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Susan Kaiser Greenland: Finding Emotional Stability in a Time of Economic Instability Top
Have you ever had a funny feeling that something's not right, but you can't figure out what it is? Maybe it's a tight feeling in your chest, or a sinking feeling in your stomach. These gut feelings, or intuitions, tend to be a fairly reliable indication that there is something going on that merits attention. Steve, the parent of two of my students, had one of those funny feelings a year or so ago. He is the son of a corporate accountant at a big auto company who was born in 1955, and as a boy he would watch his father go to work and he would want to go with him. Steve's father told him that his job was to go to school and do well. If Steve did that, his father said, he would get everything he wanted. So the boy went to school where he learned math, science, English and history. The majority of Steve's learning was by memorization or computation and applied in a linear, logical way. Steve was good at it. His teachers told him if he continued to work hard and do well at school he would succeed. So he worked hard and he did well. The automobile industry had provided a good standard of living and his parents told Steve he could do well there. It was a healthy sector of the economy and had been booming since just after World War II. If any career was a sure thing in the 1970s, it was a degree in accounting, and if any industry was a sure thing, it was manufacturing -- especially automobiles. So Steve followed in his father's footsteps and when he graduated from college he got a job in the corporate accounting office of a big automobile company. Steve's father retired after a long career with a gold watch, health insurance and a pension. Steve had no reason to think this wouldn't happen to him if he worked hard and played by the rules. Steve got married and had a couple of kids. His wife Karen stayed home to raise them while he went to work. For quite awhile everything went according to plan. Steve provided his wife and kids with vacations, computers, television sets, bikes and stereos, as well as expensive lessons and enrichment activities like karate, dance, private music lessons, private sports coaches, and tutors. Steve was a reliable provider, proud of his accomplishment, and thought his struggles were over. But then some things happened in the American economy that Steve had not anticipated. The Japanese auto industry grew exponentially and made it harder for American companies to sell their cars and trucks. They made it so hard that American companies started to contract. Eventually, Steve lost his job. With that he lost his pension and his family's health insurance. Steve started looking for a new job immediately but there were no openings in his field. Meanwhile, his daughter began to struggle at school, his son began to struggle emotionally and Steve was unable to afford the educational and psychological support he felt necessary to help Amanda and Josh cope with their changing life circumstances. Steve talked to Karen about getting a job but she had not trained for anything. She, too, had believed the conventional wisdom and now it seemed as if their lives were spinning out of control. Steve was closing in on 50 years old and felt misled by his parents' generation. Everything they had told him about planning and job security had turned out not to be true and now he and Karen were ill equipped for the uncertainty ahead. They weren't alone. Many of Steve's colleagues were in exactly the same position. If Steve and Karen were to survive economically and look after their family, they would have to learn to think in a new way. They weren't sure if they'd be able to reinvent themselves, but they knew one thing: they did not want Amanda and Josh to fall into the same economic trap that they, and many of their contemporaries, had fallen into. Steve and his family's journey was about more than economic security: Steve had changed in a fundamental way. He realized that finding another job was secondary to the real issues facing them. He was not prepared to navigate the new professional paradigm and, for the first time in his life, Steve understood that emotional stability was more fundamental to happiness than economic stability. That's when Steve began to pay attention to his intuition. Even though the entirety of his educational and professional development had been spent honing the analytical skills that were choreographed in the left-hemisphere of his brain, he had a gut feeling that the solution to this problem would require a different approach. Steve remembered a quote from Jonas Salk, the scientist who developed a vaccine for polio: "Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next." With nothing left to lose economically, but a whole lot to lose emotionally, he decided it was time to give the intuitive right-hemisphere of his brain a try. The brain is physically divided, right down the middle, into two hemispheres the left and the right. The hemispheres are interconnected via an intricate and fluid tapestry of firing neurons, but still, each hemisphere is primarily responsible for processing a certain type of information. The left-hemisphere is primarily responsible for language, math and logic and the right-hemisphere is primarily responsible for spatial abilities, face recognition, and emotional understanding. The left hemisphere emphasizes linear processing while the right-hemisphere emphasizes holistic processing. Here are a few more examples. • Left-hemisphere sequential processing - right-hemisphere random processing • Left-hemisphere logical - right-hemisphere intuitive • Left-hemisphere verbal - right hemisphere nonverbal A general, and oversimplified, rule of thumb is that left-hemisphere processes are largely rational processes -- for instance, linear thinking, memorization, and computation -- while right-hemisphere processes are largely intuitive processes -- for instance, compassion, creativity, pattern recognition, and emotional intelligence. Both hemispheres have a role in everything we say and do, but up until quite recently, our educational system was geared toward the development of left-hemisphere, or more linear and analytic processes, often to the detriment of the development of right hemisphere, or more holistic and intuitive, processes. Public education's emphasis on left-hemisphere processes, as exemplified by the importance schools place on standardized test scores, served Steve's dad well, and even Steve, in the workaday world as it existed for decades. But the workaday world has changed now, and an educational approach that emphasizes predominantly left-hemisphere processes at the expense of predominantly right-hemisphere ones, no longer serves Steve's family or anyone else for that matter. The professional paradigm in the new global economy has shifted away from one where abilities in analysis and computation are the greatest predictor of professional success. This paradigm shift has taken a toll on Steve and his family. With Steve out of work and Karen in the job market for the first time since their children were born, they need not only to make money but also to make sense of how their lives have changed. When Steve lost his job, his and Karen's primary concern was their kids -- more than anything else, they wanted to insulate Amanda and Josh from the all too real worry and stress that they were experiencing. But despite their parents' best efforts, Amanda and Josh suffered anyway. The entire family felt as if they had lost their bearings and Steve worried that the emotions triggered by his professional crisis clouded his perspective and he could no longer see the big picture clearly. For Steve, practicing mindful awareness was an offer of hope. The Steve, Karen, Amanda and Josh that I write about in this post are not a real-life family but a composite of many families I have worked with over the past year. Faced with the stress and strain of life in the 21st century, people are hurting and looking for a quick-fix that will not only make their children happy and healthy, but restore a sense of balance in their suddenly tumultuous lives. Right up front I want to be clear that mindful awareness training is not a magic wand that parents can waive and poof (!) -- their kids will be happy and successful. But I will go out on a limb to say that there is one quality that comes about as close to magic as you can get; and it can be discovered and refined by practicing mindfulness. That quality is clear seeing because life tends to be far more difficult than it need be when we don't see our experience clearly. The road toward genuine and lasting psychological freedom starts by becoming clear about what actually is happening in our lives and controlling our response to what we see. Breath awareness is the foundational practice for teaching children to clearly see inner- and outer- experience as it happens, without reacting to it emotionally, or in an automatic or habitual way. A new paradigm for children and families is within reach by connecting the wisdom derived from a more reflective and introspective way of being with the insights provided by education, psychology and neuroscience. To create this paradigm we: • Look at contemporary parenting & educational styles to see what's working and what's not working; • Look back at the traditional ways of parenting and teaching that have been discarded and identify what of value has been lost and what our kids today are missing: • Look to psychology and neuroscience to learn how new ways of teaching affect the brain and nervous system; and • Integrate the knowledge gleaned from these inquiries into already refined and tested models of mental training (mindful awareness or Qi Gong, for example) that focus on the integration of inner and outer life experience. Some ask why, with all the other psychological, religious, and social resources available to parents and teachers, why at a time when parents are referred to as "helicopter" parents because they hover over their children's every move, do the adherents of our movement to bring mindful awareness to families believe that we are ignoring the inner lives of children and in some way compromising their ability to reach their full potential? The answer is simple: many children's lives are seriously out-of-balance long before they reach adulthood and they needn't be. So let's take a deep breath, a clear look both backward and forward, and help families find emotional stability in this time of economic instability.
 
Ryan Mack: Why the AIG Bonus Story Matters to America Top
Somewhere in Detroit, right now, there is a union worker sweating as he helps to produce cars for this country on the assembly line. He thought that his contract with the UAW was set in stone but, unfortunately, to his dismay it was renegotiated and he has just found out that his salary was cut in order to keep his job. As well, he is now overly concerned that his health care will be reduced when he retires and his retirement will not be fully funded. All around him he hears horror stories of those who retired without the promised full pension and he sees the numbers of workers decrease every month by the dreaded pink slip. The market falters because of the failure of the banking system, and the Government calls upon this worker for help. Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, and other members of the Government explain to this worker that if the banks fail he will be negatively impacted. This same story is repeated by Obama, Geithner, Bernanke, and other Government officials. This worker is a little reluctant at first, but he eventually understands the bigger picture. He understands how the system works, so he reaches into his pocket with his calloused hand and pulls out some of his hard earned capital to give to the banks and support the system. Soon after, on his way to work at 3:30 am, getting prepared to do a double shift, he picks up a cup-a-joe and grabs a morning paper because the headline grabs his attention. The headline stated, "AIG Gives $165 million in Bonuses!" He doesn't really follow the news that closely but thinks to himself, "I wonder if they used MY hard earned money to bail out AIG?" When he gets to work, in the locker room, many of the co-workers are talking about the same story. They ask him, "Do you see that we bailed out those guys only to help them get their million dollar bonuses!?" Shocked at this injustice, the worker sits down to consume what he has heard. He begins to think of the numerous times the media called people "losers" because they bought a house without proper information and how he has close friends who are in that exact situation -- foreclosure. He thinks about how the President of his company was demonized for flying to Washington D.C. on a private plane and didn't get any support without multiple strings attached and close scrutiny (this is the proper way to provide loans)...but those on Wall Street flew to Washington D.C. on the same private plane and were allowed to have $2 million carnivals, $1.5 million offices, $400 thousand weekend getaways, $50 million proposed planes, and millions of dollars to put their name on the side of a stadium. In his mind, their penalty for excessive, imprudent spending was that they were given more of his money just to give out heavy bonuses! He thinks about how he is fighting so hard just to keep his job and they are fighting to keep their bonuses. Feeling like the odds are stacked against him, doubt enters his mind and he starts to question why he gets up so early -- just to be fired eventually? He feels as if this country was designed for the rich to get richer, the middle class to shrink, and the working class to increase. "I was going to go back to schoo,l but what is the point?" He begins to leave work earlier, come in later, his production decreases, and his apathetic attitude worsens. This worker isn't by himself. Teachers, coal miners, waitresses, and many across America saw the AIG story and felt the same way. They reacted in a similar way by decreasing production and losing hope of a brighter tomorrow promised to be fulfilled by the American dream if one works hard and believes. We see evidence of this by decreased production and record low consumer confidence. In the grand scheme of things, the amount of AIG bonuses was very small compared to the amount of funds being thrown around in this economic crisis. However, the impact on the American people was large. Faith is one of the most important commodities to the American people. Is $787 billion enough to create enough jobs and restore this economy? No. However, the Government was never meant to be the fix-all of our economic woes. The stimulus was only meant to "stimulate" the economy -- provide the jump start that we need to get going in the right direction. The faith of the people is going to fill the void. Faith is one half believing in a brighter future and the other half acting on that belief. If the people lose hope of a brighter tomorrow they will not believe and will act on that lack of belief accompanied by the burden of a negative mentality. In this economy it really is "all hands on deck". We need everyone to work as hard as they can to be as productive as possible. Without faith people will not go back to school, get re-trained and help solve this unemployment crisis. Without faith, people will not purchase homes and stunt the decrease in home values to help fix this housing crisis. If we don't have faith, we will see the level of apathy continue to rise while production continues to decrease causing this recession to lengthen. Those on Wall Street do not like being demonized. As a former equities trader myself, I can tell you that the majority of my colleagues were honest, hard working men and women who worked diligently to get to where they are in life. Conversely, those on Main Street don't mind that others in this country are better off financially. They only want to believe that they are living in a country where no matter their race, creed, religion, or income level they will be treated fairly and equally. When a worker turns on the television and sees Obama take CEOs of Wall Street out to lunch but forces a CEO from Main Street to resign, that matters. Perceived double standards, whether intentional or not, destroy consumer confidence and can keep us in this recession much longer than desired. More on Barack Obama
 
Obama Gets '3 a.m. Phone Call' On North Korea Top
Visiting Prague, Czech Republic, U.S. President Barack Obama was awakened at 4:30 a.m. Sunday with the news that North Korea had launched a rocket, as it had threatened to do over the past several weeks. During his presidential campaign, Obama and former rival Hillary Clinton debated over who would be better qualified to take a hypothetical early-morning call of an international crisis. But in Prague, where both Obama and Clinton -- now Secretary of State -- are participating in the European Union summit, they acted in concert. More on Barack Obama
 
Nathan Gardels: Obama in Istanbul: Test for the West Top
ISTANBUL - "If we can show that a big Muslim nation can modernize itself with the help of friends," former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has argued on behalf of Turkey's admission to the European Union, "it demonstrates that a strong civil society, equal rights for men and women, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a modern administration and modern economy are not in contradiction to Islam. This would be the most powerful message against the jihadists and terrorists." That is certainly President Barack Obama's hope when he attends the UN "Alliance for Civilizations" gathering in Istanbul this week after a pointed visit in Ankara to the grave of Ataturk, modern Turkey's secular saint and founder. The meeting is of particular importance because Mohamed Khatami, the reformist former president of Iran is a key member of the group, as is Federico Mayor, the former secretary general of UNESCO who, long before 9/11, extolled the tolerant virtues of "La Convivencia" -- the peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews and Christians in Andalusian Spain from 711-1492. Whether Obama's hope is justified is indeed the great test for the West in relations with the Muslim world. Millions of secular Turks who have marched in the streets in the past couple of years worry that the rise of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power amounts to "the state being taken over from within" by Islamists who aim to slowly corrode secular rule with a long march through the institutions. In their eyes, it might begin with banning billboards in Istanbul that display women in bikinis or separating boys and girls at the public swimming pool, advance to criminalizing adultery or banning alcohol and one day lead to the establishment of a full-fledged 21st century caliphate. As always, the nexus of the clash between the West and Islam is the role of women. The Turkish sociologist Nilufer Golë has put her finger somewhat provocatively on precisely what secularists fear might be taken away, but also on what Muslim women are gaining. "In contrast with the West," she has written, "where the public sphere was first formed by the bourgeoisie and excluded the working class and women, in the Muslim context of modernity women have been the makers of public space. In the Muslim context, the existence of democratic public space depends on the social encounter between the sexes and on the eroticization of the public sphere." The wearing of the headscarf in universities -- which the AKP has now allowed -- is the flash point of the conflict. To be sure, the headscarf issue signals changing private and public distinctions through the re-entry of religion into the public arena of modern Turkey. But since headscarf proponents argue that it will enhance the opportunities of women in higher education, it also serves as a critique of the idea that only secularism equals modernity. "Women proponents of the headscarf distance themselves from secular models of feminist emancipation," Gole argues, "but they also seek autonomy from male interpretations of Islamic precepts. They want access to secular education so they can follow new paths in life that don't conform to traditional gender roles, yet they also seek to fashion a new pious self. They are searching for ways to become Muslim and modern at the same time, transforming both." In short, the established meaning of Islamic veiling is undergoing a radical transformation -- from a symbol of Muslim female submission and seclusion in the private sphere to a badge of public, assertive Muslim womanhood. For Gole, this sign of stigma and inferiority is in the process of being inverted into a sign of empowerment and prestige. For his part, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's chief Muslim modernizer, denies any hidden agenda to overturn secularism. "First of all, a party cannot be Muslim or not Muslim," Erdogan told me in Davos shortly after he first came to power. "A party is an institution. Individuals can be Muslim, Christian or atheist. It is personal. "Personally, I am a human being who tries to be religious. But my party is not based on any religion. Our identity is that of a conservative democratic political party. We will never have a religious identity. This is a founding principle of our party: We are neither Islamic, nor Islamist. "Our religion, Islam, is infallible. But political parties and their leaders are not--they make mistakes. So, we have to separate the two." Turkey's most famous writer, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, brings a novelist's subtlety to the debate. " Turkey is a country of two souls," he told me just after his novel, Snow , was published in 2005. "There have been so many authoritarian politicians over the years trying to impose one soul on Turkey, one way of life or mode of being. Some wanted to impose Western secularism by military means; some wanted Turkey to be eternally traditional and Islamic. This approach destroyed democracy in Turkey. It was responsible for all the coups." Let's recognize, pleads Pamuk, "that to have two souls is a good thing. That is the way people really are. These souls are continually in dialogue with each other, sparring with each other and changing each other. To have democracy is precisely to have dialogue between these two souls." In order to look forward, Pamuk looks back. "This idea of incompatibility of Islam with modernity is an argument that adopts the fundamentalist logic. Liberals, democrats or Western thinkers should stop making general, vulgar and essentialist observations on Islam every time they come up with some new problem, most of which is partly their making, too. The whole history of Islam under the Ottoman Empire was a synthesis of the Book and what was happening in history, in the world. Islam is not a pure thing that exists out there in a vacuum. "Look at what has happened already in Turkey. We once had an Islamic fundamentalist party which has now converted into a more or less Western-style party whose historic mission is to take Turkey into Europe, and it is backed by the people! This approach is sober and compelling to most Turks today." As if to prove Pamuk right, the year I saw Prime Minister Ergodan in Davos he hosted a party for whom the guest of honor was Miss World, who was Turkish. She whirled around triumphantly with evident patriotism in her tiara--hair, arms and shoulders uncovered. Erdogan's wife stood by his side, covered with a headscarf. The great irony was that the Miss World contest that year had to be moved to London from Nigeria, where radical Islamists forced it to shut down in an episode the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka memorably referred to as a competition between "beauty and the beast." But it is precisely such a "union" of civilizations as the one witnessed in Davos that may dash hopes about the importance of a modernized Turkey as a moderating influence on anti-Western jihadists. "Since Kemal Ataturk, the Turks have believed they could become a modern state like the Europeans if they became secular and separated religion and state," Mohamad Mahathir told me when he was still prime minister of Malaysia. "This strategy is not convincing to Muslims, who, after all, are believers. If you say that modernization means secularization, then it will be rejected in the Islamic world." Surely the new Obama administration has assigned such pivotal importance to Turkey because it is the great experiment in the world today of both non-Western and post-secular modernity. Can it replace the authoritarian modernity imposed by Kemal Ataturk and European-oriented elites with a bottom-up modernization led by a democratically elected regime of Central Asian-Islamic lineage? Zeynep Karahan Uslu, a vice chairman of the ruling AKP, agrees that Ataturk's project has successfully facilitated material progress and created a Turkish identity. But, "it also entailed a scientific-based positivistic understanding of the world, thus promoting a non-religious Western type of society as the precondition for progress." This created a split between the central elites, who are secular, and the public in the Antatolian periphery, who are devout Muslims. Now, the religious masses are trying to remake modernity in their own image. As Obama recognizes, how this experiment works out, and the impact it has on the rest of the Muslim world, if any, is of profound importance to the West. God willing, secularism will survive democracy in Turkey and Muslims elsewhere will realize the value of both. More on Turkey
 
Foreclosure Grace Period Bill Signed Into Law Top
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has signed legislation that gives delinquent homeowners facing foreclosure a grace period of up to 90 days. The bill gives people extra time to work with lenders. It was passed by the state legislature in January and Quinn signed it early Sunday afternoon at a church on Chicago's southwest side. The legislation prohibits lenders from beginning foreclosure proceedings within the first 30 days that a homeowner is delinquent. After that, lenders have to tell homeowners that they have another 30 days to seek credit counseling before legal action could begin. People who get housing counseling approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have an additional 30 days to develop a plan with their lenders. More on Housing Crisis
 
Carol Felsenthal: Why Does the World Worship Michelle? Top
The reason that Michelle Obama's approval ratings are in the 70s; the reason she is so popular that she joins the ranks of superstars who need only a first name -- former First Lady Laura Bush needed both names in most quarters and Hillary needed only one during her husband's presidency, but that name evoked more scary than positive images -- is because Michelle is not a phony. When she teared up during a talk to mostly minority school girls in North London and told them that by any objective standard she should not be standing before them as the First Lady of the United States, that she should not have her double Ivy League education, not even the most rabid Obama-haters could say that moment resembled a Bill Clinton-bite-his-lower-lip routine. Michelle is from a working class family ; her father really did tend to the Chicago's boilers; her father really did need to work for the Daley machine as a precinct captain to get his promotions; neither parent went to college, on her father's side, not too many generations back her forbears slaved -- as slaves -- on the master's rice plantation in South Carolina. I spent several months writing a profile of Michelle for Chicago Magazine and on the issue of her background it all checked out. Think of another top member of the Obama team -- the man who tells everyone he's just Joe and who reacted to a former Senate colleague who used the honorific "Vice President" with the words, "give me a fucking break" -- Joe Biden, whose father had money, then lost it, and eventually sold real estate and managed a car dealership. Biden blew his best shot at winning his party's nomination for president in 1988 by claiming in August, 1987, that his ancestors had worked the coal mines in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He stole the story -- hook, line and paragraph -- from a passionate speech delivered by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, whose forbears had actually worked in the coalmines. Michelle is just getting started; she will play a huge role in her husband's administration and it will be about much more than fashion -- although what woman didn't smile when Michelle told New York Times reporter Marian Burros, "He's always asking: 'Is that new? I haven't seen that before'"? "It's like, Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet." (When I was writing about Michelle, her friends told me that if there's one thing Barack disliked more than his daughters watching television, it was shopping.) All Michelle needs to do to truly affect the national agenda and conversation is never, ever lose sight of her roots. So far, so good. More on Joe Biden
 
Chez Pazienza: Just Saying No to Leno Top
I was waiting for something like this to happen. When NBC first announced that it would be keeping Jay Leno on its payroll and, astonishingly, giving him a show five nights a week at 10pm, I figured it was only a matter of time before the network's nationwide affiliates staged a revolt. Although the clever little parlor trick of a move is going to be a huge financial success for NBC even if Leno tanks in the ratings -- simply because the show costs the network almost nothing to produce, making it an all-profit venture -- the local stations carrying it are likely to pay a hefty price by losing both ad revenue and a strong lead-in audience for their 11pm newscasts. Which is why Boston's WHDH is now saying that it won't carry Leno at 10PM. WHDH is owned by Sunbeam Television; the same company that owns WSVN in Miami, which is where I started my career. To say that Sunbeam's CEO, Ed Ansin, is a maverick would be like calling Kim Jong Il a little eccentric. The truth is that he built his company from the ground up, by hand, and has made it hugely successful by taking bold, almost unimaginable risks and by constantly defying both the odds and the expectations of his adversaries. Adversaries like, say, NBC . This isn't the first time Ansin has attempted what many might consider a suicide run at the Peacock. Back in the late 80s, WSVN was an NBC affiliate; that changed when the network tried to buy the profitable station from Sunbeam and Ansin refused to sell. At the time, NBC used the only weapon it had against Ansin -- the only weapon a major network ever has when dealing with an affiliate that refuses to sit down and shut up: the threat of pulling its programming completely and moving to a competing station across town. Against less testicularly fortified individuals, this Damocletian tactic probably would've worked, since no local TV station wants to be exiled from the big kids' table and suddenly find itself forced to air re-runs of Roseanne during prime time. But Ansin basically told NBC to go screw themselves, and when the network did in fact drop WSVN as an affiliate, buying WTVJ instead (which it's ironically now attempting unsuccessfully to sell), he came up with what at the time was a staggeringly audacious strategy to keep "Channel 7" relevant: He turned it into the news station in South Florida, pouring money into news-gathering hand over fist and running somewhere in the neighborhood of nine hours of live local news a day. The gamble paid off. WSVN 's ratings have been big and its influence has been impossible to overestimate ever since. The rest is television history. This makes Ed Ansin one very tough nut for NBC to crack and honestly the best -- and maybe only -- guy to take a stand against a corporate entity that critics accuse of having no issue generating profit for itself at the expense of those outlets actually carrying its programming to the audience. Needless to say, NBC is once again threatening to dump WHDH in Boston if Ansin doesn't relent and agree to run Leno in its regular time slot. I have a feeling I already know what Ed Ansin's response to the network will be. More on NBC
 
Dr. Susan Corso: The Woe is I Economy Top
Has anyone else had it with the woe is I economic reporting? Yes, I understand that the world economic situation is precarious. Yes, I understand there is much higher unemployment in the United States right now than in the recent past. Yes, I understand that the Obama administration has chosen a series of actions designed to change it. But what are you doing? What am I doing? What are we doing personally to change the economy? The AA definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way over and over again and expecting a different result. Is that what we're doing? To some extent, yes, I think we are. So if, just if, we were actually to put that definition of insanity to good use, what might we do differently to change our economic results? First, we would have to change our thinking. Yes, an 8% unemployment rate is dreadful, and if we'll do the math, we could realize and focus on the fact that 92% of people are employed. What we focus on increases -- good or bad. Second, we would have to change our actions. I heard one of our many pundits say recently that AIG is too big to allow it to fail. Really? Dinosaurs were too big and they failed. Just because our economy isn't an obviously biological phenomenon doesn't mean the same rules can't apply. What actions might we consider? How about legalizing marijuana and even other drugs, getting them off the black market and into a system of quality control, delivery and point-of-sale taxation? That would be different. How about a temporary moratorium on the Internal Revenue Service? I said, temporary . What if the United States were to abolish tax filing for anyone earning under the government's already magic number of $250,000 for five years? Think of the trees we'd save besides. That would be different. How about eliminating income tax and its collection altogether and instituting a point-of-sale tax? If you choose a Mercedes, you'll pay the tax on that. If you choose a Mitsubishi, you'll pay the tax on that. That would be different. How about any company that pays more than $250,000 per year for advertising has to give any overage to the government for economic stimulus, infrastructure recommitment, and program development for five years? That would be different. Based on the information coming out of the media these days, I truly don't know who is right about the economy and who is wrong. It would be great if Obama is right. Nobel economist Paul Krugman doesn't think so. (See this week's Newsweek .) I don't know any more, but, to quote Oprah, what I know for sure is that I'm not insane , and that if you're reading this, neither are you. Consciousness creates. Look at the good stuff more of the time. Then, in your own life, in your own finances, do something different, and maybe the economy will get the message and do something different, too. Visit Susan Corso's spiritual blog or subscribe to Seeds at www.susancorso.com . More on Oprah
 
Debórah Dwork: Surge in Economic Refugees Will Test Community Resources Top
The U.S. is on the verge of one of the largest "economic" refugee movements since the start of World War II and our nation is woefully unprepared for the fallout. As jobs wither in states like Ohio , Michigan and even tiny Rhode Island , the unemployed are packing up their families and descending on states like Texas , Oklahoma and North Dakota , where unemployment is nary a third whence they come. The fallout: cities, like Dallas or Houston, or small communities in rural Oklahoma , are and will not be able to cope with this surge of people. In my new book, Flight From the Reich: Refugee Jews: 1933-1946 , I examined the ever-dwindling choices open to those who had begun systematically to lose their jobs, homes and future hopes for education. I researched the concept of asylum and what becomes of people when they are forced to flee, whether from persecution or economic hardship, and become displaced persons trying to rebuild their lives. I recently gave a presentation on similarities between then and now, and became increasingly intrigued by how much alike the economic refugee today in America is with his counterpart in parts of Western and Central Europe during the 1930s. While the Nazis triggered a wave of economic refugees, the practical fallout was the same. Massive movements of the unemployed looked for work. They landed in a community with the hope of a job, but nothing more. They relied on the charity of the local community until and if they could find work to support themselves. These communities were strained and in many cases unable to sustain these newcomers. The plight of the economic refugee in America today is not so grave as in Europe in the 30s, yet the situations invite comparison. Like the German Jews forced from their jobs in the early 1930s who sought a new life, and who moved to neighbor states like France or the Netherlands, American economic refugees are forced from state to state. The fallout was and will be the breakup of strong communities and families in a state without employment prospects; the flight of more and more people; and the inability of local agencies to help newcomers who arrive in areas with fewer resources to support them until they are back up on their feet. Deborah Dwork is the Rose Professor of Holocaust History at Clark University and the author of Flight From the Reich: Refugee Jews 1933-1946 , published this month by W. W. Norton and Company. More on Economy
 
Ian Welsh: Elizabeth Warren: Finally someone with a clue how to handle the financial crisis Top
Warren's the chief watchdog for the 700 billion TARP fund. Unfortunately, she has no real power, but it's still nice to see a government official say not just some of the right things, but almost all of the right things. Talk of how the US is following Japan's path is finally everywhere (myself and a few others have been talking about it for years, and started really beating the drums last year ). Here's Elizabeth : Warren, a Harvard law professor and chair of the congressional oversight committee monitoring the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), is also set to call for shareholders in those institutions to be "wiped out". "It is crucial for these things to happen," she said. "Japan tried to avoid them and just offered subsidy with little or no consequences for management or equity investors, and this is why Japan suffered a lost decade."... ... Warren also believes there are "dangers inherent" in the approach taken by treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who she says has offered "open-ended subsidies" to some of the world's biggest financial institutions without adequately weighing potential pitfalls. "We want to ensure that the treasury gives the public an alternative approach," she said, adding that she was worried that banks would not recover while they were being fed subsidies. "When are they going to say, enough?" she said. She also calls for the resignation of the CEOs of the worst firms. One thing I'm tired of hearing though is the phrase "lost decade". Japan didn't just lose a decade, it has never really recovered. The good times have never come back. I also think that bondholders need to take a haircut as well, not just shareholders, though they may not need to be wiped out in all cases. However, if the value of a company if it was liquidated is less than zero, then yes, non-secured bondholders (those whose bonds aren't attached to specific assets with value) should be wiped out. I don't have much hope any of this will occur. Warren's not part of the boys club of Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and Obama who's making the decisions. But one can hope...
 
Roger Friedman Fired By Fox News For "Promoting" Piracy Top
News Corp like all major Hollywood studios takes the crime of piracy very seriously. Nor will the Fox parent company tolerate it if its employees don't. Especially after a stolen, early and unfinished work print of 20th Century Fox's big summer blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine was put onto the Internet illegally this week in a major scandal that the FBI is now investigating. So there was universal shock on Friday when long-time "Fox 411" freelance columnist Roger Friedman wrote what I'm told his bosses felt was a blatant promotion of piracy on his Fox News web outlet. More on Fox News
 
James Warren: This Week in Magazines: A Jihad on Behalf of Usury Laws, An "Idiot's Guide to Pakistan," and The Agenda for K Street's Trout Lobbyists Top
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, the born-again hedge fund moneybags, don't mention ancient Babylonia in addressing the financial crisis. But Chicago attorney Thomas Geoghegan sure does in the April Harper's Magazine 's " Infinite Debt ," a rhetorical jihad on behalf of usury laws. Usury laws? Assessing our current mess, the brainy Chicago labor lawyer-author-recently-failed congressional candidate (for Rahm Emanuel's seat) asserts that we erred when we "dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter's term, and which had been so taken for granted that no one ever even mentioned it to us in law school [Geoghegan went to Harvard]. That's when we found out what happens when an advanced industrial economy tries to function with no cap at all on interest rates." "Here's what happens: the financial sector bloats up. With no law capping interest, the evil is not only that banks prey on the poor (they have always done so) but that capital gushes out of manufacturing and into banking. When banks get 25 percent to 30 percent on credit cards, and 500 or more percent on payday loans, capital flees from honest pursuits, like auto manufacturing. Sure, GM is awful. Sure, it doesn't innovate. But the people who could have saved GM and Ford went off to work at AIG, or Merrill Lynch, or even Goldman Sachs. All of this used to be so obvious as not to merit comment. What is history, really, but a turf war between manufacturing, labor, and the banks? In the United States, we shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it's just the banks." "Which is why the middle class is shrinking...." Perhaps. At minimum, this free suggestion to MSNBC , new home of prairie populist Ed Schultz, a North Dakota radio host: have Ivy Leaguer Geoghegan and Schultz take out their respective credit cards and passionately discuss and deride uncapped rates. If you can get Geithner to debate them, all the better! Oh, after you've done with this piece, check April 13 New Yorker 's "I.O.U.," Jill Lepore's broad review of the history of debt, bankruptcy, our free-spending ways and seeming refusal to understand our own financial history. ---March 26 London Review of Book includes Boston University's Andrew Bacevich's dandy " The Long War ," an essay-review of Thomas Ricks' book, The Gamble , about the Bush administration "surge" in Iraq. Is it true that, as some very smart people believe, we really cannot leave and must slog onward with a "Long War," in part because we've unintentionally destabilized the region even more than did Saddam Hussein and have needlessly empower and emboldened Iran? "In Washington, nationalists, neoconservatives and many right-wingers will insist that Obama must prosecute the Long War to the fullest extent possible and for as long as necessary. They will settle for nothing less than complete victory. Members of the officer corps know that victory is an illusion. But because they can't conceive of an alternative to the Long war, they too many insist that it continue. If Obama follows this advice, his presidency will fail. Making good on his promise of change requires that he extricate the United States. Should he continue the policy of perpetual war, he will follow the Bush administration in doing incalculable damage to the American economy, the American political system and U.S. national security. He will also fail in his obligations to the soldiers for whose well-being he bears direct responsibility." Elsewhere in this issue one finds "Taking the Bosses Hostage," a dandy look at growing social unrest in China by Joshua Kurlantzick, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China's economic growth is stalling, with protests by the downtrodden and exploited growing. "The downturn could prove the first real threat to the regime since the 1989 Tiananmen protests. It challenges the wisdom of Beijing's economic model, and threatens to break the implicit bargain between China's middle classes and its rulers, whereby the regime will deliver high growth rates, and in return, the middle class, who benefit most from growth, will tolerate authoritarian government." But it bought off the middle class at the expense of the seemingly powerless masses in the countryside who are now, albeit belatedly, showing distinct signs of rebellion as they get shafted in the downturn. ---The spring issue of Outside's Go , a decidedly champagne and caviar spin-off from kayak-and-camembert Outside , has "I've Been Everywhere," procuring ravel suggestions from five folks who've racked up serious frequent flier points around the globe. Tips include going to Amorgos, a largely desolate Greek island; gorilla habitats in western Rwanda (good luck); a private island resort in French Polynesia called Le Taha'a; and the supposed "new Nantucket," Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. ---If Obama, Emanuel and David Axelrod don't know the legislative agenda important to readers of Trout, they can check the spring issue for "The Changing of the Guard: A Conservation Agenda for the New Congress and President." The wish list includes establishing limits for outdoor recreational vehicles on public lands; saving and rebuilding Pacific salmon stocks; reforming the 1872 Mining Law (you do know the 1872 Mining Law, right?); and reforming the Bush Administration's Water for America Initiative, which generally seeks to secure water resources for the future. Speaking of water, " The River Drains Through It " is veteran journalist Tom Kenworthy's look at how more than a half million acre feet of water is yearly diverted from river basins on Colorado's western slope to the other side of the Rocky Mountains, but how environmental concerns now ensnarl plans to build similar diversions to satisfy the demands of growth in the West. He notes how, "Even amid increased conservation efforts, more than half of urban residential water use is for law and garden watering." ---Photographer Tim Llewellyn's "best seat in the house" consisted of being presidential candidate Barack Obama's personal photographer, traveling with him around New Hampshire. His recounts his role in " History in the Making " in March-April Yankee ("New England's Magazine"). His most vivid recollection is one very close to home and came a few months into his service when his father's brother did of liver cancer. After the funeral, a phone call came from Obama as the family was around the dinner table. Llewellyn let it go right into voice mail, later realizing it was a message from Obama, with condolences and the reassurance that he could take off as much time as needed. "It was unexpected and perhaps unnecessary, but it was heartfelt and spoke to the core of my time with him. And my father, who had voted Republican in an uninterrupted streak that ran for 50 years, voted for a Democrat last November." ---Nicholas Schmidle, a journalist who's reported from Pakistan and is now a fellow at Washington's New American Foundation, admits that understanding Pakistan ain't easy. "I lived in Pakistan throughout all of 2006 and 2007 and only came to understand, say, the tribal breakdown in South Waziristan during my final days. So to save you the trouble of having to live in Pakistan for two years to differentiate between the Wazirs and the Mehsuds, the Frontier Corps and the Rangers, I've written an 'idiot's guide' that will hopefully clear some things up." Good for him. And even though the complexity is, well, substantial, it's all a very good reason to check " The Idiot's Guide to Pakistan " on the website of Foreign Policy . ---" Why Did New York Stop Growing Basketball Stars? " by Jason Zengerle is an intriguing opus in New Republic , even if one is still left scratching one's head as to why there's been a steep decline. There are several theories presented, including too much hype about New York players, too much pampering and dilution of talent via too many high school and other teams. Did you know Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn? Fine, but Zengerle says it's no surprise that he became, well, Michael Jordan after the family moved to North Carolina. Hmmmm. ---This week's Journey to the Obscure brings us to the winter issue of Representations 105 and " Sacrifice Before the Secular " by Jonathan Sheehan. It's inspired by issues intertwined with the 1987 decision by the city council of Hialeah, Fla., to ban animal sacrifice, prompted by a proposed church and school run by devotes of Santeria, whose worship of their orishas at times took sacrificial form. This was ultimately overturned but, all these years later, prompts an essay summarized thusly: "Early modern secularism--and early modern religion--are plagued by tales of demystification, where each is made into the other's mutual secret, token of bad faith and self-alienation. This essay hopes to chart an alternative story, by looking at an early modern moment when the practices of legal and theological reason worked in tandem on the problem of sacrifice. Before the secular, it argues, sacrifice did not mark sacrality as such, but was rather the material that helped rethink both the functions of authority and the transactions between contingent humanity and the universal demands of law and God." More on Larry Summers
 
Sean L. McCarthy: The SNL FAQ: #34.20 (Seth Rogen) Top
It's Sunday. You have questions about last night's Saturday Night Live . We have answers. Did they open with a political sketch? YES. Fred Armisen delivered a speech supposedly from Europe as President Barack Obama, and after acknowledging all of the Euro love for him, told business leaders that his administration would not treat them any differently than they have the auto industry, when Obama forced out GM's CEO and told the car companies what's what if they want to keep getting federal subsidies. Which led to a random rundown of various businesses with Obama choosing sides. Apparently, he likes Coke and Pepsi (despite or perhaps because Pepsi changed its logo to look like his campaign banners?!). Spoiler alert? How did the host do, and did he/she do anything outrageously funny? Seth Rogen noted upfront in his monologue that the second time around the SNL hosting train feels a bit different. If you like Rogen already, then you would be pleased with his effort. But I cannot think of anything he did that really stood out, good or bad. He was a good sport, though, in letting the cast poke fun at his looks, and the very idea that he was on to promote a second mall cop comedy movie in 2009. Who played President Obama? Armisen. His vocal impersonation seemed way off this time around. Does that sort of thing matter to you? If so, then you'll still think SNL needs a new guy mocking the big guy. Was there a digital short? YES Was it funny? NO. Unless you really want to hear Andy Samberg rap again. In this instance, he raps his office job performance review to say he thinks his a day in his life is "Like A Boss." Was there a fake ad? Sort of, kind of. There was a taped sketch poking this weekend's number-one movie, with Rogen and Samberg playing off both of their tendencies to see homoeroticism as funny in a fake trailer for The Fast & The Bi-Curious . Did the musical guest lip-sync or otherwise do something worth mentioning? Phoenix, a French band, sounded arty rock good but didn't look French. Did my favorite character return? Yes, if you enjoy Bill Hader's Italian talk show host, Vinny Vedecci. And especially a thousand times yes if you loved Will Forte and Kristen Wiig playing country singing duo Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Sned, selling songs about spaceships, toddlers, Model-T cars and jars of beer, this time with an Easter theme. Also, Kenan Thompson's French "Def Jam" comic, Jean K. Jean, appeared again on the Weekend Update desk to comment on Obama's European trip. Were there any celebrity cameos? NO. Did any celebrities get impersonated? YES. Newcomer Abby Elliott brought back her Angelina Jolie to poke fun at Wiig's Madonna after a Malawi judge rejected her bid to adopt another baby. And if you count comic strip characters and Muppets as celebrities, then there were a couple dozen more impressions to add to this list. Did any politicians get impersonated? Jason Sudeikis put on the Blago 'do as indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich pitched an idea to go undercover...as the governor of Illinois. For the full recap and analysis of this episode of SNL, click here . More on SNL
 
Pittsburgh Police Shooting Had Origins In Urinating Dog Top
PITTSBURGH — A 911 call that brought two police officers to a home where they were ambushed, and where a third was also later killed during a four-hour siege, was precipitated by a fight between the gunman and his mother over a dog urinating in the house. The Saturday argument between Margaret and Richard Poplawski escalated to the point that she threatened to kick him out and she called police to do it, according to a 12-page criminal complaint and affidavit filed late Saturday. When officers Paul Sciullo III and Stephen Mayhle arrived, Margaret Poplawski opened the door and told them to come in and take her 23-year-old son, apparently unaware he was standing behind her with a rifle, the affidavit said. Hearing gunshots, she spun around to see her son with the gun and ran to the basement. "What the hell have you done?" she shouted. The mother told police her son had been stockpiling guns and ammunition "because he believed that as a result of economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society," the affidavit said. Friends have said Poplawski was concerned about his weapons being seized during Barack Obama's presidency, and friends said he owned several handguns and an AK-47 assault rifle. Police have not said, specifically, what weapons were used to kill the officers. Autopsies show Sciullo, 37, died of wounds to the head and torso. Mayhle, 29, was shot in the head. A witness awakened by two gunshots told investigators of seeing the gunman standing in the home's front doorway and firing two to three shots into one officer who was already down. Sciullo was later found dead in the home's living room, and Mayhle near the front stoop, police said. A third officer, Eric Kelly, 41, was killed as he arrived to assist the first two officers. Kelly was in uniform but on his way home when he responded and was gunned down in the street. Kelly's radio call for help summoned other officers, including a SWAT team. The ensuing standoff included a gun battle in which police say Richard Poplawski tried to kill other officers. Poplawski is charged with three counts of criminal homicide and nine counts of attempted homicide _ one each for the eight officers who were shot at in an armored SWAT vehicle, plus a ninth who was shot in the hand as he tried to help Kelly. Poplawski also was charged with possessing an instrument of crime: the bulletproof vest he wore during the gun battle. The criminal complaint doesn't say how Poplawski obtained the vest. Police Chief Nate Harper Jr. has said the vest kept Poplawski from being more seriously wounded, but police have not specifically said how many shots were stopped by the vest. A district judge arraigned Poplawski at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, an arraignment court worker told The Associated Press on Sunday. Poplawski was being treated there for gunshot wounds to his extremities and remains under guard. Police and hospital officials have not released his condition, though he is expected to survive. It was not immediately clear if Poplawski has an attorney. A preliminary hearing, at which Poplawski could challenge the charges, wasn't immediately scheduled. Poplawski is also charged with firing weapons into two occupied neighboring homes and with recklessly endangering four people, two in each home, with gunfire. No civilians were wounded. Police did not immediately say why Poplawski fired toward the homes, but some officers were seen going into nearby homes and perching on rooftops. Police did not immediately release any information on funeral arrangements for the officers, though a memorial was held Saturday night outside the police station where all three slain officers worked. Bagpipers played near a black wreath hung outside the station and an Allegheny County 911 dispatcher did a roll call for the 11 p.m. shift change. Various officers responded when their car numbers were called, but there was silence when the names, unit numbers and badge numbers of the slain officers were called out. Chief Harper radioed back in each instance that the officer had been killed in the line of duty as hundreds of officers and other mourners stood listening nearby.
 
Christine Pelosi: Amid Clouds of Cynicism, National Service Act A Breath of Fresh Air Top
As storm clouds of cynicism gather over a troubled economy and uncertain world, the Democratic Congress delivers a breath of fresh air: a national call to service that triples AmeriCorps and strengthens our national commitment to the common good. HR1388, renamed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act , which passed the House last week and the Senate the week before, will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions today to 250,000 by 2017 and increase AmeriCorps education awards for college or repay student loans, create a "summer of service" program for middle and high school students, and provide education awards for volunteers 55 and older who can transfer these earned awards to a child, grandchild or foster child. Some question the need to facilitate volunteerism when so many people are crunched for time and resources as they encounter mounting personal debt, tuition bills, job insecurity and skyrocketing health care costs. But this is exactly the time when America's generosity of spirit is made manifest, as people overwhelmingly support funding and assistance to nonprofits, public agencies, community and faith-based organizations that want to hire help. The bipartisan Congressional support for this cornerstone of the Democratic agenda is an encouraging sign that solutions are possible -- and that not all politics are polarized. When President Obama signs the bill this week, he will officially usher in a new era of responsibility, where Americans are willing to foster a culture of service. Now that is the change we voted for.
 

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