You Can’t Change the Way You Think

I was reading an interview with Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker at Salon.com and she said that when she first met Steven, she told him that his books had completely changed the way she thinks. I know this is a common assertion, that when we learn something new, it changes the way we think about the world or particular situations. Or sometimes we are told that we “have to change the way we think to make progress in some area of life. I remember hearing Peter Senge, who has written extensively on “systems thinking,” that unless we change our thinking, we are bound to fail.

So what's my point? Suggesting that someone changes the way he or she thinks is the same as saying we have to change the way our hearts beat or the way our muscles contract and relax. Thinking is a manifestation of the biological organ, the brain, at work. We can no more change the way our brain functions than we can change how any other part of our body functions.

Ah, but we can explore what think about and how thinking works. Thinking really involves, as near as I can tell, two components—processes and relationships. Thinking is about having assumptions and drawing conclusions based on those assumptions about relationships and processes among the things that make up our worlds. That’s what every single human being in the world does when he or she “thinks.”

But we also have the ability to introspect, to think about thinking, to explore our assumptions and the conclusions we draw and examine their validity in light our experience and the experience of others. We can ask the question, do our assumptions lead to sound conclusions that result in intelligent behavior? Do our actions, based on our conclusions, make the world a better place for ourselves and others? Far too often, the answer to that question is simply, no.

For me, that suggests that I look at my assumptions, my personal understanding about the relationships and processes of the world, and how those lead me to behave in ways that make me a happy and fulfilled person. If I’m an unhappy guy filled with anxiety, that’s my body telling me to examine my assumptions because they’re not leading to sound decisions. If someone tells me to change my thinking, what that person is really saying is examine my assumptions and make some changes that will lead to better results. What he or she is saying, is take better advantage of our natural processes of thought to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

So remember, you can’t change the way you think. But you can change the quality of your understanding by examining the validity of your assumptions and the information you have and come to better conclusions that will lead to actions that will naturally make you feel good about yourself and your place in the world.

—John Woods, December 11, 2007

Reaganesque

When I listen to the Republican “presidential” debates (quote marks intentional—I see no person on that stage who I would consider presidential), I am struck by their almost fawning references to Ronald Reagan, as if he should be considered for sainthood or at least placed among the top five presidents in American history. I have never ever understood that perspective. It just doesn’t jell with my observations of this mediocre person who somehow got elected twice to be president.

Now we hear how Fred Thompson wants to be the second coming of Reagan. Americans seem to have a short memory. Let’s review some of Reagan’s accomplishments. When he was president, we had a huge jump on the budget deficit. We had Iran Contra. We had the savings and loan debacle. We had the loss of hundreds of soldiers in Lebanon. We got star wars—a massive waste of money and resources. We got a president who after every press conference had to have someone come out and correct all his mistakes. We got a guy who only became animated when talking about his acting career. We got a guy whose wife consulted an astrologer before advising him on important matters of state. And we got a guy who had to have 3x5 cards to tell him what to do in every meeting he attended. He was an actor before he somehow moved into the White House, and he was an actor during his eight years living there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn't put tape on the floor telling him where to stand as he read his statements from those 3x5 cards. And oh yeah, we got a guy with a dysfunctional family who was seen as a champion of family values by far too many wishful-thinking supporters.

For me, I have no interest is having another Reagan, though, Bush 2 has far outdone Reagan in the damage he has done to this country. Still, it has always bothered me that we elected a b-movie star president twice. That is sad commentary on our country and the state of our political culture. It’s sadder still, of course, that George Bush was selected by a biased Supreme Court to be president in 2000. The damage that has come from that decision can never be overstated. Any Republican who claims to be the successor to Ronald Reagan ought to examine what he’s wishing for. His biggest nightmare would be to use that guy as their role model.

—John Woods, September 7, 2007

Larry Craig’s Karma

Here’s what he said: “I am not gay. I have never been gay.” What’s wrong with that statement? To quote Shakespeare, “I think he doth protest too much.” Either you’re gay or you’re not gay. There is no, as implied by the statement above, “I am not gay now, but it’s possible I was gay in the past.” I believe Larry Craig is gay, and it is pathetic and sad that he felt he had to bash gays and be a big “family values” (whatever those are) advocate to keep his job. All the while, he’s covertly soliciting sex in men’s bathrooms.

As a straight guy, I have never encountered such foot tapping and playing handsie and footsie while in the “stall,” and if I had, I wouldn’t have had a clue what it meant. It’s very clear, however, that old Larry knew all about it. And while he would have liked to suppress his homosexual desires, apparently he’s no more able to do that than I am to suppress my heterosexual desires. So he got caught, and he is paying the price.

Shouldn’t we be compassionate toward someone like Larry Craig and his sad predicament? The answer is yes, we should. It is telling commentary on our society that gay people have to act as if they were not gay to conform to the conventional mores our culture. I’m pretty sure there is a degree of self-loathing in Larry Craig that comes from having to lead a double life.

The real irony of all this is that the price he is paying is one he helped set as a gay basher in the first place. In other words, he is now getting a taste of what he has hypocritically been dishing out for most of his career in Congress. If you ever needed an example of karma at work, look no further than this episode. Then hope that we can someday have a culture and politics where honesty and integrity are the rule rather than the exception, and the only karma that comes into play is the good kind.

—John Woods, August 30, 2007

Counter Counterintuitive

I’m working on a book project (I’m not the author, I’m a book packager and the developer of the book) on the topic of sustainable living. The premise of the book is that this is not only responsible but also contributes to living a more fulfilled and happy life. This is true because it focuses on life-affirming activities and not so much on people just “getting theirs.” That is, it gets away from consumption, debt, and living for right now without regard to how our activities will affect ourselves, others, and the environment.

The publisher is very taken by this idea (as am I), and we have come to an agreement about the book. I am happy to say it will be published in about a year and a half from now. In her description of the book for the editorial board, the publisher wrote that the approach the author takes is “counterintuitive” to what we usually think of as living the good life—fancy home, fancy car, expensive clothes, and all the other material stuff we can get our hands on. In other words, the book’s approach is counter to this and explains how this is not the road to living well at all.

Now I’m going to get to my point. I want to suggest that this book is not counterintuitive at all. In fact, the whole idea is to awaken the intuition in the first place that most of us just ignore. If the ideas in this book did not make sense, then they would not appeal to our intuition at all. Most of us kind of suppress our intuition, that voice within that is telling us what’s sound and what isn’t. Our culture is so “of the moment” and focused on individual satisfaction that we simply ignore the implications of our behavior—while knowing down deep that at some point there will be a price to be paid for short-term thinking and behavior. At some point the negative consequences of this will catch up with us.

So it’s not counter-intuitive to do the right thing by ourselves and our world. It’s completely consistent with being aware of our feelings and our understandings of what's right and then having the courage and fortitude not to get sucked in to ignoring those feelings. Listen to your intuition, reason out what's it's telling you, and you'll almost always feel good about yourself and what you chose to do.

—John Woods, August 27, 2007

Give Me a Break, Gail—Spare Me the Trivial

One of the reasons I call this blog Op-ed Madison is that I am fan of the op-ed page of The New York Times. They have a new regular contributor, Gail Collins, apparently a Maureen Dowd wannabe, which is OK, but sometimes writers like this are too cute for our own good. Her recent column, “Change on the Cheap” (July 26, 2007), assails John and Elizabeth Edwards for being willing to give up tangerines because of the amount of energy it takes to get them to market. This type of article is exactly what trivializes politics and gets us distracted from looking at the fundamental issues that would motivate such comments by a candidate in the first place.

John Edwards is a serious candidate with a passion for issues like global warming, health care, poverty, and this God-awful war in Iraq. Dealing with global warming is going to require sacrifice and change in how we live in this country. We are going to have to work much harder on conservation, probably pay more for the energy we do consume (or the same as we are paying now while using less because we are conserving). There’s nothing wrong with stating that, but there is something wrong with trivializing this by focusing on a statement about giving up tangerines as if that were the heart of the matter.

Any candidate for national office is a target, but let’s make sure that our criticisms are either based on honest disagreements with the candidates or that they are truly out to lunch in their positions. Anyone who reads what I have to say in this column will soon ascertain that I am a liberal (and proud to say so) and that I find Republican candidates and their pandering to the folks whose issues center around God, guns, and gays despicable. On occasion, I will also disagree with liberal candidates, but it won't be because of some offhand remark that I can somehow stretch into one of these posts. Entertaining columns are great but not at the expense of getting in the way of serious consideration of the problems we have in this country and potential solutions being offered by our candidates. At least that’s the way I see it.

—John Woods, July 31, 2007

It Doesn’t Make Sense

I've been thinking about how Republicans in the Senate (including Joe Lieberman, who I have concluded is not the Independent Senator from Connecticut, but the Likud Senator from Israel), will not allow a vote on resolutions to withdraw American armed forces from Iraq, and they believe it’s the right thing to do.

Imagine, if you will, a war in which way more than half of the American public believes we were wrong to start and wrong to continue. How can Republican representatives continue to vote as if the opinions of their constituents don't matter?

My sense is that if a country goes to war, it’s because there is a real reason to do so (we are under threat and we have exhausted every other means to solve the problem), and everyone in the country gets behind it. Everyone contributes to the success of the enterprise because they know it’s in their and their country’s best interest. The fact is no one, no one has shown me why the U.S. should be in Iraq. It is clearly not something that is our best interest and in fact is making us more vulnerable to Islamic crazies, destroying the value of the U.S. dollar, and diverting resources from greatly needed constructive uses into waste and destruction. Where is the intelligence in this? How does this protect Americans?

The absurdity of being in this prolonged and fruitless debacle that was a war and is now an occupation and policing of Iraq is profound. Why do Republican Senators continue to believe it can possibly be good and appropriate for the U.S. to be engaged in this mess? I think if I was one of these people, I would be asking myself the hard question about why people don't support this war. Why don't they see it being good for the U.S. to do this?And if I couldn't come up with a good answer to that question, I would vote and campaign for us to get out of there as quickly as we can and never allow this to happen again.

—John Woods, July 18, 2007

The Sad Story of Edward and Florence

One of the best writers of our time is Ian McEwan, who has written books like Atonement, Saturday, and his latest, On Chesil Beach, which I just finished listening to (remember, I like recorded books). The reason McEwan is so good is that he has great insight into the nuances of human nature that motivate our behavior. Through his use of language, he captures, in a manner of speaking, the “what if” thinking that we all engage in, almost unconsciously that leads us to do one thing or another. That a writer can so richly delve into the emotional/rational inner world of his characters is almost awe inspiring and provides us with more than a little insight into our own inner lives.

In On Chesil Beach, his two main characters are a just-married couple, both virgins, approaching their wedding night. The action takes place in 1962. Edward, 22, is the more conventional of the two, a man who looks forward to what the blurb on the book calls the promised rapture of the honeymoon, while Florence, 23, his new wife, is completely dismayed by this prospect. All during their courtship, Florence loves the companionship of Edward, a budding historian who is an afficianado of rock and roll. Florence, though, is a far more sensitive person and the founder of a string quartet. Every time Edward tries to take a step in the physical expression of their affection, Florence resists and withdraws in one way or another.

Still, Edward remains hopeful and attentive to Florence despite the fact that she barely gives him any reason beyond the platonic to feel this way. As they finish their meal at the Chesil Beach hotel where they are staying, he is getting more and more excited about what awaits him when they go to their room, while she, on the other hand, is resigned to but also dreading what's to come. The story, which is only about 4 hours long on tape, plays out from here. It's fair to say that, as often happens in human experience, things don't end up as we might wish or they might wish. Their emotions come destructively pouring out, and because they've have both repressed their feelings during the courtship, they just have no way to resolve their differences.

In a manner of speaking I think we can call this a novel of “wishful thinking,” where these two young people projected onto each other what each hoped the other would be like. And when neither, for whatever personal reasons, is able to live up to these expectations, the relationship, literally, dies, and they end up leading uneventful, and perhaps, especially for Edward, unfulfilled, lives.

McEwan has written a sad story but one so well crafted and so true to human weakness that it is a pleasure to read or listen to. In the end, it becomes a memorable lesson in the folly that too often characterizes human interaction, behavior that ultimately results in the sacrifice of happiness at the altar of emotional and intellectual dishonesty—when it doesn't have to be that way.

—John Woods, July 16, 2007

Schadenfreude: Not Always a Bad Thing

One of the reasons I like the NY Times is that I come across words that I didn’t know before. One such word is schadenfreude, a noun, I believe, clearly German, meaning taking pleasure from the misfortune of others. The first time I saw the word was in a column by Maureen Dowd. So I looked it up. After that, I didn’t see it for a while and then it appeared again, and I looked it up again. This inspired me to write these few paragraphs. I think I will now remember this word and its meaning.

Schadenfreude is, in most circumstances, a pretty unattractive part of our human nature. After all, it suggests that we are building ourselves up at the expense of someone else. It’s not “there but for the grace of God …,” but rather “I’m kind of happy you are having problems.” Such an attitude is counter to my overall philosophy of life, which I can quickly summarize as “we’re all in this together” (see entry on altruism). This means that we should take joy in the success of others and empathize when others have problems.

Still, there are jerks in the world, people who really do stupid things, reaping misfortune after misfortune, all self-induced. This may be a good thing as we can hope that at some point these folks will wake up and appreciate that the bad things that are happening to them come from a pretty deep misunderstanding of how their behavior negatively affects others and themselves. Schadenfreude may infuse us when this happens, even while what these people are doing potentially hurts us at the same time.

All of which brings me to George Bush and the morass his “administration” has fallen into. With each piece of Bush bad news, I actually experience schadenfreude and don’t feel bad about it at all. I am glad he has fallen into bad times.

After the fact, it’s easy to see that what has happened to Bush, given his actions, was completely predictable. All his problems are indeed self-induced, and I am glad this has happened. I want it to continue. We can hope this will bring, in 2008 if not before, the long needed change in the direction our nation has taken, and we can put this sad sorry episode in our history behind us.

If you too feel schadenfreude about what's happening to Bush and his cohorts as they reap what they have sown, that’s OK. I think of it as an affirmation that there is a more intelligent, less ideologically bound, more fact-based way to decide and act in our political life. And the sooner we wake up to that, the better.

—John Woods, July 9, 2007

The Intelligence of Altruism

Here's one of those philosophical posts I warned you about.

I want to talk about altruism. First of all, let's look at the premise that most people think about when considering altruistic behavior: that is that we are each separate entities and we are each responsible for our personal welfare. Altruistic people from this perspective are willing to sacrifice their personal welfare for that of others.

I am positive that this is not a valid premise. I am going to suggest an alternative premise that is based on a more realistic understanding of nature, including the human form of nature.

Let's start by asking the question of how self-awareness evolved and why. My response would be that the more of the world we can know about, the more successful we can be negotiating within and
adapting to that world. So eventually, we see beings evolve who are aware that the universe is their environment, with the understanding that this takes in themselves, not as something separate from the environment, but as another aspect of the environment they can know about.

This means, therefore, that to look out for ourselves, means looking out for that of which we are inextricably a part. The point is that if we don't look out for the larger world, including others, we don't look out for individual selves—because we’re part of that world.

If you ask yourself who you are as a person, every answer you come up with will denote some kind of relationship to the world in which we exist. I am a father, grandfather, son, brother, book developer, student, letter writer, homeowner—it doesn't matter what descriptor I choose. All of my answers or all your answers will imply relationships. The self, then, is really the sum of our relationships to the world.

To look out for the self means to look out for that to which we are related. To the degree we do that, we succeed. To the degree we don't, we hurt ourselves. In other words, enlightened self-awareness has consequences—we avoid behaviors that are self-destructive, physically, psychologically, economically, socially, politically, and any other way you want to describe it. Unfortunately, all too few people recognize this.

Exploitation from this perspective doesn't make sense. Hurting others from this perspective is self-destructive behavior. I often state that I am not my brother's keeper, I am my own keeper, but this means I am my brother's keeper as well.

I have a small business. My whole philosophy for that business is that my job is to facilitate the success of others, to help them do what they want to do. This is not an altruistic philosophy. I am successful to the degree I help others succeed. If you look at the basic premise of the success of any business, it is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between itself and those that it serves. When businesses don't do this, they disappear.

I like to say that profit from this view is a measure of the quality of our service to others. Profit provides the resources that allow businesses to continue to be able to serve their customers and the larger society. When businesses don't take this perspective, they hurt themselves. Short-term profit that comes from exploitation is hurtful because it undermines the long-term success of the exploiter as well as those who were taken advantage of. (With that said, there are certain human enterprises that should not be subject to simply dollars and cents. It’s clear to me that healthcare is one of those enterprises.)

Altruism is a word that suggests selflessness. It's also an idea based on a dualistic understanding of the world—me versus you—and sometimes I'm willing to “sacrifice” my welfare for yours. However, as stated above, this is a false premise. When we look out for others, we look out for ourselves because we are all in this together. Altruism seen this way is just intelligent behavior.

In a fairly abstract sense, we might suggest that all human behavior is aimed at survival. But if we examine what people do, it's never their personal survival that’s at stake, but their personal sense of the order of their world. In other words, we act so as to preserve our world as we know it to be. When world views of different people or societies clash, we have conflict, but here’s the point. We can know this, and we can transcend these differences and act in ways that are to our mutual benefit. Do we do this? Not often enough, unfortunately.

Three final thoughts:

1. Think about how we feel when we help others in one way or another. It always makes us feel good about ourselves. Now think about when we hurt or take advantage of someone else. It always makes us feel anxious about what we did. This is our bodies telling us what behaviors make the most sense for our personal survival. These feelings are not an accident.

2. When we look at conflict, especially war, one way of understanding it is that this is nature's way of deselecting from the gene pool those who don't understand that everything is interconnected, and survival depends on our accommodating one another. It’s sad that many innocent people die in war, but maybe one day we’ll wake up and discover the sheer insanity of such conflict.

3. Finally, with regard to the Golden Rule—a concept related to altruism—my take is this: it's something we cannot not follow. By definition we do unto others as we have them do unto us—for good or ill.

—John Woods, July 2, 2007

Thirteen Moons and More

In speaking of translating between Cherokee and English, the narrator, Will Cooper, in telling his story in the book Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier, makes this observation:

"... our two languages are not particularly suited to being rendered into each other. And so if you try to do it literally, you end up with a lot of foolishness. On our side of the translation, you get O Great White Father. Many moons ago. Forked tongue. Fire water. Utterances like those of articulate and very pompous children. I'm not sure what you get in the other direction. I assume we sound equally foolish. All translations miss something. Some miss almost everything. Irony. Indirection. Complex metaphors. Straight-faced humor. Damped-down anger. The human touch."

This book misses none of these things. The quality of writing and storytelling that earned such high praise for Cold Mountain is in this book as well. The way I "read" it is by listening to it on CD read by the actor Will Patton, as good a voice for the Will of the story as I think anyone could find.

It is the story of a man remembering his life nearing its end. As an orphan bound to a merchant as his trading post keeper when he was only 12 or 13, the boy turns out to be a natural businessman. He allies himself with the Cherokee Indians in the mountains of Georgia, particularly a chief named Bear. Will helps them from being moved to reservations in the West by insensitive politicians from Andrew Jackson on.

The trading post owner to whom Will is bound falls on bad times and sells his stores and their inventory to Will (who had by that time saved some money from his store keeping), as well as giving him freedom from the contract his uncle signed in binding him over to this man. Floating in and out of the story is the love of his life, Clare, whom he never permanently connects with. Will compiles many descriptors for his resume: gambler, white chief, owner of vast tracts of land, politician, Confederate colonel, entrepreneur, lawyer. How he comes by these is what this book is about.

What makes it special is the quality of writing. Sometimes an author does a good job of describing events and people. Sometimes an author brings people alive and makes you feel you know them or want to know them. Like Ivan Doig, that is Frazier's special gift: the ability to turn a phrase, to take you to that time and place, to embed the story in you so you remember it long from now. The audio version is wonderful, but whether you read or listen, I hope you'll be moved by my description to find out for yourself why this is a great book.

—John Woods, June 29, 2007

The Conflict That Isn't

Chris Matthews had Ann Coulter on his show on Tuesday night and she made several stupid remarks about any number of subjects, including about John Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards called in to ask her politely to refrain from lowering the quality of political discourse in this country. Of course, Coulter simply pushed the accelerator and made more such remarks. Today (June 27) Matthews is now acting as if there is a feud between John and Elizabeth Edwards and Ann Coulter. I could not resist sending the following e-mail to Matthews about this:

First of all, there is no conflict between Edwards and Coulter, except that which you are trying to create. Don't do this, Chris—it doesn't become you. John Edwards is a civilized person, as is Elizabeth Edwards. They have no fight with Ann Coulter. Their issue is with behavior and language that lowers the quality of our political discourse—it's not personal.

Ann Coulter, on the other hand, does not value civility and is a panderer to those who aren't deep thinkers and are ripe for exploitation, which she does for her personal benefit. It's a shame that you would even give her air time. I think in doing so you kind of lower yourself to her level strictly for ratings. You can deny that, but I think deep down you know that and want to use her outrageousness for your personal benefit. I'm pretty sure that as a former Peace Corps Volunteer, which is a testament to your character, you know what I'm saying has the ring of truth. I guess the fact is that you have 50 minutes to fill up every night and intelligent discourse just doesn't attract an audience.

I think a while ago Coulter wrote a book praising Senator McCarthy—that's not surprising. She has clearly taken a page from his book—saying anything to get attention. But Chris, like Joseph Welch, maybe you should have asked her "Ann, have you no shame? Have you no shame?" And then send her on her way.

—John Woods, June 27, 2007

The American Public

I have been reading a piece in the Sunday (June 24) NY Times about how the British press tears its politicians apart. The article specifically talks about Tony Blair and how both the press and public have turned against him. It points out that politicians have the tendency, and Blair fell into this tendency, to blame the press for how the public has come to dislike him of late, as he leaves office. One of the points made in this article is that the various factions of the press actually just reflect the prejudices of their readers, and they deviate from these prejudices at their own peril. In other words, don't blame the press, blame the groups of people who read and buy into the stuff they publish to sell their papers in the first place.

This started me thinking about how American politicians all have a tendency to speak about the "American public" as if this were a national behemoth without difference among the people who make up this public. Further, one politician or another has a tendency to tear down his or her opponent as not representing the "will of the American public."

To take it yet a step further, we blame this war in Iraq on George Bush and Dick Cheney, among others, while, like the British press and the readers it represents, it may be more realistic to blame it on the "majority" of people who were responsible for their election. Still, politicians, who want to win, have to curry favor from voters, even those who voted for Bush, and thus are shy about criticizing the judgment these people showed in voting for a particular candidate, regardless of the honesty of such criticism.

So instead they blame the person they are running against and claim to better represent the will and the best interests of the American public. I can't tell you how many times I have thought about yelling back at the TV when a politician of some stripe makes a claim about the American public and what it wants. I long to tell this person, "I think I'm part of that public, and you aren't talking about how I feel about some issue—not even close." In other words, he or she is not talking about me.

M0st often these days it is the Republicans who raise my ire. Also in the Times today, we read about how the Republicans have sought to undermine the energy bill working its way through Congress, gutting any mandatory goals for generating energy from wind and solar or improving gas mileage standards. For the life of me, I can' t understand why they do this and what group of people they represent. I can assure you it is not any member of the public I know.

What I'd like to see is politicians refrain from the use of the term "the American public" and instead honestly state in whose real interests they are spouting one position or another. That would be refreshing but highly unlikely. Like the press in Britain whose prejudices reflect those of their readers, so that seems to be true of the party currently in power. In America, we elect the people who misunderstand the issues closest to the way a majority of the electorate misunderstands them. Sadly over the past 6 years or so, that misunderstanding has been profound, and thus we are in the fix we now find ourselves in with regard to climate change, health care, a needless war in Iraq, culture wars, immigration, you name it.

Perhaps it requires numerous crises of this nature to awaken us from our current prejudices (note the standing of Bush in the polls). Then next time maybe we will elect someone who reflects a slightly more enlightened view of things. Though that view may be distorted as well, perhaps it will be less toxic and even aimed at making things better for both the fortunate and less fortunate among us than what we have endured since 2001. I certainly hope so.

—John Woods, June 24, 2007

Les Miserables—The Modern Version

I just completed watching a movie I try to see every year or two. It is called Les Miserables, directed by Claude Lalouche. It is not the Les Miserables we all know, but a story that parallels Victor Hugo's classic tale. It stars Jean Paul Belmondo, whose lined face seems to capture every kind of human experience and who is perfect for this role. The movie is the story of a man, Henri Fortin, whose life is compared to that of Jean Valjean, the hero of Hugo's Les Miserables. It is in French with subtitles.

The movie is over 3 hours long and yet when it's over, you're hardly aware that you have been watching it for that long, so engaging and engrossing is it. Fortin helps a Jewish family in many ways during WWII; he becomes involved in the resistance movement. So many things happen to all the characters that it would take too long to describe here, but throughout we see the connections with the famous novel. It is simply a remarkable film—one that I can unreservedly recommend to anyone. It reminds us of the best parts of our humanity. Some will say that it is sentimental. But for me, it is simply one of the best movies ever made.

The version I have is on videotape. I don't even know if a DVD version is available. Several years ago I rented it from a video store and then I bought a copy from Amazon.com—after seeing it the first time, I had to own it. I can promise that if you find it, I think you too will be completely taken with this very unique movie experience.

—John Woods, June 22, 2007

Talking Back to Maureen

Maureen Dowd wrote a piece, "Carmela Got Gold Jewelry, Hillary Wants a White House" (June 20, 2007) in which she chastised Democrats, and Hillary in particular, for being power hungry--Maureen's take on her personality. It was a kind of piece that sets in people's minds a negative image of the candidate that too many voters may recall, especially when picked up by the cable talking heads, and cause them to vote against this candidate or that. I could not resist writing to Maureen about this, to wit:

I have to say, Maureen, you’re funny. You’re way plugged into pop culture and making connections with current events in a clever manner. I’m a Democrat. I think there are many interesting choices out there among the Democrats. Right now, I favor John Edwards, but I’m OK with Hillary and Barack as well. In fact, I’m OK with almost any Democrat who wants to get us out the messes that W and his crew have foisted on us over the past 6 1/2 years.

But heaven help any of them you decide to take on. Foibles in your hands are fatal flaws. Al Gore’s sighs, John Edwards’ haircut—all the stuff that’s not really very meaningful becomes grist for your mill. God knows you would have a field day with me if you ever had reason to write about me, which God knows you won’t. I guess what I’m saying is while it’s OK to make fun of public folks and their personality quirks, it’s even better to point out, as you have on occasion, the messes their ideological craziness has gotten or might get us into.

When I listen to the current group of Republican candidates (can you say panderers) and their embrace of creationism and shooting first and talking later, I can only hope that the perceived personality issues of Hillary or any Democrat will not be the basis for deciding on who becomes the next president. That seems to be what happened in 2000, and we will be paying the price for that mistake long after my 2 year old granddaughter is grown up.

—John Woods, June 21, 2007