Thursday, December 07, 2006

Education: More Than an Individual Endeavor


Submitted to Munity-East, Volume 3, Issue 4, 2006

The value in education is obvious for most international school kids. You go to school to get your learning, and then you go on to become doctors, or lawyers, or artists, or diplomats. The schooling that you receive is an enabler. It allows you to plan for and to meet your goals . . . those goals most likely include the attainment of health, happiness, and prosperity.

Some of you who have stopped to think about it see other benefits in education. Maybe you see learning as an end in itself. You read a great novel or master a new mathematical concept, and this accomplishment gives you a sense of satisfaction and edification. You see that education has added to your understanding of the world and your quality of life. You see that you’ve been exposed to things that many people in the world may never understand or appreciate – the joy of travel, the sense of wonder that you experience at a museum or an opera, or the simple pleasure of a conversation that challenges your intellect and sharpens your opinions.

So, education is a means of achieving one’s goals and improving one’s quality of life. But what about education as a means for solving world problems? Can the value of education be extended beyond the individual? After having been a student for a score of years and a teacher for another decade, I would argue that education as a concept will have a huge impact on the future – just as it has had on the past. Our efforts to educate not only ourselves, but to extend that education to impoverished or strife-ridden areas of the world will dramatically influence the course of events during the 21st century.

The fact is that the world is becoming smaller. Cliché, yes, but true nonetheless. As people of different nationalities, races, and beliefs begin more and more to rub elbows, it will become more and more apparent that one’s neighbor’s level of education is as important – or sometimes more important – than one’s own.

A case in point today is the level of xenophobia between many countries of the world. As educated individuals, we know that the large majority of people, no matter what their nationalities, share many common values: family, prosperity, a desire to live in peace and happiness. When knowledge and history are controlled or repressed by the state, it’s easy for the masses to come to see outsiders as monsters. There are numerous uneducated or unthinking individuals among us who see others as barbaric, cruel, or “out-to-get-them.”

Tyrants, maybe more than anyone else, understand the power of education, or more precisely, the lack thereof. That is why they work so hard to keep their subjects in the dark. Their Orwellian demonization of other cultures through manipulation of knowledge and the media diminishes the humanity of those peoples, thereby twisting reality so that repression and genocide are a moral obligation. So “un”education is also an enabler. It allows the few to control the many by playing upon their fears and prejudices. Education is the means of toppling these ideas. It is impossible for people to maintain the same levels of prejudice and hatred after having been exposed to the similarities of those so-called opposing cultures.

The deteriorating environment represents another educational dilemma. Ultimately, we all breathe the same air, we drink the same water, and we walk on the same ground. We can’t allow ourselves to forever maintain our dependence on polluting energy sources which corrupt our life’s medium. It is important that we educate ourselves in the use of alternative and renewable energy sources and that we then look to their proliferation. We also cannot allow many societies of the world to continue to experience the ravages of preventable diseases. Who will educate the children if the parents are dead? Besides the fact that no one will be there to teach them not to hate us, there may also be no one to explain the consequences of cutting down their forests, or that poverty is a cycle fueled by lack of family and financial planning, or about how mining or clear-cutting can lead to erosion and dangerous metal seepage, thereby diminishing food supplies and further deteriorating the population’s already sub-standard levels of health.

It’s not enough to view education as a means to an end for the individual. While working to become a doctor, lawyer, artist, or a diplomat is a noble goal, it is fundamental that we also work to become teachers in the sense that we support and participate in the efforts to spread the same value for learning that has so positively affected our own lives. Be a doctor who teaches cleanliness and sanitation. As a lawyer, help those with little understanding of the government to avoid becoming the victim of it. Put your artistic talents to work to show that a mountain is more beautiful than as strip mine. As a diplomat, work to understand other cultures and ensure that they understand your own. Because, as all learned people must understand, education is more than a personal endeavor; it is a responsibility. Empowering others through teaching will broaden the pool of responsible global citizens. It is the factor that will determine whether we will progress toward a more promising future or continue to wallow in the mistakes and poor practices of the past and present.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Hodgepodge 10-30-2006


When I was a kid at Westwood Elementary in Friendswood, I and every other reader in the school were in a race to check out Where the Sidewalk Ends. That was before Barnes and Nobles or Borders when books were still something to be checked out of the library. The book was so popular because the internet wasn't around and Atari was still something that most people couldn't afford or rejected on principle, and because it was full of poems like "Sister for Sale" and "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too" (who, incidentally, went for a ride in a flying shoe . . .). But many was the time that our weekly library hour came and I rushed to the "S" section of the poetry section to find it already gone.
Right next the vacancy that Silverstein should have occupied was a book called Hodgepodge which means, if you don't know, "a little bit of everything." It had a little poetry (the funny, kid kind), some riddles, and even some short stories. I found that, all-around, it was a pretty good substitute for other book, and better yet, it was always waiting patiently for me on the shelf. Here is a "Hodgepodge" of some of my thinking over the last couple of weeks.

Starbucks is sweet.
I guess that I should be one of those people who rejects corporate coolness, and in general, I am. When in Austin, I much prefer Mojo's on Guadalupe or -- better yet --Joe's on South Congress where I can sit outside with my dog and watch the real Austinites pass by.
But when in Taichung, I prefer Starbucks -- even if I did just pay $80 NT for a cup of tea. Walking my dog to the shop from my apartment, I pass a lot of betle nut shops, a lot of crazy drivers pass me in their beaters, on their scooters, or in their BMWs. I smell stinky dofu, I pass Tai Chi people in the park, and look in the window at a bunch of nice looking restaurants where I can't read the menu.
So when I get to Starbucks, I don't scoff. I sit myself down outside in the familiar faux wicker chair, listen to the familiar canned jazz, look around at the Taiwanese version of American Starbucks customers, and enjoy a little respite from my otherwise off-kilter world.

Higher Abortion Rates Equal Less Crime.
This is not an argument for abortion; rather, it's just an acknowledgement of the hypothesis that more the increase in abortions soon after Roe vs. Wade probably had a lot to do with the declining crime rates in the 1990s. I recently read Levitt's Freakonomics and found this to be one of the more interesting points. (Other interesting topics included cheating Sumo wrestlers and a man who was able to relate honesty to bagel consumption.) In a nutshell, the 1990s were supposed to go to hell in a hand basket. All the experts foresaw skyrocketing numbers of robberies, rapes, and murderers. But somehow they all ended up with egg on their faces.
So what was the driving force behind this falling of? Was it better parenting skills? Was it better law enforcement or CSI techniques? Was it the rising economy? Well, maybe . . .
But according to the statistics, it had a lot more to do with the number of future criminals who never got the chance. The women most likely to have abortions were those in difficult circumstance -- poor, abused, uneducated, alone. Their children were likely to have grown up in impoverished circumstances with little supervision and too many opportunities to get in trouble. At risk, you might say. Their coming of age corresponded with the drop in crime rates in the 90s.
While advocating abortions to prevent crime is, in my opinion, far too Swiftian, there are a host of arguments surrounding the issue. For example, the ready availability of birth control or real sex education in schools. Choices other than abortion that could still allow women to avoid unwanted pregnancies, because someone -- whether it be mom, sister, grandma, adoption agencies, or the criminal justice system -- will have to deal with the consequences.

Denial: It's Not Just a River in Libya.
That's Bill Maher's line, not mine, and of course refers to the intelligence of President Bush. I like Bill. He's funny.
Bush isn't stupid, however -- just stubborn and a little crazy. At least that's the impression that I got of him after reading the new Woodward book, State of Denial. Mostly, the book just blamed everything on Rummsfield. It didn't say anything that I didn't already know (Shouldn't have gotten into the war, great takeover, no plan for how what to do next, everything seriously ‘effed’ up now.)
I think that it's much too easy to just view things as Rummsfield's fault. He smells like a scapegoat. No, I think that the buck has got to stop with Bush. And I even admire the President a little bit for sticking by his man when the chips are down.
But it's just another illustration of why Bush shouldn't be there in the first place. He's not dumb, but he's not the right man for the job. So much of the bad that has happened in the last 6 years is directly attributable not to his malice, but to his mistakes. Iraq, Kyoto, New Orleans . . .
Emerson said, "Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. " It's OK if you were on Bush's side to begin with. He was an attractive candidate. It's also OK now if you realize that it's time for a change. (Not that the democrats look that much better . . .)
On a side note, I watched Gore's movie over the weekend and thought to myself: Where was that guy during the election? He was so calm, so inspiring, so not-stiff. What a time to pull it out -- 6 years later.
Poor timing, in my opinion.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Aristocracy Rising -- Phil's View


Fairness, hm? When was that ever a right. Moderated by the have's and desired by the havent's. Fairness is merely a virtue that we aspire to teach our kids despite never having experienced it, thus not really knowing how to relate it, either. Fairness compares only to other concepts such as infinity or perfection. Reality, however, is life. It is what you make it. This contrasts to fairness in that you have more control over it. You can change your reality by applying your virtues to your desires. Are you, yes you sitting there behind your lcd screen, going to change how a university accepts its student body or how a president is cultivated? Well, you have more power here than you realize. But don't kid yourself. It will not be in your lifetime. Or perhaps even your daughter's. But your altruism will be of benefit to a few generations below you that you will never meet. They may not realize you were the Butterfly in Beijing but it will be other bloggers 200 years from now seeking fairness from your very descendants. It's a signature of stable government that power and influence are slow to change from one constituency to another. By contrast, a regime that fluctuates in extremes over short periods stands no chance of longevity.Not that fluctuation isn't normal. Or necessary. All in life fluctuates. It is intrinsic to reality and has not been contradicted. From the electron vibrating about a proton, to the galaxies in the universe. To the hand of power among humans. History is abundant with examples. So what if your kid has a lesser chance to enter Harvard. Just as the northern Atlantic is rebuffed by the Norwegian coast, the advancing fjord suddenly does strike deeply into her mainland, albeit in a craggily and twisted path. Your only hope of approaching fairness lies in your desire to provide her the chance to reach a little farther than you could.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Real Fear



When I got married everyone said that I was going to get fat. I didn’t. Then, when I hit 30, everybody said that I was going to get fat. I didn’t. Now that we’ve got a baby on the way everybody is making a new prediction: “Your lifestyle is going to totally change!” Well . . . maybe.
There are things about my life that will almost certainly change. In fact, they’re already changing. I don’t ride the scooter as much, for example. Not that I think that it’s inherently all that much more dangerous that driving the car, but as I don’t have life insurance yet, I try to minimize my two wheel excursions. That’s another thing: I’m looking in to some life insurance. I like the idea of Gisella and the baby and Zelda getting a pile of cash if I get crunched by a bus or fall off a cliff or have a heart attack or buy it in one of the other billion ways to go.
I think that that’s my main point. There are a billion and one or two ways to go. Maybe you live in the safest town on the planet. Maybe you’ve got a nice new house and a reinforced, top of the line crash tested Volvo that you drive 2 miles to work through no traffic. Unfortunately, you like to eat and keel over at 45 from a heart attack. So it goes. Or maybe you work out every day, weigh ten pounds less that average, and eat nothing but tofu and carrots. Unfortunately, you eat some bad spinach and die from e. coli. So it goes. Or maybe you avoid bacteria-laden vegetables but like to smoke. Unfortunately, you’re dumb , and die of lung cancer. (S.I.G) Maybe you’re a healthy non-smoking, non-motorcycle riding, spinach avoiding guy, but you happen to live on the West Coast and get nuked by the North Koreans. (And the little bird sings "Pooteeweet.")
So when you think about it, there’s really nothing to be scared about because we’re all going to die. It’s just a matter of when. (Better later than sooner, you’re probably thinking. Good point.) Death, while sucky, shouldn’t be something that we’re constantly worried about.
There are a lot of things that do really scare me. I don’t want to go into the obvious ones like being completely paralyzed or being buried alive. Those are easy. It’s the less obvious things that we really have to watch out for – the things that, while they might not actually lead to our deaths, might lead to a loss of life.
I used to work for an expedition company. Every summer, we would take teenagers on these extended camping trips in Washington state. I worked with a lot of interesting people. Most of them worked the job seasonally and lived out of their cars. In the winter they were ski instructors, and in the spring waiters and waitresses. Or maybe they used the few thousand dollars a year that they made to travel around the world (It’s amazing where you can go when you don’t have a house or a car payment). Anyway, there was one young lady who worked with us who didn’t come from the restaurants or the ski resorts; rather, she was an investment banker. I always admired the fact that she was willing to spend the few days of vacation that she got each year with a bunch of kids camping out in the woods. Still, I couldn’t understand why she was so interested in working so many hours just to make money. When I asked her about it, out conversation went something like this:
“So, why do you spend so much time working and making money?”
“Well, I think that it’s so important to provide for your family.”
“But you don’t have a family . . . “
“But I will one day.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to have less money but more time to spend with your kids?”
“Well, maybe. But what are you going to do if one of them gets sick and only a certain kind of operation will save them, but you can’t afford it?”
“Good point . . .”
For a while, I couldn’t find a good answer to her remark. It bothered me. Here I was going around and saying that having a lot of money didn’t matter when, in fact, if I didn’t earn a lot of money, my family would die of some rare, but operable illnesses that I couldn’t afford to get treated. It sort of makes sense if you think about it only from a caregiver’s point of view. Then I started thinking about my own father. I appreciated the fact that he was around a lot, even though he didn’t have a lot of money. In fact, as a kid, I would have been horrified to know that he had wasted his whole life just to earn enough money to try to save me from every possible means of buying it – something that I now know is impossible anyway.
So while I have to admit that the idea of death holds a modicum of fear for me, my real fear consists not of dying, but of not really living. That's real fear. I'm not going to spend my time trying to live forever. I'm going to enjoy myself and try to keep my head above water. It's the balance that counts. A little money, a little time. A little scooter a little car. A little life, and eventually, hopefully somewhere far down the line, a little death.
So it goes.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Aristocracy Rising


Thomas Jefferson said that “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.” Apparently, he had it all wrong. Apparently, our aristocracy is one based on wealth and privilege, at least concerning our nation’s most prestigious universities.

In an article entitled “Poison Ivy”, this month’s Economist reports that “No less than 60% of the places in elite universities are given to candidates who have some sort of extra ‘hook’, from rich parents to ‘sporting prowess’. Harvard admits 40% of legacy applicants compared to 11% of general applicants. About 25% of students in Notre Dame are the offspring of alumni. Boston University accepted 91% of “faculty brats” in 2003.

So what does this mean in practical terms? Apparently, it means that if you come from a rich family, or your parents went there, or you’re above average in fencing or polo, or your parents work there, then you’re a shoe in. So much for the level playing field. Moreover, since salaries are more and more based on the quality of post-secondary education, it means that the rich are more likely to stay rich, and the poor are more likely to stay poor.

You might be asking yourself, “So what? Shouldn’t people be able to help their kids get into the best university possible? Wouldn’t Jefferson, himself, have used whatever means necessary to get his son accepted to the university of choice?” Well, sure. It’s natural to want the best for your children. That’s just it: Everybody wants the best for their children. That’s why it’s important to have a fair system for university admissions – one based on “virtue and talents” rather than money and influence. It's the job of the parents to get their children into the best university possible; it's the job of the universities to ensure that the admittance procedures are based who-they-are rather than who-they-know.

Admissions at colleges of this level can have real-world implications. Think about a kid that you knew from high school. A kid with a nice personality, but not a great GPA – someplace in the “C” range. He’s a fine boy, but not especially dedicated. You both apply to Yale, but although your grades are better, you don’t quite make it, while he rides in on the “legacy” admission standard because his father was a graduate. You go on to become a successful business man, doctor, lawyer, teacher, rocket scientist, . . . whatever. Congratulations! He goes on to become president of the United States. That's right. Your president, Dubya formerly George Bush, was a "C" student admitted because his father was a VIP alumnus.

It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Ben Franklin and Boiling Toads


We’ve been studying Ben Franklin in my junior English class over the last few days, and the more I read, them more I like him. I like him because, for a man of his time, he was especially honest about himself – honest about what he considered to be his virtues and his vices. We read today about his “virtues chart.” This was a chart, an 18th century Excel spreadsheet if you will, that he tried to use to reach moral perfection. Two things about this are striking: 1. That he thought that he was capable of reaching perfection, and 2. That he gave up on the chart fairly quickly. I like the first point because I, too, believe that, although a man may never become perfect, he can at least improve himself; I like the second point because I, too, think that man it’s foolish to waste a lot of time trying to overcome habits or qualities, that while morally imperfect, can still be ingratiating and fun – like mild intemperance or venery, for example.

If you didn’t know, Franklin also wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac, a collection of aphorisms that he either heard from others or came up with himself. Here are some of my favorites:

Fish and guests smell after three days. (Just ask my parents. I’m sure that my month-long stay last summer almost killed them.)

Three can keep a secret if two are dead. (This was modernized by Tom Cruise when he said, “I’d tell ya’, but then I’d have to kill ya’.”)

Love your neighbor, but don’t pull down your hedge. (He’s probably peeking in your back window.)

But my favorite Franklin quip is from the Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 and goes like this: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

I’m not one to say that our current situation in the world isn’t dangerous. It is. But what price are we willing to pay to secure our safety?

It’s natural to look at another country and think, “They’re out to get us.” I’m sure that some of them really are. And when we hear Condeleeza Rice’s warning about the potential “mushroom cloud” or the president going on and on about the “axis of evil” powers intent on doing us in, it’s easy to feel that it’s our duty as Americans to give of what we have to ensure the country’s security. In this case, what we have is our civil liberties. To protect ourselves from our would-be killers, we give up our protections from our own government. It seems like the logical thing to do. After all, our government is made of good, god-fearing men and women who would use that power only to do good and would never think of abusing it, right?

My argument against this can be summed up in a brief list of names: Stalin, Pinochet, Hitler, Hussein, Mao, Castro, etc., etc., unfortunately ad nauseam.

American is not immune to the political and social forces that allowed men like this to rise to power. Just look at Karl Rove, for god’s sake. Think that it can never happen here? Don’t be naïve. All of these men were handed power by a citizenry who trusted in them to use that power wisely and for good. In this respect we’re not different from the rest of the world; a hunger-for-power-and-the-potential-for-the-abuse-thereof gene lives in every race, in every country including our own beloved land of the free.

A little story that I don’t believe can be attributed to Franklin (but is still, I believe, relevant to my point) concerns a toad and some hot water. The theory goes that if a toad were to jump into a pot of boiling water, it would quickly try to jump right out again. However, if one were to place the toad in a pot of cool water and then turn up the heat little by little, the toad wouldn’t realize that it was getting hot until it was dead, bloated, and dancing around in the boiling water.

Immigrants targeted, jailed, or deported regardless of any relation to terrorism . . .

Teachers fired for remarks made against the incumbent president . . .

A government itching to nix the Geneva convention bans on torture . .

Illegal government wire tapping . . .

Election fraud . . .

“Enemy combatants” jailed permanently recourse trial . . .

The founding fathers, Franklin among them, set up the government the way they did – Bill of Rights and all – because they knew that any government allowed to abuse its power will abuse its power.

How hot are we going to let it get before we jump out of the pot?

Sunday, September 24, 2006

When George Became Dubya


When Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks told a London audience about her shame that George W. Bush is from Texas, I got upset. How dare she say that when, in fact, he’s from Connecticut? Contrary to the popular belief that has been largely fueled by his public persona, George W. Bush is not a Texan—or at least he wasn’t born one. Rather, throughout his life he worked to develop his “Texanness” through a hit or miss sort of process, adopting as his own a hodgepodge of the fine qualities that true Texans share, but also many of the stereotypes that make us both famous and infamous. Twang by twang and swagger by swagger he became less the New England blue blood, George, and more the cowboy, “Dubya.” As a Texan, myself, I can readily imagine young George’s first images of the state and how they have affected his politics. Here are a few imagined “Texas” entries in Little George’s diary:

When Dad drives through town, he waves at people and they wave back. They didn’t do that it Connecticut. When we moved in, all the neighbors stopped by with food, and when I stopped by Bubba’s house, his mom invited me to dinner. These Texans are really friendly.

Even those who hate his policies have to admit that Dubya is basically a good guy. If he still drank, I’d have him over for a beer. His smile and warm demeanor, the trademark pat on the back and verbal ribbing (the way that he calls journalists “stretch” and “little stretch,”) have helped him to paint over many of the black marks on his presidential record, for example, an unwinnable war in Iraq, or the unconstitutional detainment of “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay. Who can focus on that trivial stuff when he’s serving up Thanksgiving Turkey to our troops or Top-Gunning onto an aircraft carrier to boost troop morale? A little Southern hospitality goes a long way.

Wow, there’s another church. You can’t throw a rock around here without hitting one. We said the Lord’s Prayer before the game today, and my teacher made us raise our hands if we went to church last Sunday. She said if we didn’t, we’d probably end up in Hell. Texans are really religious!

Texas remains a state still obstinately “under God,” and, outside of Austin, it’s best not to admit to any doubts as to the existence of “the Lord” in the Judeo-Christian sense. In Texas, churches tie communities together, and I double-dog dare you to drive down any main street without bumping into a couple of them. Of course, Dubya didn’t start out as the “born-again” that he is today. (That would contradict the concept of being “born again.”) Instead, he grew up like many other Texas boys his age – drinking and smoking, driving his truck, playing pick-up ball, and fishing. Not until after the drinking and drugging and hitting rock bottom did the prodigal son come home. After receiving a potentially career / life-ending D.U.I. in Maine after running his car into a bush (a bush, not another Bush) he returned “home” to Texas and got “saved.[i]” And just as those not born in Texas fall for it harder than those who were, born-again Christians are often more feverish than most other Christians. God now walks by his side and, in fact, the extra set of footprints in the Galveston sand leads all the way up the east coast to the White House. Now Dubya heads-up pre-meeting prayers. Attendees wear a tie (males only), just like in church. His faith has led him to ban stem-cell research, to crusade against abortion rights, to appoint an Attorney General so religiously conservative that he spent 8000 taxpayer dollars to cover the one bare breast on the Spirit of Justice statue, and to endorse faith-based social programs, a move that could tumble the already crumbling wall between church and state. [ii]

What a slow game of basketball! Guys kept calling their own fouls. I left my wallet in the park, and some guy brought it back -- cash and all! People always want to shake hands when we make a deal. These people are really honest.

Texans’ greatest strength can also be our greatest weakness. Because we are honest and expect honesty in others, we open ourselves up to deception. In a word: Enron. Enough said. Honesty, though prevalent in small towns and communities, doesn’t extend to the political arena or the “good ole boys” network (which are largely one and the same.)

The Florida recount provides a case in point. A true Texan, more honorable than power hungry, would have allowed the process to move forward, regardless of the outcome. Dubya, in a small-town sense, probably struggled with this one, but sadly, the scene was national and the prize political. Since another Bush just happened to be governor of the state, and the lady calling the punches, the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, could be classified as a Republican pawn, perhaps the pressure to play dirty just became too great.

Iraq is another great example. Dubya made the case that Hussein had WMD’s either hidden or in the works and a hot line directly to Bin Laden’s secret bunker. Of course we weren’t interested in the oil. Pshaw, he told reporters. Why would we want the oil when the war is going to cost us more than we could ever recover in oil revenues? But any true Texan should have enough horse sense to see through those whoppers. Isn’t it more likely that Dubya just went after the man that tried to off his daddy? Wouldn’t you if you had the U.S. military in your holster? Sure, it’s costing us a fortune to be there, but it’s not the oil companies that pay. They’re just raking in billions off uncontested government contracts like the one that Halliburton got. The good ole boys strike again.

Unfortunately for him, one man saw a lie for what it was and blew the whistle. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson nuked the idea that Saddam had tried to purchase Uranium in Niger, the good ole boys went after his wife, a CIA operative, ratting her out to the press, thereby endangering her and any other agent who might have been associated with her. While Dubya says that he wants to “find the leaker,” there’s been no news yet. So much for calling your own fouls[iii].

Everybody asks me if I’m George Senior’s son and then treat me like I’m their cousin or something. The guy at the store didn’t even make me pay for my Coke. Bubba let me into his tree-house gang even though I didn’t know the password. I bet I could work this angle.

Texans work hard and we admire the man (or woman) who lives large. We take pride in being self-made, in providing a good life for ourselves and our families. We’d all have a ranch if we could afford one. There remains in Texans something of the cowboy spirit—the urge to ramble, to be free and independent. And if a ranch is out of our price range, most of us can at least budget in an SUV.

Well, Dubya lives larger than most. Not being born a Texan, perhaps he felt that he had to make up for it by buying a ranch and a major league baseball team. He looks good chain-sawing cedar. Very Texan. In fact, more Texan than about the other 99% of us. See, most of us weren’t born into the kind of wealth that the Bush’s enjoy (and always will, thanks to Dubya killing the inheritance tax.) I feel that it’s important to note that while Dubya has garnered a modicum of success in the last few years, he’s had some advantages that most Texans don’t. For example, he didn’t attend Midland High. He attended Andover, an elite New England private school. Despite a mediocre performance there, he was, not altogether surprisingly, admitted to Yale (his father’s alma mater, go figure). Later, despite a score of 25% on the entrance exam, Dubya became a fighter pilot with the National Guard, thereby avoiding a stint in Vietnam. Yes, he owned (and bankrupted) some oil companies, but certainly hadn’t bought them with money he earned working summers. In fact, before becoming governor of Texas, he hadn’t done much besides run unsuccessfully for a congressional seat. So, while the ranch is nice, and I admire the sweat, I’ve got to remind myself that Dubya didn’t exactly pull himself up by his bootstraps.

Everybody around here wears boots, so I asked Dad for some today. They’re real nice. Make me look taller and walk a little different. (Is this what they mean by “moseying”?) The men don’t talk much unless it’s about huntin’ or fishin’ or fixin’ the car. Back home, we had people to fix the car for us, and wash it too and take care of the lawn. Everybody here takes care of his own business. These Texans like to go-it-alone.

Texas was a country before it was a state, by God. Nothing is as iconic in the Texas mentality as the lone wolf, the Texas Ranger, the desperado, the cowboy who rides in and fixes all the problems with a six-shooter and minimal chatter. In fact, one of my personal heroes is Augustus McCrae from Lonesome Dove. (I think that one of Bush’s personal heroes must be Col. Call.) Nothing irks a Texan like having to ask for help or admit defeat. Dubya really nailed this one . . . unfortunately. Finding himself in the seat of a superpower, he quickly decided that we didn’t need any friends. If you want something done right, do it yourself; everyone else will just screw it up. Why endorse the Kyoto Treaty just because the rest of civilization does? We don’t need them. I’ll bomb the hell outta’ global warming. Anti-Ballistic Missile pact with Russia? Why do we need that when we can pay my buddies a bundle for a Star Wars system that will (in theory, at least) protect us from Putin’s little red button? The United Nations? Bunch of French-smellin’ pansies. We’re going to Iraq whether they like it or not.

I’m starting to feel a little less homesick every day. I got my new buds to take care of me. I get free cokes. I’m in the tree-house club. Nobody makes fun of me for talkin’ slow anymore. I think I’m going to like this place. No more “George.” I’m a Texan now. Y’all can call me “Dubya.”




[i] Balz, Dan. “Bush Acknowledges 1976 DUI Arrest.” The Washington Post 3 May 2000. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentID=a4085-2000nov2¬found=true

[ii] “Justice Department covers partially nude statues.” USAToday 9 January 2002. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/statues.htm

[iii] Malveaux, Suzanne. “Bush consults private attorney over CIA leak probe.” CNN International 3 June 2004 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/02/bush.leak/

Note: I wrote this in the summer of 2005, but after reading it again myself, I’m amazed at how much still applies.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

The U.N. Rub


It’s easy to bash the U.N. I mean, here’s a club that just about anyone can join. You’ve got your democracies, your communist parties, your fascists, your quasi-terrorist organizers all sharing the same dance floor and supposedly trying to “get along.” (Taiwan, notably can’t join, but that’s another story.) How can you take seriously an organization whose members, when deciding on how to keep the world at peace, routinely vote their own interests – fears, biases, religions, pocket books, etc. -- over what is “right”? Moreover, it can be argued that it’s largely ineffective, at least in the area of keeping the bad guys in line. On the other hand, it is effectively a soap box for every wacko world leader wannabe who wants to bash the U.S. while waving around Noam Chomsky books. All in all, it’s really a dreadful entity.

But here’s the rub: What are our alternatives?

Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the very worst sort of government – except for all of those others.” He meant that despite all of democracy’s shortcomings – the pork-barreling, the pandering, the corruption – it’s still the best system that has been developed to date. If we don’t have democracy, then what are we left with? Answer: Something worse. So from that perspective, let’s examine some of the purposes that the U.N. serves (although maybe not so well).

Although the assembly might be a place where even the worst kind of people get their say, at least they’re talking and not bombing. So what if they like to badmouth the U.S.? There are worse things that can happen. Sticks and stones. Let them blow off their steam. Leaders are always harangued just like even the best boss is occasionally lambasted by his employees. At least the bad guys are using a forum where we can keep our eye on them. It would be facetious to say that nothing good comes out of the talks. In fact, any talk tends to be good talk. Imagine the world like it was at the beginning of the 20th century before the League of Nations when European countries squared off against each other just to see who was tougher. A big part of the problem was that there existed no forum for communication. In some way it was easier to fight it out than to talk it out. If you don’t communicate with your enemies, it’s easier to maintain the belief that they’re faceless monsters who want to eat our children. You might say that “talk is cheap” and that we should stick our foot up the ass of whatever country threatens us. I would point to Iraq and say that you’re right: talk would have been a lot cheaper than the mess we’re in there.

The idea that the U.N. is ineffective carries a lot of water. Of course the U.N. is largely powerless. The U.S. helps to keep it that way. An organization like the U.N. can never be greater than the sum of its parts. President Bush bashes and undermines the U.N., then complains that it’s ineffective. Go figure. It won’t be powerful until we make it that way by supporting it with both our words and our dollars. To those who complain about trusting in the U.N. or sending them our money, I say this: It would have been a lot cheaper in lives and currency to have trusted Hans Blix over the warmongers and oil companies. Again, we have to use our imagination: what would the world look like if the U.S. acted as a role model for the rest of the world by truly supporting the U.N. mission?

I can understand some of the arguments against this; for example, why would we want to grant too much power to an entity that could one day come to threaten us? Why would we want to support an international court that could possibly try some of our very own as war criminals? I wouldn’t put that kind of trust in a body that is so clearly influenced by the political interests and wacko’s mentioned above. There are serious, potentially fatal, limitations. On the other hand, there are serious problems with the alternatives. War is expensive in lives, money, and environmental impact. I, for one, would rather listen to Chavez rave for an hour than send my children to war.

The rub keeps on rubbing. The U.N., if not broken, is at least seriously flawed. Should we disband it? No. We might as well just rev up the nukes. Should we reform it? Yes. Take what we’ve got, support it, and make it work. It will never be perfect. No governmental body is perfect – or even close to it. Unfortunately, for the moment, it’s the best thing – the only thing really -- that we’ve got.