Social Commentary

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Try A Different Angle On Thanksgiving
November 22, 2016
charles i. letbetter - try something different for Thanksgiving

Tired of doing things the same way every year? Try out something a little different.

 

charles i. letbetter - try something different for Thanksgiving

Nope, we’re still not ready for Thanksgiving. Not quite. Kat or I will be making another trip to the store this evening to gather the final bit of supplies we need to get us through the weekend. Once we’re all home Wednesday evening, none of us are planning on leaving before Saturday at the earliest. That means that, in addition to everything for Thursday’s dinner, we need to make sure we have other food and supplies for the rest of the weekend. Having everyone home all day is challenging.

When we think of Thanksgiving we tend to think of tradition. Much is made of what they did or didn’t have 400 years ago, and then family traditions fall on top of that. Some people run in early morning races so as to prove their insanity. Other families spend time helping to feed the poor and homeless, which is a noble gesture requiring that one must have children who listen and obey. I have no idea what that is like. I have even met people who spend the day in protest. They find something to fit on a placard every year. I’m just assuming they’re all being unlawfully mistreated at Standing Rock this year.

For me, however, there are really only two traditions that matter. The first is to make sure there are enough leftovers so I don’t have to cook on Friday. I’ll cook the hell out of Thursday, but Friday I’m sleeping the entire day. The second, however, is to not follow tradition but to do at least one thing different; something that we’ve never done before. There are a lot of ways to be different, of course, but they generally fall into three categories: a different place, a different food, and different people.  Let me give you some examples.

 

A Different Place

charles i. letbetter - try something different for Thanksgiving

For us, this will be the first time Kat and I have stayed home for Thanksgiving. We usually would go to her Mom’s for the holiday, but Little Man’s birthday is this week as well so we’re doing birthday/Thanksgiving over there on a different day. This means we get to just enjoy/endure each other on Thursday. Big Gabe, my 18-year-old, said he’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s not gone anywhere for Thanksgiving, and he may be correct. He wasn’t born yet when I was on this roll of doing exotic meals for the holidays. Any other time we were at one grandparent’s house or the other. So, just the idea of staying home on Thanksgiving is a bit awkward and certainly different.

Over the years, though, we have utilized some other non-traditional locations as well. Back when our entire extended family would gather in Wichita, no one had a house big enough to even begin holding us all. So, we rented enclosed facilities at different city parks as long as at least a couple of our parents were still living. The facilities would include stoves and ovens and sinks so we could cook those last-minute items that are only good when fresh. Meanwhile, there was always plenty of room to toss the youngsters outside so they could run off energy and build up an appetite for the meal. After Poppa got to where he couldn’t make the trip, we used the great room of the retirement facility where they lived, invited others there to join, and had a wonderful time sharing Thanksgiving with older people who had nowhere else to go.

There are plenty of options if one just looks around a bit. Some, you do your own cooking. Others, someone else cooks for you (though those options tend to be more expensive). Either way, if you don’t want, or for some reason are unable to do the traditional family thing and the traditional family place, look around. Try someplace different. You might discover a whole new tradition that’s even better.

 

Different Food

charles i. letbetter - try something different for Thanksgiving

I mentioned above about going through a period where I insisted on preparing exotic foods for the holidays. I drove my family nuts with that one. Both sides were always very traditional and they just couldn’t wrap their heads around not having turkey and dressing and green bean casserole. In fact, my former mother-in-law actually brought green bean casserole with her one year because she knew that I wasn’t going to fix any and could not stand the thought of a Thanksgiving without it.

Here’s the thing: you don’t want what they had at the first Thanksgiving. It was dry. It was gamey. Even the vegetables didn’t taste anything like what is on our tables now. So, just throw out that whole idea of a “traditional” Thanksgiving menu and have some fun with it. We’ve had duck (which no one liked as much as they thought they would), we’ve had cornish hens (look,everyone gets their own turkey!), and we’ve even had venison (just don’t play a video of Bambi for a couple of weeks).  There are plenty of options.

Where the fun comes in, I think, is with the side dishes. Sure, we can have potatoes, but let’s prepare them differently for a change. This year, I’m leaning toward this recipe for slow cooker loaded potatoes. First off, it’s highly customizable. If your family is made up of vampires, leave off the garlic. Double down on the bacon if you wish. You could also toss in some olives and sun dried tomatoes if you’re feeling adventurous. The end result should be much more appetizing than yet another round of mashed potatoes.

I’m also considering this recipe for honey roasted butternut squash. Of those attending our home dinner on Thursday, half don’t like sweet potatoes. So, it doesn’t seem fair to leave them out and I know that at least two of them love butternut squash. This recipe is really simple to put together as long as one has a good, sharp knife. Butternut squash isn’t the softest veggie you’ll ever find. Alternatives like this really liven up a Thanksgiving menu without really risking upsetting expectations.

Finally, try something really different in the bread department. Of course, a lot of people use cornbread stuffing, but there’s still this expectation for some kind of roll or pull-apart bread. One year I got really adventurous and made challah, which the family enjoyed. Unfortunately, I don’t have that much counter space to give a full loaf of braided bread a place to rise. We’ll likely go with something from a local bakery. Just make it different than the store-bought Hawaiian rolls that are way over priced.

 

Different People

charles i. letbetter - try something different for Thanksgiving

My parents taught us this one. Regardless of which holiday it might be, if we were fixing a lot of food, and my Mother always fixed enough food for a small army, we invited other people, and almost always people who we didn’t know.  We never had a bad holiday when we did this. Never mind any religious differences, though the year we had an atheist at the table was interesting, never mind the cultural differences, the addition of new people always made the holiday better.

If you have been paying attention to the pictures we’ve used for this article, you’ve noticed all but one have a preponderance of tattoos. For reasons I have yet to understand, there are still a lot of people who find ink offensive. I don’t get it. That concept is almost always based out of ignorance, as is every bias. When we are celebrating our ability to over-consume while nearly a third of the world’s population is starving, we have a moral obligation to set aside our ridiculous opinions and reach out to people who are as different from us as possible. Build bridges, not walls. Invite that fussy neighbor. Pick up that friend of a friend whose name you can’t remember but you know will be alone. Hell, bring home a stripper. Strippers have to eat, too.

One of the reasons suicides go up during the holidays is because people who have been alone for far too many Thanksgivings just don’t want to go through another one. Try swallowing your fucking pride for a change. Invite someone different. You’ll both end up with a reason to be Thankful.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
No Apologies Necessary
November 20, 2016
charles i. letbetter- no apologies necessary

The defiant speech of the opposition is what prevents us from slipping into absolute tyranny. No apologies are ever necessary.

 

charles i. letbetter- no apologies necessary

Raising children to be polite, respectful, and kindly is challenging. Evidence would suggest more parents fail than succeed. Putting aside our selfish desires does not come easily when one reasons on the level of a seven-year-old. We see it around here every day.

Yesterday afternoon, for example, Little Man takes the TV remote and whacks his sister upside the head with it. Punishment was immediately delivered by his mother and afterward he was instructed to apologize to his sister. Staring blankly at the television he mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

Kat wasn’t going to let him get away with that. “No, you look her in the eyes and apologize.”

The Tipster turns around, probably enjoying the attention a little too much, and faces her brother. “I’m sorry, ” he says, a little most distinctly this time.

“For what?” she demands. She’s not letting him off the hook that easily.

A long pause follows before he finally says, “For hitting you with the remote.”

Lesson learned? Probably not. Rarely does a child change their behavior based on a single event, especially when that event is not necessarily traumatic. Learning how to behave in social situations takes time and, we can all probably attest, not everyone ever learns. Some people remain self-centered and selfish their entire lives. They see everyone else doing wrong while they remain innocent.  They want apologies from everyone else but are slow to give them when they are wrong. Such a trait is frustrating to encounter on a normal basis. When that same trait is exhibited on the part of an elected leader, however, the matter is far more troubling. Such would seem to be the case with the incoming US administration.

 

A Rough Night At The Theatre

charles i. letbetter- no apologies necessary

Our president-elect has decided that he doesn’t want to govern from the White House full time. Apparently, the lack of gold-plated toilets at the White House bothers him. Instead, he wants to spend time, see heads of state, and conduct national business from his home in New York. Now, there are a multitude of logistical and legal questions regarding whether such a move is possible. However, one element was probably not given the consideration it deserves: 85% of New Yorkers did not vote for the president-elect. Being in New York may put him in familiar territory but it certainly doesn’t put him in friendly territory. He’s going to have to expect considerable opposition, especially when the Secret Service blocks Fifth Ave., snarling downtown traffic for hours on end.

A couple of nights ago, the vice president-elect somehow managed to snag tickets to the hottest musical to hit Broadway in quite some time: Hamilton. I just checked, and if any of us mere mortals want to see the show, the best we can hope for is to purchase a ticket now for a show in August of 2017. If you’re really desperate and are willing to drop $450 or more for your ticket, they’ll squeeze you in for a June performance. Getting a ticket now pretty much means someone has to die. Yet, power has its privileges and the vice president-elect was able to get tickets for himself, his daughter, and a nephew. A nice family evening out. How sweet.

Right from the start, though, the reception on the part of New Yorkers was chilly. An elected official with the status of the vice president-elect doesn’t just slip into the theatre quietly. The instant he was recognized, the vice president-elect was booed. Hamilton officials and actors requested the audience be quiet.  Such rudeness is generally not tolerated on Broadway.

At the end of the performance, however, the politically-attuned cast decided to address the vice president-elect whose statements and policies as Governor of Indiana might affect many of them directly. Actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, the country’s third vice president, spoke on behalf of the cast. The results looked like this:

In my mind, and I would like to think that of most reasonable people, the statement was polite, well-written, and appropriately delivered. However, little Mikey (he’ll eat anything, ya’ know) went running back to his political “Daddy” and the response from the president-elect was very much what one might expect from the father of a bully whose victim had dared to stand up to him. Mr. Trump tweeted:

“The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

and then:

“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen!”

The response from Hamilton was also what one might expect. Mr. Dixon responded:

“@realDonaldTrump conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate @mike_pence for stopping to listen”

Hamilton‘s author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, tweeted:

“Proud of @HamiltonMusical. Proud of @BrandonVDixon, for leading with love. And proud to remind you that ALL are welcome at the theater.”

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement:

“The apology should instead come from President-elect Trump for calling into question the appropriateness of the Hamilton cast’s statements.”

Response from the rest of the Internet was unsurprising. Those who support the president-elect started a #BoycottHamilton hashtag that quickly started trending. Those opposing the president-elect responded with reminders that tickets to the musical are impossible to get and offers to gleefully take tickets off the hands of any potential theatre-goers who might be offended. The whole conversation is as inane and irreverent as the Internet tends to be when void of any form of respect and/or self-discipline.

 

Hold on, let’s look at some numbers

charles i. letbetter- no apologies necessary

Opposition is a necessary part of reasoning and intelligent dialog. There must always be a different side than that which is dominate. We are a diverse people of many minds and opinions. All of those opinions deserve some form of hearing and to the extent that they are presented respectfully, as was the Hamilton casts’ statement, they deserve to be treated respectfully. Any response should be thoughtful and well-considered. Such is the nature of polite communication. We cannot expect to never be challenged, but we are obligated to challenge and respond in kind.

Judging from the response not only to this particular situation but other moments of challenge, one might get the idea that the president-elect thinks that he does not deserve to be challenged in any form. Statements against articles in the media, primarily those in the New York Times show that this president-elect would rather respond like a bully, attempting to use intimidation rather than reason when responding to opposition. Consider a few of the following examples:

The very fact that the president-elect chooses to use a short-form means of communication through Twitter shows how little respect he has for those who oppose him. A polite, professional, response considers the points raised by the opposition and addresses them fully, not with statements like “Very unfair!” or “very poor and highly inaccurate coverage.” If the opposition is making statements that are unfair and/or inaccurate, then address those statements specifically. State the actual offense and then respond specifically and directly to that offense.

Our president-elect might need to be reminded that his election does not carry with it anything that might resemble a consensus among the American people. The vast majority of Americans did not vote for him. The president-elect received, at last count, 61,898,584 votes that were distributed in such a manner as to provide him with a presumed win among the electoral college. However, at no point in this presidency can or should he lose sight of the fact that his most direct opponent, Mrs. Clinton, received more votes with the current tally at 63,551,979. Now, if we were to add up all the remaining votes that were cast for someone other than Mr. Trump, including 747,993 write-ins and 28,824 for “none of these candidates,” we come to a total of 71, 000, 869 people who did not vote for the president-elect. That’s nearly ten million more than voted for him.

The overwhelming number of people who oppose the incoming administration is significant. With more people opposed to him than are those supporting him, the president-elect has little choice to not only expect strong and reactive voices of opposition and defiance but to respond appropriately. Bullies do not go unchallenged for long. Ignorance is never allowed to dominate a situation for long. The opposition to this administration is strong and it is going to be vocal and it is going to be unapologetic.

 

We’re gonna preach now

charles i. letbetter- no apologies necessary

Defiant speech is necessary for a society no matter how it is constructed. Those who stand in opposition must take voice. When that voice comes from the position of the under served, the disenfranchised, the bullied, the beaten, and those long ignored, it is going to be loud and it is going to challenge the status quo and it is going to openly defy the authority that has stood in its way. This is not unique to the United States. Defiant speech gets things done and it never, ever apologizes. Consider some examples from history:

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V didn’t like what Martin Luther wrote and placed on the door of the church at Wittenburg. When called before the Diet (assembly) at Worms, Luther was unrepentant and refused to apologize. Luther made it clear that he had no intention of recanting his writings and Charles V was seething. The Holy Roman Emperor did not like being challenged. Yet, by doing so Luther changed the course of the entire Christian world, a social impact that is still effective today. Should Martin Luther have apologized? Hell no!
  • On March 23, 1775, it was a defiant Patrick Henry, whose stance before the Virginia delegates gathered at St. John’s church was not that of the majority, proclaimed in opposition:“Gentlemen may cry, “Peace! Peace!” — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Many found Henry’s speech deplorable. King George III of England certainly found it offensive. Should Patrick Henry have apologized? Hell no!
  • The events of August 28, 1963 offended a lot of people. As most Americans watched on television, the mall across from the Lincoln Memorial began to fill with people of color who were fed up with the way they had been treated and tired of having their voices ignored. A young preacher, named after another preacher known for his defiant speech, stepped up to the microphone and said,“I have a dream, that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood . . .
    I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
    I have a dream . . .”People sat in stunned silence to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words. They struck a chord that went deep to the heart. Millions did not like what they heard, but it was time for the world to change and that change was not going to come from continuing to be silent and not challenge the status quo. Should Martin Luther King, Jr. have apologized for that speech? Hell no!

Speeches of opposition and defiance are rarely received well. We cannot expect that someone would challenge a presumed authority and expect to have that challenge welcomed and embraced. Yet, there is no question that every voice needs to be heard and that the collective sound of those voices as they grow louder and stronger serves to stand in the face of tyranny as a guard against the destruction of freedoms many have died to win. There is no place for apologies here. On these things let us be very clear:

We stand in opposition to those who tolerate hate, whether it is their own or that of those around them and with whom they associate.

We stand in opposition to those who would deny the rights of an individual to be who and what they were created to be.

We stand in opposition to those who attempt to define who can love whom.

We stand in opposition to those who would deny citizenship to one based on their belief system or country of origin.

We stand in opposition to those who attempt to rule over what a person can do with their own body.

We stand in opposition to those who endanger the world by denying science in favor of mythology.

We stand in opposition to those who consider the color of a person’ skin as a qualifier for their humanity.

We stand in opposition to those who would put their personal profit ahead of the good of the country.

We stand in opposition to those who would deny education and place it out of reach.

We stand in opposition to those who place families in danger, who imprison those they fear, and enslave those imprisoned.

We stand in opposition to those who would build walls.

We will not be silent. Our place and our voice is established by the universe, not by man.

We will not be silent. We will stand in the highways and the hedges, on the street corners, and on the stages of Broadway to announce our opposition.

We will not be silent. We will protect those we love, our way of life, and our future.

We will not be silent. We will shout in the face of fear and drown out the voices of bigotry and ignorance.

We will not be silent. We will use every means and method at our disposal to ensure that this country of the people, by the people, and for the people shall never disappear from the face of this earth.

We are the opposition. We are 71, 000, 869 strong and we will not go away, we will not be quiet.

So, Mr. President-elect, take your pettiness, your shallow offense, your whining children, and the ignorance that follows you and prepare to be opposed. We will not back down. We will not give up.

And we will NEVER apologize.

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pop culture  /  Social Commentary
Better Yourself, Better The World
November 15, 2016
charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

You say you want a better world. The solution is to work toward a better you.

 

charles i. letbetter - better yourself

There are a lot of people, probably a couple of billion at this point, who are unhappy with the condition of the world. Everyone has their own idea as to what it might take to make the world, or at least their corner of it, great again. However, regardless of one’s political leanings, the reality is that the world is made up of some seven billion individuals. If we want our world to be better, our first move is to make ourselves better.

The Internet is chock-full of lists for how you can make yourself better. The problem is that, much the “news” on sees on Facebook, not all the information in those lists can be trusted. For example, the list linked at the beginning of this paragraph recommends taking a cold shower every morning because, allegedly, Tony Robbins jumps into a pool of 57-degree water every morning. DO NOT TAKE THAT ADVICE! There’s a damn good reason we take warm showers. In water below 77°F, one’s breathing begins to be affected. If one is in water between 70°-60°, most people should be in some kind of protective thermal suit to avoid loss of breathing control. Water temperatures between 60°-50° are considered extremely dangerous and possibly even life threatening for the majority of people. Total loss of breathing control. Maximum intensity cold shock. Unable to control gasping and hyperventilation. So, maybe the advice on that list isn’t all the good.

There are safe things you can do, however, that will help improve your life. You won’t see a big change all at once, but give it six months and then look back. You’ll be amazed. Let’s get started.

 

Develop A Routine

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

There are times when spontaneity is good for you, but it’s not the ideal way for living your life. Our minds process information and our bodies operate more efficiently when they have some sense of what’s coming next. Little things like getting up at the same time every morning, getting dressed in the same order, and taking breaks at the same general time all help us to put a maximum amount of effort into our day without becoming fatigued as quickly.

Follow your body’s natural biorhythms and do your best work when your mind is most alert and schedule less intense activities when you’re not likely to have a lot of access energy making you fidgety. The biggest challenge to a schedule, of course, is following it. You don’t have to be rigid and precise in all your activities, but having a regular routine can make a lot of difference.

 

Prepare for your day  the night before

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

My alarm goes off at 4:00 AM every morning. Everyone else in the house is still asleep. Lights are off. Vision is limited. I have to try to get dressed and get the dog out of the house for his walk without waking everyone else. How do we do that? By preparing the night before. I lay out my clothes, make note of where I’ve put my shoes, socks, coat, and glasses, and make sure my path is clear before going to bed. As a result, even if I still have a little bit of a hangover I can still get up and take the dog on his walk without any confusion.

The same goes for children. Having their clothes ready and their school materials by the door before they get up helps make their mornings so much easier. They’re less cranky, which I’m sure their teachers appreciate. Yes, this takes some planning and means one can’t just fall asleep anywhere. However, just five minutes of preparation before going to bed can reduce the stress of the morning significantly. Couldn’t we all do with a little stress right about now?

 

Plug Into The World

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

I am convinced that one of the biggest mistakes we can make is ignoring what is going on in the world. While we like to focus on ourselves, we must realize that we are all part of a much larger organism. Not only do our actions affect the world, the world also affects our actions. We need to pay attention to know that needs are direct involvement and for what we might passively await. Not doing can leave us disconnected and uninformed at some of the most important and critical moments of our lives.

For example, I was on the highway driving into downtown Atlanta when the tragedies of 9/11 occurred. Fear overwhelmed me when the second plane hit the World Trade Center. To keep my stomach from convulsing, I turned off the radio. At the moment, that seemed like the most intelligent thing to do. What I missed, though, was the information regarding possible targets in Atlanta. As a result, I parked in the tower at CNN as I almost always did when downtown. 20 minutes later, the tower was evacuated and no one was allowed to enter until several hours later. I was stuck in the middle of a developing tragedy with no way to get back home.

I know the news isn’t always pleasant and at the moment there is a lot of concern as to which news is true. Personally, I use Reuters and NPR as my primary sources in the morning. They come about as close as anyone to getting it right. Plug into the world so you can proceed with knowledge rather than ignorance.

 

Do Work That Means Something

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

Note immediately that I’m not necessarily talking about whatever one does for income. There are times in our lives, hopefully brief, where we take on work that is merely tolerable in order to secure the basic necessities of life. Regardless of how one feels about their occupation, though, one can still do work  that matters. We’re not necessarily talking about anything elaborate or glamorous. Caring for your children or elderly parents isn’t likely to win any civic humanitarian awards but is some of the most important work on the planet. Work that matters is rarely glamorous but society’s success depends on that work taking place.

Work of compassion, work that perhaps involves some sacrifice, work that serves others, work that heals, and so many other things are all work that matters. Work that creates beauty, opens doors for others to succeed, and in any way benefits humanity are worth every minute of time we give them. Toss in educating yourself and sharing your knowledge with others while you’re at it. You did not get where you are, you have not survived to this point, without someone else doing work that matters. Now it’s your turn. Make sure the work gets done.

 

Listen to music

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

To me, it just makes sense that music be a part of our lives. I can’t imagine a day going by without it. However, over the past 30+ years I’ve come across a surprising number of people who, for a variety of reasons, either didn’t or weren’t able to listen to music at any point during their day. None of those were happy people. They had a dim outlook on the world and their attitudes reflected that outlook.

Music’s benefit our lives is extremely well documented and there are so many sources now that it seems almost absurd, at least for those in the US, that anyone would have to go a single moment without music if they don’t want to. I think it can also be important to share music that means something to us. As well all listen to different genres and styles, there are some songs that reach deep into our souls. Sharing that music can be just the thing that helps someone else get through the day. So, in that spirit, here’s the playlist I’m listening to while writing this article:

Be A Pet Person

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

Everyone needs a pet. It doesn’t have to be furry, it doesn’t have to have legs, it simply is any animal that depends upon you for its care. Pets do this tricky thing where they allow us to think we’re providing a service for them when what is actually happening is that they’re providing a service for us. They’re giving us something to love, something toward which we can exercise compassion, a companion with whom we can share our deepest secrets.

Again, multiple studies have proven the psychological benefits of having pets. There are too many times when we don’t feel as though we can trust our fellow humans, but we can trust our pets. We perceive emotion coming from them when we fail to feel emotion from anyone else. Sure, some people have allergies to different types of pets, but I truly believe there is a pet out there, somewhere, for everyone. Give it a try. You might be surprised how attached one can become to a fish.

Don’t Be Afraid To Nap

charles i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

One of the things you’ll see on a lot of self-help lists is getting seven or eight hours of sleep per night. That’s nice, but for a lot of people that much down time in one setting just isn’t possible. There are clothes to wash, rooms to clean, and other matters that keep us up longer than we might wish. While consecutive hours of sleep is certainly ideal, when that is not possible there is absolutely no shame in taking a nap. Personally,  I hold two different spots in my schedule as options for napping. While I typically don’t need both of them, maintaining that option gives me the flexibility to attend to that need at the point it seems likely to do the most good.

What seems to be the biggest issue here is that we associate napping with being lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taking a short nap refreshes the mind and reinvigorates creativity to keep us going through the rest of the day. Naps can also play an important health role for anyone who might have heart or lung disease as the downtime allows our body a chance to recuperate from the exhaustion of activity. Don’t be afraid to give it a try. Just remember to set an alarm.

 

Love Someone

charels i. letbetter - better yourself, better the world

Note here that we’re not necessarily talking about romantic love, though I’m certainly not opposed to that. Romantic love can be difficult for some people to find, though, and even where it exists it can be fleeting and leave one empty. What’s more important is that we learn to love people in the non-romantic sense, caring about who they are as individuals simply because they are people. Showing compassion toward someone, giving of ourselves without expecting anything in return, exercising selflessness rather than selfishness are all ways of showing love to the people we have in our lives.

One example might be the conversations I have with the widowers in our neighborhood. I’m not sure why it is, but there is an unusually large number of widowers who live right around us. A couple of extended family, but three of them do not. They have no one. They’re all older, they all have dogs, and they all walk through the neighborhood on a daily basis, pretty much on the same schedule every day. Stepping outside to say hi, strike up a moments’ conversation, checking to make sure they’re doing okay, makes a visible difference in their lives. They frequently arrive with their head down but always leave with their head up, almost always smiling, and with a bit of spring in their step.

Loving people isn’t difficult when one removes the sexual relationship away from the equation. All we have to do is accept them as the humans they are and show compassion.  A few seconds of our time can make someone else’s entire day go better.

And there is where we begin to see the return. As we make our lives better, as we learn to love more people, to give of ourselves, we make a difference in the world. The one for whom we show compassion and kindness is more likely to share that compassion with someone else, creating a chain of humanity that compounds with every iteration. As we improve ourselves, we provide the seed for grown and progress around the globe.

No, we don’t always see the results right before our eyes. We rarely know the extent of the influence our actions have. However, to the extent we do good, both for ourselves and for others, we do good for the entire planet.

Very few people are satisfied with the world in its current state. Rather than complaining, however, perhaps we would do better to put our efforts more toward improving our own lives first.

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Current Issues  /  Social Commentary
5 Questions You Should Be Asking
November 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

Is unifying behind the president-elect something you can morally and ethically justify? Ask yourself these questions.

 

charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

I was chided by an acquaintance yesterday, someone who does not know me well at all, because my frequent use of the hashtag #NotMyPresident is not unifying. She is of the opinion that, with the election being over, we should all put aside our differences in the name of unity. She finds my unwillingness to do so to be shameful, despite the fact we agree on the issues over which I find myself unable to support the new administration.

Let me be clear that I do not, at this point, condone the many street protests that are taking place, either. The violence that occurred overnight in Portland, Oregon is especially inappropriate and unhelpful to any meaningful actions that might need to be taken. The president-elect, as unsavory as his election might be to millions of us, has not actually done anything yet that carries any substantial power. One of the reasons mainstream Republicans had difficulty supporting their nominee was because he has a long and well-documented history of saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. Until he proposes offensive rights-limiting legislation or, after being sworn in, commits acts of hate, street protests are meaningless and lack any authority.

However, that does not mean that unity behind this new administration is an option, either. For those who are considering abandoning their morals and ethics for the sake of unifying behind a president-elect who can’t be trusted, we strongly suggest you ask yourself these five questions.

1. Do you support sexual assault against women, diminishing the severity of rape, and perpetuating a culture of violence against women?

charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

Despite having won the election, the president-elect is still scheduled to go on trial December 16 for the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl. Let that sink in for a moment. While any rape is horrible, we’re talking about a 13-year-old. This is the shamefulness of the person who was elected president. To support him is to support his actions. Anyone who unifies behind this man is saying to all the little girls in the United States, “Hey, rape isn’t really all that bad.”

In addition to the rape charges, the president-elect is also facing numerous allegations of sexual assault. His response to those allegations was that he would sue the women making such statements once he is sworn in. Do you support victim blaming? You do if you plan on unifying behind this president.

The president-elect has an extremely misogynistic attitude toward women as demonstrated by his conversations not only during the campaign but across most of his public life. When Fox News anchor Megan Kelly questioned the nominee about his behavior, he called Kelly a “bimbo” among other things. His long history of insulting women is well documented and inexcusable.

Apparently, those facts don’t bother some people. If your morality and ethics are such that you can excuse and tolerate someone whose words and actions are actively and consistently anti-women, then you have elected someone who shares those values. For the rest of us, though, this is a disqualifier. We cannot and will not support anyone who does not treat women as equals for any reason. Therefore, we cannot and will not unify behind the president-elect.

 

2. Do you support the mistreatment, registration, and deportation of people based upon their religious beliefs?

charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

In a November 10, 2015 article, the New York Times reported that the then-candidate for president supported registration for all Muslims who reside in the United States. When asked how that different from Nazi registration of the Jews prior to the Holocaust, the candidate’s reply was, “You tell me.” He has also stated, in multiple interviews, that, “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.” As a candidate, the now president-elect has been extremely harsh in his words about Muslims, including the possibility of an open ban on any Muslims immigrating or even flying into the United States.

This rhetoric and attitude have had a devastating effect since the election. Repeatedly, Muslim women have reported having their hijabs yanked off their heads in public. American Muslims, people who were born and raised here just like the rest of us, no longer feel safe. Some of the most devout have even warned other women to not wear their hijabs for fear of violence against them. The hate perpetuated by the president-elect is very real.

Unifying behind this president-elect is showing support for this kind of hate, disregard for the religious freedoms of the First Amendment, and bigotry toward people simply based on their religion. Can you imagine the backlash that would happen if the same statements were made against Southern Baptists? Muslims have the exact same rights as Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, and every other religion in the United States. If you can’t deal with that, you need to find somewhere else to live. We’re not going to tolerate such hate toward our Muslim friends.

 

3. Do you support the denial of basic civil rights, including the right to marry, based on one’s sexual identity?

charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

Blame the vice president-elect for this one. As Governor of Indiana, he attempted to enact one of the most egregious and damaging anti-LGBTQ laws in the country. Hoosiers immediately revolted with industry from all over the world showing support by removing their business and conventions from the state.  The then-Governor was forced to back down and amend the law to protect everyone regardless of sexuality. However, as vice president-elect, he has made it very clear that this administration “will be anti-LGBTQ and anti-women.”

Once again, it is the attitude of the incoming administration that is setting off real violence in the streets. Tuesday evening, a Calgary film producer visiting Santa Monica, California, was beaten to a bloody pulp for being gay by supporters of the president-elect. Is this how it is going to be? Does anyone actually think we are making America great with this sort of behavior?

Our LGBTQ friends have made some great strides in terms of establishing their rights as citizens over the past eight years. Now, all those rights appear to be in jeopardy under this new administration with the vice-president leading the attack. There is no way anyone of reasonable mind can unify behind a government that fails to condemn hate and is threatening to remove the rights of people based upon their sexuality. We are morally and ethically required to fight against any such activity.

 

4.Can you support a president who shows complete disdain and disrespect for people of color?

charles i. letbetter - 5 questions you should be asking

Someone apparently failed to tell the president-elect that white people no longer make up a majority of the U. S. population. Here are just a sampling of his documented statements about people of color:

“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” (source)

“Laziness is a trait in blacks.” (source)

“And if you look at black and African American youth, to a point where they’ve never done more poorly. There’s no spirit.” (source)

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.” (source)

The list could go on and on for days. The fact is that if you’re not as pasty white as he is, the president-elect has no respect for you. None. In fact, one of his primary goals within his first 100 days is to enact legislation that would provide inner-city police more powerful weapons in dealing with alleged crime and violence in urban neighborhoods. If you thought police violence against people of color was bad before, it could get a lot worse under this administration.

“Black Lives Matter” is not an opinion. We cannot unify behind a president who does not protect the best interests of people of color, who does not respect their lives and their contributions to the fabric of our country.

5. Do you support the denial of health and reproductive rights to women?

charles i. letbetter - 4 questions you should be asking

We’ve already established that this administration is anti-women, but what matters now is that the entire political structure in Washington is ready to wage a full-scale war against women. Over the past six years, the Republican-controlled Congress has tried repeatedly to limit, freeze, or completely destroy funding for women’s healthcare, especially when that healthcare involves a matter of choice. With the election of this new president, all legislative roadblocks that prevented Congress from achieving their evil plans are removed. Women across the United States are in grave danger.

Healthcare is a tremendously serious issue for women, especially when it comes to pregnancy and child care. Thanks to increased insurance coverage and support for non-profits such as Planned Parenthood, the United State’s unreasonable high rate of infant mortality has gone down in recent years. Make no mistake, however, that should the funding for those programs be removed, which would happen if both the president-elect and Republican-controlled Congress get their way, those deadly numbers would once again skyrocket. More women would die in childbirth. More women would have unplanned pregnancies. More babies would die from disease and distress before they are one year old. More women would die of cancer because they wouldn’t have access to early treatment programs. The devastation across our country would be severe.

I understand that not everyone agrees on a woman’s right to choose. Most of those who fail to agree on that topic, however, are men, who have no right to even have a voice in the conversation. Women alone should be in control of their bodies. Government has no business telling them what to do and men, especially, have to business trying to force women to do what they’re told. To remove funding for women’s healthcare is a form of legislative rape. Congress has already proven its willingness to commit, if not outright fondness for rape against women’s rights. Now, they have a president willing to sign that legislation into law.

I cannot fathom how any person with the ability to reason above the level of a six-year-old can support or unify behind such intent. To unify behind the president-elect on this issue is to stand up and tell the world that you hate women. There is no excuse. There can be no tolerance. We cannot unify behind such policies and we must do everything in our power to keep them from becoming law.

I could take this list on and on forever, but I don’t have time to type it all and you probably wouldn’t read the whole thing if I did. Five questions are sufficient enough for anyone to decide whether or not they can morally and ethically justify unifying behind this president-elect. I know I can’t. On each of these issues and more I plan on remaining very diligent, very vocal, and very adamant about stopping any moves on the part of this new administration that in any way threatens my family, my friends, or my freedom of expression. As long as the threat remains, there can be no unity.

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Would You Kill Baby Hitler?
November 10, 2016
charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

In the aftermath of one of the worst electoral decisions ever, what is the most appropriate way to respond?

 

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

The question is one familiar to anyone who as ever taken a freshman-level ethics or philosophy course in college: If you could go back in time and kill baby Adolf Hitler in his crib, would you? The question caused some turmoil about this same time last year when the question was asked of then-presidential-candidate Jeb Bush. He applied in the affirmative, stating, “Of course.” The assumption is that if the infant were eliminated, then the lives of six million Holocaust victims, in addition to some 60 million others who died in WWII, might be spared.

While such thinking is understandable—who wouldn’t want to save millions of lives?—most ethicists agree that eliminating the infant from history is wrong because he has not yet done anything wrong. Specific acts and decisions made later in his life warranted his complete destruction, but as an infant, there is always the chance that he might never take those actions. I know that answer can be difficult to swallow, so let Rabbi Benjamin Blech  put it in more direct terms:

A baby has the potential to be saint or sinner. No judgment can ever be made until the choice is actualized. Baby Hitler cannot be killed retroactively – not only because we can’t be sure of the outcome but because even God only executes judgment when human free will has actually chosen the path of evil.

But please do not be misled and conclude that the decision not to kill baby Hitler is predicated on any suicidal kind of compassion. Do not attempt to apply this to the contemporary reality of barbaric terrorism in Israel today. Do not, as some respondents have suggested, assert that from an ethical perspective no one is ever justified in killing another human being. That is not true. Once baby Hitler or any of his disciples make clear the path they have chosen, the Torah makes equally clear they must be stopped, even if in the process they are killed. The Talmud teaches, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up early and slay him first” (Brachot 58a). As the Torah makes clear (Exodus 22:1) someone who is a threat to life has forfeited his claim to life and to the compassion we are commanded to display to those who equally value its right for others.

Simplified, the correct answer on the test is that killing the infant makes you the monster. However, killing the man, especially after 1943, makes you a hero. Once a monster has identified itself as a monster, then all options are open.

 

Have We Elected A Monster?

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

I watched some of the shaky, hand-held footage of protest marches in various cities last night. I suppose that, in some way, they might have been cathartic for some, especially younger voters who hadn’t had their electoral hopes dashed and obliterated before. At the same time, however, five people were shot during the protest in Seattle. While police there say the shooting had nothing to do with the protest itself, it does comment on how ready we are to take matters into our own hands, whether justified  or not. There are more than a few people willing to eliminate the president- and vice president-elect before they ever have the chance to prove themselves monsters.

Granted, a monster is what we’re expecting. Among the list of things the president-elect has said he will do in his first 100 days in office are some pretty horrible things:

  • lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
  • lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
  • cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure
  • cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
  • begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
  • suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
  • School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice
  • Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds.
  • End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border
  • Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police

What Does Any Of This Actually Mean?

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

The New York Times is running a story this morning that addresses the anxiety felt by blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims. The president-elect’s’ 100-day plan threatens to affect them the most. Threats of deportation, a “rounding up” of illegal immigrants bring to mind images of the POW camps in which Asian citizens were held during World War II. Worries of corruption within the system, which are likely valid, families being split apart, and a shifting definition of “extreme vetting” are not small issues.

If the president-elect is successful in carrying out all the steps in his plan, he could set off a global humanitarian crisis, something that has international leaders worried. The world is not ready to begin accepting refugees from the United States at the volume being proposed. Europe especially is still reeling from trying to handle Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees fleeing far worse conditions in their home countries. Those being forced to leave here are likely to be told, “Wait in line,” by even their home countries. Abuse, neglect, and possibly even torture could be the result.

The human toll from climate and science denial is more difficult to calculate but is almost certainly an even larger disaster. From protests at Standing Rock to the increasing severity of earthquakes in Oklahoma and the death of coral reefs off the coasts of Florida, the potential for catastrophic disaster resulting from the president-elect’s stated plan could impact tens of millions of Americans. The challenge is that we’re not likely to see that effect hit us in one single event. We’ve already become complacent to oil spills. We decried the pollution of Detroit’s drinking water but have done nothing to prevent it from happening elsewhere.

Environmental impact happens over time. Like the proverbial frog in a pot of water, we don’t realize the danger until it’s too late to backtrack. If we are not ardently proactive in the protection of our planet and natural resources, by the time we actually see the danger and feel the results of bad policy it will be too late to do anything about it. We have to act in advance of a disaster we have yet to see.

At the same time, the president-elect’s policies on education mean a return to segregation not only in terms of race but social class as well. By allowing public funds to go to private education, funding for public education is gutted. Urban schools, especially, are the ones who suffer the most. Children in the poorest neighborhoods have fewer choices, are left with lower-quality schools that have the least amount of funding. “White flight” is an educational reality in environments where there are no restrictions on where parents send their children to school. Racism, elitism, and severe social ignorance is the result.

Continued militarization of police appears to be the threat seen in the Task Force on Violent Crime. Again, racial overtones dominate this conversation as charges of excessive use of force occur more frequently in predominantly black and native-American neighborhoods than others.

The human toll of repealing the health care laws will be catastrophic, but no one will pay attention because it affects primarily poor people, for whom most of America doesn’t care in the first place. Wait for it, though, your Facebook feed is about to become inundated with GoFundMe requests as desperate parents look for funding to help pay their child’s medical expenses. You won’t give, but you’ll send the parents your prayers and thoughts. I’m sure that will be enough to save their child.

This is the danger that begins January 21, 2017

Unity Is Not An Option

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

Immediately, even before the final results were announced early Wednesday morning, there were people calling for unity. Becoming united, we are told, is the only way we can heal. President Obama stated, “We all want the same thing.”

No, Mr. President, we do not. Some of us want a country where everyone is free to be who they are, regardless of creed, color, ethnicity, sexual preference, country of origin, gender identity, or religious preference. Unfortunately, the part of the country that elected this new president wants something different. They want an all-white, all-Christian, all-straight, non-immigrant America. I do not apologize in the least for not having the slightest intention of unifying with that kind of hate.

Unity is not an option. Perhaps the biggest mistake the people of Germany made was unifying behind a mad man. Their vocal support is what gave him the unilateral power to do the horrible things that he did. Would he have executed millions had Germans marched on Berlin? Would Hitler have annexed Poland and Austria had the people of Germany stood up against his growing fascism? While it is, to a large degree, pointless to presume the outcome of something that did not happen, we can be certain that a more divided Germany might have at least slowed the actions of the horrific monster leading them.

Instead, the need now is to make our objections so very loud, so very obvious, that those in Congress and the White House cannot ignore them. Our response to proposals that threaten our neighbors and our loved ones must be overwhelming, knowing full well that we will be met with the shouts of those who voted in favor of this disastrous situation. There are those who want immigrants and anyone who does not fit their idea of an ideal American to not only leave, but to suffer while doing so. They will attempt to yell just as loud, wave their flags just as high, and influence those for whom they voted. We must counter them every step of the way.

Taking Advantage Of The System

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

Those who stand in opposition to the president-elect and whatever administration he might try to form have ways and means of leveraging the system to help mitigate and perhaps even stop the actions attempted by Washington.  We don’t have to re-create our government in order to change it. Rather, our founding fathers somehow had the foresight to instill within our Constitutions the means for opposing the efforts of a reckless government.

First of all, remember that we do not have to wait  four years to render this new administration as lame. The entire House of Representatives comes up for re-election in 2018. Every last seat.  We can replace them. We must replace them. By removing Republicans from office, we remove the President’s rubber stamp on the legislation required to move his plans forward. This is very much within our power to achieve, but we must begin focusing and planning toward that goal now. We cannot offer the same, corporate-bought, self-serving politicians that have dominated Congress the past 60 years. We have to select and campaign and vote for a different kind of representative that has a backbone to stand up to the President and his administration, to say no not only to the President but to special interests, and to take away the authoritarian power of this mad man. That implies, of course, that we actually vote in off-season elections, something for which Americans are not known for doing.

Second, keep in mind that Constitutional amendments don’t just “happen.” There has been a lot of talk in the campaign about removing some amendments and replacing them with others. Fortunately, the Constitution doesn’t make that process easy. Any new amendment would have to pass both houses of Congress by a TWO-THIRDS majority, something that is not likely to happen as long we are holding our elected representatives accountable. Then, if by some chance an amendment manages to actually make its way out of Congress, it must then be ratified by TWO-THIRDS of the states. WE have the power to stop amendments at that point simply by refusing to allow the amendment to come to a vote. The Supreme Court sets a time limit, typically seven years, for states to ratify an amendment. If the amendment is not ratified within that period of time, it is dead. We have plenty of power to stop whatever destructive Constitutional amendment might be proposed.

Third, take to heart the fact that the president-elect did NOT win the popular vote. The majority of Americans do not want him as president. Factor in the third-party and write-in votes and the opposition to the new ego-in-chief is substantial. We should not and cannot waste this power. We are greater in number, we hold the real majority, and we have to make our demands known and unnegotiable to our elected officials.

Don’t Wait Until The Next Election

charles i. letbetter - would you kill baby hitler

We cannot afford to wait until the  next election before making bold, obvious, and decisive moves against the actions of the President-elect. Turn your anger and disappointment into action and do something that can make a difference.

One thing you can probably do right now is supporting those organizations who are already engaged in the fight. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already committed to holding the administration’s feet to the fire on civil rights causes. There are plenty of others who do good work as well. You don’t have to give a lot, perhaps the price of one latte a month, to make a lot of difference in the ongoing battle of injustice. Here are some you might want to consider:

If you can, consider doing more than making a donation. Volunteer your time as they help fight the fascism that now looms large over us.

You can also become directly involved in changing the shape and structure of the Democratic party. Many feel that they let us down this election. I will not argue that point. However, YOU can change that by participating directly in the party’s activities. Let’s be real: Third parties struggle to even get on the ballot in most states, let alone create any kind of actual power and authority in Washington. Ours is, for better or worse, a two-party system. Grab hold of the Democratic party NOW and make sure what happened in this election doesn’t happen again. If you live in Indiana, go to http://www.indems.org/ and find your local county party. Get involved right there, with your neighbors (the ones who are against hate) and make a difference in the shape of the party. The county level is where the action starts. Get involved.

Finally, stay involved in the conversations on social media. One of the things the president-elect did quite effectively was leveraging the use of Twitter. Twitter use also exploded Tuesday evening as election results came in. At the moment #TwitterBlackout, which involves changing your profile picture to a black square, is resonating on both Twitter and Facebook. One of the things we are learning is that politicians  pay more attention to what is happening on social media as they do other forms of communication. Use this to your advantage. Do not let up the pressure. Writing and calling is still good, but what you say, the messages you leave, the people you tag on social media are more likely to get your representative’s attention.

Are we about to experience our own version of a Presidential monster? Metaphorically, the president-elect is still the baby in the bassinet. He does not yet have any real power. His decisions can still be swayed and likely will. We all know there is a difference between campaign rhetoric and any actual outcome. We can stand opposed to what has been proposed, but until definitive action takes place we cannot kill the baby.

And we don’t want to kill the baby. Ideally, cooler, calmer heads prevail, no one’s rights are destroyed, and no lives are damaged. There is still the chance that could happen. Our job now is to wait, to watch, and to make every effort possible to make sure that baby does not become a murderous monster.

The power is yours. Use it.

Bodypaint for the pictures in this article was done by Pashur House in March, 2008 and does not imply any endorsement on the part of Mr. House with the statements above.

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Things That Make Me Want To Scream
November 9, 2016
charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

I have yet to actually lift my head up and scream, but after yesterday’s staggering results I reserve the right to do so repeatedly

 

charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

I had to take a break from my vain attempt to keep up with world reactions to yesterday’s disgusting election results. Not only have we elected the embodiment of hate to both the positions of President and Vice President, we have armed them with a Republican-controlled Congress and an increase in the number of Republican governors scattered across the nation. While I know that some see this as a good thing, for people of reasons this is a very dangerous event with global ramifications. However, I had to take a break.

You see, we have a dog. We recently put a fence around the entire yard so that the dog, who is a mix of hunting breeds, would have plenty of room to run without having to be on a leash. He loves it out there. The downside is that he tends to be a little aggressive toward anyone who isn’t me. While he’s never bitten anyone hard enough to break the skin, he does have an awesome takedown move. Once you’re down, he’s not letting you back up until I come to your rescue. So, I needed to put “Beware of Dog” signs out on the fence, just to be safe. This is part of being a reasonably responsible dog owner.

Given yesterday’s election results, I’m wondering if we might not do well to place a series of “Beware of Politicians” signs around our country to other countries, businesses, and would-be immigrants can be informed and take evasive action if necessary. Such a move would seem to be the responsible thing to do.

Beware Of Falling Economy

 

charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

Not everyone had finished voting last night before the global markets started getting the jitters. When the Asian markets opened around 10:00 PM Tuesday evening, currency was what took the biggest hit as both the dollar and the Mexican peso suffered on the uncertainty that the election might introduce a slew of unknown factors to the market. Markets prefer to maintain the status quo. Disruption is met with negativity and values decline sharply as a result.

Among the biggest points that have global analysts screaming is the fear that the new President could embolden Iran’s hardliners.  This could lead to further instability in the Middle East and might possibly threaten the fragile Iranian nuclear deal. Continued instability worries investors as the price and availability of energy resources, specifically oil, has the ability to immediately impact markets, driving costs well out of anticipated range with no warning.

At the same time, Wall Street economists are concerned that the new administration might make changes to the Federal Reserve that would remove its autonomy from political influence. Such changes would further erode trust in and the power of the Fed, which in turn could trigger yet another global recession. Stability, again, is what the markets need and the threat of significant change at the Fed could send much-needed investment funds looking elsewhere.

While we’re over-simplifying some very detailed topics, the screaming point is this new administration has absolutely zero experience in monetary policy and the President himself has a proven record of failed business dealings and bankruptcies that erode faith in his ability to appoint staff capable of keeping things calm and moving forward. Recession could hit quickly and painfully once he is in office.

Danger: War Is Knocking

 

charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

The concerned was raised in Europe a couple of days before the election. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) put 300,000 ground troops on alert as fears of Russian aggression are growing significantly. The move represents a return to Cold War status for European NATO troops as Russian propaganda, a build-up of Russian forces along NATO borders, and aggression in places such as Syria remind long-memoried Europeans of the Soviet threat after World War II.

Now, add in that whole Iran nuclear deal thing, the situations in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, and other hotspots, and mix those with campaign rhetoric that has threatened to not honor the NATO treaties while making friends with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and one can see where our allies might not be feeling all that confident about our ability to keep the peace. In fact, there is more than a little worry that a shift in US policy might actually support Putin rather than trying to keep him and Russia in place.

All this comes on top of concerns about Daesh and Al Queda having possibly infiltrated the United States. As the father of an active-duty U.S. Marine, the proximity to war we now face has me worried not only for my safety but that of my son as well. Should something happen to him as the result of an unjust or politically-motivated war, I will not be forgiving.

Warning: Freedom of Expression At Risk

 

charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

The back-stepping has already started. A number of news and media outlets did not take it easy on the Republican campaign. The Huffington Post even went so far as to include the following statement at the end of each article about our new President-elect:

“Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.”

Care to guess what is being retracted today? HuffPo’s editors claim that their move is an effort to start the new Presidency with a “clean slate” and give him a chance. However, in a campaign that was filled with direct threats to members of the media, insults toward reporters, and a general lack of cooperation with and respect for the press, There aren’t too many people feeling as though criticizing the new President and/or his administration is going to be met with the usual denials and rebuttals. Just a few weeks ago, National Press Club president Thomas Burr criticized the Republican campaign for “journalist intimidation.” The insults and direct attacks against the news media and press have been unrelenting.

Now, the person at the heart of those attacks is, somehow, President-elect. Does anyone trust that the rough rhetoric of the campaign will just go away? Of course not! Instead, what we anticipate is a lack of journalistic access to the White House that we’ve not seen since the Nixon administration. Our reasonable fear is that anyone who dares to openly criticize the President might face a personal lawsuit, which, justified or not, no journalist can afford to fight.

We have fought long and hard for freedom of expression. The right of citizens to know everything their government is doing is inalienable. Without the press, a democracy quickly falls to a dictator. We are in grave danger.

Beware: Hate Is Claiming A Victory

 

charles i. letbetter - things that make me want to scream

This one may be what causes me to tear out my hair and do damage to my vocal cords. The instant media outlets declared that the Republican nominee had more than the required 270 electoral votes, former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, said, “Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!” Never mind that the President-elect’s campaign officially distanced itself from the KKK and any other recognized hate group that tried to ride campaign coattails. No one ever believed those denials were sincere in the first place. Hate has always been standing right next to the Republican nominee as evidenced by his choice of running mates.

Of course, not all hate groups look like hate groups. The Washington Post ran an article this morning regarding the overwhelming role of specifically white evangelicals in electing the new President. They may not look like a hate group, but these are the people who have marginalized LGBTQ people for years. Evangelists such as Pat Robinson have vilified any and every Democrat they’ve come across. These are the same people who have spent the past eight years ridiculously attempting to accuse President Obama of being a Muslim. They are bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, nationalistic, racist, and classist in the worst possible way.

Understand, none of these radicals may actually take an official seat in a cabinet post, but be sure that they are there, talking, advising the new President, and making sure that hate remains a part of the new administration’s agenda.

Who does this put at risk? Women. People of color. Immigrants. Children. The elderly. The poor. The homeless. Science. Reason. Our allies. The planet.

We have given power to the most ignorant, the most hateful, the most prejudiced, the most selfish, and the most diabolical group of people to ever set foot in our nation’s capitol. The dangers are very real. Ignore the warnings at your own peril.

I think we’re going to need more signs. And I still reserve the right to scream.

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Art  /  Photography  /  Social Commentary
The Best Cure For Election Stress Disorder
November 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

Election Stress Disorder is a real thing plaguing at least half of US citizens.

The American Psychological Association’s advice is to stay away from politics and find a distraction. We have your distraction.

You can read more about ESD here.

 

charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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chares i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter- election stress disorder

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charles i. letbetter - election stress disorder

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Advertising  /  Fashion  /  Social Commentary
Personalized Shopping Could Get A Bit Creepy
October 24, 2016
charles i. letbetter - personalized shopping

I’m a champion for personal differences. All society should be much more personalized. —George M. Church

 

charles i. letbetter - personalized shopping could get a bit creepy

Having your total shopping experienced personalized to you sounds like a good thing until you read the small print

Please allow me to paint a scenario for you.

Imagine that you woke up this morning with a bit of a sniffle. As the seasons change, your allergies are acting up a bit; nothing serious but you should probably pick up some over-the-counter medication on your way to work. You down a cup of coffee and toast a bagel before heading out the door. Stopping at the convenient drug store just down the street, you pick up the allergy medication and your favorite candy bar. Work is stressful, as Mondays so often are, and you welcome the chance to get out of the office at lunch time. You decide to do a little shopping to cheer yourself up.

Walking into a department store just two doors down from your office, the first thing you see are some cute sweaters that would be perfect for wearing to work. You look for the price and a small LED screen tells you the sweater is 50% off the regular price. You can’t beat a deal like that. As you pick up a sweater in your size, your favorite song comes on the store’s music system. Paying for the sweater with the store’s credit card generates another 10% off the price and you’re beginning to feel as though this was  a great bargain. The clerk hands you the receipt and on the back is a coupon for a bag full of your favorite candy bar.

You have just enough time to grab something to eat and when you enter the sidewalk cafe the waiter immediately suggests the vegetable soup, emphasizing its healthy properties. Finished with the soup, you return to work and get a call from your trainer at the gym. He suggests you stop by on your way home because, you know, Mondays are so very stressful.

A Highly Personalized Life

According to Joseph Turow, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, that highly personalized life experience is possibly less than a year away. His upcoming book, The Aisles Have Eyes comes out in January and covers the details of how and why all this personalization is happening. In an interview with Kaveh Waddell for The Atlantic magazine, Turow explains not only the upside of personalization but also the creepy dangers of living in such a connected world. Walking into a store and immediately finding what you want at a price you can afford sounds wonderful, but the details behind how that happens can be a bit disconcerting.

Of course, most of us already know that everything we do online is being tracked dozens of different ways. Every website you visit, every click you make, every product over which you briefly drool is noticed by something, somewhere, and that information is stored in a database for later influence. As a result, when another website feels the time is right, an ad pops up for that exact same product, touting a new, lower price. We get it. We know we’re being watched and our data is being collected.

What we’ve not realized, perhaps, is that it is not just our online activity that is being tracked. Everything we do is being noted by some app connected to some database. Our cell phones are most often the culprit. One app recognizes a sneeze and knows you may need coupons for a cold medicine. Another notices that you are driving more aggressively to work, indicating that you’re likely stressed even before you get there. Four different apps notice the purchase you make at the drug store and send an alert to the waiter at the cafe you just entered, suggesting that you might like the soup. It’s all possible, right now.

Nothing You Do Is Secret

Author George Orwell warned us about the constant oversight of a government he referred to as “Big Brother.” What Orwell didn’t imagine is that we would have apps and “reward” cards that collect far more information about us and our habits than his “Big Brother” could ever dream. Even more astonishing to Orwell is that we would hand over such information willingly. No one requires us to download the apps or accept the “reward” cards. We do so in the hopes of perhaps getting a bit of a discount on the things we buy.

Is a 10% discount worth giving up a lot of privacy? Apparently, we tend to think so. Rarely does anyone opt out of information gathering, especially once they’ve started using a program. For example, I just received my AARP card last week because I’m even older than Luke Perry. The card comes with a long list of “benefits” that include discounts for a lot of the things old people like me are apparently supposed to do, such as eat out and take trips. I read the small print, though. Anytime I use the card for a discount, AARP collects that information. They note not only which restaurant I dine at, but how much I spend. If I eat at a chain facility in multiple cities, that gets noticed as well. Over time, they are able to build a profile of my activities, which in turn, allows them to better “personalize” my “benefits.”

Do I mind AARP having that information? Not especially, because the presumption is that they use the information to my benefit. However, they also sell that information to “partners.” I would like to presume that those “partners” are equally safe, but how would we know? What are my options if one of those “partners” uses that information to start sending me spam? What if my health insurance rates go up because they see that what I’m eating probably isn’t helping my blood pressure a damn bit? Yeah, we might have a problem here.

The Potential For Abuse

While we all like the convenience of having everything personalized for us, the reality is that the information we give up could be used against us as well. From the article comes this question and answer:

Waddell: Is it legal for an advertiser or a retailer to decide, based on someone’s profile, like their race, that they’re higher risk and perhaps not show them certain goods?

Turow: Sure! Of course. They’ll never say that it’s because of race—and they wouldn’t do it just because of race. They’d do it because of, say, income. If you have the money, it doesn’t matter what race you are, from their standpoint—but race gets built in by virtue of where people live, their income brackets, and other things that are much less obvious.

I think age is going to be a major factor. It already is, among retailers. Income is going to be a big factor. And things that we don’t even think about, various concatenations of lifestyles that lead to certain predictions about what you will or will not read, or when you will or will not take a vacation, or if you will or will not have certain frequent-flier miles.

The ability to run through thousands of datapoints about you and compare them with thousands of datapoints about people you don’t even know, and then come up with a sense of what you will buy or not buy at what price: That’s the goal. The goal is to come up with a price for you that you accept based on the product they think you would want.

Personalization is great when it works in your favor, but we have to remember that all businesses need to make a profit. Therefore, they’re inherently going to look for ways to turn everything in their favor more than ours. If that means denying some people access to certain goods and services, then that is exactly what they’re going to do.

The Internet Of Things

Kat and I were watching last night’s episode of Madame Secretary before she left for school this morning. As part of the storyline where the family is being stalked, all of their “smart” appliances are hacked. The family becomes frightened when they realize that not even the presence of a physical security detail can protect them from someone taking control of the lights, the heat, and the appliances in their home.

When you hear people talking about “The Internet of Things,” they’re talking about how everything in our lives is becoming interconnected. Our appliances, the lights in our house, the heat, our phones, our insurance, and our shopping. Everything we do becomes a datapoint somewhere that connects to something else that connects to somewhere else. So, if your income is low and you show a history of having difficulty paying your bills, maybe an app starts shutting off the lights rather than leaving them on for hours on end, or adjusts the thermostat so you use less energy. Maybe your local grocery won’t sell you that big box of fried pies because they know you’re borderline diabetic. Perhaps the price on that pair of boots you like suddenly shoots up and is now more than you have the ability to cover.

Even worse, as events last week demonstrated, what happens when all our data gets hacked? There is no such thing as a totally safe database. That means the more information we allow people to collect, the more at risk we are of that information being stolen and used against us.

No, that’s not creepy at all, is it? Get ready, though. I don’t see any way to stop this phenomenon from happening,  short of everyone on the planet unplugging and going back to binary means of commerce. Something tells me none of us are willing to do that. So, bend over and lube up. We’re not only getting screwed, we’re asking for it. Don’t worry, though; it’s all personalized.

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science  /  Social Commentary
Creatives & Addiction: Rethinking Our Approach
October 22, 2016

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism. —Carl Jung

 

charles i. letbetter - creative & addiction: re-thinking our approach

Recent changes in the definition of addiction should have us re-thinking how we respond to addicts. [photo concept and makeup by Sasha Starz]

I’m not sugar-coating this one for you: addiction among creatives is too common and too frequently undiagnosed. Even when it is diagnosed, it has previously been almost impossible to “cure.” Some handle it better than others, but we’ve lost too many, from Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse and, apparently, even Prince. And those are just the names you recognize. I’ve seen addiction in photographers old and young, ruining creative lives before their full vision is ever realized. Writers seem to be especially prone to addiction. I’ve had several tell me they couldn’t even start to write without being high or being drunk.

I’ve always taken a hard line in my attitude toward addicts. I don’t like them. I don’t want them around. Addiction is something I’ve always seen as a weakness, a fundamental flaw in one’s character. If you know you have a problem with something, stay away. Understanding how anything can control someone to such a fatal degree is not something I’ve been able to do. I try to be sympathetic for those struggling, but I tend to blame them for their own problems.

Now, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)  has me re-thinking my disdain for addicts. As it turns out, taking such a hard line has probably been exactly the opposite of what those people have needed. Shoving them into rehab facilities might not have been as productive as we thought. 12-step groups could possibly be completely misdirected.

Maybe we were all wrong.

A New Definition

Addiction is a chronic brain disorder and not simply a behavior problem involving alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex.  That’s the direction the ASAM is now taking in regard to addiction. Stop and think about that for a moment. Addiction is a chronic brain disorder. Let that sink in. All these years, we’ve been looking at addiction as a character flaw, perhaps a psychological psychosis brought about by some childhood trauma or something. We have ultimately looked at addiction as a choice one makes and faulted them for making that choice.

Here’s the first part of the ASAM’s short definition of addiction:

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.

Make special note of the use of the word “chronic.” That’s important. “Chronic” puts addiction is the same class as heart disease and diabetes. “Chronic” means that it’s not going to go away. Either one deals with addiction their entire life, religiously, continually, or they risk dying. There is no cure. There is only treatment and without that treatment, the disease gets worse.

Obviously, there’s some disagreement with this definition. Therapeutical psychologists, the folks who make their living getting one to lie on their couch at $500 an hour, don’t care much for this definition because it means their attempts to treat addiction as a psychosis is misdirected. One is not an addict because their father slapped them when they were four-years-old or because they didn’t get the bicycle they wanted when they were seven. Instead, genetic factors are responsible about half the time. We’ve been looking at this totally wrong.

A Personal Story

Mark Cummings was one of the best young photographers I ever knew. We first met out on assignment, both of us covering the same event for different entities. He was sharp, funny, and had an incredible eye for seeing things that everyone else was missing. He noticed, for example, that one particular Senator from Oklahoma always had his shoes untied. Always. He caught the look of burnout in a young pop star whose label was pushing her too hard. Mark infuriated editors because he didn’t capture the image they wanted to see. Instead, he captured a dark reality that was unnerving.

Mark also had an addiction to alcohol. He carried a flask of whiskey in his camera bag. Always. He would have another in his car, a third in his suitcase, and kept a bottle hidden in his office. Mark started the day with  a shot of whiskey in his coffee, then dropped the coffee by 10. In the three years that I knew him, I don’t think I ever saw him sober. He was functional. He took fantastic pictures. Mark Cummings was never sober.

Cummings wasn’t one to admit he’d had too much. Truth was, most days he was over the legal blood alcohol limit by noon. One evening, after being yelled at for over an hour by his editor for “wasting” five rolls of film and not getting anything printable, Mark was “extra thirsty.” When I saw him, he was already six glasses in. I stayed for two more and tried to get him to share the cab ride home with me. He wouldn’t leave.

I received the phone call early the next day. About three hours after I left, and who knows how much more whiskey, Mark put his head down on the bar, fell off his bar stool, and died from alcohol poisoning. Another brilliant photographer, gone.

Understanding The Problem

Again, quoting from the long definition of addiction from the ASAM:

 Addiction affects neurotransmission and interactions within reward structures of the brain, including the nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate cortex, basal forebrain and amygdala, such that motivational hierarchies are altered and addictive behaviors, which may or may not include alcohol and other drug use, supplant healthy, self-care related behaviors. Addiction also affects neurotransmission and interactions between cortical and hippocampal circuits and brain reward structures, such that the memory of previous exposures to rewards (such as food, sex, alcohol and other drugs) leads to a biological and behavioral response to external cues, in turn triggering craving and/or engagement in addictive behaviors.

Understand, two decades of neurological research have gone into formulating this definition. Mark, along with every other creative addict we’ve known, was repeatedly told he had “a problem.” What he should have been told was that he had a neurological disease, one for which there is no cure, only treatment. I can’t say that would have saved Mark. He was stubborn, as a log of addicts are. It would  have, however, made a difference in how everyone responded to him.

The causes of addiction are worth noting as well. Again, from ASAM:

When persons with addiction manifest problems in deferring gratification, there is a neurological locus of these problems in the frontal cortex. Frontal lobe morphology, connectivity and functioning are still in the process of maturation during adolescence and young adulthood, and early exposure to substance use is another significant factor in the development of addiction. Many neuroscientists believe that developmental morphology is the basis that makes early-life exposure to substances such an important factor.

There’s a lot more that I encourage you to read on the ASAM website.

Our Response Is Part Of The Solution

Dr. Michael Miller, past president of ASAM who oversaw the development of the new definition, states, “… we have to stop moralizing, blaming, controlling or smirking at the person with the disease of addiction, and start creating opportunities for individuals and families to get help and providing assistance in choosing proper treatment.”

When I think of all the times we’ve gotten it wrong, I want to cry. We blamed Mark for being a drunk, for not taking responsibility for his “habit.” His boss tried to control Mark’s drinking by pairing him with writers who would confiscate any alcohol they found. People would laugh at him when he couldn’t stand or took pictures too blurred to tell what they were. Every last one of those responses was wrong.

We have to change our way of thinking about addiction. If someone has a stroke you don’t laugh at them, do you? Should a friend you’re with suddenly have a heart attack, are you going to tell them they need to do something about that problem and walk away? No, you help them get help. Addicts are exactly the same. While the choice to get help is ultimately their own, we have to guide them toward professionals who genuinely understand the problem. While a 12-step program might help, they need a lot more than just a weekly meeting or two.

The ASAM states:

Recovery from addiction is best achieved through a combination of self-management, mutual support, and professional care provided by trained and certified professionals.

Each year, we lose too many wonderfully creative people to addiction. Help them get help. The ASAM can help connect you or a friend with the appropriate professional. Let’s stop treating addiction as just “a problem” and treat it like the disease that it is. Let’s do more to save our addicted friends. The world needs their creativity.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
I Think It’s About Forgiveness
October 21, 2016
charles i. letbetter - i think it's about forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. —Mahatma Gandhi

 

charles i. letbetter - i think it's about forgiveness

Forgiveness is never easy, but it is forgiving ourselves that is perhaps the most difficult task of all.

Forgiveness is a challenging topic, and a rather sobering one for a Friday. Normally, I try to keep things a bit lighter as we head into the weekend, but my instinct, or my gut, or whatever you want to call that nagging voice in the back of my head tells me to go with it. We need forgiveness and we especially need to forgive ourselves.

This is important. I want my boys to see this not because of anything they’ve done but because, as humans, they will inevitably do something that lingers on their conscience. Forgiving ourselves is a lesson we are challenged to learn because we must first have a reason to learn it, and that reason is often painful.

Also, before we get too deep into the conversation, I want you to know that the examples I use here are intentionally fictional. I’m not throwing anyone under the bus, so to speak, and I’m certainly not inclined to make any great confessions of my own faults. Confession is good for the soul, but not for the Internet.

Let’s start, however, by taking a look at a new short film by the folks at Pixar. This isn’t the same fun, cheerful, feel-good type of film we usually see from the animation company. What we see here strikes a dark tone and, honestly, I’m not sure I would recommend it for young children unless you are ready, as a parent, to hold a serious conversation. The film runs a little over six minutes. Take a look:

Borrowed Time from Borrowed Time on Vimeo.

[This video source doesn’t always scale well for some mobile devices. If you’re having difficulty viewing the video, you can find the original on Vimeo]

We’ve All Been There, Sort Of

Borrowed Time is one of those poignant little films that one almost wishes were longer, but at the same time we’re rather glad it isn’t. Emotion that strong carried out for the length of a feature film would be difficult for a lot of people to handle. The short film is challenging enough. The producers behind the film wanted to quickly, briefly, drive home the point that it’s not only okay to forgive ourselves, but that forgiveness is necessary if we are to continue living.

We’ve been there. Okay, perhaps we didn’t accidentally kill our fathers as they clung desperately to the side of a cliff. We’ve done other things, though; things we shove to the back of our mind and try to not think about. Letting a dying aunt suffer in pain because you stole her Percoset. Beating up that little kid when you were eight-years-old because  you were angry about being abused yourself. The night you let a drunk friend drive away and they killed someone with their car.

Those experiences, those moments of personal trauma, never really go away. You remember the look of pain, the pleading, in your victim’s eyes. Maybe you remember screams or cries for help. Or maybe you just remember the silence as you did nothing. We do our best to hide those memories. The past is the past. That all happened when you were young and didn’t know better. Yet, those pictures still haunt your mind. No one else in the world may know what you did, but you do. If you dare think about it very long you fear you’ll go mad.

Some Things We Can’t Fix

Recovery programs often include a step called “making amends,” doing something to make up for the wrong  you’ve done in the past. The exercise is appropriate for some discrepancies, but there are some things we do, the really big things, that simply can’t be fixed, ever. Like the young man in the film, there’s no bringing his father back. We see the pain in his eyes, drawn beautifully by the Pixar animators, and know that he has replayed that scenario over and over in his mind, trying to find some way to fix it, looking for scenarios where his finger doesn’t find that trigger. There’s no changing what happened, though.

How do we get beyond this? How do we pick ourselves up and keep moving? For the man in the film, it was a matter of revisiting the site of that most horrible event, walking among the skeletons of dead horses and a decayed stage coach, feeling the desert wind, and finding his father’s watch. Everything happened in a neat package of six minutes. For most of us, however, forgiveness takes a little bit longer than six minutes.

Let me say right here that if you have a matter of guilt, justified or not, that is interrupting your life to a severe degree, seek professional help. You don’t have to do this on your own. Finding a path to forgiving yourself is not safe for everyone. If you’re prone to depression, have had thoughts of suicide or harming yourself, don’t address such emotional matters on your own. Don’t even try.

For the rest of us, though, there are multiple ways of finding your path to self-forgiveness.

Identifying What Really Happened

Memory is a tricky thing that loves to mix up the facts. The further removed we are from an event, the more likely it is that we are getting at least some of the facts wrong. This is why witness testimony is often unreliable. Our memories are easily influenced by external sources, including our dreams, and therefore unreliable.

So, before you continue beating yourself up over something, consider what actually happened. Get the facts straight. Try to understand what your motivations were at the time and how the circumstances participated in your action. Come to grips with the decisions you made and how the consequences of those decisions affected you and other people.

Only when we are totally honest with ourselves about what we did and why we did it can we begin to move forward. Again, this can be a very emotional and difficult step. Don’t be afraid to ask for professional help.

Mistakes Don’t Make You A Bad Person

There are few truly horrible people in the world. There are a lot of people whose actions are misunderstood and regrettable, but the number of genuinely murderous, maniacal beasts are actually small enough that you’re probably not among them. Unless you’re burying bodies in your backyard or somewhere, you have hope.

Society likes to label people and,  especially throughout the 1980s and early 90s we, as a nation, were obsessed with labeling “bad guys.” The whole “three strikes” program that sentenced repeat felony offenders to life in jail, is a sad commentary of how quickly our society just gives up and throws people in the trash. The personal effect of that philosophy is that we become willing to throw ourselves away, also.

When you have someone tell you that YOU are valuable, they’re not just pandering to you. You are not a bad person. What you did might have been very wrong, but it does not rob you of your humanity. Even if you vote for the Republican nominee for President, as deplorable an act as that might prove to be, you are still not a bad person. You are capable of love and of being loved. Don’t every forget that.

You Can Start Over

Too many people feel that they cannot escape their pasts. Granted, sometimes making that jump is difficult. I can think of one acquaintance right now whose past is chasing him like a hound dog. He feels that he can’t catch a break because every time he turns around something he did in the past raises its ugly head and knocks him back down. When that happens you have but one move: start over.

Leave town. Change jobs. Go back to school and study something completely different. Select a radically different group of friends. Become someone who makes you proud. You can do it. This isn’t a new path that no one’s been down before. In fact, this path is so well-worn that it’s deep-rutted from use. Forgiveness means, at some level, shutting forever those doors to the past and making a conscious decision that you are moving on with your life.

Yes, starting over is scary. I get that. Again, we’ve been there. You can do it, though. You deserve this.

Learn From Your Mistakes

You’ve heard this advice before. Just as it applies to other less traumatic mistakes in our lives, it applies to the big stuff as well. Okay, so you totally blew it. Part of the forgiveness process is learning what to do differently so that we don’t make those mistakes again. Sure, we hope the circumstances that led to that error don’t re-occur. Part of learning may be knowing how to avoid the circumstances that put you in the position to do whatever you did wrong. Fate sometimes intervenes, however. You need to be ready.

Life throws us a lot of curves. We never know when a situation might arise that requires us to make a critical decision. One does not always have the luxury to sit and reason through the possibilities and possible consequences. When those moments come, it is our experiences that teach us how to respond. Those who have frequent mistakes in their lives are better equipped to know what not to do, which inherently puts them closer to the correct action.

What happened in the past can make you a better person today and into the future. We make better choices. We avoid dangerous circumstances. We are able to forgive ourselves and continue living.

Borrowed Time

Notice that I’ve not excused anyone’s behavior. The man in the short film was placed in a situation where any number of accidents could have occurred and a most horrible one did. Not everything bad that happens to us is an accident, though. When we intentionally make bad decisions there is no excuse.

What we must do instead is forgive. Not forget, mind you, but forgive. Forgiveness opens our souls, our consciousness  so that we can move on and achieve great things. We diminish our potential when we bind ourselves with guilt. As humans, we are capable of truly amazing things when we remove all the obstacles that we place in front of ourselves. The process of forgiveness helps clear the way for us. We move on. The clock starts ticking again.

Time is elusive, though. Don’t wait. The longer we hold onto that guilt the tighter we bind ourselves.

Give yourself permission to live. Forgive.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
Love As A Political Platform
October 16, 2016
charles i. letbetter - love as a political platform

I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. —Jeff Koons

 

charles i. letbetter - love as a political platform

What if we ditched the existing political parties and went with one that has love as its political platform? Consider the potential

Another Sunday morning. I’ve already taken the dog for his morning walk, both of us enjoying the extra light from the full Hunter’s Moon. The second pot of coffee is on. Dishes are washing in the dishwasher. Clothes are drying in the dryer. For the moment, everyone is asleep except me and the black cat, Burberry. She’s taking advantage of the quiet to give herself a thorough cleaning. For however many seconds this lasts, it is calming.

We are so incredibly inundated with politics this season that there seems to be no escape.  I don’t mind admitting I’m concerned. I doubt the accuracy of polls in a race where a large number of voters are likely to go with a literal coin toss on election day. With Russia threatening, Yemen simmering, and Syria ready to explode (again), moments like these where my blood pressure is almost back within normal range are few.

At moments like this, I can’t help wondering what might be Poppa’s sermon topic were he preaching this morning. He disliked politics and didn’t  think they belonged anywhere near the pulpit. Yet, in an atmosphere as politically charged as this one, even the church isn’t immune.

Perhaps he would artfully dodge the matter by talking about love as a political platform. He would use John 13:34 as his text: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. He liked that passage. From there, he would develop the political platform based on the qualities of love. Perhaps something like this:

Love As Domestic Policy

When developing any political platform, one has to first consider how they are going to handle matters here at home. Certainly, we can use a lot of love right here, right now, and there are myriad ways love could be applied. One strong move might be to dissolve the two existing major political parties. They have become so incredibly polarized that they are no longer able to function. The hate between the two sides of the aisles in Congress has brought much-needed legislation to a standstill. Dissolving both parties and starting over with a stated intent of working from a basis of respect, loving those of contrary opinion, willing to sacrifice for the sake of consensus, would set a strong example for the people of the United States to follow.

Across the country, applying love through everything the federal government does would have a profound effect. We would end mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and find ways to actually help those who are challenged to fit into society. We would take an attitude of moving from community policing to community helping, perhaps putting more social workers on the street who can help people address problems before any law is broken. We would abolish the failed war on drugs, look at the legitimate power of cannabis, and address the basic conditions that lead to severe drug use.

A political platform that uses love for domestic policy invokes radical changes in the way we think, in the way relate to each other. We are not adversaries as many would have us believe. We are brothers and sisters committed to each other in Love, and that is a power that can take communities from the slums to the heights of prosperity, from crime to celebration, and from desperation to hope.

Love As Economic Policy

The economy is a huge and very sensitive issue in any political platform. When President Obama first entered office in 2009, we were in the throws of the worst economy since the Great Depression. Yet, while the numbers say that the economy has improved dramatically, those improvements haven’t been felt on the street where people are still struggling. That we need to apply some love to our economic policies seem obvious, but exactly how would we do that?

Perhaps we need to start by de-incentivizing greed. Love does not hoard, love gives. We have, since the beginning of the stock markets, based our measurements of economic growth based on monetary accumulation. We look at sales growth as a primary indicator of a company’s value with no consideration of whether they bring any actual benefit to the national or global population. If we change our valuation away from one that rewards greed to one that rewards actual benefit, we incentivize growth that is actually felt outside the corporate boardroom.

Love also is found in an economy where no one has too much and no one has too little. Our national wage system is in tatters and reinforces a social caste system that keeps the poor and disadvantaged, especially people of color, from making any personal economic progress. Yes, love rewards those who achieve, but it does not turn its back on those who struggle. Love sets a wage standard that allows everyone to live without need, without fear of being in want, and with an ability to be proud of who they are and what they  do.

Love As Foreign Policy

Insomuch as the United States is a global power, we have a lot of influence in what happens around the world. We have the ability to change everything from the spread of deadly disease to the ability to grow crops and make a region self-sustaining. We have, too often, used our influence and power for bad. The world desperately needs for us to turn our foreign policy around and use it to spread love across the globe.

We do that by funding programs and providing assistance to efforts that help people, not those that hurt them. We spread love by helping to stabilize economies so that there is an absence of need. Love comes not when we sell our surplus weapons so that one tribe can have power over another, but when we trade their weapons for food, medicine, and economic support.

To those who insist on war and doing harm to others, we respond first to those they victimize, welcoming refugees, especially those persecuted and in need of medical attention. We keep our offers of love on the table at all times, but we fund no one’s aggression and do not allow our acts of kindness to be manipulated and misused. We defend where we must, but we do not utilize aggression as a means of getting what we want.

Love As Education Policy

Love facilitates learning throughout one’s lifetime. Love looks for ways to remove the barriers to learning whether they be financial, logistical, emotional, or intellectual. Love finds ways to help those for whom learning is a challenge and is not satisfied with any excuse for one not being taught to the full level of their potential. Love rewards those who learn and encourages them to use what they know, along with the skills and talents they possess to make the world a better place.

Love also understands that as much as we are all lifetime learners, we are also teachers. Some may teach in a classroom, others may teach through skill development or helping to advance understanding in critical thinking. Love values teaching because it understands the necessity of teaching to improve the learning that moves the world forward. As a political platform, teaching is critical because we have, for too long, relied on inappropriate standards of measure that punish actual broad instruction. Love gives teachers room to utilize different styles, methods, and pedagogies to meet the instructional needs of their students.

More than anything, Love shares knowledge and wisdom with respect, teaching history with regard to its impact on different cultures, teaching science as the progressive understanding of the earth based on fact rather than mythologies, teaching mathematics in light of its practical applications, and teaching the arts as an open expression of culture and personhood.

Love As Healthcare Policy

There is no political platform that can promise to make everyone well, to increase everyone’s longevity, or prevent new disease. Living and loving involves risks and where there are risks there is inevitably pain and infirmities that love on its own cannot prevent nor take away. How love responds to these critical moments of need starts by, once again, removing the greed incentive that has placed adequate healthcare out of the reach of many. Healthcare as a profit center is not love. Medicine as a source of profit is not love. Instead of rewarding the healthcare system based on the amount of profit it can produce, love dictates that reward instead be based on the amount of good being done.

Love does not deny anyone the best available healthcare, neither does it distribute care based on status or economic or social standing. Love provides to each the treatment they need at the time they need it without any unnecessary delay. Access to medicines is universal and availability of appliances such as artificial limbs are unhindered.

As policy, love takes medical care wherever it is needed, looking for creative and different ways to reach remote rural areas where care has too often been sparse and insufficient. Love leaves no one hurting and seeks to improve the quality of life for all.

Love And The Interior

Responsibilities for the Department of Interior are overly broad and too frequently under-funded. Everything from infrastructure to energy to the environment falls under this enormous umbrella and its myriad subdivisions. Yet, here too, a political platform based on love offers a more balanced and practical way of addressing the many physical needs that occur throughout our country.  Love reaches out, looks forward, and protects our resources.

Love develops infrastructure based less on what currently exists and more on what is necessary for the future, looking at new technologies and embracing means of transportation that improve efficiency while reducing environmental impact. Love longs for sustainability in an energy policy that relies less on resources that can not be replaced and emphasizes those that are naturally occurring and provide benefit to the environment.

Love understands that we are firmly connected to this planet and must be good stewards of its use. Protections for waterways and all that exists within them is critical to a loving environment. Reducing our own footprint is a demonstration of love that allows those who come behind us to continue enjoying the natural wonders that fill our lives with beauty and pleasure.

Love As Social Policy

Our society is ill from all the partisan bickering to which we’ve been subjected. This is not a new disease for our country, but one which has reached such a critical point that have lost the use of some through alienation and marginalized many through hate. We need a political platform that brings love back as the dominant force in our society, encouraging and rewarding those who do for others before doing for themselves.

We need a national social policy that is wholly inclusive, so that people of color needn’t cower in fear, so that no one should ever be afraid to express who they are or what their sexuality might be, so that everyone gets an equal voice, even those with little to offer in return. A political platform based on love does not disregard the elderly no matter their age or level of ability. Neither does it leave children abandoned, starving, and without sufficient care.

Love rewards those who give, whether in terms of finances, or skills, or time spent holding the hand of one whose days are nearing their end. Love rewards those who strive for peace, diligently working to end conflicts before they escalate to violence. If the United States is to be the shining beacon of hope we want it to be, we must utilize love more than anything to stamp out all the fears that keep us from trusting, from engaging, and from appreciating those around us.

Starting A Conversation

We are, quite obviously, too late to impact this election cycle with a political platform so radical as that dominated by love. We can, however, begin a conversation that moves us forward toward a future where our political discourse is less dominated by hate. There will always be those who disagree. Vice is as much a part of the human condition as is virtue. Yet, the one we feed, the one we emphasize, the one we practice in our own dealings is the one that will dominate the next election.

All religions, not just Christianity, hold the same mandate given in scripture that we are to love one another. Love is not an option. Even if one holds no belief in a higher power, the universe demands unity,  cooperation, respectfulness, and peace. We have seen the depths to which the ravages of hate can take us. Now, let us reverse course and set our sights for the heights possible through love.

Yes, I realize that this all sounds so very  Pollyanish. Ideals set goals that are seldom achievable in reality. Still, we get out of our government exactly what we put in . We have endorsed hate for too long. Perhaps it’s time we try the alternative.

Peace be unto you.

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pop culture  /  Social Commentary
Dads Change Diapers, Too
October 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - dads change diapers, too

Dads do a lot of things with their kids, but in some places, the biggest challenge of all is changing a diaper.

 

charles i. letbetter - Dads chance diapers, too

When Dads step up to help with the kids they often discover the world isn’t ready to accommodate them.

When my oldest son was born, our circumstances were such where it was possible, and made sense, for him to hang with me most the day. He went everywhere I did. He had his own space at the office. He was expected in the conference room. Everyone from interns to grandmas fawned over him at the radio station. Okay, he almost caused a bomb scare at City Hall, but every place else we went he was welcome and we had a lot of fun.

One of our favorite things to do, especially in the winter, was walking laps around the mall. He loved being in his stroller and usually would fall asleep for a nice, long nap after about an hour and a half. I had time for coffee and a sandwich and chatting with other dads before he would wake up and demand to be fed. Rarely did we ever have a problem of any kind. The mall was a cool place to be.

Unless his tummy was upset. Again, it didn’t happen often, but when it did, changing the child’s diaper required wearing a hazmat suit and a biohazard disposal team. Finding a place to change him, though, was impossible. All the baby changing stations in the mall were placed in women’s restrooms. Changing him out in the middle of everything was both cruel (to everyone) and unsanitary. Yet, we had little choice. The problem was significant.

Hello, Babies Act

Apparently, someone in Congress finally experienced this baby changing problem and decided to correct it. This past Friday, President Obama signed the Babies Act, legislation that requires baby changing stations in men’s public restrooms. We can thank  Rep. David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island) for authoring the act, which passed with only 34 “nay” votes (all Republicans, if that matters).

There are some caveats. The bill only applies to public buildings, ie, court houses, government office buildings, etc. So, the folks at Simon Properties still aren’t required to put them in their men’s restrooms (though, to their credit, Simon was one of the first to start voluntarily putting baby stations in men’s rooms about 15 years ago). Some privately owned restaurants are still not likely to have them.

Also, the bill doesn’t apply if the restrooms are not meant to be public and only one accessible facility per floor is required. That last exception inevitably means that your child’s diaper will not blow out until you are on the extreme opposite end of the floor from the restroom. Trust me, babies understand bathroom geography. Still, this is at least a start, right?

Not Everyone Understands

Sadly, when I saw mention of the Babies Act being signed into law, there was immediately below it a comment claiming the law was a prime example of government over-reach. Another decried it as the demasculinization of our gender. There are plenty of people who don’t understand just how severe the problem is.

Yet, wander out with a little one still in diapers and the problem is likely to make itself evident very quickly. While little ones can have some of the most disgusting diapers every known to humanity, the well-contained accidents of a toddler can be just as challenging to change. There is a good reason those changing stations come with straps! Changing a toddler in public is risking having to chase said toddler bare-bottomed through whatever facility one is in.

Should government be involved? Uhm, yeah. It’s called equal access. Changing diapers is a matter of public heath, folks. Those little things have the ability to carry some pretty serious diseases. Do you really want us changing one of those a mere ten feet from where you’re trying to eat? Without appropriate facilities. That’s what happens.

Everyone Benefits

Changing a baby with a bad diaper is a big deal. On one occasion, my little guy had totally blown out his diaper and ruined his clothes. The stroller wasn’t in the best of shape, either. I knew I couldn’t change him out in the middle of the food court. We needed a restroom. One of the other dads suggested I try some of the stores to see if they would let me use an employee restroom or something.

So, off we went, my smelly, poo-covered child and I, from store to store, looking for a restroom. Most of the employees we encountered were young women who didn’t have children of their own and were not management. They looked at the little guy in horror as they sent me on down the row. Finally, after at least a half-dozen stores had refused us, a female manager motioned to us.

“Come on in here,” she said, looking both ways as if we were committing a crime. “We’ll fix you up a place to clean that baby.” The employee restroom wasn’t much, but she cleaned off a counter, put down a couple of pieces of plastic, and then retrieved some clean towels and dampened them with warm water. We got the little guy changed and dressed and she helped me dispose of the damaged goods appropriately.

No parent and baby should have to go through that desperation. No public place should be exposed to the horrors of a child’s diaper. It’s good that we finally have a law that sets a standard so that dads can attend to infant cleanliness.

Thank you, Congressman Cicilline.

 

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Editorial  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
Regrets, We’ve All Had A Few, But Then—
October 6, 2016
charles i. letbetter - regrets, we've had a few

Regrets? I think everyone has regrets, and people who say they haven’t are either liars… or narcissists. —Lee Radziwill

 

charles i. letbetter - Regrets, we all have a few

Regrets are motivational because we can’t fix them. They are permanent reminders we need to do better.

Does anyone else hear Frank Sinatra in their head? I don’t think there’s any escaping that. His song might be part of the issue here.

We have, I believe, a problem owning up to our regrets. There has been a line of popular philosophy the past several years that thinks we should live life with no regrets, that we learn as we go and whatever happens is exactly what was supposed to happen.  Such thinking is, in my opinion, complete and utter horseshit. There’s a difference between simply making a mistake and doing something we regret. Regrets can’t be fixed. Regrets are forever.

What got me thinking along this line was an article in Marie Claire about women who regret having children. The article caught my eye because I know some of these women. They both became pregnant while on birth control. They never intended to have children. These women knew in advance that they did not have the temperament to be good mothers. Yet, they allowed family, friends, and/or religion to bully them into keeping the kids. Now, they regret having given in. They feel trapped in a life they never wanted, that arguably should never have happened. Consequence after consequence reminds them that their life was meant to be different. These women really understand the inescapability of regrets.

Regrets happen. Ignore them if you want, but there are lessons to be learned here if we take a moment and pay attention. Don’t shove that regret in the back of your mind and forget. Let it guide you.

Regrets Are Different From  Mistakes

Imagine how differently My Way would sound if Frank sang, “Mistakes, I’ve made a few …”  It’s just not the same, is it?

Why? Because there is a fundamental difference between mistakes and regrets: Regrets can’t be fixed. The consequences of your actions or inaction are irreversible. Nothing you do makes up for your error. You’re stuck.

Mistakes, on the other hand, might have difficult and long-term consequences, but you have an ability to make amends for the wrong-doing. Let’s say, for example, that in the haze of a misguided youth one commits an act of vandalism. Sure, what you did was wrong, but there are things one can do to rectify the situation. One might repair or replace what was broken, repay a property or business owner, and clean up any mess that was made. Life moves on, lesson learned. Someone says, “Hey, we all make mistakes,” and we put the event in the back of our minds.

Suppose, however, that in committing that act of vandalism one’s actions resulted in the death of someone else. You didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt, but it happened and it was your fault. Nothing you do will ever bring that person back. Even if you take that person’s place, do their work, take care of their family, behave like a model citizen the rest of your life, nothing replaces the soul your actions terminated. Nothing. Ever. That’s a regret. Regrets never go away.

Hopefully, one gets through life with few regrets. Certainly, most of us don’t have the burden of being responsible for someone else’s death. Those we have, though, we need to address and accept.

Facing A Harsh Reality

What do you really regret? When one is asked that question our tendency is to mull over some of our larger mistakes. Mine would be going through my youth trying to be who I thought my parents wanted me to be rather than being myself. A lot of time and energy and money was wasted on things that I never really wanted. Opportunities were missed.  Yet, over the years I’ve been able to rectify that problem. Who I am now is who I want to be. Sure, I cannot regain my youth, but I am not bound by the errors in judgment I made when I was 15. Do I wish I had done things differently? Sure, but those were mistakes, not regrets.

My biggest regret is not listening to the stories being told, especially those my parents had to tell. Only after they passed did I begin to realize all the questions that we never asked, the lessons we never had  a chance to learn. I can’t get that back. Those stories are all gone, lost to eternity because I wasn’t paying attention. Was the action excusable? No, I knew what I wasn’t doing. We even talked about the need to sit down and record conversations, but we never made the effort for that to actually happen.

Regrets don’t have to be huge, they don’t have to be horrific. Regrets do alter lives, though, and the effects are permanent. Facing them doesn’t give us the ability to change the outcome or make amends. However, accepting our regrets lays the foundation for what we do next with our lives. Our regrets tell us what we must change, what to do differently as we move forward with our lives.

Escaping The Chains

Once we deal with the reality of our regrets, we are then challenged to not become enslaved by them. For the women who regret having children, they struggle to regain their lives, their sense of self-worth. I remember one young woman whose child died at the hands of an abusive husband. For her, the regret of not leaving and protecting her baby was insurmountable and after five years of struggle she committed suicide. Dealing with regrets isn’t always life-altering, but it certainly can be.

What we must understand about regrets is that while lives might be changed by our actions, we are still in control of what happens next. We can’t change the past, but the future we build is our own. Regrets give us the ability to change not only our lives, but perhaps the lives of others.

Each of the women in the Marie Claire article thought they were alone, that they were the only one who ever regretted having children. As they spoke up, though, they discovered that others felt the same way and they all needed help coping with that regret. A community was formed. Books were written. New mothers now have resources to help them because of how others dealt with their regrets.

What we learn and how we respond to our regrets is going to be different for everyone, but the one thing for certain is that we must be willing to move beyond them. Regrets might change our lives but they should never stop them.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Wake Up, September Is Ending
September 30, 2016

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner. —Jonas Salk

 

charles i. letbetter - wake up, september is here

The end of September signals a time to wake up and realize the year is nearly gone

I hate that stupid Greenday song. Curse Billie Joe Armstrong for having written it. Curse the stupid video which is entirely too long and much too depressing. Of course, I have both the song and images from the video stuck in my head whether I want them there or not. They’re driving me nuts.

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Like my fathers come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? How does this song help me in any way other than as a reminder that, oh yeah, we’re about to enter  the fourth quarter so any goals we had set for the year we either complete now or pretend we never brought them up. Here it is the end of September. Before we know it the snow will be flying. There are things we need to get done.

There Goes The Neighborhood

Looks like the whole planet may be ending its September phase. The news that the atmosphere has surpassed carbon levels of 400 ppm (that’s parts per million for those of you who slept through science class) definitely puts us in that range of being glad I need to pay my AARP dues. While the number really is more symbolic than anything, it is a wake up call that we might want to start looking for alternative places for our grandchildren or great-grandchildren to live. They certainly won’t be hanging out on this planet in a couple hundred years or less.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO and probably the closest thing we have to a real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk, seems to think colonizing Mars is our best bet. On one hand, I would like to think that if anyone can actually pull off that project it would be Stark, er … Musk. At the same time, though, the difficulty he has had with some of SpaceX’s rockets recently, especially that one mysteriously blowing up on the launchpad, give me a moment’s pause. With all due respect, I don’t want to be heading to a new home and end up having elementary schools named after me. I’m not that hero.

We need to figure out something, though. September is typically the lowest month for atmospheric carbon dioxide. The situation gets worse from here. I know I wouldn’t plan on buying any beachfront property anytime soon unless you’re looking at, oh, maybe Middle Tennessee. Maybe Dollywood can add a beach resort in a few years. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Yeah, let’s run with that idea.

Arnold Palmer Died, So Did Golf

Actually, the game was on life support before the legendary golfer hit the eternal 19th hole this week. I’ve never been a huge fan of the game largely because I’m not any good at playing it and also because it is one of the most stupid sports to ever be televised. Watching maple sap dripping from a tree trunk would be more exciting and at the end you could make syrup. The Scots were cursing us when they invented golf. That’s the only reasonable explanation.

Major equipment providers are ditching the sport, though, because it’s not “connecting” with Millennials. Rounds of golf played are down. Attendance at tournaments is down. There’s no money to be made there anymore, at least, not like there was when Boomers discovered the sport some 40 years ago. Arnold Palmer was a big part of the golf explosion of the 70s. As he sits down at that eternal watering hole for a round of his favorite drink (lemonade and ice tea carefully prepared and mixed), he’s joined by an entire generation that once thought golf was really cool. They’re all dead now. No one living gives a fuck about the sport.

The question facing club owners now is what to do with all that land full of sand and random holes once no one is interested in wasting whole days standing out there either getting sunburned or avoiding lightening. Might this not only spell the end of golf, but the end of those pretentious members-only clubs that have long been bastions of racism, elitism, and bigotry? More than we could do without the sport, we definitely wouldn’t miss the dismissive attitude. There was a rainbow over Palmer’s home town after his funeral. Maybe that’s a sign.

Good-bye Wonder Woman Fantasies

You know the world has changed when you wake up one morning and find that Wonder Women is definitely queer. Actually, she’s just not that into the entire male gender because they don’t exist in her home of Themyscira. Lead writer for the series, Greg Rucka, confirmed as much in an interview this  week. He explains it this way:

It’s supposed to be paradise. You’re supposed to be able to live happily. You’re supposed to be able — in a context where one can live happily, and part of what an individual needs for that happiness is to have a partner — to have a fulfilling, romantic and sexual relationship. And the only options are women. … But an Amazon doesn’t look at another Amazon and say, ‘You’re gay.’ They don’t. The concept doesn’t exist.

Of course, we know plenty of women who wouldn’t mind if the concept of men didn’t exist. That’s another wake up call we should probably answer at some point. We have also known for sometime, in the back of our minds, that there was no way Wonder Woman could really be that into guys. To come from Themyscira to the US would have to be rather like being condemned to a hell full of mysoginistic, sexist assholes. Our brains know that but our groins haven’t wanted to admit it. Time to wake up from the fantasy, boys. None of this world’s Wonder Women are looking for anyone with a penis. Get used to it.

Time To Move On

The end of September is a sign that we have got to move on, dude. Summer’s frivolities are nice, but they don’t last forever. They shouldn’t last forever. We need to wake up and get some shit done. We both know we need to drop a few pounds before the holiday food binge starts. Don’t tell yourself any more lies, the pumpkin spice cravings are just the first warning sign. Hit the gym now so you can enjoy the guilty pleasures later.

Oh, and if you’re not dating anyone, now’s the time to fix that problem. You know your mom is going to be so very disappointed if you show up at another Thanksgiving with your lame roomate in tow. He burps too loud and his fart jokes aren’t funny. Wake up, download a half-dozen dating apps and get busy. You know you’ll dump whomever by Valentine’s Day anyway. Is it so bad that you take a few months to make your mother happy?

Someone needs to write a new song about September. Eleven years and I am so very sick of this one. Wake up. Let’s get going. We can still turn this year into a win. Maybe. At least save it from being a complete disaster. Not voting Republican helps. Eyes open? Here we go.

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Current Issues  /  Hashtag Philosophy  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
The News In 140 Characters
July 30, 2016
charles i. letbetter - the news in 140 characters

It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper. —Jerry Seinfeld

 

charles i. letbetter - the news in 140 characters

Does anyone read the news anymore or do they just look at the tweets and the headlines?

I saw an interesting editorial cartoon yesterday, which, of course, I didn’t have the foresight to actually save so that I could accurately reference this morning. The cartoon lamented the fact that when historians look back at the exchanges of this presidential election, it will be candidates 140-character tweets they’ll examine rather than anything like the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The comparison is stark. How news and information is delivered has changed not only in terms of media, but the brevity with which news is delivered. Sure, there will be debates during this campaign cycle,  but even those will ultimately be reduced to sound bites of 140 characters or less.The Twitter limit applies not only to the application, but to the reduced size of our attention spans.

Once upon a time, the details of the news and the excellence of reporting and writing were honored. Winning a Pulitzer prize was an exception because of talent and skill. Now, winning a Pulitzer is an exception because someone actually put in more than 300 words worth of effort. Long-form reporting still happens at places such as the New York Times and Washington Post, but then the media departments of both newspapers instantly find ways to reduce thousands of words to a 140-character tease.

Even here, I create a 140-character excerpt that appears in social media links to the article. Hundreds of people view that excerpt, but only a fraction of those read the article. We frequently use nude imagery not because it has anything to do with the article, but because it is a quick way to get attention.

Tweeting The News

Almost every newspaper of any size now has a media department. That staff is responsible for not only creating 140 character descriptions of articles, but managing and measuring the responses they get to those descriptions. Read through the comments on almost any provocatively written tweet or  Facebook post and it becomes evident that many of the most volatile remarks are made by people who never actually read the article; they’re just responding to their interpretation of what the article might say based on the structure of that tweet.

Great tweet writing is a skill and in today’s media it is just as important as headline writing and copy editing. A well-constructed tweet can bring thousands of eyes to a topic, or can leave one totally ignored. Knowing which hashtag to include, the precise verbiage that is easily understood, is not something that was traditionally taught in journalism schools. Rarely does anyone notice when a tweet is done well. Let a newspaper or politician miscommunicate online, though, usually through a poor choice of words, and watch the shit hit the fan.

To illustrate my point, let me share some of the most recent news tweets across a variety of topics. There’s more information behind each tweet, but how many people will actually bother to click through and read the articles? I’m betting not many. Fewer than 10 percent of readers ever click a link, here or anyplace else on the Internet. Let’s see how you do.

Politics

 

 

 

Information

 

 

 

 

Society

 

 

 

Putting Things In Perspective

How many of those articles did you click through to investigate? Any? Consider that a few short years ago those nine stories would have been enough to fill a 30-minute television newscast (sports and weather aside). In print, they would have dominated the A section of any newspaper. Yet, here you have it all in 140 characters and some well edited GIFs.

I’m old, so it is difficult for me to see this shift as anything other than a loss of information and understanding. Reading through a flurry of tweets, we might come away feeling more intelligent and informed, but we don’t actually know enough about any of those stories to speak knowledgeably and authoritatively. Not that such a lack of information ever stops us. We’re quite willing to go ahead and open our mouths anyway, facts be damned.

What probably bothers me most about this change in how we receive information is that without all the details we are more likely to react harshly, sarcastically, and with suspicion. We don’t trust the tweet because we don’t allow ourselves to gain enough information to understand the full story. We lack compassion. We lose the opportunity to learn. We fail to consider different perspectives. We wander around so ignorant that we don’t recognize ignorance.

If you’ve made it this far into today’s article, you likely already understand. Of the few people who started the article, less than five percent finish. Again,that’s not just true here, but for most any online reading.

Perhaps one day the pendulum will swing back the other direction and we’ll appreciate well-written and ardently-reported stories again. This 140-character world doesn’t work for me. We need more information, not less. I suppose that’s every individual’s choice, though, isn’t it?

Sigh. At least there’s a nude picture at the top.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
I Can’t Help You
July 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - i can't help you

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves. —Galileo Galilei

 

charles i. letbetter - i can't help you

We always try to help others, but there are times when there’s nothing more we can do.

If you follow us on Facebook, you might have noticed that we rescued a couple of kittens over the weekend. We didn’t feel that we had any choice. They had been dropped off at a neighbor’s house early last week, not even old enough to be fully weened. With temperatures high and the neighbors going out of town for the weekend, to have left them there would have almost certainly been a death sentence.

Catching them wasn’t easy. They had learned quickly how to scamper away and hide from danger. Kat was able to catch one, a girl, almost by accident last Friday. It would be two more days of frequent attempts before she would catch the second. They were dehydrated, hungry, and scared. We brought them in, bathed them, gave them food and love, and are carefully nursing them back to health. The little girl is doing well, but the little boy still has a ways to go.

There are times in our lives when we are like those kittens: alone, helpless, defenseless, and nowhere to turn. Left on our own, many of us might die.  Homeless statistics show that hundreds die every year just from being out in the elements day after day. While there are many wonderful people and organizations who try to help, though, there are always those who fall between the cracks.

Flawed Philosophies

I’ve been there, living out of my car, or living on the street, thankful for friends who made sure I ate occasionally, or got a shower every once in a while. Needing such a severe degree of help is humiliating. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be in that position. Yet, it happens more often than anyone realizes. Even those who gather statistics on the homeless realize there are more that are not counted, perhaps twice as many, as there are those  known.

Help is there for some, but not for all. The general philosophy of most aid organizations, and certainly that of government agencies, is that little to no help is available as long as one appears to have any resources of their own. One local well-known shelter requires that one be completely homeless, on the street with absolutely no other option, for at least 24 hours before they offer any assistance. When these organizations do offer help, the aid comes with a long list of rules, some of which require exposure to proselytizing efforts.

This “strings attached” approach of helping assumes that people will take advantage of any generosity that is not carefully managed, and I’m sure there are several people who might do so. However, such a philosophy hurts those who are genuinely in need.  Not everyone can wait another 24 hours. Not everyone can attend the worship service. Not everyone can jump through the hoops. As a result, thousands fall through the cracks and go without help.

Applying Compassion

A couple of years ago, we were downtown for some large-scale event and had purchased food from one of the event’s vendors. Kat’s food came with pickles that she didn’t really want. So, she removed the pickles, wrapped them in a napkin so as to avoid making a mess, and then set them on top of an already full trash can. Almost immediately, a man who appeared to have not bathed in a while unfolded the napkin and picked the pickles out of the trash.

Kat didn’t hesitate. There was more than enough change from our meal to pay for another. She took the change, placed it in the man’s hands, and encouraged him to buy something more than pickles.

The look on his face was one of surprise. He hadn’t asked anyone for help. He wasn’t panhandling. He wasn’t expecting anyone to give him anything.

Kat acted out of compassion. She didn’t ask him any background questions. She didn’t invite him to a support group or a religious meeting. There was no waiting period. She saw  an opportunity to help and took it, filling a gap others missed.

Compassion-based programs do exist, but they’re few and far between and woefully underfunded. Many potential donors feel the organizations are reckless with their money because they act first and inquire later. Yet, if real need is to be addressed, compassion is the only attitude that is genuinely effective.

The Pain of Saying No

How many times have I heard the words, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you?” Sometimes they were said in anger that I had requested a service the person or agency didn’t want to provide. Some were incredulous that I had even asked them to do anything, such as donate to a charity or support an environmental cause. There are plenty of people who simply don’t want to help anyone, ever.

For those who have an ounce of compassion, however, turning anyone away for any reason, no matter how legitimate that reason might be, comes with pain. I’ve seen government agency workers cry because a mother who was desperately in need of food for her infant was not, on paper, destitute enough to meet the agency’s qualifications. I’ve seen some aid workers break their organization’s rules and give out of their own pockets to someone unable to jump through the hoops.

When one sees a real need and can’t help, turning people away can physically hurt. Yet, when resources are limited, or non-existent, there may be no choice than to utter those fateful words. One might exhaust all they have and still there would be need.

A Different Direction

Perhaps one of the most difficult situations is when we see someone who needs help but doesn’t want help, or doesn’t realize they need the help. The kittens were certainly in that predicament. While we could see they were starting and in need of immediate intervention, they were frightened and suspicious of anyone who came close. Catching them and helping them was, for the kittens, a moment of trauma.

People are not necessarily different. Not everyone sees the imminent danger they’re in because the circumstances give them a distorted perspective. Some have been hurt by those claiming to help. Some are addicted to medicines that were intended to help but now hurt. Helping these people can be almost impossible and traumatic. Yet, they need people  who don’t judge them, who don’t preach to them, but just help.

Too many rules, people trying to turn assistance and help into a profit-making scheme, requirements for insurance and some source of income, make it impossible for those on the margins to get help. We are sentencing them to death every time we say those words, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

No End In Sight

Ending this article is difficult because there is no end to the problem. For every kitten we are able to save, dozens more die from malnutrition and neglect. For every person we feed, hundreds more are starving. There is no end.

Yet, we continue to do what we can. By tomorrow, we may need help ourselves. Nothing is certain. Even the best of intentions sometimes fail. As we are helping others, the thought creeps into the back of our minds, “Will anyone be there when we need help?” The prospects of how alone we might be in such a situation motivate us to help those already there.

We can’t heal all the world’s hurts, address everyone’s most urgent needs, on our own. We know that. We give help to both humans and animals when we encounter them and have the ability to do something right then. We try to not be the ones who push people off to government or religious organizations. We especially try to not say, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” We do our best to give real help to real need.

What about you? If I asked you for help today, what would be your response? Think about it and then look around you. Someone close needs your help. Don’t be the one who turns them away.

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Photography  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
Learning For Yourself
July 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - learning for yourself

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn. —Peter Drucker

 

charles i. letbetter - learning for yourself

Learning as adults comes more often through what we teach ourselves

Back-to-school season is officially here. Local news stations are reminding drivers this morning to watch for the flashing lights of school zones as a staggered start to the fall school season begins this week. Stores are packed with parents shopping for school supplies and uniforms while children are making every attempt to get the most out of their summer.

We’re no different around here, though it is rather complicated. Kat is on the closing end of her studies, planning to graduate in early October. My youngest son decided to do his final year of high school here, so we’re busy getting him transferred before the 10th. The one I’m looking forward to the most, though, is when the little ones start back to school next Monday. Finally, peace and quiet again!

At the same time, however, we need to realize that learning isn’t limited to what happens in and around school. Intelligent people have long known that learning never stops. Even more, it’s what you learn on your own that often makes the most difference in our lives as we grow older. The classroom gives us a foundation for how to learn, but learning is something that we must keep doing if we are to have any hope of understanding what’s going on around us.

Learning Versus Obsolescence

Try this on for size: much of what you were taught is already obsolete.The older you are the truer that statement is. Word definitions change. Science changes. Technology changes. Limits once considered insurmountable are suddenly surpassed and exceeded several times over. Our understanding of history changes. Even the difference between political parties change.

Carlin Flora wrote a wonderful article for Psychology Today on “The Golden Age of Teaching Yourself Anything.” The article emphasizes the degree to which both technology and social construct make self-learning accessible across such a wide spectrum of knowledge that most anyone has the potential to become an expert in anything without ever setting foot in a classroom. Perhaps more importantly, though, is that such self-learning is critical to remaining a productive part of society.

What looked like occupations that would have no end 30 years ago are now, in many cases, either obsolete or else employ such a common level of skill as to have become commodities. Basic computer operation, for example, once required considerable training and an understanding of abstract math. Now, the average 16-year-old can perform tasks that exceed the abilities of a masters-level computer science major from the 1980s. Self-learning isn’t an option, but a necessity.

Beyond The School

James Marcus Bach in his book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar says:

I happily plunder knowledge wherever I find it. I don’t seek the destruction of schools. I am out to dismantle something else—the popular belief that schooling is the only route to a great education and that the best students are those who passively accept the education their schools offer.”

Schools are wonderful in their ability to give everyone a basic foundation for how to learn. However, they don’t even come close to teaching us everything we need to know. To assume that one graduates from an institution no longer needing to learn is foolish. Learning only increases as life progresses.

Take Dick Drew, for example. In 1925 Drew was a sandpaper salesman for 3M, which was then largely a minerals company. While attempting to sell sandpaper to mechanics at a body shop, he observed the difficulty painters were having with two-toned paint jobs. Skipping over all the fun details, this sandpaper salesman learned about paint, learned about adhesives, and invented masking tape. The world has never been the same.

Learning all we can about as many different areas as we can increases both our critical and creative thinking. The more information we have stored on the left side of our brain, the more creative connections can develop on the right side of our brain. If we are having problems with a creative block, the answer may very well be learning something new.

Breaking Barriers To Learning

Many of us went through school at a time when pedagogical theory focused on different students having a different learning style. One student might be said to be a more visual learner, one who doesn’t pick up information from reading, but does from seeing a task done. Others were said to be tactile learners: they gained information by completing a task themselves. Guess what: the whole theory might have been wrong.

Flora’s article looks at the “rigorous analysis” by Christian Jarrett, a cognitive scientist and the creator of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog.  Jarrett doesn’t seem to believe in learning styles. He says:

Although each of us is unique, usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught.

The example Flora uses is this: “Novices learn better from examples; more expert learners benefit from solving problems. And combining activities, such as drawing a diagram of a cell after reading about it, improves learning for just about everyone.”

Taking Jarrett’s theory to an applicable end means that anyone can learn anything. The potential is not limited to a learning style that might make resources unavailable. If you want to learn something, do so.

Conquering The Fear Of Learning

If learning is so accessible, then why aren’t more of us taking advantage of that opportunity?  We’re scared. We’re insecure. We don’t want to fail … again. When we are not confident in ourselves then we are less likely to explore. We shelve our curiosity in favor of sticking with what we know.

New and developing technology may be the most frequent example for people of my generation and older. We’re comfortable enough with the technologies that were developed when we were younger. But now that technology is largely obsolete. We hear people talking about the Internet of Things and not only do we not understand what that is, we are, as a group, generally afraid to find out. We don’t like feelings of stupidity, ignorance, or inadequacy. These new technologies raise those emotions so we avoid learning to dodge the emotion.

One factor that may contribute to our shyness is our experience in competitive environments. When we’ve been made to feel that we are not smart enough, that our ideas aren’t quite good enough, that we’re not “winners,” we feel inadequate. We don’t trust our ability to learn enough to contribute to any substantial change.

What we must realize is that how smart you are doesn’t matter nearly as much as being open to learning more from whatever source might deliver it. Having an attitude that you can learn, that you want to learn, allows one to learn in greater quantity, sometimes without being consciously aware that learning is taking place.

Redefining Success

Curiosity drives our growth and spurs our interests into different fields of learning. The final challenge is realizing that we don’t have to know it all. Success isn’t determined by the amount of knowledge we accumulate, but by how we utilize the information we have. The student of physics doesn’t have to run a particle accelerator to relate theories of attraction and velocity to more esoteric applications.

We all have the ability to learn. Learning helps keep our brains active and may (not making any promises here) help ward off early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s. Success lies in the fact that we know more at the end of today than we did at the beginning.

With so much information at our fingertips, learning has never been so accessible to so many. Whether you can create the structure necessary for self-learning or if you need the guidance of a teacher, the door is wide open. Explore. Discover. Be amazed.

 

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Just The Facts
July 23, 2016
charles i. letbetter - just the facts

Prejudice is a great time-saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. —E. B. White

 

charles i. letbetter - just the facts

Everyone has their opinion, and numbers can be easily skewed but the facts are indisputable

Making clear decisions is difficult at times. When emotion and tradition say one thing but facts and raw numbers go a different direction, finding a point of reconciliation between the two seems impossible.

I’m not sure there is any issue that illustrates this fact than does the debate across the United States over guns and whether there should be any level of governmental control. I have plenty of liberal friends who are fine with the concept of no one having guns at all, including police. I have a sufficient number of conservative friends for whom even mentioning the words “gun control” borders on infringing the Second Amendment.

Philosophies on both sides are well known and I’m not going to embrace either one because both are severely flawed. The point of today’s article is not to take a side on any portion of the gun debate. Rather, to look at the numbers, the one set of indisputable facts, and see what they tell us.

The numbers related to gun deaths I’m looking at were compiled the website FiveThirtyEight. Their research was exhaustive and goes much deeper than I have time to  regurgitate here. If the issue is a strong one for you, I strongly encourage you to read their article and follow the links.

Talking Points

I know sorting through raw numbers can be challenging. Drawing correlations and finding trends and patterns takes a lot of time. Sometimes one’s attitude gets in the way of finding the facts. So, before we drill down too deep, let’s take a look at some of the major talking points to come out of the FiveThirtyEight research.

  • There are more than 33,000 annual gun deaths in America
  • Nearly two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides
  • More than 85 percent of suicide victims are male …
  • More than half of all suicides are men age 45 or older.
  • Another third of all gun deaths — about 12,000 in total each year — are homicides
  • More than half of homicide victims are young men …
  • … Two-thirds of whom are black.
  • Women are far less likely to be gun homicide victims — about 1,700 of them are killed each year, many in domestic violence incidents.
  • The remaining gun deaths are accidents or are classified as undetermined.

There are many different ways to die, but for these numbers the one thing they have in common, often the only thing they have in common, is a gun. The actual reasons for the violence vary tremendously. Gun violence is not a single point issue. We must get past the idea that there is a single solution that solves all gun deaths. The problems are much, much deeper.

Most Likely To Die

Let’s start with the top level number and move down from there.

There were 33,599 gun deaths in the year 2014

  • 28,783 gun deaths are males
  • 4,816 gun deaths are female

The picture there is pretty stark: men are more likely to die from gun violence than women. The difference is extreme. But while that looks as though we have a problem with men running around shooting each other, the reality is quite different.

The leading cause of death among men, especially those 45 or older, is suicide. We touched briefly on this topic earlier this year when new suicide statistics were released. However, when we look at the numbers in relationship to gun violence. The facts don’t point to open carry laws or assault rifles as being the primary problem. Instead, mental health and economic issues are where we need to focus our attention if we want to bring down the largest set of numbers.

And there’s the problem. We’re more than happy to yell and scream about guns, but you don’t see many people protesting over access to mental health care or the death rate due to poverty. Those are facts we’d rather ignore. They make us uncomfortable.

Killing Each Other

Interestingly enough, this is one area where the numbers are going down and have been for nearly 20 years. Attributing the decline to any one cause, such as gun laws or better policing, is coming at the problem with skewed vision. If we want to find all the solutions, we have to look deeper.

11,726 gun deaths are homicides. 9,935 are male, 1,791 are female. Those numbers include every form of homicide: during the commission of a robbery, domestic disputes, arguments between “friends,” drug-related crime, “honor” killings, gang-related hits, police-involved shootings. There are even more causes if one wants to drill down further. Each cause represents a unique problem. Each problem must be addressed individually. Just because they all have guns in common doesn’t mean that addressing the gun issue solves the problem.  

Oh, and look at this: Only 3,049 homicides are white. 6,503 are black, 1,878 are Hispanic, 186 are Asian, and 109 are native American. That’s victim count, mind you. Blacks are being killed at twice the rate of whites. We have to realize that, to some extent, the rate of homicide is more of a race issue than a gun issue. 

It’s Not My Fault

Accidental deaths, especially those of children, always get a lot of play in the media. Who doesn’t feel bad that a toddler’s life is snuffed out by a playmate who found a gun in a drawer? These  are emotional issues that get a lot of people talking, but too often they don’t have the facts to make an accurate statement.

Here are the real numbers: 427 gun deaths are of people under 15, 59 of those are accidents, 221 are homicides. Homicides. Children intentionally being killed. Mostly by adults. While accidents pull on our heart strings, that’s not the bigger problem, is it?

Accidental gun deaths occur most often among people ages 15 to 34. 210 accidental deaths were reported within that age group during the year. Then, for an interesting racial spin, they are more likely to be white males.  102 is the number there. Almost half. Call it the Bubba Factor, good ol’ boys just playing around, not paying attention. “Hey look, ya’ll, watch this …” becomes their last words. So, where’s the campaign against carelessness?

Our Fear Of Terror

One of the more interesting items in the FiveThirtyEight article is finding out that Mother Jones maintains what may be the most complete and accurate table of mass shootings. I would have expected some government entity, or a branch of the United Nations perhaps, to have taken on that responsibility. You can see the full table for yourself at the Mother Jones website.

Terrorism numbers are not included in the 33,599 deaths mentioned above. Terrorism is not a gun issue. Terrorism is a terror issue, a matter of war, and can only be resolved by addressing it as such, even if the “terrorist” is a lone gunman with a personal agenda. Guns are never the issue in these situations. Just last week, we saw how one terrorist used a truck, of all things, to kill nearly 100 people in Nice, France.

At the same time, however, keeping assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists, whether foreign or domestic, is a facet of that conversation. Again, let me say it one more time, there is no single-point solution to any  of these problems!

Stay Calm & Think Rationally

The facts of gun violence show a very different picture than what is represented in the media. Looking at raw numbers removes a lot of the emotion we get from reading an article online or watching the video of a single event. Numbers give us a chance to gain a bit of perspective and logic.

After all this, here’s one last number to throw at you: 33,599 is less than .0001% of the total US population. More people die of cancer. More people die of heart disease. More people die of causes related to obesity.

I don’t say that to diminish the importance of gun violence.  Cancer doesn’t kill you while you’re walking down the street. Obesity doesn’t happen by accident. We all want to feel safe. I merely want to put the issue into some perspective.

Guns are not the bane of society.

The Second Amendment is not sacred text.

When both sides decide to get off their high horse, stop being do damned defensive and look at the facts, then maybe we can begin to make some progress.

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Personal  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
Games People Play
July 10, 2016
charles i. letbetter - games people play

We learn games as children that we never give up; games of pretend, games of manipulation and games that allow us hide. We never stop playing those games.

We play many games but seldom do we win

We play many games but seldom do we win

Even the day weekends go by too quickly. Here we are already at Sunday. I am not overly anxious to leave our campsite other than for the fact I’m beginning to develop an appetite for something other than hot dogs and granola bars. Monday long dark on the horizon. Kat is back at school. We have fence posts to set. Things to do.

Are you old enough to remember the song Games People Play? Joe South recorded the song in 1968. Being a mere child, I thought the song was talking about the sort of games eight -year-old knows, like tag and hide-and-seek. I thought the song was about fun.

Silly child. Sure, we still the same games, we just call them different names. For example, adult tag involves shifting the blame or responsibility to someone else so you don’t get into trouble. We play hide-and-seek by dodging what’s difficult until there’s no place left to hide.

I can’t say there are no shenanigans out in the woods. I’ve seen them. But, at least out here, moments of frivolity are more about building the best campfire or snagging the best spot. Rarely does anyone here get hurt.

I’m not looking forward you returning civilization. I don’t like being forced into situations where I have no hope of winning. You can have the politics and the lies and the flies. Keep the rodent traces you yourself.

Life doesn’t work that way, though. We’ll see you tomorrow with something closer to normal. Maybe e can bring a bit of peace back with us. We just have to avoid the games.

 

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
In Others’ Words
July 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - in others' words

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world. —Robin Williams

 

charles i. letbetter - in others' words

I no longer have words to express all the emotions over events of this week. Perhaps others can communicate more clearly.

Words are insufficient.

If anything, talking seems meaningless at this point. As I’m typing, police operations are still ongoing in Dallas. Five police officers are dead. Five others and one civilian are injured. The attack was planned, calculated, and carried out by people with experience. There may still be bombs planted in a parking garage. Downtown Dallas remains on lockdown.

There is much we still don’t know, but there are a few things that seem certain at this juncture:

  • The #BlackLiveMatter protest was peaceful and even friendly up to this point
  • The murders of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile influenced but do not justify this event
  • Hate gained a foothold that will not easily knock loose.

I am angry. I am heartbroken. I am distressed. I have never been more ashamed of the United States than I am at this moment. 130 years after the end of the Civil War, we should be past this, but we’re not. In the aftermath of that war, we allowed hate to persist. Across the whole 19th century, we allowed hate to affect how laws were drafted, how social rules were established, and how voting lines were drawn. We could have stopped it all, but we didn’t. Now, we reap the horrible consequences.

So Many Words

In the past 24 hours, the Internet has exploded with words, memes, and pictures. Among the moist poignant was a child holding a sign outside the school where Philandro Castile worked as a food service supervisor. The sign related how “Phil” helped this special needs child make sure he had time to  eat and make it to class on time. Another picture showed a child holding a sign relating how “Phil” helped him make good food choices. Yet, this same man was shot by police in cold blood.

Someone pointed out on Twitter that after the Orlando shooting gun advocates said those in the club should have carried guns. Yet, Alton Sterling was shot because he was carrying a gun. I’m curious to see if those same gun advocates will support the right of the Dallas snipers to possess what had to have been some form of high-powered rifle.

None of the people who have died this week deserved that fate. Not Alton Sterling. Not Philandro Castile. None of the Dallas police officers. Yet, for whom will justice be served? Anyone?

Other Voices

I can no longer wrap my head around what is happening. I’m leaving for a few days. We had already planned a camping trip for this weekend and unless there are intervening circumstances in the next few hours, we’re still going. We need a break from the insanity sweeping across the United States. I will post articles both days, but they won’t be related to this horrible mess. I just don’t have the words, or the heart, to continue this conversation.

So, I’m giving you the words of people who better express their reactions to this week. Please note that all these comments were made prior to the shooting in Dallas, but that does not mitigate their importance at all. Some are the words of leaders. Others are the words of friends. And while I know you generally don’t like clicking links you find here, where you see a “More” link, please click it and continue reading. The words are important.

Don’t offer prayers because you’ve been praying my entire life and look what good it’s done. Don’t offer your thoughts, either.  Offer action based not on anger, but on compassion. I am convinced that is the only way we survive.

Update: 11:00 AM EDT- President Obama’s remarks on Dallas have been added.

President Obama

Congressman John Lewis

Earlier yesterday, Congressman Lewis posted his mug shot from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for using a so-called “white” restroom. Of all the members of Congress, Mr. Lewis has a unique perspective of what it is like to stand up to brutality and injustice. His words carry weight white Congress members can never lift.

Congressman André Carson

Mr. Carson’s perspective is also unique. Not only is he black, he is also Muslim and a former police officer.  Click through and read all his words.

Mark Zuckerberg

The immediate aftermath of the shooting of Philandro Castile was broadcast live on Facebook. His words demonstrate how technology is a tool against injustice.

Abdul-Shaheed Aaron

Mr. Aaron is a colleague here in Indianapolis. A few years ago, he was attacked while walking back to his car after a shoot. All his gear was stolen and he was gravely injured. He understands the fear. Listen to his words.

 

Syretta Bell

Syretta may be my all-time favorite makeup artist. The work she does is exquisite. Her words as a black woman are worth heeding.

Jubilation Lee

She’s a single mom who works hard to take care of her kids and raise them to be respectable people. The parallel she draws is a kick to the gut. Yeah, we’re at a point where such a reference is legitimate.

Beyoncè

The singer posted this message on her website yesterday. The words are stirring.

At the end of it all, we have some decisions to make. What happens over the course of the next three days could change the United States forever. We can choose compassion or we can choose hate. We’ve had enough words. We need change.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary  /  video
Let Me Offend You
July 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - let me offend you

I don’t set out to offend or shock, but I also don’t do anything to avoid it. —Sarah Silverman

 

 

charles i. letbetter - let me offend you

If we can offend you with this photo, you’re probably not going to like the rest of the article, either.

I am proud of the pictures above. The play of light and shadow around the partially clothed figure of a young Korean-American woman is both dramatic and beautiful in my eyes. I thought about using an image that was more erotic, but my purpose isn’t to offend anyone with material that pushes an edge. Rather, my purpose this morning is to demonstrate how easy it is to offend someone simply by having an opinion.

Offending people is apparently rather easy. About a month ago, I wrote an article about how living in a city full of foodies rather sucks.  Somehow, the story was picked up by a local food blogger who posted a link to the article on her Facebook page. Having totally missed the point of the article (apparently I wasn’t clear enough for some people), she took offense and encouraged her followers to do the same. YAY! My hit count went through the roof the next three days!

Did her words negatively affect me in any way? Nope. I laughed. I’m still laughing. If I can offend some 2,000+ people with a little article about why we don’t eat at trendy restaurants, then how many people can I offend if I really try?

Apparently, the key to offending people is readers misunderstanding. If you skim, rather than reading every word, you might be offended. If you don’t click the supporting links (the grey text), you might be offended. If you form opinions without accurate information, you might be offended.

A Culture Of Self-Righteousness

Let’s be very clear exactly what I mean when I talk about a culture of self-righteousness. Dictionary.com defines the term “self-righteous” as follows:

[self-rahy-chuh s] adjective
1. confident of one’s own righteousness, especially when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.
[self-righteous. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/self-righteous (accessed: July 07, 2016).]

Notice the last portion of that definition: “intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.” That is who we’ve become as a society. We have become so sanctimoniously self-righteous, not merely as individuals, but as a whole population, that anything that does not come from our own mind, or agree with our precariously cobbled opinion can offend us.

I laugh when I see self-righteous indignation coming from a six-year-old who is convinced we’re mean for not letting her have a bag of chips to take to bed with her. I’m not so amused when I see the same childish behavior from an adult. Such intolerance and smugness are disgusting character traits.

Furthermore, those of you who claim to be Christians, as many Americans do, are violating your own religious precepts. Here, let me provide those reference points for you:

There are similar passages in the Quran as well as Buddhist and Hindu texts. All major religions teach tolerance, compassion, and humbleness. None teach that we should beat each other up in the comment section.  Yet, here we are, doing that very thing. Self-righteousness is so engrained we consider it part of our First Amendment right to free expression.

An Inclination Toward Ignorance

All that self-righteousness pushes us toward ignorance. We listen to part of a statement and quickly determine whether it agrees with our own opinion. If we think it does, we share it. If not, we flame it. We don’t bother to check whether the statement is valid. I can offend people with a totally true statement, provide them with the evidence supporting that statement, and they’ll still be pissed.

For example, yesterday’s article was all about checking sources.  Inside that article, I provided multiple links to articles supporting our statements. We were able to offend some Republican supporters without them even reading the article! And of those who did read the article, how many people do you think actually checked any of the sources? One (thanks, Courtney).

Such willful ignorance leads us to make stupid, insipid, uninformed statements that serve no one. We react without thinking, without getting more information, without applying any sense of reason or logic. All we care about is our own opinion.

Case Study #1: Jesse William’s BET Acceptance Speech

Just in case you were unaware, Jesse Williams is an actor. He is best known for his role on the television series Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t watch the show, so I can’t make any comments as to the quality of his acting. However, he was recently presented with the BET Humanitarian Award. He gave what I thought was a stirring and inspiring acceptance speech. However, that speech managed to offend a whole truck-load of people. Here, watch the speech for yourself:

Celebrities, Music, News, Entertainment, TV Shows & Videos | BET

BET.com is your home for all the latest celebrity, music, fashion, entertainment and African-American news. Check out your favorite BET shows and watch video!

Almost immediately after the speech, someone started a petition on change.org to fire Mr. Williams from Grey’s Anatomy and boycott ABC, as though the network had anything to do with the content of the awards show. The petition was started by someone named Erin Smith, which is such a common name as to not be worth tracking. She was offended. She considers the speech racist.  23,000 people agree with her. Multiple counter-petitions were started in response.

Fortunately, those who actually have some say, such as Grey’s Anatomy producer Shonda Rimes, handled the petition appropriately.

That’s it. No long statement to be debated. Just a short affirmation that she’s not going to let a stupid petition affect what is ultimately for her a business decision. Being offended achieves nothing.

Case Study #2: Liz Krueger’s Dress

Here’s the scoop: Mrs. Krueger is a nutrition and fitness coach. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that she has a trim and attractive body. Being trim and attractive (and married), she felt it would be safe to wear a dress to a friend’s wedding that compliments her body. She posted a picture of herself wearing the dress on Instagram. The response was not as positive as she might have hoped.

What’s worth noting is that it is other women whom the dress offends. The amount of bullying in the comments was outrageous. Then, the bullying carried over to other social media and was picked up by various sports and fitness magazines.

If someone can offend you for wearing a dress that makes their body look good, you should probably seek professional psychiatric help. You have a problem and you are a blight on humanity.

Case Study #3: House Democrats Boo Sen. Bernie Sanders

It was a closed-door meeting between Senator Sanders and House Democrats yesterday, so there is no C-Span video to corroborate the story. What allegedly happened was that a handful of congressmen booed the senator for not yet having endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. That part of the meeting is not public record, but information like that doesn’t stay quiet long.  Within minutes, Politico had the story:

There are multiple points to be made here. First, that anyone booed a sitting Senator within the halls of Congress is an egregious violation of decorum and protocol. We expect our elected officials to act better, to be professional. Booing is childish and immature. Such actions are not appropriate for members of Congress.

Secondly, Senator Sanders is playing out a very specific strategy. Disagreeing with a strategy is not surprising nor unwarranted. That anyone would be butt hurt enough to boo him, however, demonstrates a severe level of ignorance and over-the-top self-righteousness. Get the fuck over yourselves. If you have a legitimate objection, state it appropriately and intelligently. Demonstrating your offense by booing is childish.

Case Study #4: We Keep Shooting Black People

Be warned, the video below was taken immediately following the shooting of Philando Castile by a Falcon Heights, MN police officer. It hurts to watch this, but you have no sufficient frame of reference for forming an opinion if you don’t.

https://youtu.be/sZ7DhbRUvNI

NOW is when you should be offended. This comes less than 24 hours after Baton Rogue, LA police shot unarmed Alton Brown. While officials in Falcon Heights are trying to frame this as an exception to their normal manner of policing, the fact remains that Castile was shot for no damned good reason. Don’t tell me he should have behaved differently. Don’t tell me that his actions were threatening. Nothing excuses the fact that, once again, police shot an unarmed black man. We all need to be upset. If this doesn’t offend you, there is something terribly wrong with your sense of humanity.

I understand, being a police officer is difficult and that they must make snap judgments. I understand they are putting their lives in danger every time they make a traffic stop or respond to a 911 call. I get that. However, there is never a good reason for shooting an unarmed person. Furthermore, the fact that black people are victims at rates much higher than anyone else should be causing police everywhere to exercise greater restraint and caution. THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS SHOOTING!!

Before You Argue

If nothing I’ve said or presented here offends you in any way, then perhaps I have failed in my quest to offend everyone. Maybe I should have talked about how much I dislike Indiana state government. Or I could just call you ugly, but that’s why we have mirrors. If I have managed to offend you, you are welcome to respond, but there are some rules.

  1. You must back up your opinion with fact.
  2. You must support your facts with legitimate sources, not right- or left-wing editorials.
  3. You must have read, in whole, any supporting material we provided above.
  4. You must frame your argument in complete sentences without using testing shortcuts.

Should you choose to not follow these rules, your argument will be deleted without response. I don’t mind you disagreeing, but you’re going to be civilized about it or your comments are invalid.

One Last Thing

There is a phrase that has the potential to offend anyone who has made it through unscathed to this point. According to the Urban Dictionary, the line is part of an old joke involving the Lone Ranger walking into a bar. It has since been used in multiple movies and countless conversations where one might wish to discount the opinions of another. I leave you with this phrase in hopes you are offended. I really don’t like to fail first thing in the morning. Here it is:

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Have a good day.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Freedom To Chill
July 4, 2016
charles i. letbetter - freedom to chill

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. —Soren Kierkegaard

 

charles i. letbetter

Eschewing all the seriousness afforded this day, let’s celebrate the fact our lives are not horrid

Happy Independence Day, United States! My, but we do love our 4th of July celebrations. Fireworks, parades, bands, families, and cookouts are all part of the tradition. We also have a tendency to wax philosophical on this day. Look around the Internet and you’ll find dozens of essays on freedom. Some quote the Declaration of Independence: “When in the course of human events …” Others quote the preamble to the Constitution: “We the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union …” Plenty discuss responsibility and many honor the sacrifice of those who have fallen.

All of those topics are well and appropriate for the day. I have no problem with the topics themselves, but at this point in my life, I’ve heard those topics run into the ground. One would have to be masterfully eloquent to keep my attention very long.

I understand the responsibilities of being an American. I appreciate the sacrifice of those who served and are serving (we’ll be talking with our Marine later this morning). The part of being an American I have difficulty doing is what many of you seem to do so well: sit back and relax. I can sit and try to watch a movie, but it is difficult to not have my phone in my hand. There’s also the matter of keeping the kids and the animals from destroying the house. One does not just sit and chill in this house without some effort. Where is that freedom thing, again?

Freedom To Not Work All The Time

Please note the qualifier in that heading. I’m not saying there is a freedom to be a lazy bum that sponges off society. Few people in our society actually milk us for our generosity. A majority of people who receive some form of federal assistance are employed, but still earn less than the $1000 a month income cap on assistance. But everyone who works needs a break. We look forward to our weekends, our vacations, and our federal holidays. While we may work hard, the US still has a party mentality that celebrates those moments when we’re not working.

Except, I can’t do it. You’re reading the results. Despite the fact that it’s a holiday, I’m sitting here in the wee hours of the morning doing research and writing. Kat always suggests that I just rerun a previous article on days like today. Certainly, I have the freedom to do that and give myself the day off. I can’t bring myself to do it, though. I have to get up to walk the dog, anyway, and as tired as I am, I feel obligated to sit down and create at least one new article every day.

Keeping busy is a point of anxiety for me. I need to be doing something all the time. Even things that should be relaxing, such as grilling out or entertaining friends becomes work for me. Still, I think of the garment workers in Bangladesh who work 80+ hours a week, live in cramped dorms provided by their employers, and rarely see their families. They do not have the freedom to not work. They have no choice. No matter how busy I make my life, I am still better off because I have the freedom to stop if/when I wish.

Freedom To Improve

We are all far from perfect. There is a lot we don’t know, even though there are books written on almost every topic imaginable. Fortunately, we have the freedom to improve. We can read. We can take specialized classes. We can even go back to school and get a degree completely different from anything we’ve done before. While perfection may always elude us, we have the freedom to make ourselves a little less imperfect.

An important part of that improvement is the freedom to read anything we want. I read with interest this week how what we read matters in our brain development, even as adults. Those who involve themselves with “deep reading,” such as academic journals, non-fiction, poetry, and literary fiction, hold advantages over those who only read online or mass-market fiction. Deep reading synchronizes the communication areas of our brain. As a result, we speak better, write better, and are more articulate in our conversation with others.

I remember hearing in school how children in the former Soviet Union were given tests at an early age that determined  their eventual occupation. They were trained to a level of proficiency in that occupation and that was it. Improvement was limited and opportunities were few. I am thankful we have the freedom to make ourselves better.

Freedom To Love

We’ve had to fight for this one and there are still many places across the US where loving whomever you choose to love is challenging. The freedom to love, though, has grown tremendously over the past two years and shows no sign of letting up. Part of that whole being able to chill and relax thing is dependent, at least in part, on being with people you love. This is why families get together on holidays such as this.

Loving is important and understanding why we love the ways we do deepens and enhances our ability to love. At least, I think it does. There is a book by Skye Cleary called Existentialism and Romantic Love  that I highly recommend. In the book, Cleary considers all the various webs of relationships into which we’re born. She explores the complexities of loving and being with others and how that affects our place in the world. After reading the book, I’m fairly sure there are even more areas of love we have yet to explore.

Not everyone is so fortunate, though. There are still too many places where LGBT relationships carry a death sentence. There are too many places where young women are not allowed to choose their own mate. The freedom to love is a relatively new concept for the entire world. We should celebrate that we are here to appreciate and take advantage of the progress.

Freedom To Be Entertained

I don’t watch a lot of television, but it’s there when I choose it.  We don’t go out to a lot of movies or shows, but they’re there when we want them. We have more entertainment options than we have time. There are even places you can download or stream movies legally.  We are inundated with the freedom to escape reality for as long as we need.

Entertainment is a critical part of our lifestyle and our ability to chill on weekends such as this. Whether we’re taking in live music or binging on Netflix, our entertainment choices give us the opportunity to set aside all the worry and stress that threatens to kill us. Some of us are good with an hour or so a day. Others need a bit more. Plenty of people even sleep with their televisions blaring away at them. While a danger of slothfulness is worth watching, that we have such freedom is exceptional to this time and place in history.

I plan to try very, very hard to chill the rest of the day. I want to enjoy that freedom, maybe take a nap, sing songs with my 18-year-old, or enjoy a cup of coffee with Kat. Thousands of men and women died for this freedom, after all. Even the lesser freedoms are worth celebrating. So light up a cigar if you’re so inclined, fill a glass of scotch if you have it, and let’s enjoy the day.

Happy Birthday, America. Thank you for the gift of that freedom to chill.

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Advertising  /  Social Commentary  /  video
Awareness You Can’t Escape
July 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - awareness you can't escape

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. —Aristotle

 

charles i. letbetter - awareness you can't escape

Awareness sometimes requires cultivation. Other times, one cannot escape it.

Awareness is a state of consciousness, the point at which we realize something exists and are able to understand that existence, at least, in part. Sometimes, awareness has to be carefully cultivated. Physics, for example, holds various levels of awareness, the deepest of which only come with intense learning. Other matters, however, are more straightforward, perhaps even blunt. All one needs to know in order to respond appropriately can be said in a matter of seconds. Fire, for example, is hot. Even a baby understands after the briefest experience that fire is hot.

Every day, we develop more awareness. Perhaps we see a new store or read a new book. Maybe we have a conversation with a friend. Everything we do has the potential to increase our awareness. Even watching commercials.

Each year, at Cannes, the best advertising campaigns are presented and given awards based upon the quality of work. Some do an amazing job of selling a product. Others blaze new trails in technological innovation. What always strikes the hardest, though, are those that create awareness. These are the ads that make you stop and think, and give you information that leads you to act, become involved, and begin conversations.

Of this year’s winners in the film and film craft categories, four gold winners did an amazing job at creating awareness. I want to share those with you. Watch each one and let them change you.

Make Love, Not Scars

Acid. The word immediately raises warnings of danger for most teens and adults. While there are many legitimate uses for acid, however, one of the most frequent is as a weapon of personal destruction. We don’t see as many acid attacks in the United States. Awareness is low because it is usually treated as a felony assault and handled through local justice systems. Elsewhere in the world, however, acid attacks are devastating. In countries were various forms of acid are sold openly and are easily obtainable, acid attacks are a common form of personal vendetta. Most of the victims are women. Many victims are under the age of 18.

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai created the following piece to raise awareness of this horrible issue. Incidents involving acid attacks are growing, but governments are doing little to stop them. The piece is short. Please watch. If you are inclined to investigate further, please visit Acid Survivors Foundation.

 

Never Alone

For many gay people, coming out to one’s family and friends is one of the most frightening experiences of their lives. One can never be quite certain how people might respond. Will they be accepting? Will they be angry? Will this be the end of relationships?

If one is captain of the Wales national rugby team, that fear is overwhelming. Rugby is a tough sport, one of those games allegedly created for and played by only the manliest of men. Gareth Thomas faced that fear. What he discovered, however, was that he was part of a team that had his back, no matter what anyone said. With millions of fans, there were inevitably some who didn’t understand. Still, the team supported Gareth and they continued to win games.

Guinness sponsored the award-winning film piece developed by AMV BBDO London and produced by Stink London. There’s no mention of beer here, though. No one goes out and has a pint at the end. Instead, the emphasis is on the power of a team, supporting those whose lifestyles are often vilified and misunderstood. Everyone who comes out as gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender needs a team behind them. Be part of the team. The version that won the award is below. You can watch Gareth’s full story here.

https://youtu.be/rBOTKSQ89M8

Manboobs

Censorship on social media is severe. Most apps assume that anything on your computer or especially on your phone is accessible to minors. Argue all you want, I know all too well how difficult it is to keep sensitive materials away from little hands and prying eyes. Once children reach a certain age, the more one tries to deter them the more determined they are to see what’s there.

However, that censorship becomes a complete pain in the ass for organizations trying to raise awareness for things such as, oh, let’s say breast cancer. Talking about breast cancer becomes exceptionally difficult when one can’t show real breasts. How does an organization teach women how to check for lumps, an extremely important form of early detection, if they can’t show breasts?

Some brilliant minds at the David agency in Buenos Aires came up with a creative way to address those problems for an Argentinian awareness and support organization, MACMA. The spot comes with a bit of humor but is also extremely informative. Viewers are then encouraged to make their own video. If you care to do so, let me know. We’ll be happy to help.

https://youtu.be/Ais88Os_CTg

Dear Daddy

Our final piece hits really, really close to home. Until I had a daughter of my own, I didn’t think much about the vocabulary I used and tolerated from others. I didn’t give as much thought to what might be harmful. In watching and helping Tippy grow, I’ve learned that even the most innocuous, unintentional things we do and say truly matter.

We are moderately aware to the sensitive nature of body image. However, this piece developed for Care, Norway, raises awareness to a whole new level by putting it in terms that are inescapable. Just imagine if your unborn daughter could write you a letter. This short film is one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever encountered.

Conceptual credit goes to ad agency Schjaerven Reklamebyrå and production company Tangrystan, both of Oslo. I dare you to watch this film and not be moved. If you’re a daddy, or about to become one, I dare you to not cry.

The majority of ads are not all that serious. The majority of ads aren’t worth our time. These four, though, hit us with an awareness we need. There is no escape. You have now been enlightened. Go, enlighten others.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
No, You Do Not Understand
June 29, 2016
charles i. letbetter - no you do not understand

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. —Socrates

 

charles i. letbetter - no you don't understand

A recent survey illustrates how wide the gap is between how whites and blacks perceive racism

What we understand about any given topic is generally a lot less than what we like to think. Even after thirty-plus years, you won’t catch me claiming to know everything about photography. Knowing the limits of what we understand on any topic is important. Being open to different perspectives and various sources of information helps us to learn and grow.

What we understand, or don’t understand, about race, though, is critical. What we think we know shapes our attitudes and perceptions not only about the topic of race, but about the people whose appearance is different than our own. The tone of our voice, the vocabulary we use, even our physical mannerisms change based on what we think we understand about people of different ethnicities and backgrounds.

There are gaps of perception between people of any two races, but the strongest and perhaps widest gap, particularly on the topic of race and equality, may lie between the two most broadly identified groups: blacks and whites. A new survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center highlights just how incredibly wide that gap is. For all the advancements we like to think we’ve made, what we understand about each other isn’t much at all.

Starting With An Open Mind

I feel, to some degree, that I’m coming into this conversation with a perspective that may leave me disadvantaged. I don’t identify as either white or black. Both Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry exists in our family makeup, along with a hodgepodge of European strains. I choose to identify with native peoples because I feel that ethnicity more closely relates to who I am. Interestingly enough, when my hair is long people tend to respond to me in the context of a person of native heritage. When my hair is short, though, as it is now, I am treated more like an old white guy.

I also have the ability to observe how Kat’s children are treated. While their biological paternity is black, they are both relatively light skinned. Little Man even has light blue eyes. Tipster is the darker of the two, but rarely has anyone, including teachers, identified them as being of mixed race. Their exposure to black people and black culture is limited to classmates and neighbors.

What we understand, the nature of our experience, is changed by how we racially identify. Our perceptions are based upon what we perceive in comparison to our own experience. Therefore, we must come into any conversation about race with our minds open to the fact that what we actually understand is very limited.

Understand We Have A Problem

Racial inequality in the United States is a problem. Denying the severity of that problem makes it worse. We see inequality in the justice system. We see inequality in the policing of black and white communities. We see inequality in education. We see inequality in legislative representation. If we genuinely want to understand each other more and improve the situation, we must first acknowledge that the problem is real. Unfortunately, not everyone seems able to do that.

While whites generally recognize that blacks are treated less fairly in legal matters, especially those involving police, their perception of inequalitycharles i. letbetter - no you do not understand in more normal, everyday activities, such as applying for a loan or mortgage, at work, or when shopping or dining out
is skewed. Blacks understand the inequality of those situations because they experience the inequality of those situations. Whites, on the other hand, are blissfully unaware of the struggle blacks face simply trying to do the same things everyone else does.

Perception does not necessarily equate with reality, but the sizable gaps in those perceptions illustrate the severity of the problem. White people, as a group, don’t understand just how much inequality black people experience. Perhaps, as that awareness increases, the perspective can change. Helping people become aware of the problem is the first step toward solving it.

Politics Blur Our Vision

One major factor in how whites perceive racial inequality is political party affiliation. Generally speaking, Republicans understand far less the reality of racism and are often quite annoyed when the topic is even raised. They mistakenly think they have a good understanding when the reality is they don’t have a clue.

For example, on the question of how much attention is paid to race, 41% of whites say that too much attention is paid to the topic. By contrast, 58% of blacks say we discuss race too little. Break that down by political party, though, and the picture gets more interesting. Among White Republicans, 59% say too much attention is given to matters of race, among Independents, 42% agree, but only 21% of Democrats hold that belief. 49% of white democrats believe that too little attention is paid to racial inequality.

Some numbers we see played out in real life. 78% of white Democrats say the country needs to continue making changes addressing racial inequalities. By contrast, only 36% of Republicans agree and 54% of Republicans believe things are just fine the way they are. If you were wondering how a racist, bigoted xenophobe could become the presidential candidate of the Republican party, you now have your answer.

Understand We Must Move Forward

One place where both blacks and whites agree is that individual discrimination is a greater issue than institutional discrimination. How we treat each other, one person at a time, makes a tremendous difference. Improving our personal relationships with each other inevitably trickles up into how corporations and institutions treat people. We each make a conscious decision when we meet someone how we are going to treat them and that has to improve.

Legislative representation at every level of lawmaking has to improve as well. This is challenging so long as political gerrymandering of voting districts is legal. Especially in the South, there are too many districts whose lines are so impossible distorted that it is impossible for black people to elect a black representative. At the federal level, there are only 43 black members of the House of Representatives and, quite shamefully, only one in the Senate. Being woefully under-represented is criminal. We need more black representatives in Congress.

Finally, we need to accept that white people don’t understand the challenges of the black community nearly as much as they think. Whites must take a new look at the tremendous advantage their race affords them. The playing field is nowhere close to level and white people, in overwhelming numbers must commit to changing that situation.

Sure, you have a black friend or two, and maybe you even work with black people, but if you think you really understand the challenge of being black in America, you’re wrong. Open your eyes. Open your mind. Let’s change this country.

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PotD  /  science  /  Social Commentary
Smart or Stupid, Is That A Question?
June 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - smart or stupid, is this a choice?

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues. —Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

charles i. letbetter - smart or stupid, is that a question

Is there a problem with being smart or are we trying to justify stupid?

Americans, apparently more than any other country, have an obsession with being smart. We heap praises on those who demonstrate intelligence beyond the norm and we get upset when we realize that our educational system is producing graduates who can only read at a fifth-grade level. Even our television viewing skews toward characters we perceive as smart. Programs such as Scorpion and Elementary (based on the character of Sherlock Holmes), consistently generate high ratings. We even like our comedy smart. The highest rated sitcom, for multiple seasons, is The Big Bang Theory, where we watch allegedly intelligent scientist bumble their way through life. One of the reasons we like that show is because it delivers lines like these:

Leonard: Sheldon! We have to do this!
Sheldon: No, we don’t. We have to take in nourishment, expel waste, and inhale enough oxygen to keep ourselves from dying. Everything else is optional!

The bluntness of the exchange makes us laugh, but at the same time, we recognize the intelligence of Sheldon’s response and consider ourselves smart when we use that line on someone else the next day. We like being smart. Although, perhaps more correctly, we like thinking that we’re smart. Many of us are lacking in cognitive skills. The intelligence of television characters doesn’t rub off and make us smarter. Some people are stupid.

We Have A Problem

Once upon a time, the rate of acceleration in IQ among high school graduates was pretty impressive. Psychologist James Flynn found that from 1932 to 1978, IQ scores in the US increased by 13.8 percent. Putting that in other terms, a score that was average in 1932 would be in the bottom 20% in 1978. Yay us! I’m in that 1978 group. We’re smart!

Unfortunately, that trend failed to continue. Just because we give allegiance to intelligence doesn’t mean we’re all doing well in the brain category. Measurements are tough to come by and even more difficult to verify, but that are glimpses of where we stand. Consider that the College Board, the entity that administers the SAT, considers a score of 500 as a benchmark for who will do well in college. Not everyone takes the SAT, but if we look at states where the test is free and participation over 90 percent, we find that only 33 to 40 percent scored above that benchmark.

An article published this month in The Atlantic, while trying very hard to convince us that there is an unfair war on stupidity, admits that:

… less intelligent people are more likely to suffer from some types of mental illness, become obese, develop heart disease, experience permanent brain damage from a traumatic injury, and end up in prison, where they are more likely than other inmates to be drawn to violence. They’re also likely to die sooner.

Being Smart Isn’t Easy

I was amused by Jeffrey Zacks’ essay published on aeon disproving brain-training games and exploring how difficult it is to expand our level of intelligence. His list of things that are marketed as improving our intelligence, such as programs offered by Lumosity, which rocketed to a high of 50 million users, and PositScience, which isn’t quite as popular but uses a similar methodology, is long. He makes a very good case against brain-training, especially.

One of the general issues with many of the concepts that are supposed to help us improve our brains is that they only focus on one particular segment, usually related to memory. For example, does anyone else remember those little plastic games with the tiles that moved around to create a picture, or put numbers in order? Those little devils actually help advance our cognitive ability, but only in the area of recognizing patterns. Likewise, those tricks for helping remember people’s names do improve some memory skills, but only in terms of memorizing lists. The effects are not transferable.

While we think of Adderall and Ritalin as being primarily used with children who have attention deficit issues, there is evidence of them improving the cognitive ability in normal adults as well. This area of study might actually be promising accept for the fact that the effects are short term. They give a momentary boost of cognitive enhancement, but then it stops as the drug wears off and over time the “crash” goes below the starting baseline. Users are trading a moment of lessened ability for a moment of enhanced performance. Oh, and the drug that works best? Nicotine. Go figure.

Solutions Are Available

Strip away the biases of both articles, and what we find are solutions that can make us all smarter and reduce the rate of stupidity (yes, I’m using the word) that seems to be prevalent over a frightening number of people. We simply cannot excuse the growing trend among those whose cognitive abilities are diminished to demonize those who are smart. Atul Gawande, in his commencement address to the California Institute of Technology, made an interesting conclusion after talking about the growing distrust of science:

Even more than what you think, how you think matters. The stakes for understanding this could not be higher than they are today, because we are not just battling for what it means to be scientists. We are battling for what it means to be citizens.

Indeed, we need to be smart and that means we need to do the things that not only make us smarter, but put us back on track toward making our children and grandchildren smarter as well. Top priorities must be decreasing poverty and improving the quality and availability of early childhood education. One of our most stupid moves comes when we oppose funding that can solve both those problems. At the same time, nutrition and exercise, especially cardiovascular activities such as swimming, biking, and walking,  are among the best ways to not only increase cognitive ability but prevent its decline as we get older. We have options.

Is This Really A Choice?

One thing for certain is that I’m not going to stop calling out those actions that are stupid. Perhaps we do need to be more careful in clarifying that, generally speaking, it is one’s actions and not the specific individual who is stupid. At the same time, though, we must realize that we are not nearly as smart as we like to think. We could be much smarter, even if we’re older and out of school. Our future depends on increasing our country’s overall intelligence so that we don’t do something incredibly stupid like nominating a bigoted, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, reality television host for president.

Oops, it may already be too late.

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