Blue Notes from a Red Zone

A Moment of Serenity

2009-04-14T00:24:00.005-05:00

For most of my life, I have been wishing my life away - waiting for that moment to bask in the sun, to relax, to glory in a life well lived, crowned with achievement. I counted off days and moments until the time I could open up doors to adventures in foreign lands, alternating with peaceful days at sea. A time when cares would be behind me, and responsibilities few and far between.

I am 57 now, and am beginning to suspect I may not find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow after all, despite years of practice through high-level work, gaining the right skills, being the mistress of deferred gratification. Life is a far cry from butterflies and fairy tales. If anything, it is the hardest it has ever been, and Jim and I have been through hard times. My job, as champion of the most unpopular cause in town (the allevation and prevention of homelessness), is often stress at its purest form. And while I adore every member of my family and find joy with each of them in turn,there are demands I was unprepared to meet at this point in my life, and those demands are fierce. Do I have fierce in me any more? It's an unresolved question.

What I do have, now, is the sense to live more in the present. Not to wish my life away, or try to transform it into something more acceptable, easier to live with. I have perfected the ability to step out of time when the need arises, to drink in the peace of a vase of roses on my kitchen counter. Each week I choose a different color, or variety of colors. I bring them home, cut the stems, toss them in a simple, elegant vase, and use them to restore myself each time I pass near. I find the roses with the loveliest aroma, ones that can imbue a room with delicate fragrance. I will be reading the federal register, and look up at the stunning, fragile beauty of each rose, and I am transformed, swept away in an infinite second of sheer joy.

At night, I sit outside on the porch, and watch the oak leaves do their nightly tango with the wind. Our oak tree must be one of the loveliest on the planet, and is the sole reason we bought the house. Certainly we weren't looking at the small, awkward ,one-butt kitchen (as a friend labeled it), or the floor plan, or the plumbing. But as it turned out, that oak is really all we needed from the house. It's an anchor of calm, even as it bows and bends to the tune of the tropical storm.

Running errands on a tight schedule, I can be stopped by the beauty of a young woman I haven't seen for months. She came to me, homeless, hopeless, fleeing from unspeakable abuse, leaving only with the clothes on her back, her purse, and her three kids. She drove until she ran out of money to pay for gas, and rolled to a stop pretty much on my doorstep. At that moment, she was a client, a need, a demand, a stress. But in the store, she was phenomenal. Her face glowed with health and hope. I admired her work uniform, of which she was very proud. She has a good job, and her kids are adjusting to their new town, and shedding some of their fear. We talked, but mostly I just appreciated the beauty of a life started over, one with courage, and intelligence, and determination.

Most moments of peace just quiety happen. Some run, tumbling in your arms, embracing you with every atom of their being, "MamaLen, MamaLen! I knew you would come! I've been waiting and waiting, because you were coming, and now you are here!" Time stops then, and not just for a moment - it stops for the weekend, the week, the summer, whatever moment I can make last - because in the end, your grandchildren are your windows to heaven.

Every day brings me stress, despair, demands, problems I cannot solve both personal and professional. My friends are not the only ones who wonder how I cope with it all. I often feel like I got more than I signed up for, and wonder if it isn't too late to run off to the circus.

But every day also brings me a soft pink rose petal caressing my face; a warm, unsolicited gift from a friend; a kind word from a former client; a brilliant sunset; a tree offering its branches to the sky; a small child who thinks I represent everything good and true in the world. And these are the moments I choose, the times when I stop my life, go out of myself, and truly cherish the gift of peace.

These are the moments that bring me to the best of myself, so easily lost in the hassle and grind of my life. These are the gifts of being 57, of finding immortality amidst the rush of each day - the bit of color, the song of a bird, the love of a child. The actual moments of touching or hearing these things may be fleeting, but they are the only real permanent things in the world

There is a phrase, "into each life, some rain must fall." We see the rain. The gift is seeing the first timid sunbeam as it breaks through.

Happy Spring.

One Blue Note More

2008-11-15T10:12:00.003-06:00

I realize looking over my posts that I have written more often than I intended about coping with conservatism. The "Blue Notes" were intended to be happily assertive thoughts concerning progressive policies, but the "blue" clearly has overtones of depression about the political environment as well as the Democratic platform.

Despite any and all natural proclivity to be hopeful and optimistic, living in a world of hate speech is debilitating. You can get really tired of facing the public day in and day out, especially when you are continually overwhelmed by the desperate need of single parents and their children; older adults too young for Medicare but not too old for cancer or other major disease; young people who have fled horrific family situations before gaining the skills to be self-sufficient. And all the while, as you try to find sources of support, you keep hearing: "they just need to get a job."

Although many politicians and lawyers (often the same thing) view words as game pieces, it isn't so. Words have consequences. People internalize the horrible things they hear, and they believe every word issued by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They build their life view accordingly, and they hate accordingly.

Which is why Senator Joe Lieberman must not be allowed the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. We have had enough of "leadership" that tosses loaded phrases out like Mardi Gras candy, without regard as to who is getting trampled as people fight for the loot.

Sen. Bayh says we can't afford an embittered Lieberman, because he might then vote contrary to all his professed, heart-felt beliefs in a Democratic domestic policy. This, in my opinion, is one more reason to take that gavel away. If he can toss aside everything he believes in because Senators held him accountable for fanning the flames of intolerance for Democratic candidates for President and Senate, then he is not the man we need in a position requiring judgment and intellect.

To her credit, Hillary did not let her clearly deep-felt grief at losing the primary campaign stop her from assisting the campaign that most obviously represented her value system. If Joe can't do that, and it appears he cannot, then Joe should go.

Hate Speech

2008-11-15T03:35:00.002-06:00

Bill O'Reilly was interviewed by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show earlier this week in one of the funnier bits since the election. Jon's premise was that Bill has been talking a lot about his fears concerning an Obama presidency, and Jon was hoping to create a safe place so that Bill wouldn't have to worry so much. He gave Bill a small teddy bear, and brought out hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Apparently, there are a lot of people who need help finding a safe space right now, because despite the general national euphoria over the Obama win (70% of the population feels very positive about his coming administration), there are pockets of people who have been genuinely terrified of all the "palling around with terrorists" talk.

Unfortunately, they don't say, "I'm very frightened." No, many of them prefer to project outward.

Not far from my house, there is a small business selling t-shirts, bumper stickers and signs to "real Americans," the conservative "patriots" who are the only persons apparently entitled to live in the United States. Judging from the cars I see on the road, this store is doing landslide business. Anytime I'm out in my car, I see all kinds of bumper stickers with sayings like: "Beware of liberals posing as Americans."

The "love it or leave it" crowd has never been very attractive, with their platform that anyone who doesn't adhere to an extreme right wing platform is by definition a traitor who should be deported from the country (the most singularly unAmerican belief I can imagine). But now that they see the entire government slipping into the hands of the great "other," their fear has unleashed rage of epic proportions. The Secret Service is reporting direct threats against Obama and his family far in excess of those seen against any other president.

This rage is not new, of course. The hatred unleashed against the Clintons was beyond all reason, literally. Bill Clinton's personal life was not ideal, but there are plenty of Republicans, including those who led the charge against him, who have as much or more to answer for. All of us err, and those in power tend to sin more than most. However, Clinton's personal life could hardly account for the rage he inspired, and this during a time when the country was prosperous, 22 million jobs were created, the government started generating budget surpluses, and we were primarily at peace.

Now a Republican administration has led us into economic catastrophe, two wars, and a government so corrupt that it seems almost impossible to begin cataloguing all the ills. Most of us feel vulnerable, and those losing power feel the most vulnerable of all. So they lash out.

All the same, it isn't healthy, and it isn't patriotic. Above all, it isn't witty or funny. Slamming people as traitors because they look different and/or have different political views is hateful and small.

Dissent is vital to a functioning democracy, whether it comes from the right, the left, or the middle. But it doesn't have to be hate speech to be heard. We can do better than that.

Shaping History

2008-11-05T00:50:00.002-06:00

My father died August 13, 2008.

On August 16, I gave the funeral address. As I walked to the front of the church, I realized that everything I knew, remembered and loved about my father was connected to his love for his family, his country, and the Democratic Party. For him, politics wasn't something you read about in the newspaper, but something you lived. Being a responsible citizen, working to make your nation better, nobler and stronger, was the guiding tenet of his life.

Daddy came by his belief honestly. His father served on a commission to update the Georgia State Constitution, and his mother was the first woman to serve as president of the Georgia Press Association. Her proudest moment came when she was elected to the Electoral College as a delegate for Franklin Roosevelt.

But although my father's political journey began with his parents, it grew with the times and adapted to his personal ideals. Born in the deep South, he never thought to challenge racial divisions. After his Army service during the last year of World War II, however, he realized the nation had to put aside its racial fears and prejudice, and that this effort had to start in the South.

When my parents moved to Atlanta, my father took up his cause in earnest. As a leading member of the Democratic Party structure, he was an important element in giving Maynard Jackson, the great mayor of Atlanta, his political start. He assisted in the elections of Julian Bond, Andrew Young, and other lesser known but integral elected officials. He led the campaign of the first Jewish woman to be elected to the Georgia State Senate. He believed in the Great Society, one that was full of opportunity for all.

In his own way, he was one of the small pebbles that eventually led to a mountain of change. He was proud of Barack Obama, and proud of the Democratic Party that recognized his genius and opened the door to his victory.

I cried when Barack Obama moved onto the stage in Grant Park, Chicago as our President-Elect. I cried because Obama's vision and oratory spoke to the deepest hopes I cherish, and I cried because my father wasn't here to witness it. I cried for all the men and women who, before they passed from earth, gave their hearts and souls to a dream of an America united across racial, economic and political lines. I cried for Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Rosa Parks, and the foot soldiers for a better America. Most of all, I cried tears of joy for my grandson, and all our children and grandchildren, who will grow up in a country in which equality is no longer just a dream.

Obama made history tonight. We can start shaping it tomorrow.

What It Means to Me

2008-11-02T23:25:00.001-06:00

Last week I had the privilege of voting for Obama.

It’s common for people to speak disdainfully of politicians, as though seeking to serve our country is by definition dishonorable. Fellow citizens speak of voting for the "lesser of two evils,” and never admit to voting for someone they admire. I don't think looking down on our elected officials is constructive for our society.

I have voted for many people I greatly respected and admired, most of whom, admittedly, lost. Never have I voted for anyone I admired more than Obama. He represents so much that is good in our world. He is brilliant, informed, compassionate, and calm. He would have been my choice had he been white, black, Hispanic, Asian or Middle Eastern. But it made it all the sweeter that he was black.

When I was 16, I spent a summer working for Head Start. It was Head Start's first year of operation, and it was exciting to be in on the ground floor of a tremendous social movement, one that continues to make a profound positive difference in the lives of many. It also changed my world.

That first summer, Head Start was located at an elementary school near my house, and the children were drawn from a neighborhood less than a mile from my own. The community had been formed to supply the maids, cooks, laborers and gardeners for the nearby white communities. Most of the houses were owned by the residents, although many of the deeds and records were lost and based on oral tradition rather than court house documents. There was a great deal of pride in home ownership, but even more despair brought on by poverty. The white neighbors could no longer afford household staff, and no one else was hiring. Thus, the people who lived in Linwood, so vital to the creation of that section of Atlanta, were abandoned and forgotten.

The children coming out of that neighborhood were amazing. I fell in love with all of them. It was the first time I experienced the wonder of a preschool child, and I was lucky enough to be able to introduce them to so much - to the zoo, to big, wide open parks, to books and art supplies and toys. And I was ashamed that I had been so oblivious to what was in my own backyard. Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, so reviled now, was in fact a huge success, and not just for the children of the poor.

There is so much left to be done to repair the damage done to our poor, and especially our poor of African-American heritage. But being able to vote for a black man, one of incredible talent and intelligence, felt very good to me. The fact that he is almost certain to win says something very powerful to me.

I hope you find time to vote - it's an important election.

Carefree Conservatives, Stressed Liberals?

2008-05-08T16:14:00.006-05:00

A recent study has reiterated the findings of previous ones: conservatives are happier than liberals.

I hope this is not true, because the reasons given for conservative joy are not flattering. Basically, the studies say conservatives adopt the "What, Me Worry?" Albert E. Neuman approach to life.

In short, the idea is that conservatives are less able to see points of view other than their own; are better able to rationalize social and economic injustice as matters of little concern; and have little empathy for those on the margins of society. Their logic is simplistic, devoid of nuance, and they deny the existence of problems beyond the scope of conservative solutions.

By contrast, liberals are tortured by the ability to see 15 sides to every argument, view every issue as complex, and can find no justification for the radical social and economic inequality rampant in society. In addition, they not only don't see simple answers, they can barely see any answers at all to the massive problems of oil depletion, climate change, and escalating demands for food and energy by emerging giants such as China and India.

Although reading conservative authors such as the highly self-satisfied Bill Kristol and liberal writers such as the tormented Nicholas Kristof (both regular columnists for the New York Times) would support these easy stereotypes, I have to reject them, at least in part. After all, I am a liberal.

More than that, I am a liberal in a part of the country where approval for George W. Bush is still pushing 80%, which despite my supposed ability to see all sides of an issue, is baffling to me. I have lots of opportunities to see the most radical of conservatives up close, and on a daily basis.

The conservatives I know are not callous. They may not seek systemic answers to issues of poverty and oppression, but they are deeply involved in answers on an individual level. They are the volunteers at the feeding programs, the cold night shelters, and the transitional housing programs. They won't donate money, but they will gladly share food, clothes, toothpaste, blankets, and books - and on a fairly grand scale.

They don't accept the hawkish reasoning for the Iraq war either, and are divided as to whether or not the US should have gone in five years ago, and/or should get out now. Most think that oil, not Islam or terrorism, was the primary reason for the attack against Iraq, and that oil, not national security, is why we remain.

Quite a few have real concerns about the erosion of civil liberties witnessed over the last six years, although they do tilt to the "necessary evil" justification. As for me, I'm all the way in the "abominable attack on the Constitution" camp. Perhaps this is an example where my thought is simplistic, and conservative opinion is complex.

Finally, for all of us, liberals and conservatives alike, our world views have far less to do with our degree of happiness than our personal circumstances. A conservative whose job is endangered and whose wife has cancer is just as stressed as a liberal would be in the same circumstances. A liberal whose child is graduating from medical school with top honors and no debt is every bit as jubilant as the conservative in the next seat.

It is the culmination of all these things: how the events and people in our lives shape us, how our faith molds us, that gives us more points in common that political labels give us differences. Most politicians know that, but they exploit our differences anyway as a cheap and easy way to inflame citizens into the voting booth.

This year we have three candidates for President, two of whom are hard at work playing the game by the usual rules. Clinton is condescending: I know you have problems - let me fix them for you. McCain is insensitive: all I need to do is repeat "tax cuts" an infinite number of times, and no one will notice they only go to my donor base. Obama is different. He talks to us as adults, and not stereotypes. He is willing to call a gas tax holiday a gimmick, and explain in detail why gas prices need to be addressed with both short and long-term solutions.

Hopefully, it will be the kind of nuance even a conservative can love.

Tax Cuts

2008-04-14T04:51:00.000-05:00

Melanie is a statistic, a single mom hit hard by the economic downturn. In her previous life, she was a real estate appraiser for a bank, married, and confident of being able to provide a secure future for her children.

In her current life, Melanie is a casualty of the housing bust, laid off by the bank when there weren't enough sales to keep a full-time appraiser busy. She and her husband did not weather the economic downturn well, and they divorced. Melanie knows she cannot get a job in the housing market, and is looking to do anything: clean hotel rooms, cashier at a grocery store, cook at a diner. She gets offers, but only for weekend and night shifts. She can't take them. There is no weekend and night care for young children (she has a 3-year-old and a seven-year-old).

Melanie looks for work every day, but her life is increasingly bleak. Unable to make $350 in child support stretch to pay rent, groceries, and utilities, she falls further and further behind. Yesterday she and her children were evicted onto the streets. She lost her car months ago, a huge loss in sprawling Florida where urban planners never heard of public transit. I'm sure it is a great comfort to Melanie to know that people who own vacation homes will be saving a couple of hundred dollars a year on property tax.

In my previous life, government was designed to help people recover from hard knocks. When I was in junior high and high school, Lyndon Johnson was pushing through a series of government initiatives called the "Great Society." He was not trying to immunize the nation against job loss and economic catastrophe, but he was trying to give people some breathing room and the tools to recraft their lives.

In my current life, Republicans have been unraveling the social safety net for the poor and middle class as rapidly as humanly possible. There is no pity or concern for young families like Melanie's contained in "compassionate conservatism." Our president greeted news that a single mom worked three jobs to maintain a bare living for her children with pleasure. "That's great," he beamed. "Only in America."

Yes, indeed. In all the developed nations, only in America is it required that parents work two to three jobs each to pay for basic necessities. Given the fall in regular incomes, even married couples often work three to four jobs between the two of them to keep from falling into abject poverty.

So what, my Republican friends ask, are we supposed to do for the Melanies of the world, and their children?

For starters, we could help with child care expenses. Our area has a subsidized child care program, but it is starved for cash, having been flat-funded for at least a decade, while costs have escalated, state mandates for services have increased, and the number of eligible children has shot up. The waiting list now numbers over a thousand children. There are no slots funded for night and weekend care, so families looking for help there aren't even on the waiting list. Now that the state has been in Republican hands for nine years, and the tax base has been shredded so that millionaires can buy multiple tax-exempt yachts, the situation is a great deal more bleak.

Not content with decimating the state tax base, the legislature successfully promoted the passage of Amendment 1 extending tax breaks to persons owning vacation homes and condos for rent, thus shoving municipal and county governments into serious revenue shortfalls. Some local governments, which have provided most of the match funding required to access state child care dollars, have said this year that no funds will be available. Other governmental units are warning of severe cuts. Without match dollars, the local child care service agency cannot access even the reduced state and federal child care dollars.

This may not seem like a tragedy to those without children or who pay full fees for child care, but this will affect them also. Parents like Melanie cannot make enough money to pay $150 per week per infant, or $100 per week per toddler, the going private fee rates. Without child care, she cannot work, pay taxes, or feed her children. The cost to society is eventually far greater than it would have been to offer a break on child care.

There are multiple other forms of assistance Melanie needs in order to re-enter society as a productive, self-sufficient woman able to care for her children on her own. She has no access to health or dental care for herself (and she really needs dental care if she is to land a job that pays a living wage), her application for housing vouchers will take months to approve in a best-case scenario, and, in an ironic catch-22, she can only qualify for job re-training once she has a full-time job.

There are basic services which support our entire population: education; fire-fighters; law enforcement; pollution abatement and prevention; road and highway maintenance; regulation of drivers' licenses. If we want our cashiers able to count out the correct change, or our air to be clean enough to breathe without causing asthma, we need to fund these things.

But we have chosen either to eliminate or sharply reduce our funding for even the most critical government functions, all as part of our worship on the holy altar of tax cuts. Never mind that virtually all tax cuts only affect the top one percent of the population. We don't think about that. We just hear the words "tax cut" and our brains freeze. And when we don't get any tax relief from the tax cuts aimed at others who are nothing like ourselves, we don't clamor for tax redistribution. We just clamor for more tax cuts in general, without seeming to care who they help or don't help.

When I discussed this issue with a local legislator, his response was a shrug. He honestly believes that if government was eliminated entirely, and we paid no taxes at all, then the "magic arm of the free market" would rush in to fill all gaps. The child care agency would not need to seek government funds, since our generous population would rush to fill its coffers. My homeless agency, which gets $15,000 a year to perform a two-page list of government mandated functions, would find a huge increase in private gifts, ample to meet the needs of all "deserving" homeless individuals and families, once people had more discretionary income. Private firms would build and maintain all the roads, supporting themselves with charging fees for people to drive on them. It is obvious that it isn't just the White House that has become detached from the reality-based community.

A friend of my mother's was shaking her head in bewilderment at the overwhelming passage of Amendment 1. "I wonder," she said, "if they will be so thrilled at saving $150 dollars a year when their houses burn down and there is no one to put out the flames."

We are in a recession. The house is burning down, and the water is turned off. May God bless us all.

Victimless Crime

2008-03-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

Until the last few days, Eliot Spitzer was a somewhat vague figure to those of us living outside the New York/ Washington axis. Obviously, he was elected governor on his record of tackling the sacred cows of Wall Street. Crusading against white collar crime is laudable, but not terribly riveting. Attention was not fixed.

Now, of course, soon-to-be former Governor Spitzer is revealed as being as complicated and complex as most of us, and there is a surfeit of information presented 24/7 that with luck will die down as quickly as it flared up.

What is not likely to recede any time soon is the subtext that has accompanied the reports of Mr. Spitzer's rapid fall from the heights. Contained in every on-line news source I rely on is a side-bar on why prostitution should be legal. Yes, the governor knowingly committed a crime, and yes, it is hard to continue to govern once that fact is known, but, after all, prostitution claims no victims, and let's repeal these oppressive laws.

There may be many reasons to make prostitution legal, but claiming that the sex trade does not create victims is not one of them. Prostitution, pornography, strip bars and other industries that offer sex for sale destroy thousands of women's lives every year.

The fashionable idea that the sex trade empowers women, rather than dehumanizes them, cannot be supported. Head down to any police station in the country, and tell the officer that a prostitute has been raped. You are unlikely to note much concern. Pick up a newspaper after a stripper has complained that she was raped by the fraternity/ businessmen/ bachelor party that hired her. I doubt the description of the stripper will be flattering. Even the murder of prostitutes is a non-event, the women barely noticed except in the case of a serial killer, and then only as accessories in a drama focused on the murderer.

Women who have options do not opt for sex trade jobs. Take for example Kristen, the object of Governor Spitzer's lust. At $2000-$3000 a hour, Kristen epitomizes the high-end sex trade. If there is an argument that prostitution is a valid and rewarding career choice, it is based on arrangements like that of the Emperor's Club.

That argument fails, however, the second one moves past the superficial. Kristen's path to prostitution adhered to the usual script. An abused child, she left home at the age of 17. Without a high school degree, without friend or family to support her, she wound up homeless and a drug addict. Her dreams of success as a musician shattered, she turned to survival sex, trading on the one way she knew to be pleasing. She was good at being sexually pleasing, and rose to the top of her profession.

And what did that get her? Luxury apartments, couture clothes, jewels, freedom? No, it provided her employers with a great deal of money, but she was still struggling to maintain a modest standard of living. Although she has remained silent, her colleagues have complained of demands for constant performance, being forced to partake in unsafe sexual practices, and netting only a small fraction of the take. Kristen herself has the pleasure of seeing herself described as the "governor's whore" on TV, news headlines, and posters. It probably doesn't enhance her self-esteem.

What about the women who never make it to the top? The ones who age 5 years for every one they spend as a stripper, the prostitutes who are used up and mocked for being haggard at age 25? Where are their choices? Where is their power?

One of my colleagues was near a church, and noticed a woman who was attempting to hide from men who were cruising by in an expensive pick-up truck. One of them had used her for sex, given her $20, and had come back with his friends for a round of gang-rape. They saw her, pulled over, and started toward her, laughing and making crude remarks. My friend also saw her, and headed in that direction. After a few brief words, the men drove off, and my friend turned to the cowering woman.

The woman thanked my colleague, and started to move away. My friend stopped her, and asked if the woman needed help. No, the woman replied, even as her voice trembled and tears spilled from her eyes. No, I'm fine.

Clearly you are not fine, my friend answered. I'll be glad to get you a meal, or some warm clothes. The woman refused all help, so my friend said, well, at least give me your hand. If nothing else, I can offer you prayer.

The woman burst into tears, and said, "Please don't touch me. I am not clean, and I don't want to get any dirt on your hand. I am not worthy of God's grace. Please, just go away."

We may tell ourselves that prostitution should be legal. But even as we do, we should remember the women and children who are lost in its grip.

The Mysterious Republican Base

2008-01-06T22:53:00.000-06:00

Since 82% of the voters living in my county went for George Bush in 2004, I meet a lot of Republicans. Indeed, as the saying would have it, many of my best friends are Republicans. If I didn't have Republicans as best friends, I would be fairly lonely. Having these friends has provided me sufficient experience to realize that highly intelligent people, whose eyes twinkle, and whose humor can keep me smiling for days, can be not just Republicans, but Republicans of the wing-nut variety.

For instance, I was at a dinner party attended primarily by people in their late-70s and 80s. Three of the eight people at my table professed their excitement about Ron Paul. They brushed off his dissent to the war in Iraq, while saying they were thrilled with how he will "get government off our back."

I asked if the woman who made this statement relied on Social Security in any meaningful way, and she said it was 2/3 of her income. I asked about Medicare. She uses it all the time. Without it she couldn't get health care.

"You do know, don't you," I asked, "that the way Ron Paul plans to get government off your back is to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and all trade? He doesn't want to phase it out, he wants to stop it now. His idea of going on the gold standard would kill trade, and he says he would simply eliminate all entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare."

My friend laughed, and said, "he says that, but he wouldn't be able to actually do it."

So I'm left wondering why she is not just going to vote for, but is thrilled by, a man whose agenda she is relying on Congress to kill.

The conversation turned to the "fair tax," which the Republicans I know are convinced is the salvation of America. Of course, not only is this the single most regressive tax possible, taking much higher percentages of lower class and middle class incomes than upper class incomes, but it would destroy the American economy overnight.

The flat tax is sold as being no more than 23% of sales tax, replacing the 25% most Americans pay in income tax. If you don't spend all your income, you don't pay a full 23%. Sounds peachy keen.

The reality is that the way the "fair taxers" calculate 23% is the same way you would figure 30% - they would add $30 worth of tax to every $100 worth of goods ($30 being 23% of $130). Also, the tax would apply to every sale or purchase, including much that is not taxed now: food, health insurance, medical bills, attorney fees.

The fair tax folks also tell us that they will determine how much the tax will really be by first determining how much it will take to actually run the government's "essential services" (Social Security and Medicare are included in this one). So the 23% is just an estimate. When they say it (they primarily speaking through the mouth of Mike Huckabee) it sounds like it could go either way - 21%, maybe, or 24%. However, this is dissembling. They already know the tax would have to be at least 40%. But telling people the "fair tax" will be 40% would doom it from the start, so they lie about how much it will be.

Of course, the fair tax would only replace federal taxes. State sales, income and property taxes would stay in place.

Add 40% to the average state and local sales tax of 7%, calculated the "fair tax way" and you have added $67 in federal tax to the $7 of state and local tax, and now are paying $172 for $100 worth of goods.

Only billionaires would come out ahead. The rest of us would immediately have to stop buying anything. We would have to seriously re-evaluate what is essential from what we thought was essential, and go with the bare minimum. The manufacturing and service industries would collapse. Black markets, which pay no tax, would begin to thrive. Inflation would leap forward at a rate reminiscent of Germany prior to WWII. We could become a third world country in a matter of minutes (and much of this would happen at the 23% rate the fair tax people are pushing).

I mentioned to my friends that while it was often altruistic not to vote in one's self-interest, it was probably not a good idea to vote against the interest of the entire country. Some of us are still putting kids through college and saving for retirement, and would even like to take a vacation now and then, and all this requires a functional economy.

My friends said that a few details had to be worked out, primarily by eliminating 2/3 of government spending, and that it would all be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Naturally, these being my friends, I didn't add that cutting 2/3 of government spending wouldn't do anything wonderful for the economy either. And it sure wouldn't allow the government to "support the troops."

From time to time, I have enjoyed a good fantasy or science fiction novel, one which requires the suspension of disbelief. While happily discarding my "reality base," I still insist that my authors keep faith with their internal, artificial logic. If they don't, I can't follow the plot.

In the same way, I can't follow even the make-believe logic of a Ron Paul or a Mike Huckabee (or the standard Republican candidates who insist over and over that tax cuts for the rich create revenue, despite the fact that 100% of the time tax cuts have created tax loss).

Perhaps one day I will follow Alice down through the looking glass, and all will be made clear. Until then, I will regard my sincerely treasured friends as enigmas of the highest order.

Straw Men

2007-10-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

One of the most irritating talking point strategies for right wing leaders is the way they ground their defenses of ill-advised policies in attacks on imaginary straw men. For instance, whenever the president wishes to make further illegal intrusions into Constitutional rights and liberties, he blithely states that those who are against him "want the terrorists to win." One would think that it is obvious that no one, left wing or right wing, American or French, wants the "terrorists to win." Yet our local paper is filled with letters from people who assume that if the president said it, it must be true, and faithfully equate anyone who disagrees with the president as being pro-terrorist.

Straw men are very useful devices whenever the real issue is uncomfortable and difficult to defend. Sadly, liberals are wont to prop up the scarecrows on occasion also, particularly when the issue involves sexism, and to a lesser extent, racism.

Ironically, the issue most commonly used to deflect conversation from unpleasant topics is that of free speech. When Don Imus was fired for his comments about "nappy-headed hos," a large number of the liberal media, and many of my own friends, got fired up about censorship and the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of free expression.

This was complete nonsense, of course. The Constitution guarantees that everyone has the right to speak freely, but does not guarantee that everyone have an audience. Censorship is only illegal when mandated by the government. For a sponsor to withdraw advertising because an entertainer no longer has an audience is not censorship, it's the free market at work. For that matter, the sponsor's right to choose which programs to support is also a liberty guaranteed under the free speech clause.

The thorniest issue, however, comes when there is clearly a huge market for not just offensive speech, but speech that has horrific consequences for large portions of the population. Clearly, capitalism often aides and abets the escalation of destructive, yet protected, speech. This mass acceptance of disturbing speech, film and photographic records puts liberals in a bind. They don't want to be seen as supporting hate-filled media, but at the same time, they don't want to be seen as suppressing individual rights. So they set up the smokescreen of defending the First Amendment above all as a way of avoiding the topic completely.

I'm talking, of course, about pornography. The majority of women have very little exposure to pornography, beyond the occasional glance at soft-core publications such as Playboy. A large number of men have similarly limited exposure also. Thus, they do not take accusations of pornography's destructive influence seriously. Those who object to it are considered Victorian prudes, who seek to impose their narrow morality on others. They dismiss allegations that pornographers abuse the women in their films by saying that these women made a free choice to embrace that lifestyle.

However, there is a $10 billion per year industry that says that attitude is naive (mainstream Hollywood studio films bring in $9 billion per year). In this world, cruelty and degradation of women and children is the driving force for film and Internet sales. In this world, the most common "plot line" is for men to slap and physically abuse women, who then beg to be raped in painful ways.

To say this has a destructive effect on society is an understatement. To know that millions of men take pleasure in the vicarious debasement and rape of women and children is painful. It becomes almost unbearable when coupled with research indicating that sexual offenders are strongly influenced by pornography, and frequently use it as justification for real life attacks on real people.

Acknowledging the effect pornography has in undermining society is not to advocate for governmental suppression of any form of literature or film, other than those films created through the exploitation and rape of minors. For one thing, no sane person would believe that such suppression would do anything but inflame the market. For another, driving pornography even further underground would mask, but not eliminate, the root cause of its popularity. Government censorship is not only a violation of the First Amendment, but completely ineffective.

Shrugging the issue under the rug of protected speech and assuming nothing can be done, though, is completely unacceptable. There are many precedents for societal response to allowable, but hateful, practices. The courts established the legitimacy of slander and libel laws from the beginning. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously ruled that free speech does not extend to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Speech that poses danger may be curtailed.

Similarly, offensive behavior and advertising is also subject to limitations. Tobacco companies still sell cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco, and make huge profits. Society allows this, but protects itself by imposing large taxes on tobacco products, and using the proceeds for what has been a highly effective campaign to educate the public on the negative consequences of smoking. Governments impose bans on smoking in restaurants and public places, and reduces the risks of second-hand smoke to non-smokers. Tobacco companies may advertise in magazines, but not on TV. Children's movies and TV are smoke-free zones. Liquor companies may advertise, but must also balance their sales pitch with messages about underage drinking, drinking and driving, and the effects of alcohol on pregnancy.

Pornography has operated under some of these limitations, although the Internet has made restrictions on sales of pornography to minors rather useless. But more needs to be done. In the same way that major retailers have refused to carry recordings with profanity-laced lyrics, or lyrics that promote violence, major video chains should refuse to carry movies that depict violent and abusive sex acts. Consumers should withdraw their support of companies that aid and abet the production and distribution of films and movies. And most of all, we all need to recognize that destructive pornography is not an inevitable fringe side effect of an otherwise pleasant diversion, but that it is central to a major industry. And we should exercise our right to free speech, and condemn it for the horror it is, and the dangerous attitudes it promotes.

Education, Writing, Formulas and Other Things That Don't Fit

2007-10-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

Now that we are well into the scholastic year, I am once again completely frustrated with the educational system. Much of what passes for sound educational technique is nothing less than a sin against humanity.

To put this into historical perspective, some of the worst offenses in our educational system were created by attempts to correct some of our worst offenses in society. For centuries, the United States and every other developed country restricted public education to a sliver of the public (undeveloped countries didn't educate anyone). Children working in factories, on farms, as migrant workers, who had the wrong skin color or whose parents were too newly arrived from the wrong place, were not part of the universal education movement.

Some 10-15 years after Brown vs. Topeka established that separate "but equal" schooling was unconstitutional, the country began looking at expanding educational opportunities for all children. First in the South, following court orders overturning legislated school segregation, then in the North, following riots and shame, schools began to realize that they had to grapple with a multitude of races, cultures, socioeconomic levels, languages and faiths.

The first efforts were very haphazard and random. Some schools continued to enforce the same curriculum, geared to middle-class families filled with Janes, Dicks and Spots. Other schools tried to set different expectations and goals for different groups of children. No one had a clue as to what they were doing, and schools began their much heralded descent into mediocrity and incompetence.

Eventually, the public caught on to the fact that schools systems nationwide were groping in the dark without a flashlight. Books with catchy titles like "Why Johnny Can't Read," started becoming best sellers. William Bennet began publishing books establishing baselines of what each child should know in each grade, and parents were frantic when they realized their children didn't know a third of that material.

Educational specialists stepped in to halt the parental uproar, and hopefully, the decline in SAT scores. They determined to take a "systems approach" to scholastic reform, and break teaching and learning into scientific units, to be measured, studied, and re-measured again. The qualitative disparity between teachers could be erased by reducing all instruction to formulas.

This may have worked in math, but it has decimated the study of English, history, geography or any other subject based on the written language. Literature and composition are not amenable to formulaic instruction. Nor can we grade literary interpretations or creative writing assignments by a computer-generated answer key.

But, thanks to programs like No Child Left Behind, and standardized tests administered constantly throughout the school year, we try. As a result, even the best and brightest of our students haven't a clue about how to read or write.

The latest tipping point for me came as one of my daughters was reading the instructions from her GRE (graduate school admissions test) preparation book. When writing an essay for the GRE, the manual noted, it was best to copy the introduction and paste it in the space for the conclusion. Any deviation from the introduction would be counted against you.

This drives me nuts, because I have heard it constantly since my oldest daughter hit middle school (although I didn't really believe it was widespread until my children starting attending universities). ALL essays and writing assignments, every single one, must conform to the following formula: an introduction which sets out what you are going to say; three (not two, not five, three) body paragraphs which say what you mean to say; and a conclusion, which repeats the introduction. Papers are graded on the number of words and the ability to repeat yourself endlessly.

I have spent the last 15 years helping my children and all their friends and their friends' relations learn to write. These students are the AP, IB and gifted students of their class. This is what they bring me:

1) run-on sentences;
2) paragraphs that extend for pages;
3) constant repetition in order to make that word count goal;
4) sloppy punctuation (no one grades on this);
5) absence of original thought (if noticed, it is graded down);
6) no transitions between one paragraph and another;
7) organization forced, and not based on content;
8) the first paragraph repeated at the end.

What are these formulaic teachers thinking?

Is there a successful writer any where in the world who copies and pastes his/her introduction and inserts it as his/her conclusion? When students were asssigned to read essays, did the essay authors limit themselves to an introduction, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs? Did Thoreau do this? Did Emerson? Thomas Paine? Thomas Jefferson? Do our modern day essayists (generally found in magazines and newspapers) limit themselves to such a rigid structure? Would anyone read George Will or Paul Krugman if they couldn't produce a well-crafted sentence or an original thought from time to time?

Teaching children to research, synthesize and analyze information, and clearly communicate the results of their study, is time intensive. It takes skill and talent, and is not susceptible to computer models.

It is, however, critical.

Students who learn to read by rote, and write by formula, do not access critical thinking skills. They cannot tell the difference between a scientific theory and an opinion tossed out at the dinner table. They can't distinguish between facts and lies. They will not be able to meet the challenges of climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation, or global poverty, not even to save their lives.

To the Victor, Goes the Word

2007-07-15T01:16:00.000-05:00

Being a writer, I spend a lot of my time choosing words. I call them up, examine them for freighted meanings, contemplate the implications, and then try to select those words that convey the precise message I have in my mind. I know the power of words.

Which is why an article by Gloria Steinem caught my attention. She describes sitting on a plane with a young man, who groaned out loud at the movie selections, saying he refused to watch "chick flicks." Ms. Steinem pondered the significance of the word choice, thinking what messages lie in the current categorizations. Movies that appeal to men are just that, movies; but movies that are pitched to women are a subset, the value of which is denigrated by a condescending title. Ms. Steinem then proposes that violent, gory films that treat women as potential rape victims should be given their own, dismissive category: prick flick.

Language reveals a great deal about a culture. The sex and race of the power group becomes the normative standard for literary purposes. A leader is a white male of European descent, unless qualified as "African-American," "Hispanic," or "woman." A head of household is a male until proven otherwise. And let's not even begin to discuss the frame provided by our gender classifications, which are literally "man" and "of man."

These points are considered trivial and petty when raised by feminists, but are taken quite seriously when language appears to skew in favor of the underclass. As a woman who has worked in the field of sexual assault for many years, I have become increasingly frustrated with the substitution of "accuser" for "rape victim." When Kobe Bryant's legal team successfully tore apart the credibility of Mr. Bryant's victim, defense attorneys took note. Almost overnight, "rape victim" vanished from the lexicon, as a term too likely to provoke sympathy for the woman. Accuser is much better, as it gives a shrewish cast to the victim, making her sound like someone whose plausibility is suspect. It's the word of choice in courtrooms, news media accounts, and talk radio.

Recently a Nebraska judge has gone one further and banned the terms "rape," "sexual assault" and "victim" from trials in which the crime being prosecuted is, in fact, rape or sexual assault (depending on the state statute in question). An "accuser" cannot seek to win the support of the jury by saying, "he raped me." She has to use language that leaves open the idea that the act might have been consenual. Whereas a victim of a lesser crime can say: "the defendant robbed me," the victim of an intimate attack must use "neutral" language.

The ability of language to influence outcomes cannot be understated. Kobe Bryant used language, innuendo, and leaks of false "facts" to tear a victim to shreds. The fact that Bryant later admitted to having sex without consent (the definition of rape) left no impression. Those words carried no freight compared to what had been widely bandied about before.

These outcomes are not restricted to male dominance and female subordinance. We have been at war for five years, in part because our language is geared to favor the active tense over more complex configurations. "Nuke 'em back to the Stone Age," has more resonance than, "it is essential to differentiate between the varying Islamic groups, including Arabic and non-Arabic, Sunni and Shia, radical and moderate." The first phrase could be taken from "Die Hard." The second phrase is more attuned to "Sleepless in Seattle."

Despite the tenor of this essay, I'm not trying to play Sisyphus, endlessly seeking to perform an impossible task. I'm not suggesting we change the language - just our reactions to it. We can talk about movies versus chick flicks, as long as we realize that chick flicks ultimately have more power. We live in the world that chick flicks tend to depict, while "movies" are pure fantasy. I have no issue with fantasy (I am a big Harry Potter fan), but we need to be grounded in reality, with a touch of hope.

And my hope is that we use our language to frame a just, free, and compassionate world, that gives value to all men and women of good will.

Fervor or Fever?

2007-07-12T00:14:00.000-05:00

I should probably make one thing clear: I had a really lovely birthday. My son fixed bacon and pancakes with fresh berries and whipped cream; my parents came over for a grilled lunch; friends came over for a dinner cooked on the grill. I had family and friends and presents and fireworks all day.

Now back to 4th-of-July-inspired griping. When did militarism and patriotism become synonyms? Why does every patriotic speech extol only our wonderful men and women in uniform, restricting the notion of sacrifice to that of fighting a war? Why is the highest standard of service to kill and be killed, God Bless the USA?

I'm sure most of our men and women serving in Iraq are wonderful people, just like most of my friends and family members are wonderful people. Most people strive to do the best with what they are given, within and without the military. As a rule, people in the military give up a great deal in terms of comfort and companionship, and to a much higher degree than I am capable of handling at this point in my life. I'm pleased and proud for them.

But serving in the military is hardly the only way to serve one's country, or to secure our freedom. In fact, due to the insanity of our foreign policy, our military is counter-productive when it comes to maintaining our freedom. Iraq was not a threat to our liberty, and fending off terrorist attacks there is not what is keeping us safe from terrorist attacks here. If anything, our presence in Iraq threatens our safety and our liberties. What is truly keeping us safe and free are our long-term diplomats, our generosity to others, and our ability to make the American Dream a reality for people from all over the world. The people holding out hope and opportunity are as worthy of praise as the people holding onto rifles.

Falling in love with war and power is the most corrupting of all passions. As a nation, we are diverted by pre-occupation with shock and awe, and lose our sense of what really makes us great. Our Declaration of Independence holds three rights to be inalienable: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't mention our right to stride the globe in arrogance and disdain as the world's only superpower. It wouldn't have made such a stir if it concentrated on military might rather than human rights.

What lit a torch around the world was our dedication to preserving human dignity and equal justice under the law, not the power of our bombs to blast desert nations into bits. All the fire power in the world cannot save us, if we abandon the principles of individual rights, and a society that works for the general welfare.

I'm pleased to honor our young people who have chosen to bear arms, and to salute the hard work that comes with that. I'm equally pleased to salute our young people who are teaching our children, caring for our aged, seeking to shape our government in order to form a "more perfect union." I'm proud of those who are challenging themselves through vocational training and professional schooling; who are immersed in philosophy and literature in order to enrich our political and social discourse. I'm proud of my son who spent hours each week during his senior year in high school working with the homeless, and I'm proud of my daughter who just finished her master's degree in accounting. I'm proud of my husband the doctor, my daughter the future nurse, and the daughter who is the mother of my grandson. There are hundreds of ways to serve our country, and I'm thrilled that there are millions of people trying to do just that.

Let's remember that when we salute the flag, we are not just saluting people in uniform. We are saluting an entire country of diverse people, talent and beliefs. We can be fervent in our love for our country, without being fevered by our love of power. Let's use our military strength with restraint, and the power of our ideals with abandon.

That is, after all, what makes Old Glory a "Grand Old Flag."

Land of the Free

2007-07-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

America just celebrated my birthday again, with fireworks, flags, rousing speeches and a day off. It all struck a sour note this year.

The weekend before the 4th, I had the misfortune of traveling on our nation's airways. The flights were all on time, and there were no problems with the airlines, but the "security" precautions are insane, and most serve no purpose other than to remind us that we are more fearful than free these days.

For example, when I reached the part where they x-ray carry-on luggage, everything came to a grinding halt. Since my 3-year-old grandson lives with me, I keep a travel-size tube of child's sunblock in my purse, as you never know when a trip to the grocery store may involve a detour to the beach. It's one of those things that lives in your purse, forgotten until needed. It's also one of those things that sets off triple alarms at the airport.

The tube was x-rayed, opened, examined for tampering, and x-rayed again. Finally the security guard told me it seemed that the sunblock was just sunblock, but still too dangerous to take on the airplane. However, if I had a quart-size (not sandwich or gallon-sized) zip lock bag handy, I could put the sunblock in the zip lock bag, and be on my way.

This suggestion puzzled me. Why is sunblock okay when enveloped in a quart-sized zip lock bag, but lethal when dropped in a purse? Is there some element in the quart-sized bag that neutralizes flammable chemicals? Are terrorists particularly stymied when it comes to opening one specific size of zip lock bag?

Now, I do know the rationale. Having dangerous substances like sunblock or lip gloss contained in a zip lock bag lets anyone else who might choose to examine your purse further down the line know that someone earlier in the line knew you were carrying. But this rationale does not stand up, because liquids, gels and creams contained in zip-lock bags are not screened as thoroughly as my sunblock. And the probability of these items being used as terrorist supplies is remote beyond reckoning. I haven't checked recently, but at some point the number of confiscated toiletries ran into the millions, and the number of terrorist arrests or schemes foiled as a result came to exactly zero.

I find it fascinating that the government is very aggressive when it comes to harrassing citizens in the name of security, where very little is actually accomplished, but quite relaxed about security precautions that might be worthwhile, but wouldn't be noticed by the average tourist. Cargoes go unexamined, chemical plants uninspected, nuclear power plants ignored. But we are all over those flip-flops worn by toddlers.

The point of all these "security" measures seems not to enhance security, but to keep citizens reminded of all the monsters that lurk in closets. Over the last few years we have ceded extreme liberties to a government that thrives on promising safety in exchange for freedom.

A friend of mine who works in the US Department of Justice recently vented about her workplace. This is not a wild-eyed liberal like me, but a sober and deeply conservative Republican. She hated Clinton. Despite this, she considers the DOJ to be at its nadir. She feels constant pressure to use the force of law to constrict liberty and to mock justice. Colleagues who date back to the Nixon years said they had thought that was the lowest the DOJ could fall, but now they realize they had just skimmed the surface of abusing the powers of the prosecutor.

She is hardly alone in her opinion. John S. Koppel, who recently resigned, wrote an op-ed column in the Denver Post that read in part:

"The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.

"In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJ in particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civil rights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, as well as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal government conduct nor “politics as usual,” but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate — which, in fact, I believe it eclipses."

I won't go on and on about the laundry list of civil liberties that have been altered until they are now unrecognizable, and a government that demands access to every e-mail, credit card transaction, and even US Postal mail, but won't tell you who works in the Vice President's office at your expense.

Nor will I go on about thee insanity of complaining that the RNC hasn't been keeping records of all the government official e-mails that have gone through their servers, without asking who is this government about: the people of the United States, or the rich donors to the Republican party? A government run as a partisan organizaiton by definition will not extend fair and equitable liberties to all, or even provide competent services to any.

Hope all the rest of you had a happy 4th of July. I did, of course, enjoy the company of friends and family as they came to our house for lunch, dinner, and our own private fireworks. And I'm getting ready for a personal Declaration of Independence in the 2008 elections.

Heart on a Sleeve

2007-05-25T23:27:00.000-05:00

The City of Fort Walton Beach depends heavily on two major Air Force bases to sustain its economy, and thus, the military rules when it comes to city ordinances and building codes. For example, the Air Force has requested that the city limit all buildings to four stories or less, and the city has complied. Even two story buildings are unusual everywhere except on the beach itself. The first time I took my Girl Scouts on a trip to Tallahassee, I was amazed to discover that the highlight of the trip for most of the girls was the escalator. Very few of the girls had ever seen one.

But there are exceptions, when even military displeasure is not sufficient to halt a bad idea. One of our local developers applied for a variance so that he could spend $80,000 and erect a 170-foot flagpole, dedicated to the military, fire fighters and police officers who live and work in our area. In the "I'm more patriotic than you" sweepstakes, this was a clear winner. The City Council wasted no time in approving this request, so that they could vicariously share in the patriotic acclaim.

I simply don't get the need to parade your religion, your patriotism and your contempt for anyone not precisely like you on your cars, houses, clothes, and billboards. I have no urge to jump on a soapbox or grab a mike and inform the world that I and my country are chosen by God to be right about everything.

In earlier posts, I have mentioned that clearly the least regarded sections of the Bible were those in which Jesus was quoted as saying, "do not pray from street corners and public places as the hypocrites do, where all can hear, for they have their reward already; but pray in secret, where your Father, who listens in secret, can hear and reward you." Jesus was very consistent and emphatic on this point, and even had to be whined and wheedled into giving an example of an appropriate prayer, now known as the Lord's Prayer. He issued a lot of caveats then too.

And yet, I don't go anywhere in public where I am not subjected to someone else's prayers, and someone else's version of Christianity. It is not enough for those who choose to go to the religious Baccalaureate service to hear religious sermons and meditations; those who go to the acutal graduation service must also sit and listen to two or three prayers, each one of which ends with a resounding, "in Christ's holy name, we pray." Every civic, scholastic, government and sports event starts the same way, with a prayer, the pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem (which not even the soloists can generally sing).

This obviously impresses a lot of people, who discover common bonds with each other, and congratulate each other on their strength of religion, love of country, and general devoutness. It makes me edgy, and caught in the middle of hypocrisy. How can we preach God's love, when we are disregarding the beliefs, concerns and spirituality of many Christians, and all Muslins, Buddhists, and Jews? To quote Paul Simon, "it sure don't feel like love."

For me, telling someone I am an uber-Christian or an uber-patriot is just a waste of air. Those are words anyone can say, and many do say them simply to pick up easy money and fame.

What is truly meaningful are the lives we lead behind our mask of words, deceptions and often lies. Do we hold to our core values, or merely give them lip service? If I say I believe in compassion, a hand reached out to our most fragile and hurt citizens, but I give nothing of my time, energy or resources to make those hurts go away, then what am I? If I say I believe in a just and free America, then do nothing when justice is miscarried and freedoms are curtailed, then what I am?

All I can do is order my life along my own priorities: my family, my friends, my neighbors who are sick, lonely, hungry, ill-clothed, and cold. People who know me can judge whether or not I have done well in living my values, or if I have done poorly. If I have failed my family, my friends and those in need, then my life is a mockery, and all the loud and proud prayers cannot make it look like anything else. If I have seen our government betray our country's proudest principles, and I ignore it, then I have proven unworthy of the freedoms I have been given, and all the 200-foot flagpoles I can build will not make me a better patriot.

Long ago I told my children that words spoken in a romance were lovely to hear, and they should enjoy each sweet nothing. But they needed to remember that nothing is exactly what they are hearing. If he doesn't call when he says he will, when he shows up late, when she isn't there when he comes to meet her - well, that's all the cue you need. It's not the words, it's the actions that back them up. And when you have the actions that back them up, the words are superfluous (except in romance).

So congratulations on the new flagpole. We will tell the world that we are the most patriotic small town on the coast. Let's just hope they don't notice when we condone torture, unwarranted surveillance, and a disdain for the 1st and 4th Amendments. After all, we don't want the messiness of a free society; only a proud - and loud -one.

When Feminism is Misogynistic

2007-04-30T00:40:00.000-05:00

While on vacation April 25, I picked up a New York Times and read the op-ed piece by Linda Hirshman, titled "Off to Work She Should Go." Ms. Hirshman is alarmed by statistics which indicate that only 60% of mothers with preschool children are in the workforce, and only 53.5% of mothers with infants are working. This represents a distressing reduction of four percentage points in 10 years (six percentage points for the mothers of infants). The conclusion Ms. Hirshman has reached is that unless something drastic happens, thus forcing 100% of all mothers to toss their children off at the closest sub-standard day care and flood the job market, all chance of a fair and equal society will be lost.

Oddly, I equate Ms. Hirshman's vision of a gender-neutral society to be an appalling piece of misogyny. I am reminded of the old adage that describes marriage: and the two shall become one, and the one shall be the husband. Ms. Hirshman looks at the genders, and says, and the two shall become one, and the one shall be the man. If we do not all conform to male models for success, we are worthless.

I'm not terrically impressed with the male-run model as practiced for the past 10,000 years or so, and I refuse to invest in the idea that unless we are following the same paths men blazed for themselves millenia ago, we as women lose our ability to create a better society.

Perhaps Ms. Hirshman could take a few moments and consider that, since the old, well-worn male-patterned path has led to eternal war, income inequality on a colossal scale, steady rape of the environment, along with steady rape and violence against women, then, perhaps, it isn't such a great guide.

Of course, Ms. Hirshman thinks that if women trod the same path, they would somehow change it, and the results at the end would be different. Once women make it inside the golden parachute, they will reform it completely and create a new and just society.

I don't buy that at all. The women I know who have followed the male business model most explicitly have become clones of the worst kind of men: ruthless, vicious, and rapacious. I don't think these women are going to create a kinder, gentler place should they land in a position of power.

What I do believe is that women will make incredible changes by following their own paths. When I was a college newspaper editor in 1972, I interviewed Gloria Steinem for hours. We sipped wine and talked, and I was pulled into her dream of a society where women could succeed on their own terms, and not have to play mini-men. When Gloria Steinem told me every dream I had was a wide open opportunity, and I could chase every one of them, I believed her. I also believed her when she said the dreams I pursued would change the world, or at least my part of it.

I still believe her. I have embraced dreams for myself, my family, my community and my world, and I have gone wherever they led me. And no matter what dream I was following, I was making an enormous difference not just to me, but to my world.

After college, I became a big-league journalist, a newspaper reporter in an all-male newsroom. This was not as fun as it might appear, and I rather quickly got disillusioned about tilting at windmills in that environment. When my husband was accepted to Georgetown University Medical School, I happily moved to D.C. and started working as a law clerk by day and attending Georgetown Law School at night.

As we neared completion of our degrees, I became pregnant with our first child. I fell in love in a way that changed my aspirations and world view for all time. I toyed with the idea of finishing school (I had very little left), taking the bar, and eventually becoming the first woman on the Supreme Court. And then I reconsidered. Someone else would take that honor, but no one else can be my child's mother. So I embarked on an 18 year maternity leave, having four children over the years.

Contrary to the belief of Ms. Hirshman and many others, life spent with children is not a barren wasteland. It is rich with learning and gaining new skills. I did work on civil rights law cases from time to time money got a little tight, but mostly I reveled in the growth and development of four young children. I organized and led three Girl Scout troops simultaneously, served a regional coordinator, trained new Scout leaders, and organized camping trips in which I led 200 or more girls into the wilderness. I introduced girls to places they had never seen, food they had never eaten, people who spoke languages they had never heard of, women older than they could imagine. I taught each girl to be strong, capable, and worthy of praise.

I also organized Odyssey of the Mind teams, a program that challenges children to do impossible things, and teaches them that they can do it. My son's group once built a balsa wood and glue construction weighing less than your standard envelope, which then held 800 pounds of weight before breaking. A daughter's group took five Greek myths and told all of them in five minutes, complete with scenery and costume changes. The rule, which is sadly not always enforced, is that kids do it all. They come up with the concept, purchase the materials, create the materials, write and perform the skits, balance the weights. My kids learned to stretch minds in a dozen different ways, and it was thrilling.

I could have been content to do this stuff forever, but my oldest entered college, and I found that was expensive. I went back to work. Now, Ms. Hirshman will quickly tell you that 18 years as SuperMom does not equip you for a professional job, and that I had forfeited all hope of a living wage by raising my very own children. I would respectfully disagree, and fortunately, found an employer first shot out of the box who was willing to let me create my own job at a decent salary. I began 10 years of work there as a grant writer, organizer of community partnerships and coalitions, needs assessor, and catalyst for social change. After 10 years, I was on solid footing with state legislators, judges, congressmen, county commissioners, wealthy businessmen - and homeless individuals, victims of sexual violence, the mentally ill and substance abusing clients who came to my agency. Every newspaper and TV journalist in the area has my number of speed dial, and I helped each of my causes along with regular op-ed pieces to our local paper.

A few weeks ago, I made another 90 degree turn. I became the executive director of an agency dedicated to coordinating and expanding services to the homeless, while maintaining a free-lance career as a business writer. Despite my having followed a distinctly feminine path toward success, I still managed to make major headlines by changing jobs, then again by releasing information about the work of my agency. And whereas I haven't landed in the golden parachute of the Fortune 500, my income is sufficient that I am not concerned about paying my son's college tuition, or my retirement, or paying for weddings, or any of the other financial stressors facing my age group. I can do a great deal just for fun, like buy my parents a car, and I can still pay for the utilities and buy the groceries. Yes, my husband is a doctor, but my salary alone can support my family and my dreams.

Over the years, I have had a significant impact on my community. I have earned a comfortable salary, I have made myself known in the public places beloved by Ms. Hirshman. I feel with certainty that I have advanced the cause of a just and equal society far more than 100 women working at a brokerage firm or a personal injury law firm.

The key to my success was not trying to see how men succeed, and duplicating their every effort. The key was in setting the priorities that worked for me, and staying true to what really matters. For all of us, men and women alike, our children are the touchstone of our lives. Neither they nor their parents flourish when parents and children are apart 12 hours every day. The best quality day care in the world cannot overcome the estrangement that follows, and hardly anyone can find or afford the best quality day care.

Also, being with my children; working in their schools; teaching their peers to read, write and calculate; meeting my peers, parents who themselves could not read, write or calculate; brought home a lesson that you can't get sipping fine wine at a restaurant in Paris (I know - I have done that too). The lives of those who have little matter. These children who have been shunted off in poor day care for 12-14 hours a time while their single mothers work two jobs are important. They will shape the future every bit as much as mine will, and I want them and my children and grandchildren to make the most of it.

It was no accident that the first job I applied for was one that give me the opportunity to affect social change. My employer hired me because I convinced him that I could make social pioneering profitable, while enhancing the corporate image. It worked, and I gained the skills to branch off on my own, concentrating on those who have the least, and matter the most.

Unlike this new breed of feminist, we don't have to play by the male rulebook, and toss the children aside to fend for themselves while we scramble for gold. We can follow our hearts, observe the world around us, gain experience, and then focus our efforts where they will do the most good personally, socially, culturally.

Nancy Pelosi raised her children, then launched her political career. She seems to be effective in making a difference. Hilary Clinton has had a few off years as well, and they don't seem to be holding her down.

There are far too many women who do not have a choice about having a sequential life, in which we mine the most out of one life stage before moving on to the next. These women are working two to three jobs to support their families, and do without so that their children might have a better, easier life. They may be following the path laid down by these male-envying feminists, but they don't have the time to make the world over into a femininist paradise. Men are setting their rules, and it isn't working out to their advantage.

Our world needs strong women, just as it needs strong men. And the world will be better when all of our strengths are valued, and we each use our own hearts and dreams to light our own paths.

Government by the RNC?

2007-04-13T22:52:00.000-05:00

The latest scandal to break over the White House involves the use of Republican National Committee network servers in order to conduct official business. The scandal, as outlined by Senator Leahy, is that the White House was attempting to get around presidential records acts by using networks that automatically destroyed e-mails over 30 days old. Given the White House obsession with secrecy, I'm sure this was the primary motivation.

A secondary concern has been built around the dissemination of information with potential national security implications through a network that required no security background checks or other precautions.

These considerations are valid concerns, and lay at the conscious decision to move away from White House networks to Republican National Committe networks. But they don't bother me nearly as much as the fact that it is instinctive for the White House to view the RNC as part of the government. Of course they would use RNC servers. They use the RNC for virtually every bit of government business.

John Bolton famously, and stupidly, went on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart in order to tell us that the President's responsibility is to represent only those who voted for him; otherwise, why have an election?

Oddly enough, I thought the point of an election was to vote for a leader to represent the entire country. But George W. Bush is intractable in his view that he governs for his base, and the rest of us are of little concern.

Bush and his cronies have one guiding principle: to advance the interests of the RNC, if not politically, then economically, but hopefully both. The war in Iraq has been a phenomenal success for the Republicans economically, so Bush lives with the destructon of Iraq and young American lives without much care or concern.

In the same way, Bush views the entire executive branch as an extension of the Republican party, so it seems completely logical and natural to utilize the Justice Department to wage partisan witchhunts against Democrats and ignore Republican bribes, crimes and utter corruption. Rather than prosecute a Duke Cunningham, Carol Lam should been have investigating voter fraud. After all, the Republicans have made the prosecution of voter fraud a top priority, so as to give rationale to the Republican Party claim that voter identification cards are required to ensure democracy (as opposed to the real reason, which is that voter ID cards are required to suppress the Democratic vote). After a while, it became apparent to at least 8 prosecutors that this priority was skewed. After six years of being on the top burner, prosecutors had uncovered only 86 cases of voter fraud, mostly based on confusion as to how to fill out a form. The complete total of actual documented intentional fraud amounted to about 2-3 votes per national election - not quite enough to fix the outcome.

By making the RNC the fourth arm of government, we have completely tossed out the preamble to the Constitution. It still remains in theory, proclaiming government to be for the people, by the people, of the people. As currently practiced, it is now government for a small select group within the triumphant party; by and of the select group.

We need our government back. There isn't a Republican candidate on the horizon willing to do this. So, let's get behind a Democratic candidate and bring the
Constitution back home. And get the Republican National Committee servers out of the White House.

Futility?

2007-04-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

Over the past six years, the Bush administration and its lapdogs among the Republican party have committed many sins. But perhaps the most insidious legacy was created not just by Bush and his cronies, but all the enablers among the media and among "moderate" Democrats. For three years, they all spoke with one voice, and dismissed any dissent as being irrelevant. Now,pundits, politicians and bloggers ask: "Where is the outrage? Why aren't people storming the capital? Why aren't the streets filled with people demanding change?"

Well, many, many of us are and have been furious about what is being done in our name, by our government, since the sham of an election in 2000. We have watched as years of work toward a more just, humane and environmentally safe society are callously and lightly ripped away. Private individuals have lost their rights to privacy and civil rights, while the government shrouded itself in secrecy and unlimited power. Above all, an unjust war goes on and on, one in which we sacrifice young lives in creating havoc in Iraq and a generation of new terrorists in the Middle East. We are hardly lacking for sources of outrage, and if we were, the Bush administration keeps up a steady supply of new fuel.

What saps our will to fight is the fact that we saw all this coming. Millions of Americans looked at the so-called evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and said, "this makes no sense." Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the street trying to stop the madness. We wrote letters and columns and circulated petitions. We might as well have been sipping lemonade on the front porch. No one noticed; no one cared. An enormous protest was held in New York. C-SPAN covered it, and we watched as seas of Americans tried to get someone's attention. Even the New York Times yawned, and gave short shrift to what was going on at their front door.

All those columnists, pundits, politicians and fellow citizens who wonder why we aren't rallying now were very condescending then. The refrain heard in Washington, New York, and other political capitals was that foreign affairs and diplomacy was just too sophisticated and complicated for those left-wing nuts to grasp. Any protest about economic policy was shrugged aside as "class warfare." Liberal ideas were in disfavor even among previously liberal bastions. Liberal thought was outmoded, passe. It was time for new ideas, and new intellectual capital to become ascendant. Compassion and diplomacy were for wimps. In order to be a vigorous unitary superpower, we had to put down our words, take up our guns, and turn over our minds to a unitary executive.

Maybe I would have handled this better if there had been any intellectual content in this much-heralded "intellectual capital." As it is, I still consider "conservative think tank" to be an oxymoron, particularly when it derives from neo-conservatives. Someone who rests his or her intellectual construct on creationism is not mentally gifted, which I would define at least in part as being willing to question beliefs and consider new information.

And yet, these are the people we were supposed to defer to. Even today, one reads the Washington Post editorial pages (which I usually don't, not having the strong stomach I used to) and gathers that even if the war is wrong today, the people who protested it at the beginning are still more wrong than those who embraced it. We must still entrust the war's implementation to the people who haven't made a correct decision yet, because they have the data and the nuance, and we don't.

So frustration sets in. Every day my inbox is filled with appeals to write my Congressman, to let him know there are people who are not enamored of his stance on the issues. My immediate thought is that those organizations sending out these mass e-mails should proof their mailing lists, and not bother to send these calls for action out to people who are represented by certifiable idiots. I guarantee you, my Congressman is every bit the match for Bush in feeling self-satisfied and smug and not caring a hoot about what anyone else thinks. And my second thought, as I hit the delete icon, is that it's a shame that I feel so totally unempowered. I know it took more than Jeff Miller to make me feel this way.

Still, as I have said often, my basic personality is one of optimism, and I don't feel alone in that. It may be that those of us who mounted protests and wrote letters and signed petitions early on are still protesting in their way. It's just that our protests are on a smaller scale. Last Friday I left a secure job with a decent paycheck, in order to give more focus to my passion for a just society. On my own, I can speak more plainly, tackle obstacles more directly, and at least move my own small community a little closer to what I consider the American dream.

I may not be sounding off on national issues as much, but I am demonstrably changing my little corner, and the pace of change is picking up. Perhaps my story is being echoed all over. There are many of us who have decided not to bang our heads against the brick wall of a bubble presidency and an aloof media, but who are making our voices heard just the same. The Republicans have taught us that trickle-down theories do not work. Maybe those of us who consider ourselves liberal Democrats can prove that trickle-up theories are successful.

Postscript: It is my strong feeling that Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer puts him in far better touch with what is real and doable and necessary than years of being pandered to in Congress. The resistance many feel toward Hillary Clinton is that she can't let go of her support for a militaristic foreign policy. That isn't real, or doable, and it certainly isn't necessary. I do like John Edwards, because he left the "establishment" behind in order to see what poverty was really like, and how it can be alleviated. Perhaps 2008 will restore hope for many of us.

Faith Trumps Reason

2007-03-25T07:15:00.000-05:00

A great deal has been written, some of it by me, about the frightening implications of a society that rejects science in favor of adherence to a fundamentalist belief system; one that does not acknowledge that there is information available to us today that was not available thousands of years ago. "God said it, I believe it, End of Story" is the bumper sticker summation of this point of view. Such a summation begs the question of which Old Testament God is being invoked: that one that the J (Jehovah) scribes wrote about, or perhaps the P (priestly) scribes interpreted. But belief isn't fussy. As long as the chosen God concurs with the "believer" in every respect, then that God is fine. The enormous appeal of this system is that nothing need be justified.

Our president subscribes to this interpretation of God as defender of irrational thought, and not just about scientific concepts. He campaigned on his constant declaration that he spoke to God, and would consult with God on all decisions. It is a very short trip from speaking to God, to speaking for God, to believing that he is God, and Bush made it in record time. Anything he says is truth simply because he says it, and no one should question otherwise. Thus, he only repeats himself, and never explains himself. God doesn't need to justify anything.

Sadly, there are still millions of Americans (some in my extended family) who are more than willing to view the president as a messianic messenger of God, simply because his dismissal of the need for study and analysis is more comfortable than the suggestions of policy "wonks" that there are few simple answers to complex questions.

So, administration talking points are constantly trotted out with the same bumper sticker mentality: Bush Said It, I Believe It. This morning's newspaper was filled with Bush "truths": "We have to fight them over there, or we will fight them over here." "To question the war enables the terrorists and places our troops in danger." "Clinton fired 93 attorneys, why the big deal about Bush firing eight? It's his right!!" And although the lie that Obama is a secret Muslin terrorist does not come directly from the White House, I hear it so often that I can't help but wonder if it originally sprang from the devious minds of the Rove "think tanks."

We are still being led by an administration that doesn't twist intelligence so much as dismisses it as irrelevant. Directors for important administration posts such as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Food and Drug Administration, National Park System, the National Broadcasting System, the Federal Emergency Management System, and on and on are all appointed because they do not believe in the agency they head, and can be counted on to "expose" their agency as incompetent and useless.

John Bolton was on the Daily Show recently, with his assertion that Bush only governed on behalf of those who voted for him. Otherwise, what was the point of elections? It's government by the 30%, for the 30%, and no one but the 30%. Bush has often said that he governs according to his beliefs alone, and will continue to do so if the 30% erodes to the point that only Laura and Barney agree with him. God is infallible; thus, so is Bush.

Congress is squandering its time on the details. As long as Bush is president, and Cheney is vice-president, effective and rational government is impossible. Replace the self-appointed "god" with the God who gave us the minds to study, to think, to reason, to empathize. Impeach now.

Blessed are the Merciful

2007-03-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

Last week I spent several evenings speaking to various public groups on social justice issues. It's something I do all the time, and rarely give it a thought. The routine practice is that I am invited by some civic, political or faith-based group to speak on an issue that has caught the attention of the membership. Some of the folks there are interested in my topic, some want eagerly to help, and others are indifferent. A few, the radio announcers of the world, are hostile, but then they are paid to be "controversial."

Monday night, however, was a different story. I was not talking to a self-selected crowd of persons engaged in civic endeavors in one way or another. I was talking to a "town hall" meeting comprised of members of the general public. Much has been made of the bitterness and anger felt by the "Christian" right, and I've nodded and wondered what lay beneath it. For the first time, however, I really felt it. It is terrifying.

Looking out over the crowd, I saw well over a hundred well-dressed men and women, most of whom were middle-aged, and all of whom seemed comfortably well off. They have every reason to be satisfied. They live in a right-wing community, governed according to their tastes. Taxes are at the lowest possible given state law (which means they are extremely low), governmental regulation in the form of sign laws, set-backs, tree ordnances, etc., is non-existent, not a dime is spent on social services. The schools produce FCAT scores that are the highest in Florida, with meager per capita funding. Churches crowd every street. Diversity is held to a minimum. From my point of view, this must be right-wing paradise.

Obviously, I am wrong. These people are filled with rage. They trembled with anger when I spoke compassionately about people who are barely getting by. When I spoke of how our homeless are sleeping in bathroom stalls and stair risers in the churches that open, because there is not enough room to meet the need, men rose up shouting that the solution was to not open the church doors at all, but to leave the homeless in the cold and hope they froze to death.

In the past, I have wondered at the persecution complex of many in the far right. Until recently, they have controlled both houses of Congress, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the media, major corporations. It couldn't be the "Establishment" trying to crucify them - they are the establishment.

To my shock, I realized that according to their lights, I was the persecutor. Every time I spoke of families broken by domestic violence, I was throwing an insult to their way of life. When I talked about giving a 13-year-old homeless girl the first coat she had ever had, I cracked the mortar holding their world together. By talking of families that had fallen into the underclass, I was pointing out the tenuousness of their hold on the middle class. Most of these families have little savings and great debt, and their house is built on sand.

From my liberal point of view, the anger should be directed not at the people who cannot harm them at all, but the people who are actively causing them harm. The corporations who outsource jobs rather than pay living wages, the government that raises interest rates on student loans and restrict Pell grants, the insurance companies that devote enormous resources to avoiding providing the services for which they are contractually obligated.

But it doesn't work that way, because the corrupt CEOs, the government bureaucrats and the lobbyists are not real to those of us living on the outskirts of the country. They come across as figures of authority, to be admired for their achievements, even when the achievements come at the expense of those providing the admiration. They are abstract constructs, revered by a patriarchal society.

The poor, however, are very real. We trip over them on the sidewalks. We barely miss them with our cars when we belatedly notice them walking along the side of the road at night. They sit in our parks, and look mournful and hopeless as they cluster in groups near the library. They provide a living reproach, and a terrifying example. They take nothing from us, but our assurance that the world is a safe and forgiving place.

The next night I spoke to a wholly different group, one that was eager to work on behalf of others. The stress of the previous night was washed away for a bit. But, like the tide, it will return. But perhaps, better clarity and experience will provide a more effective response.

On a personal note - I am leaving my employer of the last 10 years, and setting up the Homeless Continuum of Care as a viable, independent organization. I have been raising funds for three different non-profits, and it was becoming too confusing even for me. Thus, I have resigned from the large company that can get by without me, and dedicating myself to the causes where I fill a critical need. It feels a lot like jumping off a cliff, but fortunately I seem to have a lot of people ready to make certain I've got a safety net somewhere at the bottom.

Truly Free to Choose

2007-03-18T00:23:00.000-05:00

For the past few months, the front page of our local paper was intermittently filled with the court martial of an Air Force officer convicted of six counts of rape. Given the profile of most sex offenders, and the general unwillingness of any rape victim (especially men) to report rape, it can be safely assumed that the total number of victims was far higher. Indeed, we know that two reported victims were not called in as witnesses since they were civilians in a different jurisdiction.

What makes this relevant is how these rapes occurred: a gentle-looking, well-dressed officer in the military staked out popular nightclubs, and used date-rape drugs to overcome his victims. There was nothing about him that would make normal alarm bells go off, and alert the average young man or woman that something was not right.

The very normality of this rapist’s appearance is absolutely typical. The average sex offender claims many victims before being apprehended, and he couldn’t manage it if the word “monster” was emblazoned on his forehead.

What is remarkable about this recent case is that a conviction was obtained. Date rape drugs and alcohol, either in combination or alone, are useful to rapists because they cloud memory and diminish the credibility of a victim’s report. While 38% of rape victims (according to the US Department of Justice) report crimes to law enforcement, less than 10% of rapes facilitated by drugs and/or alcohol are reported. Less than 1% of these cases are prosecuted, and even fewer prosecutions result in conviction. By and large, rapists using date rape drugs and/or alcohol are free to claim further victims without interference.

The instinctive societal approach to stopping drug and alcohol facilitated rape is to tell young men and women not to drink, and thus avoid being a potential victim. Liquor sales, however, tell us this is not a fool-proof approach. The crowds at nightclubs indicate that drinking can be fun, and most of us, not just young people, will occasionally choose immediate pleasure over an abstract risk such as rape. As is often the case with life, we need a Plan B.

The first line of defense is to fortify our community’s refusal to tolerate rape. We are a mixed message culture, and much of the message aimed at young men encourages sexual aggression and conquest. At the same time, men and women who come forth with rape reports are often greeted with suspicion. Women who have been drinking are assumed to have forfeited their right to have non-consensual sex, rather than treated as victims whose rights were stripped from them.

The second line of defense is generally the only one promoted: learning how not to be a victim: know where you are going, inform others as to where you will be and when you expect to be back, use your own transportation or call a cab, ask a friend to call to make sure you got home safely. Young men and women who are known to have people looking out for them are at dramatically less risk than those who are isolated. Since a rape-free society is not likely to take shape tomorrow, being careful will remain good advice for some time to come.

Still, part of being young is to explore options and make choices, some of which are wiser than others. What doesn't need to be part of being young is to pay for a poor choice with the anguish of having become a victim of rape.

Sometimes You Win One

2007-01-24T23:22:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update on the earlier blog entry: the issue of churches vs. Department of Health came to a quick resolution. Once the issue came to the attention of the director and top staff of the Department of Health, a decision was rapidly reached to abandon attempts at licensing and regulating churches providing essential subsistence services to homeless persons. This pleased absolutely everyone except the newspaper reporter who had gone home after completing a page one story on the controversy, only to find out a couple of hours later that she had to go back in and rewrite it. She swears she will never again read a late-afternoon e-mail from me until at least 12 hours have passed. The person at the Department of Health who took on this benighted crusade may not be completely thrilled at the turn of events either. However, those of us working with the homeless, and those working in public health, are all very content.

The biggest gain came in knowing that not everyone is locked into a narrow view of rules, regulations, and bureaucratic turf struggles. Since I spend a lot of my professional life working with government contract managers, I spend a lot of my time being utterly frustrated by narrow-minded people incapable of abstract thought or vision. It is not unusual to spend hours arguing with a bureaucrat about a $1.56 bill for postage, faxing copies of letters sent in order to prove that the postage charge was attached to letters related to the particular grant. The contract manager is unmoved by the fact that both parties to the $1.56 dispute have now spent $75 each on resolving it. He or she is also not about to let us just drop the charge. It is hard for us to remember that the actual goal of the contract is, say, to provide services to victims, not fight over postage stamps. It is impossible for the contract manager.

Thus, contact with people on the bureaucratic side of the fence who share our passion for assisting the mentally ill, homeless, victims of crime, and other fragile persons is essential to maintaining balance and perspective. I am very lucky to have a contract manager for a homeless services grant who is not only reasonable in working through invoice issues, but will serve meals at a soup kitchen or collect blankets for a cold night shelter. And now I am fortunate to have seen the top personnel at the local Department of Health move rapidly to bring sense and reason to a rapidly escalating situation.

Tomorrow night is predicted to be a cold one. Fortunately, we can turn on the heat and open the doors to those in need.

Shoot Me Now

2007-01-23T23:06:00.000-06:00

I'm sure everyone who keeps up with news sources and columnists has one or two (at least) people who represent the antithesis of everything they believe. For instance, the day I agree with Ann Coulter on any point, up to and including whether or not it is raining at any particular moment, I will know it's time to realize I have Alzheimer's and to pack it in. Whereas my revulsion toward John Stoessel is not quite as pronounced (probably because I know less about him), still, I would have placed his philosophy is the same basic category as that of Ms. Coulter.

However, last week Mr. Stoessel wrote a column expressing indignation that a county department of health was demanding that a church soup kitchen for the homeless install restaurant-grade facilities or shut down. The column left out a lot of details: whether or not there were other facilities for feeding the homeless; whether the kitchen staff exercised basic common sense; what had prompted the department to initiate an inspection. Still, Mr. Stoessel reported that there had been no known incidences of infection or disease due to improper food handling, and that some of the homeless said it was either eat there or out of a trash can. As difficult as it was to overcome my distaste for Mr. Stoessel, I had to agree with that the local department was guilty of over-reaching, and that the decision of the health department to rescind its decision was for the best.

Ironically, yesterday our local health department called me about the cold weather programs run by our churches for the homeless. Someone had tipped them off that churches were housing and feeding the homeless when the temperatures dropped to 40 degrees or below, and possibly in less than 4-star conditions. I had a copy of the statute governing the use of churches for compassionate causes, and said that there was some room for disagreement as to whether or not the health department held jurisdiction in these matters. I invited the health department representatives to attend a special meeting of the faith-based service providers. This morning I called and said we would host the meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday. The health department representatives appreciated our quick action, and said they would gladly attend.

Within half-an-hour of my discussion, the health department had sent out inspectors to all seven churches that host the cold night program. All seven churches were told they must cease and desist immediately. There were not enough bathrooms to accommodate the number of homeless spending the night; there were no posted rules as to hand washing; the thread count in some of the blankets was insufficiently high. The churches were told to stop serving meals and housing the homeless, or face prohibitive fines.

Whereas I may have not known if there were numerous facilities in the area highlighted by Mr. Stoessel, I know exactly how many facilities there are for homeless in my area. Shelter is available in exactly seven locations: the seven churches that alternate providing shelter, each taking one day a week. I know how many facilities serve meals: the seven churches on cold nights, and three of the same churches who provide once-a-week meals regardless of weather.

I also know the conditions in which people are housed and fed. There is inadequate space and insufficient bathrooms for the number of people sheltered. However, there is heat, running water, showers, bathrooms that are available after a short wait, blankets and laundry facilities. These things are notable for their absence on the streets, where people must go to the bathroom in the gutters, sleep in the wind and rain, and huddle under old newspapers.

It is true the kitchens have double sinks and hand washing sinks, but not sterilization sinks. They have refrigerators with compartments for meat, cheese, and vegetables, but not separate refrigerators for different food types. However, the people who run these kitchens generally come from restaurant and military kitchen backgrounds, and they maintain clean kitchens regularly scrubbed with disinfectants, wash hands frequently, and serve well-prepared, nourishing meals. The dumpsters behind the fast food places don't offer quite the variety nor the hygeinic standards.

While I was expostulating with the woman who was smugly telling me her results, I suggested that it wasn't as though the homeless had a choice between sleeping on the floor of a church or in a million dollar condo on the beach. If they didn't sleep in the church they slept in the cold, and if they didn't eat at the soup kitchen they ate from the dumpsters. If the interest was to protect the homeless public from infection, the odds were completely in the favor of those who could eat fresh meat and vegetables with clean hands.

The response: there are a number of excellent catering firms.

I asked if any of these catering firms were willing to receive an order at noon, which is when the churches make their final call as to whether or not they will open;
have a meal ready by 6:00 p.m.; and be prepared to feed any number of persons from 60-130, because you don't know until they get there how many there will be. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get an answer. Marie Antoinette didn't have a comeback line either (though there are those that say she never made those comments about cake).

I have a very hard time not seeing this as a political move. Conveniently, there was a meeting of the county commission tonight, and I whiled away three of my precious hours waiting until public comment was invited. By the time my turn came around, I did not lack for things to say.

Just like Jerry Melvin's talk show backfired at least in part (we have now received $3000 from individuals upset with his comments), it is quite possible the health department raid will generate support for a less make-shift solution to homeless issues. I'm furious, but not defeated. My church friends are equally motivated. By the time I left for the Commission meeting, my colleagues had fired off letters, e-mails and phone calls to state representatives, senators, county and city government officials, and to the head of the Department of Health. We'll see what we see.

I'll try to post my next blog on something far removed from homelessness - maybe even a comment or two on the unbelievable gall Bush had when telling Congress that unless they agreed to his agenda their children would face enormous deficits and a cut in benefits. Such words are failing me at the moment, however. I'll have to quit gasping like a landed fish before I can address that one.

Let me know if other communities have faced these problems, and how they were resolved. I love hearing from you, and have learned much.

Thank you

2007-01-12T23:49:00.000-06:00

The response to my previous post was overwhelming, and far kinder than I deserved. I was experiencing a lapse there, giving into self-pity when resolve and reason were the better answers.

My dip into despair was not just the result of a few hateful remarks on the radio, or some nasty e-mails sent to my office. It's been a cumulative sapping of energy, as even many of my colleagues have had difficulty separating the causes I work for from the person I am. I have been wondering for some time whether or not my passions for social justice were hindering rather than helping the changes I espouse. Whether, in fact, I was becoming a distraction from the work of finding shelter for the homeless and hope for victims of crimes against women.

Contrary to popular opinion, I am not someone filled with certainty about every aspect of life. I have no brilliant solutions as to how to get us out of Iraq, or how to solve the issues of the Mideast, or how to respect fundamentalist religions of all stripes (Christian, Jewish, Muslin, Hindu for all I know) without letting their practitioners encroach on the rights of others. Members of these faiths absolutely are convinced that they must proselytize or go to hell. How do you respect their right to practice their religion without denying others the right to be left alone in theirs? You'll find no answers to these or many other questions from my corner. I can't even make definitive decisions about the clutter in my home and work offices.

However, on those issues about which I am certain, I am a bulldozer. I cannot see how anyone of good faith can disagree about those truths which I hold to be self-evident. Briefly, these are:

1) Women and men of all races, religions and ethnic origins are to be held in respect, and valued according to their individual merits and contributions.

2) The measures of success are not necessarily those of the dominant culture. For instance, a stereotypic male culture prizes aggressiveness, disdain for the weak, and stoicism. Both women and men can make excellent contributions to business and society by living up to the best within themselves, which may well encompass compassion, personal connections, and a willingness to listen. Women do not need to "outmasculine" men in order to prove themselves.

3) We are all caretakers of each other. Listening to women denigrate other women, stating that women are bitchy, catty, vicious and shallow is my idea of total torture. Hearing men dismiss the poor as worthless without taking a second to reflect on why those people may be poor and what circumstances may have pushed them into it is infuriating. We cannot dismiss whole classes of humanity as being without merit just because we have been fortunate in our own lives.

4) Parenthood, for those who choose it, really can be our own personal link to heaven. For the vast majority of us, our children are the greatest blessing we will ever know. My children have brought me joy without measure. They owe me nothing (though they give me everything). I owe them a society that is as fair and just as I can help shape it.

So where does this leave me in terms of the push to create a homeless shelter? I have given a lot of consideration as to whether or not I was just as guilty of confusing myself with my messages as others have been. So, to clarify it for myself and others, I have asked fellow toilers in the vineyard to become more public in their support for the homeless and for victims of crime. I have even been kind enough to draft suggestions of letters to the editor, to be submitted by others and which will appear soon. I will be taking the advice of many of you who have suggested specific persons and organizations who can be fantastic agents for change.

But, I am who I am. While I have done less in terms of actual caretaking of the homeless and women in need than almost anyone I know in recent years, I have been a huge catalyst for keeping these issues in the public eye. I listen very well, and can articulate on behalf of those whose ability to speak and write for themselves is limited. I can make myself heard in their names. Perhaps stirring up a hornet's nest is the most valuable contribution I can make. So for now, keep watching out for wasps.

The Price of Change

2007-01-12T01:06:00.000-06:00

For ten years, I have worked for social change in my area. Generally I have been able to work behind the scenes, network with different community stakeholders, advocate with government officials, provide continuing education to professionals whose lives touch those of the persons I seek to help. Other than publishing the occasional op-ed piece in the paper (where by-lines usually go unnoticed), I've been able to slide under the radar while still contributing to positive outcomes.

In the last few days, this has not been the case. I made a speech to a packed crowd of business leaders, mayors, members of the Chamber of Commerce, interestned citizens and my "base" - providers of service to the homeless. At the time, I thought it went well. 50 or more people asked questions and made comments, and only two were negative. There were outbursts of applause for many of my comments, and the comments of those who were supporting a homeless shelter. I hoped that perhaps we reached a few new players, perhaps those who could truly turn a shelter into a reality.

The next day, I changed my mind. I still remembered the event as being a good experience, but the media didn't see it that way. They took the more lunatic response to my comments and played them up. A former legislative representative, Jerry Melvin, had said the answer to the homeless question was to round all the homeless up, fingerprint them, photograph them, give them medical screenings, and watch them. If they looked at someone funny, they should be locked up. If they didn't have a job in seven days, they should be deported. Meanwhile, to build a shelter was a crazed idea, since we had plenty of existing resources, and a shelter would be a duplication of services. His punch line was "we don't need to help Lenore build any more empires for herself and her company in this county."

He listed the existing resources, which not surprisingly added up to a total of 0 beds for the homeless. His first choice was the YMCA, which I'm sure would be startled to know it was a provider of homeless services. The YMCA offers a gym and a pool, all of which are open to members only. The next choice was the Salvation Army, which hasn't offered shelter for at least six years (and only offered 4 beds at $10 a night when they did). This should have been clear to Jerry, since the head of the Salvation Army had just announced he had no beds, his facility had no room, and their location was inaccesible to the homeless. The final suggestion was the Waterfront Rescue Mission, which allows homeless persons 3 nights of shelter. After that, a homeless individual must join their substance abuse recovery program or move on. They are not allowed back no matter how bitter the weather, or how desperate the individual. Contrary to public opinion, not every homeless person is an alcoholic or addict, and there are those who do not subscribe to the particular faith insisted upon by the Mission. Children don't even get the 3 nights.

Perhaps because these comments were so off-the-wall, they were the anchor to the newspaper account of the meeting. My empire building was particularly prominent in the news report, taking up the banner headline on the front page. The reporter described the meeting as one of testy exchange, and ignored the overall support expressed over the course of two hours.

Jerry's comments seemed to resonate with a substantial number of the rapid right-wing nuts (the very ones who find it un-Christian to help the poor). Jerry hosts a three-hour drive time talk-radio show, and I was the subject of his tirades and those of his call-in buddies. This was picked up by other talk radio hosts, and I was cursed and vilified off and on all day. Apparently my push to create a shelter is inciting the poor and homeless to flock to our area. I am doing this intentionally so as to engineer a take-over of local government, thus raising taxes and offering services that the poor don't deserve, and the government can't accomplish anyway. This would be laughable, except that the viciousness of most of the comments dampened the humorous aspect considerably. The hostility has carried over to letters and opinions printed in the newspaper.

My initial reactions are two-fold. My first instinct is to go on talk radio myself and set out my point of view. I know a review of the facts won't influence Jerry, but there might be a few of the 20,000 listeners who would hear them. The second instinct is to resign as head of the Continuum of Care that is spearheading the drive for a shelter. I question how effective I can be if I have become a lightning rod for anger and hate. Will the non-lunatic fringe be able to listen to what I have to offer, or will they see me as someone caught up in a petty and nasty fight? I already know from the original newspaper account that even though Jerry was the only one attacking anyone, the reporter apparently thought it a better story to make me a contender as well. The facts on this aspect no longer mean a thing.

I had lunch with a friend today, who said I should take all the furor as a sign of progress. People who have had their own way for decades are not excited about change, and it is clear that I have been effective enough to present a threat to the status quo. To flee the field now would be state that I had little belief in my own cause. I can see her point, but there is also merit in the concept that it is much safer, having roused a hornets nest, to put distance between yourself and the hornets.

If anyone has some great suggestions, I would appreciate hearing them in comments. I am feeling a bit lonely at the moment.

Starting Fresh

2007-01-09T01:43:00.000-06:00

It's been hard to write about issues that I care about over the last few months, because the issues I care about have in many cases moved from the theoretical to the personal. It's one thing to write about the "sandwich generation." It's another to be totally immersed in that lifestyle.

Still, I do come up for air occasionally, and check out the portents for the coming year. It's a mixed bag.

On the bright side: We have a Democratic Congress; a woman Speaker of the House; a determination by the vast majority of Americans that the war in Iraq must end; and new attention to the needs of the working poor. A significant, and long-overdue, increase in the minimum wage is as close to a certainty as there can be in politics. There has been a growth in jobs that may actually turn out to be sustainable.

On the negative side: Our president thinks that escalation of the war in Iraq is the correct response to the public's desire for peace; the Democratic push for its share in corporate donations may help fund winning elections, but may also fragment the party in its efforts to roll back some of the more egregious tax cuts; the Republicans still control the executive and judicial branches of government (and every aspect of my state government).

A sense of change has produced a range of reactions locally. The media has taken up the issue of homelessness, and our religious right doesn't know what to make of it. On the one hand, they want to assign all responsibility for homelessness onto the homeless population itself. An entire editorial page was devoted to letters to the editor declaring that helping homeless persons would be to violate the Scriptures, and thus be unChristian. They quoted Paul: "Those who would not work, shall not eat." Every homeless person should get a job and pull themselves out of poverty. This would be less troublesome if all homeless persons were mentally and physically healthy adults able to choose from a plentitude of well-paying careers. Unfortunately, jobs available to two-year-olds are limited, and rarely cover the rent.

An aside: yes, I responded with my own letter to the editor, calling to mind the great fictional theologian, Ebenezer Scrooge, while quoting from Matthew, "As you do unto the least of these, my brethren, so you do unto me." Oddly, there hasn't been a single letter to the editor on the subject since.

Leaving that digression behind, there have been other responses to changes in the political winds, nationally and locally, and some have been less predictable than the exhortation to let the homeless starve. Indeed, the Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce has adopted the Homeless Continuum of Care as its charity of the year, and is holding a series of fund-raisers to raise funds for our proposed shelter. It will take a bit to let that soak in.

Before I leave the topic of homelessness, a large number of persons have urged me to see the movie, "In Pursuit of Happyness." Opinions are divided, and I do really want to find some time to check it out for myself. Even if the movie does present a skewed version of how to overcome homelessness and poverty (which has been the prevailing opinion of my colleagues, though not the only one), it is encouraging that these issues are moving to center stage as defined by Hollywood.

Another issue whose time, I hope, has come is that of universal health insurance. There really is no argument left to be made that our current system is anything but a disservice to the entire country. Citizens of countries which have adopted universal health care, even bad plans, are healthier than citizens of the US, and the cost is vastly less than our part-free market, part-government, part-monopoly system of care. Who profits by our current system is somewhat random, and has little to do with skill levels or critical needs. A plastic surgeon specializing in breast enhancements makes ten times the salary of a primary care physician specializing in preventive medicine. The losers within our system are more easily defined: the chronically ill, the uninsured, and the public as a whole.

And in the spirit of a new year: here's hoping that 2007 brings out a kinder, gentler spirit than the one we have seen over the last decade - and here's to hope.

The Homeless Among Us

2006-10-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't live in our area - this column of mine was featured as the section front of the Commentary section in the Northwest Florida Daily News last Sunday.

Phillip is in his mid-40s, and has been homeless for more years than he can remember. He works odd jobs for various residents and businesses on the Island, doing landscaping, home and building repair, and some construction. He’s neat, tidy and works hard, and his clients depend upon him because he is dependable. Weekends you will find him at meal programs; on cold nights you will find him taking shelter at a church. Unlike many long-term homeless persons, Phillip does not use alcohol or drugs to soften life on the streets. He doesn’t say why he is homeless, other than to allude to obligations he has to others that prevent him from saving enough for security deposits, first month rents, and other expenses associated with finding permanent housing.

Manuel, a hotel housekeeper in his 60s, has been homeless for about two years. He feels fortunate to work in a hotel, where he can shower and wash his clothes each day. He especially liked his job when it allowed him to buy a trailer, which he kept on a rented lot near the Sound. However, when Ivan tore through the area, he lost everything. A few weeks ago, he was clearly stressed. The hotel was short-handed, which meant he had more rooms to clean. The forecast called for rain, and he was afraid he was going to lose one of the few dry spots available to homeless men if he didn’t get off work fast enough.

Sarah had a different story. Bridgeway Center, Inc. case managers found her when she was 16, after she had been homeless for three years with her mother who was injured in an abusive marriage. Sarah is a bright young woman, who had always maintained good grades. However, she had become depressed. Her grades were falling, since daylight was the only light she could use when doing school work. With winter coming, the daylight hours got shorter, and her time for schoolwork became desperately limited. The family is housed now, but their ability to maintain housing is precarious at best.

These are real homeless people (with fictitious names) who are using our parks, libraries, and sidewalks. They are there, because there is no other place for them to be. We have no alternative sites for them; no place where they can go to get job training, wash their clothes, store their things, cash a check, save their money, or sleep at night on a regular basis. Some homeless fall into despair, or are mentally ill, and use alcohol and illicit drugs as cheap ways to dull the pain of their existence or quiet the voices in their head. Others maintain dignity and never give up the struggle. Many others are women and children without hope.

Our business community and local governments shake their heads of the homeless in our midst, but declare there is nothing they can do about it. “We can’t afford it,” they say. “No one will agree to raise taxes to help homeless people.”

However, the fact is that we are already paying premium dollars to “manage” the homeless population. We use police and sheriff’s deputies to serve as intake officers; the courts as case managers; and the local jail, crisis stabilization unit and detoxification centers as our homeless shelters. One local judge said that 35% of the people he saw at first appearance were arrested primarily for the “crime” of being homeless: of using bathrooms in convenience stores where they made no purchase, or loitering in front of businesses that have registered with the police as being off-limits to homeless (which is nearly all of them). A rough guess, based on a study of the county budget and conversations with various officials, is that we are paying about $4 million per year for a very ineffective method of dealing with homeless issues. This doesn’t count plans for a new jail, which might not be needed if there was a better way to work with the homeless in our area.

Running the homeless out of town is not a realistic option. They have the same constitutional right to life and liberty as do the rest of us. And there aren’t enough bus tickets in the world to stop the flow of homeless into and out of our area. The homeless, like the poor, are with us, and it is our responsibility, as citizens and government leaders charged with the public safety and welfare, to form a partnership among state and local governments, businesses, non-profits and religious organizations to bring solutions to the people who need them.

The "Values" Voters

2006-10-07T01:22:00.000-05:00

For the past week, the media mantra has been to point out the hypocrisy of the “party of family values” when it chose protecting a member of Congress over the protection of teen-age boys. In my opinion, the Republicans became hypocrites long before the Mark Foley affair. Indeed, their hypocrisy dates from the minute they took on the mantel of “the party for the values voters,” and began their cynical pandering to the religious right.

Growing up in the South, I have more than a passing acquaintance with religion and core values. I studied religion in high school and college, attended Sunday Schools, taught Sunday Schools, served as director of Children’s Ministries, and sung in a multitude of church choirs. I have attended worship services in Jewish Temples and synagogues, and Christmas Mass at the Catholic National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. I founded my ethical construct on the words of Jesus (Matthew 25: 40) when he commended the righteous for feeding the hungry, ministering to the sick, and clothing the poor: “Inasmuch as you have done to the least of these my brethren, so you have done unto me.”

This Christian ideology is not compatible with the Republican world view, which can be readily summarized as “comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted.” Tax cuts designed for the almost exclusive benefit of the ultra rich; opening governmental resources including national parks and forests at bargain rates for corporate profit; energy policies that pile wealth upon obscene wealth into the hands of the oil companies; elimination or ignoring of important safeguards guiding the quality of air, earth and water, as well as food and drugs – this is agenda of the GOP.

As for the social safety net, designed to make sure our most fragile citizens have some measure of protection: the Republicans don’t believe in it. They fought Social Security when it was first proposed, and they would like to eliminate it now. They didn’t like Medicare when it became law, and they have been consistent in their campaign to turn it into a cash cow for pharmaceutical and insurance companies rather than a service for those who are sick and elderly. They hated the Great Society, and have succeeded in unraveling it with amazing thoroughness.

So, how does the party of wealth bring the “Christian” masses into its tent while disavowing Christian ideals at every turn? It appeals to values, such as war, torture, guns, illegal surveillance, and an abandonment of the ideals of tolerance and respect for those who may disagree with them, or are of a different race, religion or ethnicity. I am not exaggerating in the least. A letter to the editor in our local paper blasted the Democrats as the party that is “pro-murder and pro-gun control” (an interesting combination, harking back to the “liberal” position that Terry Schaivo had a right to die). Leaders of the Christian right lectured Congress, warning that a failure to pass a pro-torture bill would have serious repercussions in the mid-term election. The 700-mile barricade between the US and Mexico is a sop to the right-wing, which labels almost all Hispanics as illegal immigrants (although it appears that a sop is all it is, and it won’t be built). How they justify these positions as being godly is a bit of a mystery. Certainly they aren’t taking their texts from the four Gospels. But as long as the Republicans push for war and guns, and chip away at science, education, and women's reproductive rights, including the right to contraception, they have the radical Christians in their pocket.

A party that openly proclaims its only ideals as the maintenance of power along with access to the public treasury will naturally react to a report of a representative’s illicit correspondence with minors as a political problem only. The only hypocrisy is to pretend that anything else matters. The only shock is that they have finally found an issue in which the Christian right isn’t completely comfortable in cheerleading on their behalf.

License to Kill?

2006-09-28T17:03:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine was trying to explain his fascination with guns, and related an incident where he handed over some powerful weapon to a lady companion who had never used one. She promptly blew up a hillside, and found this thrilling beyond imagination. She was a god, with incredible potential to destroy all around her.

I suppose I understand. Life gets away from all of us from time to time, and we seek desperately for reassurance that we are, in some measure, in control of our destiny. A series of personal disasters – a hurricane tearing apart your house, along with erasing your job; a child diagnosed with cancer – and you find yourself swept away by a rip tide you cannot navigate through. If blasting away at a mound of dirt restores your belief in your ability to manage your life and face the dawn, well, great.

This would not be my answer. I recoil from guns the way others recoil from snakes and spiders. I don’t pretend that this makes me more virtuous than those who enjoy guns and target practice. It’s just a visceral reaction built on instinct. It is also, however, my frame when considering issues of gun control, the 2nd Amendment, and the NRA.

I acknowledge that a free society means that all kinds of behaviors and possessions are legal even if I don’t personally like them. I find violent, misogynistic video games abhorrent, and saying they are merely entertainment ignores the mindset of those who vicariously participate in murder, rape and mayhem. However, these video games are a form of speech, and thus are protected from my likes and dislikes, no matter how well grounded my objections might be. I’m not wild about cigarettes, because I see only the threats to health, having never experienced the relief of stress they seem to bring. Still, cigarettes are legal, and many state budgets could not be sustained without tobacco taxes and settlement agreements.

So it is with guns. We have individual rights and liberties, and thus if someone chooses a form of recreation involving hunting or target practice or blowing up hills (I’m assuming this hill was on property belonging to the shooter or the gun lender), they are perfectly entitled to do so. I prefer to gain my sense of power and mastery by creative, rather than destructive acts, but each to his own. My gun-loving friend is also enormously creative, so must enjoy the balance between the two forms of power.

But just as we have rights, we have responsibilities. The 2nd amendment does not give government a free pass in ensuring that guns are manufactured, sold, and handled in a way that protects society. The courts have specifically indicated that the 2nd amendment does not apply to the states, and state and local governments are free to impose any gun laws they see fit. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal forms of recreation, but society has an interest in ensuring that the use of these legal objects does not harm others. How much more, then, the societal interest in making sure that weapons that can destroy the landscape and all the lives therein is tightly regulated?

Just yesterday, a psychopath used a gun to terrorize a school, sexually assault teen-age girls, and murder one. I don’t think that’s the price we have to pay in order to maintain individual freedom. Apparently the NRA considers that this monster’s right to easy access to weaponry exceeded the rights of a 16-year-old girl to live, and her family to have a daughter. And where the NRA leads, the legislators sheepishly follow.

Guns have one purpose only – to destroy anything and anyone that gets in the way of a bullet. If we must have guns in order to be free, then at least let us have real gun control laws that allow us to live to enjoy our liberty.

What is Real?

2006-08-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

When I was in college, the trendy thing for professors was to assign truly disturbing and horrific books to read as literature, on the theory that these books reflected "the real world." I had a hard time identifying with the reality presented in these works of fiction, since the world I actually lived in was not populated exclusively with prostitutes and brutish thugs. In fact, none of the thousands of people I came to know as editor of the campus paper were either whores or killers. I realized then and now that such people exist, and in some parts of society may be dominant. But those portions of society are no more real than the one I inhabit, and in fact represent a much less significant percentage of the population. Any attempt to state what I consider a fairly obvious point was dismissed as being indicative of my pathetic state of naivete.

Well, the more things change, etc. I've been trekking across Florida these past two weeks in my endless quest for better funding and higher quality services for persons in need, and frequently coming up against the accusation that I am hopelessly naive, which, if true, would be a pretty sad state of affairs for a person in her 50s. I am told that if I just got out into the real world, and viewed indigent persons with clear rather than rose-tinted glasses, I would recognize that any attempts to help them are doomed to failure.

On the way home, I got to thinking about how often over the past 35 years I have been told that only harsh, bitter, negative versions of society are realistic. The data that informs my senses is clearly flawed, because it is optimistic and hopeful. And I got pretty indignant about it. Because my reality is grounded in a lot more direct experience than that of the people who are so "down to earth," and thus, has a great deal more claim to being accurate.

By and large, the people who are quick to tell me that homeless persons are con artists trying to get another fix or drink are the same people whose only personal experience with the homeless is to move to the other side of the street if they see such an individual in the next block. I, on the other hand, spent much of my afternoon yesterday making beds with an elderly gentleman who was trying to get 24 rooms finished that day before leaving the hotel to find a bridge to sleep under. The forecast called for rain, and he wanted to find a dry spot before all the good ones were taken. He was initially distressed with my offer of help, because it wasn't seemly, but he was interesting, and smoothing sheets and changing pillow cases was the only way I could fairly take up his time in conversation.

In the same manner, those people who "know" women stay in abusive relationships because they are inherently flawed, have no idea how many women they know who are in such relationships, and who they wouldn't consider defective in any way. Domestic violence is a complex situation with a host of variables, and women stay for what are often quite logical reasons. Blaming the victim may take society off the hook, but it is not realistic.

Not a week goes by that I don't spend some part of my time with the more fragile members of our society. I resent being told that my wealth of experience makes me naive, but those people willing to believe the worst about anyone are sophisticated and grounded.

Of course, it would be naive to assume that all people in dysfunctional situations are mature, hard-working, well-motivated and intelligent. For one thing, the very nature of being homeless, or being a victim of incest, favors the development of pathology. But assuming that people in such situations get there voluntarily, because it's the easy way out, is cruel and just flat wrong.

I've come a long way in my life since the time I refused to finish "Gravity's Rainbow" because it was too perverted and unrealistic. I have met both prostitutes and brutish thugs, but am more convinced than ever that they are a small and not terribly representative face of society. People are fascinating because they can rarely be represented by stereotypes of either the rosy or the dark varieties. It's amazing how relatively few differences in human genetic material have created such an infinite variety of human thought and expression, but there it is. We all bring out own understanding and experience to our beliefs and opinions, and some of us are more successful at it than others.

Dick Cheney once scoffed at persons he considered outdated and out of fashion, those who are sadly wedded to the "reality-based" community. The true realist, he said, makes his own reality. Sadly for us, Mr. Cheney's reality is a dark and frightening place. Still, there is some truth in his observation that we do each make our own reality. Happily for me, and for people in want, reality sometimes comes with a glow.

That Old-Time Religion

2006-07-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post, I suggested that the United States, while flirting dangerously with the dividing wall separating church and state, was not likely to topple into a true theocracy in the near future. I assumed that people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson would disagree, since their clear goal is to create a theocracy, and I'm sure they have a 12-point implementation plan. While it is likely that they have already crossed four of these points off the list, I don't think they will ever get more than half-way. Eventually, practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others of faith will recognize that compromising the separation of church and state seriously erodes their freedom to worship as they see fit. Society will start bricking in those parts of the wall that have already been damaged.

Since writing these words, I have come to realize that few of my liberal colleagues residing in northwest Florida are as sanguine about this outcome as I am. They point to solid pieces of research such as that assembled by Kevin Phillips in "American Theocracy," which provides a compelling case for tracing the push for a radical, fundamentalist, Bible-based government back 150 years to reconstruction. Although there has been frequent intellectual and societal recoil from an ultra-right-wing, religious takeover from the American majority, there has never been a total rejection of these ideas. The would-be theocrats are diverted, not defeated, and emerge from a new corner when the dust settles. Each time their advance becomes stronger and more pronounced before being driven slightly underground again. Now, of course, the ultra-right wing has fully taken over the Presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate leadership, and many key positions among the judiciary. Dismantling these inroads is not going to be easy.

Yet I take my hope from the fact that although the House Speaker, Senate President, US President and four of the members of the Supreme Court are all proponents of a dicatorial executive favored by the radical Christian right, they still find that there are limits as to how far they are willing to concede religious control of the US government. For all the posturing and bombast, we have not passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, Roe vs. Wade still stands, and evolution is still the cornerstone of most public biology classes.

Still, dangerous trends cannot be ignored. Patriotism has become frighteningly confused with religous beliefs, so that the top forwards I receive via e-mail tend to have soldiers saluting the flag with the cross in the background, or some similar imagery. Our military is in danger of being confused with an arm of the church, to the deep detriment of both institutions. The Christian right is also wedded to the idea of facing persecution and attack from every conceivable corner, thus increasing the belligerence and aggressiveness of what used to be considered a religion of love and empathy. These trends can, if unchecked, topple the nation from democracy into tyranny.

I still think that the majority of Americans are made uneasy by the extremist wing of the Christian fath, and that we will stop short of the brink of theocracy. My county schools still resist lay censorship, and ensure that textbooks are centered in the reality-based community rather than the faith-based fantasy one. If we can hold the line here, surely we can hold it anywhere.

Let us pray this is true.

The End of the World As I Know It

2006-07-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

I grew up in Atlanta, and learned to read from the pages of the Atlanta Constitution. The left column of the front page was reserved for Ralph McGill, at the time a legend in journalism. He crusaded for political and social justice, for tolerance, and a free society. My goal in life was set by the time I was seven: I wanted to be a journalist, write for the Constitution, and change the world.

Well, as fate would have it, I did grow up and become a writer for the Constitution. However, Ralph McGill had died, and his heir, Eugene Patterson, had moved south to make the St. Petersburg Times one of the premier papers in the country despite its small size. The Constitution had been taken over by Cox Enterprises, now one of the major communications monopolies in the nation and even then a souless and gray corporation. If I wanted to change the world, a change in career had to come first.

The submersion of the Atlanta Constitution into insignficance was an early portent of the eventual demise of print media. It has not died yet, but it has entered the end times. The primary culprit for the media at large is the same as it was for the Atlanta papers: the hostile corporate takeover of a free press. News pages are sanitized so as to not offend the sensibilities of Wall Street Boards of Directors. Columns and editorials are written to advance the interests of the elite, and not of the populace. There are brief shining moments, usually in the news pages of the Washington Post and the editorials of the New York Times, but they are becoming few and far between. By and large, the print media has abandoned its essential function of providing independent oversight of the doings of the great and powerful, so as to allow members of the public a chance to have input into outcomes of great concern to the nation.

The world I grew up in barely exists. Like many others, I dreamed of becoming a newspaper reporter the way that others would dream of becoming a cowboy or train engineer. There was romance, tradition, a sense of fighting against the odds, and, as it turned out, there was fatalism as well.

And even though this represents the death of a dream, it was a childhood fantasy after all, and I've put many of these aside without regret. I find that I have few tears for the passing of journalisim as I knew it. It is far too entertaining to watch the emergence of new forms of media. The mind of man (and woman) is an amazing thing, and, like nature, it abhors a vacuum. So instead of print broadsides, we have Internet blogs, talk radio, a renaissance of political books representing all permutations of conservative, moderate and liberal thought, and fake TV that presents more accurate assessments of the world than the "real" network TV does.

It's just the tip of the volcano. The conservative camp has commandeered talk radio, while the liberal intellectuals have discovered the power of the Internet, but each factor is taking note of the other's success, and planning accordingly. There are think tanks on both sides of the aisle, and impassioned (if often uninformed) debate on major issues in virtually every living room. More outlets of expression and news dissemination open up each day.

I had a lot of dreams as a child. Some have come true. Others have fallen by the wayside. Still others have opened up when I thought I had no dreams left, and they have often become the most enduring. Throughout it all, I have learned to embrace the present, and welcome the future, as long as I keep doing everything in my power to keep the dreams of political and social justice, tolerance, and a free society alive also.

Government by the Unbelievers

2006-07-10T09:56:00.000-05:00

A lot has been said about the strong ties between the religious faithful and the Republican Party. There has been a strong push to ground our laws and Constitution in the Biblical intrepretations espoused by a narrow slice of the Christian right. Inroads by the morally self-righteous are trending toward the creation of a government by the believers.

While James Dobson is welcome to disagree with me, I don't think this movement will result in a theocracy. Even the most conservative courts balk at the complete disintegration of the wall between church and state, and the public is getting tired of all the selective Bible-thumping. If we are to be Christian, surely providing a safety net to our most vulnerable citizens has to be in there somewhere. The majority of citizens are not lined up in support of programs that cut the supports for children in need and students trying to get a college education.

Unfortunately, we may come a lot closer to destroying social programs than even our Republican Congress, state legislature and court systems would take us. The power grab by the executive branches of both our nation and state has extended beyond warrantless surveillance programs and illegal camps for "detainees" both in Cuba and in Eastern Europe. Those placed in charge of domestic programs have been equally effective in sabotaging the will of the people as expressed in Congressional laws and budgets.

Bloggers and pundits have occasionally disected George Bush's appointments within such agencies as Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration (and a long list of others). Such positions are invariably filled by people who have either relentlessly campaigned for the destruction of these departments, or whose incompetence ensures that these agencies will function poorly, if at all.

Those of us in the trenches of social services know that it goes much deeper than that. Both national and Florida Bush administrations have a deep antipathy toward helping anyone but multi-millionaires, and their appetite for eliminating assistance to the indigent and struggling members of society goes beyond what even the ultra-right wing Congressmen and legislators can bring themselves to accomplish.

So they use their administrative powers to override budget allocations and popular programs. Subsidized child care is one example. Most Americans believe it is in the best interest of the country to provide quality child care for parents who work in minimum-wage jobs. Done correctly, subsidized child care could expose children to ideas, vocabularies and concepts that they are not likely to witness in families hounded by financial and social stress. These programs could hold the answer to breaking generational cycles of poverty and despair.

However, they are not functioning in this manner. For one thing, neither Congress nor state legislators will allocate sufficient funds for child care workers to receive anything above minimum wage, or get benefits other than FICA. Thus, our child care workers are drawn from the same class of undereducated, stressed members of society as the children they serve. Turnover is horrendous, as staff workers leave as soon as they can get a better-paying job at the local fast-food burger emporium. Child care works when children are exposed to stable caregivers who choose their careers rather than land in them by default. We are a long way from that goal, and pulling further away by the day.

But this state of affairs is not eviscerating subsidized child care programs fast enough, so our state government has moved to speed the process. The Orwellian double speak by which this is being done rivals the brilliance of the Clean Air and Healthy Forest Acts. In our case, we have moved toward "local control" of subsidized child care programs by setting up an extra management layer (whose control of child care dollars and direction is tightly regimented), without increasing the funds necessary to pay for the additional overhead. Then we renamed the program, first as "school readiness" and then as "early learning," and embraced the rhetoric of demanding quality and accountability to ensure that our little ones were receiving the proper attention and care.

No one could ever possibly object to quality and accountability in programs serving small children. But the rhetoric and the administrative regulations are not really designed to improve quality and accountability. Instead, they are set up to do the following:

1) Set up programs for failure, by demanding outcomes impossible to achieve or measure. For instance, local coalitions must demonstrate that all dollars spent result in improved outcomes for children. That sounds terrific, but exactly how does one do this? Coalitions are mandated to provide training for child caregivers. It is not enough to prove that the caregivers know more about each subject area when they leave as they did when they came in; they have to prove they applied the knowledge learned and that this had a measurable effect on the individual children in their care. Major universities with enormous research grants have struggled with this issue. Local coalitions with no resources cannot possibly measure such intangibles.

2) Insist that all child caregivers assess enrolled children as to strengths and weaknesses in school readiness at least twice a year. These assessments cannot be checklists, but must be exhaustive and thorough. Again, this is a great idea, but the recommended assessments have proven difficult for providers in college settings to perform adequately. Not many child care centers are staffed with college graduates looking to make $6.50 an hour. Further, these assessments must be compiled and used to direct future child care iniatives. Naturally, there is no funding for this either.

3) Require that Coalitions spend 4% of their overall dollars on quality initiatives, while serving ever increasing numbers of children with the same total dollar amount as was appropriated five years ago. Thus, the pressure on wages is ever downward, and the ability to turn even a modest profit on child care is restricted even further. Quality depends less on the number of computers in a toddler classroom, and more on the nurturing and creative capacity of the caregiver.

As in the case of the No Child Left Behind Act, providers who cannot meet ever more stringent and unfunded mandates are penalized through even greater reductions in available resources.

The same basic premise underlies the administration of every social service program I touch. The national government pledges to reduce homelessness, and does so by redefining homelessness to discount the majority of those who are living on the streets (you would be surprised to know that homeless families are not homeless according to the federal definition, because they are accompanied). More people, and particularly children, are deemed ineligible for Medicaid every year. Targets for mental health programs are set at insanely (pun intended) high levels, while the funding for services is ever more constricted.

Thus, the movement to eliminate the social safety net goes on under the radar, but is relentless for all that. It is time to acknowledge what happens when government is administered by the very people who don't believe in it at all, but rather consider it an opportunity to plunder by the well-to-do and well-connected. We pass on deficits to future generations, while ensuring they lack the preparation and skills necessary to handle the debt load.

Government by religious believers is problematic. Government by unbelievers is devastating.

Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

2006-06-23T16:29:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have been amazing. I watched my younger daughter get married, and it was one of the happiest events I have ever attended. I wasn't even the only one who thought so. All the wedding guests were dancing, laughing, hugging, crying. We are full of confidence and hope for the new couple.

The week after that I attended a state-wide conference and received the award for "outstanding advocate" working on behalf of victims of sexual assault in Florida. This is the only award given to professionals in the field, so that was pretty overwhelming as well.

Then I came back home, and started back to work. This was not such an uplifting experience. Rather, it was more along the line of opening an over-stuffed closet and having everything fall on your head.

Still, I'm back, and I'm writing. All must be well in the world. Well, except for Bill Nelson's stand on the estate tax, which he proudly took on the side of the uber-rich. Fortunately, enough other Democrats have sufficient compassion to worry more about the uber-poor, and the measure was defeated. However, it will rise again in the near future.

As is often the case with my blog posts, this one is based on various discussions I've had with friends and acquaintance. It started with the age-old question: I am a nice guy, I respect women, I would not dream of hurting anyone or forcing sex where it was not wanted (or even if there was a question of failure to consent). Why am I single, when all these thugs out there seem to have women hanging off of them?

This question comes up a lot, along with the companion question: I am a nice girl, intelligent, competent, caring. Why am I alone? These questions are asked frequently because they touch a nerve. There is a lot of truth to them.

The first time I heard the male version was from a man attending one of our domestic violence offender groups, which I thought a rather odd setting. He clarified the situation by adding: "It seems like women only respect you if you rough them up some," thus showing his confusion between the definitions of fear and respect.

However, since then I've heard it repeated by men and women who are truly lovely people: attractive, intelligent, kind, unassuming and full of good humor. They have every quality one would list if one were dreaming up an ideal mate. Except that they don't have a mate, nor any prospect of one.

If there is an expert answer to this, I don't know what it is, but I have my suspicions.

First, the men who do truly respect women are aware that many men do not. They assume women realize that large numbers of men hold women in low esteem. Women may recognize this, but when it comes to the men they know personally, they don't think it applies. Sure, John may not respect women in general, but he respects me. Thus, I am singled out and special. Other women may think that yes, men don't generally respect other women, because they are catty or petty or unattractive. However, I am intelligent, attractive, and sparkling, so they all hold me in high regard. Other women are just oblivious. They respect men and women as individual human beings with something positive to offer, and can't concieve that other people may think differently. The men who genuinely treat women with respect view respect as a rare and desirable trait, while the women who are receiving the respect are taking it as the norm, and thus, nothing to boast about.

Second, we start determining who attracts us and who does not somewhere early in middle school. This is a bad starting place. No one in middle school has much in the way of self-confidence. Even the most healthy, well-integrated personalities fall apart under the pressure of the pre-teen and early teen years. Yet everyone is desparate for self-confidence, and to be accepted by their peers. They are highly attracted to persons who seem to have already conquered these goals.

So who are these highly desirable people? Generally, it's the people who "have the confidence" to break rules, take action with little regard for consequences, and to be hurtful to others. To an uncertain 11-year-old, these peers are the ultimate of cool. Thus, the boys and girls who are callous toward others, and bully those who are weak, tend to be the most popular in school.

This standard haunts us as we grow older. Eventually most of us discard the idea that people who are deliberately hurtful are glamorous, but we still cling to the idea that we can identify the leaders, those with confidence and surety, by external standards. We become attracted to people who are decisive (how good the decisions are is irrelevant) and self-centered enough to use others to further their own goals. Women too often see these qualities as indicative of strength, and thus feel protected and safe with the very people they are most likely to need protection from. Men can view women with these qualities as dangerous and exciting, and thus highly attractive.

So should "nice" men and women change, and become rougher and selfish? Obviously not, as they would be betraying their own values and attempting to become something they are not. Facades are rarely convincing over the long term, and people who create them do not enhance their appeal. What they can do, however, is change their attitudes as to why they date, and who. People who date others for the pleasure of getting to know another human being, as opposed to starting an affair, can have the fun of exploring lots of personality types, and eventually finding one that clicks. And along that line, perhaps seeking women and men to date who are intriguing as opposed to "hot" or sexy might lead to more interesting results as well.

There are no guarantees to the above. While I have many job descriptions, dating counselor is hardly one of them. I've been married 33 years, so I'm as far removed from a dating scene as one could get. Still, getting to know a variety of human beings can't be a bad thing. You can never have too many friends, even when you are 40 years out of middle school.

Democrat by Name; Republican by Everything Else

2006-06-04T00:13:00.000-05:00

I was skimming through the news (though why I think this will help me get to sleep I don't know) when I noted that Senator Bill Nelson is planning on voting for the repeal of the estate tax, or the alternative "compromise" that would exempt estates of $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples, and place a lid of 15% on the amounts beyond those limits for estates greater than those amounts.

There are a lot of crocodile tears about the "death tax" and its effect on family farms, but in point of fact no family farm has had to be sold due to estate taxes, and only 50 in the nation would be affected by this legislation. This is purely another demonstration of greed by the Bush administration and its ultra-wealthy base, providing a tax break to only .01% of the population (and a significant tax break to only those persons with over $2 million a year in income), while adding another $70 billion to our national deficit.

It's interesting that the offsetting tax hike was a $1 billion levy designed to increase taxes on teenagers' college savings accounts.

Senator Nelson is virtually unopposed this year, since Katherine Harris is more of an asset to his campaign than an opponent. He does not have to cower in fear of the Republican Party, which has very little respect and strength left in Florida. He has defended his record in the past by saying that he has to be "Republican light" in order to stay in office, but at this point in time there is no reason not to vote his principles. It would be a shame to think that his principles include transferring ever increasing amounts of wealth to the capital class, at the expense of 99% of the American people, their children and grandchildren.

Senator Nelson is typical of many Southern and Mid-western Democratic leaders (and the Democratic Leadership Council) that think the best Democratic strategy is to out-
Republican the Republican Party. I can't imagine why these people think that voters would prefer a faux-Republican over the real thing. If you must have a Republican, might as well go for the real deal. And yet, this remains the prevailing conventional wisdom among Democratic leaders, and it has led to such appalling sights as Hilary Clinton sponsoring an amendment to ban flag-burning, a completely non-existent crisis. It's pandering at its worst (well, maybe not as bad as McCain hopping in bed with Jerry Falwell, but it's pretty bad).

When the nation was almost evenly divided, this may have made sense. The idea was not to offend anyone who might vote for you, as each vote was critically important. The idea didn't work, but at least it had some logic. The polls were the Democratic Bible, and we swore an oath on every one that came out.

This year, however, these same Democrats who coached the life out of John Kerry based on focus groups and opinion polls, are acting as though they haven't seen a poll in months. They are still plotting to bring down the strength of the Republican Party, and have overlooked the detail that such strength no longer exists.

Republican incompetence, greed, disdain for anyone who has to actually work for a living, concern over loss of civil liberties, and most of all dogged insistence on more of the same in the appallingly disastrous war in Iraq has thoroughly decimated the Republican Party. The Harris poll puts support for Bush at 29% and Cheney at 10%. I don't think we need to worry about ticking these people off any more.

This year the Democrats have two concerns: ensure the accuracy and credibility of the electoral process (no more non-auditable counts) and then get out the votes by hammering on the difference between Democrats and Republicans - because a difference is what people are looking to find.

The one poll result that legitimately brings concern to the Democratic leadership is that the public is not a great deal fonder of Democratic control of Congress than Republican control, though the tilt toward Democrats is growing ever stronger. But the reason why it remains weak and soft is that the public is uncertain that the Democrats are any more likely than Republicans to get us out of Iraq, restore fairness to the tax code, reduce the deficit, place spending where it needs to be to protect the vulnerable and fragile members of society, and start restoring our civil liberties.

One small leap in that direction could be made by Senator Nelson, as he breaks ranks with his Republican friends, and votes as a Democrat against the estate tax repeal. It would send a message that Democrats are unified, and ready to defend the vast majority of hard-working Americans. Not a bad message to send, if we ever hope to truly effect change.

Picking Up Speed on the Slippery Slope

2006-05-28T21:28:00.000-05:00

I read a lot of political blogs, so I have never felt compelled to offer my thoughts on a number of hot topics. I know that anyone who wants to see what the reaction is to this, that or the other political outrage can find many sources elsewhere.

However, I have been stunned at the absolute silence on the subject of General Hayden's confirmation as head of the CIA, by a vote of some impossible number like 75-15. This is the very person who has overseen the NSA's lurch into warrantless surveillance despite the many easy routes for gaining warrants up to 72 hours after the wiretapping has begun; the stockpiling of data taken from billions of domestic phone calls; the person who, when asked about the 4th amendment, denied that half of it exists.

Let's couple this with the fact that this is a military man heading a civilian agency, in a country that has already gone wildly militaristic, and the picture that then emerges is hardly comforting. How are we so blase?

There is a lot of talk about freedom and liberty in my part of the country. However, the definitions attached to these terms are not those that I am familiar with. Apparently freedom means the ability to impose our military might across the globe. It does not mean reading, understanding or upholding the Bill of Rights.

Apparently there seems to be a general consensus here that the executive branch is the embodiment of our country, and the stronger the executive, the stronger the country. Additional confusion arises from our definition of strength as being he who can swagger and boast and trample over others the best. It is best if the persons being trampled are from other countries and cultures, but if a few million people in our own country get trampled also, well, that's the price we pay for freedom. And after all, if those people who are objecting didn't have anything to hide, why should they mind the government's prying?

Obviously, I find a few flaws in this reasoning. Strength is not measured by notches on your belt, but on intelligence, understanding, and the ability to collaborate with others for solutions that provide the greatest benefit to the maximum number of people. Freedom is defined by respect for individual liberties. None of us are any freer than the most vulnerable of our neighbors. If one person can be violated without repercussion or consequence, who is there to stop the next person, perhaps marginally less vulnerable, from the same kind of attack?

Which brings me back to the concept of placing a military man who apparently has never read the Bill of Rights in charge of governmental espionage. The Constitution and laws of our country are trifles to this man, easily swatted away. Congress seems to have no desire to correct this opinion. Thus, Congress continues to follow a pattern of conceding power to the executive whenever the executive chooses to make a power grab. Why Congress still supports a power-mad president, when over 70% of the country gave it up a long time ago, is something that no amount of political reading and research on both sides of the aisle will clarify for me.

Still, there are courts. Theoretically, we have one check left in our system of checks and balances, if the executive appointments to the federal courts have left anyone with a backbone in office. We know Mr. Alito believes in a dictatorial executive, but perhaps Mr. Roberts may yet come to shiver at the idea of an all-powerful unitary executive. In Marbury vs. Madison, the single greatest precedent defining the role of the courts, our first chief justice, John Marshall, ruled that the court was the final arbiter of the law, no matter what the president might think (thus nullifying 750 signing statements issued by our current president). Also, it was held that Congress may not cede its Constitutional powers to the president, nor may either the president or Congress abrogate rights and powers that belong to the people, as enumerated in the Constitution and its amendments.

It is a scary world indeed when our hope for halting the increasingly rapid encroachment of the government into our civil liberties rests with persons such as Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito (it is nightmarish just to write those words), but the world can work in mysterious ways. Let's hope at least one of these less-than-distinguished gentleman finds his way back to the Bill of Rights, and halts our rapid descent down the rabbithole.

A Song Sung in Two Parts

2006-05-13T23:29:00.000-05:00

The hot topic at our house lately has been the difference between male and female communication styles. My husband was astounded to learn that women and men often speak a different language. Note that this is man who has a sister, a wife of 33 years standing, and three adult daughters. He and I, along with our oldest daughter and son, have spent several evenings trying to form a bridge. Fortunately, our son is equally adept at both communication styles, and has done a marvelous job as translator.

As it happened, two of the therapists (both male) at my agency went on vacation last week, and I had agreed to cover their groups Thursday night. One group consisted of 15 domestic violence offenders; the other was a group of 20 sexual offenders. Since clear communication styles were on my mind, I decided to make that the theme of the evening.

I started with a film on how girls and boys are raised differently, even in the same house. It starts day one in the nursery: research has shown that babies wrapped in blue blankets are held and spoken to differently than the babies in pink blankets. Boys are urged to "be tough" and mask emotion; girls are urged to "be nice." Teachers allow boys to interrupt with questions and comments; girls are expected to raise their hands and take turns.

However, the most profound and lasting differences are rooted in the way boys and girls are expected to play. Boys play team sports, with rigid hierarchies, defined rules, specific goals, and the expectation that play continues until someone wins and someone loses. Girls play dolls and dress up, games where the "rules" are made up as the game goes along, there are no winners and losers, and the focus is more on working out relationship issues.

As adults, these differences emerge in a host of ways. Men in the work force, for example, know who is the boss and can follow the chain of command down to its tiniest permutations. They know which of the persons serving on an executive staff are more executive than others, and who should be given preference. Thus, they know who to accept orders from, and who to command. When given direction from their boss, they move quickly to meet his or her specifications. Likewise, when they issue instructions, they expect to see them carried out efficiently and without any backchat.

Women in the work force tend to view everyone as having value in their job functions, and to assume that the work force works best when each person brings their expertise to the table and hammers out a decision based on multiple sources of input. When given instructions, they are likely to ask questions and make suggestions as to how the project can be handled most effectively. One of the largest contributing factors to the "glass ceiling" is the male interpretation of this attitude as being insubordinate, and detrimental to rapid functioning.

Communication issues affect every aspect of life. Men consider conflict a part of every day life, often enjoy it, and rarely allow it to get in the way of friendships and business relationships. After all, if you have played sports all your life, you are familiar with the concept of fighting tooth and claw until the whistle blows, and then all going out together for pizza and soda. Women generally have a horror of conflict, and will create all kinds of strategies to avoid it, even with people they would never consider friends. Indeed, I am unfailingly pleasant to women I pretty much despise, and they return both favors.

On a personal level, I believe these differences are more frustrating to men than women. Women complain that men don't communicate often enough, men think, okay, I can engage in a discussion, and pick an issue that requires a decision. Instantly the men move into debate mode, where the goal is to win at all costs. Women are not interested in conversations that necessarily produce a loser, and back away. The communication ends with everyone coming away feeling like they have lost, and the chance for real communication is missed.

Now obviously, not all men nor all women fit into these modes. Women are playing more and more competitive team sports as girls, and men are quite capable of recognizing female speech patterns and joining in.

But still, the styles hold true for large groups of men and women, and particularly resonated in my offender groups. Like my husband, only in a much more extreme fashion, they were flabbergasted at the idea that women might well resent conflicts over the color of the carpet, and hold a grudge when the man ended up bringing home blue carpet when the woman wanted green, because after all, he won the debate. Several of them were able to connect their insistence on making each issue a debate with their subsequent conviction for rape. Consent coerced after seemingly endless argument and verbal assault turns out not to be consent at all.

On a personal level, my husband tends to enter a discussion convinced that he has the better argument, and if I don't agree, it's because I don't understand it. I tell him I understand him perfectly well, and yet still maintain my own viewpoint. Since he is absolutely convinced of the merit of his position, he decides that I just think I understand, because if I REALLY understood I would come around to his way of thought. So he just keeps repeating himself over and over until I say "fine, if that's what you are going to do regardless of my opinion, go ahead." He interprets that as consent, and is stunned when I am unhappy with his ensuing course of action. After all, I did say the words "go ahead." Thus, the argument ended with my consent, the conflict was nicely resolved, and everyone should be heading out to the pizza parlor.

Understanding that there are different ways of expressing thoughts and ideas does not necessarily make communication easier. Like most women, I am quite capable of deciphering "guyspeak." After all, it tends to be very direct and didactic. I have also been completely aware of the fact that my husband has no idea of what I am trying to say, and have recognized that the difficulty arises from my inability to respond in the same language. I'm completely capable of doing this in work, where I move in and out of both languages all the time. But having been trained to communicate in a way that nurtures rather than batters relationships, I can't move out of that pattern in the most significant relationship in my life. By some perverse natural law, this backfires rather amazingly.

The greatest hope for our household is that we have two men living in our house (one being my son and the other a family friend) who are gifted in both male and female communication styles. We have been engaging them in our dialogues, and amazing progress is being made.

Perhaps our society will be transformed by other gifted persons, those girls playing soccer and basketball as passionately as do their male counterparts, and those men who care for women who have taken the time to learn "girlspeak" and to honor its intent and purpose. I think of the male therapists who work in our agency, and the men who are entering and enriching traditionally female occupations such as teaching and nursing.

It will be particularly nice when I don't need to facilitate sex offender treatment groups, because there won't be any men who don't realize that coerced agreement is no agreement at all.

Abstinence

2006-04-29T10:26:00.000-05:00

I am constantly being amazed at what I read in our local newspaper and see on our TV. No, the ultra-reactionary editorials, columns and letters don't astonish me, nor the interesting slant given to the news. Ann Coulter is considered a left-wing nut in this area, so I'm pretty numb to knee-jerk idiocy.

What fascinates me is to learn that I am an expert in such a wide array of subjects. I have been in the media as an advocate for the poor and homeless, a resource for sexual asault and domestic violence victims, children's welfare issues, substance abuse prevention, even on mental health issues connected with hurricane recovery. On one memorable occasion, I was quoted on the front page of the paper on a court case that I had not realized had been scheduled, much less resolved, and which took place when I was 1500 miles away. Today I claim fame as an opponent of abstinence-only education.

Obviously, no one can possibly be an authority in this many fields, and my popularity among the media set stems from my ability to dig up valid research quickly and summarize it in a few succinct, quotable phrases. The fact that there isn't much of a liberal or even moderate opinion pool to draw from around here, and that I don't mind being identified as a liberal, is also key.

The advantage to being frequently called upon is that it gives me the chance to truly consider topics that otherwise would fly under my radar. Up to this point I have always considered abstinence-only education a waste of breath, based on "science" that is on a par with creationism. What I hadn't stop to contemplate is how dangerous abstinence-only education is.

Of course I know that abstinence-only proponents make wild claims of 40% failure rates with condoms, and HIV-transmission through sweat and tears, and wildly exaggerated risks of other forms of birth control. I also know that abstinence revivals have much in common with big-tent church revivals: it's easy to get caught in the moment and swear your pledge to virginity and the Bible, but even easier to lose the glow as soon as true temptation raises its head. True reform and change are rarely accomplished in an instant.

And although I didn't know the exact figures, I was hardly surprised to find out that 88% of teens taking a vow of abstinence break it within a year. Since these teens have been told, and believe, that protection is dangerous and ineffective, they then are subject to significantly elevated risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (both of which carry fairly grave consequences for the very young). Sadly, this may register with many as being a good reason to include more comprehensive forms of sex education, but not with abstinence-only proponents. Proponents tend to be more punitive in their world view than I am, and they feel that pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are God's wise and considered judgment on those who flout abstinence-only vows.

The danger I did not readily acknowledge is the inclusion of abstinence-only education in our science classes, because this is where it is usually presented. Apparently there is no limit to the desire to treat science as a faith-based ideology, subject to dispute by other faith-based ideologies. The notion of evidence-based theories that can be reliably tested and replicated is considered something that only airy-fairy college professors care about. Such arcane notions are not relevant to the real world, which is a polarized war zone to be conquered by the loudest, most inflammatory orators.

One of the most widely quoted excerpts from Ron Suskind's book on the Bush presidency has VP Dick Cheney waving away the quaint notions of a "reality-based community."

"We make our own reality," said Cheney.

If there has been one true statement from this administration, this would be the one. The Bush administration has consistently attempted to impose its own, fantasy-based "reality" upon the rest of the world. Given the results, you might think that the Bushies and everyone else would have retreated from this position, but instead it has become more entrenched.

Predictably, it has only been entrenched in the mind-set. The world stubbornly refuses to go along, and keeps plugging away in a reality-based sphere. The fact that I don't believe in the oak tree in my front yard will not keep it from shedding leaves, and the fact that a large number of zealots don't believe in evolution is not stopping species change and adaptation. Many lay people still refuse to acknowledge global warming, but the ice caps are melting just the same, and the hurricanes get more catastrophic every year.

Biblical reactionaries fight to get abstinence-only education in the classroom not only as an expression of religious views and a further weakening of the boundaries between church and state, but as a way to cast yet more doubt on scientific research and understanding. They speak of a "war on Christmas" while waging an assault on reason and intellect. For those of us who would prefer to raise our children in a society that can compete in a global economy, this is frightening. For those who think the end times are coming next year, it hardly matters what destruction is unleashed in the year after that.

Still, it matters to me. So I'll keep sending out my blue notes from the red zone, and hoping to keep a small flame lit on the altar of our God-given minds and revealed intellectual truths.

Against All Odds

2006-04-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

My cousin's wife has been publishing stories of a very different kind than the ones I post. I write about the generic, she focuses on her very personal struggle against cancer. As a result, she probably reaches hearts in a way I can't come close to duplicating. I asked her permission to excerpt this and publish it on my website, but then decided I didn't know where to cut. It would be like editing her, and I want every bit of her to shine through. It's long, but no longer than it needs to be. Hope you like it.

By Lisa Majors
GUEST WRITER

It's amazing how words can change your life.

"I do."

"It's a boy!"

And, most recently, "You have cancer."

My journey with cancer began in 2005 when at the ripe young age of 47 I set out to lose weight. This was something that I had wanted to do for a long time. I became serious about it, changed my eating habits and the weight started coming off. I reached my ideal weight, and I was happy about that, but instead of feeling great I felt awful. I was tired, out of breath, had no appetite and was in quite a bit of pain.

What had been an occasional dull abdominal ache had become a constant cramp-like pain. It was time to visit the doctor. Besides, I was past due for a general physical.

When the day came for my appointment, I was nervous. I had a feeling that something was very wrong. I brought my husband along with me for reassurance.

It was a first-time visit with the doctor. He was great, very patient and reassuring. We chatted for a few minutes and I told him a little bit about myself and the symptoms I had been experiencing. He told me my blood work showed I was severely anemic. In fact, he was surprised I was even able to walk in there. No wonder I was feeling so tired and was out of breath. I didn't have the needed red blood cells to carry enough oxygen.

The doctor proceeded with a very careful and thorough physical examination during which he felt a rectal mass. Not good. He left for a minute while the nurse took X-rays of my lungs. Then he met with us and told us that the mass needed to be checked out and that he had called a local colon surgeon and made an appointment for us.

I expected this to be soon, a day or two later maybe, but no, we were to go right then and take the X-rays with us. I asked when the appointment was. He told me the appointment was “when you get there!” This was all happening so fast and sounding very ominous, so I asked him what it could be. He said it could be a number of things but one of them might be cancer so we needed to check it out now. Off we went to the colon doctor. A quick look at the X-rays and he scheduled me for a colonoscopy the following week. Things were happening entirely too fast, but they needed to.

The following week, I went in for my colonoscopy. The news was not good. I learned that I had stage 4 colon cancer that had metastasized to my liver and lungs. He also informed me that the tumor was not operable and asked if we knew a good oncologist.

Actually, we did. My uncle had been treated for prostate cancer a few years back, and the family was very impressed with his doctor. So we called him and had an appointment almost immediately. He told me about the cancer, but he said there was much he could do to prolong my life and improve the quality of my life.

So I began fighting back and it felt great! I had to get blood before I started on chemo but about two weeks later I was getting the treatment. It was a great choice for me because I responded strongly. I finished seven treatments when my oncologist and colon surgeon agreed that my tumor was now operable. I was told the operation would probably mean that I would have a colostomy. That was not a problem to me! I wanted this operation. Get this outta me! I had surgery in January.

Again I was blessed with a gifted surgeon and he took that tumor out. After a little recovery time the next step was 25 radiation treatments along with more chemo to keep the main tumor from coming back. During all of this I began to feel better. Since surgery, my weight is back up to where it needs to be. I feel great and there are very few things I can’t do. The next stage of my journey (which my oncologist calls a marathon; I love that description especially since only eight months ago I thought I was losing a sprint) is more chemotherapy which will begin in three weeks.

I am ready to continue to fight my cancer. I’m more than ready. I know that things can get rough, but those nasty little mean cells have found the wrong body to inhabit.

What is my prognosis?

My prognosis is that right now, today, I am living with cancer, and tomorrow I will live with it too, and the day after that, and the day after that, as long as it takes. I don’t look at statistics. I know how I feel, and I can live this day, and that’s all that matters. That and the fact that I can get stuff for next Easter on sale right now.

I have a loving family that encourages and embraces me. They are extremely supportive. We had 17 people (15 people and two ministers) in the surgery waiting room. I also have a very strong church family and I feel so thankful for that. In fact, all of the cards that I’ve received from friends, family and even people I don’t know are now hanging on my wall in my bedroom. They take up almost half of my room and every morning when I first wake up, the first thing I see are all the cards that I’ve received. These are from people that have expressed their care and continue to pray for me. How humbling! I’m reminded each and every day of just how lucky I am.

It’s through my strong faith in God, family support and one heck of a medical team that I’m here. Life is soooooo good.

One special card stands out. It’s from my sister-in-law. It’s a beautiful picture of a 10th century Austrian castle wall. The massive stones are hand-cut and closely fit together, yet a wonderfully hearty rose vine is growing through the wall. It is in full bloom. Below this she put a quote from Jim Wallis:

“Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.”

That kinda says it all, doesn’t it?

Against the Tide

2006-04-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

To begin with, this post is definitely of the "flogging a dead horse" variety. If there is an issue I'm having a lot of trouble getting over, it's that of sexual politics. First of all, it informs our lives more than most issues do. Second, it's very hard to ignore if a large portion of your work week is devoted to sexual assault awareness education and rape prevention.

No topic that I speak on, and I speak on plenty, stirs as much reaction as rape. If you wish to believe that we do not live in a society riddled with misogyny, this should not be your field of endeavor. The anger and viciousness behind many of the comments is breath-taking.

A week or so ago I was speaking to a group of school resource officers. I wasn't even attempting to discuss the need for sensitivity when dealing with rape victims, or outline why having sex with an unconscious woman is by definition rape. My entire spiel was simply to describe sexual assault prevention programs in the schools, and suggest ways that my staff could collaborate with school resource officers.

It would have been safer to go up against a pack of feral, snarling dogs. The faces turned toward me were hostile and menacing, and I could not string two words together about mentoring programs for at-risk girls without being interrupted with statements of "fact" such as how 95% of all women who claim to be raped are lying; how men who are falsely accused of rape are ruined for all time, but women get off scot-free; how women who have sex with underage boys are treated with kid gloves, but men who have sex with underage girls are persecuted mercilessly, and yes, how those teenage girls have it coming to them anyway.

I get the same reaction from at least a minority of those present at every venue, from the local health departments to the military bases. I learn that men have to band together because it's "bros over hos," meaning that men have to protect themselves from lying, conniving women even if it means lying and conniving themselves.

What saddens me the most, however, is that so few women are decent caretakers of each other. A highly talented and gifted rape prevention educator uses a film taken from the TV show "20/20" of a 14-year-old girl who sneaks out of the house to attend a party given by boys of the fast, popular set. She drinks, gets sick, and finds herself in a 16-inch pool of blood, the victim of a gang rape. Very few people, men or women, who view this film think that the boys (one of whom is 18) have anything but minor culpability for this situation. The men blame the girl, but the women want to flay her alive. This young girl crept out of bathroom window, she drank, she made herself vulnerable. How could the boys do anything but take advantage? They can't think of one negative thing to say about the boy who instigates the rape, then turns on his "friends" to avoid jail time, but they can raise hell about the nerve of the girl who led these boys on and then called the police.

Listening to women, especially those working in male-dominated environments, is very depressing. Women hear men putting women down all the time, and think to score points by being even harder on their sex than the men are. Men may form teams to support and mentor each other, but there is no corresponding female network. There are men who have more women as friends than men, but they don't see the need to attack men as being unworthy of their time. But women proudly boast of having no female friends, and only attaching to men because they have "superior" conversational styles, are never catty or ugly, and apparently are a purer species altogther.

Many years ago, I was at one of those appalling parties where everyone is supposed to buy something from a vendor so that their friend the "hostess" can win a prize. A woman there introduced herself to me by commiserating with my miserable luck in having three daughters and only one son. She, however, was blessed with three sons and only one daughter. She went on at length about how horrible having a daughter was, and how if she had three of these bitchy, spiteful creatures in her house she would have to jump off a cliff. All I could say was that my heart broke for her daughter, who sadly had no choice of parent.

Obviously, there are many women who are kind to one another, who value their daughters as the gifts that they are, and who treasure their friendships with each other. Just as obviously, there are many men who value and respect women, and who find women are stimulating, passionate and logical.

But the men who seethe with anger at the perceived injustices heaped on men by society, and the women who collude with them, are not isolated cases. They may not rape, but they promote a culture of rape and domestic violence, and a business community still dominated by men who put power above all else.

And I, determinedly cheerful and optimstic as I am, don't have a clue as to how to change it.

Challenges

2006-04-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

Last night a woman I knew in passing 15-20 years ago called looking for help. We haven't spoken since her daughters were in my Girl Scout troops many years ago, but she has kept up with my career through my newspaper op-ed pieces (like the one about sexual assault printed below) and various appearances on TV, radio and in the news.

She talked about heart-breaking experiences that she had endured, and although I have heard variations of her story often, it still moved me to tears. However, it was her reason for seeking me out that shook me the most.

"Ever since I met you," she said, "I have tried to model my life after yours. You never accept the fact that there is anything you can't do. If a thing needs to be done, you just clear out the barriers and the obstacles, and you make it happen."

As someone who, like most of us, feels stymied all the time by things I cannot control, I found this a breath-taking analysis of my character. But I suppose at some level it is true. I do tackle a lot of windmills, and occassionally I come out victorious.

At the moment, I am working toward two major goals: the creation of a rape examination clinc off-site from the hospitals; and the establishment of an emergency homeless shelter and center where homeless persons can find the resources they need to forge a better life. Both of these seemed very far-fetched when I embarked on these crusades, but the clinic is now looking like a distinct possibility, and may start up as early as January, 2007.

The homeless shelter continues to look like a pipe dream. I'm trying to raise funds for a shelter that maybe 10 people in the county (other than the homeless themselves) are in favor of even having, and the rest of the citizens are actively working against. The odds are not looking good. However, nothing will happen if everyone gives up, so I keep holding fund-raisers, and going on TV, and writing newspaper columns, talking on the radio, applying for grants. The amount of money raised to date is pitiful, but it is growing, and maybe it will turn out to be the seed for a fabulous plant. I can only hope.

In the end, hope is all any of us has to go on, from the mother who called me, to the homeless person seeking to stay dry during a storm. It gets us up in the morning thinking: maybe today will be a little easier, maybe today I will be loved, maybe today a promise will unfold. It takes us through the years: if I keep working, my children will have a secure future, my parents will be cared for, my dreams will be realized. We know in our hearts that few of our hopes will ever reach full fruition, but some of them will. And that's enough.

Years ago, my husband gave one of our daughters the horse that had been the center of every thought and prayer for years. I drove her over to the stables, and right before we turned into the drive I said, "sweetheart, sadly, part of growing up is accepting that most of our dreams will never come true. But it's equally important to realize that sometimes, some magical times, they do." And as she sat stunned, seeing her father come into view holding the reins of a palomino quarterhorse, I whispered, "happy birthday, love. Live in hope."

Happy dreams, to all of us.

Spring Break: The Dark Side

2006-04-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I was invited to participate on a review board dealing with a community's response to rapes. The meeting was almost over before it began, since the prosecution representative opened the proceedings with the statement, “We don’t have any rapes to report this month; just a rash of men having sex with underage girls.”

At that point, most of the responders began to pack up their briefcases and head out. Although momentarily startled into silence by the idea that statutory rape wasn't real rape, I found my voice before the first man reached the door. The meeting proceeded, and was quite lively.

This memory came back to me as our beach town began its preparations for spring break. As thousands of college students headed to our coast, hoping for a vacation from term papers and midterms, the likelihood of sexual assault increased drastically. Especially vulnerable are the local high school girls who drop by the beaches to check out the activity and daydream about college guys.

One of the traditions that have grown up around spring activities is the constant presence of alcohol. Various reports from the federal government and the American Medical Assocation estimate that college men on spring break consume an average of 21 drinks per day, while women consume an average of 14. If these figures seem insane, you weren't on the beach from mid-March to mid-April. Of women present during binge drinking activities, 26% report having been sexually assaulted, whether they were drinking or not.

Rape is rape, whether it is occurring to 19-year-old women who have had too many drinks, or to 15 year old girls who are trying desperately to be seen as grown-up and cool, and who may or may not have participated in alcohol consumption. Drinking beer is not equivalent to giving consent to sexual activity, and should never be construed as such, whether the girl drinking is old enough to consent to sex when sober or not.

That said, it still breaks my heart when a young girl’s first experience comes as a result of a forced sex, as happens to 10% of all teenage girls (President’s Report on Abstinence Education). Sexual contact is meant to be a form of communication between loving adults who are in a committed relationship, and are old enough to know what a committed relationship is. Adult men forcing or otherwise coercing sex with teenage girls do not meet that definition.

Yes, I’ve heard that “teenage girls know what’s going down,” and “they want it.” Sometimes, sadly, these girls do know what is going down, because they have been molested or sexually abused as children. This does not give subsequent men a free pass to take advantage of them. And while teenage girls may well want attention, they are not looking for sex with strange men, and they have neither the experience nor the emotional capacity to deal with it. Statutory rape is against the law, because it is a rape of the body, the spirit, and the mind – and a crime in every sense of the word.

Spring break is nearly over now, and while the beach was packed, the amount of alcoholic beverage consumption and rape reports in our town was far less elevated than in years past. This was not true of some of our neighboring communities, where hospital emergency rooms were packed with cases of sexual assault, alcohol poisoning, and accidents caused by loss of judgment. There is an advertising campaign to the effect of "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," but this is not true. The effects of near-death experiences and sexual assaults are souvenirs that hang around a very long time.

Summer is rushing hard upon us, and with it a renewed surge of vacationers. I hope each and every one has a wonderful time, and remembers a different kind of campaign slogan: stay smart, and stay safe.

Nurturing Our Future

2006-03-15T04:32:00.000-06:00

Every year or so, I spend a few months working with early learning coalitions from around the Panhandle, helping them plan their strategies for providing the best possible care for children of indigent families. This is rewarding work, because the women and men in this field are amazingly dedicated, creative, and resourceful. Their dreams help shape the future for thousands of very young children, and they dream big.

Unfortunately, this work is not rewarding for them. In Escambia County, the closest area for which statistics are available, the starting salary for a child care worker in 2003 was $5.60 per hour (the increase in minimum wage has surely driven that number up, though only to $6.15 an hour). Over time, her hourly salary could rise to as much as $6.46. A preschool teacher with a two or four-year degree in early education does somewhat better. She can start at $6.34 an hour, and work her way up to $8.59 (figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as reported by the Center for the Childcare Workforce, http://www.ccw.org). Neither job offers any benefits.

Moving up the ladder does not result in a living wage. The Workforce Development Board estimates that it takes $14.36 an hour for a single person to maintain a minimum existence in our area. The program directors at a local child care resource and referral agency only make about $10.50 an hour.

The reason why child care workers make so little is one of economics: the parents who pay for child care do not have sufficient income to pay child care homes and centers enough money to cover overhead, and the government that subsidizes the children of the working poor does not have the will to do so. But it is a travesty nonetheless.

The result of our wage scale is to leave our children, those small people who carry our hopes into the future, in the care of people who are struggling to exist, and who are forever on the brink of homelessness and despair. It is very hard to provide quality care for other people's children, when you don't know where your own children will be sleeping that night. Staff turnover is extremely high, as even dedicated child care workers have to provide for themselves and their families.

Another issue is the education and skill level of the people who end up taking these jobs. A number of studies have indicated that indigent adults have the same vocabulary and literacy skills of middle-class preschoolers. They lack the ability to speak conversationally, so much of their dialogue with children is "instructional," as in: "no, stop that, don't do that, I said let go." This is not conducive to creating an optimal child care environment.

Compounding the salary issues are the staff-to-child ratios. Each state creates its own laws concerning how many adults are required to care for how many children. As any mother knows, however, it is not possible to provide quality care for the maximum number of children allowed. In Florida, for example, the ratios are as follows: for children from birth to under age one, four children may be assigned to a single staff member; for children from age one to under two, six children may be assigned; for children ages two to under three, 11 children may be assigned; for children ages three to under four, 15 children may be assigned; and for children age four to under five, 20 children may be assigned. Economics means that many, if not most, child care centers assign the maximum number of children allowed.

And finally, child care is one of the least regarded occupations in society, whether it be provided by at-home mothers (I was one for 18 years) or child care professionals. The women, and some few men, who are entrusted with our future are given little respect, and are generally dismissed as nonentities even by their sisters in the "real" workforce.

Many of my more conservative readers will assume that wage scales and work loads and recognition factors matter very little. The idea is that child care workers tend to be women with small children of their own, looking to find a second income for their family that does not entail leaving their own children in the care of others. This is often true of teachers in the preschools catering to the affluent. But it is not true of staff in child care centers, or many of the parents running child care out of their homes. Many of these contribute to the statistics indicating that between 45%-62% (depending on which part of the Florida Panhandle you are studying) of female heads of households with children under five fall under the federal poverty guidelines. Think of the divorce rates, and the number of these single parent homes, before you dismiss those numbers as irrelevant to your own children's future.

If we truly love children, those who live in our house as well as next door, we must do better by the people and agencies that are raising them. It is absolutely true that "quality" child care can be in some instances even more beneficial for children than at-home parental care. It is also absolutely true that you can't reliably get quality child care for $6.15 an hour.

The European model is to provide each child care facility with a stipend for each child, that is in addition to parent fees. Child care facilities accepting children of indigent families are given more. Thus, child care workers and directors have economically viable lives. This may seem like an enormous expense, and I can hear the indignant cries of "nanny state," even as I type. However, is it really more expensive than raising a generation of children who cannot compete in a global economy? And is it less expensive than imprisoning 7% of our population each year?

We hear the platitude, "our children are our future," all the time. It's time to realize this is truth, and act upon it.

Democratic Values

2006-02-26T15:30:00.000-06:00

For years, the Republican Party has pounded Democrats for an alleged inability to come up with clear and cogent guiding principles by which to govern a country. The more disastrous the results of governmental implementation of Republican core beliefs, the louder sounds the gong of "at least we believe in something."

A lot of this comes from people who are intentionally "politically tone deaf," because there are a lot of Democrats who are extremely eloquent about what they stand for and why. But now that catastrophe by Republican administration looms large everywhere, the "mainstream media" has been taking up the cry in op-ed columns and Sunday talk shows on a daily basis. Why this should lend legitimacy to the idea of Democratic incoherency is beyond me, because this is the very same media that was too lazy to deconstruct administration lies about Iraq, the deficit, Social Security, and the nation's preparedness in case of terrorist attack or natural disaster, but there it is.

So for those who want a simple clarification of Democratic values, one that makes for a great sound bite (especially because we hear it as part of everyday life), here it is: "and liberty and justice for all."

How clean is that? And how clear and compelling and accurate? Almost every Democratic value falls under one of those two phrases, and resonates in a way that it simply cannot for the Republican Party.

First there is the word, "liberty." The Republicans proclaim we are spreading liberty throughout the world. This is a highly debatable point, but even were it to be true, it doesn't excuse the fact that we are slamming the door on liberty at home. For some reason, the Bush administration seems to think that freedom is a finite asset, and some people must lose it in order for others to gain it. This is the same kind of logic that assumes that a parent of two children must necessarily love each child less than had he or she just had one child. It's an idiotic assumption.

But, idiotic or not, it is the governing wisdom. We have Homeland Security agents literally peaking over the shoulders of library customers in Falls Church, Virginia, to see whether or not customers are viewing sexually objectionable websites (as opposed to websites that provide instructions on building a bomb). The Attorney General of Kansas has issued an order to all health care providers and social workers that any hints of teen-age sex must be reported to his office, whether the sexual activity took place between two consenting teens or not. We have authorized domestic surveillance operations to intercept millions of phone conversations, using algorithms even their designers do not understand. The Patriot Act has allowed unfathomable accumulation of data on every American citizen, which remains unfathomable because we have no legal right to find out what records are being requested, by whom or why. The federal government emphasis on faith-based initiatives, which has channeled millions of dollars into the hands of Pat Robertson, has given evangelical Christian organizations an enormous advantage over other faiths, and erodes our freedom from a state-sponsored religion.

The Republican Party has dismissed concerns over civil liberties as being "part of the pre-9/11 mindset." But they have not produced a shred of evidence that trampling freedom underfoot has done anything but extend the reach of government. The corollary to this reasoning is that it doesn't matter if the government investigates everyone, as only people with something to hide need fear it. I personally have nothing to hide, but I was alarmed nonetheless when told that all my financial records were being turned over to the government under the Patriot Act. How I spend my money and what charitable causes I support may have some relevance to IRS, but none to Homeland Security, and the broad sweep of this informational data gathering and subsequent data mining is antithetical to a free society.

The Democratic Party remains committed to the idea of a society where freedom of thought, expression, religion, right of assembly and to conduct free commerce is the heart of our republic, and any contraction of those rights must be strongly opposed.

The second part of the pledge, "and justice for all," strikes at my heart specifically. Everywhere I turn I see uncounted examples of injustice, people whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been wholly compromised. I see children growing up in poverty, often targets of sexual and physical abuse, forced to bear children before they themselves have had a chance of childhood. I see victims of rape, raped again by our alleged system of justice, which holds the victim guilty until proven innocent. I see corporations encouraged to run roughshod over employees, consumers, the environment, and small businesses. I see individuals who are marginalized because of race, religion (try saying you are a pagan out loud), and/or place of birth. I see thousands of young, impoverished black men spending the majority of their adulthood in jails, having committed offenses no worse and often of lesser nature than their young white, richer counterparts, who are excused under the axiom, "boys will be boys."

For the Republican party, justice is punitive, and confined to law enforcement. For the Democrats, justice is a broad concept, encompassing the ideals of fair play, a society where rank is based on merit rather than birth, and in which everyone has a honest opportunity to live to his or her maximal potential.

It's time to worry less about freedom and justice in cultures we do not understand, and worry a great deal more about it at home. If we practice our ideals, at home and at abroad, we might find freedom spreading a whole lot faster world-wide.

Equal Rights

2006-02-12T22:01:00.000-06:00

“Well, we share one love, but we’re not the same. We have to carry each other, carry each other…” – Bono

Way back in the last century, when I was a young law student, I spent a lot of my time on foot or on the subways of Washington D.C. It was a wonderful experience. I loved crossing the Key Bridge, skirting the southern rim of Georgetown, passing through the gleaming business districts, heading down Pennsylvania Avenue and cutting across Lafayette Park to my office near the White House. After work, I would continue east, through Chinatown, past the Supreme Court, and over to class. Stepping into Georgetown University’s Law School gave me a thrill each time I crossed the threshold.

Every morning I looked forward to walking through one of the most fascinating cities on earth. The people I saw were endlessly diverse, speaking languages whose origin I could not hope to pinpoint. The seasons were ever-changing, something I have deeply missed as a Floridian. Even when weather forced me into the subways, I was happy to make the trip. There was always some person, some protest, some something to catch the eye and mind.

Sometime during my third year of law school, starting with my fifth month of pregnancy, this routine became a little more onerous. By my seventh month of pregnancy, I was a full-time subway rider. Despite my youth and general good health, even the subway trip became challenging, as I juggled law books, briefs and briefcase against an ever-burgeoning belly. There was never an available seat, and not once did anyone offer to give up their seat for me.

I was complaining about this to a fellow law student, a very nice and earnest young man, and he looked stunned. “Why should you want anyone to offer you a seat?” he asked with great perplexity. “You do believe in equal rights, don’t you?”

I was shocked. “Absolutely I believe in equal rights,” I answered. “I think men should have an equal opportunity to get pregnant, place an additional 20 pounds directly on their lower abdomen, lose their center of balance, put pressure on their backs and bladders 24 hours a day, stand on swollen feet for eight hours working as a law clerk, then struggle with another 30 pounds of books while they seek to find some sort of balance as they cling to a handrail on a train moving 80 miles an hour. However, since we have not yet achieved this glorious day, I think those people who are able-bodied should offer their seats to anyone who may be temporarily or permanently physically disadvantaged, be it through a ski accident, an advanced pregnancy, or the infirmity of old age.”

Chris just gaped at me. “I didn’t realize being pregnant was physically taxing,” he said. “I’ll definitely make it a point to offer pregnant women my seat.”

“Add mothers with babies and toddlers to your list also,” I said.

This incident came back to me as I witnessed an episode involving my daughter and one of her friends. She was struggling with a toddler, a diaper bag, a car seat, a knapsack and a duffel bag, while her friend, a perceptive and insightful young man, was busy elsewhere with less demanding chores. As she finished loading the trunk of the car, she said, “I could have used some help.”

His reply, spoken in jest, was “I thought you believed in equal rights.”

Both Chris and my daughter’s friend are incredibly empathetic and progressive men, who respect women and honor their place in society. But they reflect at least in a small way the difficulty we have all had in determining what the ideal of equal rights should encompass.

When the feminist movement first broke upon the national scene in the 1970s, many men were angered at the idea that they would be competing for top jobs with women. They were unhappy at the idea of egalitarian marriages, and shared responsibilities. But they leaped at the opportunity to abandon any pretense of civility toward women. Apparently it had been trying their nerves for generations not to slam doors in the faces of women who were walking behind them, or to allow pregnant women and elderly couples first opportunity at seats on a bus.

To be fair, there were women who tossed their heads and snorted at men who sought to be polite, saying “I can open my own g__d___ door, you jerk.” But most women were pleased to hold doors open for whoever came behind them, and to thank the people who held doors for them. However, the opportunities for thanking men who did this became rather rare.

Thirty years later, those same men have learned that the feminist movement was the best thing that ever happened to them. The convenience is amazing. Courtesy may easily be abandoned, as women are expected to cope with 15 bags of groceries, three children, and a dog by themselves in the name of equality. Men no longer need to carry the strain of providing for a family by themselves, as women are entitled to work as long and as hard as they do, though for less money. The courtesies attendant upon male/female relationships have been tossed into the trash heap of history, as men expect women to express equal rights to one-night stands and casual encounters. Best of all, the specter of sharing household and childcare responsibilities never actually came to pass. Another young man of my acquaintance can happily plan his “guy room” complete with pool table, video games, sound systems, giant flat-screen TVs, and blink when asked what type of room he planned to reserve for his wife. “She has a room,” he said. “It’s called the kitchen.”

I realize I’m being overly harsh and judgmental. Progress has been made, even if it has seemed to stall over the last five years. Men are more aware of the demands of household life, and many of the younger men I know are fully engaged in meeting them. These same men have learned to value and respect the women in their lives in ways beyond anything their fathers could have imagined. This definitely includes the young men whose jokes I have repeated in order to make a point.

But too many men still seem to equate the idea of equal rights with the idea that women are on their own all the time. Women are left alone with children it took two people to bring into the world, struggling with low-paid jobs and dead-end futures. They struggle with loads too heavy to carry, while men who could easily handle the weight simply look on.

Just because all of us have equal rights, regardless of gender, age, race, religion or culture, does not mean that all of us are exactly the same, or should be. Just because I have the right to pursue the career of my choice does not mean that I have to do it exactly in the same fashion as a man would. A society that grants equal rights is one that provides equal opportunities to realize our fullest potential, in whatever way is best of each of us.

And along with a just society that provides equal rights, it would be nice if we had a kind society in which we look out on an equal basis for each other. Those men and women who are blessed with health and strength can offer their seats to men and women who are in greater need. Those of us, men and women, who have light loads can share the burdens of men and women who are weighed down by books, bags and babies. And all of us, regardless of physical or mental capacity, can choose to pepper our language more with pleasantries than profanity. “Please” and “thank you” still hold more magic than coarse terms associated with bodily functions.

And to all of those men, women and children who have made my life so much more joyous and complete, please accept my sincerest gratitude. Each of you has equal rights to my heart.

For a Friend

2006-01-30T14:03:00.000-06:00

Few topics are as sensitive or as fraught with hidden meaning, as those dealing with relationships between women and men. My own perspective on issues of power and control is itself informed largely by private experience, and thus takes shape as bias on behalf of women. I rationalize this as being but a small drop of water surging against a giant tide of bias on behalf of men, but like all rationalizations, it ultimately fails the test of fairness.

There are several points of clarification I should make. The most important is to place some distance between the generalizations I state, and the men I know. Not all men, perhaps not even the majority, buy into the idea that men should be the dominant partner in male/female relationships. The very best men, those who are confident in their strength and masculinity, believe in equality and mutual respect. They view their girlfriends/ wives/ significant others as full partners in their life journeys, and consider conflict to represent the need for negotiation, not a power struggle.

A second point is that the idea that relationships must ultimately be authoritarian in nature is destructive, whether the man or woman seeks to take control. There are many methods by which humans seek to manipulate one another, and women can be as accomplished in their use as men. Men historically use physical strength, isolation and economic leverage as their primary means of asserting control; women are more apt to use emotional blackmail and the manipulation of children to gain the upper hand. Both genders are unfortunately superb in using verbal abuse, threats, and humiliation. However, no one tactic is the exclusive preserve of a single sex.

A society which buys into the myths that one gender is superior to another, and that all relationships are battlegrounds for dominance (i.e., “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “The War of the Roses,” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,”) hurts all of us, men and women. For me personally, the result was a refusal to fully invest emotionally in my own relationships, thinking the results could not be worth the risks. This has hurt not just me, but the men who have loved me. For others, the result has been physical violence and family abandonment (by either sex), which harms not just the participants, but society as a whole.

As satisfying as it might be to wish for a society in which the tables were turned for a while, and that women were in charge, the gratification of such a wish would be as wrong as the current situation in which men are supposed to be dominant. The result would be the same stress, confusion and poor communication that we have now.

The better hope lies in encouraging the many men and women seeking new and just relationships, in which all parties feel valued and conflict is resolved through communication, compromise and cooperation. We should idolize the men who seek to cherish women, not the Hugh Hefner/ Kobe Bryant/ movie action hero types who seek only to use them. By honoring the men who have the strength and courage to go beyond culturally imposed norms, straight into their own hearts, we validate the women who have struggled to find their best selves as well.

I personally vow to do a better job of honoring the men who have taught me that the greatest strength lies in tenderness, and empathy and compassion are the wellsprings of love for women and men alike.

The More Things Change

2006-01-29T03:04:00.000-06:00

I was fortunate enough to grow up in close proximity to my grandmother, a fount of wisdom in many aspects of life. Most of what she passed down to me was extremely valuable, including her tale of being the first woman to work in an Atlanta bank, and her pride in my intelligence. She made it clear that women should be independent and self-reliant, and that I had the capacity to make a difference in the world.

However, one of her lessons, often repeated and used to reinforce the need for self-efficiency, may not have been quite as benign. When it came to matters of the heart, she was adamant that women needed to be very careful. "For men, love is a thing apart," she would quote. "For a woman, 'tis her whole existence."

From the vantage point of middle age, I think now that what she was trying to convey is that the choice of a mate was even more important to women than to men, and to be very careful in who I selected for that position. But at the time, all I ever heard was that there was a strong power differential in male/female relationships, and men held all the cards. Women were not as valued by men as men were valued by women, and this could not be good.

The culture of my childhood and adolescence, ranging from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, certainly reinforced my interpretation. The teen magazines were dedicated to exploring the best ways to attract boyfriends. The women's magazines were focused solely on promoting ways for women to please men. Television sitcoms depicted these pleasing women as having no identity beyond their roles as wives and mothers. On the other hand, men's magazines were focused on politics, current events, mechanics and science. Those that mentioned women had brown paper wrapped around the cover, and depicted women as objects to be used, not cherished. The chatter from teenage girls certainly made it very clear that boys were the primary reason for existence. I attended an all-girls school where extreme wealth was the norm, and my lack thereof cause for social ostracism. However, I could reverse my social position, at least temporarily, merely by attending school dances and parties with cute guys.

I was not the only young woman to view this lopsided balance of power with alarm. In keeping with many emerging feminists, I chose to place my focus on my education and career goals. I spent my college years reporting and editing the daily paper for my university, and as a stringer for Newsweek magazine. I spent summers interning for the Atlanta Constitution, and had a job lined up there a year prior to college graduation. In my personal relationships, I placed my greatest trust in my girlfriends, and while I always had a boyfriend, I was always in control of the relationship. I made sure that, although I enjoyed being in love, I kept my relationships as a "thing apart." Perversely, this seemed to make me very attractive to men, and reinforced my conclusion that not investing too highly in them was sound strategy.

In the years following college, I married, put my husband through medical school, attended law school, and started a family. To my great surprise, I found that while I might be able to resist centering my life around a man, I was totally incapable of resisting the overwhelming joy that comes with having a baby. Suddenly, making sure that my children were loved, nurtured and prepared for a productive life took priority over all else, and I launched into an 18-year maternity leave without a qualm. I figured I had the skills to resume a career whenever I so chose, which not coincidentally occurred when my oldest went off to college herself.

During those 18 years, I spent a lot of time with young girls through the Girl Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind and teaching math and reading skills both to students who were well ahead of their class and those who were behind. I stressed the excitement of intellectual achievement and self-reliance, and filled our time together with travel, camping trips, music and art. I don't recall discussing make-up and hairdos and boys with anyone, either my own children or the girls in my sphere of influence. I do recall having a wonderful time, and thinking that the world was moving toward gender equality and respect for women.

But then, I went back to work, and started seeing the larger world beyond my family and neighborhood. It was an unsettling experience. Tiny girls were being dressed as sexual toys by their parents, and teenage girls were dressing themselves in the same fashion. Boys were spending hours and hours with video games that made killing men and raping women an interactive experience. I worked with victims of domestic violence who stayed with abusive men because they saw their only other option as poverty and homelessness, and all too often they were correct. Law enforcement officers and teachers were reporting that girls are moving toward one marker of gender equality, in that they are becoming increasingly violent. However, the violence is directed at other girls, and the reason given is generally because they each want the same boy. It's as though boys are so important, and in such short supply, that female competition through dress and flirtation is no longer adequate. Girls will still cancel plans with their girlfriends at a moment's notice, if a guy, even a relative stranger, asks them to do so.

What truly disturbs me is not just that women still tend to value men more than men value women, they also value men more highly than they do each other. It appalls me how often I hear women boast that they have no girlfriends, and that they spend all their time with men. Women slice their own gender apart, telling anyone and everyone that women are catty and bitchy and superficial, and that men are intelligent and forceful and substantial. I have never heard a man run down his gender, and certainly I have never heard of a man who would be proud to do so.

Since I do not believe for one second that women are in general weak, shallow or catty, I can only see this belief set as being a reaction to the fact that men still hold the balance of power in our world and in our personal lives. Forty years of a feminist movement, and of women moving steadily into higher education and the workforce, and the women's magazines still tell us how to please men and the men's magazines still tell men how to use women. Even the high percentages of women who are self-reliant do not reflect so much a drive to be independent, but the reality that many women are abandoned and many others have found that it isn't enough to keep a house clean in order to keep a man; you have to furnish it as well.

Ten years of working with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, of trying to alleviate poverty and strengthen self-esteem among young women has driven me to the edge of a cynicism that is frightening and destructive. Regarding men as an oppressive and hostile force is totally incompatible with achieving the outcomes of mutual respect and equality that are the only true hope of generations to come.

And so, because hope is all that keeps us getting out of bed in the morning, I look for ways to keep it alive. Amazingly, I find that hope springs eternal through that love I once viewed with such distrust. My daughters are loved, valued and cherished in ways that are truly transformative. My son, although still quite young, assumes his relationships are and will always be based on mutual respect and support. I have bonds of love with my family and friends, both male and female, that start with the assumption that we all need each other, and that it is very lonely to be completely self-reliant.

The world is not in a good place right now, but love and hope exist. It is enough.

An earlier post mentioned that January is a difficult month, one poorly equipped to sustain the promises of the holidays and the December hope of light. We are moving to February now, and the world is starting to seem manageable again. I have never given a lot of thought or attention to Valentine's Day, thinking it an artificial commemoration of an inequitable society, but maybe there is, in fact, something to it. For love is strong, nuanced, far-reaching, and very worthy of celebration. I might even cut out a few paper hearts for my grandson, maybe inscribed with a new epigram taken not from my grandmother, but from the Beatles: "Love is all there is."

Learning Curves

2006-01-19T13:15:00.000-06:00

Around ten years ago, I began to worry over the fact that reading was not coming as naturally to my son as it had to my daughters. I quickly found I was not alone in my concerns. Educators, librarians, booksellers and other parents were all discussing boys’ relative lack of reading skill proficiency. The neighborhood wisdom was that boys could read as easily as girls if they so chose, but they just didn’t find reading that interesting when compared to sports and video games. Parents professed to be unconcerned, while educators expressed alarm.

I was not convinced that the problem lay merely in a lack of interest. Not all books were targeted for girls; many could quite successfully capture the imagination of a young boy even to the point of luring him away from video games and computers on the occasional rainy day. I felt reasonably certain that if my son could read easily, he would. Meanwhile, because he wasn’t, he was not getting the full benefit from his academic environment.

As Tom grew older, my personal concerns began to subside. By 5th grade, the combination of an excellent teacher, steady encouragement at home, and the release of the first Harry Potter book resulted in a quantum leap in academic skills. He is now having outstanding success in the International Baccalaureate program, which is the most demanding course of study offered in high schools across the country. But unfortunately his academic success is a rarity among his male peers. Of the 40 students in his IB class, 34 are girls; the same ratio which held true for my youngest daughter’s class five years ago. Increasingly, girls are taking over the science fair awards, the valedictory slots, the academic teams. And, as has been well documented, they will soon represent 60% of all college undergraduates. Female enrollment surpassed male enrollment in law schools years ago; it is now overtaking male enrollment in the last male professions such as medicine and accounting. Only engineering remains overwhelmingly male in composition, and inroads are being made there as well.

Statistical analysis and personal observations have been increasingly bolstered by scientific research. Richard Whitmire in the New Republic writes:

“Combine [Ken] Hilton's local research [that women read more proficiently than men] with national neuroscience research, and you arrive at this: The brains of men and women are very different. Last spring, Scientific American summed up the best gender and brain research, including a study demonstrating that women have greater neuron density in the temporal lobe cortex, the region of the brain associated with verbal skills. Now we've reached the heart of the mystery. Girls have genetic advantages that make them better readers, especially early in life. And, now, society is favoring verbal skills. Even in math, the emphasis has shifted away from guy-friendly problems involving quick calculations to word and logic problems.

“....Ninth grade is where boys' verbal deficit becomes an albatross that stymies further male academic achievement… where every student now gets a verbally drenched curriculum that is supposed to better prepare them for college. Good goal, but it's leaving boys in the dust.”

For some reason, the greatest outcry in the media has been: “But who will the girls marry? If men marry down, and women marry up, then won’t large percentages of women be left behind?” By this reasoning, large percentages of men are also going to remain single, but perhaps they are not perceived as minding so much (although I would beg to disagree with that premise). I have some concerns in this area myself, since I think it important that married couples be able to talk together on topics of interest, but it’s not my primary source of stress.

Of all the various frightening trends in American culture today – attacks on civil liberty, concentration of power into the executive branch of government, religious fundamentalism, control of the election process by right-wing idealogues – what worries me most is the lack of value placed on quality education. As men find the scholastic world more challenging, many respond by devaluing its validity. When scientific and historical research becomes inaccessible to many, it is dismissed as being irrelevant anyway. And thus American universities begin to recede in importance, and American jobs move overseas.

There are many forms of intelligence, most of which can be channeled into the creation of a well-educated population. We need to shake loose from the rigid structures common in most schools, and look beyond our assumptions of learning as confined to visual, auditory and kinetic modes. We need a learning environment that produces an appreciation of research, analysis, logic models and communication skills, and it needs to start in the colleges of education. It’s a challenge. I hope someone is up to it.

Policy Perspectives

2006-01-16T00:03:00.000-06:00

This past week I've logged more miles than a trucker, primarily by criss-crossing the state to meet with funders of homeless programs. The results were disheartening, to say the least. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is once again tightening the definition of homelessness, and eliminating more classes of people who formerly received housing and supportive services. The latest version defines those persons eligible for permanent supportive housing as being restricted to "single, unaccompanied individuals with disabilities who have been living on the streets or using emergency shelter, either continuously for a year or for four distinct periods within the last three years." The disabilities are pretty much limited to mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Put into practice, this is terrible policy, as it excludes the chronically homeless families who currently make up 50% of my agency's supportive housing population, and from 40-50% of our overall homeless population in the community. The new regulations, if executed to the letter, would result in 24 children being put out on the streets this week. We will not, of course, be anything like that callous. But already we have started denying services to new families, including a single pregnant woman. According to what we were told in Jacksonville, she stops being unaccompanied the moment she gives birth, and therefore we cannot accept her now. Some of the HUD reps even went so far as to tell us we had to avoid this possibility by only accepting men.

It would be easy to go on a rant about the evils of George Bush and the Republican administration, and they deserve a lot of blame. One of the motivations for this change of policy is to demonstrate that Bush has upheld his campaign pledge of reducing homelessness. Since his economic policies have contributed to a rise in the number of homeless persons, this would be difficult for the average straight-line thinker to do. However, in typical fashion, the administration is simply redefining terms to get the desired result. If you keep refining the definition of homelessness to omit ever increasing classes of people who do, in fact, live on the streets, then you can say you have met your goals despite not housing so much as a single homeless person. Also, the data on which this policy was based has shifted due to surging home and transportation costs and lagging wages, and this shift has not led to essential policy adjustments.

But the truth is, the Bush administration is only one institution failing our homeless men, women and children. Indeed, if state and local governments, in partnership with foundations and faith-based organizations, had done their part, the HUD emphasis could have been beneficial.

Starting in 1995, several studies indicated that a small slice, approximately 10%, of homeless persons, consumed 85% of the resources committed to fighting homelessness. These chronically homeless people were typically male substance abusers, often with mental disease, who lived on the streets on a full-time basis. These individuals remain the stereotype we associate with homelessness. They frighten the rest of us, while their disabilities stress law enforcement agencies to the point that too many officers become bullies and thugs.

HUD decided that it would focus on these chronically homeless persons whom everyone else wished would just dematerialize into some other universe. HUD would pour resources into assisting this group to get off the streets, and thus free up state and local resources for combatting homelessness among families, women and runaway children. In addition, HUD's efforts would relieve burdens on law enforcement, courts and the jails which have become the primary shelter for the mentally ill in virtually all communities. This had the added virtue of allowing state and local agencies to campaign for the homeless populations that pull heart-strings, as opposed to those which engender fear and revulsion among large segments of the voting citizenry.

The fallacy was that state and local agencies would welcome the opportunity to help any homeless persons at all. The state of Florida allots $2.8 million to assist communities in alleviating homelessness, which works out to anywhere from $65,000 to $150,000 for 20 of the 30+ homeless coalitions. Further restricting the usefulness of these funds, they must be spent between January and June. While some of the metropolitan areas fill in the gaps, smaller communities give nothing at all. Okaloosa and Walton Counties do not allocate a dime to homeless mitigation, nor do any of their constiuent municipalities. A few churches provide cold night shelter. Other than that, there is nothing. Women and children, persons without disabilities, and young adults aging out of foster care, get no services at all - not even a blanket and a roof over their heads for the night.

As a result, the homeless population served by HUD is often the only population to receive any help at all. Washington is not happy, because not even the federal government has the resources to tackle this entire problem by itself. Indeed, under the current administration, resources to serve the one population claimed by the feds are stretched ever tighter, resulting in increasingly restrictive definitions of who may be served.

The current situation as regards relief for homelessness is a scandal, but it is not exclusively limited to the Bush administration. Indeed, there is merit in the administration approach of selecting out the most costly and challenging of the homeless populations to serve, and thus theoretically enabling others to focus their resources on homeless persons most likely to have successful outcomes using only a relatively few services. It would have been optimal had the administration recognized that no one was, in fact, chiming in with help, and given local coalitions the flexibility to put resources where they were most needed in individual communities. It would have been even more optimal if state and local agencies had risen to the challenge.

As it is, I am frustrated. But far worse, children will be sleeping in cars, in woods, in abandoned buildings tonight because everyone who mattered was only interested in passing the buck.

Season of Hope

2006-01-06T10:17:00.000-06:00

Each year, it seems harder to buckle down to work after the holidays. There is, of course, a certain amount of exhaustion that follows the holiday whirl, but that’s just a small part of it. The primary factor has to do with the coming of the new year, and the compulsion to take stock of what has come before and what lies ahead. It’s quite daunting.

The societal problems I address are intractable, and the resources I personally bring to the effort are inadequate. The temptation I face is to dismiss any idea that I could actually bring long-term change as arrogant, and to retreat into my own garden. After all, Voltaire described it as a good plan, and who am I to argue with one of the greatest minds of western civilization? Naturally, I can also dismiss the idea that Voltaire hardly took his own advice, and as a result accounted for seismic changes in thought that still reverberate today. I am not Voltaire, and it is ludicrous to assume I have anything near the consequence necessary to effect societal-changing reform.

None of this angst was evident yesterday, however, when I met with a bright young woman attending a Florida college, and seeking a career in social work. I fell into my career through some weird compulsion never fully understood. She is going into it with purpose, enthusiasm, and intelligence. She wants to make an informed choice as to where to best put her energies, and she was open to a root-cause analysis that made it very clear that problems are complex, interconnected, and overwhelming. Spending time with her was encouraging and helpful to me in multiple respects, and I spent a more productive afternoon than has been my norm this week. However, it didn’t get to the root cause of my annual trial of doubt.

One of the books I’ve been reading lately is David Shipler’s “The Working Poor.” He poignantly describes a young, single, working mother whose substandard housing contributes to a child’s asthma attacks. This in turn leads to days absent from work, which leads to reduced income, which means she can’t afford a car, which means she needs to call an ambulance when her child becomes desperately short of oxygen. She can’t pay the ambulance bill, her credit rating falls, which affects her ability to get a better job. Her family falls into homelessness, and despair.

Mr. Shipler does an excellent job of describing all kinds of inter-relating calamities that collectively condemn this woman and her children into a shadow existence. What I find most distressing, however, is that I could add so many more. Those who are on the edges of society are not only prey to employers that cheat their employees, and check-cashing companies that serve as the usurious banks for the poor, and furniture-rental stores that collect fees that far exceed the value of goods rented. They are also prey to crime, to rape, to trauma of all kinds that sap the energy and will to prevail. Parents who were children themselves when they first gave birth have limited literacy skills, and lack the resources with which to prepare their children for a better life. Those who struggle with mental illness are caught in a nightmare in which drug costs exceed potential income, and make any employment virtually impossible. Jails have become our mental health institutions, with damaging effects on eventual recovery.

So where to start? Finding shelter and jobs is certainly a worthwhile goal, but without education, trauma recovery, financial counseling, life skills coaching, and various forms of advocacy, such efforts are stop-gap at best. We need better foster care systems, and victim advocates, and accessible mental health and substance abuse recovery facilities. We need to stop jailing seven out of every 1,000 members of our society (the highest rate in the world, bar none) and concentrate on dealing with the mental illness and substance abuse disorders that create overcrowded jail and prison conditions. How do we achieve these things, and more importantly, how do we execute our solutions to make them effective? It’s January. I have no idea.

By this time next month, I will be immersed in the day-to-day details of my life, and will have abandoned the reflection that can lead to paralysis. But the questions will remain in the back of my mind: Is this enough? Is this the best I can do? Is there hope of a better and brighter society?

I wait for spring, and a new season of hope.

Shoring up Christmas Spirits

2005-12-18T20:57:00.000-06:00

The news continues to be full of "war against Christmas" protests, first and foremost centered on outrage at being greeted with the words "happy holidays." At first I was just bewildered by this continuation of a bogus campaign first launched by the John Birch Society in 1959, but now I've decided to join in. Let me be at the front of the line of individuals protesting the people who are assaulting my Christmas spirit: the pro-torture, anti-civil liberties crowd.

I would like to ignore, just for awhile, the ugliness in the world and the awful things we do to each other in the name of religion, freedom, or other words it seems we cannot understand. But the hits keep on coming. The Bush administration still defends the use of torture, having inserted a gaping loophole in the McCain bill to outlaw it, and the letters in our local newspaper reflect a stunning consensus in our area regarding not just the necessity, but the desirability, of inflicting pain and grievous bodily harm to anyone who isn't one of "them." Our president finally finds a cause that has him fighting mad, and it concerns the gall of the media for publishing his authorization of illegal surveillance of American citizens. His "right" to be above the law may be compromised, and he is ready for heads to roll. The irony of the fact that all the most incompetent, corrupt and blind members of his cabal still have their heads attached totally escapes him.

The idea that anyone could be pro-torture (and almost certainly, in the same breath, pro-life) is one that I find inexplicable. Putting aside the fact that torture is barbarous, savage and prohibited by international law, it still fails because it is ineffective. Information collected by torture is worthless. The intel that propelled us to war in Iraq was largely drawn from suspects who were tortured in order to attain it. All we learned is that people will say whatever they think their torturers want to hear in order to escape the pain. That was not news.

And even if the information extracted was valid, it would still be of little to no value 72 hours after it was obtained. To our shame, we are torturing people far after the 72-hour window is closed. Indeed, we are torturing people who we have good reason to know are innocent for months and even years after their capture.

Equally difficult to understand is how we "protect" freedom by giving it up. Allowing the President to place himself above the courts and Congress, to authorize clearly illegal acts, seems a strange way to defend our liberty. On the other hand, it seems an excellent method for setting up a dictatorship, and one that is not marked by compassion for anyone other than megalithic corporate officers.

The knowledge that our country is turning its back on our most precious ideals is not doing a thing for my holiday mood. It adds to my feeling of powerlessness, of having no control over issues that mean a great deal to me. It makes the phrase, "peace on earth, good will toward men," ring more than just a little bit hollow.

But I am determined to be resilient, to reclaim my Christmas no matter how assailed I may feel. I shared the afternoon with a friend, and we talked and wrapped packages and baked cookies. This evening, four of us took the two-year-old to see Christmas lights, and his enthusiasm was brighter than any star on display.

So my message to those who are finding their Christmas ruined by stores who promote "home for the holidays" to get over it. If I can believe in "peace on earth" despite wars, torture and poverty, then you can handle hearing the phrase "have a happy holiday." We just need to focus on what truly matters in our lives, and perhaps we will all have a merry Christmas after all.

Love, Actually

2005-12-11T10:33:00.000-06:00

The Christmas season is in full swing at our house. Having a two year old and a tree in the same room is festivity enough, and yet there is so much more. The pressures that pull us apart during the year - work deadlines, business trips, term papers and finals and crises of all sorts - begin to pale in importance. We listen instead to those instincts that pull us together, friends and family alike. This weekend, for instance, I had reports I absolutely had to turn in, and e-mails I had to answer, all firmly shoved to the back of my awareness. I felt not the slightest pang of remorse or guilt. After all, I had a son's Christmas present to buy, and friends were coming for dinner, and there was an incredible sale at a store just 40 miles away where I could find perfect gifts for my daughters. And even though preparing a monthly report so that we can invoice a funder is important, a trip to visit my parents is even more so.

We talk about Valentine's Day as being the season of love, but often that seems rather artificial, and it certainly does not encompass all the varieties of the love that fills our lives. Christmas is the time our hearts truly soften, and we allow ourselves to experience the emotions we give lip service to all year round. There are many condemnations of the commercialization of Christmas, but the act of buying and making gifts is profoundly positive. Stopping to think what a person would like for Christmas focuses our attention on who that person actually is: who they are, what they do, what they have, what they like and dislike. And the more we think about the uniqueness of each friend and family member, the more real they become, and the more we actually like them.

For many of us, this feeling of specific affection expands to the point of general good will toward man, and we find ourselves donating to charities that we don't even notice during the year. We may cover and say we need the end-of-the-year tax deductions, but we could find all kinds of tax shelters that were more efficient in maintaining assets and protecting against loss. The bottom line is that we have taken the time to see hunger and want, and we do what we can to alleviate the hopelessness of poverty for just a little while.

Love in all its aspects comes through on the chill winds, and warms us in unexpected ways. The affection my children share with each other moves me beyond measure. So does watching my parents with their great-grandchild, and my daughter with her son. I catch my husband's eye, and we marvel at this intricate network of compassionate, gentle and intelligent people that we have anchored. I am grateful for all the friendships and new relationships we have each brought to our combined life, and for the richness and variety that sustains us. We now have a Lebanese brother-in-law, a Russian prospective son-in-law, and our grandchild is one-quarter Korean. Most exotic of all, we have a Southern self-proclaimed redneck joining the family, who has confounded us with his approach to gender equality, sharing of household responsibilities, and dedication to maintaining a just and fair relationship. There is room for everyone at the Christmas dinner.

Should Jesus return to our society, there must surely be countless aspects of our society that he would find appalling. Pre-emptive wars and military swagger can hardly impress the Prince of Peace, and the accretion of obscene wealth among the few in the face of national and global poverty does not reflect the message given at the Sermon on the Mount. But I don't think he would be disturbed by the tinsel and glitter and abundance of bright-colored lights, or even the holiday shopping hours. He most of all would see beyond the surface, and into the heart.

It's love, actually.

Choices

2005-12-08T05:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I got an e-mail urging me to contact Congressman Jim Davis's office, and to pass along a request regarding the expedition of sexual assault prevention funding through the House Energy and Commerce Committee. By a strange coincidence, I was having lunch with Rep. Davis that very day, so was able to relay the message with unusual efficiency and effectiveness.

Having lunch with Congressmen from around the state is not in my normal realm of activity, but meeting Democratic gubernatorial candidates is not so strange. They come up to the Panhandle because they don't want to be accused of ignoring the entire region, but there aren't that many people to recruit to their cause once they arrive.

I have mentioned elsewhere that I remain an optimist, even though it is often difficult in the environment in which I live. Recently the ability to hope despite experience has been more in the forefront than usual. I am convinced that we have finally reached the point where building a homeless shelter is a viable option, and setting up a rape exam clinic is within reach. And it is absolutely possible to elect a Democrat for governor in Florida.

So is Rep. Davis the one we want? I have too little data to know for certain, but he seems on first pass to be more than presentable, and to share the passion for social justice that marks my world view. He got his start in public service by working in a homeless shelter, and thinking that a systems change was necessary to make the way out of despair a little easier for our more vulnerable residents. He looked out over our lovely harbor, and vowed to protect our shores from drilling. And he promised an end to the special interest tax loopholes, to free money for education and health care. He never once suggested that the answer to all our problems is more prisons, which has seemed to be the raison d'etre of our current administration. He seems to be less inclined to run the same campaign as is Senator Nelson, which fits the pattern of "Republican lite."

Well, it should be an interesting campaign, and one I am likely to learn a great deal about as time moves forward. It is a time for hope.

Diversion

2005-12-08T05:47:00.000-06:00

I've been asked to break up the prose with a picture. So, Chelsea - this is for you:

Everybody Knows

2005-12-04T22:40:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been feeling out of the loop. It seems as though there are a host of things that "everybody knows" that I don't.

For instance, apparently "everybody knows" that there is a war against Christmas. I'm not seeing it. Every house in my neighborhood is lit up as though a barrage of fireworks have permanently settled on the ground (mine too - I love Christmas lights especially when I come home from work). The stores are filled with Christmas (not holiday) music, and decorated to ever more elaborate extremes. The post office and delivery services seem to be doing brisk business, and employers universally declare a day off from work. Charity drives are in full swing, and donations are generous expressions of "the spirit of Christmas." Churches are packed to the brim. If anyone is waging war against Christmas, they must be doing it half-heartedly, and they are certainly failing.

Yes, it is true that stores and people often substitute "happy holidays" for "merry Christmas." I do it myself, if only because I'm not all that fond of repeating myself. I might vary the phrase 20 times between now and December 25. Also, I'm sensitive enough to delete the specific reference when speaking to persons who practice other faiths. The idea is not to pretend Christmas doesn't exist, but to emulate the angels, and spread "peace on earth, goodwill to men," to everyone regardless of beliefs or the lack thereof.

To get worked up over how people express seasonal greetings is to take offense where none is intended, and to make war where peace is needed. The fact that children may be singing "Frosty the Snowman" instead of "Away in the Manger" when at school is not a big deal, as long as they are singing "Silent Night" in the churches where they commune with the other 85% of the population who holds similar views.

Another thing "everybody" apparently knows is that most rape reports are false, and that women who advocate for rape victims hate men. These ideas were particularly startling to learn, as I've been working in the field for 10 years and never had a clue. I continue to see far more women who don't report rapes than those who do, and I virtually never come across one who reported a rape maliciously. And as for hating men - that would certainly come as a surprise to the many wonderful men who enrich my life, starting with my father, husband, and son and moving into the host of friends who make my work and leisure challenging and rewarding.

However, there has been an outpouring of hostility on the web concerning a case in which a rape victim was found guilty of making a false report after the state attorney's office failed to prosecute. The judge may have had good reasons for his decision, but at the present time they remain known only to himself. What is important, though, is the unleashing of vitriol by men and women exulting in "finally" seeing justice granted to the three men originally accused of rape (they said the sex was consensual). There appears to be a great deal more anger channeled toward women who may be false accusers than against men who may be true offenders.

The controversy reminds me of a video I use in training professionals dealing with victims and offenders, in which the offender (whose guilt is unknown at this point in the tape) is discussing his martyrdom, and he mentions "80% of the time, the victim is believed." When I show this to law enforcement officers, they nod and express approval, even though they have all just told me they don't believe victims even 10% of the time until a thorough investigation, should it occur, proves every statement she made is correct. When I show the film to advocates, therapists and other social service professionals, they just snort at this point. It may all just be a matter of perception, but in general, the perception is not in favor of the victim.

Other things I don't know are that Hilary Clinton is a dangerous radical bent on destroying America, that the term "Democrat" is synonymous with "traitor," and that "intelligent design" is a respected scientific theory. Perhaps my ignorance stems from my refusal to watch Fox News, or to read anything written by Ann Coulter. This could prove to be a real hole in my education.

On the other hand, I never thought for a second that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, nor did I look forward to witnessing an Iraqi population overwhelmed with gratitude for an American occupation.

Ignorance may not be bliss, but it is something.

Rape Happens

2005-11-29T19:42:00.000-06:00

For the past few weeks, my work hours have been taken up with reporting statistics and writing commentaries on rape in our local community. It's a truly dreary task, because it's one area in which progress is very hard to discern. The number of rapes continue to inch up each year, totaling over 120 for the past 12 months. The number of convictions, however, holds steady at 5 per year. The culture, as reflected through music, movies, video games, and advertisements, becomes ever more misogynistic.

I am fortunate to have two women working for me who are incredibly engaging and effective sexual assault prevention educators. They walk into high school classrooms, detention centers, alternative schools, and military bases, and they start tackling the hard questions. The resistance they meet is tough. Perhaps because first-term airmen tend to be brash and self-confident, the hostility is right out there in the open. Initial comments range from "bros over hos" to "all women are evil" to "those teenage girls know what's going down. They know you're just out for the sex, and they are glad to deliver."

By the end of the two-hour period, those same young men are less certain of their convictions, and the rest of the group is seriously engaged in reexamining attitudes and beliefs. New ideas and possibilities have been planted in suddenly fertile soil, with positive results. One concrete example is that of a young man who was attempting to rape a young woman on base, when he stopped and thought to himself: "This is just what Miss Stephanie said not to do." So he left and turned himself in. I grant you that it would have been better had he stopped prior to the rape attempt, but it was progress.

But really, can even the most amazing one or two hour presentation make much of an impression when a much different message is strongly embedded in the greater culture? Well-known examples include the appalling video games, and the beer ads, and the rap music lyrics. But even those pale in the face of rape tolerant attitudes ingrained in schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

Like communities everywhere, our county faces regular scandals at some school or other, in which an unpopular girl accuses a student athlete or service club member of rape . The students, faculty and parents immediately start lining up to take sides, and the line in favor of the boy is invariably longer by far. The girl is judged by her status relative to his, and found wanting. Of course, a girl of lesser status is exactly the person most likely to be raped, since rapists (even the youngest ones) select girls who are less credible than themselves, and besides, they feel entitled to take what they want from their inferiors.

Three incidents have happened over the last five years that remain chilling reminders of local attitudes. The first involved a child protection worker sent to investigate the reported molestation of a 10-year-old girl by her stepfather. The worker came back and said, "there is no way I'm going to turn in that father. You should have seen what that girl was wearing. She was just asking for it!" The second involved a woman who was actually working for me as a rape prevention educator. On what became her last day on the job, she was incensed when a teacher at her son's school was arrested for raping multiple 14 and 15-year-old students. "What was he supposed to do?" she said. "Those girls came to his house, flirted with him. Of course he had sex with them." The third involved a local psychiatrist who had sex with a teenage client. His physician friends simply could not accept that anyone they knew would do anything so appallingly unethical and illegal, and refused to believe in his guilt even after he admitted it.

The most immediate thing that stands out about these crimes is that they were hideous betrayals of young girls by men they should have been able to trust. While the general public seems to be most distressed by stranger rape, it is the rape by those who should be protecting and caring for us that has the most devastating effect on the victim and her future. The second thing is the knee-jerk reaction by uninformed strangers to unite and publicly castigate the victim for harming her rapist. Sadly, they are no different from the victim's family, who usually also sides with the rapist as well, especially if the rapist is the primary breadwinner.

What is it about rape that allows otherwise decent and caring people to be so quick to condemn victims, and excuse criminals? I suppose part of the answer is that rape involves such a total violation of the human spirit that we don't want to face the fact that it exists. We resent the victim who reminds us that we are all vulnerable to horror, and we push her aside. Another answer is that by casting victims into the role of "them," we can ensure that people like us are safe. She didn't live by the rules, so she was raped. We adhere to the myths, so we are secure.

However, I think the larger issue is greater than that. From the earliest times, men have equated women's sexuality with sin. Pandora opened the box. Eve ate the apple. Women draw men into sin, and women who have cajoled men into committing sexual crimes are defiled, impure, damaged. In some cultures, women can be executed for the sin of having been raped. In our culture, the stigma is so great that few rape victims will even admit to having been attacked.

So is there hope for a humane society that values women equally with men, and abhors rape rather than condones it? I don't have any answers, but I look at my beautiful daughters, my compassionate son and my tiny grandson, and think that hope must lie somewhere. To think otherwise would be to despair for my children's future, and that, I can't do.

Minimum Wage, Jobs Increase

2005-11-26T12:07:00.000-06:00

Earlier today I was reading the unfortunately named, but highly readable, blog: The Carpetbagger Report (at www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com). The topic was the minimum wage, and how a $1 an hour increase had not caused massive job loss and the derailment of the economy here in Florida. And yet, the service sector industries continue to forecast doom and gloom where ever a like increase is considered anywhere in the country.

There has to be an emotional block going on here, because the rationale as to why an increase in minimum wage helps the economy is so obvious that even Wal-Mart is campaigning for it. Low income families spend every penny they get. If their wages go up, they buy clothes, or medicines, or pay for car repairs. Thus demand for consumer goods increases, and conditions become favorable for the creation of new jobs, even at the "high" wage levels of $6.15 per hour (soon to be $6.40).

This is not just theory. The scenario of increased jobs and better economies occurred at the initiation of a minimum wage, and has been repeated every time an increase has been passed. Voters, who are very close to this issue and are not being offered trips to Scotland in exchange for their votes, understand this instinctively. That's why constitutional amendments or other direct appeals to voters pass by over 70% even in Florida, which is not a wildly liberal state.

On the other hand, the theory that minimum wage increases will force lay-offs and doom businesses to extinction has never panned out. Neither has the companion theory: that the only sure way to stimulate production is to reduce or eliminate taxes on capital (along with reductions in tax rates for the wealthy). Surely we have tried trickle-down economics enough to recognize a loser when we see it. Just having capital is no reason to invest in production capacity, especially when there are already warehouses full of unsold appliances, cars, and clothes. To get factories running again, we have to produce large-scale demand. Placing ever more money in the hands of the ultra rich does very little to increase demand, because there is a limit to how much even the ultra-wealthy can spend, and the Bush beneficiaries passed that mark long ago. The more they get, the less percentage gets returned back to the economy. The rest goes to off-shore banks and European antiques.

The constant refrain of the red zone is that liberals don't pay attention to facts, but I find that a hard sell. The conservative idealogues have taken obliviousness to facts and consequences to levels that are bewildering, and show no signs of stopping.

A Heart Beats in the Red Zone

2005-11-23T07:17:00.000-06:00

I have lived, steeped in the red zone, for 26 of my 50 something years. During this time, all my candidates for office have lost their elections, any proposal I voted for was voted down - it was discouraging. But today I am reinvigorated, and proud of my community. Last night, the City of Fort Walton Beach got into the homeless shelter business.

For the past four years, the only shelter available to homeless men, women and families has been the cold weather shelter (40 degrees or less) offered by three churches on a rotating basis. Occasionally another church would pitch in for a while, and we were all grateful, but only three have stuck it out for the whole ride. The problem is, none of these churches can hold as many homeless as need shelter on cold nights. They would try. If the Fire Marshall told them their capacity was 40, they would try to shove 60 in, but still people kept knocking on the door.

Last week, at the urging of a homeless man, I asked the city to let us use a recreation center as an overflow shelter. The city has not had a history of compassion, but with all the dislocations and increased homelessness caused by the past two catastrophic hurricane seasons, I figured it was worth a try. I wrote out a proposal, presented it to the mayor, the city manager, the parks director, and got it on the city council agenda. I rallied the troops, and had a dozen or more church representatives come demonstrate their support for this issue. I got up to make a brief presentation, which lasted over 30 minutes with all the questions being tossed my way. But in the end, the City Council voted unanimously to allow the recreation center to be used as a homeless shelter when needed.

That may not sound like the biggest start in the world, but for us it was huge. The City Council members openly acknowledged that they are going to have to help with long-term solutions and not just stop-gap measures, and I pledged my support to help them find answers.

Thanksgiving is a brighter holiday this year, knowing that there will be blessings for all the members of the community and not just those who can afford a home. Now I guess I need to do something to make it happy for the people who come to my door!

Happy Holidays.

Freedom

2005-11-22T05:41:00.000-06:00

One of the many things I've noted about writing from a red zone is how it affects the organization of my thoughts. I'm very careful about looking for common ground, and presenting my ideas in as rational and polemic-free way as possible. I would like to think this is a good thing, but there are drawbacks. It is because I recognize the limitations of being reasonable that I have no problems with my neighbors to the left and right of the spectrum who choose to speak with passion and zeal.

But our administration (particularly Dick Cheney), many members of Congress, and quite a few residents of our community, do not agree. They are convinced that any discussion of the war borders on treason, and will "hurt the troops."

I find this line of "thought" to be absolutely bizarre. The refrain one hears repeatedly is that "we should support our troops since they are fighting to protect our freedom and democracy." We also hear that the exercise of freedom and democracy is devastating to morale. Could it be true that our men and women in uniform, facing suicide bombers, insurgent attacks, and a hostile force, can be brought down not by the enemy, but by debate at home?

There appear to be wide swathes of our citizenry who have no idea what freedom actually is. These are the people who cheer when they find out the FBI has exceeded the already excessive powers granted by the Patriot Act, and has investigated tens of thousands of persons with no conceivable ties to terrorist organizations of any kind. They argue that we have to sacrifice some civil liberties in order to stay secure, although one has nothing to do with the other. We can bow to a police state, and still find ourselves less safe in our homes than before.

I personally doubt that the current war in Iraq has much to do with protecting freedom and democracy in America, and I am certain that it is increasing the terrorist threat rather than reducing it. I am also certain that many of the men and women fighting the war in Iraq disagree with me, although not all. It is the nature of humanity to be fractious and opinionated, and it is the nature of democracy to celebrate that quality and forge a nation that can accommodate everyone. And that is as true in times of war as in times of peace.

Let freedom ring.

The Power of Feminism

2005-11-15T12:02:00.000-06:00

Way back when I was a child in the 1950s and 60s, The Ladies' Home Journal used to run a tagline "Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman." For all I know, they still do. While this quote sounds affirmative, it was derived from a humorist (James Thurber?), and spoke to a woman's "feminine wiles" and power of manipulation. Women as rational, productive human beings were severely underestimated.

Today we have a dichotomy. We still underestimate women, but we greatly overestimate the power of feminism. I hear a great deal of railing by fundamentalist preachers, newspaper columnists, and politicians. All these groups are united against feminists, who are allegedly responsible for the supposed abandonment of families by wives and mothers. As an institution, feminism is only acknowledged when advocating for abortion and against the nurturing of children.

Being a mother myself, I think this anger is misplaced. As much as I believe in respect and equal rights for women, the desire to prove a point would not have pushed me back in the workplace. I went back to work for the same reason every mother I have ever known went back to work: my husband and I couldn't afford the life we want for our children on a single income. Certainly I had come closer than most in immersing myself in family life, having taken 18 years off for maternity leave. However, when my oldest started college it quickly became obvious that even my husband's hefty income was not enough to sustain four college tuitions, weddings, study abroad, grad school, and other advantages we wished to provide for our offspring and ourselves (such as retirement). I took a job when my youngest was seven, and I've been working ever since (he's 17 now).

There has been an incredible social revolution within the family structure, but the root cause is not philosophy, but economics. Wages first flattened, and then entered into a period of decline. Manufacturing jobs were outsourced overseas, and the low paying service jobs that took their place forced many formerly middle-class families into lower-class status. The basic standard of living became more expensive, and the range of available extras mushroomed. Although it is possible to live with a black and white TV, or no TV at all, few people want to do so. We all want "entertainment centers," and computers, and cable connections. Our children want IPods, hand-held computers, and camera cell phones with bluetooth technology.

Several trends emerged. Many men were relieved at not being the sole financial support for their families. Many women found that they loved being in the workforce, and were pleased to be recognized for their intellectual and organizational skills as well as their pot roast. Some children thrived in a day care environment, though the jury is still out as to whether this has been a good thing overall. And for an enormous number, primarily low-earning families and single moms, it was simply business as usual.

But the results were not consistently wonderful across the board. A large number of men felt emasculated at the idea of needing their wives to help provide for the family. Other women found that the jobs open to them were often menial and paid poorly, and were unimpressed with the "new" freedom to make beds at hotels and wash dishes in restaurants. The women who had dedicated their lives to nurturing their husbands and children were often resentful, both of having to work, and of seeing their peers flourish at the new challenges.

With all this angst and drama being enacted around the country, it was natural that those most adversely affected looked to demonize someone else, and to push the responsibility for change (and individual failures) onto an outside group. And thus, the women who had a short, glorious moment in creating social change relating to equal rights and opportunities in the 1970s became the witches of the ensuing decades.

Feminisn as I knew it while a idealistic and passionate college student in the 1970s was a marvelous force. It pushed us to build upon what our foremothers had won for their daughters: voting rights, access to education, and freedom to make our own choices. It empowered us to consider a myriad of dreams, including full-time motherhood as well as engineering, medicine and law. And yes, it allowed us to view ourselves as sexual human beings who could make decisions about how we wanted to conduct our relationships.

But feminisn, a movement allowing women the freedom to choose their own direction in life, and to be supported whatever that choice, has been marginalized. Most women must go to work, and they are anything but supported in that effort. Our society does not offer universal health care, or sufficient access to subsidized child care, or sufficient quality child care whatever the cost. Women still do not get paid as well or promoted as often as men. A transient life style has reduced the impact of extended family support. While the vast majority of women make the best of their situations, and often (like me) find jobs that utilize their talents in fulfilling ways, it is a struggle. Women forge their paths individually, and do not come together as one for any idealogy, feminist or not.

Feminism as I knew it barely exists, and what is left has been so cariactured that it is hard to recognize. Still, it is remains a noble dream and a proud history, and one that has insinuated itself into the fabric of our lives even if primarily driven by economics. We have flexed our muscles and found them strong, and that's a good thing no matter what our life choices.

To get a much younger woman's take on feminism, check out my daughter's blog at www.myspace.com/hmajors. I'll use this excerpt as a teaser: I feel that modern feminism should focus on equal pay for equal work, easing social mores about sexuality being immoral, respectful and egalitarian relationships between men and women (which does not mean turning women into men!), and just as importantly, the well-being of children and establishment of happy well-adjusted families. Economic justice is an important corrollary!

The Power of Myth

2005-11-13T15:08:00.000-06:00

Recently, I had a conversation with a young man, who thought to engage my attention with a story about a homeless person looking for a handout from a minister.

I interrupted the narrative early on, and said, “So because one man was unwilling to get in a car with a stranger who may or may not have been taking him to a work site, you believe all homeless men are lazy, shiftless and manipulative?”

Since this young man very much wants to marry my daughter, he instantly backed down and said, “No, of course not.”

“Then what,” I asked, “was the point of this story?”

This conversation came back to me when reading a local newspaper column this morning, in which the author described homeless people thusly: “These are our dirty, our tired, our poor, our troubled, our hungry…making choices many of us wouldn’t make.”

This particular columnist is a generous, caring person who tries to do a great deal for our local homeless. But she and Stephen demonstrate the incredible power of myth, especially when it serves to comfort the comfortable. The myth is that the homeless make up a mysterious, underground community of “them,” who have nothing to do with the larger city of “us.”

This myth, while widely embraced, has little connection to the truth. And although it serves its purpose of reinforcing our belief in our security, it has its destructive side. This is illustrated by the incredible reluctance of local churches to offer cold weather shelter, and the even greater reluctance of our community to open an emergency shelter for the homeless.

The fact is that homeless people are very little different from anyone else. Head down to a soup kitchen, or day labor facility at 5:00 a.m., or an emergency shelter if you live in a community where such things exist. The homeless people you will meet are as clean as they can possibly make themselves, and are as a whole stunningly articulate and often well-educated.

The overwhelming majority work consistently and dependably. They have skills I can only envy. For example, one intermittently homeless man manages a church Saturday lunch kitchen. He gets a budget of $50 a week, and feeds 80 or more persons at a time. Others are carpenters, painters, and craftsmen. Most are eager to make better lives for themselves, and should they receive adequate resources now, will never be homeless again.

The reasons why these men, women and children are homeless are as numerous as the number of men, women and children themselves. Causes range from the lack of adequate care for the mentally ill, to family abandonment, to medical disasters, to the low wages offered as contrasted to the high cost of housing and transportation.

But in the end, the reasons why people wind up homeless, or how they lead their lives while they are homeless, should not matter to us. What should matter is that these are human beings, beloved of God, who should be beloved of us as well.

The Evolution of Education

2005-11-11T17:20:00.000-06:00

As the theory of evolution makes its way through the news cycle once again, it would seem that everyone with a stake in the educational wars has weighed in with opinions, “facts” of varying degrees of credibility, and lines drawn in the sand. However, there is one player, presumably the one with the largest stake in the outcome, who is strangely silent: that of the educational establishment. We do hear from individual teachers and science organizations. We do NOT hear from educational superintendents, teacher unions, colleges of education, or other institutional representatives of academia. These are the very institutions that could stop the dilution of scientific understanding in a moment’s time.

Perhaps one reason could be that the educational industry is embarrassed. After all, the fact that 50-75% of Americans (depending on the wording of the question) think that creationism or its alter-ego, intelligent design, is valid science is a stinging indictment of the inadequacy of our schools. It is obvious that an enormous segment of our society cannot distinguish between an opinion offered at a cocktail party and a scientific theory. This shows up not just in evolution debates, but in the consistently miserable performance of American students on international science tests (and math tests, and history tests, and geography tests, and literacy tests).

Sadly, I don’t think embarrassment is the obstacle. From what I can see at the state and local level, our educational institutions are pretty complacent. Perhaps there are problems elsewhere, but our schools are doing just fine. There is no need for change, for additional resources, longer academic years, more dynamic teachers, updated textbooks, and certainly new educational content. In the profound words of Paul Simon, we can “slip-slide away,” and be perfectly happy about it.

School boards and superintendents are rarely voted in because of their ability to embrace controversy. This is not a profession in which all publicity, negative and positive, is considered a good thing. This is a profession that plays it safe, in ways that are not always obvious on the surface.

Let’s go back to evolution. Our school board is not about to launch a publicity-generating attack on evolutionary study. Instead, they simply hire science teachers with little grasp of science. They do not teach any branch of science with certitude; certainly they do not seek to challenge prevailing religious beliefs. They use science textbooks with chapters on the “big bang” theory and evolution, but they soft-peddle the evidence, and in some cases, contradict it. One teacher of International Baccalaureate level science students informed the class that there had never been a “moon walk,” it was all a Hollywood stage set. If students emerge unimpressed with the science of creation and evolution, it is ascribed to faults in the science itself, not in the lack-luster and noncommittal teaching thereof.

If the United States is to maintain (or regain) its global competitive edge, we need to get serious about education. We need to invest in teachers, from teacher education to teacher reimbursement. Colleges of education must move beyond the “medium is the message,” and start seriously empowering their students to teach the content of their courses. Courses should emphasize logical thinking, not rote recitation of pronouncements. Schools need to embrace the year-round academic calendar, and start recognizing that their mission is not placating the public, but creating a future in which the public will thrive.

We live in an ever-changing world. It’s not too much to ask that education leave behind the debates they know to be false, and join us in seeking and utilizing new frontiers in knowledge.

Vision in Action

2005-11-11T16:08:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I broke from my normal routine of writing grants, running coalitions, driving 400 miles each way to serve on a statewide board of directors, writing more grants, organizing two capital campaigns, and leading continuing education courses on sexual assault and domestic violence. I agreed to the diversion as a way of earning some additional money, but I came away richer in more than funds.

Sometimes renewal comes in the most pedestrian of packages. What surprised me most about this surge of energy is that it was the result of an effort designed just for that purpose. I have attended many strategic planning sessions before. Some benefit was gained, but the entire structure seemed artificial, and thus became its own barrier in creating new thought and insight.

Facilitating a strategic planning session, however, created an incredible sense of synergy. As the energy flowed toward me, I was conscious of how vital our work is, no matter what individual jobs entail, and how small daily actions further large, magnificent goals. I started the day off with a quip as to how we would be creating a map for world peace. At the end, several participants pointed out that they felt that was exactly what had been accomplished.

All this resonated with me, as I was reading yet one more column on the inability of Democrats to offer a vision, to define solutions, to do anything more than complain about Republican mistakes. Even the most liberal commentators seem to buy into the idea that at least the Republicans are doing something, and all the Democrats can do is cavil at the results. The fact that the results include launching an eternal war of occupation that is further destabilizing the Middle East, and a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the ultra-wealthy doesn’t seem to be nearly as vital as the supposed inability of the Democrats to act at all.

And yet, here I am, along with thousands of others, laboring in Democratically-envisioned services for the most fragile of our citizens, and accomplishing amazing things every day. The local Republican cant is that the poorest among us are responsible for their condition, and must better themselves. The Democratic position has always been that children born of children, into homes of deprivation and want, do not automatically have the skills necessary for creating a better life. The appropriate action is to engage in programs like Even Start, which enhance parental literacy skills and allow parents to raise children who can grow into their full potential. Another action step is to utilize subsidized child care to increase the quality of child care available to the poor among us, allowing for later success in the academic and career environments. The starry-eyed idealists who perform these tasks do so with fewer resources and longer odds all the time, courtesy the Republican administrations (state and national in our case) and Congress. Their creativity and vision is making a better future.

For those of us in the “field,” it is Democratic vision, and Republican myopia, that shapes the terms of tomorrow’s society. It is the Democratic Party that offers practical solutions to difficult problems, and the Republican Party with nothing to offer at all.

The Blame Game

2005-10-19T00:06:00.000-05:00

As has been noted by many others, it didn’t take long to move the national conversation from Katrina and poverty to energy costs and scandals. Apparently poverty was sufficiently ameliorated by allowing employers to pay less than the prevailing wage and by giving huge windfalls to oil companies and casinos. We can put aside the pictures of grief and hunger, and debate whether the right or the left is more troubled by Harriet Miers.

Unfortunately, I’m having a little trouble moving off the dime. For one thing, the prevailing wage of $9 an hour is nowhere close to being enough to ease the financial strains of our underclass. The Northwest Florida Gulf Coast Workforce Development Board produced a self-sufficiency report in May, 2005. According to their calculations, $14.36 per hour is the minimum wage necessary for a single adult to maintain a no-frills existence, a figure produced before the recent surge in housing and energy prices. Lowering the wages of persons engaged in construction trades to little more than half that is hardly a blow for the common man (30% of whom make less than $12 an hour in our little slice of paradise).

As to the no-bid contract giveaways and tax breaks for the casinos: how much evidence do we need before the right wing corporate cheerleaders finally understand that major stockholders and top executives do not share? The recent economic “boom” has resulted in an increase in worker productivity, and a decrease in worker income. Oil companies are already swimming in unseemly oceans of cash. If curtailed supplies and increased demands are making it necessary to build more refineries, the resources to do so can be found right there in the profit column. After all, we do believe in self-sufficiency, don’t we?

So, what can we do to address the issues of poverty and despair? If I am grasping conservative logic correctly, the answer to problems of race, poverty, and education must be found in the home, not in government “hand-outs.” If people don’t want to be poor, they should work harder and spend less. If they want better lives for their children, they should start insisting on better school performance.

In other words, the poor have no one but themselves to blame. The highly-educated upper class has earned its right to privilege and an 85% share of the nation's wealth, and bears no obligation to use its talent and gifts to make the world a better place. No, the rich did their bit by making their own nest better (using a whole lot of governmental and societal help), and no more can be asked. Instead, the solution for a better society is to thrust all responsibility onto single teenage mothers with marginal language and academic skills, who were raised by women who were teenagers themselves when they gave birth. And because all poor people need additional challenges, we will ensure that they get no “unearned” resources to help them do it.

Using the Gulf Coast catastrophes to plead governmental poverty, and cut back Medicaid, Section 8 housing, and other programs providing a thin edge between mere poverty and actual death, is brazen beyond belief. There is a war in Iraq, which has been a black hole for billions of unaccounted-for dollars. There are transportation and energy bills that are filled with corporate welfare, concentrating wealth into the hands of the few. Let’s raid those programs, not subsidized child care.

Now is the time to cut out government hand-outs to those few whose greed can never be satisfied anyway, and support the programs that make life bearable for the many. Instead of cutting back health care, make it universal. Instead of building ever more prisons to incarcerate ever growing numbers of young men, funnel the energy and funds to creating schools that address the serious academic deficiencies causing despair and teenage pregnancies among our youth. Instead of slashing Section 8 housing, make affordable housing a national priority.

It’s time to see if “trickle up” economics can be successful.

M(e)TV

2005-10-08T07:35:00.000-05:00

Last night I was part of a panel on a PBS talk show. This was my second appearance, and much more comfortable than my first. The first time, I was prepared for one topic, which was never discussed. The topic actually on the table was not one in which I have any special expertise, although of course I babbled on anyway. This time, the topics were racism (another surprise) and poverty. Poverty, at least, is a topic I know something about.

Since I am firmly rooted in the red zone, I was the only liberal on the panel, and a muted one at that (at least, I thought I was muted. I never once criticized the current government, which for me was a heroic exercise in restraint). Muted or not, the differences between me and the other three panelists were clear from the outset. It made it a lot of fun.

We disposed of racism fairly quickly, with the other three panelists (including the head of the African-American Chamber of Commerce) dismissing it as a non-issue. The party line was that it is counter-productive to focus on racism as an excuse for poverty, since it only hampers efforts to move forward. This is a seductive point of view, but it only works if racism is truly a thing of the past, which it isn’t. Granted, the KKK doesn’t ride at night that I know of, and the membership is much less than it was. Racist remarks are given short shrift by the vast majority of the population. Friendships among members of the same socio-economic groups cross racial lines all the time, and intermarriages are commonplace. Still, I think racism in subtler form is one of the reasons we lack commitment to fighting poverty. It is easier to maintain screens that shield us from seeing poverty, when we think poverty belongs to minority groups and not to “people like us.”

Thus, we launched the discussion of poverty. This is another issue about which everyone has opinions, but about which I also have facts and figures. One guy launched into a tirade about how the social services (in this case, meaning me) had failed miserably. I was right there with my statistics (courtesy the Washington Post) saying that the programs launched by the Great Society have cut the poverty levels nearly in half (from 20% to 12%). Social Security has cut the number of elderly living in poverty from 35% to 9.8%. Funding cutbacks and the failure of wages to keep up with the cost of living, however, have all those numbers inching up. So social service programs have had a tremendously positive effect, and their removal has had a negative effect.

After that, it was "game on." It was incredibly satisfying to be able to tackle myths and stereotypes directly. When one person launched onto a soap box deriding the lazy, worthless poor people who know nothing beyond a government hand-out, I was there with specifics on the percentage of the poor who work, incomes necessary for self-sufficiency, and current wage scales in the area. When other panelists were saying "parents have to do a better job raising their children," I replied that most parents do want the best for their children, but impoverished parents often don’t have the skills to do so. The average Head Start mother has a more limited vocabulary than a 4-year-old child of the middle class. Her conversation is instructional, rather than wide-ranging - the children don't learn to think because their mother didn't learn to think, and their dad (whose skills are probably no better) is nowhere to be found. That led to an indictment of single mothers, who apparently pick up their children from the cabbage patch.

The experience was quite an adrenalin rush, but pales a bit in the cold light of day. Although my fellow panelists were back-tracking like crazy, the truth is, most people in this area (and probably beyond) share their attitudes and their scorn for the poor. The complex causes of poverty, which can range from mental and physical disabilities; family abandonment; domestic violence; low wages paid even to skilled laborers; lack of adequate child care; inadequate educational opportunities – are all reduced to “the poor aren’t motivated to change.”

Unfortunately, it tends to be the rich who are not motivated to change, and they are the ones with the power to buy government and shape it to their liking. The result is an array of incredibly benevolent government policies that transfer billions of wealth into the hands of the top one-half of one percent of the population. They have no problem giving the Waltons $35 million to pave the road into their corporate headquarters in Arkansas, but they refuse to subsidize child care for poor mothers who wish to get an education. After all, that mother should have thought twice before she had that child. The Waltons (who receive a lot more than just paved roads and parking lots), on the other hand, were very far-sighted, and were responsible for millions of dollars being funneled into the hands of the Republican Party. To the victors, go the spoils.

Let’s be the victors in 2006, and start sharing the spoils with those who need it most. Until we can start bringing the power and resources of government to bear on issues such as racism, poverty, education and the environment, we are all going to be the losers.

And Justice for All?

2005-10-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

No matter how many debates range about the Pledge of Allegiance, or the Bill of Rights, or what the founders meant in the Declaration of Independence, there is one thing we can all agree on: the United States was founded on the nation of “liberty and justice for all.”

Unfortunately, these are the precise concepts we can’t seem to get right. We start trading liberty for security every time the road looks a little rough, despite the fact that “less freedom equals greater safety” is a false equation. The “Patriot” Act is our latest egregious foray into curbing civil liberties in the hope of avoiding harm. Just yesterday we had the spectacle of the FBI telling us that yes, they had wiretapped the wrong people indiscriminately, and they were keeping the tapes, but heck, they won’t really listen to them for long. At the same time, we had the generals telling us that the incidence of world-wide terrorism is certainly on the increase, a regrettably lagging “indicator of success” in our war on terror. The evidence of encroachment upon our civil liberties is everywhere. The evidence that we are safer as a result is not quite so easy to pinpoint.

However, tonight I’m more concerned with the “and justice for all” portion of the pledge. Because I don’t think we understand the concept of justice any better than we understand the concept of civil liberty.

Earlier this week, I received yet another horrific forwarded e-mail, which inadvertently pointed out how easy it is to assume “justice” is only for people like us, and “for all” was a slip of the pen. The e-mail was in regard to the Arizona sheriff who uses barbed wire to enclose tent cities housing 2000 inmates, in heat reaching 138 degrees (heat that shattered windshields and prevented aircraft from landing). The e-mail, which was reported as factual on www.snopes.com, gleefully recounts a long list of sadistic, inhumane practices carried out on a captive audience. These include the use of chain gangs for men and women at no pay; the reduction of meals to twice a day (with moldy bologna sandwiches frequently on the menu); and constant humiliation (such as clothing male prisoners in nothing but pink boxer shorts and pink socks). Sheriff Arpaio makes money on the meals by charging inmates $1 a day for food that costs only 40 cents, and brags: “It costs more to feed our police dogs than our inmates. The dogs never committed a crime, and they’re working for a living.”

The e-mail, and the fact-checking, go on and on, but it’s all just more of the same. And it is all absolutely sickening.

Let’s start with the fact that this is a county facility, which means that everyone confined in it is either awaiting trial, or has been convicted of a misdemeanor. Our brave sheriff and his followers may revel in treating criminals in conditions that would earn closure from agencies regulating cruelty to animals, but the “criminals” they are treating so abominably are not your stereotypical rapists and thugs, but are individuals who have not been proven guilty, or who have been convicted of minor offenses, such as possession of small quantities of marijuana, or bouncing a check, or writing graffiti on a fence.

Let’s continue with the fact that the police are not 100% accurate in their arrests, nor are they able to arrest everyone who commits a crime. It’s a pretty safe bet that the brothers in the elite fraternity houses who smoke pot and drink beer in the basement are less likely to be arrested than their impoverished neighbors two blocks over who are sitting in a parked car. And, should by some mischance the well-connected frat boys get arrested, their chances of receiving a jail term are markedly less than those whose recreation takes place in broken-down vehicles. They have all committed the same crime, but the standards of “justice” are markedly different. Also, let us not forget the poor, 73-year-old woman in New Orleans, who was arrested for looting while retrieving a sausage she had stored in a cooler in the trunk of her car. The owner of the store she had supposedly looted kept stressing that the store didn’t carry the sausage the woman was holding, and that even if they did, the woman was more than welcome to whatever kept her from starvation. But it didn’t matter. The woman was held in jail without power, in the heat, for days on end, and the police have yet to drop charges.

Next, let’s address effectiveness. Of course, one e-mail stated, no one incarcerated by Sheriff Arpaio is going to commit another crime. But where is the evidence to back this up? In my experience, treating people like the dregs of humanity rarely produces positive results. Instead, it increases alienation, the knowledge that no one gives a damn, and a further push toward the outskirts of society. The greatest gains in preventing recidivism (and there is plenty of evidence to back this up – check the Florida Department of Corrections website, for one) are achieved when inmates receive substance abuse and mental health treatment, vocational skill training, educational opportunities, and discharge planning that assists inmates in finding jobs, housing and meals. The costs of rehabilitation are significantly less than those of repeated incarceration, and yet we continue to invest heavily in prisons, and cut back on even the most modest of rehabilitation programs.

I could go on, but to be honest, it’s all beside the point. The reason this e-mail appalled me so greatly was the fact that there are huge numbers of people eager to see others degraded and abused. They assume their own superiority, and without knowing a single man or woman incarcerated in this hell hole in Arizona, they have concluded that every one of them deserves to be treated as animals. When I mentioned the Arizona jail to others, most recoiled in horror, but there was a lot of “it’s jail, not Club Med,” as well. Others thought it was funny. When I said, “these people are in for misdemeanors,” they said, “oh, that’s wrong.” But their first reaction was to enjoy the misery of others. And as long as there are enough of us ready to judge without thought, then the entire system of judgment will be forever flawed.

On the other hand...

2005-10-01T23:02:00.000-05:00

To my mind, one of the most distressing trends in how we currently frame political debate is the way we have allowed the right wing to define the word liberal. It has become a term of vilification, somewhat the way “pinko Communist” was in the 50s and 60s. My fellow travelers (this is a joke, for those of you who don’t know me) have conceded the point. Liberals call themselves progressives now, and allow the word "liberal" to be used as a pejorative, thus driving the national conversation further to the right.

I like the term liberal. According to American Heritage Children’s dictionary (which is all I can ever find around my house, since I have high school students who are constantly appropriating my real dictionary), it has a lot of positive definitions. Synonyms include generosity, open-mindedness, and tolerance as demonstrated by respect toward different people and ideas.

This is a long way to go about introducing concepts submitted by a conservative who would like to respond to some of my ideas, but who is currently on the other side of the world and can’t enter them directly into the comments portion. I was going to tease him a bit, and call his remarks as being contributions from the dark side, but I find I can’t. For one thing, he is too civil when talking about me. For instance, he characterizes my commentary as “sensitive and caring.” I’ll be darned if I’ll let him be more liberal (i.e., respectful toward different people and ideas) than I am.

So, although it never occurred to me that I would be serving as a forum for opposing views as well as my own, here is a sampling of his version of what I can only term compassionate conservatism, from someone who actually understands both compassion and conservatism (in the interests of space, I have edited out a great deal that speaks to compassion – you’ll just have to trust me on this). In the interest of fair play, I’ll publish my rebuttals separately. In the interest of my health, I’ll add that one of the first topics will be taxation, Social Security and Medicare (otherwise known as FICA).

On welfare:
Lenore, you are right [about the causes of poverty]. I know how impossible housing and transportation are for our poor, and those are the two arguments I can't defeat with any of my arguments It was easier to be poor when I was a kid. I did not have to pay first and last month rent on the $60.00 shack I rented as a GI in Sacramento in 1960. $60.00 got me in. No deposits on utilities. But for those who can overcome the hurdles of housing and transportation, the permanent solutions lie in the accumulation of private wealth, not government checks. Learning to live within our means, no matter how meager they are, is what brings real social security.

The Fair Tax [sales tax as opposed to income tax] will be a big help. The rich will pay their fair share, as they have the most to spend. The Fair Tax (H.R. 25) will eliminate all Federal Tax but the special excise taxes. No more FICA, no more income tax. And all will receive a rebate credit for National Sales Tax that would be paid by individuals and families at the poverty level. A person making e.g. $12,000 annually (if that were the poverty level for a single person) would take home $12,000!

FICA is a crime, both in the amount taken, and the amount wasted. It is forbidden for me to accept a non-Medicare procedure or treatment since I turned 65! How about that for government interference in my health care? I have read the Constitution a number of times, and too much has been inferred from the preamble (which stated the purpose of the document, not any specific application.) We are better served when we control our own resources, and make our own decisions.

And, no more tax breaks bought with bribes (campaign contributions)--the perfidious and insidious destroyer of our republican form of government!

On faith:
Again, I find a lot of agreement here. My Jewish forebears and relatives perished in the camps (save three who survived and have since died.) There is not a Piowaty left in Europe. As a Catholic in a small Ohio town, I was told my faith was wrong. I went with another child to his church instead of my catechism class one afternoon. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was going to hell. Heavy stuff for a first-grader!!

On praying for or against temporal and physical occurrences, I'm reminded of Patton's prayer for good weather so he could make it into Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. Were the Germans praying at the same time for the weather to remain overcast as protection from American air power?

Finally, something I wrote in 1962 when I was in pilot training and had a premonition that I would become witness to more and continuing horror in our world.

LOOK AT US
Sing us our praises, mighty man.
Look what we've done--
How well we make things dead!

Who is to look on us?
The animals know naught
And God must shake His head.

On education:
On your first paragraph--I put together this sentence probably 3 or 4 decades ago: "I never learned anything from people I agreed with." I may have gained some pleasant reinforcement, but no real learning, no new ideas, and no practice in articulating my position that I might gain in a discussion with a person of different opinion.

On money for education: We DO need to pay our GOOD teachers more. But our egalitarian, pc society won't allow us to scale, let alone pay, excellence.

Our students know full well who the good and effective teachers are. They surely know better than do the principals and administrators and superintendents. I have probably 3 academic years as a sub in Okaloosa County schools and at St. Mary. No principal ever observed my work! At least at Brent School in Baguio, Philippines I did have two visits from one Headmaster and one from the other.

It is frightening to realize how much does (or does not) go on in our public (and private) schools. Who knows, and how can they know, whether we're getting our money's worth. Of course, my position is that we are not getting anywhere near our money's worth.

Paying our good teachers what they are worth is not the entire solution. We need to raise the bar on our average teachers. The average teacher who scores 15 points below the average of ALL who take the SAT? The average teacher (actually "better" than average--as these are those going for a master's) who, along with those with degrees in social science, scores the lowest on the GRE!!

And, we put our children's minds in the care of these?

Other People's Storms

2005-09-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

The last few days have been very pleasant. Hurricane Rita spun out a few calling cards, and they were welcome indeed. The stifling heat of a Florida summer was broken by brisk breezes and cloud cover. The recent drought gave way to small, contained summer storms. A few weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina tossed over similar greetings: enough wind to convey a frisson of anticipation, a bit of rain to keep the plants healthy, some dramatic waves. The waters poured over our main highway, our sorely battered shore line gave way to a storm surge yet again; but in the main, Katrina as experienced in the Florida Panhandle, provided an unexpected break from daily chores and stress.

For us, this has been a year of other people’s storms (with the exception of Hurricane Dennis, which was a pretty profound exception). Were it possible to turn a blind eye to the death and destruction just out of view, we could easily consider hurricanes and other tropical storms to be a pleasant diversion from routine.

Other people’s storms are the metaphor for our time. Most of us in the middle class are just a few latitudinal degrees away from disaster, but as long as the storms (whether they are related to health, economics, or meteorology) keep just to the east or west of us, we can feel insulated and protected. We don’t have to worry about the consequences of our actions, or see the bleakness of despair in the eyes of our neighbors. We can heave a sigh of relief: thank God our child didn’t get cancer, or our job didn’t get out-sourced overseas; or our house didn’t turn out to have been built in a flood plain after all. We take stock of our personal lives, find we’re okay, perhaps send a few dollars to the Red Cross, and move on.

We need to realize that other people’s storms are, indeed, our storms as well. We pledge allegiance to the concept of one nation, “with justice for all,” but social justice is a hollow term today. Economic inequality is staggering enough to be a threat to the nation. While the top half of one percent rakes in obscene wealth, 34% of the population experiences poverty for at least two months every two years. As we move to a service economy, few corporations offer living wages. Our educational system slides ever more quickly into inadequacy. We continue to stand aside and let our environment be plundered and pillaged for the good of the few, and the nightmare of the many.

We cannot take too much solace in our isolation from this year’s storms. Storms of all kinds are brewing, and all of us are in harm’s way. To paraphrase John Donne: Do not ask for whom the storm comes. It comes for thee.”

Tropical Storm Arlene

2005-09-26T20:24:00.000-05:00

On Education

2005-09-24T06:39:00.000-05:00

One of the many blessings that have come my way has been my good fortune in establishing real friendships with really conservative individuals. They keep me grounded, and aware of the common values that we share, despite our different approaches to philosophy, law, science, religion, education, and pretty much anything else that would seem to preclude affection and conversation.

It is the friend who wrote “failed, failed, failed” about the welfare system who reminds me both explicitly and implicitly that we are not nearly as far about in our goals as I might think. We both want a just and inclusive society, and we are willing to acknowledge that there are varying routes that lead to the same place.

My friend is deeply concerned with the quality of education taking place in our public schools, and I can hardly argue that our educational system is a beacon to the world. Perhaps we recoil at different symptoms: I find the fact that 75% of Americans think creationism is a valid scientific explanation of the origins of life to be an appalling indictment of our schools. To me, this screams that our high schools are graduating young men and women who have no concept of the scientific method, and cannot tell the difference between a scientific theory supported by mountains of reproducible evidence, and an opinion offered at a cocktail party. This particular issue may not distress John quite so much, but he’s pretty alarmed that our high school seniors are fairly clueless when it comes to higher math.

John’s diagnosis is that students are putting more time into video games and mass media than they are into their studies and life experiences. My issues deal with scholastic structure and content. I don’t understand why we are still wedded to a 180 day school year, 6-1/2 hour school day, when the amount of knowledge necessary to succeed in a global economy grows exponentially by the minute. I am appalled that my second daughter was given the same geography text in 1996 that her sister was given in 1993, printed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. One detail that stands out is that asbestos was listed as Canada’s primary export.

The differences between us are significant: John’s solutions require better parenting and more self-discipline on the part of students. Mine require more money: more salaries and utility funds to support longer school hours, better textbooks, and instructional styles that complement the types of academic mastery necessary for survival in a computer and informational-dependent world.

The similarity is even more profound: We are both right. Lower wages and rising costs mean that two parents often hold three jobs between them just to meet the mortgage payments, and single parents may hold three jobs by themselves. Harried parents can often equal inattentive parents, who are happy that the kids are quiet and entertained. They know they should be insisting on greater help in the house, and less time with the game controls, but the energy to enforce this just isn’t there. Students arrive at school passive, unaware of their obligations to contribute to their own education, and unfamiliar with the discipline necessary to learn. All the textbooks and lab equipment and extended hours are of little use if the student can’t process the information. Despite my agreement that this has major impact on our educational system, I’m at a loss as to why the collective society (i.e., government) can do about it.

On the other hand, there are nuts and bolts ideas that can bring at least partial solutions. Schools need to adapt to the 21st century. The lecture method does not help anyone learn to build formulas into an Excel program. Repetition of basic math problems loses effectiveness if it cuts into time needed for understanding mathematical theory and how to use a graphing calculator to solve engineering problems (one of my pet peeves about the extended summer involves the necessity for 6-9 weeks of review at the beginning of each school year – what a waste of an already too-short year). Learning to write formula essays does not inspire critical thinking and analysis.

By bringing our various understandings to a common table, perhaps we can fashion solutions that address the multitude of problems facing an evolving society. Today we can work together on education; tomorrow, we can tackle the meaning of civil liberty and freedom.

I’ll let you know when we are ready to establish world peace.

Having fun yet?

2005-09-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

A friend told me that a blog was the beginning of an unexpected journey. We may think we control the content and the path, but the blog itself quickly takes on a life of its own. You find yourself seeing new aspects in truths you had assumed to be fully established, and following your mind down wilderness paths that suddenly popped up among cultivated fields. I had no idea I was still so unsettled on questions of faith and policy, until I started reading what I was writing.

What helps me most frame questions in my own mind and seek new thoughts is the amazing quality of interaction, even so early on in this exploration. Thanks to the comments and e-mails I’ve received already, I’m being challenged to take fresh viewpoints, and clarify and define old ones.

I really appreciate those of you who have sent this out to far-flung places, thus widening even further the range of ideas and insights. Tomorrow I’ll post a blog on education. But for tonight, I’ll just go with my own thank-you card – a picture taken on our most recent trip (to Sedona, Arizona).

Sunrise in Sedona

2005-09-23T20:48:00.000-05:00

But for the grace of me...

2005-09-20T22:30:00.000-05:00

A cousin, who should realize I need to watch my blood pressure, sent me an article equating “welfare parasites” with “criminals.” According to the author (though not my cousin), to accept Medicaid is to commit a felonious act. A conservative friend, knowing I was considering welfare as the topic of my next blog, sent just three words on the subject: “Failed, failed, failed.”

For many years, I lived an insulated existence, where these concepts were the norm. Occasionally, in my stay-at-home mom days, glimpses of life beyond the suburbs would filter in. I remember helping one child learn to write, suggesting she practice at home. She startled me by saying she had no paper. Without thinking, I took on the Marie Antoinette role, and said, “Maybe you could use the backs of the envelopes that junk mail comes in.” Note: poor people do not get junk mail.

Nine years ago, I found employment at a social services agency. Stereotypes that I did not know I possessed were shattered. I found that the shortest route to poverty was family abandonment; that mothers often faced untenable choices between living in abusive situations or taking their children with them into homelessness. I came face to face with people who work two and three jobs, and still couldn’t pay the rent. I was overwhelmed by the precariousness of lives dependent upon day labor, where a few rainy days shutting down construction jobs could literally mean the difference between life and death. I met so-called “throwaway” children, victims of abuse, neglect, and/or rape, with no skill sets suitable for life on the streets. I became aware of persons born with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, who are caught in a terrible circle of pain. Without medications, they cannot hold down jobs. Without jobs, they cannot afford medications, which can run anywhere from $500-$1800 a month. The concept of self-medication (cheap wine and gin) became more closely aligned with concepts of self-preservation. Given the circumstances in which many of these people live their lives, a barrier against the worst of the pain seems almost reasonable.

I had thought we had a social safety net. If we do, it is badly in need of repair. We have no emergency shelters in my town, no centers where people can go to wash their bodies and their clothes, phone employers, drop off their children while they attend job interviews. We have inadequate transportation, career opportunities (as opposed to low-wage service sector jobs that do not provide a living wage), or educational assistance. Our government is lavish when handing out corporate welfare but is parsimonious to the extreme when it comes to helping the indigent rebuild their lives.

Much of this is the result of popular assumptions that the statement, “failed, failed, failed,” is correct. But the evidence doesn’t bear this out. A September 19 Washington Post editorial(currently a very conservative newspaper) presented this analysis of the effects of the war on poverty started by Lyndon Johnson in 1964:
“The share of the poor living in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty (40 percent or more) fell dramatically during the 1990s. Though many Americans hover at the edges of poverty, the number who are permanently trapped is surprisingly low: In the four years between 1996 and 1999, one Census Bureau study found, only 2 percent of the population was poor every month for two years or more -- but 34 percent of the population experienced poverty for at least two months. The overall poverty rate fell from 19 percent in 1964 to 12.7 percent last year, though most of that decline occurred during the first decade. Since 1999, the rate has been edging steadily, and disturbingly, upward.
At the same time, the creation and expansion of government programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies and the earned-income tax credit have made the America of 2005 a far less harsh place for the poor than the America of 1964. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded in a recent report that such programs "cut the number of poor Americans nearly in half . . . and dramatically reduced the severity of poverty for those who remain poor." Thanks in large part to government programs such as Social Security, the problem of poverty has been greatly ameliorated among the elderly -- falling last year to an all-time low (9.8 percent).”
Strategic, intelligent responses to poverty have worked well. Unfortunately, they are being dismantled, with disturbing results. For the last five years, the growth of capital at the expense of those persons producing the wealth has been extreme. Wages have been falling steadily, while the numbers of children being raised in poverty continue to surge (the poverty rate among children is higher now (17.8 percent) than it was in the 1970s.)

For many years, I have been wondering why it is that we who have so much, give so little as a society. One reason may be that it is a human characteristic to resent those to whom we should give. Unconsciously we reject those who, by their mere presence, reproach us with our plenty, our ease, our good fortune. We rationalize our affluence and their lack thereof: I work harder, I’m smarter; I had a better education; I understand deferred gratification and held off having a family. If I can do it, so could anyone else. It is enough to offer an example of the results of hard work and application.

After all, it isn’t but for the grace of God that I could be scraping by on the margins of society, but for the grace of me.

May God have mercy on us all.

A Prayerful Word

2005-09-17T18:13:00.000-05:00

Following both the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, I was besieged by forwarded e-mails assuring me that all this was the result of our failure to permit prayer in schools. Putting aside the fact that students pray in schools all the time, both publicly before and after class, and privately during tests and before meals, I have to wonder at the reasoning.

Perhaps I’m harping on this subject, but I’m still stuck on the idea that we are supposed to view the Biblical record as inerrant. Every word is distilled truth.

So, shouldn’t we be praying in private anyway, whether prayer is “allowed” in school or not? Jesus said we should pray in secret where our Father, who is in secret, will hear us. He even took it further and told us not to pray in public the way the hypocrites do, who want everyone to know how pious they are, but to pray where even our left hand will not know what our right hand is doing. Those who pray in public have their reward on earth, but those who pray in secret find favor with God. The Lord’s Prayer came as a result of the disciples begging Jesus to tell them what he was doing when He went off to pray by himself. Jesus himself always chose to pray on his own, even to the point of leaving the apostles behind in the Garden of Gethsemane.

What kind of God rains down disaster and death on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, for abiding by His commands? The Old Testament God demonstrated a lot of wrath when he was disobeyed, but He tended to be pleasant toward those who were obedient to His word.

I need to get over this. It is clear to the fundamentalist that the Bible is revealed truth only when it agrees with the mindset of those who wish to use it in furtherance of their political and social aims. For instance, the several conflicting versions of Creation are all perfect, since none of them speak of evolution, but the admonition to feed those who are hungry, clothe those who are naked, heal the sick and visit those in prison isn’t quite so clear. The few references to homosexuality in the Old Testament are sacred text, but the story of the Good Samaritan, which warns us to avoid prejudice (as indeed does the story of Jonah) isn’t quite so compelling.

Perhaps I’ll borrow my bumper sticker from a less exalted author, but a sound one nonetheless: “God Bless Us, EVERYone.”

Note: In the daily paper, a letter writer posed the question: Why is the Christian right so hell-bent on getting the 10 Commandments posted everywhere? Surely, as Christians, they would prefer the Beatitudes, which praise the peacemakers and offer encouragement to the oppressed. This is, after all, the distilled essence of the Christian Gospel. A silly question, but I was glad someone asked.

The Gospel of the Bumper Sticker

2005-09-17T18:10:00.000-05:00

Traffic was at its usual rush hour standstill, so I had plenty of time to read all the bumper stickers on the truck in front of me. Most were of the “I’m more Christian than you are” variety, with declarations as to “God is my Co-Pilot” and “Jesus is Lord.” However, pride of place, right in the center of the tailgate, was an oversized sticker that proclaimed: “May God Have Mercy on Your Soul, Because I Never Will.”

It made me wonder. Isn’t it the fundamentalist belief that the Bible is the revealed word of God, perfect in every way? Why then, boast of a sentiment that is the antithesis of everything spoken by Jesus? Indeed, is even directly disputed by the God of the Old Testament as well?

Although I would never be confused with a Biblical scholar, I am a graduate of numerous religious classes in high school and college, and a veteran of years of Sunday School both as student and teacher. I’m quite comfortable in my reading of the New Testament, because it isn’t very nebulous to begin with. When Jesus was asked which was the most important of the commandments, he didn’t weigh one of the 10 Commandments against the other. No, he was quick to reply, I give to you a new commandment, that you love one another.

That’s a pretty clear call for mercy to me, but I admit that the word is not used. So we turn to other texts, like the Beatitudes, where it is written “Blessed are the merciful.” When a follower whined, “how many times must I forgive my brother? As many as seven?” The reply was direct and swift, “as many as seventy times seven,” which was meant to imply that we must be ready to forgive as many times as it takes. And then there is the passage on turning the other cheek, and the one on “he who is without sin shall cast the first stone,” or “why do you seek the mote in your brother’s eye, and not the log in your own?” Even more pointed, when asked about what one does about one’s enemies, the answer came: “Pray for those who persecute you.” And for those who loudly pray for their enemies in language couched in insults and self-righteousness, you won’t find approval from Jesus on that one. He said to pray for forgiveness, both that you may forgive others and that you may be forgiven. It was the most direct opposite from conflict and arrogance he could come up with.

What about the famously vengeful and punitive God of the Old Testament? He may not have been consistently merciful, but he was consistent in demanding mercy from His followers. The famous saying, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” is meant to convey that humans should have no part in revenge, but must leave judgment and punishment to a Higher Power.

However, this is a moot discussion, because, as the bumper sticker indicates, mercy has already been banished, and is not the calling card of the fundamentalist Christian. Following the wake of Hurricane Katrina, our aggressively Christian neighbors have been flooding our newspaper letters column with venomous attacks on those who are victims of the hurricane. Those victims deserved whatever they got, because they had already been shown to be unworthy of God’s or man’s love. After all, they were poor, black, and probably had too many children at too young an age. It was their fault they didn’t have resources to flee the storm, and it’s only a shame more weren’t drowned. If they had been, we wouldn’t have had so much looting and vandalism.

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickled and Dimed in America, the author speaks of attending revivals while working at low-end service jobs. She was struck with how silent Jesus was at these revivals. He was never quoted, His precepts totally missing from the texts. Everywhere He was depicted at the moment of His death, crucified, bleeding, and mute. The true Jesus, the homeless vagrant, the nomad dependent upon the charity of others, the apostle of love and grace, has no home in the fundamentalist Christian church. Indeed, if our refusal to help our homeless, and begrudge those who are vulnerable is any indication, He is indeed the enemy, just as was written by Dostoyevsky in the “Grand Inquisitor.”

I’m not certain when and where Christianity got hijacked in the popular mind as relating solely to the study of Revelations, a book that can clearly only be viewed as an outlier, having no particular connection with the Gospels or the acts of the Apostles. I’m not certain when the focus switched from Christian charity to self-righteousness and moral smugness. But I am certain that this trend can only lead to the death of the Christian faith if it continues.