I love Facebook. It’s enabled me to connect with people whom I had long ago nearly forgotten, to see pictures of old friends in their current configurations, and to meet new people who are kindred spirits and quirky characters. (It has also sucked away hours of time that should have been spent more productively, but that’s one of the many challenges we all must learn to deal with in this brave new age!)
As a high school guidance counselor, it has also presented me with some of my greatest challenges in terms of how to deal with kids that are being mean to each other in ways that I couldn’t have imagined when I was in high school. Whether it is setting up a fake page posing as someone else and making them look like a fool, or girls pretending to like some lonely boy only to get him to confess his undying adoration before squashing his heart, or posting Photoshopped images that enable anyone with minor tech skills to make anyone else into anything they want them to be, or making crude and nasty threats to students at other schools so that extra security has to be hired prior to athletic events, the Internet has radically altered the landscape that teens inhabit.
The fact of the matter is that the tools utilized by teens – whether it’s cell phones, laptops, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, IMs or iPods – have created a virtual Wild, Wild West in which very few rules are written, much less applied with any effectiveness whatsoever. Teenagers figured this stuff out long before we did, and now they have set up their own outlaw outposts on the Internet and we adults come along like a bunch of rubes from back east, telling them they need to clean up their acts. The truth is, most teens have already been at this for a couple of years, and only recently have most of us responsible for their welfare been taking a noticeable interest in their activities.
Anybody who knows about Bill Hicks knows about his last invisible set that never aired on Letterman — a sad chapter toward the end of Bill’s life. But what compelled Dave to invite Bill’s mother, Mary Hicks, onto his show, extend a heartfelt and humble apology, and then air the previously censored set from 15 years earlier?
I have a theory — Back in 1992, this country was still underneath a dark cloud of fear following the meteoric rise to power of the religious right. The thunderous wrath of these Moral Majority types and their cozy connections with the highest levels of political power made everyone, even David Letterman, leery of doing anything that might bring that righteous wrath down upon themselves. So when Bill did some material about the anger, hostility and rigid ideology of people who were ironically calling themselves “pro-life,” Dave got nervous and pulled the plug.
I haven’t found the time just yet to record my thoughts on attending the Inauguration, but my wife Dawn shared this on her babycenter.com board. Well done, my dear!
Someone on my community bulletin board started a thread about how she didn’t understand all the unabashed crying at the Inauguration. How she felt that everyone was still hanging on to some delusional dream around Obama’s presidential win. Fresh from a day of traveling home and returning to work after 5 hours of sleep, I had to respond, if only to be able to finally express what that day meant to me:
I cried because I was actually there, and because there were people standing all around me and my family who were so full of love and hope and determination. I cried because I was overtired, spent so much time and effort to be there, and didn’t regret a single moment. Strangers turned to one another and hugged and rejoiced. I cried when I saw a white man in his 20s with gentle tears streaming and children on their daddy’s shoulders cheering and black women whispering amen between each sentence and young soldiers saying “sorry you can’t come this way” and people responding with “OK, and thanks for being here to protect us” and America standing shoulder to shoulder on its very best behavior in its glorious shining moment. I cried because this was our American bonding moment without having to be pushed along by tragedy and loss like 9/11 and Katrina.
UPDATE Mon, Jan 26: Kuttner has a post on HuffPo this morning directly relating to the kind of resistance Obama’s transformational ideas are running into during debate on the stimulus package.
While in DC, I noticed a meme developing in which commentators seemed to find it de rigeur to remind viewers that Obama was “just one man,” and that expectations of him fixing everything were unrealistic. I can’t imagine any sane person thinking that he’s going to fix everything. I think the celebratory mood revolves more around a collective recognition that Obama is the guy who can make US better people. A woman who works at my daughter’s school, a Russian immigrant, said to me, “He makes me want to learn more about all the things he talks about.” That’s the idea behind a transformational leader.
Been reading Robert Kuttner’s Obama’s Challenge, and it should be read by anyone feeling inspired by the opportunities that are arriving alongside the enormous challenges. In it, Kuttner talks about the nature of the transformation required: to combat the prevailing perception that government, as Reagan said, is “not the solution. Government is the problem.”
Absent government remediation, citizens have become increasingly skeptical about government’s capacity to achieve much of anything — a conclusion carefully nurtured by conservative policies and ideology, and incidentally reinforced by conservative incompetence and corruption in the management of the government. When George W. Bush contends that you can’t trust government, his own administration provides the exclamation point. And too many Democrats have reinforced these assumptions rather than contest them. . . . Obama’s challenge is to reverse the thirty-year trend not just of Republican rule but of voter quiescence and Democratic complicity. He must raise expectations — and then rise to meet them. More than anything else, he needs to rehabilitate the constructive role of government, both in the minds of the people and in what government delivers. For in the current economic crisis, there is no alternative to the redemption of government to serve a broad common good.
As citizens, we need to educate ourselves, articulate our desires clearly and powerfully, and demand the kind of responsible government that will work again. Huge changes are required, and without ardent public support, they will not happen. Kuttner says that the cautious measures and gradual moves to the center will not be enough:
Greater fiscal discipline coupled with modest tax breaks and token spending increases will not produce a recovery from the current recession, much less a restoration of the economic security and depleted earning power of the American middle class. . . . In these circumstances, only one general policy approach can dig the economy out of its current hole and put it back on a path toward broadly shared prosperity: Restore taxes on corporations and the weealthiest Americans, reduce spending on foreign wars, incur temporary larger deficits, and use the proceeds for very substantial social investments. This means not just a “stimulus” as a onetime, counter-cyclical injection of demand, but a structural increase in government outlay to make the economy both more productive and more reliable for citizens.
Currently 15 degrees in Annapolis, where we’re staying with sister-in-law Tammy. Everyone is asking us, “Why are you going into all that mess?” “It’s going to be so cold!” “You’re crazy!”
Well, we know all that. But having just listened to Obama’s brief speech in Philadelphia , I am more convinced than ever that we are on the cusp of a new era in this country, and we have a leader who can now guide and inspire us through the transition from tired, stale ideas that are on the way out, and new, fresh, and sustainable — even transformational – ideas that will, as Obama often says, fulfill the promise of America envisioned by the Founding Fathers back in the 1700s.
Leaving in about 6 hours to fly to DC, through Detroit, so a long, long travel day with two little girls and a buttload of luggage.
Excited, and a little on edge, about the crowds and dire predictions regarding crowds, traffic, weather, etc.
But this is one of the axial moments of our age, and I want to be there with my wife and daughter (Baby Josie gets to spend the day with grandparents) and create a memory of a day I’ve been waiting for all my life.
A new day, and I will be back with lots of pictures and first hand reports. If I was truly organized, I’d have “pre-loaded” a bunch of posts, but I’m not, so I didn’t. See you when we have a new Prez!!!
My caring about football for this season ended a few hours ago when the Giants basically rolled over and played dead against the Eagles. But I’ve been mulling and musing over the reactions people have to athletes who overtly express their Christian beliefs.
One friend of mine, after the Longhorns won the Fiesta Bowl, had this to say about Colt McCoy:
I’m just glad I don’t have to listen to Colt chalk another one up to my saviour the lord Jesus Christ until next year. It is almost enough to make me root against him!!!! Like if he would have thrown a pick, would we have been hearing him say he knows why Jesus was so against him – but he didn’t inhale?
This, of course, is a callback to comedian Jeff Stilson’s classic line,
I got tired of the interviews after the games, because the winning players always give credit to God, and the losers blame themselves. You know, just once I’d like to hear a player say, ‘Yeah, we were in the game—until Jesus made me fumble. He hates our team.’
There’s a lot to be said for the concept of balance — it’s important to be aware of it in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us. Being in balance in your own life is a key to helping others recognize when they might be out of balance.
In working with teenagers and their families, I find that it’s easy for relationships to get unbalanced quickly, and without anyone recognizing their own part in the imbalance. One of the key ingredients is balancing acceptance and change. In other words, what parts of my life can I learn to accept, and what parts demand that I make changes?
I’ve been reading Ready or Not, Here Life Comes, by Dr. Mel Levine, and he articulated this concept of balanced relationships between teens and parents better than I’ve heard it anywhere else. He has a number of spectrums, I guess you’d call them, which provide clear guidelines for families to assess areas of their relationships which might be unbalanced. To see these, read on!
This was my first foray into finding twins separated by birth. I have a feeling this could be addicting! You can scroll through the pictures on the site and vote on ones you like. Some are dumb, some are amazing, most will elicit at least a chuckle.
There’s a lot to be said for the concept of balance — it’s important to be aware of it in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us. Being in balance in your own life is a key to helping others recognize when they might be out of balance.
