This is the week that was

So, how was your week? Below is some random stuff from my past few days—from simply choosing happiness, to decision making about the financial crisis, to the evolving definition of marriage, to an exploration of my little city of Asheville.

Choosing happiness
An excerpt from a book I’m finishing up. The working title: Be Happy Now!

There’s nothing you have to do. You want to be happy? Be happy.

–Neale Donald Walsch

Your happiness is not dependent on what’s happening out there; it depends on what’s happening inside you. It’s not a matter of chance; it’s a matter of choice. Believe it or not, you can be happy whenever you really choose to do so.

Sure, you’ve had challenges in your life. Of course, there are things taking place in the world that you wish were different. Yes, your loved ones didn’t always treat you as you wanted to be treated. And you can wallow in self pity and play victim, if you like. Or you can put your focus on what’s great about your life and make a conscious choice to be happy. It’s entirely up to you.

So lighten up. And at the beginning of each day set an intention to be happy: “Today I will be happy and focus on the good stuff life brings my way.”

An alternative take on the financial bailout
How are decisions about fixing the financial crisis really being made in Washington? This video from South Park explains it in full. LOL!

Updated definition of marriage
Same sex marriages are now included Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary’s definition of marriage. See 1 [a] (2) below:

1 [a] (1) the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage [b] the mutual relation of married persons [c] the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected ; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3: an intimate or close union

Asheville is a melting pot
From the Richmond Times Dispatch, an article about the eclectic and hospitable little city of Asheville.

The drummer sounds the first thumping beats, steady and thick in the cool night air.
After several moments, a second offers a tentative melody, gaining confidence from the approving cheers of the gathered crowd.

The toddlers and barefoot teens are the first to start moving — bouncing and swaying and twirling with abandon.

A third and a fourth drummer join the growing tempest, now a fifth and sixth, building to a rhythmic crescendo. Suddenly, the staccato peal of a tom-tom breaks through the din. A goateed sexagenarian raps his cowbell, and a long-haired man in a black beret crouches around his drum, inches away from the audience like a washed-up rock star.

The crowd is alive now, a pulsing mass heaving along with the frenetic pace of the drummers. Dancers sway and swoop, arms akimbo and heads bowed, their eyes closed as the sound washes over them and echoes back from the darkening stone walls.

This is the Friday night Drum Circle, and this is Asheville, a city that makes no apologies for its nontraditional flair, that embraces the bohemian and yet welcomes outsiders like a long-lost friend.

Click here for a video of the drum circle.

Click here to read the entire article.

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Simply living means living more simply.

Earlier this month, my wife, Shonnie, and I attended a two-day workshop, Simpler Living as Spiritual Practice, sponsored by Holy Ground, a feminist Christian retreat organization based here in Asheville. Shonnie and I had already taken a number of steps toward a simpler life: we’d moved into a modest condo, given away or sold everything that didn’t fit comfortably in it, gotten rid of one of our two autos, and committed to riding our bikes to work at least one day a week. The no-TV-during–the-week agreement had fallen by the wayside, but, hey, I’m only human. Nonetheless, we thought it might be time to take simplicity to the next level.

During the weekend, we heard from folks who were eliminating the unessential so they could use their time for what was most important to them. We discussed actions we could take to walk lightly on our planet—using the sun for heating, buying locally grown food, purchasing less stuff. But more importantly, we questioned some of our underlying cultural assumptions, including:

• Humans are the center of the universe. Not only is the nonhuman world subservient to the human world, its value is based solely on its value to humans.
• Humans stand separate and apart from the rest of nature.
• Our economy must continue to grow no matter the cost; nature is merely an economic resource.

As we considered these routinely unexamined beliefs, we began to understand their flaws and how they have led us to the dreadful ecological conditions we now confront. We obtained a better understanding regarding how we Americans, who make up approximately five percent of the world’s population and consume about twenty five percent of the world’s resources (Juliet Schor, The Overspent American), are doing more than our share to create the environmental devastation that threatens life on our planet. And we committed to take action to help turn things around.

A week later I was about halfway through the Asheville Citizen-Times half-marathon, soaked with sweat and drizzle, longing for the trails of the nearby mountains. I usually feel enlivened when I’m running on the trails; running on pavement this day was just hard work. I put my head down, gritted my teeth, and moved inexorably toward the finish. As I ran I considered how much of my time is spent moving from human-built structure to human-built structure rather than in the outdoors in the natural world—in tune with the cycles of day and night, the seasons of the year, birth and death. When I live like this it’s no wonder that I believe I am separate from the natural world; it’s no wonder that I lose touch with who I really am; it’s no wonder that I don’t fully consider the impact of my actions on my planet.

Often it’s easy to believe that the ecological problems confronting us, perhaps even threatening our existence as a species (certainly threatening the existence of other species) are too huge and complex for me to deal with. I can recycle; I can turn down the water heater thermostat; I can replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. But there is a greater reality to grasp here. I am not merely one who understands the necessity of reversing the ecological degradation. I am also part of the web of life that is being degraded. I come to discern, as John Seed has put it, that I am not only protecting the forest; I am part of the forest protecting myself.

When I find a way to quiet my egocentric, know-it-all mind and examine the validity of my unverified assumptions, my path becomes clear. I intuitively know that I am connected to everything in the universe, that when I care for the spider that has crawled onto my leg, I am caring for myself. I grasp that my time here is limited. And I possess a sense of urgency regarding what must be done. I recognize that, ultimately, the universe supports us and shows us the way. All we have to do is pay attention, and our actions will flow out of love—for ourselves and our planet—with a passion that cannot be denied.

* * *

I wrote this commentary for publication in the Asheville Citizen-Times on September 28, 2002, and I post it again now since it has relevance to the crises we find ourselves in now. Since participating in the Holy Ground workshop, we have taken the following additional actions toward living our lives more simply and more congruently with our deepest values:

• Taken steps to make our home as energy efficient as possible
• Installed compact fluorescent light bulbs
• Added insulation overhead
• Replaced leaky windows with thermopane windows
• Installed storm door
• Installed foam switch plate and outlet covers
• Purchased green energy
• Committed to walk or bike whenever possible (We went five days recently without getting in our car.)
• Bought local, natural produce whenever possible from grocery stores, farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture
• Committed to using natural cleaning products
• Recycled and composted to the extent that we only generate garbage in quantities that require us to take it to curbside only every six to eight weeks.
• Simplified our wardrobes, wearing natural fabrics that don’t require dry cleaning
• Written about why simpler living is important and how to do it
• Supported local businesses and eschewed big box stores
• Supported local, state and national political candidates who understand the importance of living simpler lives

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

According to Rep. Zach Wamp, universal healthcare = socialism

Republican Rep. Zach Wamp, who is running for governor of Tennessee, unintentionally exposed his ineptitude and biases in an appearance on MSNBC Thursday. Despite the fact that there’s general agreement about the need to radically revamp our health care system, from citizens as well as from physicians, hospital administrators, employers, insurers and numerous others, Wamp spouts the same old tired talking points of decades gone by . . . and not very well at that. Here are a few highlights from his interview:

“It’s probably the next major step towards socialism. I hate to sound so harsh, but…. this literally is a fast march towards socialism, where the government is bigger than the private sector in our country and health care’s the next major step, so we oughta all be worried about it.”

[. . .]

“Listen, health care is a privilege . . . for some people it’s a right, but for everyone, frankly, it’s not necessarily a right.”

[. . .]

“Half the people today choose to remain uninsured. Half of them don’t have any choice, but half of them choose to, what’s called, ‘Go naked.’ And just take a risk of getting sick. They end up in the emergency room, costing you and me a whole lot more money. How many illegal immigrants are in this country today, getting our health care? Gobs of ‘em.”

Watch Wamp’s desultory performance for yourself.

Friday, March 6th, 2009

George W. Bush–The First American Dictator

They said it couldn’t happen here, but from late 2001 until January 19, 2009 we Americans were living in George W. Bush’s warped vision of a secure homeland, a totalitarian regime that anointed Bush supreme ruler and stripped all citizens of basic Constitutional rights.

The following paragraph is from a commentary I wrote three years ago–“Can democracy survive three more years of George W. Bush?”

What is it going to take for the American people to wake up to the presidential coup d’etat that is now underway, a takeover that is occurring in broad daylight by a president who has declared that as commander-in-chief he has unfettered power to fight an undeclared and never-ending war on terrorism, even if that means ignoring the courts, disregarding laws passed by Congress and circumventing the Bill of Rights in the process?

At the time, some readers considered my views extreme and unjustifiable. Based on the contents of the nine secret Department of Justice memos that were released this week, however, it’s apparent that I didn’t go far enough in calling George W. Bush out on his betrayal of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

As it turns out, Bush’s DOJ had clandestinely created memos that made bogus legal arguments to support a number of unparalleled policies that were either considered or actually carried out by the White House. These memos essentially suspended citizens’ Constitutional rights, declared Bush our omnipotent president and proclaimed an authoritarian state. Throughout most of his presidency, Bush claimed the authority to do anything he wished, unconstrained by laws, treaties, Congress, the courts or the Constitution, if he deemed the actions necessary in the struggle against terrorism.

What are the dictatorial powers bestowed on George W. Bush by the previously-undisclosed DOJ memos? He had the power to:

1. Deploy the U.S. military inside the U.S.
2. Order foreigners and citizens alike arrested and held indefinitely without charges
3. Command the military to search citizens’ homes
4. Instruct the NSA to spy on citizens, listen in on their phone calls and read their emails
5. Suspend freedom of speech and freedom of the press

Apparently he only got around to implementing #2 and #4, but god only knows what he’d done if there had been another terrorist attack on American soil.

Since the election of President Obama, I had decided to relegate Bush and his associates to history, preferring to participate in bringing about change in my community and in our nation. But these memos reveal duplicitous and treasonous behavior, and DOJ officials have indicated that there is more damning evidence yet to be released.

The men and women responsible for these illegal and immoral acts must be held accountable. They, and others who might emulate them, need to know that we, the citizens of this nation, will not stand for further desecration of our civil liberties. They need to be held up as examples so that others will be loath to go down this path again. Bush and his pals need to do be investigated, indicted, convicted and imprisoned, for these men and women were the true terrorists, and they came closer to eradicating American democracy than Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda ever will.

* * *

Bush’s Secret Dictatorship by Dan Froomkin

The newly released secret laws of the Bush administration by Glenn Greenwald

George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution by Scott Horton

Read the nine recently released Department of Justice memos by clicking here.

Thursday, March 5th, 2009