Kick the Can

One of my great grandkids got two hockey sticks and two hockey pucks for Christmas. Ohhh. I remember when I was a kid my brother got me a hockey stick and a hockey puck for Christmas and they were awesome. All the rest of the kids had much shorter homemade hockey sticks and no puck at all, they just used a crushed tin can. I remember being so afraid that I might damage my hockey stick and lose my puck that I rarely used them. They are likely in pristine condition in the attic of the farm where I grew up yet today. Dumb!

Congress is playing its now common game of kick the can with the budget and debt. Obama is back early from his Christmas vacation which shows he is willing to try and work of the budget with the House but it is not going to happen. Boehner may indeed want to sign the bill Obama proposed, after all he and the Republicans would get more than they ever dreamed of at piddling cost of a tax raise for a few folk. But his , Boehner's, whacko contingent will never agree to it. They will play chicken for as long as possible over a stupid ideological principle than makes no sense and an economic process that has proven disastrous over 3 decades.

I’d just as soon they go over the cliff. Taxes would raise so we could keep needed social programs, except that it will likely lead to another recession caused by hysteria and histrionics by the power brokers.

But what is likely to happen is that they will kick the can down the road again; keeping the tax cuts, lift the debt limit and push the whole mess down the road for another year.

In the meantime I saw of GMA this morning the new speed rail train in China that averages 186 mpr and see the development of their infrastructure as ours continues to crumble. Cut the budget, cut our own throat.

So all this posturing is going on by congress which seems totally out of touch with an electorate that complains but can’t think. A goodly part of the electorate still clamors for tax cuts, sees the government as an enemy of the people but won’t vote the big money backed politicians out of office. Polls show while calling for tax cuts they want all the social programs left in tack. 

It all goes back to stimulus programs that get the economy moving and strengthens the middle class with good jobs. But they are like my old hockey stick and puck, hidden away in pristine condition or maybe the mice have eaten them by now.

Merry Christmas. Peace on earth and good will to all folk.

Listen to the Children

Like many others I participated in a number of Christmas gatherings and parties in this holiday season. I heard very little of a religious nature during these gatherings. The god of professional football was worshipped, we expanded our bellies, and the like. I saw a good deal of drinking and that style of merriment. I heard delightful stories and some dirty and juvenile and just plain stupid. Politics for the most part were ignored except for a few “damned government” type of comments. And I saw lots of children playing, crying, delighted, sad, but for the most part joyous and inspiring.

I think it was in the children and their interactions and the adult interaction with the children that have me the most joy and taught me the most wisdom this season. The children were vessels of gratitude and had more to teach than most of their elders.

I have to admit I have a hard time maintaining feelings of gratitude during the season of Christmas; more difficult now that I am not actively leading worship celebrations of gratitude for a newborn king. The secular christmas seems to hold sway over the sacred and that is depressing; thus my joy in listening to the children.

The University of California Berkeley is to commence a $3.1 million research study on the power of gratitude. Now I can almost hear the complaining of grumpy adults on the waste of such a great amount of money, not doubt coming from “our” tax dollars (it is coming from the John Templeton Foundation and I think it is even more than that figure all told). Nevertheless there Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of the well-being and how we foster a more thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. In is in essence a study of counting your blessings. Some will complain that should be totally obvious and this study is a waste of money. But if you look around at folk and in particular in the political scene, this study as others like it is badly needed.

Marilyn Price-Mitchel, PhD in Psychology Today talks about 5 ways to bring gratitude into homes and classrooms. These are the points she makes: 1. Foster imagination instead of multitasking let children explore in depth where their thought take them. 2. Look at a child with new eyes. They change each and every day, we need to pay attention to those changes and treasure them. 3. Cultivate gratefulness – teach children to appreciate people and cultures different than their own. They will also note when you condemn and denigrate others. But lift up your ancestral stories. 4. Listen – pay attention to children’s stories and observe what makes them happy, sad, afraid, lonely or excited. Pay attention to what is going on inside them. 5. Allow yourself to be a receiver – don’t worry so much about what they can achieve in the future but cradle the blessings they give you right now and express your thanks to them for these gifts of their presence in your lives.

I had a bit of this thinking going on in one of my recent articles “Thank you for crapping in your diaper and screaming at me.” I’ve been trying to be more grateful in my life recently. It should not be a hard thing to do, but it is.

But counting blessings is a good beginning and money spent to enable our society to be more grateful is money very well spent.

May I have some genetically altered salmon please?

The FDA has approved genetically altered salmon as safe to sell. This makes those who create the altered salmon happy and honks off traditionalists, especially those who catch salmon the old fashioned way.

Now genetically modified food is not exactly new. We have done that with grains; soybeans, corn etc for years, those make our side dishes. Also, with the same arguments being given forth. Ag departments of been dealing with purebred and hybrid flora and fauna for years before folk got excited about it; or maybe the did – too long ago.

Buy it as far as I’m concerned if the science has been done. Of course, the problem with that argument is that the science is never done as we see new studies coming out everyday telling what is safe and what is not safe.

The main issue is seems to me is simple but often ignored. Just label the stuff and let people deal with it themselves. Labeling is a good idea and allows folk to make informed or uninformed choices depending on the ability and desire to read. The FDA seems to miss that simple point and says it doesn’t have to be labeled. Label it and move on.

Is Starvation the Cure for Hunger?

This is a poignant line from L. Randal Wray in an article today from Demand Side Economics. He reports he’s just come back from conferences in Berlin and Helsinki and has interesting things to say. Both conferences raised some hope for the European economy, but one senses Wray is not buying much of it.

The typical path European countries have followed in recent times of economic crisis has been a path of austerity. They have worked at making budget cuts and reducing their debt as their economies languish. It hasn’t worked any better there than the pundits in this country who push these same failed policies. Again, as Wray says, “Yep, the patient is weakening, so we’ve got to drain more blood to restore health.

Wray lifts up the story of Ireland which is now involved in its 6^th austerity plan. It reminds me of the decision to export potatoes during the potato famine years ago.

We should not feel smug as both parties here seem to embrace the same absurd policies including leadership by President Obama’s willingness to reduce “entitlements” to revive the economy. All that does is oppress the poor all the more and make more people get lower paying jobs when they lose higher paying jobs. All in the name of keeping taxes low for the ultra rich.

Obama does say we should bring down the debt responsibly which is a fine idea, but you have to get the economy going before you reduce the debt. It not as though we do not have precedents, precedents that worked; the New Deal and the Great Society, but we seem to have no history memory in this country. What we are doing is reducing government spending which then is matched by reduced private sector spending by the same or and increased amount.

We should know by now the deregulation got us into this mess so it should be obvious the increased regulation should help us out of this mess and that means more government spending and a larger government. That is a win win scenario that is ignored.

The U.S. should be leading the way to economic recovery rather than following the failed policies in Europe. Folk say we don’t want to saddle our children with debt we create; we have said that every generation and still spend. And while it seems sounds good it doesn’t work in our current situation. If we follow our current policies of smaller government, less regulation and low taxes for the rich the majority our children will working at minimum wage jobs (if it still exists) rather than good paying middle class jobs. They will be the peasants providing wealth for their feudal lords.

Forget the debt, create jobs! Starvation is not the cure for hunger.

I Want – I Have

I want, or rather, I covet a Nexus 7 and I also covet a wii with Tiger Woods PGA golf game. Hey, I’ve always liked toys and these two seem really appealing to me. Now I spend a good deal of time of the computer doing research, writing articles, checking out contacts, and just playing. That little Nexus would make it even easier to do those things while sitting in my recliner and when we travel. Oooo I’d like one of those. I also love to golf and since we are not going south this winter, except for a couple of weeks, I’m going through golf withdrawal. I’ve cleaned my clubs, my wife clubs, I’ve sorted through the contents of the golf bags removed stuff that really doesn’t need to be there and put in stuff I think should be there. I read my golf magazines and watch people golfing on TV and I’m envious. Friends tell me that the wii and the Tiger Woods game is good and feels life playing golf on courses I know I will never play. When I let my greed alter ego out to play, what I really want is one of those Optigolf programs which is practically like playing golf, but I can’t think of a room in our house where I could swing a club and not do serious damage to the ceiling and surroundings. Oh, how I want those things.

But I spend a good deal of time in my recliner looking out the window and the Mississippi at one of the greatest views of the world with my wife who loves me. We are warm and toasty and I have a plow for my garden tractor and a whooping snow blower that can throw that white stuff every which way and can be a hero to my neighbors as I do their walks as well. It is Christmas time and a time to share gifts with family and friends as expressions of love. I’ve had great fun making and creating some of those gifts and am able to buy others. It actually my cup overflows and then some. I am living the abundant life the scriptures promise in so many many ways. And I am grateful for these blessings.

We human beings are such paradoxical creatures pulled multiple ways all at the same time. I’m no different from the baby yelling for my needs to be taken care of and I am a person who by God’s grace and through the training of others and a truly grateful person.

I want, I have, I am human.

Post Script: I just finished reading Choosing Gratitude: Learning to Love of the Life You Live, by James A. Autry who inspired the last two articles. It is a great book and I would recommend it to everyone one as a good head straightener.

Thank You for Crapping in Your Diaper and Screaming at Me

Parents are very strange creatures. They have a baby which costs a lot of money in doctor bill’s, which is just the beginning of huge expenses that begin before birth. The cost of having and raising a child a middle class child is estimated to be just under a quarter of a million dollars. Oh boy!

Plus those little beasties are total ingrates, selfish little beasties, caring for no one except themselves. “Feed me, clean me, keep me warm or I will scream and holler and cry and make your life miserable and make you feel inadequate and guilty.” That is a truth that parents ignore all this with a magnanimity that boggles the imagination. When the baby makes their adamant demands a typical parent will say things, “Oh are they just so cute (in reality almost all babies in wrinkly and ugly by most esthetic standards). “Just listen to the power of those little lungs” (do you like firecrackers going off in your house regularly?) “My sweet weety wittle babykinds” (turning normally articulate adults into babbling idiots.) “My that was a good poopy whoopy wasn’t it?” (crap is crap and there is nothing appealing about it to sane minds.) “Oh he/she is so smart,” (they don’t know diddly just wants.) And the list of such insane and inane behavior goes on and on for parents, grandparents, great grandparents, uncles and aunts, and even total strangers. To sum up the feelings of all such whacko it can be expressed in a single word, gratitude! They feel gratitude for have such a self absorbed demanding little critter which will demand great amounts of their time, money, and very souls. Strange! Yet that is what they feel, gratitude.

Now bear in mind that gratitude is an unnatural act; it is something that has to be learned and often with great difficulty. Children, as stated before have no sense of gratitude at all just demands. But as we train these little monsters we teach them to say “thank you” when they receive something from someone. It is not natural for them to do so, but parents have some control over them, at least to begin with, and so the obedient ones begin to say “thank you” when it is appropriate. They mimic civilized thoughts and some never get beyond that point, the just act in a socially acceptable way because it is really in their own self interest to do so. To move beyond mimicked gratitude is a major development which I will delve into in the future but not now.

For now, I’ll just leave you to ponder this strange phenomenon.

Gratitude is the best attitude.

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

    --Aesop (620-550 B.C.)

Entitlements

It is most interesting the way the world “entitlements” is being tossed about today by various people and groups. For some they make it sound like a dirty word, the undeserved rewards to malcontents and miscreants who contribute nothing to society and deserve nothing from it. And for others it is a basic right of citizenship.

The word merely means the state of being entitled: right. A right to benefits specified by law or contract. Or, the belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.

If you are a child in a family are you entitled to be cared for physically, emotionally, and spiritually by that family; not only to have your basic needs met but also to be loved and cherished. You are entitled to this by law true, but more importantly because you are the child of parents and you are entitled to what they can give you.

Furthermore as a child of a country, a citizen of a nation, especially a democratic nation, you expect certain entitlements that are not only good for you but also good for your family or extended family, the nation. You are entitled in this country to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; thus says our constitution. This assumes a fairly level playing field for all citizens. All citizens should be able to gain education regardless of class or background; a democracy is dependent upon such an entitlement in order to remain a democracy. All citizens should have the entitlement to reasonable health care, again in the self interest of the nation; it is not just the right of the privileged few. Citizens have the entitlement to be able to find meaningful work that pays enough to keep them comfortable and capable rising through the economic levels of society. And in civilized countries we believe that folk who have worked and supported themselves and their country are entitled to security in their older years; to have the contributions to society recognized and the value respected and cherished. There are many more such entitlements that we expect and should have at our disposal as citizens of this democracy. And a system or group of people who seek to take away these entitlements are antidemocratic, selfish, and elitist in their thinking.

With that said, we also realize that in families there are those children who want more than their fair share; a bigger piece of pie and the end of a meal; a better bicycle than their siblings, more attention that others and are just plain self indulgent. A good parent seeks to stop these actions through appropriate and loving discipline. They seek to have their children understand the entitlements of all members of their family, not just their own entitlements. Or, parents should not spoil their children.

We have such spoiled citizens in our society as well, who seek to get more than they give and who want the largest piece of pie. Some point their fingers at those we are the recipients of safety net programs of our society and complain and lazy welfare parents, abusers of the social services programs and the like. On the other hand we have those who point their fingers at those who have been able to get more of the pie in our country by taking unfair advantage of others, created laws and programs that benefit them at the expense of others, who think they are so indispensible that society must bail them out if they get into trouble because they are more important than others.

Thus some in our society complain about what they see as entitlement programs such as minimum wages, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and programs that provide economic stability for the of aging and the poor. Others see these programs as investments in our society. And some point their fingers at those at those who have too much in their opinion.

In 1962 the government was concerned about the foundations for prosperity in our society and invested, about 32¢ of every federal dollars. And we spend about 14¢ on entitlements. Some estimate that today we spend less than 15 on investments and about 46¢ on entitlements. (I’m not sure where the military fits in here as the numbers don’t seem right). Our societal demographics have changed considerably and we didn’t invest enough in recent years to keep up. Another way of saying this is that we have screwed up the system that worked 50 years ago with programs that do not serve us as well, plus we have a whole generation of baby boomers retiring. Tax cuts don’t help unless they stimulate the economy, are investments in our common future. Frankly I would like for us to go back to the tax rates of 50 years ago, but to do that we need to invest in our country they way we did 50 years ago.

In our finger pointing we need to remember fingers point back at us as well whatever our position. But no matter what our position you don’t fix problems by just condemning the other side; you fix problems by working together to find the common good. If you don’t understand that you are neither a responsible child of your family, nor a responsible citizen of your country. It is time for all of us to grow up.