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Two Standards

While in formation to become a Jesuit, during my first 30 day silent retreat off the coast of Cape Ann north of Boston, I was asked by my spiritual director to spend a day contemplating Ignatius of Loyola's exercise on what is called the Two Standards. This meditation keeps coming back to me as I read all the news coming out of this weekend's Tea Party rally in Nashville, with the movement's knew czar, Sarah Palin, taking front and center stage.

There seems to be a great duel standard taking place within the conservative bedrock movement in America. Loyola's Two Standards call upon the contemplative to meditate on two camps, one representing the values of good, and the other representing the values of evil. Each contemplative looks upon these values differently, breathing a life into them that is unique as each individual. Nevertheless, the core of the meditation carries the participant to a level field that allows him or her to choose free of will, with the notion that one will most definitely choose the flag of good after seeing how the flag of evil is stripped of its sweet vices 

When I see Sarah Palin having to look at her hand for notes to help her with the most basic talking points asserted by her party, I'm reminded of that shadowed vail of sincerity that the standard of darkness carried during my 30 days of silence. Her actions, indeed, seem to be not only fueled by the vices of fame and glory that were first introduced to her when the plane touched down in Minnesota for the 2008 GOP convention, but her whole persona has become a sort of standard for the conservative movement. 

The thing that troubles me is that the standard that was waved in the air during the tea parties seems radically different than that of a moderate family values oriented campaign, which became the bedrock foundation for the modern conservative movement that grew out of the 1990s. If her motivating goal is to someday govern, something which she has yet to prove herself capable of for any substantial amount of time, than she must reconcile the spirit that was born in the tea party movement with that of modern American governance.

The Tea Party rose from the grassroots efforts of the American Libertarian movement, a party that in its own rite has seemed greatly disjointed, a party that lifted up both Frank Zappa and Bob Barr as its choice for the presidential ticket (Zappa, unfortunately, having to remove himself from such political aspirations due to his failing health).

It's often been said that the progressive-what some might say as democratic--movement in this country has been historically disjointed, a movement brought together by liberal ideals, but separated by the wide range of passions that motivate the base. It's often been said that leading the progressive movement is like herding cats. 

Much can be said about the current state of being for the conservative-what some might call republican--movement. The one thing the progressive movement has in its favor is a common vision for community values. Unfortunately, I see this modern frame of neo-libertarian/neo-conservatism steering off course from its base of faith and family values, two corner stones of conservatism that served as the glue, which held the party together. Perhaps it was the ultra-conservative religious right that created push-back for these pillars of conservatism, or, maybe, it was the falling economy that gave fiscal conservatives the opportunity to rise to the occasion. However, I place fiscal conservatives into two camps: Those who act out of a desire to sustain only their own financial gain, and those who seek to act fiscally conservative out of a passion for their family and community to avoid operating in the red.

What I see in Palin reminds me of the novice maturity witnessed by someone who reads Ayn Rand for the first time. There is a passion for a movement away from government interaction in our lives (the seed of the libertarian movement); however, there lacks the depth to fully understand where rand was coming from. It is, in many ways, like holding up Holden Caufield's adolescent anxt as the ultimate paradigm for juvenile development, completely ignoring the depth of social and physical constraints that he encountered when breaking down on a bench in central Park.

Everything about this past weekend in Nashville makes me think of the standard ruled by vice. There's the arguing caucuses that led to and took place during the rally, a reminder of how the strict conservative value of individualism makes starting a movement very difficult. There is the acceptance of the $100,000 speaker fee from Palin. There's the sharp jabs toward Obama using a teleprompter, only then to result in the caveman's version of such methods for memorization. And, then, there is the whole movement at large, that is rooted in the hard-lined libertarian  ideal: that government of any kind is bad.

It will be interesting to see how this movement grows over the coming months. It lacks the cohesiveness that the Contract with America had in 1994, though time is still early going into November elections. The only difference is that the standard for the contract with America was carried by a Republican Georgia Congressman who also had his Ph.D in History, not someone who carries their standard with the same hand where cheat notes are written.

Learning to Communicate

Today is international Human Rights Day.  I've been out of the office for a few weeks, so it seems a bit removed from past years.  However, I'm finding that the current assignment I've been given is giving me much more insight into how to communicate human rights than I had expected.

 On November 21, my partner and I welcomed our first child into the world.  Oliver Gareth has given us both the opportunity to learn things we never thought we would be learning.  Indeed, the finer details of child rearing go far beyond the carrying around of an egg in 11th grade home economics. 

Hardest to learn has been the primitive language that Oliver exhibits.  Seven years of journalism school, graduate and undergraduate, taught me much about how humans communicate.  However, Oliver seems to defy all textbooks on teh subject.  Rather, I've found the past three weeks full of new theories that resemble more of advanced behavioral theory and linguistics, breaking every little noise and cry down to the most fundamental root of language, predicating even symbolic representation, what I had always thought to be the first building block of communication.

 The symbolic nature of my son is like a car just off the assembly line, its tachometer not even rolling over one count.  Any representation he has comes from his experience during fetal development.  We can try to create facsimiles  of these symbols, but they are not truths.  Playing white noise does not completely recreate the same reality for a new born, much like the shadows on the wall in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. 

Oliver is just beginning to collect the perceived artifacts that will ultimately make up the reality he sees.  From that will come logic and reason, desires and choices, personality and behavior.  And all this will influence who he communicates, for what purpose he communicates, and how he receives communication from other sources.  And for now, he works on two basic principles: that which is positive, and that which is negative.  His responses are tied to these two perceived actions, not yet even forming the most fundamental values that influence symboles, values like fear, joy, harm, peace, etc.

The rhetoric employed by those wishing to take away the rights afforded to all humans touches us all at the most fundamental point of our perception, that which denotes negative over positive action  When we strip away messages, moving beyond even the symbolic icons that form the roots of a message, we see the chain the  links negative action with negative outcomes.  

I think this is why I'm so weary toward using negative messages for a desired outcome of anything good.  Indeed, tapping into fear and danger can move or motivate a person a person toward an outcome that has good or positive results.  However, it remains a miscommunication.  I could use fear to motivate someone to obey laws that protect human rights.  Yet, in doing so, the end result is not pure.  I can not recreate such a truth, much in the same way that I can not recreate life within the womb in the external world.

There's a great tool that has just been released by The Opportunity Agenda which stays committed toward recreating a positive avenue of communications, one which assures greater clarity in acheiving the end result.  As we recall the rights afforded to all humans, on this international Human Rights Day, we should all remember the need to keep our message pure and focused on the positive.  We might have to deal with a bit more screaming and crying than we would if we took the easy way out.  But, our message will be much louder and clearer.

Check out the Human Rights Toolkit here:

http://opportunityagenda.org/talking_human_rights_united_states

So Long, Farewell, Alvedersain, Goodbye

George Bush gave his farewell speech this evening during prime time TV.  It stood bounds above his father's, in that he actually stood in front of the country--or, at least the cameras--and offer what was one of the more sincere speeches of recent years.  He sounded genuinely moved, listening to the shakiness of his voice at the beginning of the speech.  It was more than nerves, but the sound of true introspection.  

For months now, change seemed like an advent, the last four years burning like purple and pink candles the eve before Christmas.  Though as news on confirmations and legeslative bills moving quickly through congress, I feel like the fires of change have been stoked over night.  

Five days out, and and I can't help but wonder what is going through Obama's mind.  Is this what it was like in '33, or in '61?  Will time make the speed of change seem like it was just one night when I tell my grandchild how the world changed?  I've never heard anyone speak of FDR or JFK's first day with distaste because  they were for the Grand 'Ol Party.  Indeed, this change is historic.  And when history stands clear in sight, it seems that solidarity stands with it.  

The Tri-Letter Bridge

There's been a lot of talk in New York lately over the renaming of the Tri-Borough Bridge, which links Manhattan with Queens and the Bronx.  The four million dollars set aside to change the signs has garnered a lot of complaints by area New Yorkers upset over the cuts in city transit and other services.  

The bridge will now be called the RFK bridge.  Ironic, since RFK fought hard against poverty  and for civil rights during his brief reign in Washington, under the leadership of his brother and later when running for President before being gunned down.  The idea of the bridge was by another Robert, Robert Moses, who single handedly changed the way New York looked, and built the gates by which millions would leave the city, creating one of the greatest divides in wealth between urgan and suburban communities.  You can't help but see this as you leave Harlem and enter into the Bronx, only to arrive half an hour later--most of that still traveling through the  high rise public houses in the Bronx--into the plush living of Westchester County and Western CT.

It would be nice to hear the  discussion turn from complaints to more of what RFK was talking about in the months leading up to his death, as he built on the message of MLK, who died ust a few months prior.

Days of 'Ol...

NOTE: This is a pretty long blog entry. But, it feels out a lot of emotion that has been going on in my life since my wife and I left Brooklyn last fall. In a sense, it's for my own need to mature, grow up as it were. It's not so much about community values, so much in the sense that I'm much more in tune with my community in the neighborhood where I now live, than when I spent most my time in Park Slope, Brooklyn, chasing my dreams. Well, I did meet my wife there. So, I guess some dreams can come true.

The New York Times ran an article today titled: "Park Slope: Where Is the Love?". There's been a lot of anti-Slope buzz on New York blogs, attacking the next big MelRose Place with hate and disdain.

For those not familiar with the Slope, it's a brownstone lined neighborhood in central brooklyn, the shape of a trapazoid that runs about twenty-five blocks north-south, and five avenues wide. On one side of the neighborhood is Prospect Park, which runs most the length of the eastern border, with the exception of about three extra blocks to Prospect Ave., the technical southern border, though the issue of dispute amongst old and new residents.

Current residents say that jealousy fuels the hate toward the overwelming new number of wealthy families who have moved into town homes that were $30,000 in the 1970s, and now go more than $1 to $5 million. The critics site their sarcasm at the brand that has been attached to a place that once had an edgy authenticity--be it on the organic side.

For me, Park Slope will always be that neighborhood where I met my wife, and then had to move out because we couldn't afford to raise a family there. In late 2001, when I first moved to Brooklyn, the Slope was one of the few neighborhoods close to Manhattan where life felt more like Sesame Street than Spike Lee's Crooklyn. There was an adolescence in the neighborhood then, a sort of "Coming of Age," which is such a powerful theme in so many of the authors who live in the area; a group of writers who produce what some critics call the "Brooklyn books of wonder." Many of these authors take great steps to keep the neighborhood as it was, a sort of Neverland. But the one thing that stands firm in New York is this: where there is money to be made, especially in real estate, there is change on the horizon.

walk through any of the neighborhoods in New York that now charge insane prices for housing, and I bet you'll find the remains of an old slum, the kind of neighborhood who had its authenticity defined in a Lou Reed lyric or Jack Kerouac verse.

I left living just north of the Slope to move to Chicago, the Brooklyn of the Midwest (it's like living in New York without Manhattan). When I returned several years ago, I could no longer afford to live on the north border of the Slope,finding myself forced down to South Slope on 16th Street, one of those blocks that doesn't hit Prospect Park. It was like living in Jacksonville, Alabama, and telling people I lived in Atlanta. Though, for me, it was still the Slope, where I could BBQ on the back porch or play guitar on my little stoop out front under the trees. However, then my rent jumped up to $2,200, for a 750 sq ft 1 bedroom. So, my fiance and I were pushed further south into brooklyn, all the way to Bay Ridge, which is like living in western Arkansas and saying you live in Atlanta. Eventually, we were priced out of Bay Ridge (go figure?), and ended up moving into Manhattan, to the northern edge of the Island in a neighborhood called Inwood. InWhere?

The neighborhood we live in now is much different than brooklyn. Even though we're in that part of the Island where people say, "Wow, I didn't realize Manhattan went up that far," we still, nevertheless, live in Manhattan. Our side of the neighborhood, which is east of Broadway, is one of the few places where you can get space for your money on this Island. We're a half block from the A Train for almost half the price of my rent in the South Slope. Of course, it comes with the headaches that the Slope tries to mask (think Park Slope early 1970s, or more recent crown Heights). But, there is truly an authenticity that exists in this neighborhood, an edge that can seem as hard as Manhattan bedrock at times, but an energy of the New America that makes New York something new and untapped by the rest of the country.

It's a long way to say it, but as the scripts begin to go through their first draft for the new series on Park Slope, rest easy critics. Because one of the great things about this city is that authenticity never leaves, it just moves around from time to time.

I like our neighborhood for the energy it possesses. Despite the trash on the streets and mysterious cars pulling up in front of buildings where packages are exchanged, there's also kids playing ball in the street, mothers walking their children to the train or to buy cherry ice on the corner. There's the old man selling Dominican patties for a buck; the man who sells shoes and everything else he can find out of a small store front where he seems to also live; there's the parades for dominican Independence Day, and the loud Spanish preaching echoing out of the Jesus Saves church on Thayer Street. And in all this, there is a sense of New York left untouched by branding. There's a real community. No fenses, no hiding on these streets, no $1,000 strollers here. But the mobile clinic and Good Will tables have lines going down the block.

there was a time when brooklyn hung on me like a dream hangs on you minutes after awakening. I came to New York dreaming of a life in Park Slope. But, now I'm living in Manhattan, where things are much more real. I don't mean Park Slope isn't real. I don't hold the grudge against it like many other writers. However, there's a time to grow up, and moving onto Manhattan raises your awareness to the reality that exists in New York City--to its diversity, its conflict between classes, its sharp divide between rich and poor within not just a couple of blocks, but on the floor beneath you in a six story rent controlled building.

Eventually--it's bound to happen--all those baby filled strollers in Park Slope are going to be retired. Children are going to outgrow there small bed rooms, families will sel their homes for less than what they thought they would get when they bought them in the early 2000s, and they'll move either Upstate, or to Chicago, or Boston, or Savannah. This city is, and always will be, in flux. It just so happens that the Hicksville that gave us Billy Joel is now just across the East River. But, stick around long enough, and it will change. All things change. Just ask any New Yorker. .

Deal of the century?

There's been a great deal of talk on the housing crisis for the greater part of this year. The stories of foreclosed homes seems to dominate the airwaves. Though, as people now start to cash their federal injection checks, I've run across a new concern that makes me think this issue will last much longer than a business quarter.

The Future Majority Blog reports that the upcoming generation's greatest concern is that they will be the first generation to not exceed the prosperity of their parents (in what I would imagine is on record post-1930s depression). Holding greater debt after college, coupled with the difficulty in finding affordable housing, this generation currently transitioning from college to the real world gets a real awakening when realizing that the McMansions their parents built could hold seven of their friends apartments.

Last week, I attended the second half of the Better Deal Conference in washington, listening to the many issues that young advocates face. There is a push for something new--a new "New deal," if you will--and the consensus in the large ballroom at the Liaison Hotel sounded the concern of this generation lost in the focus on middle class issues by presidential campaigners in all camps.

I'm not sure what solutions can turn around this heavy storm that seems to sit on the horizon of our future. Indeed, there needs to be a great desire by older generations to reach out to those who will ultimately be paying the social security for the babybomers who are now just starting to retire, and look as though they will live longer than any generation previously.

what needs to happen is that we must all come together--across generational lines--to secure the future of our democracy. At the conference, I was concerned that when they said their target audience stopped at age 35, what would people like myself do next year when we reached 36?

The Future Majority is not an exclusive club. We're all in this sojourn together, and we all need to work together to find real solutions. It's not a new deal for the newest generation. But, it's a new deal for all americans.

I pledge Me-legiance

I've been working through this idea of "Me, The People," and keep coming back to this. I"m sure someone has written something similar, but, this is what has stuck in my head for the past couple of days, while I'm at the U.S.H.R. Network's national conference in Chicago. It's given me a sense of hope, seeing over 400 people come together to overcome the domestic human rights violations found here in the U.S. Let's hope that our efforts can put to rest this pledge that I hear each time I'm confronted with opposition rhetoric that ignores the rights and dignities of others.

"I pledge Me-legiance"

I pledge me-legiance to me,
the United States of Me,
and to the mepublic, for which I stand,
one of me, Thank God,
individual, with liberty and justice for me.

It's a shame, but when I listen to AM radio, which travels far out here in the Midwest, that's all I seem to hear. Prosperity and opportunity are seen as individual privileges. They'll tell you that everyone can have these things, if they just pick themselves up by their boot straps. But, they ignore the fact that most Americans don't have boots. Tens of millions don't even have healthcare, or a standard of living that affords them the opportunities that these almost all white older men have had their whole lives.