Katrina prep video

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm

This administration consistently demonstrates poor leadership. Moreover, it’s layer after layer of classic American-style folly. This story depicts the layers.

Too sad the video is not a Hollywood production…

and by the way, this is the top story on the BBC News Americas site front page.
Cbsnews made it a top story on their front page.
Foxnews gave it front page real estate with a level 2 sized box with a pic.
It is a line item headline with no picture on front pages of Cnn and Abcnews sites.
I found this notable data.

Peace

political rant: shallowness sucks

This country’s greatest cultural flaw,
not because it is the greatest crime, but because
some people willfully defy growth
to the point of embracing disease,
some promote addiction to it for personal gain
(or whatever else distracts the aware ones),
and some misuse the addicts,
the biggest travesty of all,
especially when they created inhumane addictions they judge so coldly.

NRA is shallow because the leaders promote keeping in the foreground one’s right to use the least evolved, least creative, least kind way of solving a problem. The problem isn’t owning the gun; the problem is thinking of them as solutions for situations that are better solved with communications, patience and diligence. Tough stuff is tough. This is the same shallowness issue as using the court system to handle problems that could be better solved with counseling and mediation. Can we handle our own sticky situations without introducing an outside authority?

All of the Iraq wars have been shallow endeavors. The first one, because our government created the problems by funding both sides of the warring in play: how can we declare injustice when we were integral in creating it? The second one because our government was more interested in commencing war than completing due diligence, more interested in being right than working on a global problem as a global community. Simplification coupled with monetary gain and loss of nameless lives is myopic at best and generally criminal. Can we handle our own sticky situations with integrity and virtue, even when the going gets tough?

Sometimes people purposely act shallowly to tempt others to also behave with superficial intentions (‘You’re just as dirty as the rest of us.’). Sometimes people use this manipulative tactic to simplify their own lives and to remove obstacles for their personal agenda (‘It’s a dog eat dog world and I’m here to win.’). Sometimes people only feel good about themselves if everyone else is wounded (‘We’re all in this mess together.’ Or ‘Poor bastards.’). What does it take to maintain a Win-Win mentality?

I am thinking about our administration as I write, our media, and our citizen interests. There’s nothing wrong with needing lightness but… is it better not to vote if you just don’t care to understand? How much knowledge of a topic becomes enough to stand by your opinion? What are best practices for handling serious-topic-burnout that encourages diverse focus and fresh thinking while discouraging apathy and obsession with the morose?

Is our culture getting less twisted or more? From watching what constitutes as comedy these days on television, I’d say less, even though it means there is more overt twistedness in play. We have to get out what hurts without taking irrevocable actions. I dream of a more engaged American culture. ADD can be overcome if authentically desired.

Raising parents is hard

For the past two years, I have been engaged in some acts of tough love with my parents. Individually. And they don't understand. Separately. And I am not equipped to enlighten them. And it's humbling. And exhausting. And it makes me a more empathic person for the plight of so many in this world, loving, with nowhere to put it. Thank god for aunts and cats and friends and strangers. And nature. And faith.

Blessings of grace, health and groovy joy to everyone. May you find who and what you need in this world and within, and may your soul's harmony resonate throughout 2006.

'nuff love 4 ALL

Is George Bush the Worst President -- Ever?

IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?
By Richard Reeves
Fri Dec 2, 8:13 PM ET



PARIS -- President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..."

But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them out.

"No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his desk, knowing the people he talked with."

Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in 1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the highest office. A lawyer, a self-made man, Buchanan served with some distinction in the House, served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and secretary of state under President James K. Polk. He had a great deal to do with the United States becoming a continental nation -- "Manifest Destiny," war with Mexico, and all that. He was also ambassador to Great Britain and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court three separate times.

But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual.

Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property.

He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents.

There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan.

This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:


He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;


He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;


He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;


He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;


He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);


He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;


He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;


He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president. That, historically, takes decades, and views change over times as results and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that however bad Bush seems, they have indeed since worse men around the White House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President Dick Cheney.

who to blame?!?

www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...087c.html

Mind of Mencia et al

Sometimes I have a /writing/chilling/repowering/tv night. Often times Comedy Central is the channel of the night (I try not to watch tv if I want to flip around, cuz then it feels like wasting time instead of bathing in a flavor of energy that's lightens the weight and

Comedy Central
Mind of Mencia
Sometimes he's pompous, but he's always fairly transparent about it. Sometimes he's dead on, and it's satisfying to hear the truth flavored with his style of justice and the American way. Sometimes it's satisfying fast food... like a burrito ;)

Carlos Mencia is kind of like a Mexican Dave Chappelle, but it's a pleasure to use that analogy because he’s not a carbon copy at all, just a similar flavor of sophisiticated, sociologically provoc(k)ative edge. He's learning from each of his episodes it seems, as i see a couple in a row sometimes (CC programs with current and previous back to back on occassion) and i miss many.


the Daily Show is really doing well keeping it real and staying at a consistent level of lightness that significantly minimizes depression about the specific state of affairs in the world. The Cameron Diaz and Kurt Vonnegot interviews are fun to watch online if you have ever enjoyed their work. www.comedycentral.com/shows/t...ex.jhtml

Let's each work toward mastery.

Trying to get away with sticking to your intentions less with integrity and more on technicalities is unoriginal at best, and at worst it kills the spirit.

Let’s each work to keep ourselves from being emotionally fickle, and collective consciousness will move to the beat of a better drummer.

Let’s each work to demonstrate originality and compassion with greater virtue; ditto on evolutionary value. Blips count if others can connect the dots and make a pretty picture with them...

News Media pontification

What holds back the value of news programming is how too often they make their reason for being about keeping the public coming back every day rather than providing a consistent viewpoint.

News should focus on maintaining a consistent filtering bias rather than pretend that there isn’t one. How could anyone possibly tell the whole story in 30 minutes or an hour? Even a 24 hour channel has to leave stories and flavors of life out or somehow imbalanced with actuality. Besides, what's wrong with admitting what you're up to? It makes it easier for others not to copy you.

I like surrounding myself with people who enjoy the process of creating something original and complementary. They do not need to be something to everyone, and, coupled with healthy respect, they are comfortable being different things to different people.

If you want to convey something, make sure you have a receivable message. Ratings are one data point in the full equation. In the case of news however, I believe that if each program picked a flavor that consistently represents a combination of Critic, Dreamer and Realist (interactivebodywork.com/disney.html), we'd be better able to receive what's going on in the world by switching between flavors to serve our needs for stimulation and rejuvenation. Sometimes we need flavors our friends have trouble providing. Sometimes it's too expensive in time or money to get them met circumstantially. Sometimes I tire of being patient, and use television with the understanding that it is a less dimensional experience than in-the-moment living... it is however, sometimes a godsend to those who have lived by principle, diligence or conviction. I just want to feel, and know I'm not inflicting myself on anyone while I'm doing it, or experience art that's halfway between frivolous and high-minded. In my experience, that's where most of the interesting real life goes on anyway... it's also a bandwidth where competency often breeds healthy resilience. I'm rambling...

Collective Entrepreneurship

Mergers and monopolies generally discourage evolved communication practices in their culture, and in the cultures they serve. How is this so?

To announce that it is in the best interest of progress to own that which one needs suggests that interdependence is a myth. Why is it so much more difficult to collaborate with people and organizations that are out of reach from the strong arm? I say it’s because we’re lazy to learn to communicate better. Collaborative entrepreneurship asks more of its participants as an adult and as a human being that’s a beautiful thing.