the glass ceiling, but they don’t want to discuss the way the glass shards are affecting us as the ceiling falls. Yet despite our best efforts to ignore these issues, they will demand our attention.

While we try to pretend that race has nothing to do with achievement in the meritocracy of the good ol’ USA, the disparity in educational achievement, household income, standard of living, life expectancy, infant mortality, deaths by homicide, and incarceration between people of color and whites cannot be covered up by patriotic rhetoric and Social Darwinist philosophy that blames the less fortunate while assuaging the guilty feelings of the more fortunate and well off. Senator Obama’s life story became proof for whites that this society is no longer racist and hope for people of color that there might someday be an end to racism. Governor Palin’s story is given to us as proof that a woman can do it all. If Sarah can rise from PTA president and hockey mom to Governor and VP candidate while making a home for her family of five and even shooting and cleaning moose on the side, discrimination on the basis of gender is over. While her story is cause for hope, women understand that many of the barriers are still there. They know that citing PTA president and hockey mom doesn’t measure up as employment experience when trying to get back into the labor market after taking time off to care for the family. You see, there are some expectations for women that men do not have. They are expected to be the “home makers” of our society. The fact is, women have been doing a damn good job of it too. It isn’t that men don’t help in making a home for families and communities, it’s just that the role of breadwinner that men are expected to fill is elevated and out there for everyone to see. There is a value placed on this contribution in terms of dollars, but women’s contribution has been too often taken for granted. “women’s work” has been unpaid or meagerly paid and undervalued except for all of the hoopla on Mother’s Day.

But there is one thing most women know that men have ignored, “women’s work” is essential to our wellbeing as families, communities and as a nation. If women are going to have equality with men in the workforce, then men have to do many of the jobs that have been traditionally the role of women. They also know that most men aren’t willing to do them for the pay and recognition that has been given to women. They know that for a woman to have a family and have equality on the job, she has to have a lot of help behind the scenes. If her job pays well, she may be able to hire a “home maker” to help care for the children and care for the house. If she is married to a liberated man, he may share the “home making”, each of them giving up some of their ability to compete on the job because they have responsibilities that others without families or who have spouses full time in the home do not have. I am fully convinced that for every successful man or woman, there has been a “home maker” in the background lifting them up on their shoulders and often more than one. There are women all over America who have cared for our children, our elderly, the ill, our homes and our communities without pay or for low pay and without much recognition. If women are to have equality, we need to change the way we value nurturing in this society. Our families and our communities are getting sliced and diced from the shards as that glass ceiling breaks. The Republicans have put a woman on the ticket but they haven’t addressed the real issues for women like health care, childcare, education and family leave. These are the issues that involve the “home making” role that women have traditionally been expected to fill for low wages or no wages. It's time for a dialogue about gender. I'm still waiting for the discussion to start.

2008-08-17T15:45:00.002-04:00

Here is what the candidates in this election are not talking about. The presentation comes from Ross Perot's website (Remember him) . Although I didn't vote for him, his warning of the disaster to come with trade agreements being signed was not lost on me. This morning I saw his running mate, P AT CHOATE, author of Dangerous Business: the risks of globalization for America, on C-Span. That and the first campaign 2008 forum last night prompted me to post something on this blog.

After watching the Warren forum, I fear that this election will be decided based on campaign slogans, smear ads (even an 11 year old can see through), and social issues. If we care about our country, we should be talking about economics, not abortion, gay marriage, getting Osama Bin Laudin dead or alive, and rattling our sabers at Russia. What was really scary was how the political talking heads rated the performance of the two candidates after the debate. McCain got high marks for his expected pandering to the religious right and Obama got slammed for his "nuanced" professor type responses (recognizing and discussing complicated issues in an intelligent manner?). Unfortunately, economics is a complicated problem and there is no easy fix that can be summed up in one slogan or campaign promise.

We are in deep trouble in the U.S. and our economic situation is a major threat to our national security, both economic and military. Ross Perot and Pat Choate are trying to get the discussion going. I only hope the voters are up to listening to it.

National Security

2008-03-02T23:22:00.003-05:00

When the primaries are over and the two major parties have their candidates, John McCain will attempt to focus the debate on the topic of national security, a subject that he feels more comfortable with than economic policy. Hillary Clinton has already given us a taste of the fear mongering ads that he might produce with her 3 AM Ad. I might have expected it from McCain, but I was really disappointed to see Hillary stoop to this level. Anyone who has knowledge of how our government operates in a crisis situation knows that the president does not make national security decisions in a vacuum. The first thing that would happen if the president received such a call would be an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. One might hope that in a crisis the president would use the wealth of information and suggested responses offered by the members of the NSC to analyze the situation. An appropriate response to the crisis would depend on the quality of the advisors the president chose and his or her ability to exercise judgment based on their assessment of the situation from various perspectives. Certainly one would hope that the president would not make a hasty decision based on personal knowledge and experience alone.

In making his case that he is the best prepared in the national security department, McCain will undoubtedly tout his military background and experience. But in looking back in history, the presidents who commanded our troops during the times of greatest conflict had little to no military experience. Woodrow Wilson, president during WWI and Franklin Roosevelt, president during WWII had no military experience at all. Abraham Lincoln was a captain in the Blackhawk War, but that certainly did not prepare him for the Civil War. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were all in WWII, but that did not stop them from blundering into a failed war in Vietnam. Kennedy’s war experience did not prevent him from a poor decision in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

A nation is most secure when wars are prevented through appropriate diplomacy, strategic alliances, and industrial, economic and military strength. Right now, our nation is probably about as insecure as it has ever been in its history.

We are involved in two wars that seem to have no end in sight. The enemy is not a military force that can be conquered and subdued. There is no military objective, territory to be taken, government to be toppled. Terrorists are criminals-murders, sometimes insane or antisocial individuals and sometimes murderous gangs. Although they use a particular altered ideology for recruitment, identifying them with a particular religious belief is giving them more legitimacy than they deserve. Police action supported by the population being preyed upon is the appropriate intervention, not military occupation by a foreign army. Unless the overwhelming majority of the population of Afghanistan and Iraq support their governments’ in controlling terrorist gangs, there is no end to this conflict. Our military is stretched to the breaking point acting as a police force fighting terrorists without the support of the population and in some cases the government they are trying to defend.

The United States is economically vulnerable. We owe money to our enemies, we have let our industrial base decline, and we depend on foreign nations that are not democratic or are even openly hostile to our political and economic system for the energy we need to function as a society. If we had to defend ourselves, we would not have the ability to independently equip our troops with the basic necessities. In a world conflict, we would not have the fuel needed to transport our troops and supplies, and operate our advanced military equipment.

Our relationship with our allies has deteriorated, and our influence on the diplomatic front has taken a dramatic hit as a consequence of the invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s reliance on threats and intimidation instead of working with other nations to find solutions to world conflicts. The idea that the United States was the lone “super power” after the fall of the Soviet Union seems to have left us with a superiority complex that is less than attractive to the rest of the world community.

So, in picking a president to bolster our national security, I am not looking for a military leader, and certainly not someone who supported the decisions and policies of the current administration. I want a leader who is better at preventing wars than deciding how to fight them; who has a plan to rebuild our military to discourage attacks, not make it into an Iraqi police force for the next hundred years. We need a president who has a plan to strengthen our economy and bring back the industrial capacity that allowed us to be the “arsenal of democracy” during the two world wars. We need a leader who will challenge us to marshal our resources and our technological creativity to solve our energy problems. Finally, we need a president who can work with the leaders of other nations to solve our shared problems and create a force for freedom that is formidable and united enough to discourage others from waging attacks against us.

If all else fails, and that call comes to the White House at 3 AM; I want a president who is humble enough to seek the counsel of the best minds available and ensure the support of our allies before taking action. I want a president who will consider the options, the possible consequences, and plan accordingly. President Bush and his advisors dropped the ball when it came to analyzing the options and possible consequences regarding Iraq, and the members of Congress that voted him the power to invade failed us. Certainly there were many experienced military and political leaders making this decision, from the Bush advisors to the Congress. What was lacking was the ability to correctly analyze the situation, and exercise good judgment. Senators Clinton and McCain both voted to “authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.”

In contrast, here is Barack Obama’s assessment of the situation. I’ll take his judgment over McCain and Clinton’s experience.

….“That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Queda, thru effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons in already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.” …

Barack Obama Speech October, 2002

Monopoly

2008-02-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a child, cold winter Saturdays like this one were often spent in the tower of a Victorian mansion that had been made into four apartments. My best friend’s family lived in the apartment on the top floor that used to be the attic of the mansion. My family lived in the duplex in the ally behind the apartments, where the stable for the mansion once stood. The kids in our neighborhood spent their 10 - 25 cent weekly allowance on coke, pretzel sticks, and penny candy. Then we settled in around a big table and enjoyed this game of high finance that was developed during the great depression. The game ended hours later when one of us had accumulated most of the property and wealth and someone else went bankrupt paying the rent required for landing on the other’s property full of hotels.

The game was developed during the great depression, when the country reaped the result of years of over extended credit, unbridled greed, and the consolidation of wealth. So it seemed fitting that I was playing Monopoly in a made over Victorian mansion, though I had no clue about the history of either as I munched on my pretzels and drank my Coke.

The Gilded Age and the Jazz Age that preceded the worst economic depression in history were periods of unprecedented corporate growth. An increasingly smaller percentage of the population controlled not only business, but through their wealth also influenced the political process to their advantage. These were times when the gap in the distribution of wealth between workers and those who owned the means of production increased dramatically. This was also the age of the muckrakers and the trust buster, Teddy Roosevelt. There are many similarities between this period of history and our own. Is John McCain a Teddy Roosevelt Republican hiding in a Reagan costume? Check out my guest column on the Cosmic Message web site?

Half-truths, Lies, and Exaggerations

2008-02-09T12:23:00.000-05:00

Diogenes, the Greek philosopher alleged to have walked around with his lamp looking for an honest man, is a pitiful image. But even more to be pitied is any American voter looking for a crumb of truth in the campaign ads and debates of this presidential election. If you haven’t visited The Annenberg Political Fact Check in search of the truth, you should grab your lamp and click the link.

The most unfortunate thing about the half-truths, lies and exaggerations that blare forth from our televisions and radios, find their way our mailboxes, and flow around the Internet in our e-mails is that they work. They appeal to our desire for simplicity and our impatience with the difficult task of trying to understand complex problems that require complex solutions. We have no patience for a candidate who will try to explain the complicated details involved in fixing our health care system or working with other governments to resolve issues like terrorism, global warming, arms reduction, etc.

Even if we had the patience, it is difficult to find media access to the truth. There are some exceptions, but they are hidden away in the deep recesses of the Internet, on the shelves of libraries, or in scholarly journals that almost no one reads. There is even some truth to be found in the halls of Congress during the committee hearings, and once in a great while, the mass media presents a truly good documentary or scholarly discussion.

I have already given up looking for honest politicians during an election year, but I still hope that once they get elected they will stop campaigning and put aside the cute little digs they make at each other. I hope they will do the job we are electing them to do, to understand the complex problems that confront us and use their common talents to solve them. That is what the founding fathers did so long ago in that sweltering room in Philadelphia when the fate of our nation rested in their ability to craft a government even though they were divided on many issues. They had the humility to admit that their efforts were not perfect, but they gave it their best and made provision for it to grow with our nation and our understanding.

So, in voting this year, I have put aside my search for honesty. I will put up with all the silly campaign stuff; I just won’t let it influence my vote. I’ll take my lamp to the candidates’ web sites and look for plans that are detailed. I’ll listen for a hint of humility when they give their speeches. I’ll ask myself if this candidate has the ability to compromise when compromise is necessary for the greater good. I’ll listen for vision because without vision we are bereft of goals, and without goals there is no progress. I’ll do my best to vote intelligently, but they sure don’t make it easy.

John Boccieri for Ohio's 16th District

2008-02-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

I practically grew up being represented by Ralph Regula. He was my state senator and later my Congressional representative when I lived in Canton. Imagine my surprise when many years later he once again became my representative after redistricting placed Medina County in the 16th District. Ralph Regula has represented Ohio well during his 36 years, 18 terms in Congress. I haven’t always agreed with his position on the issues, but I do have tremendous respect for his service to our state and our nation. I am particularly grateful for his support for education. The Stark County Branch of Kent State University made it possible for me to graduate from college.

After this term of office, Congressman Regula will retire. In this age of divisive politics and political scandals, one may wonder if there is a candidate who can represent the people of the 16th District with the integrity and dedication that Ralph Regula has demonstrated throughout his career in public service.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to meet candidate, John Boccieri at the Medina County Democratic Rally on February 2nd, and I was truly impressed! John has already demonstrated his dedication to this country and the people of our state by serving 11 years in the military including 4 rotations in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He has had legislative experience in the Ohio Assembly, currently serving as Senator for the 33rd District and previously serving as a state representative. His education is also everything you might ask for in a Congressional Representative, a bachelor’s degree in economics and master’s degrees in public administration and business. But it wasn’t only his resume that impressed me; it was his ability to connect with people and his passion for fixing the problems that we face.

It is time to pass the torch of leadership to a new generation. The people of Ohio’s 16th District are fortunate that John is stepping up. On his website, there is the promise to, " bring a common-sense approach to crafting legislation and policies, making sure that working families in the 16th District – and across the country – see the benefits of decisions made on Capitol Hill. " For those of us hoping to change the way our Congress has been doing business, electing John Boccieri to be our representative is a great place to start the reformation. Check out his website.

Hope Renewed by the Democratic Debate

2008-02-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

I have to admit I've grown pretty pessimistic during the Bush presidency. I didn't start out that way. I was actually ready to give him a chance when he won (?) the election. I mean, how bad could it get? Even Republicans love this country, don't they? What has happened in American politics during this president's administration was beyond my worst nightmare, and I can conjure up some pretty nasty dreams when I am in a pessimistic mood.

Nothing in this presidential primary gave me cause to change my mood until last night's Democratic debate. Unlike their front running Republican counterparts, both Obama and Clinton handled themselves with the class I expect from someone who is campaigning to be our president. For more of my view of the debate and to join the discussion, visit the Cosmic Message. The debate didn't exactly make an optimist out of me, but I did find some hope.

Letter to Congress

2008-01-27T16:35:00.000-05:00

I have to say I am angry enough to spit bullets, so I sent this letter to my Congressional representatives, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator George Voinovich, and Congressman 16th District, Ralph Regula. I hope that they will share my opinion with the rest of their colleagues. If any of this hits home for you, feel free to cut and paste as you see fit and send it off to your Congressional representatives.

Dear Congressional Representative:
I have been closely watching the economy for a long time. It was easy to predict the present "crisis" as American families borrowed at high rates of interest on credit cards when they couldn't afford to do so. When they got into trouble on credit cards, the Fed lowered the rate of interest so they could double mortgage or use home equity loans to pay off credit card debts. The banks and financial institutions could not make their high rates of interest on traditional loans, so they made the risky sub-prime loans and jacked up the credit card rates on those who were already in financial trouble.

It is strange that the Congress now wants to "do something" about the economic crisis. People in Ohio have been losing their decent jobs for years. Credit card companies have been robbing us of what little money we have each month. We are as much tied to the credit card companies as the coal miners were tied to the company stores. What did Congress do about it? It changed the bankruptcy laws so it is harder to get free of the debt this government has encouraged consumers to shoulder and encouraged people to hock the house to pay off the credit cards. Our elderly are getting reverse mortgages to pay for health care and living expenses.

In the meantime, Congress went on an Iraq spending spree with billions that cannot be accounted for, and all we hear is that entitlements are breaking the budget. We are told that health care for everyone would break the budget, but federal and state funds are already paying the cost for those who are at highest risk among us, the elderly, disabled, and poor. Meanwhile the private insurance companies refuse to insure people with preexisting conditions and charge employers and the self-employed outrageous rates. Insurance companies have increased profits and higher salaries for their CEOs while the tax payer picks up the tab for the uninsured and those at highest risk. When a crisis does occur like hurricane Katrina, insurance companies refuse to pay their subscribers, leaving the government to give aid to the people who have been hurt.

Ah! But now the stock market is hitting the skids. Now there is a REAL economic crisis for Congress to worry about. What will we do?! The answer, of course, is for the government to spend billions of dollars they borrow from China, some Middle Eastern oil rich leader or our Social Security fund to goad the American consumer to resume spending. It is interesting that Congress has no money to help Americans who have no health care, have lost their jobs to China, owe their homes and their lives to credit companies and banks, but they have 160 billion to spend to prop up the stock market and the financial institutions that have been gouging us.

Here is what I have to say to this Congress and I hope you will say it for me. Keep your refund! You weren't there when the credit card companies and banks were enslaving me. You weren't there when my health cost were doubling. You weren't there when the good jobs in Ohio went to China, India and Vietnam. So don't be there for the bankers, CEO's, mortgage companies, day traders and house flippers. I might suffer a bit, but I know how to do with less. Lower and middle income people in Ohio have had a lot of practice.

Do you want to pass some legislation?! How about regulating the financial institutions, stock market, and insurance companies? How about changing our trade agreements to protect American workers? How about ending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, so that we can fund the war this Congress voted to get us into? Maybe you could stimulate the economy by fixing our bridges so they won’t fall and our levies to protect our homes. Maybe you could put some Americans to work fixing our broken infrastructure, policing our streets to make our neighborhoods safe, or fixing our schools.

Yours truly,
Angry Constituent

Joining CRAM

2008-01-19T09:49:00.000-05:00

Discontinuous Permafrost has started a great movement called CRAM and I am joining the movement today. It is time American consumers began to fight back against corporate abuse and this seems like a great way to do it. If you want to join, just start putting all those credit card applications back in the prepaid envelops with the words please recycle scrawled across the application or better yet, send them back shredded with a note to recycle the contents.

While we are on the topic of corporate greed...
Is anyone else upset by the politicians attempts to solve our economic crisis by sending us back a penitence of our own money so that we can spend it to prop up the stock market?

Seems strange to me that universal health care is seen as prohibitively expensive when the cost is estimated to be $110 billion a year, but candidates from both parties seem ready spend $50 billion to $150 billion for a tax stimulus package that they hope Americans will spend to prop up corporate profits and the stock market. Americans have been losing their jobs, their homes and their financial stability for a long time, but what gets the attention of Congress? The stock market is going down and the financial institutions are losing their shirts on the bad loans they made to the financially overextended American consumers. Except for Ron Paul, none of the candidates seem to be losing sleep over where the money will come from to pay for the stimulus.

It is time for the politicians to start telling the truth about our economic situation. This nation cannot survive as the major consumer of products that are produced elsewhere. We cannot continue to borrow away our future to prop up our overindulgence today. This is a time of reckoning. It isn't the first time this has happened. It happened once before when everyone was trying to get rich quick by speculating in land and stocks. People were enticed by advertisements to buy the latest technological gadgets today and pay for them tomorrow and credit was easy to get. The only difference was that it was washing machines, radios and automobiles then and it is iPods, cell phones, and Nintendo's today. We are in a recession and we could end up in a depression if the politicians continue to stick jacks under the crumbling foundation instead of addressing the true problems with this economy.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T09:45:00.000-05:00

What a joy to welcome in 2008 with my husband, brother and sister-in-law at the First Night Akron celebration! Even though this event has been going on every New Year's Eve for the past twelve years, this was my first time attending it, but it will not be my last.

After a great dinner at the Otani Japanese Restaurant in the Merriman valley, we went downtown to explore a virtual smorgasbord of entertainment, all for the cost of our $10 button; even the parking and bus ride around town was included. My personal favorite was the Magical Theatre Company’s presentation of Bunnicula at the Akron Library. The comments of the little 3 or 4 year old sitting behind me during the play were as entertaining as the performance. There was certainly something for everyone from toddler to senior citizen at this celebration. My husband’s favorite was the harmony of the Akron Derbytown Barbershop Chorus at St. Bernard Church, and we all enjoyed the great rhythms of the University of Akron’s Steel Drum band.

We kept warm jumping around to the beat of “Cats on Holiday” as the New Year approached and welcomed in 2008 with a bang, blaze of colors, and the rockin’ sound of music from Akron’s WKDD radio. I had a great New Year’s Eve and didn’t even touch a drop of alcohol. It was enough of a high to celebrate with our community and look through the free 3D glasses at the kaleidoscope of color that emanated from the fireworks. I never realized that you could get such a psychedelic effect that way. If you have never attended First Night Akron, you might want to give it a try next year. I plan to make it an annual event.

Now that the holiday is over, I am resolving to be more organized and stay in shape. I make these resolutions at the start of every year, but I never keep them to my satisfaction. I also am making a new commitment to citizenship this year. I've posted my political resolutions on the Cosmic Message Blog.

Happy 2008 to all!

By Hand, Unique Artistic Gifts

2007-12-02T15:03:00.000-05:00

For those of you in the Cleveland, Ohio area, this is a great opportunity to support local American artists and have a fun holiday shopping experience too. In this age of cheap imports, it is refreshing to view a wide variety of quality gifts and talk to the people who created them. The director of this event is my son-in-law, Jay Snyder, so I will be there with the rest of my family helping him out. I hope that you will join us December 8 & 9, 2007 (Saturday 10a-7:00p, Sunday 10a-5p) at the I-X Center, Cleveland, OH. For details and discount admission
coupons, visit www.byhandevents.com

BY HAND: BUILDING A TRADITION OF HOLIDAY MAGIC
If you have found yourself just not feeling that old “magic” while wandering the malls and department stores this holiday season, Jay Snyder thinks he knows why - and claims he has brought the answer to Cleveland.

Jay’s brainchild, “By Hand” returns for a third year at the I-X Center on December 8 & 9. Billed as “Original, Unique, Expressive and Just in Time For the Holidays,” this is not another Christmas crafts show. In fact, it is far more easily compared to summer art festivals like Boston Mills Artfest or the Cain Park Art Festival. Everything is a unique work, created entirely by the hands of the very same artist who you will actually meet at the show.

“Giftgiving has really begun to feel like an obligation. You scan the shelves, select one box or another with ‘made in china’ stamped on the bottom, and take it home thinking that maybe mom could use this once or twice,” says Snyder. “So rarely is it a decision that really fits the personality of the recipient. You settle on a plastic clock radio shaped like a dog and it ends up in next year’s yard sale.” Snyder claims it’s all because it is hard to make an emotional connection to a meaningless lump of consumer grade plastic. “By Hand offers the ultimate alternative. A hand crafted, high quality gift is both thoughtful and meaningful, and can be cherished for a lifetime.”

There is no shortage of options, from fine oil paintings and sculpture, to leather purses and briefcases, ceramic platters, one-of-a-kind precious metal bracelets and rings, heirloom quality wooden boxes and much more. You are sure to find something that you are excited to give, or that you just can’t help but take home for yourself. Patrons have agreed that By Hand is a great way to put some magic back into holiday gift giving.

By Hand was modeled after Winterfair - a 30 year old event in Columbus, for which Snyder once served as director. “While there, artists used to ask me all the time, ‘why don’t we do something like this in Cleveland?’ Eventually I just said, ‘I don’t know, lets do it.’ I’m really happy that we’ve been able to give so many Clevelanders that same magic of American made heirloom quality gifts.”

By Hand hours are Saturday, December 8, 10 a.m.–7:30 p.m., and Sunday,
December 9, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. The parking is free, and admission cost is $10; children 12 and under are free. For details and discount admission
coupons, visit www.byhandevents.com

Latest Political Post

2007-10-01T17:29:00.000-04:00

Even though I haven't been doing a lot of posting here, I am still watching the news. I've posted my latest thoughts on unsafe products and our government's unwillingness to protect workers and consumers. Visit the Cosmic Message to learn about my mushroom experience and join the discussion.

Cold Noses, Warm Hearts

2007-10-01T16:57:00.000-04:00

Wow! I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted anything on here. There have been some furry creatures taking most of my attention lately. First, I dog sat my friend's nine month old standard Schnauzer for a week. It has been awhile since I have had a dog around the house for a period of time, especially one with so much puppy energy and enthusiasm for going on long walks. Chi Chi was a great house guest and made me remember how wonderful it is to have a cold nosed, warm hearted pal there to greet you when you walk in the door.

My son, took in a mostly Jack Russell Tarrier who needed a person and a home to call her own. Jon calls her Gypsie, and she is a doll. My husband says it is quite amazing to see how well this little lady, who weighs a little over 7 pounds and stands less than a foot tall can control her master who is 6" 4" and weighs over 200lbs. I spent the weekend in Columbus helping Jon dog proof the house while also taking care of my daughter and son-in-laws dog, Sagan while they were in Chicago. Sagan is out of the puppy stage now, but still likes to take me on long walks to Schiller Park in Columbus. There is nothing like a dog to encourage exercise when one is less than enthusiastic about getting out there.

Cosmic Connection

2007-09-01T16:01:00.000-04:00

One of the great opportunities presented by blogging is making connections with others.

I've recently been asked by the Cosmic Messenger to post as a guest on his site, The Cosmic Message once a month. He has created a team of bloggers that includes Cosmic Messenger, Enigma , Cheyanne, and me.

My first post is about the failure of our Congress to deal effectively with repairing and maintaining our national infrastructure. Join me at the Cosmic Messenger to ponder the metaphor comparing My Roof and the Infrastructure. Stay tuned for future messages from the Cosmic team members.

Every Child Left Behind

2007-08-28T16:05:00.000-04:00

The report cards are in for Ohio schools. So what did we learn after paying to test Ohio’s 1.8 million students from 1998- 2007? (find out who is getting rich from testing ) We learned that students who come from families where parents are wealthy and educated, on average, do better than children who come from homes where there is poverty and parents are less educated. We learned that African American and Hispanic children, on average, get lower scores on a particular type of test than Caucasian children (perhaps because more of them come from families where parents are poor and less educated). We learned that children with disabilities test lower, on average, than children who haven’t been identified as having disabilities. We learned that if we really push teachers to concentrate on teaching to high stakes tests, they can raise the scores of most children on the tests by a few percentage points. I don’t know about you, but for me none of this information came as a great surprise.

So why have we spent millions of dollars, hours and hours of valuable instructional time, and reams of paper to find out what most of us already knew? Underlying the testing are certain assumptions or perhaps hypotheses that some education pundits and politicians are trying to prove. They are rarely stated in their naked form, but are instead couched in some political slogans and educational jargon. (Educational accountability, no child left behind, outcome based education, standards based assessment, etc.)

The assumptions:

1. All children can learn what they need to get into college and become a “white collar” professional worker instead of doing manual labor if only they have the right (school, teacher, method, opportunities).

2. The reason American children fail to do as well on standardized tests of math and science as their peers in other developed nations is because our schools are failing to give students the basics they need to compete in these areas. (Most countries modify instruction in the higher grades based on career interests and aptitudes of the students. There are more vocation specific opportunities available)

3. The reason many American students are not prepared to enter training for high skilled jobs is because they go to schools where teachers do not set high standards, do not try to involve the parents, do not try to be creative in their teaching methods, etc., etc. If only they had better schools and more qualified teachers, the under performing low income, disabled, ethnically different students would be doing as well as their peers in the rich suburban schools. They would become doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists, computer software engineers, etc. (There is no genetic component to intelligence,and aptitudes. Parental interests do not influence their children's interests)

5. A society where every child is qualified for, desires and competes to enter employment in a job that demands a high level of academic skills is desirable. (Who will do all those other jobs?)

4. Children are like bars of metal and can be molded or shaped into whatever we want them to be if only we use the right methods. This assumption looks to a factory model of education. Students of whatever age are the raw materials, and the educated person is the finished product. The school and teachers are the factory, the machines and the employees. If you aren’t getting the kind of product you expect, then you look for the problem in the manufacturing process. (We can produce the product we want regardless of the student's aptitude, interests, and motivation to work in the occupations society deems most worthy and needed at this particular time and place in history)

There is only one problem with this line of reasoning; children are unique, living, thinking beings capable of acting independently, not identical bars of metal. They enter the world with differences that transcend unique fingerprints, and interact in their own unique way with the thousands of variables in their environment both inside and outside the school. The staff members at the school are also unique, living, thinking and independently acting humans who are impacting and reacting to each other, the students, parents, the community, etc. While we collect data in a futile attempt to understand student outcomes based on our faulty mechanistic factory model, our ability to impact the modern complex educational system continues to elude us.

It is my contention that every child deserves a “special education” because every child is special; just ask a parent. High stakes testing does not make education better; it makes it mediocre, and it is that aim for the “average” that all parents and students find so objectionable in today’s schools.

Alfred Binet did a great disservice to society by creating a construct he titled intelligence. He then created a measure of it using tests that divided persons into below average, average, and above average groups based on their performance on a few samples of behavior. Ever since society adopted this construct, students have been subjected to standardized tests that take the mean performance of a group of individuals on certain supposedly representative tasks and label that “normal”. Our lockstep grade level curriculum is based on “normal”. Students are placed in “special” educational environments when they fall too far from “normal” in either direction from the mean. Based on a production construct, I suppose unusual blocks of steel must be given an unusual production process to be turned into products that fit a particular mold society deems desirable, but the average widget can just be stamped out from the die.

Today’s ( 8/28/07) Plain Dealer had an excellent op-ed titled “The Gifted Children: Left Behind” The authors correctly point to the damage this mechanistic approach to education inflicts upon students with exceptional ability and interest in academic areas. But it is also as damaging, perhaps more so, for the students who have interests and abilities in areas not tested by these academically oriented standardized tests. What about the student who would like to fix your automobile when you get stranded on the highway or repair the bridge that fell in Minnesota? What about the empathetic and caring student who wants to work in a day care center or care for your aging parent? How about the student whose father or mother is a truck driver and hopes to drive a big rig some day? Are these the “average” students the tests are seeking to prepare for the future? Take a look at the questions asked on the exams released by the state and ask yourself if they are testing knowledge that is vital for these students to make their way in the world. How much does the manner in which the questions are asked and the vocabulary used to ask them influence the student’s ability to answer? Are there test items that concern personal finance? Will the students be able to protect themselves from predatory lending? How about reading road maps? They may be able to write a five paragraph essay, but do they understand their right to a safe work environment? Can they report an unsafe work environment to OSHA? Does the test ask questions about child development? From my perspective, this test offers little for the student who is going to make his or her living in an unskilled or even a skilled job. You know, those jobs Americans won’t do, so we have to import the workers from other countries to do them.

Is it any wonder that students who are having difficulty passing these tests drop out either mentally or physically? Can you understand their reluctance to study probability or the Marshall plan for the fifth time when their bellies are hungry, and their goal in life is to drive a truck or build a house, not attend college. It isn’t their fault that the jobs they would find interesting and have an aptitude for doing are going overseas or do not pay a living wage.

There are no average kids. Every parent wants an education that meets his or her child’s individual needs, interests and abilities. Isn’t that what the parents of gifted students and students with disabilities are demanding? Doesn’t every student deserve that, an education that will help them find their own unique place in our society? Maybe we should spend some of that testing money on a living wage for everyone who is willing to do one of the many and varied jobs we need to have done.
Maybe we need to promote respect for all our children instead of standards based education and academic sorting. Maybe we need to grade our schools on their ability to connect with individual students and provide them with the educational experience that they need right now even if it doesn't fit the norm. The emphasis on high stakes standardized testing leaves every child behind.

The DOW and the TAO

2007-08-18T16:54:00.000-04:00

On August 19th the DOW Industrial Average hit 14,000, and then it started gyrating around like a balloon that has been blown up and released without a knot at the end. Having predicted a credit created tsunami for over ten years now, I can’t say I was surprised. Corporate America with the help of the government marionettes has been propping up our economy with credit while stealing its valuable resources and picking the pockets of lower and middle income Americas for a long time. While the advertisers were inundating the public with the messages of unbridled consumerism and the financial institutions promoted funding it with credit card and home equity debt, there was a fundamental truth to which no one was paying attention except those who found themselves with nothing left to hock, not even the possibility of future earnings. James McMurtry has a song about it, “We Can’t Make it Here Anymore”.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that consumes more than it produces. You don’t need an MBA to understand this concept, but the idea of being able to consume without end and reap without harvesting is so intoxicating that even a lot of MBAs allowed themselves to be sucked in. I was watching CNBC during the rise to 14,000, when the money pundits were gushing about Goldilocks and stomping like bulls. They were singing the praises of globalization like overwrought converts at a religious revival. Then the credit balloon got away, and the Dow went haywire. Suddenly the tone turned to panic and there were prayers for the Federal Reserve Board to come and save them from certain destruction. "Lower the interest rates!", they cried. "Add some liquidity!" At the same time, products produced for a big profit in China were increasingly found to be defective. Law suits loom on the horizon to rob investors of anticipated profits and rising stock prices. The very people who were all about globalization and deregulation are now crying for the American government and the taxpayers to step in to protect them.

I was also watching the sad drama being played out in Utah where six miners are trapped and others have died trying to rescue them. In my mind, I made a connection between these two events. There was greed involved in the mining and greed involved in the hedge funds and mortgage markets. Too much coal had been removed to support the mountain above it. Those who stood to gain most from mining it knew they were taking a big risk. When the roof fell in, the owner wanted to blame it on nature, not humans taking so much coal from the mine that the mountain needed to fill the void. They propped up the roof, but you can only defy the laws of the universe for so long. Those who made the plans to do retreat mining and reaped the lion’s share of the monetary rewards from it weren’t the ones trapped and dead when the ceiling collapsed. The owners kept reassuring the miners that the mine was safe, that they were looking out for them. Those who lent credit at high interest rates to poor credit risks knew that these loans were risky, yet government and economic leaders keep telling us that the economy is solid and growing. But when the loans can’t be repaid after years of trying, it will be the American consumers who are left with nothing to show for their years of labor and sacrifice, not the big investors or the government officials that they financed and duped the public into electing . The roof of this economy is being supported on the backs of lower and middle class Americans who are in hock over their heads, and are losing their jobs to cheap labor in foreign countries and exploited illegal immigrants. The Federal Reserve might be able to shore it up by lowering the interest rates again, but we cannot defy the laws of nature forever. When the collapse comes, those who have been making the economic decisions will be counting their profits in some offshore resort while the rest of us try to dig ourselves out of the rubble. It is time for us to develop some respect for nature and learn from it instead of abusing it. We need to look to the TAO for guidance, not the DOW.

When a country obtains great power,

it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.

A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.

Tao Te Ching, 31 Lao-tzu

Where I've Been Hanging Out

2007-08-18T14:56:00.000-04:00

This isn’t my usual post, but a list of links to some of the blog sites where I’ve been hanging out, and some of the discussions I’ve found of interest.

Jeff Hess posted this video comparison of Cheney and Scowcroft thought 1994 v. 2003

Boy In the Bands has a good discussion going about Communion
BTW-Thanks for the link back to my post on the topic. :)

Jill at Write Like She Talks questions the cost of mining and the recent recall of products from China.

And Cosmic has some thoughts on Hillary

Communion

2007-08-14T11:32:00.000-04:00

Our interim minister has suggested that perhaps our congregation should offer a communion service once a month either before or after the main service. It is an interesting suggestion to me because the lack of a communion service is one of the reasons my husband would not feel comfortable joining our congregation; not the only one, but one of them. The fact that our congregation calls itself a church at all makes some of our members who did not grow up as Christians and some who are atheists or agnostics very uncomfortable. I have a feeling that offering communion once a month would not be a welcome change for them, even if it is not part of the main service.

Having grown up in a Christian church but no longer considering myself a Christian, I can understand the strong feelings people have about communion. Most Unitarian Universalist congregations celebrate flower communion or water communion, and while I enjoy these worship experiences, they just do not fill the void that was once filled by Christian communion. I would welcome a meaningful communion service that is centered on the teachings and life of Jesus. While I reject most of the Christian doctrine, I cannot reject Jesus or what his life and teachings have meant to my life. Communion is a powerful way of remembering his sacrifice, not to save me from my sins, but to reach out in love to people unconditionally and completely, even to reach out in love to those who greeted him with hate, fear, ignorance, bigotry, torture and death. I don’t believe he rose bodily from the grave, but I do believe this spirit of love is eternal. Communion is a way to remember this powerful example of love in our world, love that can help us overcome all the ways we hurt ourselves and each other, love that allows us to forgive others and most of all to forgive ourselves and start anew. For me, communion is about celebrating the power of love as shown through the life and teachings of Jesus. It is about rededicating myself to reaching out in love to those around me, even when I do not feel it in return. It is about connecting with my many Christian ancestors, family members and friends who have blessed me with the spirit of unconditional love that they found through following the example and teachings of Jesus.

I understand that for others communion reflects everything they have rejected in Christianity; the sacrifice of Jesus for forgiveness of sins, the one and only one true way to heaven, the concept of hell and the need to have an intermediary save them from it, etc.
I don’t like those associations with communion either. I once went to a Brethren communion service that included feet washing. For me, this was one of the most meaningful services I have ever attended. It wasn’t about a sacrifice made to save us from an eternal hell, but about the unconditional love that can transform the world as shown to us through the example of Jesus.

Revising our Constructs

2007-08-13T16:36:00.000-04:00

Our congregation is undergoing some change right now. Our minister of the past fifteen years has left, and last Sunday we welcomed our new interim minister. This change has been upsetting to some, unsettling to most, and welcomed by a few. I think that is pretty much par for the course with any big change, some of us loath it, most of us approach it warily, and a few always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence until we get there and are looking over the next fence. A recent post by Jamie at Trivium has caused me to look at my own perception of change and my view of worship.

One good thing about change is that it causes us to question our constructs and revise them. I am a fan of George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory. Kelly viewed the individual as a scientist who continually creates constructs that facilitate anticipation of events. The constructs allow us to form hypotheses that are then tested in our world. The results of these “experiments” often cause us to revise our constructs. Constructs have poles or opposites allowing that which we observe to be placed somewhere on the continuum between them. For example, one may have the construct of hot and cold. We only have this construct of temperature because of the variability. If everything around us and within us was a constant 98.6, we wouldn’t notice temperature at all. It is only our need to anticipate events that causes us to create the construct. Ice cubes and snow are cold. The stove is hot. If I touch the stove burner, I anticipate pain. If I put ice on the burn, I anticipate soothing relief. Winter is cold, summer is hot and spring and fall are somewhere in between. Using this construct, I can anticipate needing a warm coat in winter and shorts in summer, planting flowers in spring and skiing in winter. If I move to the equator, these constructs and their relationship may need to be revised because they will no longer be relevant to the events I need to anticipate. Kelly saw most of our psychological problems as a failure of our construct system. Problems result when we fail to adjust our constructs to the results of our experiments. They may also be caused by a construct system that doesn’t have enough constructs to allow us to make accurate predictions. That is a really short and inadequate summary of what it took Kelly two big volumes to explain.

Applying Kelly’s theory to the congregation’s current situation, the change is upsetting because it challenges our constructs. So what are the constructs I have with regard to our worship service?

Obviously one of the constructs Jamie has is sacred. I guess I have a sacred construct too, and if I do, it has to have another pole. (constructs are personal remember) What is the opposite of sacred for me? I guess for me it is unloving. Love is sacred and being unloving, unloved or withholding love is the opposite. When I am in a sacred space I feel loved and feel loving. I come to our service to get that feeling back when I have lost it and to magnify it when it has dimmed. Being in nature is sacred space for me because I feel loved by and at one with the universal force, the Great Spirit, the Tao.

Challenging is another construct I have and comforting is probably its opposite. I like a service that challenges me to grow as opposed encouraging me to remain in my comfort zone. I like to have my constructs challenged by the sermons and readings even though it is a bit unnerving at times. That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a service that gives me some validation for my constructs on occasion, but I don’t want so much support that I grow stuck in my ways. Being the age I am, there is enough push in that direction already.

Emotional is also a construct that is important for me in worship. On the Myers Briggs Type Indicator I come out as a T, thinking as opposed to F feeling. I am rational to a fault. So, emotional vs. rational is another construct I have. I come to worship to find and free my emotional self, that part of me that I often keep hidden even from myself. I need a place where I can be vulnerable and open myself up to that. That includes the full range of emotions from a good belly laugh to a good cry and everything in between. That doesn’t mean that I need to express them during worship (though sometimes that’s a good thing), but I need to allow myself to feel them and deal with them. A good worship experience has often helped me do that.

Connected is another construct that is important to me. I want to feel connected with others instead of separate. I am looking for unity instead of division. That doesn’t mean that I want to ignore or minimize our differences. I am looking for a way to celebrate them instead of allowing them to divide us. I want to draw a circle big enough to include everyone, a beautiful rainbow circle that allows us to empathize with each other’s need for different worship experiences. I hope we will work together to help everyone in our congregation get what they need from our worship as well as getting our own needs met.

Those are some of the constructs I seem to have regarding worship. I wonder what constructs others in our congregation may use when anticipating worship.

Sicko and Harry Potter

2007-07-23T00:06:00.000-04:00

Call me cheap or just not very interested in pop culture, but I normally wait for the movies to come out on DVD and borrow them from the local library or watch them on TV. This weekend was a first for me. I just couldn't resist seeing two movies at the theater.

I love the creativity and fantasy of the Harry Potter books and when paired with the magic of Hollywood special effects artists, the Harry Potter movies just have to be seen on the big screen. After getting a great Harry Potter fix at the movie, I can now peacefully curl up and read the Deathly Hallows. It could be a few days until I post on this blog again. Is there such a thing as a "Potter Overdose"?

Michael Moore's Sicko had me laughing, but there is nothing funny about the American health care system except the American public's willingness to accept it in the name of "free market capitalism" and as a result of savvy marketing and political contributions by the insurance and drug industries. I have to admit, I had tears in my eyes as the 9/11 rescue workers got compassionate treatment from the Cuban doctors that they couldn't get at home.

Maybe if we ask Castro nicely, he will offer care to some of our wounded Iraq War Vets who can't seem to jump through the right hoops to get the care they were promised. Maybe the Cubans would help out the never mentioned civilian contract workers who have been wounded or are suffering from PTSD. I wonder how many of these American heroes will be denied health insurance later in life because of preexisting conditions they acquired during their service to our country. I wonder if the government will deny that the war had anything to do with these conditions. I wonder how many of the surviving spouses and children of those who have died will be unable to afford treatment if they become ill. Just some interesting facts about those contractors though it isn't even possible to get accurate statistics about how many there are or how many have died or been wounded.

"In Iraq today, an estimated 126,000 Defense Department civilian contractors support 145,000 troops. Thousands more civilians work under contract to other U.S. government agencies."

"After The New York Times submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, the Department of Labor acknowledged 917 deaths, including at least 146 during the first quarter of 2007. Another 12,000 have been wounded or hurt, and those numbers almost certainly underestimate the true toll."

Rosa Brooks

If you want a true picture of all the people fighting this war in our name, you should read Brook's article or view the videos at Civilians at War.

I wonder if we pull out the troops if we will bring the civilians out too.

OK, I've had enough politics and real life for a bit, I'm off to lose myself in a magical world with some of my favorite book people. Catch you in a day or two.

Sex Education for Five Year Olds

2007-07-22T12:37:00.000-04:00

I just had to laugh at the conversation between Bill O'Rielly and Rev. Haffner. I remembered my conversations with our son at age five when I was pregnant with his sister. We had explained of course that his sibling was growing in mommy's tummy and let him feel the baby kick. I should have used the word uterus because the conversation went like this:

Jon: How's the baby gonna get out? Are you gonna puke it up?
Mom: The doctor's going to take it out in the hospital.
Jon: Oh ...
Jon: So how did it get in there? Did you swallow it?
Mom: It's really hard to explain ummm. Maybe your dad can explain it better.

This bought me some time. It was a couple of days before he started asking the questions again when his dad was home. By this time we were better prepared. A really curious five year old has a lot of questions, and you can't put them off forever. I guess O'Rielly hasn't been around many curious five year olds interested in how things work. I had gotten pretty good at answering questions by the time our daughter started asking them and her older brother was more than happy to give her the benefit of all he had learned about the process. Guess the five year olds in O'Rielly's life didn't have older siblings and playmates willing to share information and misinformation about sex with his kids. Some of the misinformation and information they got from their friends and brought home was truly amazing.

Voice from Cleveland

2007-07-19T20:58:00.000-04:00

After reading Dick Feagler's latest column, "There's nothing to gain in Iraq, or here at home, by fighting this war" I just have to express my appreciation for his honest and straight forward presentation of the truth as he sees it. I don't think he is that well known outside of the Cleveland area. That is too bad because I think his is a voice that speaks for the average guy on the street in many places besides Cleveland. So in keeping with my goal on this blog to, "amplify the voice of others who need to be heard". I am humbly recommending the columns of Dick Feagler published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer to those of you who haven't been listening to this voice from Cleveland.

California Zephyr

2007-07-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

After my wonderful five week vacation, I can’t help but share some of the highlights and some of the reflections. My husband and I traveled on Amtrak from Cleveland to San Francisco then rented a Chevy Malibu for the trip back. For most of our trip, we camped in national parks or forest service camps, but also stayed in a few motels and KOA campgrounds. The trip on the California Zephyr was great. If you have never traveled by train, you might want to give it a try. Although it is not the fastest way to travel, it is unique in its opportunity to view the country and meet fellow travelers. I also felt that it was an ecology friendly way to travel though I would like to know what the difference is between the fuel consumed by the train, an airplane and a car in relation to the number of passengers they hold.

Riding the Zephyr was also a trip back in the history of America to a time where the pace was slower and the world seemed larger. In 1885, a train following much of the same route took my great great grandparents, Benedict and Rachael Miller and half of their twelve children and grandchildren to Oregon where many of my distant cousins live today. So for me, it was an opportunity to reflect on their pioneer spirit and wonder at their willingness to leave half of their family behind to venture off to new life when they were about the same age I am. They would not see the family left behind in Indiana and Ohio until 1906 when they made the trip back and both died during the visit.

The scenery from the train is fantastic, and the route is an engineering marvel. This is especially true when one considers that the tunnels and tracks laid on the sides of mountains were first created at a time when most building was accomplished by pure human and animal muscle along with some dynamite. When I think about the tremendous amount of work accomplished by our ancestors, I am awed. I am also amazed at their optimism and fortitude in the face of hardship. What has happened to their decedents? We take for granted all the things they were striving to accomplish and yet we are the most depressed and drugged people in history.

One of the best parts of traveling by train is meeting one’s fellow passengers. When traveling by car, everyone is trapped in their own little bubble flying through space with their feet a few feet from the ground resting on the metal floor hovering over the sameness of the interstate highway. Even when we stop for food or just a break, we rarely talk with those who are traveling the same direction. On the train, the observation car becomes a place for meeting others and sharing experiences. I talked with a young Amish boy from Indiana, a couple of girls from Sweden, a couple my age from Illinois, and a computer geek from Silicon Valley (just to give you a sample of the variety of travelers aboard the train). Because of the limited space in the dining car, the hostess seats people together when there are not four people in a group, so we really had no idea who we were going to be eating breakfast with each day. We had breakfast with a different couple each day and enjoyed the conversation. The food was very good and not terribly expensive.

There are some down sides to traveling by train. The first is that one must be prepared to give up some of the comforts to which most of us have become accustomed. We did not get a sleeper car, so we had to sleep in the reclining seats. For me, it wasn’t that much of a problem; I can fall asleep just about anywhere. When we talked with others who were in sleeper cars, they said that it wasn’t really worth the money. They complained about cramped conditions and difficulty sleeping but some of the sleepers have showers. After hiking the AT, going without a shower for a couple of days isn’t a big deal to me especially when there is a restroom with running water where one can freshen up a bit. We had to leave Cleveland in the middle of the night (2:30 AM) and had a three hour period in Chicago when we changed trains that offered us a chance for a nice breakfast and a walk to the lake. The trip took about 2.5 days and we were delayed five hours due to a freight train that blocked our route when it broke down and repairs they were making to the track. (Considering the recent passenger delays in airports and passengers stuck on airplanes, this wasn’t a bad deal. The scenery was great, there was food, restrooms, a reclining seat with lots of room for napping and reading, the opportunity to walk around the train and chat with others in the observation car, and the air conditioning worked well.) When I compare my trip west with that of my ancestor, I really have to say I had it pretty good! I copied the following from the family history complied by a distant cousin, Ken Heeter.

“From hearsay, personal observation and experience, I may be able to relate bits of the past: Just before my birth in 1885, my grandparents, Benedict and Rachel Miller, with half their family of twelve children (most of them married and with families of their own) all moved to Oregon, the trip required two weeks by train to San Francisco, then by boat to Oregon, landing and settling about forty miles south of Portland, around Hubbard, Albany and Eugene. “

Libbie Friesner

“Grandma and Grandpa decided to move to Oregon too. My mother was still a young girl living with her parents, and her boyfriend (my father) went along. Travel at that time was a step above the covered wagon, and they went west by way of an immigrant train which I believe was made up of both passenger and freight cars. The passenger cars had a stove at one end for heat and cooking. My father said he had a good time sitting at an open window and shooting at fence posts. At this time there was not a railroad going to Oregon so they traveled by train to San Francisco and transferred to a ship that took them to Oregon.”

Winona Ruby Yoder

Took the Book Quiz

2007-07-18T15:02:00.000-04:00

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

2007-07-18T13:25:00.001-04:00

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823.

The very heart of our democracy is threatened when information and debate is controlled by those who have economic and political power. I am afraid, I am very very afraid, not of the terrorists but of those who have been and are continuing to take over our media and prevent the free flow of conversation between citizens and deny the public access to essential information. There are two major threats to the free press that has prompted me to write this and increased my anxiety.

First, are all the media mergers that place control of the mass media in the hands of media conglomerates. Nine companies, Disney, CBS, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Viacom, General Electric, Lagardère Group and Vivendi SA own 90% of the market. There is one and only one guiding principle for these mega corporations, “make a profit”. For a good discussion of the deterioration in the mass media’s coverage of the news I would refer you to an article at Cyber College titled, The Decline of TV News Coverage. One of the most recent takeovers was yesterday’s sale of the Wall Street Journal to News Corp. Now, I’m not a great fan of many of the opinions expressed in the Wall Street Journal, but I do read it on occasion and look to it for a conservative and business point of view on the news and as a source for understanding the economic world of big business and multinational corporations. What I don’t want to read in the Wall Street Journal is what I read in all the other newspapers and see on TV.

Second is the continuing effort by multinational corporations and many of our current “corporate owned” elected officials to control the Internet and restrict the free flow of information and harness it for profit. As newspaper, television, radio, and motion picture media has increasingly come under the control of big corporations concerned only with profit, not information, factual reporting or democracy; the Internet has become the best hope for the spread of democracy throughout the world and the continuation of our own. But as Cosmic has posted on his website, the average American is too distracted by endless debates on Iraq, new reports of threats by terrorists, the latest Hollywood gossip, and political spin to protest the legislation that would silence the voice of the people and rob them of the information they need to maintain their freedom.

“As special interests jockey for control of the information highway, consumer input has become noticeably absent from the conversation. Unable to express their concerns, people are reduced to passive listeners, voiceless to interject their opinions about the most significant free speech matter to emerge in the past 75 years. Instead of focusing on a substantive policy which assures the Internet will be shared equally by everyone at an affordable price, the slugfest has degenerated into a hostile engagement about who will profit the most from its future deployment.”

It is time for freedom loving Americans to protect free speech and free press, fundamental rights guaranteed in our First Amendment. The founding fathers knew the importance of these rights to our continued survival as a free nation. Join the fight to Save the Internet for the people.

"We all take for granted the freedom that the internet gives us to access any piece of information, ranging from the smallest website to the largest. Most importantly, we take for granted the freedom it gives us to share our opinions. Imagine, if you will, an Internet where certain websites are blocked or take a prolonged amount of time to load just because the broadband provider you subscribe to doesn't agree with the opinions or content presented on them. The great innovations that come from an open, collaborative environment would be stalled, if not completely halted."
"Media conglomerates threaten Internet neutrality" Polytechnic Online

Five Weeks Later

2007-07-17T21:56:00.000-04:00

Once long ago, I was hooked on a soap opera. I used to watch it every afternoon when I had the chance. The funny thing about soap operas is that you can miss a few weeks and pick right up again because nothing much has really gone on while you have not been watching. I just got back from a five week vacation ( more about that later), turned on my TV to the United States "Congressional soap opera" and was not surprised to find that nothing much has changed while I was tuned out. Tonight the Senate is having an all night discussion of the War in Iraq, but everyone knows that it won't change anything. But this isn't a soap opera. People are really dying while the characters in Congress talk and talk and talk.

I wasn't for this war. I didn't need a crystal ball to know how it would turn out. What I don't understand is that anyone who had gone through the Vietnam era could fail to predict the consequences of trying to make a country composed of religious and ethnic factions that don't like each other into a democracy by outside military intervention. Obviously the president was too busy flying planes over Texas, watching baseball (?) and drinking (?) to pay much attention to Vietnam. I am furious that those who were elected to lead this country let us get into this situation, but I know that playing the blame game will not get us out. I also know that looking for the perfect solution will not get us out because there is no good plan, only bad plans and worse plans. Anne Applebaum, No Magic Bullets For Iraq, does a great job of explaining flaws with the proposed solutions.

I don't have the magic answer, but I am certain of one thing, continuing to do more of what we are already doing is the worst plan we could possibly follow. I hope that Congress quits talking and starts acting soon because the hole that Bush is digging will soon be so deep that we may never find a way to climb out of it. I was glad to see that Senator Voinovich suggested a plan to the president. I'm not sure if it will work, but when you are at the bottom of a deep hole any plan is better than continuing to dig. Members of Congress need to stop talking and force the "Decider" to stop digging and start building a ladder.

People with Questions

2007-06-09T20:02:00.000-04:00

A link to my post about the '08 candidates led me to the Six Questions Blog. The blogger, Linda has sent six questions to the presidential hopefuls of both parties. I will be anxious to see if she gets answers and if the candidates respond, what they will say. I really like question number 5

"This country requires alternative sources of energy.

a. Are you willing to ask the American people to make major lifestyle changes (for example, give up the suburban life of big box stores and malls where the only way to get to anything is to drive a car) in order to ease the transition from a fossil fuel based energy system?
b. Are you willing to speak honestly to the American people about what it would take to move to alternative energy at no matter the costs to your political career?"

This is also something I am looking to find in a president, honesty in addressing the American people about the problems that confront this nation and a willingness to ask them to make the sacrifices it will take to solve the problems. Too many politicians promise us that the government will fix everything for us. Of course this is impossible. What we need is a leader who will encourage us to work together in solving our problems. We need honest leadership not empty promises.

What I Want a Presidential Candidate to Say

2007-06-08T14:33:00.000-04:00

Here is what I would like to hear from the ’08 presidential candidates. So far, I haven’t found any of them very satisfactory. For me, the three most important issues are the War and Iraq, immigration reform and trade negotiations. Unfortunately, the Republican candidates want to continue the war in Iraq, the Democratic candidates want to maintain the underclass of workers coming from Mexico and neither party is ready to stand up to international corporations and demand fair trade and port security. Feel free to use the comments to express your own wish list for the ’08 presidential contenders. Here is my wish list.

The War in Iraq

Dennis Kucinich comes closest to my view on this important issue. He has proposed a plan (Gosh imagine that! Someone with a plan!) to get us out by working through the UN and using diplomacy to bring other nations in to bring security to Iraq and assist in its reconstruction. Of course this would mean that corporate America couldn’t exploit Iraqi oil reserves and maintain a monopoly on reconstruction contracts. I’m willing to trade that for American and Iraqi lives.

Immigration Reform

It is interesting that the Democrats claim to represent American workers but support President Bush’s “comprehensive” immigration reform package that would continue to maintain an underclass of illegal or cheap labor for exploitation by American corporations. I definitely am opposed to any guest worker program. If we need more workers in the United States, then we should provide more opportunities for legal immigration. There is no place for an underclass of workers in this country and no proof that guest workers would return to their nation of origin once their visa expired. Guest workers would marry, have children in the U.S. and we would continue to have the dilemma we face now concerning undocumented workers with family who are citizens.

If any of the Democratic candidates for president expect my vote next election they need to fix their stand on immigration reform.

Here is what I would like to see in immigration reform:

1) Compassionate visas (C- Visas) for undocumented workers who have immediate family who are American citizens, including parents of minor children who are citizens. The C Visa would allow them to stay in the United States and work, but not lead to citizenship. If they wished to become American Citizens they could remain in the United States and apply for a green card. Proof of citizenship for the relative would be required and the individual would need to have a sponsor that would guarantee them employment or economic support. They would also have to undergo a medical exam and background check.

2) Border security would need to be increased with additional trained border patrol and physical and virtual barriers.

3) A tamper-proof ID system would need to be in place for all legal residents and citizens of the United States. The blue paper social security card and paper birth certificates just don’t work in a digital society. Verification of a worker’s status would need to be made prior to employment by every employer. Failure to verify a worker’s status as legal would result in a fine in proportion to the number of workers employed by the employer.

Fining a small business $5,000 for hiring an illegal employee is significant. Fining a major corporation the same amount is not a deterrent. Fines would increase for repeat offenders. No driver’s licenses would be issued by states without proof of the applicant’s legal right to reside and work in the United States. All driver’s licenses would designate the status of the driver as citizen, R-Visa, H-1 visa, or C-Visa. Unless one is authorized to work in the United States they would be unable to open a bank account, minor children of citizens, legal residents and students on student visas for the period of time stated on their visas would be the exception.

I know the argument about giving up our privacy and big brother watching us, but I have already given up my privacy to financial institutions, insurance companies, Internet advertisers, etc. The IRS already knows where I work and everything about me. For a change, I would like to see the technology used to protect my identity and my rights instead of using it to protect the rights of business and financial institutions to exploit me.

4) The quota for legal immigration should be increased.

5) Employers who wish to have someone enter the country under an H 1 visa should provide evidence that they are paying that individual the prevailing wage for American workers working in similar positions and provide evidence that they have attempted to hire an American worker to fill the position.

International Trade and Port Security

I am opposed to allowing foreign corporations to operate our ports. The ports in the United States should be operated by American corporations or the government of the United States. I am also opposed to allowing private control of American highways, selling of state toll roads should not be permitted. I agree with Dennis Kucinich , end NAFTA and the other trade agreements and renegotiate them on a bilateral basis.

Does it Change Your Life?

2007-05-26T11:32:00.000-04:00

We recently had a congregational meeting where we discussed the growth or lack of growth of our congregation. One of the exercises we did was to examine the congregation’s history. It was hard to believe that the Universalist Church of Akron once had 800 members and played a major role in Akron’s history. So what has caused our decline and the stagnant or declining growth of other more liberal denominations while more fundamentalist Christian churches, especially the mega churches seem to be attracting more and more people?

After thinking about this, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one major difference between these growing and stagnant churches; the growing congregations promote the life changing nature of religion. I’ve heard a lot of Christians over the years talk about how God changed their lives, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Unitarian Universalist talk about how their religious belief has changed their life. I do believe that following my own spiritual journey and the support I’ve gotten from my congregation has been life changing for me, but it isn’t something that UU’s talk about to others even within the congregation let alone to potential members. So here is my question to my fellow UU’s: Has your religion changed your life? Would you be living the same way if you were not a member of your congregation? I'd like to pose that question to people of other religious denominations and faiths as well.

While I Haven’t Been Blogging

2007-05-26T08:59:00.000-04:00

Lately, I haven’t been blogging because I have been busy watching the birds. I’ve started a new routine in the mornings where I only spend an hour watching the news and C-Span while I eat my breakfast. Then I take a half hour walk to listen to and watch the birds along the path by my house before getting ready for work. It is a beautiful walk, and I always feel refreshed by the time I come home.

Today was gray, but enjoyable just the same. I saw several goldfinch, some red winged blackbirds, robins, blue jay, morning dove, geese flying and honking overhead, sparrows, grackles, wrens, and I heard but didn’t see a wood thrush. Three rabbits crossed my path and hopped away with their little white tails bobbing up and down and some squirrels chased each other around and through the trees.

When I come back from my walk, I spend an hour doing things I need to do but have been putting off. Things like cleaning my drawers, scrubbing places that don’t show but need to be scrubbed, etc. I also spent some time mulching the flower beds and planting flowers and washing and waxing the car.

A couple weeks ago I took a drive to Holmes County to put flowers on my parent's and grandparent's graves and visit my Aunt Margaret who is 97 years old. She lives in a retirement community in Walnut Creek I stopped at Trail on the way to get some yummy Trail Bologna and Swiss Cheese. The drive there brought back all the great memories from my childhood.

My grandparents had a farm near Wilmot that was about 50 acres. The great thing about that farm was that it had everything on it one needed to survive. They had four or five Jersey and Guernsey cows that provided milk and cream. There were lots of chickens to provide eggs and an occasional chicken dinner. Grandpa also raised a few hogs every year. They had an orchard with apple trees, and there was a cherry tree and some quince trees that provided fruit. My grandmother's garden provided everything from rhubarb and strawberries to green beans, onions, potatoes and the best tomatoes I ever ate. Although they were not Amish, they had Amish and Mennonite roots and my grandfather farmed the fields with a team of horses that I liked to visit with in the barn. My grandfather also raised bees and my grandmother made her own butter from the cream their cows produced. Bread with homemade butter and honey and sweet corn in the summer! The farm is still a working farm owned by the Amish family my grandfather sold it to when he retired at age 83 after my grandmother's death. There is no bringing back those wonderful days of playing in the orchard, the woods or hay mow with my cousins, listening to my grandfather's stories and being the beneficiary of my grandmother's concerned attention to my health and appetite, but a drive through Holmes County in the spring sure brings back the wonderful memories that I am so fortunate to have.

As Jamie has posted on his site, Spring Is and you have to enjoy it while you can!

Opportunity Cost of the War in Iraq

2007-05-08T07:42:00.000-04:00

Most people are familiar with the term opportunity cost in economics. It means that when you have committed your resources to one particular course of action, you lose the opportunity to make other choices. Those lost opportunities and the benefits that could be had by making another choice are part of the cost of your decision. Thanks to Jill at Write Like She Talks and Susan at Blue Ohioan for pointing me to a graphic description of the opportunity costs for the War in Iraq.
Check out this catalog of the opportunity cost for the War in Iraq. Yet if any of our politicians had suggested we spend $456 billion to do any of these worthwhile projects, our congressional representatives would have nixed the idea in a hurry claiming it was far too expensive.

Freedom = Responsibility

2007-05-02T08:55:00.000-04:00

My daughter, a young teacher, called me the other day upset because some of the students in her school had misbehaved on a field trip. It was a trip that involved the whole school, and the students’ behavior was an embarrassment to everyone involved. She had been instrumental in setting up the trip. She had helped convince the PTA to pay for it. She had looked forward giving the students this experience, but their behavior during lunch had disappointed and angered her. She was also a bit upset because other adults on the trip had given the students in their groups too much freedom. As a young teacher, she didn’t think she needed to tell veteran teachers not to let the students out of their sight in a strip mall. She called me for some motherly empathy and for some advice on what to say to the students the next day.

I told her to trot out my old “Freedom = Responsibility Lecture”. She had certainly heard it often enough during her childhood. It was one of my favorite parental lectures for my own children and for students that I taught. As a society, I think we need to talk more often about this equation. My lecture goes something like this.

Everyone loves freedom, but there can be no freedom unless everyone takes responsibility for maintaining it. The amount of freedom an individual gets is usually proportionate to the amount of responsibility she or he can handle. If someone shows that they cannot handle the responsibility to use their freedom wisely, someone else will step in and take that freedom away. It doesn’t happen only to children; it happens all the time in the adult world. Your freedom ends when you deprive someone else of their freedom or harm others by your behavior. In the case of students, it also ends when you bring harm to yourself because adults have a duty to protect you from making a mess out of your life before it gets started.

This was the first part of the lecture. Then I usually asked some questions about freedoms and responsibilities. What freedoms do you have? What responsibility did you take on when you got that freedom? For young children it might be “The freedom to walk to school by myself. I took on the responsibility to watch for cars, and to get there on time.” For older children, it might be “The freedom to spend time with a friend downtown without an adult. I took on the responsibility to behave appropriately in public so we didn’t deprive others of their freedom to shop in peace and safety. I obey the laws, so the police don’t arrest me for taking some else’s property or vandalism.” My lecture usually ended with depriving the child or students of rights until they could show that they were more responsible. The amount of freedom you have depends your willingness and ability to be responsible.

For adults it is no different. We have the freedom to drive and the responsibility to do so safely. If we fail to be a safe driver, the state (our fellow citizens) will take away our freedom to drive. A free society depends upon responsible people. As people take on more responsibility, there is less need for restrictive laws that spell out unacceptable behavior and punishments that restrict freedoms. I think that previous generations of Americans put more emphasis on responsibility than we do today. The adults of my childhood talked often about my responsibility and very little about my rights and freedoms. They often encouraged me to put myself in someone else's place to determine the effects of my behavior on others. That was my responsibility, to think about how my behavior would affect others. When I talk to students who are misbehaving today, they often demand their rights and freedoms, but are loath to accept the responsibility that goes along with those rights and freedoms. I see that in the adults I talk with as well. The imbalance in this equation seemed to take place somewhere in the late '60's, perhaps an outgrowth of the protests during the civil rights and Vietnam era. Conservative Christians suggest that the change in our culture is the result of taking prayer and Bible reading out of the public school, but I view the change as a result of placing too much emphasis on rights and freedoms and too little on responsibility, not only in our schools, but in society as a whole.

We each need to take responsibility for protecting the rights and freedoms of others along with our own. That is the foundation of a free society.

Some examples:

Parental rights come with the responsibility to care for the physical, educational and socialization needs of the child.

Property rights come with the responsibility to maintain and care for property so that it isn’t a health hazard and an eyesore for others who want to enjoy the property nearby.

Freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to speak the truth, not to endanger the community by inducing panic, and to use one’s speech for good, not for exploiting others.

Free enterprise comes with the responsibility to be fair in trading with others. It comes with the responsibility to maintain the community that supports it and provides the labor and raw materials for business.

Freedom to vote comes with the responsibility to carefully examine the issues and the candidates before voting.

A free society demands that each individual takes responsibility for creating the community and maintaining it. Today we are increasingly shifting the responsibility to “government”. There are many examples of people doing whatever they can get by with until stopped by law enforcement. Certainly laws can be made by “government” to regulate the behavior of people in any society, but by demanding laws to protect us instead of expecting responsible behavior from ourselves and our fellow citizens we are giving up our freedom, and we will cease to be a free society.

Thinking Blog Awards

2007-04-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Jamie at Trivium for the Thinking Blogger Award. It is always nice to recognize the other bloggers on the net who inspire us and challenge us to think. I may be tagging some who have already been tagged by others, but here are my five nominations:

Comrade Kevin's Chrestomathy I’ve only recently started reading this blog, but plan to spend more time here.

Pho's Akron Pages Pho helps me keep up with local and state happenings. His posts are some of the best I’ve seen on politics. I am always amazed at his ability to be in the know on so many different topics.

Have Coffee Will Write Jeff always gives me something to think about and the links to other blogs keep me connected with some of the most interesting discussions going on in the Cleveland/Akron area. The items he gets from his dad keep me amused. My morning coffee wouldn’t be the same without reading his blog.

Writes Likes She Talks has quickly become one of my favorite blogs in our area. Jill’s blog always gives me a mental bone to gnaw for the day.

The Cosmic Message Cosmic's posts always require me to stretch a little and examine my assumptions. I don't always agree, but I always have to think after reading one of his posts.

All the Lonely People

2007-04-21T10:26:00.000-04:00

My first reaction to the tragedy at Virginia Tech was of course great sadness and sympathy for the victims and their families. My second reaction was similar to that of Jeff’s at Have Coffee Will Write, the realization, not intellectually, but emotionally, that in other places in the world this happens every day. Then as I learned more about the young man who killed so many and ended his own life, I just kept hearing the Beatles song, “Eleanor Rigby”.

“All the lonely people,

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people,

Where do they all belong?”

Cho Seung-Hui, was a lonely person. As a teacher, I have often had concerns about lonely students. I haven’t been worried that they would hurt others, but I know that they are in psychological pain, and I know that pain can bring them to the point of suicide. There are always those students who don’t fit in with the popular high school cliques. Sometimes they are teased or bullied, but often they are just ignored or students make a condescending effort to be inclusive though it is apparent to the loner that s/he is not a part of the group on an equal basis. Usually, the ones who don’t fit into the major cliques find some friends and form a group of what I like to term individualists. Since I was a member of one of these “misfit” groups in high school, I find myself drawn to the individualists. I know what it is like to not fit into the clique but have a small group of friends who accept you just the way you are warts and all. Adolescence is a time where a person needs a group, any group. From the information I’ve seen in the media, Senug was never able to find a place in adolescent society where he belonged, not even a group of individualists.

Erik Erikson describes adolescence as the stage of Identity vs. Role Confusion. It is interesting that Seung gave himself the name, Question Mark, a poignant expression of his inability to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence. The roommates interviewed on television describe living with him for a whole year and never having a conversation with him. I can only imagine the pain he felt never being able to make a connection with anyone on campus. It would be like being in solitary confinement for years but able to watch others as they supported, and nurtured each other. Seung was in severe psychological pain. If we saw someone in comparable physical pain, we would rush him to the hospital. We would demand appropriate treatment, and we would do what we could to ease the pain. But this society does not recognize the need to treat psychological pain with the same urgency as physical pain. Even when parents or a close relative recognize the individual’s desperate need for help, treatment is difficult to get. For a good discussion of the difficulty of getting help for a family member listen to this discussion from NPR.

The news coverage of this story has filled me with sadness and anger. I am filled with sadness for the victims and their families, for Seung’s family and for Seung. I am angry because our society will fix the blame for this tragedy on Seung and do nothing to fix the problems in our mental health and legal systems. I am angry at the media for showing the images that Seung sent to NBC and for dwelling on every detail of the tragedy instead of spending their time talking about how the system failed and what we can do to fix it. I don’t buy the excuse that they are showing the images because they want to understand the motivation of the killer.

We already know many of the changes we can make to prevent similar tragedies. Here are some of them.

1) Provide funding and support for mental health treatment. Give treatment for mental disorders parity with treatment for physical ailments.

2) Provide more mental health support for children and families through guidance counselors and psychologists in our schools.

3) Provide outpatient support for the mentally ill. This would include group homes, therapy, medication, employment counseling.

4) Change the law to make it easier for family members to involuntarily commit a psychotic individual into a treatment facility. Only those who have tried to get help for a mentally ill family member can understand the anguish of watching a loved one in tremendous psychological pain but being unable to help because the law demands that the individual be an imminent danger to self or others or consent to treatment.

5) We need to change the culture that glorifies violence in the media. While most of us are not influenced to commit violent crimes by violent video games, movies, TV shows and the almost morbid obsession the news media has with violent events, there are those among us for whom these things are poison to the mind. We can pretend that there is no link between the increase in graphic violence in media and violent acts in our society, but I can remember when there was no need for schools to have a lock down plan. In fact, when I was in high school, I was on the rifle team and the members took their 22’s to school so that we could take them to target practice after school at the local armory. No one was worried that we were going to commit mass murder with them. It would have never crossed our mind.

6) As individuals and as a society, we need to reach out to all the lonely people and help them find a place to belong. We are becoming more and more isolated from each other. This is a society that emphasizes competition over cooperation. From an early age children are placed in competition with each other even in after school activities. The increasing need for both parents in a family to work and the need for people to move away from extended family to find or maintain employment has reduced the social support for children. While we are worried about leaving no child behind academically and place great pressure on young people to achieve and compete, we are failing to help them find the belonging and identity they seek during adolescence.

Boston Marathon

2007-04-16T09:05:00.000-04:00

When I woke up this morning and heard the weather report from the east coast, I immediately thought about Bruce and the Boston Marathon. Bruce will be running this race for the third time today. He called me last week to tell me he would be there and that his number is 4114, so that I can track his progress on the Internet. Running and finishing the marathon is an achievement for anyone, but Bruce has shown dedication and spirit that makes him a true hero in my eyes. I hope that he managed to make it to Boston despite the weather.

I first met Bruce when he was 15, a freshman in my special education class. He was my student for the next four years, but he has been my teacher ever since our first meeting. While I was teaching him math, social studies and how to fill out an employment application, he was teaching me about determination, optimism, and making the most of your talents. I watched as he joined and competed on our high school cross country team and won the respect of his teammates and the other students in our school. This was not an easy feat. Though some of the students in my class were team managers or participated in Special Olympics, Bruce was determined from day one to be a part of the high school team. He sometimes got lost on the cross country courses, and he wasn’t a natural athlete. But he persevered, running not only during the team practices but on his own. He convinced coaches and friends to help him map out some routes in the community and remember them. By his senior year, he wasn’t the fastest runner on the team, but he was certainly one of the most respected.

Bruce is now in his thirties, living independently and employed full time as a busboy and dishwasher, a job he has held since high school. He runs, rides his bike and works out at our local recreation center. Running and bicycling have always been his mode of transportation around the community. He participates in local races and has come in second in his age class in the Akron marathon.

When he called last week, Bruce told me he doesn’t expect to win the race, that he will be somewhere in the middle of the pack. If he made it to Boston, the weather won’t stop him from finishing the race. He will do what he has always done since the day I met him, face all obstacles with optimism, determination and pure grit. He will not win the Boston Marathon today, but in the race of life, Bruce is a winner and an inspiration to me.

Double Dipping

2007-04-14T11:12:00.000-04:00

There has been an ongoing discussion in our local newspaper , by one of our op ed columnists and now on the radio and in blogs about double dipping public employees, those who have retired, collect their retirement and then are re-employed. At first, I was just going to post a comment on Jill's blog, but I got carried away, so I wrote my own post on the topic.

I am a double dipping teacher. I am saving taxpayers in my district a lot of money. First, I chose to retire at 55 with 30 years. I was at the top of the salary schedule based on education and experience. When I retired, a young teacher took that position at step one on the salary schedule. I could have continued to teach and collect my salary plus benefits. This would also have given me greater benefits when I eventually retired.

Instead, I collected my benefits and worked as a substitute teacher for the first four years of my retirement for $85 a day. Substitute teachers are hard to find especially for long term positions where a teaching certificate or license in the field is desired. I filled several of these positions in a field, special education, where there is a shortage of teachers.

This year, I am working part-time tutoring at a local school district while collecting my pension benefits. I am paid hourly and get no health benefits. Because STRS no longer pays any benefits for spouses and only part of mine, I paid over $8,000 in health insurance. The district that hired me is getting a deal. I am still paying into STRS and so is the district. I will never collect social security benefits even though I paid into the system.

When looking at the difference between private employment and public employment, it is good to examine some of the perks that those who are in private employment get that public employees do not. My brother is an accountant who works for a private company. Here are some of the perks he has gotten that I did not. Over his career, he has made a lot more money than I have. He has a 401 K plan that both he and the employer have paid into. He has gotten profit sharing, stock and yearly bonuses as part of his compensation.

My brother has not chosen to get his master’s degree, but if he would have done so, the company would have paid for it and given him increased salary upon completion. For me it was not a choice; I had to continue my education to keep my certification. I did choose to get the equivalent of two master’s degrees and did receive a higher compensation because of that, but I paid for those degrees myself. He traveled on company business and got the frequent flyer miles for his vacation. His company has treated him and his family to sporting events, meals, etc. Many of those who are employed in the private sector get a car allowance. For six years, I used my own car on the job as a special education work-study coordinator and was paid mileage that barely covered the gas. When they moved my brother to South Carolina, he had the expense of the move paid for plus some incentives for moving. When I changed districts, I actually lost money because I got paid for less experience than I actually had and had to pay for the move myself. Once a teacher has a master’s degree and a few years experience, that individual is pretty much stuck in their position because other districts will not hire them. If there is downsizing, experienced teachers who lose their jobs are at a distinct disadvantage in finding another. In most districts, the funding is so tight that decisions in hiring are based on cost not expertise.

My daughter is now a teacher. She graduated 11^th in her high school class of 400 and magna cum laude from her university. This June, she will receive her master’s degree from OSU, a degree she is expected to get to keep her teaching license and be considered a “highly qualified teacher” in her field. She has paid for most of this degree. Although her school district has provided partial compensation based on the number of teachers in the district who are going to school each year, it has not paid even half of the expense. In many districts, there is no money at all to pay for the required additional education.

As a graduating senior, my daughter discussed her career options with me. As she weighed the pros and cons of her various options, education lost out as far as compensation and even status. If she would have worked as hard at almost any other occupation as she has at this one, she would be making a lot more money. There were two factors, however, that persuaded her to go into this field. First, she loves children and knows that she is touching lives by what she is doing each day. Second, while the compensation isn’t good by comparison to other careers, she can have a reliable income and a retirement that will meet her needs and the needs of her family. That retirement is part of what she will earn as a teacher, and when she is eligible to retire, I hope that she will have the option to collect it and keep working in public education if she desires to do so. If she does, she will be doing the taxpayers a favor.

In the meantime, if the taxpayers want highly qualified young people like my daughter to enter public employment, they need to remember that the retirement benefits they are promised provide at least part of the incentive to give up more lucrative options in the private sector.

Justice or Retribution

2007-04-11T09:48:00.000-04:00

Almost every blog has its post on the Imus issue and every news broadcast is discussing it. What I find disturbing is that there is little discussion of how to bring about justice in this situation. Those who advocate his dismissal from employment and revel in his humiliation are talking about punishment and retribution. By demanding Imus be fired, they are hoping to create an example to others or perhaps hurt Imus in return for hurting others with his words. But in my view, retribution and punishment will not bring justice, a goal much more difficult to achieve but certainly one more worthy of our efforts.

What is justice? The Greeks viewed justice as both a personal virtue and a goal for society to achieve. The dictionary defines it as, “The principle of moral rightness; equity. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness”. As I’ve discussed at length in my previous post, this whole society has a problem with moral rightness in action and attitude, and the acceptance of ridicule and shocking remarks that demean others in the guise of humor is only the tip of the iceberg. On CNN this morning Rutgers coach, C. Vivian Stringer aptly pointed out,” It's not about the Rutgers women's basketball team, it's about women. Are women hos? Think about that. Would you have wanted your daughter to have been called that? It's not about they as black people or as nappy headed, it's about us as a people, black, white, purple or green.

And I want to suggest that as much as I speak about that, the truth of the matter is, that it is not even black and white; the color is green. The color is green. You see, because if we can tolerate as a society what has just taken place, the remarks that have been directed toward young women. I don't know how anyone could have heard this and not been personally hurt and offended.

When there is not equality for all, or when there's been denied equality for one, there's been denied equality for all. “

I think that the young women and the coach of the Rutgers basketball team understand justice as opposed to retribution or punishment. It would have been easy for them to give into anger and demand the figurative head of Imus on a platter, but they chose instead to use the opportunity to let the world and Imus know who they are as individuals. The coach has taken the opportunity to use Imus’s remarks to address the injustice in our society, not just a remark by a third-rate talk show host, but the larger injustice and moral bankruptcy of a society that values money over treating each other with respect and equality.

To have justice, we need to do more than demand that Imus resign or be fired. We need to look deep within ourselves and our society and ask for divine guidance to restore “moral rightness, equity. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude.” Maybe a beginning of justice would be for Imus and his sponsors to host a weekly program that would let us know each other and the pain that we cause each other through our thoughtless speech and action. Maybe they could discuss the greed that pervades our society and causes us to treat each other as objects instead of human beings. They could make us aware of the many people who deserve our respect and our attention for their achievements, like the Rutgers basketball players and their coach.

RESPECT

2007-04-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

The Imus statement about the Rutgers basketball team was racist, misogynistic and totally unacceptable, but what really bothers me most about the statement is that we are so accustomed to the lack of respect for people in this society that Imus even thought for a moment that his listeners might find it funny.

While there seems to be a greater awareness of political correctness these days, I contend that it is not accompanied by an increase in respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. While most of us would loudly condemn the Imus remark, we are not above laughing at disrespectful humor or contributing to the biting and demeaning remarks that permeate our society. We are not above watching and thereby supporting, TV shows, movies, and news reports that fail to respect the inherent worth and dignity of people. Take the caustic comments of Simon on American Idol or the intrusion on privacy of the news media as they seek out the most intimate details about the life of anyone unfortunate enough to be of interest to the rest of us. It is so omnipresent that we don’t even see it, a bit like getting so used to the smog in a big city that you don’t realize there is such a thing as clean air. The only time we really notice the smog is when it gets so thick we can hardly breathe at all or we go to the countryside and view the sky without it for a change. That is what happened with the Imus remark, it was so disrespectful that it caused us all to gasp, but it certainly wasn’t alone in polluting our society with verbal disrespect.

A good way to get some perspective is to watch an adult movie from the ‘40s or ‘50’s back to back with a modern PG-13 or R rated movie from today or watch a situation comedy from the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s before watching a current one. Even better yet, watch the most popular stand up comics from the late ‘50’s and early 60’s and compare them to the most popular comics of today. Even if, like me, you barely flinch at the “F” word anymore, you may notice the way the people show disrespect for each other. Much of the humor is at the expense of someone, not laughing at the paradoxes and foibles of our shared humanness.

When I decided to write a post about this topic, I looked for a definition of respect. What I found was the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/respect/ It did not give a simple definition of the word, but a full discussion of the topic complete with many of the philosophical questions people have had about respect throughout the ages. I found it very interesting. The concluding remarks are worth a direct quote here,

“Everyday discourse and practices insist that respect and self-respect are personally, socially, politically, and morally important, and philosophical discussions of the concepts bear this out. Their roles in our lives as individuals, as people living in complex relations with other people and surrounded by a plethora of other beings and things on which our attitudes and actions have tremendous effects, cannot, as these discussions reveal, be taken lightly. “

This is a warning going unheeded in this society, and it is having dire repercussions. Don Imus, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, are only the public face of a society that fails to respect people in far more ways than bigoted language and disparaging remarks.

So, what if Imus hadn’t said that on the air? What if he had just remained quietly misogynistic and racist? What if we managed to legislate or humiliate all the bigots and racists into keeping their mouths shut? It might keep the rest of us from gasping, but it wouldn’t end the pollution of disrespect that permeates our communal atmosphere. It is time for a new dialog on respect and a deeper understanding of what it means “to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. This is the first of our Unitarian Universalist principles, and an essential principle for any society to follow if it is to be healthy. Respect for our shared humanity comes from an understanding that people are not to be treated as objects, not objects to get a laugh, not objects to get us the material things we want, not objects to satisfy our curiousity or make us feel good in comparing ourselves to others. All religions teach us that we need to give others the respect we would wish for ourselves.

Experienceing Easter

2007-04-03T14:37:00.000-04:00

A blog post by Jamie Goodwin about struggling with his feelings at this time of year, a discussion started by Jill Miller Zimon about the chocolate Jesus and her feelings about Passover has caused me to reflect more about my own experience during this time of year.

The Easter/ Passover/Spring Equinox time period has always been important for me though my feelings about it have certainly undergone many transformations. As a child growing up in a very Christian family, it was a time to reflect upon the death and resurrection of Jesus. I took the last super and the death on the cross very seriously, especially during the celebration of communion. The thought of Jesus, someone who was so pure and compassionate, suffering such a horrible death moved me to tears, and the idea that he died for my sins filled me with guilt.

I loved Easter morning when everyone got up early, looked for the hidden Easter baskets and enjoyed the hot cross buns my father always got from the local bakery in our neighborhood. I can still smell the scent of his shaving cream and aftershave as he got ready for the service and dressed up in his Sunday best. We always got something new to wear for this day, and I was very proud of how we looked as a family as we walked the couple blocks to our church. I loved the songs of triumph we sang and the Easter lilies in the sanctuary while the spring sun streamed through the beautiful stained glass windows. Then there was the walk home together and a special dinner my mother made. My brother and I each had our jobs to do in helping to get the meal on the table. When it was ready, we held hands and my father said the blessing. Easter was always fun for my mother, and she carried on the traditions for her grandchildren, buying them new outfits, hiding candy and eggs around the house, and always having a dinner complete with Easter decorations on the table. I miss my parents. I miss celebrating Easter this way.

Later as I began to think about religion in my own way, I tried to identify with Jesus by fasting from Thursday evening until Easter morning. It was my effort to feel his pain and share his burden in some small way. Remember the guilt I had growing up believing that he died to save me. Sunday morning took on a new feeling of resurrection after fasting for two days! Hot cross buns and jelly beans never tasted so good. The fast, my own personal remembrance of the Easter story, became more to me as I studied various religions, history, and grew more aware of events happening around the world. This story of Jesus suffering and dying to save humanity soon developed into an appreciation for all those who have had compassion and died in the cause of love, justice, peace and freedom. My feeling of hunger during my fast helped me remember that for many people around the world hunger wasn’t a choice, it was a constant. The death and resurrection of Jesus became symbolic, the victory of compassion, love, and forgiveness over greed, fear, hate and revenge. They could kill leaders like Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., but they could not defeat the voices of love and justice that echo throughout history. “Up from the grave He arose, With a mighty triumph o'er His foes, He arose a Victor from the dark domain, And He lives forever, with His saints to reign. He arose!” We will rise up- against hate, against war, against fear and slavery. I sang this song with new understanding and more feeling. It was no longer a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one.

Then came the desert of my unbelief. My father's Alzheimer's disease, and 9/11, contributed to my spiritual crisis. I joined the Unitarian Universalist Church looking for something, I wasn't sure what.

In 2003 and 2004, I was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, walking with spring, watching new life develop from what appeared to be cold and dead. There was a part of myself that was resurrected on my trek north. I was mourning the death of both of my parents in 2001, I’d just retired from my job and I was trying to understand just what I believed about God, life, death, humanity. My 2003 journal records the Easter meal, “Today is Easter. Our dinner consisted of the following ingredients all mixed together: chicken chunks, dried veggies, gravy mix, dehydrated milk, and stove top stuffing mix. Believe it or not, that doesn't taste too bad. Gary and I shared the pot of yummy stuff."

In 2004, we were in PA, “We got packed up about 9:30, just before the snow, or maybe we should call it sleet, came, not heavy, at first. Then it changed to flakes, then to drizzle. It is cold, not while hiking but when we stop, brrr. It wasn’t hard to get almost 13 miles in today because we really just wanted to keep going to stay warm. Today is Easter. Our dinner was tuna, noodles, and cheese spread on a taco shell.” Those two Easter Sundays were about as far removed from the memories of my youth as I could get except for the fasting part. Food takes on a whole new meaning when one is hiking on the AT. There is an appreciation for it that many Americans have never experienced.

Though the journal entries for these Easter Sundays do not give evidence of much reflection, my experience on the trail resurrected my belief in God, not the old man with the white beard, but my belief that God is in all of us and in everything if we only listen to our hearts and reach out with compassion to the world. Death is not an end but a new beginning. Life is not a line, but a circle. As I watched the white flowers poke through the brown leaves of the forests and looked from the mountain tops at clouds and stars, I felt so much a part of it all and at the same time so personally insignificant. I think this is the first time I celebrated the Spring Equinox as a spiritual event.

I spent last Easter and the one before in Columbus at a Methodist service where my daughter was singing in the choir. There were Easter lilies and stained glass windows. We sang, “Up from the grave He arose” , but in my heart, I wasn’t singing just about Jesus. I was singing that song of triumph for all of humanity, for the entire world. I was singing about flowers poking their heads out of dark cold earth, birds building nests and laying eggs with new life in them. I was singing about compassion arising from the ashes of our failed relationships with each other, and about people overcoming the slavery of addictions, prejudice, and hate as well physical slavery. This is the time of year to remember suffering people everywhere, not just the suffering of one man, and it is also the time to celebrate the victory we are capable of through the spirit of love we have within and among us.

Health Care

2007-03-31T09:08:00.000-04:00

While watching C-Span early this morning, I happened to catch a broadcast of the Center for American Progress forum on Health Care . All of the major Democratic candidates spelled out their plans to improve our health care system. You can get video from the forum by going to
The Center For American Progress Action Fund I hope that C-span will air it again soon.

Voters need more forums like this that give us the opportunity to actually hear what candidates are planning to do to solve the most pressing problems of our nation. It really frustrates me that so much money is being raised by candidates, but their campaigns and the mass media offer voters so little information about what they actually plan to do about the problems.

One thing voters can do to change our politics is to inform themselves by listening to broadcasts like this. Who knows, maybe the next election will be decided based on a candidate's plans instead of their ability to amass cash for negative campaign ads? Wouldn't that send a message to Washington!

Jury Duty

2007-03-29T00:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I finished my grand jury experience. In our county the grand jury meets one day every other week, and jurors serve for a three month period. Some states have eliminated the grand jury. Their argument is that it turns out to be just a rubber stamp for the prosecutor’s office and is therefore an unnecessary, time consuming and expensive step. After serving on our grand jury, I do not agree with this assessment. Even though in most cases we did indict, there were a few that we did not. To me the grand jury is a vital protection of our civil rights. What separates a democratic judicial system from a dictatorial one is oversight and participation by ordinary citizens, one’s peers. During the case presentations, we had the opportunity to question our prosecutor and law enforcement. Our job was not to determine someone’s guilt or innocence, but to ensure that citizens are not accused when the evidence against them fails to reach the level of probable cause. One can only imagine the stress, loss of income, expense of legal council, possible damage to one’s reputation, etc. that being accused and forced to make a defense in court can create. Accusing someone of a crime is serious, and citizens should be protected from possible abuse by government. As part of our oversight of our judicial system, grand jurors were even taken on a tour and treated to a jail lunch at the county jail. The consensus appeared to be that the prisoners were humanely treated and nutritiously fed. Even though our jail is modern, clean and well run, none of us desired to spend much time there.

That brings me to the other part of my day, the two hours in the morning before my jury duty. It was a beautiful spring day with a hint of rain to come. The dog woke me up early, and we watched the sunrise as we made our way to the park. The cumulonimbus clouds were a mix of gray and white etched with pink and gold as the sun tried to break through. The birds were everywhere, hopping robins, scolding blue jays, chirping cardinals and geese honking overhead as they made their way to the nearby lake. At one point, I even saw a crane fly overhead with its long legs and neck. As the dog played chase the stick and my eyes feasted on the yellow daffodils, I began to think about the people we had heard about during our jury duty in previous weeks. Some would surly be heading to jail where they would be deprived of this beauty for a long time. For the most part, the people we heard about did not intend to get into the mess they were in. They made bad decisions, often under the influence of drugs or alcohol or because of an addiction to them. When I took my summer school civics students on field trips to the jail, I always asked the officers leading our tour what percent of the prisoners were there because of alcohol or drugs. The answer was always 80 to 90%.

This nation needs to deal with its drug and alcohol problem. It is an epidemic that ruins the lives of and kills not only users and addicts but their family members and even strangers. The cost is tremendous when one considers auto accidents, higher insurance rates, health problems, broken homes, unemployment and lost time on the job, failure to pay child support, child neglect and abuse, domestic violence, crime, cost of law enforcement and prisons, educational failure, and deaths from overdoses and suicides. If there was ever a health problem that deserved our attention and funding for treatment and research to find a cure, addiction should be right at the top of the list, but it isn’t. Why?

One reason is that like obesity, we tend to blame the victim instead of treating the disease. Another reason is that many of us have the disease and are blind to the symptoms because of denial. We fight coming to grips with the problems addiction is causing in our own lives and the lives of our loved ones. As a society, we have grown so used to addiction that we assume it is normal state, and we cannot do anything about it. It is such a part of our social life that it is hard to go anywhere that people are gathered for recreation where it is not present and being abused. Legal drugs are advertised that claim to do everything from stopping hair loss to giving us a good night’s sleep and even improving our sexual experiences. They are advertised, not just with the facts but with all the glitz, comedy and persuasive propaganda the drug companies’ ad agents can muster. Our government’s response, the War On Drugs has made the problem of addiction appear to be a threat from somewhere else, not a problem we need to be personally involved in solving with our family members, our neighbors and our friends.

On the bright side, public awareness seems to be increasing. I’ve seen more media attention to the subject with more accurate information. HBO recently partnered with NIH and aired a 90 min. special and CNN's Lou Dobbs had a special, The War Within. The congress is considering a bill to force insurance companies to cover mental health issues including drug and alcohol addiction on an equal basis with physical ailments. The House and the Senate each have introduced a bill though the House bill is the stronger of the two. If you care about this issue, now is the time to call or write your representatives to get their support for this important legislation.

Sex Education

2007-03-26T18:08:00.000-04:00

Do you remember how you learned about sex? I remember my mother sending away for some booklets. She told me to read them and said that after I read them she would answer any questions I had. I had lots of questions! My mother did not have all the answers, but I was better off than most of my friends. They got their information from their friends. One thing she impressed upon me was not to have sex because it would be simply awful to become pregnant and not be married. It would ruin my life and my and my family's reputation. It was the worst sin ever!- Abstinence education.

I learned about condoms from some boys in my class. My friend and I were baby sitting my little brother. My friend had told her boyfriend that we would be there without my parents. The boyfriend brought his buddy, and the two of them asked to come in. When I said no, and the door was locked. They filled up condoms with our water hose, held them up at the window and laughed a lot before smashing them on our porch. I thought they were balloons, but my friend explained that they were rubbers and if you wanted to have sex but not get pregnant that is what the boy had to wear. "Does it work?" I asked. " I guess so", she said "Or else he can just pull it out before he comes." Following that advice got a lot of my friends pregnant before we graduated from high school, but back in 1964 most of them managed to quickly tie the knot with the baby's father before the blessed event. Most had been given the same abstinence talk by their mothers, " Don't have sex before you get married. It's a sin and it will ruin your life and your reputation." I guess my mother was just scarier than theirs because I managed to get accurate birth control information before I had sex.

The reason for recounting this story is to support the need for comprehensive sex education in our schools. Students are going to learn about contraception even if we don't teach them about it in school. Shouldn't we give them accurate information? Fear isn't enough to protect them from STD's and pregnancy before they are ready to be parents.

Join the UUA and the UCC in urging Congress to pass the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act. States should not be forced to turn away federal funds because they refuse to teach abstinence only. Our children deserve to have all the facts when they are making some of the most important decisions in their lives.

There is an excellent article written byCynthia Kuhn in UU World about the OWL(Our Whole Lives) Program, the curriculum developed by the UUA and UCC.

Darfur

2007-03-25T18:05:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen this CBS video, you should. It will move you to act. When you want to know what you can do, follow these links. At the very least, call or write your Congressional representatives and tell them to put pressure on our government to act.

Ten Things You Can Do - Genocide Intervention Network

Drumbeat for Darfur

Justice Sunday- UUSC

2007-03-24T15:29:00.000-04:00

This Sunday is Justice Sunday, and Unitarian Universalist Congregations nationwide will celebrate and support the work of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. One current issue is chosen each year as the focus of our attention; this year it is the Genocide in Darfur.

As my congregation's UUSC representative I am going to talk about this organization during our service, so I thought I would post what I am going to say here and urge everyone to go to the UUSC websit e and their Hot Wire Human Rights Weblog to learn more about this organization and the important work it does.

I am probably the least likely person to be your UUSC representative. It was fall of 2001 when I started coming to this congregation. At one of the first services I attended, a few of the young people dressed up as people from different parts of the world and told about their need for help. Guest at Your Table boxes were passed out and there was an insert in the order of service about UUSC. Not being very good about reading everything thoroughly, I just concluded that UUSC must be the Unitarian Universalist mission organization. Growing up Christian, I was used to missions where schools, hospitals and churches were built and supported to help people and to spread the word. The thought that UU’s did not have a doctrine that they were trying to spread, did not cross my mind, even though I knew that my new congregation did not believe in proselytizing.

After joining this congregation and getting involved with the Social Action Committee, I began to learn more about the UUSC. There were no missions, hospitals and churches that my contributions supported. Instead, the UUSC worked with grassroots organizations in our own country and around the world to deliver aid in time of crisis, support needed projects for relief, but more importantly to advocate for political and economic changes that would empower people to take control of their lives.

Through advocacy, education and partnerships with grassroots organizations, UUSC supports programs and policies that empower women, defend the rights of children and support the struggles of indigenous people and oppressed racial and ethnic groups

Some of the current initiatives are:

Fighting for workers rights and a living wage

Stopping torture

Promoting environmental justice-especially the right to clean water

Protecting human rights and giving aid during humanitarian crises, especially for groups often left behind or excluded by government aid or mainstream NGOs.

Each year, Unitarian Universalists celebrate justice Sunday to recognize and promote the efforts of the UUSC. Emphasis is placed on an issue that demands our attention, and this year it is the crisis in Darfur.

Unlike the missions I supported in my Christian churches, the UUSC is not a function of the denomination, it is an associate member of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It receives no general financial support from the UUA. Funding for UUSC comes from its members and donations.

The organization began in response to Hitler’s persecution of Jews and other minorities before WWII. One of the most interesting things I found about the UUSC is that they were responsible for our UUA symbol, the flaming chalice. This symbol was created in 1941 by Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch. Deutsch had fled France as the Nazis invaded because he had drawn critical cartoons of Hitler. The symbol was created for Unitarian Service Committee papers to make their papers look official when rescuing refugees from Nazi occupied countries.

The symbol that we use in worship and the UUSC came to us through our response to the horror of genocide. Sadly, the need for the UU’s to speak out against human rights violations and genocide is still there. Over 300,000 men, women and children have been killed in Darfur, and many more have been horribly injured, raped and tortured. 2.5 million have fled their country stressing the resources of neighboring nations especially Chad. The ribbons we are wearing remind us that we cannot be silent as people suffer; we must be the voice of those unable to speak for themselves.

Please continue to support this organization with your advocacy, your donations and your prayers.

Network for Interfaith Political Action

2007-03-22T15:26:00.000-04:00

Here are some opportunities for those in the Cleveland area to advocate for some of the changes we have been discussing in regard to the welfare of children and changing educatation. Thanks to Rob Farmer from East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church for sending this to me.

Event Calendar: March and April

NIPA is an independent network of people of faith interested in putting their faith into action, politically, to acheive an equitable society. Please see below for events you can participate in to gain knowledge and influence public policy.

Thursday, March 29

We Believe Ohio of Greater Cleveland, Plenary Session, 7:00 PM, Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave.(across from CSU). John Corlett of Center for Community Solutions will give an overview of the Ohio budget issues and how it affects Ohio's vulnerable citizens.

Monday, April 16

Advocates for Budget Legislative Equality (ABLE), Town Hall Meeting, 6:00-8:00 PM Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave. Cleveland. Presentations by northeastern Ohio representatives on health care, education, and additional budget issues affecting low income citizens. For more information call 216 431 6070.

Wednesday, April 25

Children's Defense Fund, Women of Faith Advisory Group, 10:30-Noon, Myers University, 3813 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Discussion will center on legislative steps for Kinship Care, a state program to help fund grandparents who care for grandchildren lacking at-home parents. For more information call 216 298 4480.

Thursday, May 3

We Believe Ohio's "Day of Prayer and Action" in Columbus. Lobby legislators on health care, education and other issues affecting vulnerable citizens. More information forthcoming.

Reforming Education

2007-03-20T19:46:00.000-04:00

I am hoping to keep the conversation that started with my post on the Ohio Graducation Test going.

Anonymous posted the following comment:

“We as a nation/state do NOT under fund education. We DO misspend the funds.
Evaluation of educational outcomes need to be evaluated to determine proper spending. Maybe the test is not the best, other measures can be incorporated. “

Shelby points out that students are not successful on the tests because society has failed to provide basic needs such as health care, early childhood education, and a decent standard of living for families.

I think this is a valuable discussion, so I am hoping we can continue it by answering two questions.

1) What would you do to reform education?

2) Where is the waste in education and how you would reallocate wasted dollars to make them more productive?

To start off the discussion, I would suggest that reforming education must begin with making changes in society. I agree with Shelby. Many students fail to reach their potential because they are off to a bad start and keep losing ground as they go. As a society we should be able to provide basic healthcare for all children, and that includes mental health, vision and dental care. There should also be free pre-natal care and support for new mothers who may need parenting skills, or additional medical or mental health care following delivery.

The war on drugs has failed. Drug and alcohol treatment needs to be made available to nonviolent drug and alcohol offenders in place of incarceration. The children of drug and alcohol addicted parents need support and safe places to live until their parent or parents can care for them again. Grandparents, other relatives, and foster parents need to be provided with mental health and economic support when caring for these children.

My prediction is that by focusing on improving conditions for children, we will also decrease the need for prisons and welfare. I am not sure that drug treatment is more expensive than keeping people jail, even if we have to put them in drug treatment more than once. Our whole society is too drug and alcohol centered, but that is another topic and another post.

Early childhood education needs to be improved. Pre-school should be available for all children, and any parent of a child under 5 years of age and receiving public assistance should be required to participate in a pre-school and parenting program. If the parent is working, the parenting and pre-school programs should be offered as part of subsidized childcare regulated by the state. Employers hiring parents of children under the age of 8 should provide four parenting days off every year with pay, beyond those offered as sick days for all employees. These could be used for parent conferences, children’s doctor’s appointments or caring for sick children.

More money should be spent on classroom education in the first 3 grades. Students who are not making grade level progress should be identified and given remedial help. Classrooms should be small enough to provide students with individual attention, no more than ten students per adult and no more than twenty students per classroom for grades K-2 in schools where students are failing to make adequate progress. There should be no more than 20 students in grades K – 4 in any school. The emphasis should be placed on learning basic reading skills and basic math facts and processes. There are some things you just have to know, and the in first three grades students should learn these basic skills. Flash cards have their place. It is amazing to look at McGuffey’s readers and discover the level of reading 2^nd graders were expected to have mastered. They were learning in one room schools with coal stoves, and absolutely no technology. The teachers usually did not have a four year college degree and usually taught grades 1-8 in the same room. My grandfather only graduated from 6^th grade but he could read, write, spell and do math better than many of my high school students. We spend a lot of time trying to change education and do things differently, but learning basic reading, writing and arithmetic hasn’t changed since McGuffey’s day. Students who cannot read above 5th grade level, spell basic sight words, and who don’t know their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts do not need to be tested on chemistry, algebra and writing five paragraph essays, but I am seeing these students at the high school level trying to pass the OGT.

The reason they don’t have the basic skills is as varied as the students. Some have moved so often that there was never any consistency in their education. Others have had constant attendance problems either because of parental neglect or illnesses. Some have attention problems that kept them from focusing in classrooms where there were a lot of distractions, and others just were not ready to learn a particular skill at the time it was introduced and the rest of the class was ready to learn it. These students just never mastered the basic skills they should have learned in the first four grades and have been passed along ever since. The skills are no longer taught because most of the other students already know them. They are not given another chance to learn them but are provided crutches in the form of multiplication tables, calculators, word processors, books on CD, tutors who help with the homework so they won’t fail their grade level classes. Many times the underlying problem such as frequent moves, parents who don’t make them come to school, a problem in their home that distracts them from learning, is never dealt with and continues to interfere with learning. It often not only affects their own education, but the atmosphere in the classroom where the unhappy student acts out and disturbs the learning environment for everyone. We need to put money into helping students early on through social workers, guidance counselors in the elementary school, and the domestic relations court system.

Then there are also some students who simply do not have the ability to learn the basic academic skills. I am opposed to mainstreaming special education students in courses they cannot pass even with modifications. Students with extreme academic disabilities should be included in nonacademic areas such as lunch, gym, music and art. They need classes geared to their ability for academics and a curriculum that focuses on employment and independent living skills.

The OGT does not test the student’s understanding of the reproductive process, birth control methods, knowledge of child development, parenting skills, the effects of drug and alcohol addiction, personal finance and budgeting, but being able to make wise decisions about these things will have a much greater impact on the student’s life and the lives of their children than being able to write an essay or balance a chemical equation. Every child should be required to take a course in sex education, personal finance and parenting skills before graduation.

A Good Laugh

2007-03-17T17:06:00.000-04:00

Visit Have Coffee Will Write for a good laugh. Jeff's dad sends him some good jokes.

Ohio Graduation Test: Leaving Children Behind

2007-03-17T14:23:00.000-04:00

This week I have been administering the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) to special education students at our local vocational center. The students in my group had learning disabilities that gave them the option to have most of the tests read to them. The state provided recordings of the questions on CDs for the students to use. For the students I tested, this was their third or fourth attempt to pass the tests.

While I am not opposed to testing students for educational purposes, I am opposed to this particular test for the following reasons:

1) The purpose of the test is political, not educational. The tests were initiated by politicians to shift the blame for our failing schools to educators and students and away from government policies that under fund education, and contribute to social conditions that negatively impact our students’ ability to take advantage of educational opportunities.

2) All students are required to pass the same test regardless of their interests and abilities.

“It was a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.” Felix Frankfurter

This test assumes that all students will need the same basic skills and that all of them should be prepared to attend college. While the stated purpose of the test is to:

a) “Ensure that students who receive a high school diploma demonstrate at least high school levels of achievement;

b) Measure the level of reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies skills expected of students at the end of the 10th grade;

c) Meet federal requirement for high school testing. “

It is item "c" that is the guiding force in this testing, not improving the education of all students.

3) Students who have limited academic abilities in the traditional school subjects are spending most of their effort and time studying material that they will not be using in their daily life while failing to learn basic skills that they need to know. Passing the test has become more important than being able to apply academic skills to real life situations.

4) Repeated unsuccessful attempts to pass the tests leads to an increased drop out rate, poor school attendance, and students viewing themselves as failures. Students are required to spend a tremendous amount of time studying subjects for which they may have little aptitude. This results in less time productively studying in areas where they can have success.

5) Tests results have been shown to be highly correlated with socioeconomic status, race and IQ. Those students who will be most impacted by the test are those most vulnerable to discrimination and economic marginalization. Depriving them of a diploma because of their failure to pass the test will only add to their employment problems even when those skills tested are not used on the job.

6) Schools in poverty areas are required to spend more resources trying to help students pass the test and are in danger of losing funding if students fail. These are the very schools that are already under funded and struggling with social problems that their students bring into the school from home and community. The failure of students to achieve on the tests has been viewed as the problem instead of a symptom of the underlying problems such as poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, single parent families, parents in jail, gangs and violence, unemployment and underemployment. The rating of schools based on the test results has only added to the negative view of at-risk populations and allowed politicians to blame the victims and those trying to help them instead of taking responsibility for improving the conditions that breed the feeling of hopelessness and despair. Poorly rated schools have more difficulty recruiting qualified and creative teachers, probably the most important ingredient, besides parental support, in educating children. Voucher and charter schools take funding from public education, and while offering an alternative for students who want a better educational situation, leave behind those who have social, academic and behavioral problems and the least parental and community support.

7) The content of the test is questionable with regard to its relevance to the problems most students will face as adults. Most of us spend little time balancing equations, figuring probability, writing five paragraph essays, or balancing chemical formulas unless those skills are part of our chosen field of employment. We may have known how to do these things at one time, but most adults manage quite well in life without knowing much of the content that is tested by the OGT. The passing score for the test is only 50%. That in itself tells me that most of the information on the test isn’t important enough to real life that every student who graduates should know it.

I would like to challenge the members of our legislature and the voters who elected them to take previous copies of the OGT online at http://ohio.measinc.com/Content.htm

After you take them, ask yourself how often you find yourself using the information over which you have just been tested. Ask yourself if students who fail to get 50% on the test should be spending time in school taking OGT specific remedial classes to get enough answers right the next time to pass it. If the purpose of the test is to identify students needing academic help and in danger of being left behind, taking the test once is enough. Actually, you wouldn't even need to give them a test, just ask their teachers. If the purpose of the testing is to get help to vulnerable students, schools where there are many students failing should get additional funding and support, not blame. If a student in 10th grade cannot pass the test, threatening the student with the loss of a diploma is not a big motivator. Most students already realize that a high school diploma does not mean much in the labor market. Most students who have trouble passing the test already know that they are behind everyone else in the traditional academic subjects and that their chances of succeeding in a field that relies on these skills is pretty slim. If we really want to leave no child behind, we will prepare students for employment consistent with their skills, abilities and interests, and we will ensure that the jobs they are prepared to do pay a living wage. The view that every person should go to college and have an academically oriented career is a mistake that we cannot afford to make. We need people who are trained in the trades and skilled in many areas. When we place the emphasis in education on passing an academic test, we are leaving many of our most valuable and productive workers behind.

News Break

2007-03-11T21:24:00.000-04:00

O.K., I’ll admit it, I had become addicted to TV, especially news and political commentary. It was just easier to come in the door and flip on the switch to view someone else’s life than living my own to the fullest. It isn’t the first time this has happened to me; I go through this periodically even though I know better. TV is a potent drug that will easily numb the mind and body if one is not vigilant. It is way too easy to be caught up in the drama of events that one has no ability to change or even little opportunity to influence. Actually it’s much easier than dealing with the affairs of one’s own life that usually involve hard work and self-discipline. Fortunately, I was rescued from my addiction this week by a couple of projects that were far better for my mental and physical health than TV watching.

First, I had promised to create a Power Point for our non-traditional Midday Service using pictures from my hiking adventures in a meditation and reflection on nature and God. As usual, I left this project go until the last minute and needed all my spare time to complete it. As I began to search through my photos and hunt for music, quotes and opening and closing readings for the service, I found myself totally immersed in the project. The pictures brought back memories of joyous wonder and the feeling of oneness with all that is. Putting it together was a great creative exercise, and time seemed to have no meaning when I was working on it.

Second, my daughter and her husband needed my help getting their house ready to sell. They have a lot going on in their lives right now; spring house cleaning is not something they have time or energy to do. So, I spent Friday and Saturday making their house shine. Most people might not see this as a fun project, but for me it was a Zen like experience. Remember the Karate kid and Mr. Miyagi’s instructions, “Wax on, wax off, Daniel Son.” People may not believe this, but I can totally lose myself in scrubbing floors and walls. One of my favorite Zen Koans is,

“ A monk told Joshu: "I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me."
Joshu asked: "Have you eaten your rice porridge?"
The monk replied: "I have eaten"
Joshu said "Then you had better wash your bowl"

At that moment the monk was enlightened.

This week was filled with bowl washing, not numbing TV. I was fully present in creating the Power Point and in cleaning. I was able to give something to my daughter and son-in-law that they needed right now. I have little influence over the war in Iraq, world poverty, corrupt politicians, etc.. But I can make a difference in a dirty floor and shine sinks until you can almost see yourself in them. Watching TV numbs the spirit, not just the mind. Creating the Power Point brought me away from the TV world to remember what the real world is like. Spring is here and I need to go for some hikes. I plan to extend my TV break, so I probably won’t be writing about politics for a bit. I will be marveling at nature and washing my bowl.

Christian Peace Delegation

2007-02-27T08:06:00.000-05:00

I wonder how much press coverage this meeting will get? I wonder if the mass media can pull themselves away from covering Anna Nicole Smith, a soon to be released movie about a supposed tomb of Jesus and the divisions this may cause between those who believe in the divinity of Jesus and those who don't, the questionable effects of garlic on our cholesterol, etc. to cover it.

I see this as the true role of faith in today's world. We are called by faith to build bridges and bring peace. While the media focuses on the divisive rhetoric and magnifies the influence of the so called, "religious right", they ignore the actions and beliefs of the majority of people of faith in this country and around the world.

Wouldn't it be great to have members of the group interviewed on Larry King and the O'Reilly Factor? Maybe Rush would like to have him on his show.

I support this group's call for our government to:

Immediately engage in direct face-to-face talks
Cease using language that defines the other using “enemy” images
Promote more people to people exchanges including religious leaders, members of Parliament/Congress, and civil society

Here are some links and below is a statement they made:

NCC Interfaith Relations

Coverage from Lancaster Online

US RELIGIOUS DELEGATION FINDS HOPE IN IRAN

As Christian leaders from the United States, we went to Iran at this time of increased tension believing that it is possible to build bridges of understanding between our two countries. We believe military action is not the answer, and that God calls us to just and peaceful relationships within the global community.

We were a diverse group of Christian leaders that included United Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, Quaker, and Mennonites who have 17 years of on the ground experience in Iran. We were warmly welcomed by the Iranian people, and our time in Iran convinced us that religious leaders from both countries can help pave the way for mutual respect and peaceful relations between our nations.

During our visit we met with Muslim and Christian leaders, government officials, and other Iranian people. Our final day included a meeting with former President Khatami and current President Ahmadinejad. The meeting with President Ahmadinejad was the first time an American delegation had met with a sitting Iranian President in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. The meeting lasted 2.5 hours and covered a range of topics including the role of religion in transforming conflict, Iraq, nuclear proliferation, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What the delegation found most encouraging from the meeting with President Ahmadinejad was a clear declaration from him of no intention to acquire or use nuclear weapons, as well as a statement that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be solved through political not military means. Finally, he said, “I have no reservation about conducting talks with American officials if we see some good will.”

We believe it is possible for further dialogue and that there can be a new day in U.S. – Iranian relations. The Iranian government has already built a bridge toward the American people by inviting our delegation to come to Iran. We ask the U.S. government to welcome a similar delegation of Iranian religious leaders to the United States.

As additional steps in building bridges between our nations, we call upon both the United States and Iranian governments to:

Immediately engage in direct face-to-face talks
Cease using language that defines the other using “enemy” images
Promote more people to people exchanges including religious leaders, members of Parliament/Congress, and civil society

As people of faith, we are committed to working towards these and other confidence building measures, which we hope will move our two nations from the precipice of war towards a more just and peaceful settlement.

For more information contact:
Dan Webster

Director of Media Relations
National Council of Churches, USA

475 Riverside Drive Suite 880
New York, NY 10115
Phone: 212 870-2252
Fax 212 870-2030

email: dwebster@ncccusa.org

Picture from Lancaster Online

Taxes to End the War

2007-02-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

Cosmic Messenger suggests, "..Americans should demand a corporate war tax be imposed to pay for Bush's Middle East misadventures.

If big business had to pay for the war, it would end in a heartbeat.."

Just after seeing his comment on my blog, I got an e-mail update from Too Much that linked to an article by Nicholas von Hoffman suggesting the same thing. I think it just might work! Now all we have to do is convince Congress to enact it.

Supporting Our Troops

2007-02-18T13:28:00.000-05:00

Jeff at Have Coffee Will Write links to the Sandbox on his web site. This is a military blog "featuring comments, anecdotes, and observations from service members currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan". It isn't political; it's human. No matter how you feel about the Congress and the executive branch taking us into this war or the mistakes they have made since we have entered it, you have to be proud of the men and women who are over there. They are living up to the commitment they made to their fellow soldiers and to our country. The burden this nation has placed on the soldiers and their families is tremendous, and despite all the hoopla about "We support our troops", little sacrifice has been asked of the average American.

After reading some of the Sandbox posts, I needed to do something more than put a yellow ribbon sticker on my car. ( I had one, but someone took it.) Although I had previously sent a package to someone I knew, I don't know of anyone who is deployed overseas right now. I started looking around the net for addresses and found Any Soldier. This web site will give you the addresses of soldiers who accept letters and packages addressed to Any Soldier. Then they hand them out to men and women deployed with them who might like some mail from the folks back home. I got two addresses and mailed off a letter yesterday. I hope to get two boxes in the mail this week. I know some of you have probably been doing this for some time now, but if you haven't, I urge you to support our troops with letters and packages. Another web site I found is America Supports You. This military web site has links to many ways you can show your support to our troops.

A Department of Peace

2007-02-17T15:35:00.000-05:00

Dennis Kucinich doesn't give up easily. He has introduced HR 808 to establish a U.S. Department of Peace. Kristi Meisendback Boylan does a great job of explaining why we need one and encouraging us to write our representatives to gain support for it. I plan to send off an e-mail to Ralph Regula urging his support, not that it will make any difference. He never represents my opinion; he is not MY representative. I am grateful to the people who elected Dennis Kucinich for giving those of us seeking peace such a determined voice in the People's House.

Backing the Underdogs

2007-02-14T14:02:00.000-05:00

After reading my post on Bill Richardson, my son-in-law wants to know why I always back the losers. He knows that I still have a Dennis Kucinich for president sign in my garage, a left over from the last presidential primary. Now his mother-in-law seems determined to back another loser this time around. He will be really shocked if he reads this post, because I'm still pretty hooked on Dennis. I just might have to recycle that Kucinich sign.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on a post to explain my support of Kucinich when Dick Feagler has done a much better job of defending his candidacy, and I pretty much agree with all that he says in his Feb. 14th article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. To the other contenders for the Democratic nomination, I'd like to issue a warning. Don't underestimate the power of Kucinich. Remember, David defeated the giant Goliath with a slingshot. The short scrappy high school quarterback from Cleveland just might make a touchdown by speaking truth to power, especially when he's been standing solidly oppossed to the Iraq debacle from the beginning.

Link: Kucinich for President

Prophetic Atheism

2007-02-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

Peacebang is hosting the UU Carnival this month. Here is my take on the quote below. Check out the other entries via links on her website.

A good deal of so-called atheism is itself, from my point of view, theologically significant. It is the working of God in history, and judgment upon the pious. An authentic prophet can be a radical critic of spurious piety, of sham spirituality.”

-James Luther Adams

To me, true spirituality is living in balance and harmony with the great force of the universe. The Taoists call it the Way or the Tao; others have called it God, the Goddess, the Great Spirit, Brahma, etc. The Tao Te Ching says,

“The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.”

Throughout history, humans have formed religions that attribute human characteristics to the divine mystery. Instead of trying to understand and live in harmony with the eternal mysterious force, we imagine gods that serve us and conform to our limited view of reality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A person will worship something-have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts-but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we worship, we are becoming.”

Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you dressed as sheep, but inside they are devouring wolves. You will fully recognize them by their fruits. You will fully know them by their fruits“ Matthew 7:15

The sad state of the society we are creating for ourselves and our posterity is certainly an indication of what dominates our collective imaginations and thoughts today. It is violent, disrespectful of our natural world, focused on material possessions, self-centered, self-indulgent and empty. Many religious leaders who claim to be modern prophets or speak for the prophets of old bring fruits of intolerance, war, poverty, disrespect of human rights and disease. They bring us a vision of Armageddon instead of a hopeful vision of humans living in harmony with each other and the creative force of the universe.

True prophets hold a mirror before us that challenges us to knock our false Gods from their pedestals and to search again for unity with the spirit of the universe that is far beyond our understanding and our naming. True prophets encourage us to listen for divine direction; false prophets and religious leaders tell us they alone know how god wants us to live. The rules they offer and the consequences in store for us when we fail to follow them have a distinctly human ring to them. They focus on our attachment to our existence as separate beings full of selfish desires. The god they describe can be named and humanized. This god can be bribed with sacrifices or rituals to do our bidding and brings vengeance upon enemies. The false god damns those who don’t accept a limited view of divinity, has favorites among humans and gives humans control over the rest of creation. The history of religion is plagued with false prophets who hijack humanity’s honest attempts to communicate with the divine spirit. True prophets are often branded as heretics because they do not bow down before the god of the false prophets of their day. Providing a vision that puts humans and human gods in their proper place in the universe has often cost prophets their lives. Many so-called atheists have been among them.

Richardson for President

2007-02-10T15:45:00.000-05:00

The more I listen to Bill Richardson, the more I am leaning toward him as the Democratic choice in 2008. If you want to know what he stands for watch his speech at the DNC Winter Meeting.

But I'm not ready to come out in support of Richardson just yet. He's a politician and I don't trust any of them. The Free New Mexican has a file on everything Richardson and I plan to seek honest criticism of Richarson's record as well as the positive.

I would love to see the 2008 campaign won by a candidate who didn't run negative ads and stood for something besides getting elected. I'd like to give voters the benefit of the doubt and believe that they will elect the best person for the job instead of the candidate who can buy the most TV time, but if the negative ads didn't work, they wouldn't be spending so much time accumulating campaign money. Check out the money candidates are expected to spend in this Washington Post Article.

I had some optimism last year as more voters actually seemed to pay attention to the issues instead of the hype and spin, but we still have a long way to go. Here are some of my favorite political web sites, places I go when I am trying to sift the facts from the spin dust.
C-Span Road to the WhiteHouse
Fact Check

Modern American Lifestyle

2007-02-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Thanks to an e-mail from Stephanie, I discovered a blog that does a nice job of critiquing the constantly on-the- go American lifestyle. I would encourage you to read Thomas Paine's Corner, especially the post on What McDonalds resurgence tell us about US capitalism.

This post points out the devastating effect the focus on capitalism is having on our personal lives. There are many who see a crisis of values in this country. The blame has been placed on everything from ending prayer in school, gay marriage, to drugs, but burgeoning unregulated capitalism is rarely brought up as a causal factor.

One indication of the elevation of capitalism is President Bush's tribute to Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of the Baby Einstein Co in his State of the Union Address. Slate gives a good critic of this enterprise that markets videos to infants. What was Julie Aigner-Clark's great contribution to humanity?
"Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America." (G.W. Bush)

I'm not against making money or encouraging people to be enterprising by awarding them a goodly share of the profits for their hard work and ingenuity, but I am opposed to valuing the ability to obtain luxuries over meeting human needs.

I'm not for limiting free speech, but shouldn't there be some restraint in marketing to children and teens? Shouldn't we create films and television shows that encourage the highest form of human behavior instead of catering to our baser instincts? I don't think laws are the answer, though some regulation might help when it comes to advertising to children and youth. When my children would complain that I did not give them enough freedom, I told them that freedom equaled responsibility. To be truly free one must take responsibility for making good choices. Americans need to exercise their freedom through responsible consumption and revolt against the values that are being preached to us daily through advertising. We need to ask hard questions about our American life-style. Instead of passively accepting our place on the treadmill, we need to explore alternatives.

Some interesting facts about TV and Family Life Critically watching TV and all the commercials gives a very interesting commentary on the American lifestyle and our value system. I thought the commercials during the Superbowl hit a new low.

Morning Meditation

2007-02-09T08:49:00.000-05:00

My study window overlooks a ravine in my backyard with some naked trees standing tall like quiet sentinels watching over the house. In summer one can barely see the hospital parking lot for all of the vegetation, but today the lot with its cars and bundled employees walking hurriedly toward the rear entrance are clearly visible. The sun brings out the reddish brick of the building and the contrast of shadow and morning sunlight accentuates the edges. It’s almost like looking out from a tree house because my window is just below eyelevel with the top of the tree closest to the house where the woodpeckers have carved big holes in the dead top. Someday it may fall on the house, but I am reluctant to have it cut because my redheaded friends would lose their home and the rest of the tree still lives. As I look out the window, I am happy and content. A Bible verse from my childhood comes to my mind, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

At the right side of the window is a picture painted by a member of our congregation. In the upper right corner is a small innocent looking child, and in the bottom left is the half face of an adult. The colors the artist used are bright green, gold and black. The adult side of the painting is dark except for some bright gold at the top; the green is on the child’s side. There is a flaming chalice below the child that unites the figures in the picture with a black circle that extends from its base and forms the central focal point of the picture, bringing the child and adult together.

So, why am I writing this? Because a few days ago I asked a student who told me she was bored at school, “What excites you makes you feel alive?” She told me that there was nothing. Maybe I am just getting too old and remembering the good old days as better than they were, but it seems to me that our society is suffering from an epidemic of depression that is especially disconcerting when it seems to be increasing in our young people. As I look at the picture, I wonder if the pressure we are placing on our children to grow up quickly is robbing them of their connection with their inner child full of wonder and excitement. I look at the chalice that forms the center of the picture. How many young people are missing a spiritual center that brings meaning to their lives and gives them light in the dark times?

Seeking Jesus in a U. U. Church

2007-02-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

Posts by Joel at CUUMBAYA and Jamie at Trivum have encouraged me to write this post because I agree with them that there is a certain prejudice against belief in a living God and talking about Jesus in Unitarian Universalist Churches even though we profess to support

“Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; and “" A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;”

Our 7^th and 8^th grade Sunday school class recently took a poll of the Congregation to discover what the adults believed about God. Although it was not a very scientific study, I think it pretty accurately reflected the diversity in the congregation. It didn’t surprise me that all of the 48 respondents agreed with the statement, “There are probably as many ideas about God as there are people.”, or that 43 out of 48 agreed with the statement, “There is a spark of divinity in each of us.” What surprised me was that only 8 members out of the 48 responding to the survey agreed with the statement, “My beliefs about Jesus make me feel closer to God.” Only the statement, “There is no such thing as God, and even the word is meaningless,” got fewer checks with 5 members agreeing. That surprised me because I'm guessing the majority of the members in our church grew up in a Christian congregation. As one of them, I cannot imagine coming to the place I am at in my spiritual journey without Jesus. I have resisted joining with the U.U. Christians in my congregation because the Jesus I seek to understand and know is more encompassing than modern Christianity. The term Christian in its modern context has come to mean exclusion and restriction of belief to me that fly in the face of Jesus’ direction to, “Seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened.” I am a Unitarian Universalist and the life and teachings of Jesus have helped bring me to the spiritual understanding that gives me comfort and guides my life today.

So, what do I believe about Jesus? John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It goes on to talk about the Word as the light that enlightens every human and that through the word we become the children of God. I believe that God speaks to us through the life and words of Jesus. I don’t believe that Jesus was the only incarnation of God’s word, but I do believe that Jesus was the divine word speaking to us in human form. Even though other religious and secular texts give me guidance and the lives of others inspire me, I still find myself constantly asking, “What would Jesus do in this situation?” “How did Jesus tell us to respond to this?” The fact that I also read the Tao Te Ching and Buddhist koans to guide my life or that I view Buddha and Lao Tzu as other incarnations of the divine word, doesn’t lessen the impact that Jesus has on my life. I am a true believer that God, the Tao, the Goddess or whatever name we choose to call divinity, is still speaking to us today if only we have ears to listen. I’m seeking the Word in my UU Church and I’m still finding it in the message and life of Jesus.

Homeland Security

2007-01-27T15:01:00.000-05:00

We hear a lot about the importance of homeland security from both parties, but what would it really mean to have a secure homeland? Neither party has addressed that issue as far as I am concerned, so here is my answer to this question.

First, to have a secure homeland, we must be a strong nation and capable of sustaining ourselves independently if we are at war. The United States once had this strength. We produced all of the supplies a nation or armed forces would need in case we were attacked. During World Wars I and II, we were a major supply source for the allied forces for everything from uniforms and food to tanks, airplanes, munitions and electronics. As our country loses manufacturing industries, we depend on other areas of the world for items that are critical during a conflict. The recent test by China of a missile that could knock out a communications satellite makes our vulnerability quite evident. What if China decided to go on the offensive against us? They have more manpower, and now they also have more industrial capacity. They are quickly catching up to us in technological sophistication, in large part because our corporations have shared the technological advances with them. In past wars, our oceans have protected us against attack, but they would be a formidable barrier to getting supplies if the world was at war and we needed supplies from our NATO allies. Why isn’t Congress addressing our diminishing manufacturing capacity?

Second, to be a secure nation, we must have secure borders. This nation is fighting to secure the borders for Afghanistan and Iraq, and we supported Lebanon in trying to establish its border against Syrian interference, but when it comes to our own borders, we are not secure. I am not opposed to immigration, but immigrants need to come through our borders legally. I am not opposed to trade, but trade needs to be legal and fair. The millions of illegal immigrants, illegal drugs and weapons that pass through our border on a daily basis are certain proof that we do not have secure borders. I believe that this nation has the ability make our borders secure, but that greed has encouraged government and corporate leaders to sacrifice security for the money they make on illegal trade and cheap labor. Legal immigration has been one of the strengths of this nation. To secure our borders we need to increase the quota for legal immigrants and enforce the laws against hiring those who enter this country illegally. A guest worker program as suggested by President Bush would only continue to cut away at the wages and living conditions for American workers and encourage illegal trade in people and drugs.

One other concern I have about border security is that we are increasingly putting our ports and now even our toll roads in the hands of foreign corporations, often corporations owned by the leaders of undemocratic foreign governments. How can our nation be secure if foreign governments are in charge of material entering our country and the highways that allow it to be transported?

Fourth, homeland security means that our neighborhoods must be relatively safe from violence, but we are one of the most violent nations in the world. The current drug laws have only increased the market for and profit to be made from illegal drugs and have failed to properly deal with the societal and family problems created by use of addictive substances. Why isn’t Congress addressing the failed war on drugs? Our failure to deal effectively with this problem has created a subclass of citizens who live in constant conflict with the law. A comparison of the prison populations in 12 countries is a good reflection of domestic tranquility and the security in our neighborhoods.

Prison population per 100,000 inhabitants
USA	Russia	UK	Canada	Germany	Italy	France	Vietnam	Sweden	Denmark	Japan	Iceland
740	713	124	102	98	92	80	75	64	61	37	29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarcerated

While we concentrate on terrorist in Baghdad, LA has an estimated 700 gangs with 40,000 members - about four for every police officer*

http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/L/LA_GANGS?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-01-21-20-20-36

Aren’t the gangs in our city neighborhoods terrorists to the people who live there?

Fifth, homeland security demands an infrastructure that is up to date, well maintained and secure. One only needs to look at the Katrina disaster to see the effects of neglecting the infrastructure of our nation. Not only were the levees in need of repair, but our failure to create a modern transportation system in this nation made it impossible to get those who were dependent on public transportation out of the city. The lack of a national system of energy efficient transportation also makes us vulnerable to nations who can cut off our oil supply. Cutting off our oil supply from sources other than the U.S. could totally cripple this nation because of our overdependence on automobiles, airplanes and trucks to move people and goods.

So, if Congress and the president want to do something about homeland security, they ought to begin at home.

Bill Richardson

2007-01-24T08:33:00.000-05:00

With all the media fuss about Clinton and Obama, it is easy to overlook the Democrat's most qualified candidate, Bill Richardson. While I don't agree with Richardson's position on some of the issues, I think he is our best choice for president in 2008. He would bring tremendous experience to the White House, something that has been lacking far too often in recent years, especially in the area of foreign affairs and diplomacy. If we were looking to hire someone for any other position but president, experience and effectiveness in previous positions would be the major criteria for the job, not so with our elected officials. Experience is somewhere down the list of qualities that has been emphasized in campaigns for elected officials since the age of mass media. In recent years the major qualifications seem to be media glitz, ability to amass tons of money for TV commercials that shamefully slam the other candidate with half truths, and name recognition. Certainly Clinton and Obama would bring some excellent personal qualities to the presidency, but neither of them have extensive experience. Although Hillary Clinton was close to her husband's presidency, she was not an active participant except in her attempt to get a revision in the health care system. This leaves her experience as a lawyer and six years in the Senate. Barack Obama has had even less experience on the national level and some experience in the Illinois legislature. Neither have had executive or diplomatic experience which are major strengths for Richardson. While Richardson isn't liberal enough for my taste on a few issues, I think he can bring our country together to make progress and restore our reputation in the world community. I want a president with experience in administration and a proven track record for bringing people together to make the hard compromises that are necessary to move us forward as a country and to bring peace and progress in international relations.
If you haven't heard much about Governor Richardson, here's a link:
Bill Richardson for President

Recipe for Peace

2007-01-21T16:02:00.000-05:00

While pondering the horrors of the Vietnam conflict back in my teens, I wrote a poem that had a line

“While old men play the game called war,

The smooth dark stones keep adding up to more.”

Not great poetry, but an accurate representation of my sentiment at the time as friends were drafted or worried about being drafted into a war over which they seemed to have little control; most weren’t even old enough to have a vote. It just seemed to me that the wrong people were making the decisions about war. The leaders on both sides weren’t the ones dying, losing their homes, being wounded and disabled. Remember the slogan, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” I liked that idea. My imagination went wild imagining people on both sides of a conflict throwing down their weapons and saying, “Not me! You want a war; you fight it!” Leaders cannot make a war by themselves, the army of ordinary people living ordinary lives have to show up ready to kill each other. So, why do we let leaders send us into battle? Most people will say that if we don’t fight, the enemy will, and they will win. We are fighting for our freedom they will say. I wonder how free I am if a government either mine or the other person’s can force me to kill someone. Civil disobedience seems to work pretty well at defending freedom. Of course by defying government authority, one could end up dying, but isn’t that what the issue was in the first place, being willing to die for the cause of individual liberty?

So, what if we don’t have war anymore? How will we decide conflicts? I have a recipe for the process of making peace. The two sides with the disagreement should each select five young couples who have just become parents and have other children under the age of five. Both governments should agree to abide by any peace terms the young people draw up to settle the conflict. The process should begin with a week of living together with their children, eating together, having the children play together, watching the children as they sleep, and helping each other care for the children.

After this week of getting to know each other, both governments should be permitted a specified amount of time to explain their side of the conflict to the panel of young parents. Then it would be up to the parents to create a treaty that would prevent war and provide a solution that the parents would agree to follow in the interest of their children. Their agreements would be binding on the leaders. I wonder if there are any governments brave enough to put this process to the test.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?
I believe that the United States is very close to finding out if we maintain our volunteer military.

Some links:

Children of War
To End all Wars
Children's Peace Pavilion

More About Change

2007-01-08T19:43:00.000-05:00

On Sunday our Midday Service had a ritual that focused on forgiveness. We were asked to write something we wanted to let go of on a piece of white paper with a water color marker. Then we brought our paper to a bowl on the alter and dropped it in so that the ink slowly dissolved. I thought about a lot of things I wanted to be rid of at the start of this new year, but found I could sum them all up with, "Attachment to that which was not, is not, or cannot be." The Buddhists believe that all of our suffering is a result of our attachments. Certainly attachment to things past often keeps us from enjoying or even dealing with the present situation. Pain from the past remembered in the present brings suffering in the here and now. Old resentments not only cause suffering for us but for others around us.

I like the story of the wise teacher who dealt with the grudges of his students by telling them to write the names of all those they were angry with on a raw potato and carry the potatoes with them in a burlap bag until they could forgive. Not only did the bags grow heavy, they began to smell pretty awful. That is what happens when we carry resentments and anger with us; it pollutes our present and makes us unpleasant for others to be around. Even being unable to forgive our own short comings keeps us attached to past mistakes instead of making a new start in the present.

It is not hard to know when we are attached to things from the past. It is harder to know when we are attached to that which is not. Our inability to perceive the present is often affected by our attachments to worn out concepts developed in the past, prejudices, habits, and perceptions that we have failed to update with a fresh look. Often we fail to see what is because we do not want to face the truth. Sharing perceptions with others can often help us see things more clearly. One is reminded of the story of the four blind men feeling the elephant.

One felt the trunk, one the tail, one a leg, one another part, and each got a different perception of what an elephant is. Only by sharing their perceptions could they get a true picture of the whole animal. Our attachment to a false perception of our present situation may keep us from enjoying it or dealing with it in the best way possible. Another story that I like is a Zen story about a man being chased by a tiger. When he comes to a cliff, he goes over edge to avoid the tiger and grabs a branch on the way down. At the bottom is another tiger waiting for him. While hanging by the branch, he sees a beautiful strawberry growing within reach. A strawberry never tasted so good! Had the man been concerned about the tiger in the past or the tiger in the future he may never seen let alone enjoyed the strawberry in the present.

Attachment to anticipated events in the future is even harder to detect. Certainly it is important to plan and to some extent use the present to prepare for our future. The problem comes when we become so attached to our ideas about the future that we fail to appreciate the present. It is also hard to know when working hard for something in the present will bring the results we expect in the future. In dealing with my anxiety of the future, I often meditate on the AA serenity prayer. God grant me the courage to change the things I can, accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference.

Attachments to things that were not, are not, and cannot be, keep us from enjoying what is and stop us from making needed changes to deal with the life we have in the here and now.

Change: My devil and my angel

2007-01-03T17:07:00.000-05:00

Jamie had a link from his page to the UU Carnival topic of change, so I decided to try writing on this topic.

The New Year is here! Every January First I feel like a grade school kid in art class who has just been presented with a big blank sheet of white paper. No matter how I messed up the last year, this is the opportunity for a fresh start. It is a chance to imagine and plan my perfect year before I put the metaphorical crayon to paper and find that my artistic talents do not in any way match my imagination.

Most of us make the obligatory New Year’s resolutions and keep few to none of them. So, the question then becomes why is it so difficult to change even when we obviously wish (at least to some extent) that something in our life was different? I find myself thinking about my desire to change in terms of the cartoon character with the little cartoon angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. The angel in this case is the force in my life that motivates me to make a healthy change and the devil is the bad, but quite comfortable, habit that lures me back to the evil side despite my wonderful intentions.

So, from the good angel perspective, I’ll consider the motivations that have worked for me in the past. First, most major changes I’ve made I my life have come through some significant emotional event, usually traumatic and painful. To give just one example, my resolve to drink no more than two alcoholic beverages in an evening did not lead to moderate drinking, but painful experience was a much more potent motivator. It is unfortunate that one has to suffer emotional or physical pain to listen to the wise angel of one’s better self, but that often seems to be what it takes. The second way I’ve found to change is to replace a bad but comfortable habit with another that I’ve persuaded myself will be more interesting and fun. For example, I am not very motivated by the idea of exercising even though I know that I need to do so. Sitting at the computer, reading a good book or watching TV when I come home from work is more inviting. However, I am motivated to spend time chatting with friends. About five years ago, while attempting to make good on my umpteenth resolution to exercise on a daily basis, I happened to pass my neighbor’s house and casually mention that I was giving the exercise thing another go. She convinced me to walk all the way downtown with her, about three and a half miles round trip. We had a great time talking, walking and laughing, and we have been walking through the sun, rain and snow four to five times a week ever since. We have even added another friend to the fellowship, and that has made it even more fun.

Now onto the devil sitting on my other shoulder, Newton's first law states that “a body at rest remains at rest and a body in motion continues to move at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force.” Inertia is the biggest obstacle to change. I’m very good at convincing myself that any change will require an ENORMOUS if not INSERMOUNTABLE amount of effort. This negative self-talk has managed to derail most of my New Years resolutions before I even get started. One of the tricks I learned while studying for my counseling license was that helping people make changes is best done by getting them to set short term objectives instead of making sweeping resolutions.

The problem is that most of us want instant change and are not very satisfied by taking “baby steps”. That is why self-help groups like, AA and weight watchers are successful. The group members help us break the task into smaller steps and act as a cheering section to give us validation that we are making progress. They act as an external force helping us to overcome our inertia and change direction.

Well, I’m off to work on my New Year’s resolution. The devil of inertia is beckoning me to avoid cleaning the study by making this post a bit longer. She’s telling me to look around at the mess and telling me that dealing with it is an impossible task. The angel is suggesting that I start with just cleaning off one shelf of the bookcase that is stacked high with papers I need to file or pitch. Anyone want to join a self-help group for the organizationally challenged?

Vision of a Peaceful World

2007-01-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

When I think about a peaceful world, I ask myself what I would be willing to give up for it. At the present time, most people in the United States have a very favored status. We use a hugely disproportionate share of the world’s resources and energy. We are bombarded by constant messages to consume even more and inundated with the message that someone else will do the most difficult, dangerous and tedious tasks of producing that which we will consume.

This situation cannot lead to a peaceful world. It only exists through the use of a powerful military or police force that keeps people producing goods for others without gaining their fair share of the benefits. People who are hungry, without a future, without the necessities of life, are not at peace and not peaceful.

We here in the United States are isolated from the rest of the world and from the pain our conspicuous consumption creates elsewhere on the planet. We accept our favored status as a right and claim that we ourselves are responsible for our good fortune. We not only expect to be the favored people of the future, but we expect our children to have even more wealth and power.

An interesting discussion of the United States and world poverty can be viewed at Too Much

To understand the perspective of most of the third world’s population you might want to play a game: http://www.globalministries.org/involvement/lcma-2.htm

What would a peaceful world look like? Instead of focusing on increased consumption, we would need to value increased leisure time for family, study, reflection, and creative pursuits. Modern technology has made it possible to produce the essentials people need with a minimum of human effort, but instead of providing us with more time for human interaction and spreading the wealth to those who have been deprived of life’s essentials, we have only increased our demand for material possessions. A peaceful world would require a change in our priorities and our values. We would need to work together for the benefit of humankind and to sustain our earth for future generations instead of competing with each other for more and more of the earth’s material resources. What would you be willing to give up?

Ripples

2006-12-31T08:23:00.000-05:00

As we go through life we cannot help but make ripples in the ocean of time. Even those who have no power or position make a difference in the lives of others, and that difference may reverberate to make an even greater impact. This week the death of three leaders filled the news, Gerald R. Ford, James Brown and Saddam Hussein. Interestingly all three men had been abandoned by their birth fathers early in life, and all came from humble beginnings, not born into families of power or wealth. Yet each of these men became known throughout the world and their death is a major news story. Each made not just a ripple in time, but a splash that has affected millions of lives and changed history.

It seems strange to talk about these men in the same post since they have little in common except for their prominence and their time of death. The contrasts between their lives seem to vastly overshadow any commonality. Yet, I cannot help but wonder how they came to make a splash instead of just a ripple. What was it about them that made people follow them?

I find President Ford’s position easier to understand than the other two. He lived what to most of us was an exemplary life. He was the all American boy, hard working, faithful, kind and loving, the kind of guy you would want for a friend. He studied hard, was a good father and husband, and embraced and exemplified the values that most of us hold dear. He did not seek the position that gave him his great fame or influence, but handled leadership with humility and great wisdom. I can understand why the people of Michigan chose him to represent them for so many years in the House of Representatives. They made a good choice, and he was there for this country when we needed his steady hand.

It isn’t too hard to understand how James Brown became famous; one only needs to listen to the music. Brown’s rhythm and blues funky sound fills the soul with energy, and puts our bodies in motion. He filled African Americans with black pride and connected a nation that seemed culturally divided through music that brought its young people together. His personal life was filled with struggles and certainly doesn’t inspire our emulation, but that did not keep us from admiring his creativity and his energy.

While the world greeted the deaths of President Ford and James Brown with accolades and sadness, some rejoiced over the death of Saddam Hussein. Even those who morn his passing do not do so with fond remembrance but with anger and hate for those who have brought about his fall from power and his death. How did this man from humble beginnings rise to a position of leadership? He stood alone on that gallows, but he did not do the crimes alone. While we are quite willing to identify with the wonderful personal values of Ford and the creativity and energy of Brown, we have a problem owning the emotions and values that brought Hussein to power. Yet, they are every bit as common to us as the others. Saddam Hussein represented power for people who were powerless. He kept warring factions in check with brutality and fear. He brought modernization and stability to Iraq and increased living standards for many who had formerly lived in poverty under a monarch. No leader is able to commit “crimes against humanity” alone, there must be thousands of coconspirators, people who are willing to trade humanitarian values for power, money, or the illusion of safety. I am saddened by the death of Saddam Hussein, not that I condone what he did, but I feel compassion for him, and for the rest of us too. The people of this nation have at times supported leaders whose actions have traded humanitarian values for wealth, power and the illusion of safety.

The lives of these three men cannot be taken out of the context of history. The splash they made in the ocean of time was affected by the currents and the prevailing winds. The ripples made by others impacted them and through them, the rest of us and future generations as well.

Peace on Earth-Do you believe?

2006-12-14T06:47:00.000-05:00

Dennis Kucinich is running for president. The last time he ran, I wrote a letter to the editor to support him, gave up some of my cell phone minutes calling people to encourage them to vote for him, and sent money for his campaign. Some of my friends think I am a bit crazy because Dennis hasn’t a chance of winning the presidency. I know that and Dick Feagler knows that, but we both support him for the same reason. Dennis stands for something that we believe in. Dennis along with Ohio’s new senator, Sherrod Brown opposed the war from the beginning. Both opposed trade agreements that do not protect the environment or fair wages and safe working conditions.

Dennis may not win, but Dennis is a voice that needs to be heard, and by running for president again, he will be expressing not only his own views, but the views of many in our nation who long for peace and oppose corporate greed. I believe that peace and economic exploitation are inversely related, so you can’t long for peace and support policies that exploit workers around the world. This is the time of year when we talk about peace on earth, but how hard are we willing to work and sacrifice for it?

Where does bringing peace to the world fall on our national agenda? Dennis has suggested a Department of Peace. He obviously believes that peace can happen if we work for it. Some think he is naïve to believe in it, but I think that getting people believe in peace is three fourths of the battle.

Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories because it appeals to the child in me that I hope never to lose. One of the important messages of the story is that people need to believe to make something real. Peter says about fairies, “Yes, but they're nearly all dead now. You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the very first time, the laugh broke up into a thousand pieces of light, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. So now every time a new baby is born, its first laugh becomes a fairy.” " . . . every time a child says, `I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead." When Tinkerbelle is poisoned it is children saying that they believe that saves her life.

Peace, like Tinkerbelle, is almost dead because we do not believe in it enough to do the hard work it takes to bring it about. We look at each other with suspicion, magnify our differences and arm ourselves for protection against the other. Dennis looks a bit like Peter Pan to me, and he is out there asking us to believe in Peace and each other. He might be naive, but in this world of cynicism, he gives me hope. Do you believe in peace? Do you really believe it can happen?

The Unitarian Universalist president, William Sinkford titled his holiday message, Restoring Hope; Waging Peace . It’s a message we need to hear in this war ravaged world.

Seasonal Thoughts

2006-12-07T08:20:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts-
Today I am especially grateful for comfortable people, those that I have known for a long time. They know me and I know them. We have traveled rocky roads together. We have survived the bumps in our relationship to find the smooth road of acceptance on the other side. We can read the other’s face and catch the fleeting shadow of sadness or the tense lines that indicate stress. When we are wounded by life, we come to each other to stop the bleeding and find the humor. I am more fortunate than most; I have always had a lot of comfortable people in my life.

The discussion taking place on Peacebang’s web site about sentimental stories has given me a lot to think about. After reading some of the posts, I am afraid to share sentimental feelings and experiences with others in my UU church. My first inclination was to label some of the posters as intellectual snobs, but then I began to feel a little sorry for them. How hard it must be to analyze everything instead of experiencing it. I think I am a kid at heart, not very sophisticated really. But then, who seems happier adults or kids?

I attended Socrates Café in Medina last night. This group sponsored by the Medina Library had about twenty people in attendance. We are mostly retired, semi-retired, or in our second career and fifty above in age, but from varied backgrounds. The discussion is always interesting and stimulating. Last night we talked about Christmas and spirituality. Most cultures have some type of winter solstice celebration, so we talked about what human need was filled by celebrating at this time of the year. Does everyone have spiritual needs? Some in our group are atheists, some agnostic, some Christian, and of course this Unitarian, so I found other’s views on the subject quite interesting. We have discussed religious beliefs before, and I always find myself closest in agreement with a member of the group who is Catholic, but very knowledgeable about other religions. What is most impressive about the group is that everyone is respectful of the beliefs of others and willing to open their own to questioning. The discussion got around to the age old question of, Had God created man or had man created God to explain the unexplainable and calm fears of death? One of the members asked if any of us had been taught how to deal with a mystery. We thought he was going to give us the answer, but instead he said it was just a question for discussion. I was about to answer, “With awe” when my Catholic friend answered, “With awe and reverence”.
I think that is the basis of our spiritual need, the desire to connect with the mystery of the universe? Some did not agree that we had spiritual needs. In their view, people were motivated by instincts and survival. Wrestling with the unexplainable was futile, and they felt no need to connect to something greater than themselves, though science was quite important because it was based in reality that could be tested. We have discussed reality before and the fact that none of us can really put our finger on what that is. One member suggested that not all people have spiritual needs, that only some of us are interested these questions. As the discussion progressed, I realized how important the spiritual connection is to me. I like to stand on the mountaintop, look up at the stars and feel how small I am; yet feel a part of it all. In this time of winter’s darkness I greet the mystery with awe and reverence.

"The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding."

Tao Te Ching
Written by Lao-tzu

Spending My Time

2006-11-30T18:03:00.000-05:00

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how I am spending my time. Funny how we use that word spending that we normally think about in relationship to money, but there are a lot of similarities between time and money. First, both of them are very valuable to us and to others with whom we may wish share them. Second, they are limited because no matter what one does, there is never enough of either. Yet, it is very easy to waste both time and money by giving them up for things we really do not need or want and sometimes even for things that are not good for us, physically or spiritually. My 60th birthday is coming up in February, so the limits on my time are weighing heavy on my mind. When I was young time seemed to go on forever, but now I realize how finite it really is and how important it is to set priorities.

I've been trying to examine how I spend my time and to determine how valuable these activities are to me and to others. I plan to increase the time I spend doing the valuable things and eliminate or at least minimize time spent doing things of lesser value or that are actually harmful to me.

I've started by listing the things that are important to maintaining my physical, spiritual, and emotional well being. Next, I was thinking of listing the things that
I enjoy, but I found that most of these were already covered by the first category.
That was a bit of a surprise.

When I thought about the things I waste my time on, most of them were not good for me or for others, and I am just tolerating them or doing them without making a conscious decision about spending my time in this manner. Some are just bad habits, like flopping down on the couch to watch TV when I come home from work.

The hardest list to deal with is those that are in the gray area, not really bad for me, but not something particularly enjoyable or beneficial. Most of these are attempts to meet the expectations of others, but they are not things to which I am particularly committed myself. I don't think I am particularly stingy with my time, but time spent in these endeavors doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything valuable.

So, after making my lists, I plan to set some priorities and spend my time wisely.

Election Day-Vote

2006-11-02T07:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I attended the Open Mike Forum at my church. Like most of the live events I have gone to this year, the attendance was poor. Even the rallies where the national and state level candidates appeared were lightly attended. Newspapers are going out of business or reducing staff because people aren’t reading them. The major news networks, and certainly CNN and FOX, give the spin without a lot of substance. There are only two bright spots from my perspective as a retired American history and government teacher. One is that some voters may be turning to the Internet to find information about their candidates. I hope they are able to ferret out the sites that offer real information from those with nothing but propaganda. The other is that C-Span still exists and offers voters varied and information rich opportunities to be educated about the issues and the candidates. What is really disgusting to me are the ads and what seems to be their effect on voters. They either convince the lazy or easily persuaded voters to tow the party line or turn voters off entirely and convince them that there is no point to voting. I am not sure which is worse for our democracy, those who vote without doing the research and thinking for themselves or those who don’t vote at all.
We are a representative democracy and we get the kind of government we deserve. The government in Columbus has been scandal ridden and corrupt. It would be easy to blame Republicans for the mess, but I can only blame the voters. Our gerrymandered legislative districts have pretty much guaranteed that little actual information will be given to voters during an election year. It is time for Ohio voters to take control of their government by seeking out information and voting thoughtfully in this election. We have three branches of government and districts based on population through the wisdom of our founding fathers, but checks and balances do not work if we allow our representatives to become responsible to political party organizations and special interests instead of their constituencies. So, I am begging everyone to vote this year, but thoughtfully and only after really looking at ALL the issues and candidates. I a hope they will be energized instead of turned off by the ads and demand that both political parties inform voters instead of insult them. It is time we had a true system of checks and balances in Columbus. That can only happen when voters are paying attention.

For a humorous look at the ads and their effect click the link below:
Markfiore's Animated Cartoon

Looking for Balance

2006-06-12T15:07:00.000-04:00

I’m looking for balance and unity, but everywhere I look, things seem to be polarized and spinning out of control. Maybe it is because I’m not very balanced myself right now. I long for long distance hiking where I’m forced into balance by nature. On the trail everything seems to flow along just fine. I wake up when the sun comes up and go to bed shortly after it goes down. Food intake equals energy output because a backpack can only hold so much food. There is a natural rhythm that comes from hiking that leads to a meditative state that sooths the soul. I am a part of my surroundings and at peace within myself and with all around me. I have decided I need to take better care of me and bring my life back into balance. Today is a good day to start. I will try to find a rhythm for my off trail life. One place I like to go for balance is the True Tao Home Page

Same Sex Unions

2006-06-06T08:23:00.000-04:00

I take issue with the basic premise on which George Bush’s call for a same sex marriage amendment is based. The president states,” a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.”

I thought the president was a student of history, but maybe he needs to a review. Throughout civilization, there have been differences in viewing this “fundamental institution”. The Bible permitted plural marriage and other cultures and religions also recognize marriage between a man and more than one woman. Marriage was not originally a governmental institution at all, but a religious blessing of a sexual union. Certainly the state and religious leaders have not always agreed on what constitutes this “fundamental institution”. Unions legal according to government have not always been recognized by churches. Plural marriages sanctified by Mormon churches were not given legality by the state. Legal marriage was once denied based on race even when blessed by religious authority. The definition of marriage is not a static one, but a culturally dependent one that has varied with changing religious views and our understanding of human rights.

I think that both those who are demanding “gay marriage” and those who ask for an amendment limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman are missing the major issue. Marriage should be left to religious institutions.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush stated, “Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage. The outcome of this debate is important -- and so is the way we conduct it. The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight.”

Does granting a marriage license “sanctify” a marriage? I thought “sanctity” had something to do with a religious blessing. What business does a government claiming to promote religious freedom have in sanctifying anything or refusing to recognize marriages sanctified by religious organizations?

Which moral tradition is it that is defining marriage? The Mormon tradition? Early Hebrew? Unitarian Universalist? Pagan? Moslem? - Christian? Which Christian tradition? After all, a disagreement about the sanctity of marriage caused the split between the Catholic Church and the Anglicans.

The solution to this issue is for the state to grant a license for domestic partnerships without regard to the definition of marriage. Let religious institutions perform marriages and be concerned with their sanctity. All unions licensed by the state should be civil unions and as such, all members of our society should be accorded their equal and constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.

Religious Symbols

2006-06-04T19:22:00.000-04:00

We are going to talk about religious services in an open congregational meeting next Saturday. One of the things I have missed in our services has been the use of visual symbols. The flaming chalice is good, but being a visual learner, I need more. Visual images are important to me in understanding and making sense of the deity. As a child, I guess I had the same view of God that a lot of other Christians were brought up with, a big powerful yet kindly white haired man with a long white beard. Someone recently told me this was really the image of Zeus adopted by Christians like a lot of other symbols from other religions made over to fit with Christian theology. Looking at images of Zeus on the Internet, I think it certainly resembles the image of God from the Sunday school papers of my youth. As my view of the deity has changed, so have the symbols I find valuable in worship.

One of my favorite religious symbols is the Taoist Yin Yang because to me it represents wholeness and the beauty of a divinity that is far beyond the dualistic concepts that humans use to view our existence. I have some Ying Yang earrings and a necklace. I often wear them when I feel my life is getting out of balance, or I see myself as viewing the world through dualistic glasses. They remind me that even though I may not be able to bring things into balance in my life, and the world seems out of control, there is a higher force keeping it all together. All I need to do is to surrender and follow the Tao.

Another symbol I can relate to is that of Shiva doing the cosmic dance. One of the problems I have with the Judean/ Christian view of divinity is that God must be divided into loving and vengeful or evil personifications. How can an all loving God with human type emotions and attributes bring pain and destruction to humankind? This creates a dilemma that is answered either by a demon type being, devil or some inherent fault in humanity like original sin. But if God is all powerful, the prime mover of all creation and all knowing why would s/he bring such pain and suffering to humanity? Shiva represents a deity that transcends our understanding. The cosmic dance is the constant creation and destruction of the physical that brings perfect harmony and order which we, being in our physical form and attached to things physical, cannot comprehend or appreciate. The serene expression on Shiva’s face reminds us that no matter how we think we mess things up, the creator and sustainer of all that is has it perfectly under control. When I get caught up in emotions, I like to look at Shiva doing the cosmic dance and go to a place of calm acceptance. I am part of the dance and at the same time observer of Shiva’s dance, no longer fighting change but accepting what is, knowing that all is balanced and beautiful.

Here are some explanations of these symbols that I like.

Explanation of the oneness that is symbolized by the Yin Yang

Explanation and picture of Shiva Nataraja

Music and Art

2006-06-01T07:52:00.000-04:00

Some of the most spiritual moments in my life have to do with creating or enjoying art or music. The arts bring us to a place that is beyond words and has the capacity to touch our deepest emotions.

I'm a retired teacher who substitutes in two local suburban districts. Yesterday I had the pleasure of subbing for an art teacher at the local middle school. The students were drawing cartoons, and the halls were full of fantastic pastel portraits created by eighth graders. I spent the whole day amazed at the creativity of the students and enjoying their obvious pleasure in their wonderful projects.

Later I took my son-in-law's djembe drum to a local craftsman to get the head repaired. The drum maker was just getting ready to go to his daughter's high school for a recognition program for the theatre students. We talked about how important it is that the high school has a great music and theatre program.

My daughter is a vocal music teacher at a middle school near Columbus. Tonight we will go to watch her students perform. I am looking forward to seeing the students I've heard her talk to me about on the phone. It has been pretty evident that she takes great pleasure in helping students make and enjoy music.

Music and art was really on mind today so, it made me really sad to read in the paper that the Akron school district would be forced to cut their instrumental music program at the elementary level. They will be cutting 82 teaching positions in all. Music is just one of the ways that the students will be short changed in their education. School funding in Ohio needs reform. Every child deserves a good education that provides not just the basics, but the opportunity to create, explore and develop all of their varied talents. I was glad to see that one of the members of our church, Scott Piepho has helped to organize Next Step for Akron to get the levy passed. Although passing the levy may provide a bandage for Akron schools, Ohioians need to push the legislature to give all Ohio students the education they deserve. To join with others in this cause go to Ohio Fair Schools web site.

Immigration

2006-05-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

There is a lot of talk by politicians about fixing our failed immigration program, but the proposals put forth do not address the underlying issues. While there is talk of amnesty for those already here illegally and guest worker programs for the cheap labor we hope to exploit. There is no discussion of increasing quotas for those who want to come legally and become citizens. While there is discussion of increasing border security, we are asked to put future generations in debt to pay for it.
Until fines for hiring illegal immigrants are increased, and the United States and other nations of the world agree to support and enforce fair labor practices through trade agreements we will continue to have many desperate people crossing our borders for work.

This is the immigration program I would like to see:

- Increased quotas for legal immigration from all nations with preference given to immediate family members. Forget the guest worker programs, give them a green card. Guest worker programs are just a way to justify paying immigrant labor less than we would need to pay our own citizens.
- Increased fines for hiring illegal immigrants. Make the fines based on the size of the employer.
A $20,000 fine for an individual or small business is a deterant, but does nothing to a large corporation with lawyers to fight the charge and deep pockets to pay fines. Use the fines collected to pay for border security and social services.
- Improve the standard of living for migrant workers. They pick the food we eat; we ought to be able to provide them with a living wage and decent working conditions. Their children should be provided with a decent education and health care. EVERY CHILD SHOULD BE PROVIDED WITH THIS!
- Work with other trade partners to create and enforce fair labor laws. Refuse to allow products to enter our country that are produced by labor that is not given basic protections given to labor in this country.
- Provide a path to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who are already here, have been working and have family members here. They should be given a criminal background screen, and they and those who have employed them should pay any back taxes they owe. They should be given a guest worker permit until the taxes are paid then issued a green card and allowed to become citizens.

Back Again

2006-05-30T10:29:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted in this blog. My concerns for our country have only increased since my last post. The good thing is that more people are now speaking out to protect our freedoms. I am especially glad to see people of faith organizing to oppose those who use religion to support governmental policies that I find very much opposed to the teachings of most great religious leaders and most faith based traditions.

Two of these groups are linked below:
We Believe Ohio

Spiritual Progressives

Don't kill Phil

2005-04-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

There is a push on by the GOP leadership to kill the filibuster, so that G.W.' s conservative judges get approved. The filibuster is the only protection we have against a Congress packed with a majority from one party and a president of the same party. I can only hope that the few sane GOP senators who have not committed to supporting this "nuclear option" continue to hold out against the pressure from the conservative base. They have been getting a lot of pushing by their conservative base, especially Ohio's Mike Dewine who also voted against the budget that included drilling in the National Wild Life Refuge.
For a cute little cartoon on the topic and a source of information go to Save Phil
While you are at it people from Ohio,
e-mail our Senators and tell them to hang tight against the pressure to destroy one of our protections against a dictatorship of the majority.

Unitarian Universalism and American Values

2005-04-20T21:29:00.000-04:00

We hear a lot about values and politics these days. Various religious leaders claim that their particular brand of Christianity is the basic foundation for our national values. Being a Unitarian Universalist and a student of history, I'm not willing to concede that point at all. First, many of our most influential founding fathers (and the mothers behind the scenes)were the religious liberals of their day. John Adams was a Unitarian and Thomas Jefferson was certainly far from a mainstream Christian. He would have felt right at home in one of our UU churches. There is a good web site I found that explores the religious views of the founding fathers. God & Country There was certainly discussion about the role of religion in government during the Constitutional Convention. The web site gives quotes for many of the delegates that indicate where they stood on this important issue.
In the end, it seems the liberals won out. The ideas they relied on in creating the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution came from philosophers like John Locke and Rousseau who were influenced and guided by Greek and Roman philosophy and the scientific method more than scriptures. The American values they did agree to included:
-Democracy
-Protection from government through due process, civil rights and checks and balances on government power
-Freedom of thought, speech, and religion
-The dignity and worth of each individual

During their lives, the founding fathers constantly read about, questioned, and debated, not only the current issues of their day, but theology. I doubt that Jefferson, Washington, Adams, or Franklin would have embraced the views or many of the values of today's religious conservatives. On the other hand, some of the other members of the Constitutional Convention who wanted a closer link between the goverment and the church would be cheering them on.

An article that makes me think

2005-04-19T09:46:00.000-04:00

While I am suspicious of conservatives who brand liberals as communists, socialists and bleeding hearts and liberals who brand conservatives as fascists, unfeeling capitalists and the like, I’d have to say, Laurence W. Britt’s article, “Fascism Anyone?” made me think about the course our nation is taking.