Down in the Dumps about your 401 K? Read this.

Myth or something other?

I am not an apostle of Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman or the forever chair of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, but this is worth reading and thinking about.

"The choice--the dedication to one's highest potential--is made by accepting the fact that the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four." AR. How did this effect Mr. Greenspan's rhetoric? Here she is pretty close to showing what an idiot she was, or am I being too harsh?

Are Books Next?

Liberal education as we know it might also be a thing of the past. I wonder if anyone really cares or realizes the cost?

Here is a comment from a reader, Andrew Davis, of The New Republic:

In other news, American Airlines announces they will no longer fly airplanes.

For more of my collages go to Application of the Senses

"After careful analysis, we discovered that we make most of our profit selling tickets, not flying planes, so we are canceling all flights henceforth. Tickets, however, are still available on-line, over the phone, or from an agent. Our customers will also be glad to know that we are also reducing our fuel surcharge fifty percent."

clipped from blogs.tnr.com Why Book Reviews Matter Rumors surfaced last Friday that Book World, the Washington Post's highly-respected weekly stand-alone on all things literary, might be closing. Politico's Michael Calderone quickly confirmed that, while no decision has been made, it's under high-level discussion as a cost-cutting measure. This would leave the New York Times' Book Review as the last stand-alone book section in American dailies. In recent years, in-house book reviewing has been eliminated, abridged, or downgraded by the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Cleveland's Plain Dealer, The San Diego Union-Tribune--the list goes on.

What HBO didn't want you to hear

Today, Sunday, the 18th of January, at the Lincoln Memorial, openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson called on God to "bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people." However, his prayer was cut from the HBO broadcast!

Here is the full text of his prayer:

The Most Rev. Gene Robinson
Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Invocation, Inaugural Concert
Lincoln Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Jan. 18, 2009 2:20 p.m. EST


Oh, God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears, tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger – anger at discrimination at home and abroad against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.


Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a Messiah.


Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.


Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.


And bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.


And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years. Inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style; President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people.


Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.


Give him stirring words. We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.


Make him color blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership there will be "neither red nor blue states, but the United States."


Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.


Give him strength to find family time and privacy and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.


And, please God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our Presidents and we are asking far too much of this one. We implore You, O good and great God, to keep him safe; hold him in the palm of Your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace. Amen.

15 Days and Counting

Notes on paintings chosen for display at the Inaugural Luncheon in the Capitol.

View of the Yosemite Valley by Thomas Hill, Oil on canvas, 1865.
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Charles T. Harbeck

A few thoughts about the office of POTUS, looking back on the first three years of Barack Obama's administration. I wrote this 15 days before he was sworn in. I will continue to stand up for him, and work to get him re-elected.

The sense of the oldest version of the word “inauguration,” the Latin inaugurātus, is more than a just formal ceremony in which the person chosen for an office accepts its responsibilities and promises to fulfill its requirements. It was a blessing, augur. We humans try to coax the pantheon of the gods help move all the forces of the universe into alignment to create the most favorable circumstances possible for the office-holder to fulfill of his or her responsibilities.


Although I prefer a more secular interpretation of the word, there is something to that older, more sacred meaning. We humans, in our role as citizens, make a pact with the powers of the universe, that they will guide and protect Barack Obama to fight for the freedom of all people, to nurture all life, and to take care for humans in need—“to provide for the common good.” It is not one-sided. The humans have their role to play as well as the unseen powers. That is certainly what lead me to support Barack’s bid for the presidency, and I will be there, either in person or in spirit, to pledge my support as he sets out to make good on his promises.



The portrait, dated 1821, is of course Thomas Jefferson, by the 19th century portrait artist Thomas Sully. Bill Clinton displayed it at the Inaugural Luncheon in the Capitol for his 1st Inauguration.

I had imagined that Barack Obama would choose one of Lincoln. Instead he chose one that was painted the year that Lincoln was assassinated, View of the Yosemite Valley by Thomas Hill. The breath of Hill vision has room for many, many possibilities. I say that those possibilities still exist if we honor our part in the bargain.

 

Where are the protests and boycotts by the international community?

Ashin Mettacara is a Buddhist monk who escaped Burma after the brutal end of the Saffron Revolution. Currently, from an undisclosed location, he is blogging whatever news he gets from this isolated country.

The military thugs who control the country are not being held accountable by the rest of the world, but they could not survive without China stonewalling for them. And we in the West, yes even us cool, level headed focused, bright and committed Buddhists seem to have put the issue aside after the unbelievable pictures of thousands of saffron robed monks marching in the streets, followed by the horrific scenes of death and destruction that were caused by the cyclone, disappeared from out TV's.

Just yesterday I was reminded again of what we can still do, even in small ways. I was with a college buddy, showing him around San Francisco. We went into a very upscale shop on Maiden Lane, actually a building that Frank Lloyd Wright designed. On the desk was a jar and an appeal to continue to help the victims in Myanmar.

Wake up. It's still going on. Please do not let up the pressure. Speak up!

clipped from www.ashinmettacara.org Burma, Myanmar: Popular Burmese Hip-Hop Singer Gets 6 Years; Leader Monk Gets Another 15 years More than 20 activists were sentenced in Burma on Thursday. A popular Burmese Hip-Hop singer Zay Yar Thaw was also included in the list of the detainenes sentenced. Zay Yar Thaw is a 27-year-old singer from the popular music band known as ACID. ACID a hip-hop band from Yangon, Burma. Zaw Yar Thaw organised and led the Generation Wave group with the young activists during the Saffron Revolution led by the Buddhist monks in 2007. He was arrested in March with his four other members of Generation Wave. He was sentenced today to 6 years imprisonment for possessing foreign currency and organising illegal group. His four other members of Generation Wave were sentenced to 5 years imprisoment each. The leader and spokesmonk for the Saffron Revolution Ashin Gambira gets another 15 years. Last Tuesday he has already been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. But his case is not closed yet. By Ashin Mettacara

A very, very Happy Merry to All

A very, very Happy Merry to All
12/23/07

 

Congratulations, Al

Congratulations Al, and, thanks from all of us earthlings.

Whether or not we are generous in our thoughts about you, you have made a difference. And we thank those who are working so hard to look at the science required to track and, ultimately, change the downward spiral, including the men and women with whom you share this Nobel prize, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The World's Best (local) Coffee House

What are the ingredients for a good, perhaps superlative coffee house? Coffee? Eats? Service? Fast WiFi? Folks? Music? Comfortable seats? Location?


Most every coffee drinker I know protests Starbucks trying to romance us away with their coffee-flavored drinks. But how many will step off their normal path to support a really great place, run by wonderful people, with great coffee, fine eats, cool music, and comfortable seats where no one will bother you if you want to sit and fiddle on your laptop?


In the hope that a great place with these essential ingredients in abundance is rewarded, I am going to recommend my favorite coffee house, even if it might become crowded once the word gets out.

The Nervous Dog at 3438 Mission (between 30th and Courtland) in San Francisco deserves your business. As I write, it is still early on Sunday morning, and I just watched the owner go outside with a bowl of water for a customer's dog, obliged by the health code to wait outside. He, the owner that is, not the dog, is unflaggingly bright spirited and courteous, and I have the impression that this is who he really is - that he genuinely likes people and enjoys serving them. I had a perfectly made (free trade) cafe americano plus wonderful lox and bagel, all for a very reasonable price. We are listening to country gospel music. I would not be able to sit through 2 crossover country "hits," but this music has the A flat that distinguishes the genuine article, and I am enjoying it much more than I might have thought possible. It seems that I am not alone either. I see more than one of the two dozen or so diverse feet around me moving rhythmically .

At the bottom of Bernal Heights, the Hill, a few souls have wandered down to refresh their souls. It is not in a great Starbucks location, as you can see by the picture, no fancy shopping mall, or convenient kiosk in a supermarket, but the parking looks reasonably available for San Francisco if you are a driver. I came on foot, lucky to have The Nervous Dog in my neighborhood.

I am not alone in my evaluation either. I will link to Urbanspoon that posts reviews by ordinary folks like me. As of today, June 3rd, 17 out of 25 reviews give it the highest rating, 5 stars.

If you can't join me at The Nervous Dog, support your local coffee house.

Come out gay Republicans!

Jasper Johns, Flag. 1954–55,  Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted

on plywood. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Andrew, honey, Get a Grip
The conservative gay writer Andrew Sullivan has gotten his panties tied in knot about the Left outing gay Republicans. Get a grip, hon, there’s plenty of blame for both Left and Right. “The List” of gay staffers on Capitol Hill got into the hands of some right wing fundies. That’s all we know.

I have found myself tracking “The List” story with a lot of intensity. As an old-line activist, I hoped that mainstream America had moved beyond gay cleansing and blackmail. I don’t feel any need to protect anyone’s closet or out anyone, but the threat of a Pink Purge and its reaction tell me that the closet remains as lethal as ever.

I have some personal history with the suffering that is the source of the closet: abuse at the hands of our own families, bullying at school, settling for second rank jobs after better than average College careers. Many gay men of my generation share some of this history with me and know that these wounds do not magically disappear in the halls of Congress.

I also know something about gay staffers on the Hill. I was a personal friend of Rick Pucar who worked for Phil Burton, Nancy Pelosi’s predecessor as the ‘Congressperson’ from the District that includes San Francisco. I still see his surviving partner, Mike Haush, who worked for both Barbara Boxer when she was in the House and John Burton, Phil’s brother. They joked that they fell in love and got married in the halls of Congress. Oh, if only that had been possible.

Through them and other political friends, I’ve known about the informal network of gay staffers for years. It used to exist in rolodexes but has now migrated into email address books which are much easier to publish widely.

The period that I’m talking about begins with the appearance of HIV in our community.

The strain of funding research and treatment for the “gay cancer” produced stresses among the Hill gays equal to or greater than the fallout from Mark Foley's sick behavior.

The membership of Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association is a matter of public record though not, as far as I know, widely published. Until only a few weeks ago, if a staffer chose to remain in the closet, he or she could. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was the unwritten rule, but it was never a secret society, a kind of Opus Dei with a gay agenda.

The network of lesbian and gay staffers worked like any other network—full of communication, cooperation, gossip, bitchiness, even a bit of back stabbing with a particular flair. Of course, most of their bosses knew about their sexual orientation. Most Dem’s, especially from the Left Coast, were out, but, for the most part, they respected the privacy of any closeted Republican colleagues. They even helped and encouraged one another.

I’ve never seen “The List.” It hasn’t been published in the Times, but it’s become a new weapon in the hands of Family Research Council (what a lovely name for bigots). What happened? My suspicion is that at some point pre-Mark Foley, support within the GBLT network became covering. If the spirit of bi-partisanship is dead among the bosses, should we expect a higher standard from their staff? As with any human network fighting for survival, sometimes the old strategy doesn’t work very well, but hell, it is the only thing on hand, so let’s crank her up and see if we can get her to work this time.

And this is in my view is the real kicker: there is a new generation, gay and straight, ready to move beyond the old post-Stonewall arguments about being gay. They are ready get to work on what really matters now. Perkins, director of the FRC, and his operatives’ behavior is reprehensible and unethical—it is black mail—but worse, it is a distraction from the Iraq War, the treason of the sitting President and his crony administration, global warming, the looting of our national resources by the super wealthy, the auctioning off of publicly owned air waves and the consequent stifling of free speech.

Before any of these efforts get full gay participation, and the contribution of our talents, there might have to be a final "Come to Jesus" reckoning--gay staffers, from either party, who turned over “The List” to the likes of Perkins, ought to have their DuPont Circle town houses turned into Betty Ford clinics for recovering Bible thumpers, and then be forced to sit through every meeting.

The best article that I have found on "The List" is, of course, in the Washington Blade, available online.