Incremental Change

Metabedu Incremental Change

Ways to change yourself, then your community and neighborhood, then the world.

graffiti by Banksy

A fundamental concept at Metabedu is changing things through the changes you make in yourself that leads you to action.  When one is educated about where one can become empowered, one may choose to become empowered and then action and empowerment are one in the same.    

Many times we belong to well meaning groups centered on change of some action such as fracking, on some issue, such as who gets taxed how much or some societal malady such as homelessness.

It is clear that in most examples, surely the ones mentioned previously there are identifiable reasons dis-eases exist and reasons they haven’t gone away.  Many issues exist because many people allow them to exist.  Some would say they are part of the problem if not part of the solution. 

There are pages and pages of websites about changing and listening.

I would like to challenge you to listen to yourself, the inner being and make decisions toward change, some incremental some perhaps more radical.

What is it you don’t like that you participate in?  What is it you like that you can reinforce?

I once caught myself tsk tsk tsking the grounds around a local middle school as I entered.  I made the decision I could be part of the solution and now I pick up a piece of trash or two when entering places; just a piece or two and not every time. 

Incremental change is not completed in a vacuum ever.  We may not see the ripple but there is a ripple internally and many times if not always externally. 

The Ripple

A few days later at the same school I saw a child’s glove on the ground. I know my daughter’s mom and I work hard to provide for her and to replace one glove is to replace two.  One more pair of gloves goes into production then and all of the resources in making, distributing and marketing those gloves. I got out of my car, picked up the glove and hailed two students walking into the school; “are yall going into the school,” “ yes,” they replied.  “Will you take this glove to the lost and found?” they looked at me like I was a nut and took the glove.  Apparently they walked some distance away and threw the glove back on the ground before entering the school because I saw it the next day.  Now two ripples are set in motion.  The first was my moving from “litter police” to lost and found pariah.  The second ripple was two young people gently being confronted with a value apparently not their own and making a decision.  How many confrontations before they take the glove to the lost and found?  Maybe they never will.  Maybe next time they are honest explaining that it is too much trouble and they are late for the basketball game and tell me where the lost and found is.  Maybe they will endure a twinge of guilt talking to a gloveless classmate whose parents couldn’t buy another pair, and have an epiphany about our connectedness.  To be clear this is not about picking up trash and replenishing the lost and found it's about little moments of involvement that add up, really add up.

I told a colleague about my zeal for picking up trash, it’s not that I’ve haven’t done it before, but now I looked at what prevented me from doing it on so many occasions.  My colleague suggested having a box of those surgeon’s gloves on hand, cause ya never know what you are touching, comething to consider.

You may be wondering what was going through my mind when I picked up the glove on the next day.  I didn’t pick it.  I’m working on me too family.

Principle 5 - Incremental vs radical change

Use Incremental Change - Pick the Brain

The Power of Incremental Change Over Time | Michael Hyatt

Weeping Jesus Strikes Again!

These poor people in Mumbai and probably all over the world are mislead flocking to a statue of Jesus in Mumbai purportedly weeping.  So often religion is at odds with truth and physical evidence.  Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.  Of course it doesn't mean just widows and orphans but at the time and in the place this was written these two groups held the most helpless of society; I doubt that it is much different in 2013.

All organizations be they churches, temples, mosques, social service agencies or governments are oganizations that work against the good of human kind out of human and organizational nature.  The number one "instinct" of organizations (which I believe the U.S. and most of the world consider a legal person) and people is self preservation.  

Once a church forms we must realize, the church it self must acknowledge that it puts its existence and comfort ahead of worshipping (upholding) the Life, the Way, the Truth. In keeping with this the church in Mumbai upon being proved wrong about the miracle weeping statue sued Sanal Edamaruku the bringer of bad tidings who had to flee the country to Finland to maintain his freedom.  The church will drop the charges if Edamaruku apologizes.

Governments put self preservation ahead of the common good of the people en mass that they serve.

It is up to all individuals to see this and realize individuals do the same thing.  Once we realize this we can balance it against our actions on behalf of others.  Next step the more we realize that we are all one then we find ourselves being holistically healthy so as to benefit others.  Then we will see that a huge part of our own self preservation, happiness and wholeness hinges on giving, loving and meeting the needs of others.  We will see we have needs that others need to fill. 

Django Unchained - Avant-Garde Or Just Antebellum All The Way To The Bank?

Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen in Tarantino's Django Unchained

  If you like a really mindless violent action flick every now and then you might enjoy Django.  Before I forget it was good to see Don Johnson on the screen even if ever so briefly.

I went to a few galleries this week and I’ve decided that one thing I like about art is that it prompts great writing, sometimes mind expanding writing.  Curators and directors across the globe engross us in imaginative hyperbole and mind-expanding text that many times is not supported by what is on the wall in front of you, but that’s ok the writing is to support the art.  Such is the world of movies and reviews. 

One can read some very insightful commentary on the problem with Django and its merit.  I like that Django will incite conversation however to me the commentaries on race and stereotype are all but wasted because they should not be offered up to such a poor movie. 

The movie has garnered best picture nomination from the Producers Guild Award (PGA) proving I guess that I no nothing about film.

What made Spike Lee think Django Unchained would be that bad and was it?

Spike Lee say...
"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film. That's the only thing I'm gonna say," he explained. "I can't disrespect my ancestors. I can't do it. Now, that's me. I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself. I can't do it."

The problem with Spike Lee is that he speaks out on so much so when people “see him coming” they start rolling their eyes, or in the case of this movie, buckin their eyes before he opens his mouth.  I think Mr. Lee was spot on. Yes it was that bad.

But wait Spike you haven't seen the action figure... Yall think I'm kidding. To be fair many of his movies, like Kill Bill and Reservoir Dog have action figures. 

Community activist Najee Ali holds a picture an action figure depicting Calvin Candie, Leonardo DiCaprio's character from the Quentin Tarantino film "Django Unchained," during a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013, in Los Angeles. The slavery-era figures are raising questions about whether they're appropriate. Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, plans to call for the removal of the toys from the market. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) (The Daily Republic)

This movie could be jumping the shark for Tarantino, if he is not careful, with his characteristic over the top violence like watching Elvis after he had become a caricature of himself; it was still Elvis but...   It is still Tarantino but he seems to have forgotten how to tell a story in this django.  

It was difficult to suspend reality enough to enjoy the movie on so many levels, on one level because the absolute horrors of slavery and its aftermath seem to have eluded Tarantino and no one should be surprised.  His first written and directed movie, not counting My Best Friends Birthday, 1987 that he did on $5000, is Reservoir Dogs.  It is bloody, quirky, well written, violent and of course very well directed. In "Dogs" Tarantino spins a good tale.

What is distasteful is that Django is not about any of the issues raised or socio-racial dynamics captured in the movie by any stretch of the imagination.  They are tools; they are all a backdrop for Tarantino’s Spaghetti Western period.  Again the movie has all the blood we now expect from good Massa Quentin but the only palpable violence in the movie is exacted against black folk, he didn’t understand the impact of the historical context on our American psyche and this eluded most of the movie goers I spoke to.  In a Terry Gross interview he says a few things that show he didn’t have a clue; one of them being the fact that what happened to Black folks on the real, was a 1,000 times worst than what happens in his movie. He does not understand that his over the top violence was compared to a reality of Black life up through the 70s, the 1970s in this country and paled by comparison.

The movie isn’t even a morality tale even though the good guy literally wins and gets the girl.  Nobody dies as a blow to systemic racism they all die within it except for maybe Stephen. That payoff was not worth watching a Black man being ripped to sheds by dogs that real history is not behind us those wounds are not healed in Black consciousness.  It was not worth watching two Black men fighting to the death for the sport and the entertainment of White folks with one bludgeoning another to death with a claw hammer in a plantation parlor his reward, time off from fighting and a beer. During this scene a beautiful female house nigger, wonderfully dressed smiles aloofly in the background seated sipping brandy. 

              Which one of you says this dynamic sans brandy slurping Black woman is not alive and well in these here United States?  Unfortunately many would say that irrespective of the pageant of step and fetch it rapper buffoons and video vixens in front of the camera with until recently non Blacks behind the camera.  As an aside it is very telling that Jay Z was all right with “bitches and hoes” for your daughter but his child was too good for it; that’s what it took?

            Incidentally, throughout the movie King (I wonder why he picked this name?) Schultz, a bounty hunter who, during this time period had to have seen unmitigated violence against Black folk before is shaken by the violence several times … but oh no not the Black folk who could be subject to it at anytime on a whim.

I know there comes a time when what is sacred joins the ranks of the profane you see it in stand up comedy and advertising frequently where something that was once taboo transitions into fair game territory.  That is quickly happening with the legacy and life of Dr. Martin Luther King as in this example from the Colbert Report; though the joke is about the usurping of Dr. King’s image you will notice the co-opting of the I Have A Dream Speech to make the point and the irreverent co-opting of his image.  None of the co-opting of Dr. King’s image for cash would have been anticipated in the immediate wake of Dr. King’s death.

If there will ever be a time for this transition concern the violence from which we still suffer that time is not now. 

            As of the 1990s it is estimated that trans Atlantic slave trade involve around 12 million Blacks that estimate down from an earlier estimate of 15million.  1.2 to 2.4 million lost their lives on slave ships.  Total lives lost are estimated at 10 million, that includes African slaver raids and deaths in the U.S. 

“I get to kill White men and get paid for it, what’s not to like?”

Every moviegoer of color I spoke to loved Django.  Their ages ranged from late twenties to mid fifties.  Django had it’s funny moments and its smart moments and even great Tarantino moments like the silhouette of Django and Broomhilda “Hildie,” Django’s love interest played by Kerry Washington in a loving moment juxtaposed against house nigger Stephen aptly played by Samuel L. Jackson and mourners returning from the funeral of Plantation owner Calvin Candy play by Leonardo DiCaprio.  “I get to kill White men and get paid for it, what’s not to like,” quips Django and apparent this is where many folks’ heads were.

     As a story so many things didn’t make sense like why was Django so hateful and dismissive of Black folk more so than Candy and King Shultz played by Christopher Waltz?  It doesn’t make sense he’d be dismissive and then kill Stephen for being an uncle tom; there were several issues like this that are due to poor character development.  Whites seemingly had more empathy for Blacks than did Django.

How did Django go from a tentative slave to looking white men in the eye and “talking back” seemingly overnight? 

            There is one scene in which uncle Tom house nigger Stephen has just called Candy into the library and when Candy arrives Stephen is sitting in a chair legs crossed swirling brand in a snifter; this along with several other moments in the film make it easy to believe Stephen just might be part owner of the plantation!  A buddy of mine who is a 75 year old redneck from the South has a truism about Northern and Southern racism, that goes like this; “in South you (meaning Blacks) can get as close as you want just don’t get too high, in the North you can get as high as you want just don’t get too close.”  In this movie we are high and close and I just couldn't suspend reality that much along with all of the other concessions the movie asks me to make.

            I’ve given this movie way more type than it deserves, it does not push the envelop in any way creatively.  The story is boring the manipulations obvious.  Leading into the final act of the movie Dr. Schultz, Django and Hildie, mission accomplished, that of saving Hildie are a handshake away from freedom and good health.  Inconceivably Dr. Shultz cannot bring himself to shake hands with Candy which leads to both their deaths in a shootout.  Inconceivable except Tarantino needed a reason to get to the final bloodbath and like many things in this movie the failed handshake was fast and easy. 

            Why do people like this movie so much?  The number one reason is our national desensitized appetite for violence.  Secondly Black folk need to keep their history, their stories and their collective memories, hold them dear they make us who we are.  I’d like to see Tarantino try this with instead of the 400 year Black holocaust as a backdrop, using the Jewish holocaust of approximately 8 years in which 6-10 million Jews died, as a backdrop for his vehicles and contrivances.  If this would occur I’d like to also see Spike Lee make a statement on how disrespectful it is to humankind.

Connecticut part two: Where Do We Go From Here Where Do We Start?

The NRA takes down their facebook page.

            Our national sickness expressed itself once again in Connecticut and garnered national attention.  It expressed itself a few weeks ago in Cleveland Heights as the community met to deal with elementary school kids being forcibly robbed of school Ipads.  No one died but it’s the same issue.  Before that our sick country screamed out in pain through Anthony Sowell in East Cleveland, Ohio.  No one was shot but it’s the same issue.   Just recently again America screamed “I am sick!” through two deaths and 137 unanswered shots fired again in East Cleveland.  Trayvon Martin told us we have a problem some of us are comfortable not listening. 

            Mixed signals fill the airways with President Obama suggesting that he would do all with in his presidential power to effect meaningful action as the White House spokesman was not so quick to commit officially saying, “It’s complicated.”  This clearly suggests there should be no mass sigh of relief that gun control is handled at the presidential level.

           

We have to do it, start anywhere after you start at home in your own head, heart, spirit, and body.  What personal commitments will you, have you made as of today to perfect your internal world and direct it toward peace, whatever that means to you?

           

A few weeks ago Michael Dunn a 45 year-old gun collector and software engineer overcome by dis-ease felt obliged to shoot at least 8 shots into a car with unarmed black teenagers killing one 17 year old because their music was too loud.  He was standing his ground in Florida…

           

There should be a public outcry of 1968 civil rights proportions until stand your ground laws in Florida and elsewhere are change and politicians who support the law are removed from office and to court room on public endangerment charges.   “The Florida version of the law passed in 2005. While the legislation provides no clear definition of what constitutes a threat, it allows people to use deadly force if they feel threatened regardless of whether they can safely leave the scene,” according to uprisingradio.org. Huh what, regardless of whether they can safely leave the scene?!  More people are going to die and fewer people will be brought to justice.

           

A study by John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, found that Stand Your Ground laws tend to track the existing racial disparities in homicide convictions across the U.S. — with one significant exception: Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states, that number jumps to 354 percent.  What else can be done?

Close to home

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I’ve personally seen all of the Godfather movies, CSI, my share of Law and Order Criminal Intent, Good Fellahs, my all time favorite, Revolver and I’m kinda found of mixed martial arts.  The harm I think it has done to me is desensitizing me.  It has not made me violent. I’d say it’s not in me but I think everyone has the capacity and my past media diet would take exception. 

           

I’ve made a commitment to not make gratuitous violence a major part of my diet and stopped watching television over a year ago. Even though I have seen a difference for many years I have many times made the determination that taking on the violence was worth it, for instance, like with the movie Revolver; possibly a pure justification.  I’ve changed my language to be more logical and less antagonistic, more exchange and less confrontation. I strive more to be heard and understood than to win arguments and make people see my way; respectively I seek to listen and understand others. I don’t always get it right.

           

As I direct attention internally I express it externally through interaction with others, through writing and through what I support.  I’m willing to go out. I will be asking groups I work with if there is something we can do short term and long term.  I will be asking writers I know what they think they should do.  I will be trying to sustain an effort of some sort for a year.

           

There have been over 30 shootings since Columbine in 1999.  Since 2004 when Mr. Obama took office he has resisted doing anything about the laws stating enforcing current laws was what was needed.  Now in the face of mounting pressure the president seems to be reassessing this stance.  Part of Australia’s fix was to buy back guns. What can be done to not only support any effort toward gun reform but to change the entire cynical malaise of this country?

           

Make plans, something you can start doing right now also and then something long range that may take preparation.  Join in with someone some group you may not have to reinvent the wheel. We need to walk each other toward a peaceful spirit and put pressure on local and national leaders.

           

The National Firearms Agreement of Australia -- reached among the political parties less than two weeks after a gunman killed 35 people and injured 23 at a Tasmanian seaside resort -- cut firearm homicide by 59% over the next two decades and firearms suicide by 74%, the report showed.

The law banned semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns and put in place a mandatory buy-back program for newly banned weapons.

The buyback led to the destruction of 650,000 guns, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported.  That would be like the US destroying 40 million guns.  Currently there is an average of 88 weapons per 100 people according to the Pew Research Center.

Embrace and Assert What We Already Do More Toward a More Civil Society- things we might consider, a list.

           

There are so many things that already happen if we could embrace them more and make them central to our everyday comings and goings I believe it will change things.

           

Specific to mass gun shootings social media mavens replace your profile pic with a no guns sign or the like once a month for the next year. 

           

You know a blogger or an opinion maker or someone like a musician who has access to lots of people?  Challenge them to cover gun violence, nonviolence, civil discourse, a kinder gentler work place or whatever once a month for the next year. 

           

Are you a community group or head of a school that could pass out statistics about violence and bullying to students and parents, show a movie that deals with the issue, make it a family night? Pass out stats about gun violence in neighborhoods door to door where resources are limited.

           

It is better to feel good than to look good. Many organizations have things in place they could perhaps turn toward our national illness such as the Cleveland Museum of Art.  They have a program in which you catch your colleagues doing something right and out side of what their job description says, report it and HR recognizes them.  Could your school or organization adapt and use this program? Find out more?  The Cleveland Museum of Art Director of HR Sharon Reaves; sreaves@clevelandart.org.

List

Random acts of kindness and Pass it forward. Who can’t do these with a vengeance?

Listen

Practicing patience while driving

Changing one’s language from insulting to understanding.

Are there people who think this is a bunch of nonsense? Sure there are.  Let’s get their ideas.  Where do you stand? What are your ideas?

See on thelede.blogs.nytimes.com

See on Scoop.it - Theory of Everything

Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the Sandy Hook school shooting. On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more.

Connecticut school shooting stuns the world.

However only days after twenty seven people including 20 elementary school children are murdered and a teary eyed response from the president the White House is waffling and side stepping a political solution.  White House spokesman Jay Carney stated, "it's a complex problem that requires a complex solution." Apparently these complexities elluded the small island of Australia where strict gunlaws were enacted following a 1996 mass shooting.  Australia reports it hasn't had a similar incident since.

I watched a city wide writing competition for middle schools recently. Prior to the awards announcements there was a talent show.  One young kid sang Luther Vandross’ Dance With My Father, there were a variety of other things and an audience participation on stage lip sync and dance of Gangnam Style.  There was so much joy watching these children cheering, singing along acting silly and as I say, fulfilling part of their kids’ job description being carefree.

So as Luther’s lyrics waxed sentimental and nostalgic wishing for one more dance with father many of us teared up thinking about 20 sets of parents who will never dance with their children again.

A question, I heard in an interview about Sandy Hooks “what do we tell the children,” forced its way into my mind.  We can tell them don’t worry pray and it will never happen to you, we live in a safe and predictable world, but these things are not true.  I looked at my daughter, and her group on stage bumbling through a dance routine then her screaming “woohooo thank you… “  yada yada at the microphone and I thought; honey I hope that was fun. I hope everyday you rise you fend off the evil and negativity of this world living side by side with goodness and mercy and find something joyful in your day, because tomorrow is a gift not promised.

Bill Maher says…

Sorry but prayers and giving your kids hugs fix nothing; only having the balls to stand up to our insane selfish gun culture will. I couldn’t agree more with Bill Maher. In other words faith without works is missing the mark.  Conviction without action is not conviction it is an idea and hot air. If these are real they produce… something.

Many of us say we believe this, but many of us have few convictions just ideas and hot air.

Is It Gun Culture or a Culture of Violence Flamed by Incivility, Insensitivity, and Intolerance?

Does gratuitous violence beget violence? A lot of us feed our appetite for many forms of violence constantly.  Each individual has to judge the harm things like this do or don’t do, I guess.

One can read all over the I-net that the subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy and reality so to the subconscious mind a movie killing is not perceived as fantasy.  I do not know if that is true; however there is research to suggest that in the conscious mind the line between fantasy and reality can be very blurry. According to the work of Donald D. Hoffman, Ph. D., in computational psychology, Department of Cognitive Science University of California, Irvine, reality affirms fantasy and vice versa.

So it could be that the reality is that violence is violent and it only matters in degrees whether one see’s it across the street or on CSI or whether one is a victim of violence.  It doesn’t matter if it is a racist, misogynistic or homophobic degrading joke, snide comment meant to damage someone’s ego, or the last straw body image comment or commercial that drives a young girl into anorexia.

Do you think a violent diet of living vicariously through media good and bad guys alike, enduring slights uncivil and intolerant behavior and language on a regular basis have a cumulative effect?  I think I channeled Rush Limbaugh once.  How much psychic damage does it take to push one over the edge?  How much psychic damage does it take to push one community over the edge or a country over the edge?

Maybe this is what Jesus the sage was eluding to when he said if you create an act in your mind you have committed an act in your heart (he chose adultery to speak about).  The one liberating thing about this maxim is that it must work both ways in the negative and the positive mustn’t it?

An idea making the rounds on the I-net attributed to Marianne Williamson, says,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I used to roll my eyes at this but suppose most of us are willfully hot potato tossing the power and corresponding responsibility we have off on God by praying or by blaming the closest idiot?  How many of us say that pray, “God send me,” and then get up and go?

Suppose it is true if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed we can move mountains?  Gandhi did, Dr. King did. Dr. Paul Farmer did in Haiti.  As great as these people were and are none of them did great things single handedly.

Amit Goswami a renowned theoretical nuclear physicist Professor Emeritus Oregon University and featured in the movie “What the Bleep do We Know?” theorizes that consciousness creates mind and matter, subject and object, which dovetail quite nicely with “mustard seed” faith.

It could be exactly what would happen when “the woman with an issue of blood” healed herself without permission or even asking a god or anyone.  Her faith was not born in religion, she had no faith in doctors, she had already tested them as all faith should be tested, she had faith born out of desperation: a faith that caused her to focus on a solution that had no doctrine behind it, no orthodoxy just an idea and focused commitment to change her circumstance. How many of us have a focused commitment to change ourselves to change our world to change our circumstance?

So Bryan Fischer and Mike Huckabee proclaim the Connecticut Sandy Hook massacre, Columbine and other school and college related massacres happened because Gentleman Good God has been kicked out of the schools and doesn’t go where he isn’t wanted.  I find myself not wanting to dignify their ideas held by many with any kind of comment or acknowledge that it was even said.

The “Kingdom of Potential” is with in us, not in the act of public prayer but  into the single-minded action we embark upon when we hear ourselves pray and that is why everything that does not proceed from faith that does not proceed from conviction is missing the mark.

One definition of prayer is, a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.  Let us worship life and life more abundantly and let the life be the light of all people.  Let us walk in the life and the way that promotes abundant living and the truth that affirms a God whose definition is goodness and a universe that is sufficient.

I’m sorry Fischer and Huckabee choose to believe something so uninformed about the God they claim to know they are trying to make sense of the world too, just saying.  I guess as the poor shall always be with us so shall the ignorant.  In fact there are areas in which we are all ignorant and blind to what real is so let us mitigate damage as much as we can forgive and continue to press toward the mark not kick against the pricks.

We have such potential to change our world but we abdicate our responsibility though we know if everyone is not comfortable then we are thieves and leeches living at the expense of the poor. We hide our lack of action in words of outrage, and also in prayers and psalms as if in so speaking we’ve done our part. We point our fingers as if responsibility starts just beyond our reach.

When I hear an atheist quip, “thank you God for sparing the lives of 20 children in Connecticut… oh wait a minute, you didn’t, f*ck God,” I can understand the anger, though I was not angry I was deeply saddened by what happened in Connecticut; I can understand the question, if there is a just God then why?  However I can’t understand the misdirected rage in the midst of such a tragedy.

I must ask that person and all of us of that spirit of complaint and condescension, where is your faith? Was that misdirect the best you can do that’s it?!   Certainly your faith does not rest in your non-god but you must certainly believe in goodness fighting the good fight or you must be silent.  You must have hope in light of a non-existent god that especially together with others you have power to change things or you should have no part in this public showing of pain, dismay, an healing.

You must certainly acknowledge that without God it is of the utmost importance to have faith in yourself and humanity that your positive mindset and doings must endure if darkness is ever to be conquered if darkness is not to overtake all.

Darkness will not just go away it is apart of our world with which we must deal.  We must give our lives to fight it, if goodness is to triumph. If your dark side is to remain contained or better yet transformed, reborn.

I think if you are giving in to your dark side and self -righteousness, if you are putting some burden on others that you don’t accept you brother are a Pharisee; believe me you don’t need a god to be one. There is little difference between you and the religious person you hate and demean for being misguided, bigoted and myopic.

As misguided as you think religious people are, some of them lost their children Friday.  You may as well grab a picket sign and join Washington Baptist church you are both on the same side, crucifying folks for believing what you feel is clearly wrong.

Coming up: Where do we go from here?

See on www.slate.com

No Thanks for Thanksgiving.

Rescuing Wasted Food To Fight Hunger

Lessons about Change for Mr. President from Isaac Newton

Are the times a changin? Chilling is the idea that if Mr. Obama had no active resistance and was able to shift things at will we in America and world wide would still be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.  Until we common folk see the game for what it is and decide to exercise our will and grasp the power we have, morally, economically and politically; grasp the empowerment at our fingertips things will not significantly change. 

For example, economically why anyone who is not rich would side with "trickle-down" economics is beyond me maybe someone can school me here. It doesn't trickle down and do what it theoretically is supposed to folks.  The Reagan success wasn't necessarily a success.  I would even venture to question why many of the rich would think this is a good long range idea.  I guess the cynical answer to the question how much is enough is the reason.

According to Kimberly Amadeo

 If trickle-down economics worked [during the Reagan Administration], then lower tax rates during the Reagan Revolution should have increased the lowest income levels. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred. Income inequality has worsened. Between 1979 and 2005, after-tax household income rose 6% for the bottom fifth of income earners. That sounds great, until you see what happened for the top fifth -- an 80% increase in income. The top 1% saw their income triple. Instead trickling down, it appears that prosperity trickled up! (Source: Steven Greenhouse, The Big Squeeze, pp.6-9)

Much of our public and economic policy is driven by two things.  Firstly is the idea that you too can be rich and in the upper echelon, the top 5 to 1 percent and secondly is the idea that we don't want anyone getting anything handed to them.  "Why should I work my fingers to the bone and the "Blank" family get paid sitting at home watching All In The Family reruns?
They both lead to misguided public policy based on myth perpetrated by our American roots individualistic personality."
Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters Around you have grown
And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'

In which direction do we see change going?

"The researchers at Pew Social & Demographic Trends aren't holding back in their new report on the middle class. It calls the last 11 years, "the lost decade" for the country's middle class.
The highlight from the report issued today is that the middle class is poorer, earning less and shrinking."-The Two-Way, NPR news blog, Sept. 5th 2012

Many people who voted for Mr. Obama have voiced disappointment in the amount of change his administration hasn't enacted.  Perhaps many of these folks are single issue voters, perhaps they are unaware of the significant changes he has attempted to enact.  Many of us know his changes aren't new but what is new is that he has brought the power of the presidency to bear on issues many have been trying to change since before Mr. Obama was born.  Some may be unaware of what change he managed to enact and perhaps they were absent the day guest lecturer Isaac Newton taught PoliSci 101.  Attention class!

Newton's Laws of Socio-political MOTION 

First Law:

·       A Situation, Policy, Object, Dilemma, Train Of Thought, or Malaise, (SPODTOTOM)

             [Which is] at rest remains at rest until acted upon by a force.

·       A SPODTOTOM [which is] in motion continues moving in a straight line at constant velocity until acted upon by a force.

Also called "Law of Inertia"

Accelerated motion

Newton's Second Law:

F = ma

Acceleration of a SPODTOTOM is directly proportional to the net force acting on the SPODTOTOM and inversely proportional to its mass.  Translation: the more force you apply to a, SPODTOTOM over time the quicker the SPODTOTOM will move or change direction.  The denser the SPODTOTOM the slower the change.

Newton's Third Law:

Whenever  New Ideas, Situations, Policies, Objects, Trains Of Thought, etc., exerts a force on a  SPODTOTOM, the  SPODTOTOM  attempts to exert at least an equal and opposite force on the first in an attempt to eliminate it and continue the status quo.

 The Times They Are A Changin- Bruce Sringsteen:

 Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A How About Lunch?

Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A How About Lunch?

Participaste in Non and Retroactive Flavors

In the last post, "I Post Therefore I Am," the idea surfaced that we can change ourselves by changing our language and by so doing work toward a country of civility through public discourse.  Many times this blogger challenges nonproductive language and discourse on social media and lords over his own arena of vocabulary, thought and spirit.  So we can still help this little guy keep "chugging along."  If you are not part of this you can do like Romney and retroactively hop on board... we know your heart was there from the beginning, we'll paste you in the roll call..
Often the greatest form of protest is revealed not aggressively in shouts and screams but by aggressively positioning one's self not to participate:

As George Nemeth notes, the little meme that could got a boost this week from the folks at Wal Mart The High Cost Of Low Price who put it on the front page of their website in the Get Active category. It had been a while since anyone had picked up the meme and I was beginning to think it had run its course. But the little guy keeps chugging along.]

I cast my my modest proposal for a Wal Mart Toothpaste Buycott into the blogosphere and it is slowly making it’s way across the Internet. So far 23 bloggers have picked it up and begun to spread the word. One of the reasons I did this was to show two of my friends that one person can make a difference. All you got to do is fling one starfish.... (more)