The Silence of the Lambs

Recently some registered Republican voters in Charlotte, NC were asked what’s happened to their taxes since President Obama was elected.  The majority of the group said their taxes had gone up.  After some actual IRS facts were put on the table, these folks had a sudden moment of clarity, “oh yes, that’s right my taxes did go down last year.” 

It’s true.  Attached to the $787 billion stimulus bill was a $115 billion tax cut that was felt by 95% of working families.  I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised when tax cuts by a Democratic President fall through the cracks of memory in Republican voters. What is far more surprising is that Democrats didn’t seem to remember it either.  

In the months leading up to the election the evening news was a symphony of Republican rhetoric laser focused on blaming the Democrats for just about everything with the intent of removing as many Democrats from the Congress as possible.  After all, the Democrats bailed out the Wall Street devils, they plan to cancel the Bush tax cut and they want to spend billions on Obama’s outrageous Health Care Reform bill which will push the country deeper into debt.  All the while not a syllable was uttered by the Democrats about successes brought about in the first 2 years of the Obama administration.  Surely this $115 billion tax cut, typically the air that only Republicans and Tea Baggers breathe, would be a Democratic bullet to be used in this fight.  As it turned out, this tax cut victory was as invisible in the election debate as Iraq’s WMD were in 2005.  

Face it; Republicans are tougher, quicker and smarter than Democrats when it comes to spinning their message of liberal failure and carpet bombing the electorate into believing that Democrats are to blame for everything that’s wrong with the country today including the current economic crisis which of course was the handiwork of W with some help from Bill Clinton.

For as long as I can remember, conservatives have been the punchers, the organized pack of attack dogs brilliantly editing the day’s news into carefully parsed sound bites to make the liberals look far more incompetent than they might actually be and certainly more culpable for whatever mess the country was in at the time.  How is it the successes achieved over the past two years by the Democrats remained so neatly tucked away in some dark closet of the American voter? 

According to an interesting piece in the Miller McCune newsletter reported by Tom Jacobs, there may be some interesting psychology behind the methods of these two groups.  The article cites 50 years of research as well as commentary by John Jost of NYU, a book written by science writer Wray Herbert and theory from Jacob Vigil, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico all of whom are quoted here.

I don’t agree with everything in this theory, but it would still make for some lively conversation over a pint at Pfaff’s Bar.  What follows is paraphrasing on a Homeric level.  

Fifty years of scientific research suggests that a person’s belief systems are developed partly by of the realities of their situation in the world but also by their psychological needs. 

This research shows that “conservatives tend to be more easily threatened and to perceive the world as dangerous in comparison to liberals.”

If you perceive the world as a threatening place, you’re more likely to cling tightly to those you trust and to warily eye those you don’t”. 

“People who are the most fearful seek safety in stability and hierarchy, where more emotionally secure people can tolerate some chaos and unpredictability in their lives.”

“The implication is that conservatives are somehow emotionally impaired, and vaguely inferior to the more open-minded people on the left.”

This obviously doesn’t shine a pretty light on conservatives.  So Dr. Vigil’s theory tries to explain this fundamental difference without labeling conservatives as abnormal. 

His thesis essentially says, “Conservatives tend to be more oriented toward dominance, tend to acquire a larger group of friends and associates than liberals and are more sensitive to potential threats because there are more people in their orbit, and thus the danger of their being hurt by a duplicitous person is greater. Liberals, being more inward-oriented, have smaller, tighter social groups and thus feel less threatened, which in turn allows them to be more open to unfamiliar experiences.”

“Humans are highly dependent upon one another biologically,” he notes. To foster the good will of others, he argues, we “advertise” either trustworthiness or competence.”

“The basic idea is that folks who have small social spheres are going to be demonstrating more trust cues, and those who have bigger social spheres, more capacity cues.” Liberals, in other words, are demonstrating trustworthiness as a way of attracting the social support they need, while conservatives are demonstrating power for the exact same reason.”

There’s more but I think you get the idea.

Recently some registered voters were asked to bet on which team would lead a candidate to victory in a national election – the Elephants led by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck or the Donkeys with Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow and Frank Rich. 

I know who I would trust but I also know who would win. 

Wolves manipulate by loudly showing competence and lambs manipulate by quietly showing trust. 

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/a-new-take-on-political-ideology-24683/

Have it Your Way

I listened to her sing it at the Kennedy Center Honors in January, 2009 and was right there with Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry as they watched her make "Love Reign O'er Me" her own.  I was sure everyone in that theater was thinking what I, and most assuredly Townshend and Daltry, were thinking - that music is the most incredible art form in the world.  Don't agree?  Do you remember when Dudley Moore ordered lunch for the dying John Gielgud in the movie Arthur?  Well, think of other classic art forms such as sculpture and painting as the Trout Almondine from Lutece.  It comes only one way, the way the chef at Lutece tells you it must be.  Sculpture and painting insist that the viewer experience exactly what the artist created, no changes, no substitutions!  Of course, if you've ever seen Michelangelo's Pieta, you gladly accept this truth and applaud the chef.
But music is different. I am a person who can't play the dinner bell; to me music is just a scrum of ridiculous lines and dots on a piece of paper.  Listen to it, always; understand it, never.  In the hands of a musical artist however,  the confusing jumble is transformed into, well, music.  But what separates music from other classical art is that in the hands of a different artist, that jumble can become a very different sounding Pieta.
There is no better example of the individuality of the musical art form than Bettye Lavette's performance of "Love Reign O'er Me".  Townshend wrote a song with a distinct purpose and sound that became a rock classic.  Lavette's brushes curve in a different way and the resulting canvas is something quite different but no less compelling.
So there they were, Townshend, Daltry and Barbra Streisand who also received a Kennedy Honor that night, entranced at this unknown singer putting a lifetime of soul and grit on display, proud of the brotherhood that musicians and actors feel for one another no matter their status or fame.
This week, I read Bettye Lavette's recollections of this event in the November 15th edition of The New Yorker and suddenly this story of art, individuality and creative interpretation and appreciation was turned upside down.  It turns out that when Lavette was approached by the show's producer to perform this song, Lavette wept.  Not because she had put her heart and soul into her music for over 50 years and was now finally getting her big break, but because she didn't like or understand the song at all.  "The biggest opportunity I've ever been offered in my life, and this is the song I've been given," she said.  "I felt completely defeated."  It seems there is a lot more to Bettye Lavette than anyone in that theater realized.  It's a fascinating story that illuminates both the struggles of life as a musical artist and the good fortune that their art is born of a jumble of lines and dots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJi6maTueSc
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/15/101115fa_fact_wilkinson

The World's Library

In 2007, Vin Scelsa, a great voice from the NY rock station WNEW FM radio was interviewing Tony Bennett.  He asked Bennett what he thought of Van Morrison’s jazz influenced rock music.  Bennett replied “Van who?”.  “You mean you’ve never heard Moondance” he asked.  “No, I haven’t” said Bennett.  Scelsa tripped over himself trying to find his Moondance CD.  “I’m going to introduce one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded to one of the greatest pop vocalists of the 20^th century” Scelsa said.  He played Moondance, Bennett raved.  Tell me that experience isn’t near the top of Scelsa’s list of career accomplishments.

Book Crossing is a brilliant way to share your favorite books with, well, the world.  The premise is simple, you print free or custom labels which contain a unique ID number for your book and instructions on how Book Crossing works. You label your book and leave it in a public place for someone to take.  That person can read your book and when finished, leave it somewhere for someone else.  The label instruction asks each person who reads your book to go to www.bookcrossing.com and simply log in your book’s ID number and the book’s current whereabouts.  The book moves from person to person across the country and around the world and you can track its travels.  And it’s all free.  How cool is that!

Now all the glass half empty people are asking, “you give away a perfectly good book that you’ve paid for?” Yes, that’s right.  Now you can play Moondance for the whole world.

"There is a road, no simple highway..."

A birthday brings to mind favorite people, places and things.  Here's to my wife Stephanie, my kids and one of my favorite places introduced to me by Stephanie twenty five years ago.

The boardwalk on Fire Island, N.Y. isn't your typical boardwalk brought to mind by the Jersey shore. It always reminds me of the great lyrics from one of my favorite songs by the Grateful Dead.


If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
          It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
          Perhaps they're better left unsung.
          I don't know, don't really care
          Let there be songs to fill the air.
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
          Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
          If your cup is full may it be again,
          Let it be known there is a fountain,
          That was not made by the hands of men.
There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.
          Ripple in still water,

          When there is no pebble tossed,

          Nor wind to blow.

But if you fall you fall alone,

If you should stand then who's to guide you?

If I knew the way I would take you home.

Trolleyology

Studying Philosophy in school was mostly drudgery for me. But every so often, I would come across a philosopher whose impossibly difficult idea became suddenly illuminated by the clarity of his words.
You may have heard of the highly improbable test of moral philosophy called Trolleyology. This article has a bumpy start, but don't be discouraged, keep reading. By the end, you'll be scratching your head wondering why there is such a big difference between a "flick" and a "shove" when it comes to killing a man.

From the October edition of Prospect magazine. Written by David Edmonds.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/10/ethics-trolley-problem/

You and Me?

What do you do when a piece of fiction fights with itself but makes peace, argues but seems to understand, gets twisted into neat emotion, seems to loves and hate in the same sentence, confuses in a perfectly clear way.
You read it and then read it again trying to understand how the author managed to use such a tangle of words and emotions to describe us and our relationships so confoundingly well.

What an original piece of writing this is.
Read an excerpt from "Here We Aren't, So Quickly." by Jonathan Safran Foer from the June 14 issue of the New Yorker. Then read it again and again...



“I was not good at drawing faces. I was just joking most of the time. I was not decisive in changing rooms or anywhere. I was so late because I was looking for flowers. I was just going through a tunnel whenever my mother called. I was not able to make toast without the radio. I was not able to tell if compliments were back-handed. I was not as tired as I said.
You were not able to ignore furniture imperfections. You were too light to arm the airbag. You were not able to open most jars. You were not sure how you should wear your hair, and so, ten minutes late and halfway down the stairs, you would examine your reflection in a framed picture of dead family. You were not angry, just protecting your dignity.
I was not able to run long distances. You were so kind to my sister when I didn’t know how to be kind. I was just trying to remove a stain; I made a bigger stain. You were just asking a simple question. I was almost always at home, but I was not always at home at home. You were not able to cope with a stack of more than three books on my bedside table, or mixed currencies in the change dish, or plastic. I was not afraid of being alone; I just hated it. You were just admiring the progress of someone else’s garden. I was so tired of food.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/06/14/100614fi_fiction_foer

Founding Father and Slave Owner

I was reading an article on Ron Chernow's biography of George Washington, which is one of the better biographies I have read, and that nagging question came to mind again.

How could any of the Founding Fathers, writers of the Declaration of Independence, architects of the words "all men are created equal", "unalienable rights" and "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" possibly find it acceptable to own slaves?

Perhaps they did not view their slaves as "men" and therefore they fell outside the rule of their new union. It wouldn't have been the first time nor would it be the last that the interpretation of a powerful majority would determine who got to live (the Salem witches), or vote (women of the early 20th century) or be free.

Or as Chernow hints, Washington and others may have believed that the viability of the newborn union was so precarious that to force the southern colonies to end slavery at that time would itself doom their entire endeavor of independence. Believing this, they decided that the the creation of an independent nation was more important than the freedom of a few thousand slaves at least for the short term and that the loss of the war for independence would in any case render everyone, free man and slave, in the same dire circumstance.

If only Mr. Peabody could fire up that WABAC machine.