State of the Union

To me, a State of the Union address ought to be honest and fair, identifying both strengths and weaknesses to be clear about the work that has to be done. Forget it. Trump’s speech was filled with every possible rah-rah-America patriotic cliché. The silliness of Congressmen standing and applauding every other sentence just dragged things out and created partisanship during a speech supposedly about cooperation.

I’m glad those deserving individuals were acknowledged and applauded, but I can’t help feeling that they also being used as part of the pageantry. With the cameras running and millions watching, gestures, clothing , seat groupings, constant scanning of the camera to see who is clapping or not is all part of the opportunity to make a political statement.

While I do applaud some of Trump’s initiatives, it is hard to take seriously all these promises and platitudes that are coming from the same mouth we’ve been listening to for 2 years. They seem ingenuous, even absurd. He takes credit for results on the economy and the military that were initiated long before he came into office. He goes on about anti-Semitism without a word about racism. He fails to touch the vast problems with American education and poverty. He identifies the illegal alien who commits murder with no attention to the larger number of killings and gun deaths of Americans by Americans. Drug dealers would be out of business if Americans would only stop using drugs, but drug dealers are the total story.

I watched, but I didn’t like that this was the image of American democracy. And, of course, his election was the single factor that prevented a war with North Korea.

Super Bowl wrap-up

Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people. But now that religion is in decline, it’s become clear that spectacle is the opium of the people. The Olympics, the Oscars, the Super Bowl and rock concerts and many smaller examples.

The Super Bowl drew almost a billion viewers. PR, marketing, interviews, talking heads, controversies and 7 hours of pregame chatter, followed by 4 hours of game time, with probably 30 minutes of real action and commercials to keep our attention.

Events like this fill our time, entertain us, and help us snack ourselves to a kind of oblivion. Could we ever get a billion people to simultaneously devote that much time and attention to world poverty or child health or climate change issues?

War

How long would it take to read all the words written about the horrors of war? Or to watch all the films depicting wars and their human and material devastation? If all the bodies of all the men, women and children destroyed by war were piled on top of another, would we have a Mt. Everest of human flesh and bone?

Why does war continue to persist when we know its awful consequences? Why do the elders continue to throw young men and women into the dangers of conflict? Why do we keep producing Hitlers of all degrees and nationalities? Why do religious wars result in behaviors that are the antithesis of what the religions stand for?

Are there no human ideals that are higher than the motives of war? Why are the believers in these ideals and their persistent voices so often silenced?

Critique styles

Choose the critique style you want for your work:

(a) Whisper sweet nothings in my ear

(b) Be firm but gentle

(c) I agree with what everybody else said

(d) Lie, but sound like you mean it

(e) No bullshit. Tell me what you really think

(f) Be mature and thoughtful

(g) Show me you actually looked carefully at my work

Growing up

Anyone who, in growing up, received the gift of a healthy moral and emotional foundation for life is lucky indeed. In the contemporary world there are so many paths to dysfunction. So many destructive messages from broken families, from religion, from media, from marketing.

The lucky, healthy young person flowers into a productive and compassionate adult.

The broken young person must struggle to find satisfaction in life. It can sometimes take a lifetime to undo a childhood. But that work itself can be an accomplishment of great worth.

Character

I can remember a time when character was important. An individual chose a set of values on which to build a life, and putting these values in action built character. The school, the church, the home and the Boy and Girl Scouts were all aids in building character.

You knew that people of character could be trusted. They were responsible, reliable and compassionate. They could certainly be flawed, but character was their life’s rudder and allowed them to stay the course.

Today character has been too often pushed aside by power, wealth and celebrity. These become the things that justify the lack of character. Power, wealth and celebrity are concerns of the individual. Character is concerned with community. Character can’t be bought.

The most obvious example in this regard is the election of Donald Trump. In his actions and in his words, he clearly demonstrated his lack of character in a public way. Yet he was elected to the highest office in the land.

If I were hiring someone for a job, character would be the first thing I would care about. Qualifications and resume later.