Op-ed Madison

On Steve Jobs

2011-10-08T04:49:00.000-07:00

I think Plato described the philosopher king, who really understood what was in the best interests of his subjects and made those things happen. A similar idea is the benevolent dictator. I think those ideas fit Steve Jobs. He really did think, in terms of technology, that he had a pipeline to the truth. This didn't always lead to great products, but it did often enough that the company he led attracted other great minds who could help him execute his ideas. He had no other ambition except to create great products, and his intuition pointed to true north in doing that. These products helped us connect with one another with elegance and ease. That's why they were so successful and emulated. We admire that intuition even if on occasion his style was one of humiliating others to achieve his goals, which is not so admirable.

However, this does not mean we must not be leery of those who believe they know the "truth" and want to impose it others. Throughout human history, it has too often been those types who have fomented war and destruction on the world. The greatest among us are remembered for what they did for others. The reviled are those who exploited others for their truth. If you are bothered by the behavior of so-called Tea Party members, it is their insistence on their way or the highway that is so off-putting.

Let's admire Steve Jobs for the things he gave us. Let's hope others with his insights succeed him. Let's not seek to make him a role model in his sometimes less-than-admirable methods of achieving his goals.

I think in the end we can say Steve Jobs was more of a good guy than not (as I'm sure we would like ourselves to be thought of), who left us too soon, and because he gave us so many wonderful tools, he will be remembered among the great of business and, who knows, human history.

President Obama Gets It Right This Time

2011-04-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

In response to an editorial in today's New York Times called "President Obama, Reinvigorated", I wrote a response, which I am also posting here.

I live one congressional district over from Paul Ryan’s but in vision for this country, I might as well live on the other side of the world. The gap between Democrats and Republicans on today’s issues is greater than at any time in the 68 years I’ve been on the planet. George Bush pushed the idea of an “ownership society.” What he meant is “you’re on your own.” And that is the essence of Ryan’s approach to things. Well, the fact is, folks, we are interdependent, and to the degree we don’t acknowledge and act on that, we facilitate our own demise. President Obama’s speech seems to agree with that.

After reading the book “The Bridge” by David Remnick, I know that Obama’s default position is to listen and seek common ground with all parties. But I hope he holds to his position stated yesterday and uses his powers to stop Republican foolishness now. The Ryan crowd won the house not because of their policies but because in Obama’s first two years in office he was not able to get us out of the Great Bush Recession. Let us hope that this dose of culture war, science rejecting, rich get richer approach to governing is rejected quickly in 2012.

A few weeks George Lakoff wrote an essay on his blog called “What Conservatives Want.” In it, he included this paragraph:

“Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should NOT have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil’s own means can be used against conservatism’s immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women’s doctors.”

This pretty well captures what the Republicans want. I am glad to see President Obama unequivocally rejecting such nonsense, and so should all thinking Democrats and especially independents (whoever they are) who ultimately decide elections in this country.

A Bill of Particulars

2011-03-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

A Bill of Particulars

RE: Governor Scott Walker and Republican Co-Conspirators’ Blatant, Divisive Actions to Destroy Cooperation and Collective Bargaining in the State of Wisconsin

1. As the Executive for the County of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Scott Walker illegally fired county employees who served to provide security at various government facilities. These employees were replaced by a private company, Wackenhut, from outside Wisconsin. It turned out that the head of the Wisconsin operation was a felon. After Walker was elected Governor, the courts decreed that the firing of county employees was illegal. As a result, the fired employees had to be brought back and given back pay. Currently Milwaukee County must pay two sets of employees (Wackenhut and the illegally fired County employees) until the Wackenhut contract expires. This is the first example of a reckless attempt to weaken employee rights by Scott Walker. The significant cost to Milwaukee County has been unnecessary and outrageous.

2. Once inaugurated as Wisconsin’s Governor, one of Mr. Walker’s first actions was to award over 130 million dollars in tax breaks to Wisconsin corporations. These “gifts” will go into effect in the 2011-2013 biennial budget year, only adding to the current deficit. These are not the actions of a person concerned about budget deficits. The additional deficits created only further shift the burden to persons with disabilities, poor people, public employees and the middle class.

3. There is in place a short-term budget deficit for the remainder of this fiscal year. It could have been handled without the “Budget Repair Bill” proposed by Governor Walker.

4. Under cover of “the Budget Repair Bill” the Governor also sought to strip all collective bargaining rights from state and local public employees. He claimed that it was fiscally necessary. This argument had no substance because employee unions had agreed to all financial and benefit sacrifices demanded in “the Budget Repair Bill”. Nonetheless, the claim of fiscal necessity continued to be alleged.

5. These massive labor law changes would undo 50 years of public employee collective bargaining in Wisconsin. This proposal was made after the Governor was in office for only one month. He made not one mention of his union-killing intention in any of his campaign appearances or literature. It can clearly be called a radical, stealth intention. Polls show that, by a wide margin, the citizens of Wisconsin do not approve of this initiative by Mr. Walker.

6. The Governor asserted that if “the Budget Repair Bill” did not pass, he would have to immediately lay off more than one thousand state workers. Yet since his election, there has ensued an unprecedented massive retirement of state employees with many more in the process, the need to lay off state employees is clearly unnecessary given the high volume of new vacancies. Employees who took early retirement did it despite the financial penalty they would personally experience out of a fear that they would lose even more. This exodus has weakened state government by an abrupt loss of decades of organizational memory and invaluable skills. The usual adjustments made possible by gradual attrition are not currently happening..

7. The entire process was structured by the Governor and his Republican Senate and Assembly co-conspirators to ram the proposal through. It was announced on a Friday afternoon with the intention to have it passed by the next Tuesday, given majority Republican control of both houses. The Senate Democrats did the only thing they could to stop the juggernaut; they left the state thus denying the Wisconsin Senate the quorum needed for any proposed legislation with fiscal content. This action by Democrats created a time frame in which the citizens could understand, discuss and respond to the radical provisions contained in the bill.

8. The loss of collective bargaining rights for public employees will also cost Wisconsin millions of dollars in U.S. Transportation allocations that are conditioned on employees having the right to collective bargaining.

9. The cost of security for law enforcement can be defined as the money the state must reimburse local governments for police-related personnel from across the state who have been called to Madison to respond to the massive demonstrations that “the Budget Repair bill” has provoked. The current estimate is that it will cost the state $ 4 million to date.

10. When the initial plan to ramrod through the radical provisions in “the Budget Repair Bill” were stymied, there followed a series of highly questionable actions to pressure the absent Democrats to return: financial penalties, reassigning staff, denying copying and other resources needed for constituent response. This also included sending law enforcement personnel to the homes of the absent senators.

11. One of the “reasons” offered by Walker for stripping the rights of local union employees was that this was a critical tool for local and school managers to deal with their budget cuts. This was disputed by many local managers including the Wisconsin Association of School Superintendents. No single example of local support for this provision has been offered.

12. When the response to the proposal was an overwhelming outpouring of citizens coming to the Capitol in unprecedented tens of thousands, other repressive actions were taken. These included denying citizens access to the Capitol- an action that was subsequently overturned by court order.

13. The Governor also revealed his true colors in a taped telephone call in which he thought David Koch, billionaire and a major financial contributor, was on the line. He not only revealed his unprincipled dishonesty, but candidly admitted considering planting agitators among the crowds of protesters. While this option was considered, it was not rejected on ethical grounds, but on the cynical political assessment that it would not work. In the 20 minute conversation, there was not a single mention of concern about the budget – only a clear intention to bring down all public unions.

14. On March 9th, despite ongoing assertions that the collective bargaining provisions were in the budget for a fiscal impact, the Senate took the abrupt and unexplained stance that now, magically, the collective bargaining provisions did not have a fiscal impact. They were therefore stripped from “the Budget Repair Bill” taken to a conference committee, despite the fact that neither house had passed the bill. The stripped provisions were then taken back to the Senate for a vote. This was done in violation of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law as the Conference Committee was noticed less than 2 hours before it occurred; the law requires at least 24 hours notice.

15. The State Department of Administration, under the Governor’s Cabinet has made two wildly untrue assertions: first that the cost to clean up the Capitol would exceed $7 million dollars; second: that protesters had broken windows to gain access to the Capitol once the illegal vote had been taken on March 9^th. Both assertions were patently untrue and had to be retracted.

16. The Governor’s headlong obsession with demolishing public unions has resulted in his failure to fill numerous other appointive positions within state government, creating further chaos and confusion in the government for which he is responsible.

This bill of particulars does not touch the substance of the Governor’s proposed budget which contains even greater provisions to radically shift power to the Governor’s office, thus undoing a critical balance of power needed for healthy and viable government.

We have structured our civil society to protect minority rights from majority tyranny. All people are entitled to basic civil rights, as listed in the Bill of Rights, but also as adopted informally through social contracts over the years. The right to form unions, while given through legal authority, is generally a matter of social contract. It is a way for management and labor to communicate, for each stakeholder to be respected and have a voice in the operations in which both are involved.

The state of Wisconsin is not broke. We do not deny that there are budget deficit issues that must be dealt with. However, they require a thoughtful, balanced response and shared pain. Massive structural changes should not be enacted under the guise of a “budget crisis”. We demand fairness, integrity, and a balance of power with decisions being made for the common good. None of these critical dynamics are evident in the actions taken by the Governor and most Republican legislators to date.

It is also clear that the Governor intends to “privatize” a number of the functions currently done by state employees by these actions. He has already begun this process by the restructuring of the Department of Commerce, giving private business a far greater hand in the operation of that important agency. This kind of restructuring is a major change that should not occur by fiat, but by broad and sweeping public discussion. That is clearly not a democratic value held by Governor Walker.

For the above reasons, the Governor has violated his oath of office to “faithfully discharge” the duties of office. The faith and trust that each citizen can reasonably expect to have in the state’s chief executive officer has been severely betrayed. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor should be expeditiously removed before even more damage can be done to the health and well-being of this state.

By Carol Lobes

The Sargent Shriver I Knew

2011-01-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

I just watched a repeat of the wake for Sargent Shriver on C-Span, a wonderful service. I have been reflecting on Sargent Shriver all this week. I am amazed at the outpouring of affection shown him in every publication I have read. The comments sections after those articles are remarkable both in the amount of comments and the sentiments expressed. He really did touch more lives than we can possibly imagine.

I was thinking that he didn't know me, but I knew him because he awoke a part of me that I would not have known were it not for him. I was particularly moved by Timothy Shriver's reading of how his father defined himself. I think he was completely right about himself. He knew who he was and what was important, and his life is a lesson that we can all learn from.

In a world where there is too much violence, too much hate, too much cynicism, too much selfishness, too much unhappiness, too much poverty, too much self-righteousness, he stands as a role model for how to turn all that around and at the same time live a happy, fulfilled life, with more friends and admirers that we can possibly imagine. The tributes he has received are proof enough about what is the best way to live. I just wonder if we will ever wake up to that. We really are all in this together, and when we look out for that of which we are a part, we look out for ourselves. That is what Sargent Shriver in his own way knew and how he lived. His passing only reminds us of this once again.

I did some searching on the Internet and found the Sargent Shriver Web site, and they have his speech delivered at the 25th anniversary of the Peace Corps in 1986. Reading that speech again, with its theme of service, especially its conclusion, takes me back to that celebration and how inspired I was by his admonition to “serve, serve, serve.” Amazing.

No Adults Allowed

2010-04-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

Here's another comment on a NYTimes op-ed, this time one from Gail Collins called "Running on Empty." I think she got it right, and here's what I had to say in reaction:

It’s clear that neither most politicians in this country nor the people who elect them heard what President Obama said in his inaugural address: “... in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.” And “... we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

Sorry to say, Mr. President, we haven’t declared an end to pettiness, and our politics take place in the adult-free zone. We are a nation of cable chatter and radio bombasts where intelligence and facts have little room in the conversation. Personally, I long for a political debate that is civil and rational rather than one that is confrontational and emotional.

That may be a generalization, but it’s not too far from accurate when we are still paying attention to the rants of Sarah Palin, and the great majority of people in this country have no idea who Paul Krugman is. So I think you got it right, Gail, about our politics, and it’s not a pretty picture.

A Theory of Business

2010-04-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

On occasion, I like to submit a comment on an op-ed that I've read in The New York Times. On Friday, I felt so motivated to comment on Paul Krugman's piece "Don't Cry for Wall Street." Here's what I had to say:

I have a theory about business, including the banking business. Here it is: Businesses do not exist to make a profit; they exist to serve the needs of their customers and the larger society of which they are a part.

To the degree they do that, they will earn the means to be around tomorrow to continue doing it. When businesses exploit their customers and ignore the good of society, they ultimately undermine their own viability. In other words, I see profit for what it really is: as the way to measure the quality of a business's service to others--and so are its losses. When Toyota was making money and GM was losing money, what do you think that said about the two companies and what they were doing for their customers?

With that said, a lot of banking businesses have made tremendous profits by ignoring this idea, especially the part about paying attention to the good of society. By doing this, they certainly brought the economy to its knees a couple of years ago—and we still have a long way to go to recover.

Even now some banks remain overly profitable. I sincerely doubt that Goldman Sachs’ profits are a measure of the quality of its service to others. Those folks know how to game the system, and as long as they and others like them have the ability to do that, we will all pay the price. And by all, I'm including the banks themselves, as they will come tumbling down just like the rest of us eventually.

That's why regulation and rules are important. They give us a level playing field and help balance the clear asymmetry of information and power that exists today. In reality, it's not Wall Street vs. Main Street; it's Wall Street and Main Street, and we're all in this together.

Keep raising your voice of sanity, Paul. I for one greatly appreciate it.

Maureen Dowd and No Drama Obama

2010-01-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, January 10, Maureen Dowd did another of her numbers on Obama to which I could not resist responding. Here's what I had to say:

It’s so refreshing to have a smart guy in charge who keeps cool and manages well. It’s so refreshing to have a guy who examines the facts and makes reality-based decisions.

It’s not refreshing that we still haven’t figured out how to completely stop young aspirational/operational crazies from Al Queda from getting on American airplanes with dangerous materials.

But that is as much a failure of Congress not passing legislation to implement the 9/11 commission suggestions as it is in the executive branch.

No drama works for me. I wished it worked for Congress as well (not to mention the occasional columnist). We have too much junk politics, too much fake drama, in this country. Please refrain from encouraging more.

In fact, next time you have the urge to complain about Obama’s style, turn that urge on its head and tell readers why no drama is good and why junk politics is bad. I’m pretty sure you would quickly be rewarded with the number 1 spot on the most e-mailed list if you did.

John Woods

The Holiday Season 2009

2009-12-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

There is an argument to be made that home is where you are, wherever that is. When you visit a place with an open and welcoming spirit, you can make it your own, for however long you are there. We start our Christmas letter in this way because 2009 has been a year in which we have made many places our temporary home, where nearly every month we were traveling to visit friends and relatives, to relax, and to see new places.

Since our children now live in two places: Eagan, Minnesota, and Washington, DC, those are two of our regular destinations. Indeed, we started the year with a visit to Washington, not only to see our son, Chris, his wife, Jaime, our little granddaughter, Maddie, and our daughter, Lindsay, but also to attend, along with about 2 million of our not closest friends, the inauguration of our new president, Barack Obama. We will remember it as spending about seven hours in the cold, but also as a celebration of our country’s election of a leader who has the ability to inspire us not unlike JFK inspired us when we were young.

In February we abandoned the cold of Madison for about three weeks with our now annual trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. An indulgence to be sure, but the weather, the beach, relaxing with a good book around the pool, the warmth of the Mexican people, and enjoying the company of new friends, makes this place a magnet that we cannot resist. And so we don’t, nor will we in 2010. If you need to contact us in February of next year, return e-mails will be sent from there.

I think the most memorable travel of 2009 for us was spending 20 days in The Netherlands in July. We participated in a home exchange, turning our home over to another family as we took up residence in Dordrecht, one of the oldest Dutch cities, not far from Rotterdam. Holland is a small country, and you can easily take the train to many cities and after seeing the sites be home for dinner. So we visited places like Delft, Rotterdam, The Hague, Maastricht, Utrecht, Gouda, Bruges in Belgium, and more. We visited European friends and had some who visited us while we were there, and we had a place for them to stay—our Dordrecht home. The final three days, we spent in Amsterdam partaking of its canal walks, museums, and restaurants.

During our time there, we visited some art museums with more masterpieces in one room than most museums have in their entire collection. Of course, everywhere there are canals and bicycles and buildings from the 1600s and picturesque views just waiting for John to take pictures of, and he did a lot of that. Home exchange is a great way to visit a country, and it substantially reduces the cost. We are fortunate to have had this opportunity and the good sense to take advantage of it. Flying back through Minneapolis, we were there just in time for our granddaughter Amber’s fourth birthday party and finally back home in Madison.

Not too long after arriving home in early August, we were off to Washington again for Maddie’s first birthday and how much fun that was. She is in the picture that accompanies this letter on her mommy Jaime’s lap and sitting next to her cousins, Amber and Kyle. While in Washington, we try to see whatever the current exhibit is at the National Gallery, and if Congress is in session, to attend whatever Senate hearing looks interesting.

In September, it was off to southern Utah to visit John’s mom and his sister, Caralee and her husband, Jimmie. We were not aware of the beauty of this part of our country, and it is no exaggeration to say it is simply stunning. In one week during our visit, we went to Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Thank goodness for digital photography because John couldn’t take pictures fast enough. Because we were in the west, we took the opportunity to split up, Nancy to California to visit family and friends and John to Oregon to do the same. Finally back in Wisconsin for a few weeks before yet another trip to California in October for our niece’s wedding and a visit with friends in the Palm Springs area.

And then to Minneapolis for grandson Kyle’s second birthday. Back in Madison, we happily welcomed our entire family for Thanksgiving, during which time the picture on the card was taken. Interwoven during and between this travel, John kept CWL going with five new titles in the Briefcase Books series, with more to come in 2010. Maybe he is semi-retired and maybe not—he hasn’t figured that out. And Nancy managed to keep up with her volunteer activities.

So on to 2010, a new grandchild in June, and making a home where we find it, sharing our times with friends and family and having yet more adventures—we know we’re not near done with those, and we hope you’re not, either.

Happy Holidays and Happy 2010

John and Nancy Woods

Human Nature and Our Instinct to Help Others

2009-12-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

In a widely e-mailed article in the New York Times, We May Be Born With an Urge to Help, I submitted the following comment, which was posted at the end of the article.

My take on this comes from this basic premise: the brain cannot abstract itself out from the world in which it exists. There are only two things that have meaning to us as thinking beings: relationships and processes (and process is about how relationships change through time in a purposeful manner). To make sense of ourselves is to make sense of how we are related to and part of the world. The self is quite literally the sum of our relationships to the world. To look out for that world is to look out for ourselves. To harm that world is to harm ourselves. There is a lot of pain and misery in the world because many people are not aware of this fact of our human nature.

That there are negative consequences to doing ill to others and the world in which we exist affirms the premise laid out above. That there are positive consequences when we look out for our world also affirms this premise. Just consider when you felt best about yourself. I can almost guarantee it's when you have been generous, kind, compassionate, and helpful to someone else or made some kind of contribution that makes the world a better place. Now think about those times when what you've done causes you to feel anxious, unhappy, or nervous. It's almost always when we have exploited others in some way. These feelings are the body's way of providing feedback on when you have done something either good or bad to yourself.

It's not that children have a tendency to help others. It's that in doing so they naturally feel better about themselves. That’s built in to our nature. To the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" My response would be "No, I am my own keeper, but this means I am my brother's keeper." Why? Because when we look out for that of which we are a part, we look out for ourselves. It really is as simple as that. And when things don’t work out as we expect, we can learn from the experience and do better next time. You can read more more about some of these ideas at www.cwlpub.com/brain.htm.

Does the Peace Corps Really Matter?

2009-10-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

John Coyne at the site Peace Corps Worldwide asks, “Does the Peace Corps really matter?” The following is my reply.

Does the Peace Corps matter? I can say it matters to me. I remember in the middle of my second year thinking how meaningful this experience was to me personally. I was really enjoying myself and for one of the first times in my life really felt good about myself and what I was involved in and the people I was involved with. That’s when I decided to extend for a third year. Why leave something after two years when you’re just really getting good at it?

The point is that the Peace Corps is an organization that gives people a chance to make a difference, each person in his or her own way, in a place where what we do actually makes a difference. In a way, the Peace Corps isn’t the people who make it up. It’s really that each person is an individual Peace Corps and this organization is just the umbrella that makes this possible.

The work we do as PCVs does help the countries in which we serve. But there is something else going on as well. It’s the relationships we form among our fellow human beings in other countries that I think make the longest lasting difference. We Americans have our own culture, with all its strengths and weaknesses, just as is true of cultures across the globe.

What the Peace Corps allows, for a very small investment, given the return, is the connection between people of different cultures to learn about and from one another, to grasp our shared humanity, and from the American perspective, to add value in the country in which we work, while broadening our personal understanding of the world and ourselves at the same time.

It’s pretty amazing that we have this organization whose most important result is opening people up to one another. If that isn’t the foundation for peace, I don’t know what is. And in that sense, the Peace Corps is well named, indeed.

If this seems a bit idealistic, well, it’s how I feel, and it reflects my experience of serving three years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. I think it also captures my son’s experience of spending two years as a PCV in Kazakhstan.

My Health Insurance Rant

2009-06-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

I got this e-mail from Senator Russ Feingold asking my opinion about upcoming health care legislation in Congress. Well, I let it all hang out:

I have been in business for myself since 1992. From 1992 to 1999, my wife, who has a degree from the University of California, Berkeley, kept a job that she was way overqualified for mainly for benefits for she and I and our younger daughter. Finally, revenues from my business reached a point where we could afford health care ourselves, expensive as it was.

However, several years before 1999, my wife had a bout with sarcoidosis, and the first time we applied to GHC, the plan that worked best for us, we were turned down because of this preexisting condition. However, because we were friends with an influential doctor who worked for GHC, he intervened on our behalf, and we were accepted.

However, the charges every year went up by double digits, and by 2008, the last year we were on this plan before joining Medicare, our price for two adults who seldom went to the doctor, was $1,175 a month, with a $30 co-pay and no drug coverage. If we had continued through 2008, our total outlay for that year for two healthy adults would have been $14,100. And I am sure it would have cost more in 2009.

Small business people and individuals basically get taken to the cleaners by our current system. I have long favored single-payer health care. That is essentially what Medicare is, and it seems to be working fine. In fact, let those Republicans who are screaming about public insurance consider doing away with Medicare, and see how quickly they are not reelected.

I think we need universal health care. Health care is not a privilege but a right in a civilized, developed country. My own belief is the cost of health insurance in this country could be greatly reduced by having a single-payer system that reduces the overhead of insurance companies, who spend way too much time figuring out what not to cover rather than simply being there for people when insurance is needed.

Also, for those Republicans who think our taxes would go up dramatically, I say, what do you think that $14,100 I would have paid in 2008 to GHC is? If that is not the same as a tax, I don't know what it is. I am sure I would have paid less for a public plan.

It seems we are not mature or realistic enough politically to go for a single payer system, but I believe that a public plan is important. And if the Republicans don't want to go along, I say do it through what I believe is called "reconciliation," where you don't need 60 votes to close debate and pass a new piece of legislation. I say do not let the ideologically bound Republicans stand in the way this time.

Finally, one other thing: Connecting health insurance to employment is crazy. In this current economic debacle, people aren't just losing their jobs, they're losing the health insurance as well. That doesn't make any sense. Imagine if that were you.

And yet one more thing: If health insurance is not connected to employment, this would free people to go to the kind of work they want to do without fear of losing their insurance. It would open the door to more contract employment and freelance work. It would make the workplace more efficient because people would be engaged in the work for which they are best suited, rather than just jobs that provide those vital benefits. Far too many people take jobs they don't like or that are not consistent with their skills simply for health insurance. That's a terrible state of affairs.

Senator Feingold, I hope you get a chance to read this. Health care has been an issue for me for a long time. Let's fix it this time.

Susan Boyle and Our Tears

2009-04-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on why, no matter how many times I view the video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, it brings tears to my eyes and to nearly all who see it. First of all, let’s dispense with the cliché you can’t judge a book by its cover. I’m kind of tired of reading that in the various comments people have made after watching Susan. Like all clichés, it is a crutch for not looking deeper at what’s going on.

The feeling I get when I watch this video is not different from what I have experienced when I have teared up watching a movie that has a particularly poignant scene in which the real goodness of a character comes through. Think of Sydney Carton who sacrifices himself for his friend at the end of A Tale of Two Cities or Rick saying goodbye to Ilsa Lund at the end of Casablanca.

In all of these situations, and especially when we watch and listen to that sweet powerful voice of Susan Boyle, a regular person who simply believes in herself, we experience that tightening in our chest, the goose bumps, and the tears that slide down our cheeks. I think this feeling is called forth when we witness the emergence of the most admirable parts of our shared humanity when we least expect it.

Susan and the best writers, along with the actors who portray the characters they create, touch us in ways that remind us of the simple grace that we each possess but seldom experience. In those moments we forget the superficiality and the defensiveness that pervades our everyday interactions. And the relief of that releases an emotional response that is pure joy.

The voice of Susan Boyle is a wonder, but it is connected to a regular person—not someone we have already recognized as special, and that is what truly touches us. We discover that she is indeed special, and maybe I am, as well. Barbra Streisand also sings beautifully, and we listen for the pure enjoyment of hearing her music, yet it usually doesn’t bring tears to our eyes.

We may think we are responding to the authenticity and innocence of Susan and her singing, but at a deeper level, we are experiencing our own authenticity that she, completely unintentionally, has awakened in us.

As I write this, there have been about 27 million views of her video in less than a week. If this doesn’t speak to a longing for simplicity and honesty in our lives, I don’t know what does. Maybe that cliché “don’t judge a book by its cover” does apply, but we are not just speaking of Susan, but ourselves as well.

The Decision-Making Style of Barack Obama

2008-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

As I said in my previous piece about decision making, what’s essential is the quality of your understanding of the situations in which you find yourself. This is important because we always “decide” (that is, act) in accord with our understanding.

Two things can happen when you are confronted with a problem, especially a new problem. You can either try to fit that problem into your current understanding, flawed though that may be, and act. Or you can step back and recognize that you don’t have enough information or aren’t sure of the consequences of the different courses you might take. In this case, you then gather more information and consider the different paths you might take. Then you choose the one that most closely fits the facts. According to many observers, this characterizes the style and approach of Barack Obama.

In the Newshour review of how Obama makes decisions, one of his mantras is “no drama.” Drama usually comes from taking actions without fully thinking through what might happen. When you do that, it often results in unintended consequences and problems that could have otherwise been prevented. In other words, you create drama, and that’s often not a good thing.

David Mendell, who wrote a biography of Obama, says, “[Obama] would always try to bring all sides of an issue, if there were conflicting sides, into the room, into one room, sit them all down, and try to get them together. He came out what seemed to be with respect from both sides.” He also usually comes out with some consensus among the parties.

David Axelrod, his campaign chairman, says of Obama, “His hallmark, his style of leadership is to try and bring people together. His attitude is, ‘We may disagree on 90 percent of what we want on issues, but on those [other] 10 percent, how do we work together and move things forward?’”

A perfect example of the difference between McCain and Obama is the current debate over the bailout of Wall Street and Main Street now going on. McCain precipitously said he is suspending his campaign until a solution is found and even suggested delaying the long planned first presidential debate in Oxford, MS.

According to news accounts, Obama called McCain and suggested they deliver a joint statement about the crisis. McCain apparently agreed, but within the hour, without telling Obama, he announced the campaign suspension and that he was going to Washington to, in a manner of speaking, “save the day.” This is despite the fact that he had not spoken with either Senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee or Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House financial services committee, both of whom Obama had spoken to several times.

In the meantime, Obama issued a statement of principles of what the bailout plan should include. In contrasting what the two candidates did, Obama has remained calm and thoughtful, while McCain has been impetuous and unsure of what to do next.

Here’s how Time Magazine’s Joe Klein describes what’s been going on: “What McCain didn’t understand was that the legislative crisis was already receding when he made his melodramatic—and somewhat wild-eyed—suspension of campaign activities statement. (He didn’t understand this because he has had no input into the process and, indeed, is neither respected for his financial expertise nor desired in the process because of his combative, peremptory negotiating style.)”

Note Klein’s characterization of McCain’s combative and peremptory style in negotiations—not an approach that leads to consensus and definitely a style that leads to, yes, more drama. And as I write this, that is just what is going on, even as an agreement was close, McCain’s decision to interfere has, apparently, muddied the water and taken us further from a resolution of this financial crisis.

One other thing that characterizes good decision making is the ability to learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are when things don’t turn out like you expected and what happened instead was not in your best interest. In a Newshour piece on how Obama deals with adversity, it’s clear that he learns from his mistakes. David Axelrod recalls Obama telling his campaign team after losing two big primaries to Hillary Clinton: “I can think of a dozen things that I did wrong in these last couple of weeks. And I’m sure each of you can think of things that you would have done differently. I don’t want to review that. I want to think about what we’ve learned from this and how it affects what we do moving forward.”

I don’t know about you, but this is the approach to leadership and decision making that engenders confidence in me. As for McCain, everyday, by his actions and remarks, he seems to be—ironically—reinforcing the idea that “John McCain, not ready to lead.”

Reflections on John McCain’s Decision-Making Style

2008-09-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Recently the Newshour on PBS has analyzed the decision-making styles of McCain and Obama. This was an insightful and useful presentation that can serve as an important consideration in choosing which candidate to support. Before reflecting on what we learned about, I want to talk a bit about the process of decision-making and how I think it works.

I believe that rather than make decisions, what we do is understand situations and act in accordance with our understanding. What I mean by this is as individuals, we encounter situations, we project our sense of order onto what’s happening, and then we act to preserve that sense of order. If we’re thoughtful and see that our sense of order isn’t adequate and that we don’t fully understand what’s going on, we collect more information to bring things into focus and then act.

Our sense of the order things is really our paradigm. The better our paradigm, the more it conforms with how the world really works, the more likely our understanding of the situations we’re confronted with and the decisions and actions we take will result in something productive happening.

The contrast in the Newshour stories on the McCain and the Obama decision-making styles was startling. The paradigm, the understanding, from which John McCain operates is one of black and white, with few shades of gray. He will talk to those foreign leaders he considers to be America’s friends and won’t talk to those who he believes are not our friends. He seems less interested in facts than in impressions and personal ideology. He has a long history of deriding those who don’t agree with him. He is not one to seek additional information on a new situation because he quickly projects his already-held views (whether valid or not) onto it and discounts other points of view.

The choice of Sarah Palin is an example of this. He talked to her and saw that she too seemed to be someone who, at least superficially, was willing to take on entrenched interests, like McCain has in his career. Once he had that impression of her, that was enough. Forget about finding any information that might provide another point of view on the qualifications of neophyte Palin.

In interview after interview, McCain’s long-time friends and allies commented on his impulsiveness and shoot-from-the-hip style. McCain himself even acknowledges this style in his autobiography and admits it has frequently gotten him into trouble. Now this may be a relatively minor problem in his role as a senator where the consequences mainly reflect back on him. But as president, the consequences of his impulsiveness reflect back on all of us.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, David Brooks writes of the importance of prudence in the decision making of national leaders: “How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.”

Brooks was specifically writing about Sarah Palin, and no one would say that John McCain is inexperienced, though I think his sense of history is questionable. And I think it can be argued pretty convincingly that imprudence is a clear aspect of his character. Brooks is suggesting that a leader comes by his model (his paradigm, his understanding) of the world though experience, reflection, and study, and this serves as the foundation of what he or she chooses to do. From what I have seen and read, I question the quality of John McCain's model.

And keep in mind, the model from which we operate is not just an intellectual one—it also has important psychological components. In other words, we’re also talking about personality. John McCain readily admits that in his younger years he was a rebel, a troublemaker, who did not like to take orders.

By the age of 72, it’s easy to see that he has mellowed a lot, but these basic personality traits don’t go away. And there is ample evidence during his long senate career that these traits remain. He is still a contrarian who believes he already has the answers and is impatient with anyone who challenges his views. Given this approach to deciding and acting, I think we would be entering dangerous territory indeed should we wake up on November 5, 2008 and find John McCain is the next president.

In another piece, I will talk about Barack Obama’s decision style.

Dangerously Out of Touch

2008-09-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who’s noticing this? John McCain really seems out of touch. His so-called claim to expertise in foreign policy? I don’t believe it. He makes mistakes regularly and doesn’t even seem aware he made them. He clearly is confused about Shiites and Sunnis as we saw in that clip with Lieberman some time ago. The other day, when asked about whether he would meet with the president of Spain when being interviewed on a Spanish language radio program in Miami (in English), he simply said he would meet with our friends in this hemisphere and wouldn’t meet with those who are not. First of all, the question was about the leader of Spain, not about leaders in this hemisphere. Second, if you don’t meet with those with whom you disagree, how will you ever resolve disputes? If you treat people as your enemy, you ensure they will remain your enemy. McCain clearly doesn’t get that.

McCain long ago admitted he knows little about economics and how the economy actually works, this despite being chairman of the commerce committee for several years. During his tenure, deregulation was his watchword. We have all seen him these past few days claim the economy is strong, it’s not strong, we shouldn’t bail out AIG, we had to bail out AIG. And please note, every word he says publicly is scripted, and he seldom deviates from the script (when he does, it usually results in a gaffe).

And what’s really interesting to me is the lack of passion in his pronouncements. He’s given his lines, and he reads them. All the footage of him yesterday had him with his eyes down on the script. It’s discomfiting to watch. You’d think at this point in the campaign he’d be more comfortable and more familiar with his lines. But by his body language and his tone of voice, it’s clear he is not. About the economy, there has been this really obvious fake indignation. I don’t see how he can get anyone who is undecided to think he has the ability to deal with the complex problems we face. We should note that yesterday he did suggest with some animation that he would fire the head of SEC. It’s pretty clear he didn’t realize that the president has no authority to do that. In other words, whenever he deviates from the script, he blows it.

McCain’s pronouncements are usually very general and cliché-laden. Evil? Defeat it. We are all Georgians. Drill, baby, drill. Trust me. I know how to win wars. I know how to capture Bin Laden. Huh? How do you win wars, John? (And what does winning mean, anyway?) What’s your plan for getting this outlaw? Why don’t you share it with us or at least with your buddy, W? There is no nuance in McCain’s pronouncements or responses to questions. There is no indication of a grasp of the subtleties of different issues. It’s very disconcerting.

Here’s the bottom line for me: Forget about Sarah Palin not being qualified for the vice presidency and the impulsiveness of her selection in the first place. John McCain has not indicated in any way that I could trust him to be a president who can reverse the disastrous course we have been on for the past 7.7 years. You pick the area: health care, global warming, the economy, foreign relations, the occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the deterioration of relations with Russia, McCain’s ideas are hackneyed and ideological.

And what about temperament? McCain is known as a hothead, quick to anger, a person who shoots first and asks questions later. This is not the kind of person we need these days. I’m not sure it’s his age, but at 72, I would say that his habits of mind and behavior are pretty much set in stone. So what you see is what you’re going to get. Further, the actuarial tables for a person his age taking on this responsibility are not in our favor. And we know what that might portend. Enough said for today.

Earmarks: Not What They Seem to Be

2008-09-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Paul Krugman,

John McCain says he is going to reform Washington and makes a very big deal about earmarks. So I decided to find out what the total cost of earmarks were in the federal budget in 2008. Fortunately that information is on the Internet. The total was $16,501,833,000. Or put another way, about 1 1/2 months of the cost of our misbegotten adventure in Iraq. I would love to see you write about this point: getting rid of all earmarks would be like dropping rose petals into the Grand Canyon and waiting for an echo if they think this will make a whit of difference in federal spending.

It's a cruel joke that they spend all their time talking about this stuff. McCain's grizzly bear example is getting really stale. If this is what he thinks is important, then it's a huge problem that he thinks he's qualified to be president. To hear him in interviews, he often sounds as if he, like his impulsively selected running mate, is winging it. As a professor, I'm sure you've seen answers on essay tests where the student was trying to bluff his way through the question (first repeat the question and then throw in cliché after cliché hoping that you will think he said something). That's the way both McCain and Palin sound when interviewed and asked questions that require some mastery of government and the issues that confront us. I could go on and on, but you get the point. I hope you will talk about the inconsequentiality of earmarks in solving American problems. It's pathetic that people are fed this stuff as if it actually had nutritional value.

John

Postscript: From Jonathan Alter's piece on which candidate represents change in the September 22, 2008 Newsweek:

The single domestic issue that McCain gets passionate about is pork-barrel politics ("earmarking"), the 200-year-old process by which members of Congress slip in goodies for their constituents outside the normal appropriations system. Earmarks account for less than 2 percent of the budget; the "Bridge to Nowhere" is offensive but amounts to the cost of a few hours in Iraq. McCain claims he has never sought earmarks for Arizona. This is mostly true. But the vast majority of all the bills he has sponsored in Congress have been favors for Arizona's Native American population. While the Indians deserve it, the difference from earmarks is procedural. Both amount to bringing home the bacon.

John McCain's Not So Great Speech

2008-09-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

I just listened to John McCain give his acceptance speech and heard several pundits say it was a great speech and that Barack is in for the fight of his life. Chris Matthews opined that McCain will likely be ahead in the polls tomorrow. I don't know if that will happen. However, from my perspective, this was a speech of platitudes. There were no specifics given (except to select judges who would not legislate from the bench, whatever that cliché means). I don't really have a clue what he would do if he were president. Senator McCain has a history of reaching across the aisle. He said he would do that as president. Yet he gives us hyper-partisan Sarah Palin as VP.

It seems candidate McCain has been captured by the right wing of his party (as John Kerry reminds us) and all their ideological claptrap. The only compelling part of the speech was his telling of his time as a POW, which we all honor. But that has nothing, nothing to do with his ability to be an effective president. Indeed, his loner approach is still problematic. He has a reputation for impulsiveness and for being disorganized and for showing anger and impatience with those who get in his way.

One other thing—executive experience should never be confused with leadership ability. There are many executives in this country who are lousy leaders, including the guy who lives in the White House right now. Thinking strategically is one aspect of leadership. However, what really distinguishes leaders is their ability to inspire people to follow them because they know it will be in their best interest to do so. This is one of Barack Obama's gifts along with great intellect and judgment and compassion. I am old enough to remember JFK very well. I long for a president who will inspire me like JFK did once upon a time. I think Barack has that ability.

John Woods
September 5, 2008

Save Us John and Sarah, Save Us

2008-09-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

Gail Collins writes of Rudy, Mitt, et al (the Sunshine Boys), who spoke on the third night of the Republican convention, "Reliving the golden days in which they managed to convince Republican voters that no matter what John McCain’s defects, he could not possibly be as bad a candidate as they were."

This sentence reminds me of how John McCain ended up winning the Republican primaries after everyone thought it was a lost cause last summer. Just look at the competition: Giuliani (noun verb 9/11), Huckabee (We're all descendants of Adam and Eve), Romney (I was for it before I was against it—oh you're not against it, OK neither am I), and so on. McCain looked good compared to them.

But this in no way affirms candidate McCain's competence in anything other than berating colleagues with appropriate epithets when they disagree with him. Oh yeah, he has great foreign policy credentials, as long as the situation is black and white. (Evil? Defeat it. Sunnis, Shiites, Al Qaeda—they're all Islamoterrorists, aren't they? Joe, where are you when I need you?)

And now we have Sarah, clearly the most carefully considered and vetted selection for VP ever. I’m wondering, however, whether my wife should have been in the running. She has executive experience as president of our neighborhood association, and she actually has an opinion on the Iraq war, Iran, and knows that when referring to the recent troubles Georgia, we're talking about a part of the former Soviet Union and not the state in the southern U.S.

And that bridge to nowhere she said thanks but no thanks to? Well so much for the bridge, but they kept the money anyway. But that's what we like in our politicians, isn't it? Zingers and flip responses to serious questions. Distortions and pandering are clearly the key to success. I mean what would Jesus do? Making big elections about small things? Sign me up.

John Woods
September 4, 2008

On Sarah Palin

2008-09-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

This blog is not by me. I am posting a note my sister, Caralee Woods, sent me in response to long piece by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska (a place very few people had ever heard of until a few days ago) that chronicled the mixed record of Sarah. My sister lives in the small town of Kanab in southern Utah, a place with perhaps more than its share of ideologically bound right-wingers. With this as preface, here is what my sister had to say:

Since I've now lived four years in a small town of about 4,000, I can totally relate to this woman's essay. When our city council here in small town Utah adopted the Natural Family Resolution, it finally brought out in protest those people who had before remained silent and groused only in private in fear of retribution from the city leaders. Even I tried to stay under the rug because Jim and I still need to get annual permits to live on our land in a temporary building while we build the permanent house. The opportunities for harassment there are obvious to anyone who lives here. And of course there is great overlap between who is on what committee and everyone pretty much knows who everyone else is, so you can't hide. We aren't 6 degrees away from anyone here; we're about 2 degrees away. To make it worse, the likelihood that whoever you are talking about probably has a close relative in the room, so you have to be very careful. So I know what this woman is talking about. In fact, if the mayor of Kanab suddenly died, the net average IQ of the entire world population would have a measurable increase.

This Palin thing is very ugly and frightening. I have immersed myself in information about Palin and realize that who we're talking about is just a female George W. Bush. Bullying tactics; lacks knowledge but acts anyhow; doesn't listen to anyone but her small group of cronies; likes to shoot things; is a flat-earther. If you think McCain follows Bush's tactics and programs, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If I prayed regularly (or at all), I'd pray that somehow the stars would align, that, as Bill Clinton said, “the right side of history” would come into play, that fate would take over and Obama will win in a landslide. Or even by 1 vote. Whatever it takes. Because if he doesn't, it means that the American voter no longer has the kind of heart it takes to want to help their neighbors in a meaningful way; that they are incapable of learning from past mistakes--or even recognizing them. Instead, they will have become mean-spirited, anti-intellectual, lost souls who can no longer have hope in their hearts but instead wish only to force their self-righteous beliefs on others because that's the only way they know how to deal with their cognitive dissonance over how screwed up the world whether it's the environment, invasions of other countries, health care, education, or the economy. They have decided that the Emperor is fully clothed and if you say it often and loud enough, the Big Lie will come true and prove them right—so THERE!

So all I know to do is send Obama money, make canvassing phone calls for him, and if not pray, at least hope that whatever is left of my optimism that the United States can right itself is warranted.

Michelle Obama: Just as Special as Her Husband

2008-08-26T13:22:00.001-07:00

Last night Michelle Obama gave a speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver. Here is my take on that speech:

I have heard Michelle Obama speak before. She is intelligent, articulate, authentic, with a full grasp of the issues. In my opinion, she is the equal of her husband in terms of her skills as an orator and in terms of knowing what she is talking about and in her ability to move and inspire an audience. You want charisma, Barack has it, but so does Michelle. It's clear she is a wonderful mother and partner for her husband. They used to say that with the Clintons you got two for the price of one, but there was all that baggage that went with it. With the Obamas, you also get two for one, but no baggage this time, just an honest desire to serve and do what's right for this country. These are two self-made people whose gifts are there for all to see. I can only hope the American electorate gets it right this time.

John Woods
August 26, 2008

If You Can't Say Something ...

2008-07-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

Written in response to Maureen Dowd’s column that kind of put down Barack Obama and his recent trip abroad.

Maureen,

I know your job seems to be snide critic of whomever you’re writing about, but god almighty, do you have to put down Barack who is our best hope to get beyond the morass that has taken over this country for the past 7.7 years. Yeah, Barack was warmly received abroad, which speaks to the fact that it isn’t Americans they dislike, but the incompetent people the Supreme Court unfortunately selected to run the government in 2000.

The fact is that we all have our foibles and weaknesses, so why ALWAYS focus on those when you’re writing about a person, especially one as smart and admirable as Barack seems to be. From what I have read, it’s clear he isn’t the touchy-feely back-of-the-bus guy that John “gaffe-a-day” McCain is, but he’s the first person running for this office to inspire the likes of me since JFK. So I look forward to a column where you don’t zero in on foibles and trash someone because of them—and rather tell me some good stuff you like about the person. It would be interesting to see what kind of e-mail you would receive in response to such a column.

Your friend in Madison,

John
July 30, 2008

A Tribute to My Brother George

2008-06-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is my eulogy for my brother George, July 24, 1944 - May 26, 2008, delivered at a celebration of his life at his daughter Stacey's house on June 14, 2008.

An old cowboy sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. As he sat sipping his drink, a young woman sat down next to him. She turned to him and asked, “Are you a real cowboy?”

He replied, “Well, I've spent my whole life breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, bailing hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors, and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy.”

She said, “I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women.”

The two sat sipping in silence.

A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, “Are you a real cowboy?”

He replied, “I always thought I was, but I just found out I'm a lesbian.”

That’s the kind of joke George would tell me nearly every time we spoke on the phone. One of his talents was his ability to remember jokes and tell them with the timing of a skilled comedian.

You know, I can’t really get my head around the idea that George is no longer with us. I mean, he’s been part of my life for all my living memory. Every picture you see of him in my slide show, there I am right next to him. So I’m still trying to accept that I can’t call him up for his latest joke. In fact, about a month ago when he was very sick, I talked to him on the phone and said tell me a joke, which he proceeded to do. During his sojourn in Hawaii, he often called me and as soon as I answered, without saying hello, how are you, or what are you up to, he’d just start telling me a joke. Usually it was a bit off-color, and it always made me laugh.

George spent his first six years and I my first seven years at the Adriatic Avenue house in Long Beach. We shared a small bedroom with bunk beds, and we figured out how to take one of the poles out of the bed, put it between the upper bunk and the wardrobe, creating our own jungle gym right there in the bedroom. We were very fortunate not to break that pole. And I’ll never forget the day we were outside this restaurant/bar behind the house that had a faucet on the side of the building. We turned on the water and after it filled the gutter, we proceeded to march back and forth in this water getting our shoes and clothes soaking wet. I don’t know if this was my idea or George’s (most likely George’s), but man we were having fun. That was the one time our mother made us go to bed in the afternoon. She was not amused

One of our rituals during that time was walking to the Santa Fe Theater every Saturday for cartoons, serials, and cowboy movies. I think it cost about 10 cents to get in. As we walked to the show, we always went through a lot with a tree that we loved to climb. Then we waited in line and, once inside, found our way to our favorite seats in the front row. Our dad’s upholstery shop was just down the street, Santa Fe Upholstery, and it was always fun to visit the shop and mess around with the tools.

In the summer when George and I were about 10 and 11 and then living on Easy Avenue in Long Beach, everyday, we’d pay 10 cents and ride the bus down to the beach at Linden Avenue and sit next to the lifeguards who we got to know quite well. That was a wonderful summer. Our mom didn’t know it, but we would often find our way over to The Pike, the amusement park that existed in those days. We’d end up in the penny arcades (when everything actually cost a penny), play pinball machines and the penny pitch. We never had enough money to go on the rides.

In those days, we lived near the LA River, which everyone called the flood control or just the “flood.” It was reputed to have quicksand and bad people hanging out there. We were not to go there. Of course, for us it was like a magnet, and we couldn’t stay away and after several warnings, were told that if we did it again, we would get it with the belt. Yeah, we did it again, getting our shoes wet walking around trying to find the quicksand I guess. I remember riding home talking to George about how we would explain our wet shoes. We had a friend with a fishpond in the backyard and that was going to be our story. Of course, it didn’t work and we did get our spankings. I don’t know if we learned our lesson, but it certainly was a memorable experience.

Another memorable experience was the first time our dad was going to take us deepsea fishing. We were both so excited that we hardly slept and suddenly it was 5 am and dad was getting us up. We were ready in about 5 minutes and off to Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach (that’s gone now) and the boat. Me, I got seasick. I can’t remember if George did, most likely he didn’t. We didn’t catch any fish, but it’s still memorable. Later on when we were in junior high, nearly every day in the summer we went down to Belmont Pier in Long Beach to fish for whatever we could catch. There’s a picture of George and I in the slideshow taken after one of those days.

When George was 11 and I was 12, we moved to east Long Beach on Studebaker Road. I managed to get a paper route delivering the Press Telegram. After a while, there was an opening, and I made an impassioned case for George to get the job (after all, he had substituted for me a few times on an earlier route I had). It worked, and for quite a while George and I spent our afternoons pedaling our Schwinns from street to street, paper bags on the handlebars and rear rack, delivering the Press Telegram. Later on, when George was 13 and I was 14, we both had LA Times routes. I remember well that we were paid $11.50 every two weeks for routes that required each of us to ride about 7 miles to deliver about 50 papers each every morning before school.

As we got older, I remember our dad taking us over to what was then the only parking lot at Long Beach State College where he taught us to drive in a 1956 Ford Mainliner with a 3-speed stick shift. We both had trouble but finally managed the clutch-accelerator motions so the car wouldn’t stall. Before I actually got my driver’s license, our parents went to Las Vegas for the weekend. We had the keys to that Ford and decided to drive it even though that was a major no-no. Nothing bad happened, but our neighbor told my dad we did it. That resulted in me having to wait an extra 3 months to get my driver’s license. George still had a year to go. Later we took that car to Pasadena to the Rose Parade. Dad told us not to drive on the freeway because the engine was not in good shape. Of course, we did take to the freeway to drive home and that resulted in the engine throwing a rod, which basically means the engine was destroyed. With much trepidation, we had to call dad and tell him what we did. He actually didn’t get too mad at us despite having to pay $500 for a new short block.

During high school, we each had our own group of friends. George was the athlete of the family, and I was the spectator. The sport he actually played and for which he won his letter was, believe or not, water polo. Now I’m pretty good swimmer, but not good enough to make the team. George was, and he had the letterman’s jacket that I kind of envied.

In the 1962, my dad’s company sent him to Hawaii to run a job building a power plant. I lived with my Grandma Woods and attended Long Beach City College, and George lived with Uncle Jim finishing his senior year in high school. Then we were both to fly to Hawaii with my dad after George’s graduation. It was during the next nine months that George fell in love with Hawaii and got into pipefitters’ union as an apprentice. I joined as well, but dropped out after that summer. We both worked on my dad’s job. George bought an old surfboard and got into surfing. We lived right next to the beach and could hear the surf from our bedroom at night. Those were good times for us. We used to drive into Honolulu on the weekends in my 1957 MGA that I’d shipped over there from Long Beach and try to find girls, something we were not very successful at. I know that from this time forward, George had it in his head to return to Hawaii, and he finally succeeded some 40 years later.

In the spring of 1963, we returned to Long Beach. I went back to Long Beach City College, and George continued working. My dad’s next job was in Michigan. At that time we both had VW bugs, George a 1958 model and me a 1959. In June of that year after school let out, we followed one another across the U.S. mostly on Route 66. It took us four days, with me leading all the way, except when we finally got to our destination, Holland, Michigan, where he pulled out in front and drove into our new home for the summer ahead of me. I was put out about that for quite a while.

After that summer, our lives took different directions. I went off to Berkeley and George continued working in construction. We saw each other when I came home for the holidays, and we worked on jobs together in the summer, when my dad got us on whatever job he could. Everyone came up to Berkeley in June 1965 for my graduation. It was George, however, who stole the show. He took off with my dad’s camera after the ceremony and went up to the podium and managed to get his picture taken with Clark Kerr, who was then president to the University of California system. My mom has that slide showing George with his arm around Clark. It’s classic.

After that, we went our separate ways, I to the Peace Corps in Ethiopia and he to the world of work. I do remember receiving a letter from him with a picture of his new dark blue Mustang. That was a cool car, and one I had no chance of having then or later. A couple of years after that, we both got married and were members of each other’s wedding parties.

Then I took off for Illinois and later New Jersey and George got drafted into the Army at 25 years 9 months (the cutoff for the draft was 26 years). We saw each other on occasion over the next several years and kept in touch via phone calls and so on, but didn’t see each other often enough—which is, looking back on it, very unfortunate. We each had our kids, but they never had a chance to get to know one another as they were growing up, which is also very unfortunate. I know that George was a great dad. All you have to do is ask Josh and Stacey. He was always involved in their activities and really took fatherhood seriously.

George was a victim of the Southern California curse of having to commute 60 or 70 miles each way to work and home, driving from Temecula to the outskirts of LA. As a reader this gave him a chance to read many books, not by listening to them on tape, but by balancing them on the steering wheel as he waited for traffic to move. I don’t know anyone else who’s ever done that.

As I said, for many years as our kids were growing up, we only saw each other occasionally, but when George and Leslie divorced and George left for Hawaii, we retrieved our brotherhood and talked very regularly about our lives. I would call him or he would call me to check in. He always had his joke to tell me and would describe his work life and what he was doing to upgrade his condo and lots of other stuff that should remain private between brothers. He’d tell me he was sitting on his lanai smoking a cigar and enjoying the view of the ocean across the street. I didn’t really know he had this drinking problem, though my sister told me he did—I just never saw it.

George was always the sentimental one between us. He would sometimes tell me how much he loved me and our family and I would be trying to change the subject, not wanting to get into all that stuff. I never quite succeeded, and that’s probably a good thing. George, as you may know was left-handed, and I think this type of person is just more likely to be emotional and creative than guys like me. He was someone about whom a teacher could say, “he works and plays well with others, and everyone liked him.”

Tomorrow is father’s day. George was a great father as we can tell by his wonderful children Stacey and Josh. I am bothered about the fact that his future grandchildren will never be able to know him or he them. As Josh and I have discussed, he would have been a great and I mean a great grandfather.

It’s very hard for me to say goodbye to my brother. I always teased him that I am 1 year, 3 months, and 16 days older than he is. Somehow I thought that gave me the right to lord it over him. That wasn’t true and as we got older, that stuff disappeared. He lived 63 years, 10 months, and 2 days. A good stretch, but not long enough. I am very sorry he’s gone. I’m his brother, and I can say with no false sentimentality that I loved him, too, and that he will always be alive inside me and a part of who I am, just as I am a part of who he is.

One of my friends sent me a card on the passing of George that included a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery from The Little Prince. The quote goes like this: “In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them, I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night.”

I think when I look at the stars, I will think of my brother George and wish him well and he’ll know I’m thinking about him. Good-bye bro. I love you and all the times we had together.

Barack, Reverend Wright, and Denial

2008-03-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

The following is something I wrote and posted on The New York Times site, commenting on Nicholas Kristof's op-ed, Obama and Race, published March 20, 2008.

I have seen some, perhaps not all, of the taken-out-of-context videos of Rev. Wright’s comments from the pulpit. What I heard, and I say this is as a white person, is pretty much true things. Yes, he spoke with great emotion, but injustice evokes great emotion. And, as Barack rightly pointed out, it’s not so useful to break us up into two camps—blacks vs. whites. And it’s not really accurate. But from my perspective, this country is very flawed and to act as if someone is completely wrong to point that out is equally wrong and suggests that Rev. Wright’s critics are living in denial of the many injustices that have occurred and continue to occur in this country.

I remember seeing bumper stickers in the 1970s that said America--love it or leave it. I used to think if those were my only choices, I might have to leave. Now we have a potential president who actually says not love it or leave it, but, yes, the U.S. has a lot of problems, and some of them have to do with race prejudice and a real misunderstanding between the white culture and the black culture in this country. And then he says that we need, first, to acknowledge these differences, second, to talk about them openly, and third, to try to get beyond them and embrace our common humanity. That’s pretty remarkable.

And when the wife of this candidate says she finally feels proud of what’s going on in this country as shown by the amount of support this candidate has received, I agree with her. Because I can say that for many years, I have not felt good about many of the policies pursued by our government, especially as pursued by George Bush. I am not proud of what he has done—and to the degree that reflects back on our country, I’m not proud of our country.

I now read that Republicans feel Rev. Wright’s words are a gift that will allow them to win against Mr. Obama should he be the candidate who runs against John McCain. If that’s their weapon in the upcoming election, it simply affirms that they prefer to live in the denial I referred to above than to actually confront our problems and solve them. For the Republicans, it’s always “us vs. them.” For Barack Obama, it’s much more, “we’re all in this together.” The implications of the Republican perspective will always lead to perpetuating the problems we have now. The implications of Barack Obama’s basic assumption lead to realistically addressing our differences and coming together to bridge them. That makes a lot more sense to me than the former. I can only hope, for first time in a long time, enough people in enough states agree and Obama will receive the 271 electoral votes needed to win in November.

—John Woods, March 20, 2008

You Can’t Change the Way You Think

2007-12-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

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

2007-09-07T07:12:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-24T18:05:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

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