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Robert Lanza, MD, is a regular blogger on Huffington Post. On his web site http://www.robertlanza.com/ he bills himself as “one of the leading scientists in the world.” I first learned about Lanza in 1992 when he wrote an article called “The Wise Science” published in The Humanist Vol. 52, No. 6, p. 24. (link not available). It was so full of dubious science that I felt compelled to reply, which I did in The Humanist, May/June 1992, Vol. 53, Number 3, p. 13. Here was my response, which still applies to the claims he continues to post in this venue. I have made a few minor changes and corrections to bring the article up-to-date.
A new myth is burrowing its way into modern thinking. The notion is spreading that the principles embodied in quantum mechanics imply a central role for the human mind in determining the very nature of the universe. Not surprisingly, this idea can be found in New Age periodicals and in many books on the metaphysical shelves of book stores. But it also can appear where you least expect it, even on the pages of that bastion of rational thinking, The Humanist.
In an article in the November/December 1992 issue entitled “The Wise Silence,” Robert Lanza says that, according to the current quantum mechanical view of reality, “We are all the ephemeral forms of a consciousness greater than ourselves.” The mind of each human being on earth is instantaneously connected to each other – past, present and future – as “a part of every mind existing in space and time.”
To my ear, these sound very much like the ideas of physicist and New Age guru Fritjof Capra, as expressed most recently in the film “Mindwalk.” They also resonate with the “cosmic consciousness” promoted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement. Like Lanza, these sages claim modern physics as their authority. The Maharishi associates cosmic consciousness with the Grand Unified Field of particle physics. Maharishi University “quantum physicist” John Hagelin, Natural Law Party candidate for President in last year’s [1990] election, has spoken frequently about quantum consciousness.
In Lanza’s interpretation, quantum mechanics tells us that all human minds are united in one mind and “the entities of the universe – electrons, photons, galaxies, and the like – are floating in a field of mind that cannot be limited within a restricted space or period . . .”
Unlike traditional myths, which call on scripture or the utterances of charismatic leaders as their authorities, this latest version of ancient Hindu idealism is supposedly based on up-to-date scientific knowledge. The assertion is made that quantum mechanics has ruled invalid the materialistic, reductionist view of the universe, introduced by Newton in the seventeenth century, which formed the foundation of the scientific revolution. Now, materialism is replaced by a new spiritualism and reductionism is cast aside by a new holism.
The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. It was bad enough when Copernicus said that we were not at the center of the universe. It was worse when Darwin announced that we were not angels. But it became intolerable when astronomers declared that the earth is but one of a hundred billion trillion other planets, and when geologists demonstrated that recorded history is but a blink of time – a microsecond of the second of earth’s existence.
In a land where self-gratification has reached heights never dreamed of in ancient Rome, where self-esteem is more important than being able to read, and where self-help requires no more effort than putting on a cassette, the myth of quantum consciousness is just what the shrink ordered.
But, alas, quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in the twentieth century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth-century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place.
The belief in a universal, cosmic fluid pervading all space is an ancient one. To the Greeks, aether was the rarified air breathed by the gods on Olympus. Aristotle used this term for the celestial element – the stuff of the heavens – and said it was subject to different tendencies than the stuff of earth. When Newton was prompted to explain the nature of gravity in non-mathematical terms, he replied that gravity might be transmitted by an invisible aether. He further suggested that the aether also may be responsible for electricity, magnetism, light, radiant heat, and the motion of living things that he, like his contemporaries, thought was the consequence of some source beyond inanimate matter. Even today, despite the preponderance of evidence unavailable to Newton that life is a purely material phenomenon, people still speak of immaterial, vital forces such a ch’i, ki, prana, and psychic energy that have no scientific basis.
Newton also had proposed that vibrations of the aether might be excited by the brain. This speculation forms the conceptual foundation for the modern myth of quantum consciousness and the related belief that the human mind commands special powers – psychic forces – that transcend the material universe.
Newton had envisioned matter and light to be particulate in nature, though they appear continuous to the human eye. Gravity, however, seemed to be something else, acting invisibly – holistically – over the entire universe. In the mid-nineteenth century, the mathematical concept of the field was developed to describe the apparent continuity of matter, light, and gravity. A field has a value at each point in space, in contrast to the properties of a particle that are localized to a tiny region of space. To some current observers, fields are holistic entities while particles typify the reductionist view of nature, where everything is reduced to its parts. Holists, with great profundity, inform us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and so the reductionist view must be discarded. Note, however, that fields were not invented last week, after some great burst of intuition by a Capra or a Lanza, but appeared in reductionist physics over a century ago. Little in the new holism is really very new, or very logical.
Pressure and density are two examples of matter fields. In continuous elastic media, pressure and density propagate as sound waves when the media are excited. As the phenomena of electricity and magnetism became better understood, they were also described in terms of fields. When Maxwell discovered that the equations that united electricity with magnetism called for the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum at the speed of light, it was suggested that the vacuum was not empty but filled with an elastic medium – the aether – whose excitation produced the phenomenon of light.
Electromagnetic waves beyond the narrow spectrum of visible light were predicted and soon observed and put to use in “wireless telegraphy.” One of the early workers in wireless telegraphy was the English physicist Oliver Lodge. While making major contributions to physics and engineering, Lodge joined William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace (co-discoverer of natural selection) and other notable nineteenth century scientists in searching for phenomena that transcended the world of matter. If wireless telegraphy was possible, why not wireless telepathy? If electrical circuits could generate and detect ethereal waves, why not the human brain? Coincidentally, certain people who seemed to possess the ability to communicate with other minds, living and dead, had just appeared on the scene. They were called mediums a century ago; today their spiritual descendants are known as psychics or channellers.
Unfortunately, most scientists lack the specific skills needed to distinguish fact from illusion in the world of magic. The universe does not lie; people lie. Lodge and other psychical researchers allowed themselves to be fooled by the tricks of professional fortune-tellers and sleight-of-hand artists posing as spiritualists. Lodge desperately wanted to believe in life after death, writing passionately about communications with his son Raymond who was killed in Flanders in 1915. Sadly, he accepted the wildest claims of mediums.
Near the turn of the century, Michelson and Morley sought to find experimental evidence for the aether and succeeded in showing instead that it did not appear to exist. Shortly thereafter, in 1905, Einstein developed his theory of relativity which demonstrated that the concept of an aether was logically inconsistent with Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. Einstein concluded that electromagnetic waves, including light, could not be the vibrations of an aether. Still, Oliver Lodge remained firm in his belief that a universal cosmic fluid existed that could be excited by the human mind. To Lodge, the aether was a necessity, the cosmic glue without which “there can hardly be a material universe at all.”
Lodge was similarly unhappy with what he was hearing young quantum physicists, like Bohr and Heisenberg, say about the fundamentally discrete, quantized, nature of all phenomena. He deplored “the modern tendency . . . to emphasize the discontinuous or atomic character of everything.” But progress passed him by, as evidence accumulated that matter is composed of discrete atoms, that electricity is the flow of electrons or other charged particles, and that light is a current of particles called photons. When Oliver Lodge died in 1940, continuity was already long in its grave.
Einstein wasn’t comfortable with quantum mechanics either, calling it “spooky.” He and two collaborators, Podolsky and Rosen, wrote a paper in 1935 arguing that quantum mechanics was “incomplete” because it seemed to allow for the propagation of signals faster than the speed of light, a result forbidden by Einstein’s relativity. Like so many of the strange effects of quantum mechanics, this was a consequence of the wave-particle duality in which physical systems behave either like waves or particles, depending on which type of property you are trying to measure. Again the distinction is between the discrete, localized properties of a particle and the continuous, distributed properties a field.
The EPR paradox remained a curiosity until 1964 when John S. Bell showed how it provided a way to experimentally test the conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics. Earlier, physicist David Bohm had proposed an alternative to the conventional theory in which invisible “hidden variables” were responsible for the wave-like behavior of particles. Bell showed the way to experimentally decide the issue. Now, after a series of precise experiments, the issue has been decided: The conventional interpretation quantum mechanics has been shown to agree with the data, while the most important class of [local] hidden variables is ruled out.
David Bohm, who died in October, 1992, had been the foremost proponent of a new holistic paradigm to take the place of reductionist quantum physics. The failure of his related hidden variable theory did not cause the proponents of the new continuity to loose faith. Rather they have turned the experimental confirmation of conventional quantum mechanics on its head by arguing that a basis has been found for the superluminal signals needed in a holistic universe.
Einstein’s principle that no signals can move faster than light implies that separated events in the universe, even those an atomic diameter apart, cannot be simultaneously connected. This fundamentally contradicts the holistic view of an instantaneous interconnectedness among all things. Rather, relativity paints quite the opposite picture: a universe of localized particles that at any instant depend only on the other particles with which they are in direct contact. What is going on elsewhere in the universe at that instant can have no effect until the particles carrying the necessary information can get there, moving no faster than the speed of light. This is a far more complete form of reductionism than is present in pre-Einsteinian mechanics, where motions at superluminal or even infinite speeds were not ruled out by any known theory. Incompatible with the claims of the new holists, relativity not only supports the reductionist view – it makes it mandatory! A universal cosmic field like the aether, providing a mechanism for interconnectedness, requires a violation of Einstein’s relativity. But relativity has passed every experimental test that has been put to it since being introduced in 1905, so it cannot be casually discarded.
Similarly, the [statistical] interpretation of quantum mechanics to which Einstein objected, and which Bohm sought to replace, still reigns supreme after being subjected to a similar period of rigorous experimental tests, including the tests of Bell’s theorem. The EPR paradox thus would seem to suggest that quantum mechanics and relativity cannot be made compatible, and so one or the other must go. Before the experimental results confirming conventional quantum mechanics came in, Bohm and his supporters had argued that conventional quantum mechanics should be discarded. Now that the results are in, the new holists argue that relativity must yield, since quantum mechanics provides a mechanism by which signals can move faster than light. Quantum mechanics is indeed “spooky.” So, bring out the spooks! An ethereal, universal field that allows for the simultaneous connection between events everywhere in the universe must exist after all.
Quantum mechanics is called on further to argue that the cosmic field, like Newton’s aether, couples to the human mind itself. In Robert Lanza’s view, that field is the universal mind of all humanity – living, dead, and unborn. Ironically, this seemingly profound association between quantum and mind is an artifact, the consequence of unfortunate language used by Bohr, Heisenberg, and the others who originally formulated quantum mechanics. In describing the necessary interaction between the observer and what is being observed, and how the state of a system is determined by the act of its measurement, they inadvertently left the impression that human consciousness enters the picture to cause that state come into being. This led many who did not understand the physics, but liked the sound of the words used to describe it, to infer a fundamental human role in what was previously a universe that seemed to have need for neither gods nor humanity.
If Bohr and Heisenberg had spoken of measurements made by inanimate instruments rather than “observers,” perhaps this strained relationship between quantum and mind would not have been drawn. For, nothing in quantum mechanics requires human involvement.
Quantum mechanics does not violate the Copernican principle that the
universe cares not a whit about the human race. Long after humanity has disappeared from the scene, matter will still undergo the transitions that we call quantum events. The atoms in stars will radiate photons, and these photons will be absorbed by materials that react to them. Perhaps, after we are gone, some of our machines will remain to analyze these photons. If so, they will do so under the same rules of quantum mechanics that operate today.
But even without human involvement, with inanimate instruments doing the observing, do the rules of quantum mechanics allow for superluminal motion? A careful analysis of the experiments that tested Bell’s theorem shows that the only objects that move faster than light are mathematical creations of our imagination, like the quantum wave function, which are not physical objects. It can be mathematically proved that no signal carrying actual information moves faster than the speed of light. Neither conventional quantum mechanics nor Einstein’s relativity are violated.
The overwhelming weight of evidence, from seven decades of experimentation, shows not a hint of a violation of reductionist, local, discrete, non-superluminal, non-holistic relativity and quantum mechanics – with no fundamental involvement of human consciousness other than in our own subjective perception of whatever reality is out there. Of course our thinking processes have a strong influence on what we perceive. But to say that what we perceive therefore determines, or even controls, what is out there is without rational foundation. The world would be a far different place for all of us if it were just all in our heads – if we really could make our own reality as the New Agers believe. The fact that the world rarely is what we want it to be is the best evidence that we have little to say about it. The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The latest Wikileaks data dump, and the first to target the governments of U.S. allies, will be released today, according to Wikileaks Central.
The unofficial Wiki Web spokespage quoted Der Spiegel, one of the news organizations given the 251,287 cables and 8,000 diplomatic directives apparently obtained through secret sources from the U.S. State Department.
The timing of the release by Der Spiegel was scheduled for 16:30 New York time, but may be delayed. Wikileaks Central said the page announcing the release has been taken down.
In addition to Der Spiegel, at least four other Web sites planned to release the information: Le Monde, the New York Times, the Guardian and El Pais. Others may also be involved.
There has been speculation, strengthened by reports that U.S. diplomats have been scurrying around the world warning their allies, that some of the information will be very embarrassing.
The most anticipated claim was made in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. It said Turkey had allowed al-Qaeda to ship supplies to its Iraqi-based insurgents through Turkish territory.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Cohen, of the newly minted Cohen Media Group, introduced his distribution company and their inaugural film, the Algerian entry into the Oscars race, Outside the Law, at a luncheon at The Four Seasons last week. Of the 65 films Charles Cohen put forward by their countries as contenders for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, this epic drama of occupation and resistance through the story of a family of brothers is on many a short list.
Paris-based writer/ director Rachid Bouchareb is familiar to American audiences through his previous film, Indigenes (or Days of Glory), nominated for the Foreign Film Oscar in 2006; before that, his Poussieres de vie had been a 1995 nominee. His films tend to limn the same themes: colonialism, immigration, occupation, and multi-racial, multi-cultural issues that resonate particularly in North Africa and the Middle East. Outside the Law, at least chronologically, picks up where Indigenes leaves off, in 1945.
Filmmaker Paul Morrissey, upon hearing an outline of Outside the Law, how a family was expelled from their ancestral home in Algeria and ended up in France with three sons each in his way participating in the movement for Algerian independence, declared he would like to see a comedy from this director. Sure enough, the Paris-born Algerian Rachid Bouchareb told me he will now stay in Los Angeles to finish a script with Larry Gross, a comedy to star Queen Latifa and Jamel Debbouze, the brother Said who becomes a boxing impresario in Outside the Law.
And what does he think about the possibility of again being nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, and maybe winning? Scorcese was nominated seven times before he won, smiled Rachid Bouchareb. This would make only three for me.
This post also appears on Gossip Central.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Source:Associated Press
__________________________________________________________________________
COLUMBUS, Ohio — “The Game” is getting awfully one-sided.Jordan Hall broke the game open with an 85-yard kickoff return and No. 8 Ohio State’s defense stymied high-powered Michigan 37-7 on Saturday, stretching the Buckeyes’ mastery in “The Game” to seven straight wins.
Fast Facts
• Ohio State extended its win streak against Michigan to seven games as the Buckeyes finished the regular season 11-1 (7-1) for a share of the Big Ten title.
• Ohio State has outscored Michigan 218-108 during the seven-game win streak.
• Jim Tressel improved to 9-1 against Michigan during his tenure in Columbus.
• Dan Herron rushed for 175 yards and a TD on 22 carries. Herron has rushed for over 100 yards in three of his last four games.
• Michigan managed just 83 yards of offense in the second half (15 rush yards).
– ESPN Stats & Information
The Buckeyes (11-1, 7-1) picked up two celebration penalties after touchdowns but had a lot to celebrate: A share of a record-tying sixth Big Ten title and, most likely, a Bowl Championship Series bowl berth.Terrelle Pryor had two TD passes and Dan “Boom” Herron finished with 175 yards on 22 carries.It was another stumble for Michigan (7-5, 3-5) under coach Rich Rodriguez, now 0-3 against the Buckeyes and just 15-21 overall with the Wolverines.Herron ran 98 yards for a score that was disallowed and shortened to an 89-yard gain because of a holding penalty as he neared the end zone.Michigan’s sterling quarterback, Denard Robinson, was hampered by an injured left (non-throwing) hand. He played little more than a half, running for 105 yards on 18 attempts and completing 8 of 18 passes for 87 yards. He came into the game second nationally in total offense at 343 yards a game.The crowd serenaded the Buckeyes with “We Don’t Give A Damn For the Whole State of Michigan” throughout the final quarter, long after the outcome had been decided.
Big Ten blog
ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg writes about all things Big Ten in his conference blog.
• Blog network:
College Football Nation
It was the second-most lopsided Ohio State victory in the series since 1968, eclipsed only by a 42-7 win the last time the game was played in Columbus in 2008. Over those last two Buckeyes home games, they’ve outscored Michigan 79-14.Ohio State players, dressed up in bright scarlet helmets and shoes for the game, were twice flagged for forming an “O” with their gloved hands while celebrating after touchdowns. The crowd of 105,491 booed lustily after each penalty.The rest of the afternoon was mostly cheers.Ohio State’s defense — with backup cornerback Travis Howard intercepting one pass and recovering two fumbles — controlled a Michigan offense that came in averaging 37 points and 515 yards per game. The Wolverines ended up with 351 yards — less than 100 in the second half.Pryor completed 18 of 27 passes for 220 yards with one interception and flipped scoring strikes of 7 yards to Dane Sanzenbacher and 33 yards to DeVier Posey. Up 24-7 at the half, most of the drama was drained from the game as coach Jim Tressel improved to 9-1 against the Buckeyes’ archrivals.
Ohio Statement
The Buckeyes have won at least a share of the Big Ten title for the last six seasons, tying their own conference record.
Titles
Seasons
Ohio State
6
2005-Present
Ohio State
6
1972-77
Michigan
5
1988-92
— ESPN Stats & Information
The Buckeyes extended their record for consecutive wins in the 107-game series. By locking up a share of the Big Ten title, Ohio State matched the record of six set by the Woody Hayes’ Buckeyes teams of 1972-77.Herron’s lengthy run — he burst through a hole at his own 2 and raced untouched the rest of the way — was aided by a hold committed by Sanzenbacher as Herron was approaching the end zone. Even at 89 yards, his run tied the record in 88-year-old Ohio Stadium, matching Gene Fekete’s mark in 1942 against Pittsburgh.Michigan had drawn to 10-7 on Michael Shaw’s 1-yard plunge after Robinson had led an 80-yard march down the field. But then Hall’s return turned the momentum.
Links:Full news story
Source:espn.go.com

Each week, I post the five funniest videos from the past week’s Gotcha Media right here for you to enjoy. If I missed anything good, please don’t hesitate to correct me in the comments below.
Leading into Thanksgiving week, the issue that captivated the country was the TSA and their controversial airport screening and pat-downs. Saturday Night Live did not waste any time jumping on the story with a fake commercial for the agency featuring a slogan that neatly summed up the scandal.
When the internet wasn’t talking about the TSA this week, they were talking about Kanye West, who dropped what was probably the best album of the year on Tuesday. Kanye made the most of his big week in the spotlight, shaking up NYC with a surprise show at Bowery Ballroom where he ranted for 9 minutes about Matt Lauer, George W. Bush and Taylor Swift. He ultimately put his war with the Today Show aside and performed on a float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But the funniest Kanye-centric videos of the week came from Babelgum Comedy, who put out a series of kids reenacting Kanye’s best tweets.
Cookie Monster appears to be making a play to be the next Betty White. It’s possible that the people behind Sesame Street have been watching Saturday Night Live this season and feel that the show could be better than it is. So they put Cookie Monster forward as a potential host with this elaborate audition video in which he appears as Macarooner and Monster Gaga. With close to 100,000 supporters on Facebook, I think Lorne Michaels should be paying attention.
The Onion News Network (coming to an actual TV near you soon) reported this week on the presidential turkey pardon. In this video we see how Obama’s difficulty explaining policy decisions extends to every aspect of his job.
“Obama Outlines Moral, Philosophical Justifications For Turkey Pardon”
Finally, Conan O’Brien showed us one more of Oprah’s favorite things, once and for all demonstrating why her audience behaves the way they do.
More comedy videos at: www.gotchamediablog.com/

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

If you’re like millions of Americans, yesterday you overate at your Thanksgiving meal. Many of you may feel discouraged that you indulged in excess and that your waist is expanding because you “lost control” at your family gathering.
But I’m here today to tell you to celebrate — even if you feel bloated, blue and puffy.
You read right. I’m suggesting that instead of beating yourself up for “failing” again to stick to your diet or plan, you rejoice that you overdid it. Yes, cut yourself a break! First of all, the cards were stacked against you. Many people feel it’s downright un-American not to overeat on Thanksgiving!
Besides, you’re only human, and as humans, we sometimes fall flat on our faces. But that’s OK.
What’s important is what you do now. Will you pick yourself up and start again?
You see, the key to eating success — or any kind of success — lies in our so-called “failures.”
Sometimes, it takes “failing” just one more time for you to snap to attention and finally succeed. (In fact, back in 1998, it took repeatedly messing up for me to finally quit sweets for good.)
So today, after your Thanksgiving excesses, I urge you to forgive yourself. Affirm today at least 10 times: “I forgive myself for overeating on Thanksgiving.” While stating your affirmations, really feel forgiveness for yourself.
You’ll find — as my coaching clients have — that being compassionate to yourself and pardoning yourself for “food sins” allows you to move forward with confidence, understanding and a clean slate.
Today is also a great opportunity to decide that for the rest of the holiday season, if you feel like overeating, instead you’ll express gratitude. Indeed, I urge you to be thankful that you have wonderful foods from which to choose. Before every snack or meal and whenever junk foods or sugary “treats” beckon, inwardly say, “Thank you for the foods, which help me to live and become a better me.”
To repeat, I invite you to get going with two tiny steps.
1)Forgive yourself. Repeat your affirmation 10 times today: “I forgive myself for overeating on Thanksgiving.” Then really feel forgiveness for yourself.
2)Say thanks. Before every snack or meal and whenever junk foods or sugary “treats” beckon, inwardly say, “Thank you for the foods, which help me to live and become a better me.”
That’s it. Forgive Yourself and Say Thanks. And please let me know how it goes. Get more tips to halt holiday overeating here.
Plus, I also invite you to join the Sweeter Holiday Summit to get inspired, helped and encouraged by 35+ experts in health, wellness, organization, the Law of Attraction, abundance and fitness, including “FlyLady” Marla Cilley, Spiritual Entrepreneur John Assaraf and Office Yoga expert Darrin Zeer. Just sign up at www.SweeterHoliday.com

This Blogger’s Books from
Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life– and How YouCan Get Back on Track
by Connie Bennett, Stephen T. Sinatra

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

What do Nancy Pelosi, Jim DeMint, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and conservative anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist all have in common? Easy, hyper-partisianship and a hatred of the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction proposal.
It’s not often that proposed fiscal policy draws such heavy fire from both sides of the aisle, and even more unusual for Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich to agree even indirectly. The Bowles-Simpson proposal has however, in the criticism it’s received, succeeded in making one thing glaringly clear. Neither the far left nor the far right have any credibility when it comes to deficit reduction.
While they may differ ideologically, extreme conservatives and extreme liberals share the same basic philosophy about the nature of fiscal policy. Each side views its own ideas on taxes and spending, increased spending and higher taxes for Democrats, decreased taxes (though not always decreased spending) for Republicans, not as economic questions but as a moral ones. For staunch partisans, decisions on who to tax and how much to spend are all too often about being “good” or “bad” people and not economic responsibility.
The inability to compromise that characterizes the far left and right in American politics means that fiscal policy is constantly framed as a false choice between two extremes. Any serious economist will say that you can’t be serious about deficit reduction, and, as Rand Paul has suggested, completely refuse to consider across the board tax hikes. At the same time, Pelosi’s opinion that the government will somehow be able to balance its budget with increased tax revenues and not touch entitlement spending is just as unrealistic. It doesn’t take an economist to see that deficit reduction will require a mix of higher taxes and lower spending, and that each party must sacrifice a few of its sacred cows. This approach however, will require compromise that falls somewhere in the political grey area between both extremes. Most hyper-partisans tend to be deathly scared of grey area and middle ground.
In the end, the last best hope for American fiscal sanity lies squarely on the shoulders of moderates and young voters. Someone needs to have the courage to open up a high school economics textbook and bravely realize that we can both raise taxes and decrease spending. Young voters need to recognize that the debate over social security ultimately means very little to those who are going to be dead by 2037 anyway. Nancy Pelosi might find the Bowles-Simpson plan “simply unacceptable” and Jim DeMint might give it “two thumbs down,” but I as a young voter say the same things about the obsolete fiscal mindset that sacrifices the long term morality of a strong economic foundation for petty and ultimately meaningless short term political ideology.
The policy aspects of the Bowles-Simpson proposal are certainly open to debate and even the pair themselves are honest about its imperfections. Any serious debate on debt reduction will not succeed however, unless it recognizes that the greatest morality of all has nothing to do with transfer payments to the elderly or tax cuts, but lies in a country that simply doesn’t go broke. Many take the cynical view and believe that the psychological challenges to a balanced budget, gridlocked partisanship and the fact that spending money is an addiction, are simply too great and that America will have to face a crisis along the lines of Greece or Ireland in order to restore a sense of fiscal reality. This bow to human nature may indeed be the case. There are also those however, who refuse to accept an America that succumbs to what Erskin Bowles has called, “The most predictable economic crisis in history.” There are those with the self-discipline not to be hit by the fiscal train inching towards them. Competent economic stewards do exist, but you’ll find them intelligently in the middle, not at CPAC or Netroots Nation.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A generation ago, the voice of American sports, Howard Cosell, spoke out. “The only choice left,” wrote the Tell-It-Like-It-Is Cosell on July 2, 1986, “is to eliminate big-time college sports entirely. There is no other means to rid ourselves of the corruption, and stop the degradation of our educational system.” Why should our colleges and universities be in the semi-pro entertainment/sports business? Howard knew the score.
The long history of widespread corruption in big time school sports, especially college football and basketball, is not as well known to many who live in the Northeast corridor and the largest cities on the West Coast, where these games are not a matter of life and death, as it is for the rest of the country where we see the shenanigans begin as early as elementary and middle school, become exacerbated in the high school sports programs, and reach their full, filthy bloom in the bosom of the nations biggest colleges and universities, many of them state supported.
The latest scandals and accusations — true or not… who knows? — particularly those surrounding the once-and-since disgraced Heisman Trophy winner, Reggie Bush, and the presumptive next Heisman honoree, Cam Newton of Auburn, are really nothing new. While some might even blame Howard Cosell himself, and others like him, for the massive exposure of college sports on national television and the big money consequences that followed, we should remember that the same kind of corruption being talked about today was commonplace long before TV was a factor in school sports.
Hugh McElhenny, who is still regarded as being among the top all-time running backs in the NFL, left the University of Washington when his playing eligibility expired in 1951. That’s the way things worked in those days. Players could not leave college early to join the pros. McElhenny, who like so many college athletes never graduated, was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers and what made his going pro so controversial was his comment that he would be taking “a pay cut” to turn professional. Remember, this happened almost 60 years ago in 1951. The first nationally televised college football game, the 1952 Rose Bowl, hadn’t even been played yet. The NFL was no hotbed of TV money either. They did not have a national TV contract until 1953. And that was with the old DuMont Network. Remember them? DuMont was the original TV home of the National Football League. Quite clearly, corruption preceded the TV age.
McElhenny later wrote about his college days and his description of the recruiting process sounds quite contemporary. When it works, why change it? He originally “signed” with USC, but when they reneged on the $65 a week they promised McElhenny, he left Los Angeles and went to Washington. Why? Because there he was paid $10,000 a year to play college football – that’s 1950 money! He said he received weekly checks, never signed by the same person twice, an apartment for himself and his wife, a car and the privilege of running a restaurant tab that – guess what – he was never billed for. When he signed his first pro contract with the 49ers, and was the NFL Rookie Of The Year in 1952, he was paid the league minimum $7,000. That’s why McElhenny wasn’t joking when he said he had to take a cut. Cut to today… no current player under investigation or scrutiny or even their parents were born when Hugh McElhenny was running off tackle. College sports, however, was already a dirty place.
For those of us who live where high school football is a central community event, a lifelong enterprise for many, and college football takes on religious overtones, even for locals who never finished high school, we are familiar with the special big children, as young as sixth graders, having their birth certificates altered to make them younger so they can be nineteen and even twenty year-old high school linemen, big, beefy and all grown-up. It’s often not until these players turn professional that their actual age is revealed or when their pro career seems to halt abruptly at only twenty-nine or thirty do we learn they are really “a little older.” In the South and Southwest, the stories are legendary of young prospects being moved from school district to school district and coach to coach, mothers and fathers getting jobs provided by school boosters and interested alumni, and players being “red-shirted” as early as eighth and ninth grade. For the best of the high school standouts who make it to the college level, these star prospects can not only see the gold at the end of the rainbow, some get a taste long before they reach the professional ranks.
We don’t really know what’s happening with Cam Newton or any other player at any other big-time college program. But we do know that whatever it is that’s going on, it’s been going on for a long, long time. We fool ourselves into thinking of big-time college football and basketball players as “student-athletes” and talking about the stars we see in big games on network TV as “college kids.” But we know, don’t we, when we stop to consider why there are big-time college sports at all, that Howard Cosell was right.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I am a rabid fan of compelling underdogs and as such have been a long time follower of the Boise State football team. It is, I believe, a marvel that a squad from Idaho that has none of the recruiting gravitas of the Auburns or Alabamas has been able to compete on a national stage. Boise coach, Chris Petersen, is my kind of gridiron professor. He is the picture of calm and a man who teaches sportsmanship. Early in the year, I watched him yank one of his stars for an entire game when the defensive player committed a nasty personal foul in the first quarter. But last night, the football fates put an end to the Boise’s BCS dreams. And justified or not, it all seemed to fall on the back of one young man with the number 35 on his jersey.
A must win for the Broncos, the game against 19th ranked Nevada was tied with 10 seconds left. Nevada had all the momentum. Boise had the ball on their own forty something yard line. There was time for at most two plays. With amazing aplomb, qb Kellen Moore took the snap, dropped back, and in Doug Flutie Orange Bowl fashion, flung the pigskin 55 yards into the sure hands of Titus Young. Now, all the Boise kicker, Kyle Brotzman, had to do was make a chip shot of about 26 yards. The pale senior trotted out, swung his leg back and forth, and then booted the ball wide. Millions cheered and millions sighed. In one swing of his foot, the usually efficient senior seemed to boot away his team’s bid for a Rose Bowl and a WAC Conference championship.
The game, which was exciting enough to cause cardiac problems went into overtime. Immediately, Boise drove down to around the eight-yard line. Out Brotzman trotted for the equivalent of an extrapoint and, once again, he missed a boot that most of his non-kicking teammates could have nailed.
I decided to watch the game from an elliptical machine in a twenty-four hour gym. Moving helps to keep me calm. By the final buzzer, it was about 1 AM CST and a good thing that no one else was in earshot of my invective, as the ball that would have brought Boise to the next level was launched into the Nevada night — but not between the crossbars.
Being a fan is a human connection and I was deeply disappointed and came home in a dither. How could Brotzman make such blunders? How could he choke like that? As though I didn’t know. In a game that I played in for Bowling Green State University, I went off-sides a mind-boggling threes times in a row against Western Michigan. People say it is the kind of thing that is hard to forget. Try again — it is the kind of mistake that seems to get a life of its own — that seems to remember you. Sometimes I would be sitting up late at night with a look in my eye and my wife would say–Oh no, not ESPN replays again! Yep. I was pondering the Western Michigan game or maybe a pattern I should have run differently in a college contest played thirty years ago. There is a lot of energy around sporting events and it all makes for powerful and sometimes searingly painful memories.
I hope Brotzman is all right. He was not in Afghanistan yesterday but there is no denying that last night was traumatic for him. There has been a lot of chatter of late about head injuries in football. But there are some that come without any contact. While these high stakes are unavoidable and an essential part of the game, coaches and teachers have to be concerned for someone who lived Brotzman’s nightmare. I trust that his coaches are checking in, and that his teammates are reassuring Brotzman that they dropped this game as a team by blowing their huge lead. And if I know Boise’s character, that is just what Coach Petersen and his charges are doing.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Far be it from me to look a Pulitzer Prize in the mouth, but the tiny off-Broadway play that brought Alfred Uhry one has been blown into great size, starring the towering Vanessa Redgrave and the glowering James Earl Jones. He is as convincing as always, having metamorphosed in one lifetime from a tragic young hero in the ring, to a villain in space, and back to earth again, where he is driving a stage set steering wheel on an imagined car (that moves a little on a revolving space that must have added plenty to the budget, as apparently even a falling leaf does nowadays).
The play into film that so captured hearts with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman was for me, at least, completely unmoving, due to the affectedly mannered Ms. Redgrave, who seems to have grown more stagy with every role, including those in films. Her last movie where she was reunited with long-ago love Franco Nero was filled with almost unbearable pauses, so when he galloped in on a white horse those who admired him once hoped he might canter away, before she could grip him with one of her breathy hesitations. A stronger match is James Earl Jones, whose majestic boom, even when controlled and seeming humbled is as strong as her feigned weakness. Jessica Tandy’s growth in the role, her transformation as her driver became trusted friend, brought her an Academy Award. Ms. Redgrave’s ultimately toothless — through obviously stretched lips — brought the audience — present company excepted — to its feet at the final curtain. But I could not help thinking that they were simply cheering the last Redgrave standing, as well as welcoming the formidable Mr. Jones back to Broadway.
A much more interesting coming together of wills, prejudices and intellect was available a few miles away at the West Side Y, in Freud’s Last Session, a brilliantly imagined encounter between that analyst and C.S. Lewis, before the writer’s emergence as a Christian theosopher and author. Mostly the arguments between them are about God, but there is enough of wit and human pain examined by the playwright, Mark St. Germain (suggested by ‘The Question of God’), and enough truly impressive acting (by Mark H. Dold as the young professor Lewis, and Martin Rayner as a failing, suffering but still stubborn Freud) to make this member of the audience, at least, feel that a standing ovation was in order. I was only sorry that the play was ending its run, but am advised that it will be coming back. A true piece of theater, well worth the price of admission, considerably less than the ballyhoo further downtown.

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Do you remember life before fax machines, email and searching online? Do you remember making an appointment to see your doctor to get an opinion without being able to Google professional and everyday opinions on your computer first? It’s like a movie you watched years ago with a plot that’s vaguely familiar but has no relevance to your current life.
That’s how you’ll think of the current web versus the social web that’s expanding daily.
The epicenter of the social web has become Facebook. You already know that over 500 million people use Facebook. Did you also know that people spend over 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month, or that Facebook just surpassed Google to be the #1 site on the internet?
It’s Google and Facebook’s world today and we just surf it. As a Facebook or Google user you win no matter what because they’re building better products, but this world has not been peaceful since Google and Facebook have unofficially declared war on each other over the past few months. Most people have not noticed that it’s even happening, but it will affect all of our online habits in the future. It will also affect the advertising you consume and the availability of your private information.
This war over data will reshape our online ecosystem. Facebook and Google continue to change their minds about how much data they will share with each other. The main reason for this is that you have a Facebook ecosystem of contacts and lifestyle information that rivals your Gmail contact list and your Google search profile. Each ecosystem has some valuable data that the other does not.
At this point Facebook appears to have the upper hand in the war over your attention. Facebook has become the center of the social web with more page views and more time spent on their site than a Google search page will ever commandeer. The release of the Facebook “Like” button on web pages across the globe was a tipping point for socializing the web rather than just using isolated social websites. In their recent effort to have users add Facebook as their web browser home page, Facebook just took another leap forward in having us unconsciously experience Facebooking as the main reason to be online.
Google has been unsuccessful in their attempts to join the social web so far. Google Wave crashed as an experiment in real time messaging and collaborative project development. Google Buzz is still humming along, but has failed to gain widespread adoption, which is the name of this game. Some new products and features seem great when they roll out, but if masses of people do not choose to use them then they wither on the vine. So far, Google is winning this battle in the areas of online search and email, but losing them on the social media front.
The ultimate result of the ensuing war over your online social habits is that you’ll see Facebook and Google both bending over backwards to create more inventive ways to make it easier, faster and more fulfilling for you to communicate with your friends and business colleagues online. Watch for Facebook to add features that let you search the web while staying on Facebook, and watch for Google to add features that connect your social graph and help you more to connect to your friends online.

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Tomorrow Egypt will hold hotly contested parliamentary elections. Policymakers and think tank analysts in Washington are paying close attention. Egypt, long the world’s second largest recipient of U.S. aid, is the most populous Arab country and, unlike most its neighbors, has a peace treaty with Israel. The interest in the polls – and growing concern over Egypt’s stability – is understandable.
But will what transpires on election day actually matter much? We can probably predict the results. The ruling National Democratic Party, of course, will win enough seats to have a veto-proof two-thirds majority. But the real story will be the Muslim Brotherhood’s neutralization. With an unprecedented 88 seats in the outgoing parliament, the country’s largest opposition group has been a major irritant for the regime. On Sunday, the group’s numbers are expected to fall to a more manageable 20 to 30 seats. The liberal Wafd party, seen by much of the opposition as suspiciously close to the regime, will significantly increase its seat total and probably become the leader of the parliamentary opposition.
As unexciting as the results are likely to be, the elections are important for other reasons, particularly for what they tell us about the critical players in Egypt’s uncertain future.
National Democratic Party. For the first time in recent memory, there are significant internal splits within the ruling coalition. As Islamist writer Ibrahim al-Houdaiby puts it, “there is no such thing as ‘the regime’ [anymore].” The disagreements revolve around presidential succession, with some party leaders favoring Gamal Mubarak to replace his ailing father, while others are searching for alternatives. These tensions have led to an unusually acrimonious candidate selection process within the NDP, with more than 3000 party members vying for 444 spots. To minimize internal squabbles, the NDP is running more than one candidate in more than 60 percent of districts. The contest, then, is between regime and opposition but also between the ruling party and itself.
Muslim Brotherhood. Over the past month, there have been increasing calls from within the Brotherhood to withdraw from the elections. A pro-boycott faction released a public statement disagreeing with the organization’s decision to contest the polls. As I recently wrote here, mainstream Islamist groups are seriously questioning whether elections are the best mechanism for democratic change. In the 2007 Jordanian elections, the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF) decided to participate against the wishes of many of its members. The result was the IAF’s worst result ever, winning only 6 of 110 seats, due in part to unprecedented fraud. This strengthened pro-boycott voices, leading to the IAF’s decision to boycott last month’s parliamentary elections. Something similar may happen in Egypt, forcing Brotherhood supporters to consider alternative methods of contestation, including mass protest and civil disobedience.
Mohamed ElBaradei and the National Association for Change. The Muslim Brotherhood’s ally, Nobel Prize winner and secularist politician, Mohamed El Baradei has been Egypt’s most vocal supporter of a united opposition boycott. His call failed to persuade either the Brotherhood or the Wafd party. The Baradei campaign, despite gaining nearly 1 million signatures supporting its demands, appears increasingly aimless, again due partly to internal disagreements over strategy. Particularly dismal results on Sunday, or violence in the streets, may impress upon Baradei and his National Association for Change the need to re-assess and renew their efforts to translate support of a million Egyptians into sustained action on the ground. As we have seen in numerous cases, popular anger over election fraud can be a catalyst for a more confrontational opposition.
United States. On November 2nd, top National Security Council officials, including Dan Shapiro and Dennis Ross, met with the “Egypt working group,” a bipartisan grouping of analysts and former officials who support increased U.S. pressure on Egypt. The Obama administration is reportedly reviewing its policy toward Egypt and seems to be putting greater emphasis on democracy. Rhetoric, as we learned during the Bush administration, can be helpful but becomes counterproductive absent the political will to change policy. Earlier this month, the State Department released a statement reiterated its “[support of] free and impartial elections in Egypt,” while the U.S. ambassador to Egypt stated that “the United States remains committed to supporting free and fair elections in Egypt.” Of course, the elections will be not be free, but they may prove even less free – and perhaps more violent – than observers expect. How, then, will the U.S. publicly, and privately, respond to Egypt’s continued unwillingness to listen to or respect American admonitions?
A more aggressive U.S. response will not, by itself, be enough. But it will be critical. According to a 2008 study by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, international condemnation of regime repression is positively correlated with the success of nonviolent opposition activity. Opposition success, however, requires an opposition that is both unified and mobilized. On both counts, the Egyptian opposition has some ways to go.
Meanwhile, Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, in their book in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, conclude that “there is no transition whose beginning is not the consequences – direct or indirect – of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself.” For this reason, the emerging divisions in the ruling NDP are worth watching closely. The elections (and post-election recriminations) are likely to exacerbate tensions between pro- and anti- Gamal camps.
In short, there are three moving parts in Egypt – opposition, regime, and the United States – and all of them are in flux. And what happens to each, in relation to the other, will determine the course Egypt takes in the troubled months and years ahead.

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The abuses TSA has subjected Americans to represent the way that the White House and both parties have abused the middle class for the past ten years.
So, you’re being visually raped or, by groping, legally violated in a way that outrageously trespasses on your privacy.
The head of the TSA plays hardball with members of congress.
Obama’s Homeland Security appointee, “Big Sis” says all is good.
This feels like another one of those “good job Brownie” moments.
You’re thinking that it’s just not worth it anymore — traveling by air. But then, you need to get somewhere, probably a vacation you’ve gotten a bargain on, so you put up with the violations of privacy and indignities like everyone else. Or maybe you’re a business traveler. Not to worry, your frequent traveler special pass will work and you won’t have to be subjected to the same abuses as the hoi polloi.
You probably know that former Homeland Security head Chertoff’s security consulting firm, Chertoff group, has been working for Rapiscan, one of the two companies that have benefited from over $100 million in sales of the scanners that are causing the uproar. A high powered political appointee leverages his connections while and after working for the government. That’s the way it’s done. Of course, there are no laws preventing such abuses.
We in the middle class have been subjected to a plethora of abuses that embarrass and shame us, that exploit us and leave us feeling naked and exposed.
The head of the TSA, John Pistole, is the former assistant head of the FBI. It is no surprise that such a man has no regard for the attack on the privacy and the sense of violation that millions of Americans have experienced or anticipate experiencing. That’s the way the FBI has done things, with the support and encouragement of the White House and both parties in congress.
And of course, while there are many citizens who find these new assaults on our personal freedoms offensive, there are many millions more who have no problem with the next layer of rights that have been peeled away. Some of those millions rationalize that it doesn’t affect them, so it doesn’t matter.
And is it surprising that this mess is being laid at the feet of Obama and the Democrats… and they are embracing it because they think that being oafish with homeland security is part of what they need to do to avoid appearing weak on security? or that this gives the right (I started to say “far right” but that’s an oxymoron nowadays) a new angle to attack the leader of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, for violating constitutional rights (the Glen Beck edition of the constitution?)
Yes, this debacle is another example of the ham-handed, incredibly incompetent management of the intersection of image and policy by the Democrats setting the policies and handling the response. It is another example of the incompetence and failure of the Obama presidency. Yes. Managing difficult situations is a key element in leadership — one that Obama and his team of media and public opinion experts have proven disastrously inadequate at handling. How will this PR disaster turn out? The Democratic administration will screw up so badly that TSA workers will probably soon lose their jobs as the services of TSA are privatized. Will it be a big surprise that this will lead to several possibilities? Maybe a subsidiary of Xe, formerly Blackwater will get a big contract, or maybe Haliburton — now a foreign based company. Or maybe the privatization will be handed to some other company that is a US subsidiary of some European company, or maybe even a Chinese one. Whatever path the privatization takes, that’ll be one more US job category that has been downgraded, because I guarantee you, the privatized workers will be paid less than the government workers… and god forbid workers get paid a decent wage. Why shouldn’t they be paid the minimum wage like the vast majority of displaced workers who now struggle on Walmart hourly rates?
When we hear a report of a cancer victim being excruciatingly embarrassed by these assaults on privacy — leaving soaked in urine, for example — it is reasonable to see this as a metaphor for the millions of painful moments that the close to 60 million Americans without healthcare, who can’t afford ostomy products, let alone ostomies, or whose families have sacrificed food or the roofs they live under to pay for health care bills that legislators have enabled to rise to out of control levels.
Travelers are not happy being exposed to toxic x-rays, and they don’t believe the government agencies that say the levels of radiation are safe, well, because those agencies work more for the corporations than the people who need protection. So they have a choice of toxic radiation exposure or having their “junk” groped. There are no good choices.
So how does the TSA and, we can reasonably speculate that it’s doing it with White House oversight, handle this? They turn off the scanners. They shut down the “security.” What the hell. The budget has been expended. Chertoff’s client has received the money — that’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, by the way — money that’s supposed to help create jobs. Jobs where? This is a company founded in the UK.
The Bush administration used to claim that we were at war with terrorists who hated us for our freedoms. Between Bush and Obama, between the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, those freedoms are becoming less and less an issue as they’ve been assaulted, diluted or outright taken away. If the Bush claim was right, then Osama has won.
So, if you’re thinking of traveling, even walking out your front door, get ready to do what air travelers do — bend over and prepare to pay more and to be violated beyond any level you could have imagined a few years ago. And be assured the blame is bi-partisan.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Art Action! If there are six degrees of separation between people, then this beautiful gesture will be a slam dunk. Here is a brilliant opportunity to change and challenge the lives of two talented artists.
We need to find someone at a HBO-Showtime-A&E-like cable studio to produce a mini-series, based upon a conceptual artwork. It will be unprecedented and wildly entertaining.
As you will read, Country Club Projects has a show with a compelling narrative, perfect for cable’s long format. Bright White Underground would make an ideal globetrotting romp through the American subculture from the Beats to the ravers. Let’s make this high drama, counterculture epic happen. Let’s see what the artists Freeman and Lowe would build with a bigger tool chest.
So, who do we know that knows somebody in power? Send them this article link. Be a hero. I will report the results of this adventure as we course through Hollywood.
My review of Bright White Underground in the current issue of Artillery Magazine will give you the scoop on the potential plot twists:
“Boffo! Brilliant! I have never been to an art show with a greater box office potential. Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are producers of the Bright White Underground, an installation for Country Club Projects that has overwhelmed the Buck House in sunny Los Angeles, California. Located two blocks from LACMA and two miles from the studio gates of Paramount Pictures, the Buck House, a Rudolf Schindler creation, is the principal set piece for an epic, globetrotting tale of over-reaching hope, American ambition and page-turning tragedy. Freeman and Lowe have delivered a work of pristine detail and deep emotional experience.
Bright White Underground is sensational in every sense of the word. Hang onto your neural transmitters! It’s a wild ride. If I were the president of HBO, I’d be banging loudly on their Modernist front door.
As a totem pole tells a story, the 1934 residential Buck House becomes the narrative drive in the hands of Freeman and Lowe. A compelling potboiler has been achieved by their wit. The script begins in the early Sixties, with golden light, bright clean lines and great hope for our military-industrial complex. Today, as final credits roll, the Buck House is marooned, physically oppressive, psychologically demeaning and void of light. Attention to detail pays off in spades.
With a longer look, the artwork features a large cast of colorful characters. The clean-cut, square-jawed protagonist, Dr. Arthur Cook, is a brilliant young scientist and innovator of Marasa, a psychotropic drug with life-affirming possibilities. He is joined by his financial backer, the lovely Norma Friedrich, heiress to the Friedrich Rifle fortune. Together, they journey through the counterculture of the late Twentieth century. No influence is left unturned.
Our story begins at the end. Each room of the Buck House has been destroyed by decades of inattention, destruction and failure. Concrete floors lift, crack and heave like a San Andreas fault line. Ceilings and walls disintegrate and flake from leaking pipes, mold and the vapors of imagined chemical compounds. Carpets are worn and torn with time, malt liquor, cum, cigarette butts and crushed test tubes. Nook libraries are crammed with reference books whose spines have been torn with overuse. The home is well appointed for a crackhead with a PhD.
Schindler wanted to let the Los Angeles light in. Freeman and Lowe want to keep it out. In one room, the windows are covered with the colored pages of the alternative newspaper Artichoke, a zine for psychic archaeologists and high-minded astral planers. The quiet colors inspire the reverence of stained glass.
The devil is in the details, each advancing the narrative. In one hallway, shipping boxes for cinema reels are stacked along the wall. Water-stained and aged, they obviously have not been moved since 1969, when Dr. Cook bankrolled a big budget sci-fi flop starring Natalie Wood and John Cassavetes. (Freeman and Lowe cleverly clue us to the date by using an obscure and distinctive Warner Bros-Seven Arts logo printed on the boxes.)
Several home improvements have been added to Schindler’s original design. One chamber now features a two-way mirror, an observation room to study the effects of the psychotropic on the human nervous system. A closet has been converted to a sound recording room, evidence of growing paranoia. The kitchen, once bright with the smell of California nectarines, now burns with alkaloids and sulfur in a makeshift laboratory. Sunny side up in Hell.
Another room takes us to the Far East when Dr. Cook, on the lam from the Feds, starts a Pan Asian cult. The windows are covered with native-language fliers, re-creating a common medicine-posting wall. The fliers, with phone number tabs to tear, advertise drugs and nurture an idea. One reads, “$eason In Hell”, a nod to poet Arthur Rimbaud and his love of escape and opium.
Every junkie would agree. The destructive effect of the installation is emotionally and psychologically compelling. I could not wait to get the hell out of there. As I drove away, in my rear view mirror, I could see John Knuth, the Country Club director, hesitate before he had to crawl back into the gloom.
At the least, this work could serve as a diploma-worthy dissertation for a PhD in theatrical set design and decoration. While Freeman and Lowe have demonstrated their chops, the artists quietly remind us that this is a sculpture. Slicing through the Buck House of Horrors is a portal, a window, a mirrored tunnel that connects the key spaces. What is it? A communication tube to the drug lab? A wormhole to another dimension? The drama-minded artists don’t tell us. A similar structure leads nowhere. Is this a narrative clue?
The beauty of artists Freeman and Lowe is not in their tactile detail and skill, but in their subtle storytelling. After badgering through the dark conclusion of the installation, one falls into a flashback, a room of bright optimism. The library offers the beginning of the narrative. Framed photographs, laden with story-driven clues, introduce the central characters and their many influences. High society and science dance to a bongo beat. These fresh grad students are eager to experiment, explore and to be influenced. A wall of books establishes their prolific efforts. The two organic sculptures that center the room may have been their explosive inspiration.
Better than any Emmy Award winning series, Bright White Underground is a fast hop down the rabbit hole.”
So, who do you know? Who can you send this link to? Let’s see what Freeman and Lowe will create with a bigger playpen.
I will report the results. Send me an email at BrightWhite@GordyGrundy.com. We will call this operation Beau Geste: Buck Up. Let’s do something nice for somebody.
Photographs courtesy of Country Club Projects.
Gordy Grundy is a Los Angeles based artist and writer. His visual and literary works can be found at www.GordyGrundy.com. He is the creator of the cosmology www.FortunaNow.com

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Scientists have for decades proposed mastering the elements to control the weather. But is tinkering with the Arctic Ocean — the world’s air conditioner — by building a dam across the Bering Strait really a good idea?
Two years ago a science writer from the Netherlands proposed a radical solution to combat melting in the Arctic. In his “North Pole Rescue Plan,” (PDF) Rolf Schuttenhelm suggests blocking the flow of water from the Bering Sea into the Arctic Ocean. He argues that this idea — crazy as it sounds — is worth exploring.
“Complete melting of the Arctic would be a great loss. Ecologically, and, why not mention, emotionally,” Schuttenhelm wrote in 2008. “It is as wrong as it feels.”
The entire region is experiencing rapid climate change, and scientists predict the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free during summer by 2030. Erosion now threatens 31 Alaska villages, and at least 12 of them are looking at relocating. Two of them — Kivalina and Shishmaref — are in the very waters, the Chukchi Sea, most impacted by Schuttenhelm’s proposals.
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These communities are losing ground and history to a warming Earth. Permafrost, the foundation on which their homes rest, is melting at an alarming rate. Coastlines are retreating, eaten and battered by sea waves. Buildings are buckling. Ground is sinking. And millions of dollars are being spent figuring out how best to save these communities.
Meanwhile, the changing climate also threatens the Arctic Ocean’s marine life. Both polar bears and walruses, for instance, need expanses of floating ice for hunting and migration. Increased warmth has made the Arctic a more dangerous place for people and wildlife alike. On Wednesday, the Obama administration announced it was designating an area of the Alaska Arctic larger than California as critical habitat for polar bears, which are listed as a threatened species because of the melting ice.
With so much at stake, the Dutchman argues that human society must take direct and extraordinary steps to reverse the warming trend and save the planet.
“I disagree with the conclusion we should not act — out of human inertia,” he wrote in his rescue plan. “The cost of inaction is enormous,”
Still, perhaps anticipating the public reaction to meddling with Mother Nature on such a scale, Schuttenhelm realized that it might be hard to tell whether blocking the gap between North America and Asia is an exercise in stupidity — or one of simple genius. Acting rashly with too many unknowns wouldn’t be wise, he acknowledged.
Scientists are deeply skeptical.
“Geo-engineering is an absolute fool’s game,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, in an interview Tuesday from his office in Boulder, Colo. “This idea that you are going to stop global warming in its tracks by protecting the Arctic is not realistic.”
Yet Schuttenhelm is not the first to think damming the Bering merits further study. Decades ago, a Soviet engineer cobbled together a similar, if more elaborate, proposal aimed not at saving the Arctic’s trademark chill, but eliminating it.
Read the rest of the story at AlaskaDispatch.com

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DOHA — In a room flowing with dignitaries, scholars, architects and other invited guests, the Aga Khan called for the need to close the gap of ignorance between the Muslim world and the West, asking in particular: Can these societies exchange knowledge but on an equal footing?
It was a challenge very much embodied in the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) when established in 1977, and which was conferred for the 11th time this year in Qatar on November 24. This year’s ceremonies were hosted by the Amir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned (with other notables in attendance). Behind the pomp and protocol, however, was a very important but two-fold message. Certainly, there was the continued recognition of projects that contribute in multi-faceted ways to the societies in which Muslims live. Yet, the Award in a very stark manner recognized a project — the Bridge School in Fujian Province in China — that was wholly unrelated to the Muslim world, except for the fact that it was an initiative (the Award) inspired by the ethics of Islam that was conferring the recognition.
The Award has been given to 105 projects over its history and was established by the Aga Khan, a philanthropist and spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, with the objective to “enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture as expressed through architecture.” One of the most prolific and methodical honors in the architecture world, the AKAA draws a truly diverse crowd and this year was no exception. The 2010 Master Jury itself included members from an eclectic array of backgrounds, geographically and professionally, including individuals from Syria, China, Senegal, Iran, France, the UK and Saudi Arabia. It was no wonder then that the five selected recipients of the $500,000 Award included a pluralistic collection of projects: the Bridge School in China; a revitalized hypercenter in Tunis; the Wadi Hanifa Wetlands in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the Ipekyol Textile Factory in Turkey; and the Madinat al-Zahra Museum in Spain.
The recipients truly symbolized the pluralism extant in its multi-faceted dimensions within the Muslim world, which is by no means a monolith, but rather a dynamic confluence of identities. The factory in Turkey was an industrial project that cost $17 million to build and used the essence of natural light to improve an otherwise downcast setting. The Bridge School in China, is at once a school, bridge, and new public meeting-ground in a marginalized village in Fujian province and was constructed at the cost of only $100,000. Meanwhile, the wetlands just outside Riyadh was a $160 million endeavor that reclaimed a neglected but important oasis in Saudi Arabia.
True, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture has recognized people and projects that improve the built environment in Muslim societies and empower Islamic identity and culture. Yet, there is also something post-cultural and post-Islamic that the Award represents. First of all many of the concepts that it has championed, such as local sustainability and environmental stewardship, it has done so ahead of its time starting over 30 years ago. Second, and more importantly, there is a universality in the ‘excellence’ of the projects. In his speech during the Award ceremony, the Aga Khan asked, “How can we share our lessons with others outside the Ummah?” In this year’s cycle, the recognition of the Bridge School in China is particularly instructive. There is no Muslim heritage at the site nor is it in a Muslim area. Yet the principles of sustainable and responsible architecture are no different. When approaching development of the built environment in rural areas, we see a universality of principles, of course applied contextually across geographies.
It is here then that we can see the embryonic phase of an exchange of knowledge on equal footing between the proverbial West and Muslim world. That exchange is truly about the universality of knowledge and ideas, which need not be bound by geography or religion. The Vatican plays host to the ubiquitous portrayal of the School of Athens by Raphael. Within this painting is the portrait of Ibn Rushd or Averroes, amidst the historic scholars of Plato and Aristotle. Yet who is this Arab Ibn Rushd inhabiting the quintessential landscape of Western civilization? Averroes as he is known in the West, was not only responsible for the preservation and endowment to European thought of many of the ancient scholars of antiquity, but he also was the pioneer in conceptualizing the coexistence of secular philosophy and religious thought, his influence reverberating to this very day.
The reality today is often a one-way flow of ideas and knowledge, from West to East. It would be nostalgic to repeatedly recount the tremendous contributions of scholars such as Averroes and Avicenna. While they should indeed be recognized, the Muslim world needs to go beyond historical memory and look to what it also has to offer in the present and future to a global society. What are innovative ideas and approaches from within the Muslim world that should be considered universally?
What is remarkable about the Aga Khan Award is that it is now setting, in many ways, the new standard for architecture and the built environment globally. The list of 105 award recipients of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is inspiring in this regard. But it is not enough. As one Saudi philanthropist attending the Award ceremony remarked to me: “We need more, and not just in architecture. We need the same in medicine and other fields to promote excellence and new ideas from the Muslim world.” My response was concise and clear — Inshallah.
Taufiq Rahim is a Visiting Fellow at the Dubai School of Government and blogs regularly at TheGeopolitico.com
(Photo credits: AKDN)

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

My father helped me get a summer job on a movie my first year in college. I was excited to be working on a major motion picture and a little nervous. I wanted to be a success, not a failure! My Dad gave me some great advice. He said, “No matter what anyone asks you to do, just say yes, even if you don’t know how to do something, say yes. Then go and learn what you need to learn to finish the job”. I took this advice to heart.
On that movie set I learned what it meant to be solution-driven. I learned how to be creative and resourceful by focusing on solutions. On movie sets, there is only yes for an answer, it is all about finding a solution. Failure isn’t even an option! Now, if I find myself presented with a challenging situation, I don’t get discouraged or feel defeated. As long as I’m working toward my dream, I’m OK.
Most successful people know on some level that they’re going to achieve their dreams. No matter how out of reach their dreams might seem, they take steps each day to move forward. If things don’t go exactly as planned they still keep moving forward. Adapting this mindset will allow you to succeed in big ways. Failure is never the option; the only option is finding a workable solution.
That is what Allison Maslan, CEO of Blastoff Life and Business Coaching, did when she had an idea for coaching software: Blastation Interactive Goal Setting and Life Coaching Software. Allison wanted to create an online software experience for her clients. Rather than buy someone else’s software, she developed her own. Although she didn’t know the first thing about software development, she didn’t let that stop her. Allison takes failure off the table. It is never one of her options, period.
Allison developed Blastation when she was unable to find adequate goal setting software to use with her coaching clients. “It’s a lively software that helps keep you organized, optimistic and inspired so you can stay on track to make your dream life a reality”.
This unique web-based software can be accessed anywhere there is an internet connection. “Blastation will help you to clarify and attain your large and small life dreams and visions in an exciting and stimulating way”. The software enables users to break their goals down into easy-to-follow incremental steps, called ‘Mini Feats’, that allow bigger projects to be more easily achieved.
These steps are then posted on your personalized online Blastation Calendar to keep your personal and professional life organized. Allison thought of everything: Blastation can even send e-mails and host your online address book.
“If you are creating something new and you have a fear of failure, you can take a different approach. Whatever happens, whatever wall I hit, I just have to figure out a solution and then I can never fail, I just find a solution”. Allison’s right, when you shift your focus to finding a solution, you rewire your brain.
According to David Rock in his book Your Brain at Work, “unmet expectations often create a threat response” and the “brain is built to avoid threat, people tend to work hard to reinterpret events to meet their expectations”. In other words, if we tell our brain something, it listens.
Look for solutions and adjust your expectations. David Rock recommends the following: “stay in a positive state of mind, find ways to keep coming out ahead of your expectations over and again, even in small ways”. And maybe most importantly, “when a positive expectation is not being met, practice reappraising the situation”.
Direct your brain’s energy into finding solutions. Focus on learning new tools to support your goals. Explore new ideas and new ways of doing things. Allison’s solution was simple: she reached out to an expert software designer.
Allison had an idea. She didn’t know how to develop software, but she knew what she wanted and focused on that. She found a solution and her dream materialized in a big way: her software is used internationally! First say “yes” to yourself and your dreams, then take the necessary steps to achieve them. Allison’s motto is, “keep your head pointing towards your dream, walk towards it daily and don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done”!
With this kind of solution-driven attitude anything is possible.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

On December 1st, the Speaker of the House for the 125th Maine Legislature will be elected by the 78 Republicans, 72 Democrats and 1 Independent who won their election on November 2nd. Because the Republicans now have a majority of the seats, for the first time in 36 years their candidate will be voted in and become the third most powerful person in Maine state government.
Some Democrats are faced with the dilemma of whether to participate in the traditional pageantry of casting “one unanimous vote” for the presumptive winner, or not.
The Republican Speaker-elect’s baggage is now widely known. Stories abound in the news that as the owner of True’s Pharmacy, Robert Nutting was found to have overcharged the State of Maine $1.6 million for rubber gloves, incontinence pads and liners between 1997 and 2001. He spent “over six figures” on fancy lawyers, counter-sued the state, and then declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy after paying back only $433.188, leaving Maine taxpayers holding the bag for $1.2 million.
Speaker-elect Nutting maintains that overcharging the state repeatedly using a formula that marked up some products 143% instead of 40% an “honest mistake.” He blames complicated rules and the stranglehold of government bureaucracy for his troubles.
Don’t take it personally, Mr. Speaker, if some of us can’t push our green button next week and vote to usher you in. You see, this isn’t really about you, but rather what you stand for, and what we are elected to do.
We might be willing to take you at your word that you were a victim of “the system,” but you represent that very small population of people who can beat the system. You made a very large mistake as the owner of a business that made millions of dollars overcharging for supplies sold to poor people. You have not repaid your debt to society, are not taking personal responsibility for your actions, and are nevertheless being elected to be the Speaker of the House. This is at a time when most people don’t have similar opportunities for redemption and coronation.
A time more people are poor — the national poverty rate is above 14%
A time when more people are hungry — one in seven people in Maine, as a matter of fact, which now also has the distinction of being number 2 in the nation for extreme food insecurity.
A time when American businesses earned profit at the annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the 3rd quarter of this year, the most on record.
At a time when nationally the unemployment rate is 9%, and millions of people are underemployed and working two or three jobs to keep afloat, we are being asked to hand you a job that holds tremendous power, a salary that is 50% higher than the rest of us elected members of the House of Representatives, provides health insurance and other benefits, pays a generous per diem and includes numerous other perks, all paid for by the people who elected us.
We know your constituents have sent you back three times since your little “incident,” but keep in mind the good people of Harlem, New York, have voted to send Charles Rangel back to Congress since 1971. Most people, including Democrats, still support the November 2010 finding of the Ethics Committee that Mr. Rangel is guilty of 11 counts of violating House ethics rules, and further support the sanction of public censure and his removal as Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Some things aren’t just about partisan politics, but what’s right and what’s wrong.
For many the quality of life has slipped so dramatically that what were once aspirations for a better life for future generations are now coping strategies to stay housed, fed and employed. This is wrong. Recreation is a luxury we can’t afford. This is not your fault, but you being elected to lead the peoples’ house after making a mistake that cost ordinary people over a million dollars, and spending more money on lawyers defending yourself and filing for bankruptcy than some families make in a lifetime, wreaks of a system that is rigged to lift only some. The American Dream no longer is open to the public but to only a very small group that you belong to, and most others don’t.
People are angry at government and believe politicians are incestuous and self-serving. For some of us Democrats, casting a vote for you as a gesture of good-will, or to avoid unpleasantness, or in hopes you might put us on a certain committee, or staff our office, or keep our favorite secretary on the payroll makes us complicit in this game. And this feels wrong.
We are hoping you won’t be too hard on us if we push that red button, Mr. Speaker. We aren’t voting against you, but rather voting for the people who are hungry, out of work, beaten down by greedy corporations, and taxed to pay your salary.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Can we get beyond denial about peak oil, climate change, and economic troubles as long as we don’t find forms of action open to us?
The genius of the “transition town” movement is that it starts with a positive vision, focuses on local scenes, teaches skills, invites people to develop plans, gives them other obviously useful things to do together, and thus provides the added-value of intensifying community. You can find this in its handbook, of which the second edition will soon be published.
Despite the joys of social networking, community happens when we see people who are not on a flatscreen, and gather with them; work, share, argue, and celebrate with them. This can happen anywhere, but is perhaps easiest in a small town.
The transition movement has limitations; everything does. It does not directly challenge the corporate and political elites whose actions or inactions determine the context within which localities exist. But the movement does offer a way forward. As one of my English friends said when I was grumbling, “let’s get on with it, now, shall we?”
Rob Hopkins, who with his colleagues started the transition movement, settled in Totnes, a small market town near the south coast of England, but the movement now has affiliates not only in towns but also in the neighborhoods of big cities and in rural areas — affiliates that are still “mulling” over the prospects and at least one that has already produced its “energy descent action plan.”
The movement does not hide the severity of the challenge from peak oil and from climate change. What it offers is a way to absorb dire projections because responses to them suddenly seem possible. These responses have included increases in local food supply, “reskilling,” the circulation of local currency, bulk buying of solar panels, building with local materials, teaching about resilience, and the development of energy descent plans (Totnes “launched” its plan in May).
As we have to live with less energy, says the movement, we will have to lead more lives more locally, the opposite of globalization. Unable to rely so heavily on imports supplied by faraway factories, mines, and wells, and by industrial agriculture, we will have to use more technology that is appropriate to local food growing and local crafts or manufacturing.
Though the movement differs in many ways from earlier initiatives, ideas from the 1970s remain in the mix, along with more recent concepts. Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered was published in 1973. Whatever may be its relations with the Schumacher Society of today, the transition movement shares some of Schumacher’s main concerns. And Hopkins is now reconceptualizing the transition movement in terms of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, published in 1977. Likewise, Hopkins originally taught permaculture, an approach to the natural world described in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
However, the transition movement strives not to “go back to the land,” but to increase the resilience of communities. If there is a guiding romance in the movement, it would be less the self-sufficient rural life, than the engaged town or neighborhood, rich in human contacts and cooperation.
It’s easy, gazing at the upward slope of gross domestic product, to assume that our society is the best one possible, except what “growth” will, most people hope, make possible soon. Part of the appeal of the transition movement is its quiet doubt about this assumption. Perhaps we can find an even better way of living, even under conditions of “energy descent.”
Among various innovations, Hopkins and his colleagues have rediscovered the attractions of face-to-face democracy. The movement may be local, but as the U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil once said, “all politics is local.” Clearly, if even a small percentage of many towns might mobilize, the central government begins to take notice: the movement has already attracted a national British official as “keynote listener” at one of its conferences.
Judging from afar by watching videos on line and by reading reports and comments of participants, the transition movement in Totnes has attracted at least 5% of the population, the number who attended a one-day celebration of the work or an energy fair. (75% of people in the Totnes area have at least heard of the movement.)
Once people see that it’s possible to prepare, at least to some extent, and feel they are not alone, they have a better chance of getting through the stages of adaptation to reality that Carolyn Baker discusses in Sacred Demise The nightmare of those who expect hard times is a lack of preparation–psychological as well as physical. If the global peak of oil production drives prices up, affecting economies, and if climate change brings more misallocations of water (drought here, floods there), the shock will be intense for those expecting a return to “growth.”
The transition model of engagement is most effective when people can imagine both severe challenges and also a better way of life that doesn’t depend on growth. The British isles are perhaps especially blessed in these ways. When it comes to harsh challenges, Dunkirk, the blitz, and then the end of empire have not disappeared from memory. Likewise, the English have long had traditions other than only consumerism and suburban cocooning. And it was England that produced the Stern report on why, in response to climate change, it would cost less to act now than to wait.
It’s possible that the U.S., despite already being peppered with transition projects, nonetheless presents a harder case. It’s true that in Vietnam, as Leonard Cohen sang with bitter irony, “the good guys lost,” and true that the U.S. had a wake-up call on 9/11/01, but our very being as a nation was not threatened by military invasion or by loss of an entire empire. And we have a tradition more of “self-reliance” than of community engagement. Moreover, a plan to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases is forestalled here by suspicion of “big government,” egged on by big economic interests that don’t want to be regulated.
In the face of the challenges it has taken aboard, the transition movement will succeed at the very least in raising consciousness, in part because it suggests tangible constructive action. With each row of vegetables planted and each solar panel installed, it wins the right to say, “oh, this is necessary, but it’s also enlivening to do, isn’t it?”
What about observers who envision an economic collapse worse than we already have? Thinking the unthinkable, they see people who are shocked at being impoverished, surrounded by machines that don’t work and fuel too expensive to use, who, in many cases, have skills only for life when the machines did work and who are angry, depressed, even despairing.
One approach is to try to scare people into action, by highlighting evidence for impending energy deprivation, climate change, and economic hard times. But this often leads to more despair or, to avoid it, a stronger case of denial.
Michael Brownlee, one of the transition pioneers in the U.S., in an essay just published on Carolyn Baker’s lively website, says that in some U.S. communities, “the effort for relocalization has already essentially stalled.” Inspired by the “universe story” told by a Christian writer, and after work at a farm and workshop center run by a woman religious, and based on a talk given at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Brownlee’s answer is to conclude that the transition movement is “all about the Sacred,” a point not totally unrelated to Al Gore’s framing of climate change as a moral issue.
Perhaps the most effective approach in the U.S. has not yet been developed and, as Brownlee says, the willingness of the transition movement to experiment and reinvent itself may lead it to a wider success. One job is to help people hear about the challenges soon to be upon us. Another is to find forms of action.

Looking at how Americans feel entitled to a lot of stuff, Brownlee concludes “there may be no other nation on the planet where greed and denial are more deeply rooted.” While it’s understandable that he is driven to denounce the very people he wants to persuade, Brownlee poses the challenge with clarity.
Repeating the observation of a leading environmentalist, Brownlee says that Martin Luther King did not tell the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, “I have a nightmare.” King did not need to describe the nightmare because his people were living it. They needed a dream. “But we, I fear, are living a dream,” Brownlee continues. “We need to be reminded of the nightmare ahead… We will never do the things that are needed unless we know the full extent of our predicament.”
Here we are back at the basic challenge of the transition movement: in England at least, its genius has been to give people something to do together, in the belief that they’d then be more ready to understand the terms of the predicament. Whether more things have to be added to the mix will become clear as the movement evolves.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

“My teenager is just not grateful for anything we do for him. I keep trying to introduce gratitude practices into our family dinners, but he just sulks through them. What can I do?” I hear this a lot in my classes for parents.
With Thanksgiving only just behind us, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about the power of gratitude — “the power,” as gratitude expert Robert Emmons explains in new “Greater Good” videos this month, “to heal, energize, and to change lives.”
But I’ve also been reminded that some gratitude interventions — practices that researchers design to increase gratitude in individuals — don’t always work for everyone. In fact, several prominent gratitude studies have shown that for some people, consciously practicing gratitude (in certain prescribed ways) actually doesn’t make them feel more grateful.
We want to feel more gratitude — and we want our kids to do the same — because gratitude is so closely associated with happiness that the two are practically indistinguishable from one another. The opposite of gratitude is entitlement, which brings negative feelings like disappointment and frustration. But when we feel grateful, our world fills with positive emotions like love, compassion, enthusiasm and confidence, and our satisfaction with life soars.
What we’ve learned from the gratitude interventions that don’t work is that one size definitely doesn’t fit all. Just like we can’t tell a baby to laugh at dinnertime simply because it will feel good, we can’t just tell our teenagers to feel grateful so that they can reap the benefits.
So how can we help an entitled adolescent become happier through gratitude?
The first thing to remember is that teenagers’ unique developmental task is to individuate: to break away from you, the parent who is looking for a little appreciation.
Every time teens take your advice — about how to be happier, or by following your instructions for practicing gratitude — they are setting themselves up to remain dependent on you and your great wisdom. But their main goal as teens is to get you to recognize their wisdom, their independence. Herein lies the problem.
Gratitude makes most of us happier because it is such a social emotion; it cultivates our sense that we are connected to each other. And social connections — ties to friends and family and neighbors — are the very stuff of happiness. But if you are a teenager trying to prove your independence, gratitude can make you feel more beholden to your parents or teachers, which doesn’t feel good, but this doesn’t mean that we should give up on teaching our teens to feel and express more gratitude in their lives.
Here are some suggestions for practicing gratitude with teenagers:
Go at it indirectly, by fostering altruism rather than gratitude. Helping others evokes feelings of gratitude, compassion, and confidence in people of any age.
Let teens lead. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to practicing gratitude — and a gratitude practice is going to be a lot less effective if it is seen as a chore or an assignment. So tell teens you want them to design a gratitude practice for your whole family this year. “You are old enough: You design a new tradition for us!” And by all means, let them take the credit, even if they come up with something you suggested weeks ago.
Allow snarkiness, teasing, and humor in your expressions of gratitude. My dad used to ask us for reasons we were grateful for the people we were complaining about, and this led to a lot of sarcastic comments like, “Well, I’m grateful I don’t have any classes with her.” Sometimes teen gratitude is, well, a little minimalist.
Use gratitude to cultivate the growth mindset in difficult times. What did you learn from that terrible experience? What good came out of it, despite the difficulty? The aim is to get to something along the lines of, “Thank goodness that X happened, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had Y opportunity!”
Be persistent. When teens feel authentic gratitude, it is a positive emotion for them just like for everyone else. When they create a gratitude practice that works for them, feelings of gratitude will become habitual, hopefully built into their daily lives. Even if they resist heartily at first — remember, that is their job as adolescents — I have heard many, many stories of gratitude resistors who blossom into appreciative young adults.
As Mike Riera artfully describes in his book “Staying Connected to Your Teenager,” kids need to struggle with and for their autonomy, and this will sometimes mean struggling with feelings of entitlement and dependence. Our job as a parent is to help our teens become experts on themselves –including what they feel grateful for — and to help them discover what they want for themselves.
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2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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We’ve all read reports about unemployment and the slow pace of job growth.You can’t avoid the dismal news even if you tried.The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not have unemployment stats for recent college grads, but there’s anecdotal evidence (just ask your friends and neighbors) aplenty that this demographic is not having an easy time finding jobs.
When my twins graduated from college in May, as many young adults are prone to do nowadays they ricocheted back home and began searching for full-time work. Little did we know they’d each land a dream job due to networking.Now before I was retained to co-write the book “Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations into Contacts”, I thought networking was all about attending business events in which strangers introduce themselves to one another, pass out business cards, and then wait for the phone to ring. But I learned otherwise from the book’s main author, Lucy Rosen, founder of the national networking group, Women on the Fast Track.
While it does require face-to-face schmoozing, Rosen stipulates that at its core, networking is about giving — sharing leads, contacts, resources selflessly and for the sheer good of others. (You know, when you give, you receive.)Redefined as sharing information, networking works.
For adults holding steady jobs, there’s no better time than now to reach out to those who don’t and lend a hand; conversely, young adults need to reach out and vocalize their career needs to anyone and everyone willing to listen. Consider my daughters. One of them was temporarily employed at a department store as a sales associate this summer. One day a customer walked in and while chatting, my daughter mentioned she was seeking a career-path position in the fashion field. This person, it turns out, is a VP at a nationally renowned fashion house, and offered to submit my daughter’s resume to human resources. Three interviews later, my girl landed a fabulous job with potential for growth.My other daughter, who had been babysitting all summer to make do until she found full-time employment, was attending a basketball game in Manhattan one day when she launched into a friendly conversation with another bystander. As it turns out, the man’s wife was seeking someone for an entry level position at her high-end travel/concierge agency. He too offered to submit my daughter’s resume on her behalf, and they hired her.
At the time, my kids didn’t realize they were networking. Nor probably did the kind strangers who helped them. But that’s exactly what went down; the beautiful thing about this type of networking is that it’s organic — it’s simply about being kind, giving and following through on promises. And my young adults learned an incredibly valuable lesson — by directly experiencing how sharing can be helpful to others, I’m confident as they move ahead in their careers that they will pay it forward to someone else in need.
My kids found employment, but, you may be asking yourselves, what exactly was the payback for the people who helped them?Well, aside from good will (universal good karma), the man at the basketball game found a dedicated employee for his wife’s company.I have no doubt as to my daughter’s productive contributions there.And perhaps one day her fashion-forward twin will move up the ranks and become an invaluable asset for the VP that helped her secure the job. Regardless of the outcome, her dedication to her field of choice makes her a fantastic company employee, overall.
Now that my kids are settled job-wise, they’re networking to find roommates and apartments in Manhattan. I’m betting the generosity of others will facilitate this process, too.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

People are forever telling me that the only men and women interested in becoming New Radicals are those who are at the beginning of their careers (20something) or end (50something). That those in between simply can’t afford to make the change.
Phooey!
David Peck decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life making a difference, not just making money. So, he launched an organization called SoChange (in his previous life he’s been all kinds of things, including a stand-up comedian). He’s 45, and is married with two kids under five.
I asked him to answer four questions. Here he is, unfiltered.
What are you doing?
Changing the world one action at a time. Sounds crazy — or lofty — I know, but I really do believe in slow, incremental steps. SoChange is a small, capacity-building organization working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world. We write proposals, create and manage large social justice-related events, and help with vision casting and leadership initiatives.
One example: the Mosquitoes Suck Tour. It’s a student engagement campaign disguised as a comedy and magic show about malaria. Can something so serious be funny? Yes, if it gets youth involved in the world around them.
How did you get the gig?
I created it. It was all about utility: I asked myself where I could do the most good. And SoChange seemed like the best answer.
“Capacity building” means that we come alongside NGOs when they need us to help them move to the next level, and then move off again until the next critical juncture. For instance, we’re working with an NGO in South East Asia that just built a rural maternity clinic in Cambodia; there are only two such facilities in the entire country.
Our work requires insight and patience — sometimes I think we should re-name the company “Slow Change” because that’s how the world really works.
What’s the best part of your job?
The people, without a doubt. I meet men, women, and children all over the world. And the more of them I meet, the more I see that we’re in this together and that we need to interact to truly understand this. Face to face human connection is a powerful driving force.
Also, the travel — for the most part. Because there is always a fascinating cross-cultural lesson awaiting me at the end of the runway. This past summer, I visited a reconciliation village in Rwanda where hope, grace, and forgiveness were being practiced. It doesn’t get better than that.
What would you tell emerging New Radicals?
It’s about freedom, choice, and responsibility. Look back briefly, and then leap. We want to know what will happen when we take a risk, but we can’t know that until later. So, take the plunge. Fail miserably, shake it off, and plunge in again.
And changing the world doesn’t have to include politics, economics, or huge organizations like the World Bank or the UN. It’s about living in a space that isn’t as familiar to us: one that allows for the possibility of real, significant change to occur in the simple things we are involved in each and every day.
Also, there are lots of people who really do want to make a difference: find a friend you can talk with, complain to, dream with. You need a support mechanism. Find it and hold on. And remember: no step is too small.
You can reach David Peck through SoChange: info@sochange.ca
Julia Moulden is an author, speaker, and columnist. Read her HuffPost archive, including more about the New Radicals and the first columns about her upcoming book, “RIPE.”

This Blogger’s Books from
We Are the New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World
by Julia Moulden

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com