kc bob: OPED

Showing posts with label OPED. Show all posts

Treat Veterans With Respect, Not Pity

The theologian Jonathan Edwards didn't consider pity an expression of "true virtue." Pity addresses the perceived suffering, not the whole individual. "Men may pity others under exquisite torment," Edwards wrote, "when yet they would have been grieved if they had seen their prosperity."

Pity sidesteps complexity in favor of narratives that we're comfortable with, reducing the nuances of a person's experience to a sound bite. Thus the response of a New York partygoer who—after a friend explained that the proudest moment of his deployment to Iraq came when his soldiers were fired on and decided not to fire back—replied, "That must make the nightmares even worse."

This insistence on treating veterans as objects of pity plays out in our national dialogue as well, whether it is Bill Maher saying on his April 4 HBO show, "Anytime you send anyone to war, they come back a little crazy," or a Washington Times article about PTSD claiming that, "Roughly 2.6 million veterans who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD-type symptoms." That is roughly the total number of veterans who served, which suggests that the reporter thought there might be a 100% saturation rate of PTSD among veterans.
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Pity places the focus on what's wrong with veterans. But for veterans looking at the society that sent them to war, it may not feel like they're the ones with the most serious problem.

Excerpted from a Wall Street Journal article (read it here) authored by Phil Klay, a US Marine Corps vet
who served from 2005 to 2009, including a tour of duty in Iraq from January 2007 to February 2008.
He is the author of "Redeployment," a short-story collection published by the Penguin Press.

Hysterical Bob

I chuckled when I saw this cartoon this morning.

That said, I find all of the hysteria surrounding Ebola, ISIS and Elections to be disheartening. This hysteria seems to be a vehicle of "news" and pundit vehicles, as well as social media outlets, to garner higher ratings and publicity. Like the mudslinging political ads of this season, "news" vehicles seem to be tapping into our worst fears and darkest expectations.

In spite of all this, I still naively hope that we in America will one day wise up to the dark motives of this sort of fear mongering and put Hysterical Bob in isolation.

Doubt as a Sign of Faith

"When the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said recently that at times he questioned if God was really there, much of the reaction was predictably juvenile: Even God’s earthly emissary isn’t sure if the whole thing is made up! The International Business Times called it “the doubt of the century.”
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Archbishop Welby’s candor only makes him human. He may lead 80 million Anglicans worldwide, but he is also a man who knows anguish, rage, incomprehension and the cold bareness of grief. He lost his firstborn child, Johanna, a 7-month-old baby girl, in a car accident in 1983, a period he has described as “utter agony.” As a teenager he cared for an alcoholic father. When explaining his thoughts on doubt, he referred to the mournful Psalm 88, which describes the despair of a man who has lost all of his friends and cries out, “Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” The psalm reads bleakly: “Darkness is my closest friend.”

Faith cannot block out darkness, or doubt. When on the cross, Jesus did not cry out “Here I come!” but “My God, why have you forsaken me?” His disciples brimmed with doubts and misgivings.

Just as courage is persisting in the face of fear, so faith is persisting in the presence of doubt. Faith becomes then a commitment, a practice and a pact that is usually sustained by belief. But doubt is not just a roiling, or a vulnerability; it can also be a strength. Doubt acknowledges our own limitations and confirms — or challenges — fundamental beliefs, and is not a detractor of belief but a crucial part of it.
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The philosopher Bertrand Russell put it best. The whole problem with the world, he wrote, is that “the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Of that at least we can be certain. I’m pretty sure, anyway."

... excerpted from a NY Times post by Julia Baird. Read it in full here.

Religious Schism

A funny word, schism is. The dictionary says that it is a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief. Some in the United Methodist denomination (I go to a UM church) want to split off because of issues like the marriage and ordination of gay church members. Some want to stay together being united as followers of Jesus Christ. The issue is complex and hotly debated. It points to how hard it is to find a way to agree to disagree that works for people of strong opinions.

I wish this were a new phenomenon among religious folks. Sadly, it is not. Each day we see evidence in the news about age old schisms between people who supposedly follow the same God. Sunni Muslims cannot live alongside of Shia Muslims. Christians of one church see heresy in other churches. And Jews are divided along differing lines of orthodoxy.

At this point I want to offer some sort of win-win cliché. I want to quote John Wesley about finding a way to love each other even though we differ in opinion. Or speak about not majoring on the minors. Sadly, I no longer embrace such rhetoric. The sad truth is that people do not find much value in unity. Many prefer schism over finding common ground.

I guess that is the real truth. Schism is a preference. For sure it is a distasteful one for many. A necessary evil for some. A capitulation of sorts to a so-called greater truth - whatever that means. Yet religious schism is a hard reality in our world of low road winners and losers. And for sure, there are no real winners when we choose to divide.

But perhaps there is a better way? I would be interested to hear your thoughts concerning religious schism.

Legacy

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

This Warren Buffett quote reminds me of the trees that I have sat under.

My parents planted many trees. I still sit in the shade of their love for me.
Taxpayers in New York City planted trees that gave me an excellent education.
A company planted a pension tree and I enjoy a comfortable retirement.
Our nation's founders planted trees that provide shade to those who long to be free.
A man once planted a tree of eternal life for me as he hung on a cross.

My prayer is to be a tree planter. A man who thinks past today. One who is concerned more about providing shade than sitting under it. Someone who wants to leave a legacy of love and compassion. It is my prayer for you too.

Should Love be Unconditional?

"Groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having." John Perry Barlow

Aaron Ben-Zeév begins his Psychology Today post, titled Should Love Be Unconditional?, with the above quote. It makes me think about the ways that I love. I sometimes think that love should be sacrificial but am reminded of how the focus is then on the one who sacrifices not on the unconditional aspect of love. An excerpt from what Ben-Zeév writes:

Ideal love is unconditional in the sense that it is unaffected by the conditions of reality-reality cannot change it. Accordingly, it disregards reality and considers love to be beyond the reach of mundane altering events. It is also unconditional in the sense of willingness to give everything to the beloved.
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We should characterize unconditional love in more moderate terms, seeing it as referring to love that endures despite unfavorable circumstances. In characterizing it thus, we do not require such love to totally disregard external circumstance, but rather to involve awareness of unfavorable circumstances as well as a profound wish and intention to prolong this love-sometimes, without even fully implementing it. In this concept of love, the lover does not disregard reality, but merely regards it as an obstacle to overcome or to bypass, or even one on which a compromise must be found. There is no ignorance here, merely an evaluative faith and the hope of overcoming such obstacles.

I like the connection he makes to reality. Unconditional love is not an ignorant love. It is not a love that enables bad behavior. It is, as a wise pastor once said, an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. It is a love that sees no one as an enemy. It is a love that sees the best in others. It is a love that unifies. It is a love that never fails.

The Ordinary God

“Do you believe in a god who can change the course of events on earth?”

“No,” the woman answered, “just the ordinary one.”

This was the interesting beginning to an article in Saturday's KC Star.

Here are a few clips from the article:

"As of 2012 only 13 percent of the world’s population would describe themselves as convinced atheists, according to a global survey by WIN-Gallup International. Here in the United States, only 5 percent would accept that designation.

However, religion has been growing much less important. God once was seen as commanding the entire universe and supervising all of its inhabitants — inflicting tragedies, bestowing triumphs, enforcing morality. But now, outside of some lingering loud pockets of orthodoxy, we have witnessed the arrival of a less mighty, increasingly inconsequential version of God.

God is becoming, in that woman’s sense, ordinary."

I wrote about this idea of a reduced view of sovereignty here. In that post I said:

My view is that God has a different style of management and sovereignty. When I think about the word sovereignty I see a pyramid where God has delegated sovereignty to nations, to communities, to families and finally to the individual. Both groups of peoples and people themselves exercise an incredible amount of sovereignty in the world.

I am interested in your perspective on this idea. Have your views of how God interacts with His creation changed?
Do you think this diminishes our view of Him (I do not) or do you feel that this is a theology that helps us?

Hating the term "Celebrity Christian" by Rachel

How do I hate the term “celebrity Christian?” Let me count the ways!

I hate that it reflects a culture that idolizes success.

I hate that it exposes my own dark desires and unhealthy fixations.

I hate that once someone decides you’re a “celebrity Christian,” they use that as an excuse to treat you as something other than a human being.

I hate that I’ve used it as an excuse to do the same.

I hate that it comes with the pressure to speak more definitively (even when you’re not sure) and lead more decisively (even when you have no idea where you’re going).

I hate that it reduces people to “fans” or “haters” when God only gave us neighbors.

I don't want to live in a world of fans and haters.

- excerpted from a great post about faithfulness by Rachel Held Evan. Read more here.

Will we ever eliminate poverty?

Jesus' words have sometimes been misunderstood; some have even suggested He was being insensitive to those living in poverty. But nothing could be further from the truth. Repeatedly the Bible commands us to be concerned for those in need, and it points out that God has a special concern for the poor. Remember: Jesus knew what it was to be poor; Mary and Joseph had very little in the way of material goods. The Bible says, "Whoever is kind to the needy honors God" (Proverbs 14:31).

Will we ever eliminate poverty? We should do all we can, but the real barrier is our human nature. Unless Christ changes our hearts, the human race will always be riddled with greed and corruption and selfishness. Put your life into Christ's hands, then ask Him to use you to help others overcome both their material and spiritual poverty.

... from Billy Graham's daily column. Click here to read the whole piece.

What Suffering Does

We live in a culture awash in talk about happiness. In one three-month period last year, more than 1,000 books were released on Amazon on that subject. But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the past, they don’t only talk about happiness. It is often the ordeals that seem most significant. People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering. But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the past, they don’t only talk about happiness. It is often the ordeals that seem most significant. People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering.

Now, of course, it should be said that there is nothing intrinsically ennobling about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs) suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited as quickly as possible. But some people are clearly ennobled by it. Think of the way Franklin Roosevelt came back deeper and more empathetic after being struck with polio. Often, physical or social suffering can give people an outsider’s perspective, an attuned awareness of what other outsiders are enduring. But the big thing that suffering does is it takes you outside of precisely that logic that the happiness mentality encourages. Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefits. Difficulty and suffering sends you on a different course.
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Then, suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can control and cannot control. When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can’t determine what goes on there. Try as they might, they just can’t tell themselves to stop feeling pain, or to stop missing the one who has died or gone. And even when tranquillity begins to come back, or in those moments when grief eases, it is not clear where the relief comes from. The healing process, too, feels as though it’s part of some natural or divine process beyond individual control.

... from an editorial by David Brooks. Click here to read more.

Character Matters

It has been a week since the Seahawks trounced the Broncos in the Super Bowl. A few days ago Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann wrote an oped piece titled "Dear Mr. Manning" in the Denver Post. Here is a beautiful clip from it:

It matters that you're professional in the way you talk to reporters.

It matters that you give credit to others — coaches, teammates, mentors.

It matters that you don't give up in a bad game and keep fighting, no matter the odds.

It matters that you take time to write notes to fans and sign autographs — even after crushing defeats.

It matters that you know the difference between being embarrassed by your team's performance and just not being the best team on the field that day.

And it matters that you meticulously prepare to play the game ... and encourage everyone around you to do the same.

The things that Laurie lists reveal a beautiful character. I so agree with her closing assessment of Manning: "it's your character that sets you apart from so many of your predecessors and peers. And that's a legacy that matters."

... I recommend that you read Laurie's article in full here.

Entering into the Chaos of Another

This week NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd shared a Christmas meditation written by Kevin O’Neil, a Catholic priest ministering in New York City. O'Neill begins by framing the question of "Why" this way:

"How does one celebrate Christmas with the fresh memory of 20 children and 7 adults ruthlessly murdered in Newtown; with the searing image from Webster of firemen rushing to save lives ensnared in a burning house by a maniac who wrote that his favorite activity was “killing people”? How can we celebrate the love of a God become flesh when God doesn't seem to do the loving thing?" If we believe, as we do, that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why doesn’t He use this knowledge and power for good in the face of the evils that touch our lives?

I am always interested when people write on these sorts of issues and wondered where O'Neill would go. Would he speak, like some religious people do, of God judging America because we do not allow prayer in schools or would he go a different direction? Would he speaking of judgment or something else? I was happy to hear him say this:

Implicit here is the question of how we look to God to act and to enter our lives. For whatever reason, certainly foreign to most of us, God has chosen to enter the world today through others, through us. We have stories of miraculous interventions, lightning-bolt moments, but far more often the God of unconditional love comes to us in human form, just as God did over 2,000 years ago.

I believe differently now than 30 years ago. First, I do not expect to have all the answers, nor do I believe that people are really looking for them. Second, I don’t look for the hand of God to stop evil. I don’t expect comfort to come from afar. I really do believe that God enters the world through us. And even though I still have the “Why?” questions, they are not so much “Why, God?” questions. We are human and mortal. We will suffer and die. But how we are with one another in that suffering and dying makes all the difference as to whether God’s presence is felt or not and whether we are comforted or not.

O'Neill goes on to speak of how he felt the presence of Christ when his younger brother, Brian, died suddenly at 44 years old. He said that family and friends really were the presence of God in the midst of his pain. He reminds us that God often enters our world in the form of family and community. He concludes with this great thought:

A contemporary theologian has described mercy as “entering into the chaos of another.” Christmas is really a celebration of the mercy of God who entered the chaos of our world in the person of Jesus, mercy incarnate. I have never found it easy to be with people who suffer, to enter into the chaos of others. Yet, every time I have done so, it has been a gift to me, better than the wrapped and ribboned packages. I am pulled out of myself to be love’s presence to someone else, even as they are love’s presence to me.

I like that definition of mercy. I want to be love's presence to another person. How about you?

Did Obama really save GM?

George Will is one of my favorite conservative writers and pundits. A few weeks ago he framed the takeover of General Motors in a way that might make liberals, I mean progressives, cringe in his piece titled "Liberalism, as we know it".
Here is an excerpt from it:

"After a delusional proclamation — General Motors “has come roaring back” — Obama said: “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.” We have been warned.
Obama’s supposed rescue of “the auto industry” — note the definite article, “the” — is a pedal on the political organ he pumps energetically in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere. Concerning which:

He intervened to succor one of two of the U.S. auto industries. One, located in the South and elsewhere, does not have a long history of subservience to the United Auto Workers and for that reason has not needed Obama’s ministrations. He showered public money on two of three parts of the mostly Northern auto industry, the one long entangled with the UAW. He socialized the losses of GM and Chrysler. Ford was not a mendicant because it was not mismanaged.

Today, “I am GM, hear me roar” is again losing market share, and its stock, of which taxpayers own 26 percent, was trading Thursday morning at $21, below the $33 price our investor in chief paid for it and below the $53 price it would
have to reach to enable taxpayers to recover the entire $49.5 billion bailout."

The GM takeover and their subsequent performance gives me cause to pause when I hear it used as an achievement of the administration. How can a candidate boast about a deal that has lost taxpayers so much money?

Celebrating Jon Will

If you want a life-affirming message on this Mother's Day I suggest that you read George Will's story about his son Jon who turned 40 this past week. There is so much inspiration in this story about a baby born with Down's Syndrome. I will skip George's insightful and compelling commentary on genetic testing and how 90% of unborn Down's babies are aborted and go to the last few paragraphs of his article ...

Judging by Jon, the world would be improved by more people with Down syndrome, who are quite nice, as humans go. It is said we are all born brave, trusting and greedy, and remain greedy. People with Down syndrome must remain brave in order to navigate society’s complexities. They have no choice but to be trusting because, with limited understanding, and limited abilities to communicate misunderstanding, they, like Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” always depend on the kindness of strangers. Judging by Jon’s experience, they almost always receive it.

Two things that have enhanced Jon’s life are the Washington subway system, which opened in 1976, and the Washington Nationals baseball team, which arrived in 2005. He navigates the subway expertly, riding it to the Nationals ballpark, where he enters the clubhouse a few hours before game time and does a chore or two. The players, who have climbed to the pinnacle of a steep athletic pyramid, know that although hard work got them there, they have extraordinary aptitudes because they are winners of life’s lottery. Major leaguers, all of whom understand what it is to be gifted, have been uniformly and extraordinarily welcoming to Jon, who is not. Except he is, in a way. He has the gift of serenity, in this sense:

The eldest of four siblings, he has seen two brothers and a sister surpass him in size, and acquire cars and college educations. He, however, with an underdeveloped entitlement mentality, has been equable about life’s sometimes careless allocation of equity. Perhaps this is partly because, given the nature of Down syndrome, neither he nor his parents have any tormenting sense of what might have been. Down syndrome did not alter the trajectory of his life; Jon was Jon from conception on.

This year Jon will spend his birthday where every year he spends 81 spring, summer and autumn days and evenings, at Nationals Park, in his seat behind the home team’s dugout. The Phillies will be in town, and Jon will be wishing them ruination, just another man, beer in hand, among equals in the republic of baseball.

Should Capital Gains Tax Rates be Higher?

The past few days have been rife with discussion of Mitt Romney's fourteen percent tax rate that he has paid on his investments. Paul Krugman speaks to this issue of why gazillionaires pay so little, percentage-wise, in an editorial titled "It's hard to justify low tax rates on the rich". Here are a few thoughts from it:

The main reason the rich pay so little is that most of their income takes the form of capital gains, which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent, far below the maximum on wages and salaries. So the question is whether capital gains - three-quarters of which go to the top 1 percent of the income distribution - warrant such special treatment.
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When you hear about the low taxes of people like Romney, what you need to know is that it wasn't always thus - and the days when the superrich paid much higher taxes weren't that long ago. Back in 1986, Ronald Reagan - yes, Ronald Reagan - signed a tax reform equalizing top rates on earned income and capital gains at 28 percent. The rate rose further, to more than 29 percent, during Bill Clinton's first term.

Low capital gains taxes date only from 1997, when Clinton struck a deal with Republicans in Congress in which he cut taxes on the rich in return for creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program. And today's ultralow rates - the lowest since the days of Herbert Hoover - date only from 2003, when former President George W. Bush rammed both a tax cut on capital gains and a tax cut on dividends through Congress.

There is a rationale that says that capital gains rates should be low because people who reap dividends from stocks and bonds are partial owners in entities that already pay taxes. My thinking is that these gains are not all that much different from the dividends and interest that is paid on savings accounts and should be taxed as ordinary income. And looking at the chart above it looks like gazillionaires once paid higher tax rates on capital gains.

Poobahs, Priests, Pastors and Pride

Lee Grady writes an editorial column for Charisma magazine. One such oped caught my attention a few weeks ago. It is titled "A Message to His Holy Highness the Worshipful Bishop Rev. Dr. Apostle Grand Poobah". Here are a few clips:

I am often asked if I have a title, and my answer doesn’t satisfy some people. I travel a lot, so I don’t consider myself a pastor. All kinds of labels have been pinned on me: Reverend, prophet, apostle … even bishop. Once I was introduced to a church as “Dr. Grady” and I almost crawled under my seat. I only have a college degree. There are no letters after my name. I tell people: “You can call me Lee. Or if you want to sound formal, you can say, ‘Brother Grady.’”
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Jesus didn’t play this religious game, especially when he was around the Grand Poobahs of His day—the long-robed scribes and Pharisees. After accusing them of loving the best seats in the synagogues, He pointed out that they loved to be called “Rabbi” by men. Then He warned them: “But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. … the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted”.
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When I was in China several years ago, I met some amazing leaders who had planted thousands of congregations. They had also spent a lot of time in jail for their faith, and they’d been beaten with iron rods for preaching the gospel. They were the bravest apostles I’ve ever met. But when I asked them if they used “apostle” as a title, one guy said: “We believe in those roles in the church. But we prefer to call each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister.’”

That settled it for me. A few years later I met Iftakhar, a Pakistani apostle who has oversight of 900 churches. He also has two scars on his arm from gunshots fired by Muslim extremists who have put a price on his head. When I asked him how I should address him, he smiled and said, “Iftakhar.”

If these two giants of the faith—and true apostles—don’t require to be addressed with titles, then Your Worshipful Grand Master Rev. Dr. Bishop Jones (who claims oversight of maybe four churches) shouldn’t wear his ministry role around his neck like a tacky neon name badge.

One of my very first blog posts was one I called "On Rabbis, Monsignors & Pastors". In it, for reasons that Grady elaborated on in this editorial, I asked people to not call me Pastor Bob. As I am retired it is no longer an issue for me but I am still okay if you want to call me Kansas Bob. :)

The Values Debate

Richard Cizik was the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals from 1998 to 2008. He left that group and started the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. He understands the political issues relevant to evangelical voters at a very detailed level. So I was interested in his Washington Post editorial titled "The values debate we’re not having". Here are a few clips from it:

As an evangelical Christian who believes the Republican Party does not have a monopoly on moral values, I believe this discussion is long overdue. The “compassionate conservatism” espoused by President George W. Bush and many prominent evangelical leaders has been supplanted by a Tea Party ideology that bears more resemblance to the anti-Christian philosophy of Ayn Rand than it does to the Gospel.

Whether the Christian duty to love our neighbors is compatible with a political movement that embraces radical individualism and rejects the ethic of collective responsibility is a central question as the GOP attempts to cement the Tea Party and the religious right into a cohesive base. Tea Party activists and Republican leaders have consistently targeted for cutbacks vital government programs that protect the poor, the elderly, children and other vulnerable Americans. Yet calls for shared sacrifice and proposals to modestly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to fund investments and protections that promote the common good are derided as “class warfare.” This is what passes for family values?
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At a time when our nation is plagued by the worst poverty rates in decades, religious leaders are not buying this narrow ideological agenda. In fact, evangelicals, Catholic bishops and Protestant leaders are leading a “Circle of Protection” campaign to defend government programs that provide a basic measure of dignity and security to those struggling to make ends meet. We are also urging a balanced approach to deficit reduction that doesn’t put the greatest burden on those hit hardest by the economic crisis.

I suggest you read the rest of the article here. And if you are one who says that the government should not be involved in the welfare of the poorest I suggest that you point me to religious institutions (i.e. churches, mosques and synagogues) that spend more money on the poor than they do on brick, mortar and salaries. They may be out there but most of these institutions look more like fraternal organizations than advocates for the poorest amongst us.

The Inequality Map

I am a big fan of David Brooks and find his writings to be interesting and thought provoking. Such is the case with his most recent NY Times editorial titled The Inequality Map. In it he writes about inequality that is acceptable and inequality that is not. Here is a clip that speaks to his point:

Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates have given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.

Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ.

He goes on to sarcastically speak of inequality in the realms of academia, ancestry, church, sports, income, spending, technology and other areas. I particularly like this example of inequality:

Travel inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly normal to have separate check-in lines and boarding procedures for airline patrons who have achieved Gold, Platinum, Double Ruby or Sun God status.

I think that you will find the whole piece interesting especially if you enjoy a bit of a sarcastic approach to this kind of topic. I recommend that you read it here and let me know if you have a favorite inequality line.

Utopianism is Nowhere to be Found

This week David Brooks bemoans the state of our country and the world in a New York Times oped piece titled
Where Are the Jobs? (i.e. Steve Jobs). Here are a few clips from it:

Let’s imagine that someone from the year 1970 miraculously traveled forward in time to today. You could show her one of the iPhones that Steve Jobs helped create, and she’d be thunderstruck. People back then imagined wireless communication (Dick Tracy, Star Trek), but they never imagined you could funnel an entire world’s worth of information through a pocket-sized device.

The time traveler would be vibrating with excitement. She’d want to know what other technological marvels had been invented in the past 41 years. She’d ask about space colonies on Mars, flying cars, superfast nuclear-powered airplanes, artificial organs. She’d want to know how doctors ended up curing cancer and senility.

You’d have to bring her down gently. We don’t have any of those things. Airplanes are pretty much the same now as they were then; so are cars, energy sources, appliances, houses and neighborhoods. A person born in 1900 began with horse-drawn buggies and died with men walking on the Moon, but the last few decades have seen nothing like that sort of technological advance.
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If you go back and think about America’s big World’s Fairs or if you read about Bell Labs in its heyday or Silicon Valley in the 1980s or 1990s, you see people in the grip of utopian visions. They imagine absurdly perfect worlds. They feel as though they have the power to begin the world anew. These were delusions, but inspiring delusions.

This utopianism is almost nowhere to be found today.

There is something saddening about these thoughts. I remember the days when I believed that cancer and other diseases would be cured in my life time. I recall watching video clips (in my youth) of cars that would not need wheels but would ride on air and I dreamed of a magical 21st century. Mostly I thought of space travel and how we would see people walking on far off planets. Realistically some of these were pretty naive, yet it saddens me that these dreams of a Utopian existence are not talked about at all these days.

GOP: psychological protest or conservative alternative?

I enjoy reading opinion pieces by conservative journalist David Brooks. Recently he wrote, in a piece titled The Mother of All No-Brainers, about how the GOP is getting tremendous concessions from Democrats in the debt limit talks but feels that factions in the GOP will not allow any kind of deal to go through. He describes it this way:

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

He goes on to describe this faction saying that "The members of this movement:"

do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms.

do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.

talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

have no economic theory worthy of the name.

have taken a small piece of economic policy and turned it into a sacred fixation.

He ends by observing that "Democrats have stopped making concessions" and are "coming to the conclusion that if the Republicans are fanatics then they better be fanatics, too."
I believe in compromise but feel that idea has sadly lost steam in congress as both parties seem to be controlled by fanatics that are not interested in addressing serious problems.

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