The response to blatant racism needs a moral compass and leader in the U.S.

There is reported evidence of a shooting of one black man by white police officers every ten days over the last year in the United States. Public officials like to point to 'how far we have come' in race relations following the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King prior to his death. In his challenging and inspiring work, Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken includes a passage from Stewart Burns' To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Sacred Mission to Save America*
that portrays the South in the mid 1950's as background to  the Rosa Parks' act of civil disobedience in refusing to move to the back of the bus when asked by the bus driver:
...a that time, the segregated South was a different place from what it is today. Behind the mannerly speech and outward politeness was a heightened tension that was conveyed in the body language, in the eyes, and in any number of dismissive gestures. And beneath it ran an even deeper current, one of latent and explosive violence, even mayhem. Months before, in Mississippi, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till had unintentionally whistled at a white woman shopkeeper (he had a speech defect from polio) and was lynched three nights later by a party led by the woman's husband. He was mutilated, castrated, and shot, his skull crushed beyond recognition. The lynch mob was arrested, tried, and set free. This incident, though highly publicized, was not anomalous; there had been on average one lynching per week in the ninety-year-period since Reconstruction.
As Hawken also reports, on December 5, 1955, the same day as Rosa Parks' court appearance, Dr. King, at a community meeting to decide whether to proceed with the boycott, delivered his first civil rights speech, after only thirty minutes to prepare. The speech, a foreshadowing of his "I have a Dream Speech" later, is worth remembering in light of the recent spate of shootings of black men by white law enforcement officers. The lynching may be gone, the mutilation and castration may be gone, but have the bullets replaced them, leaving the racial bigotry and the power imbalance untouched?
Here is a refresher on the King homily courtesy of Hawken:
 There comes a time. (long pause) There comes a time when people get tired---tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression. We had no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we like the way we are being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice. (longer pause) One of the great glories of democracy is the right to protest for right. The white Citizen's Council and the Ku Klux Klan are protesting for the perpetuation of injustice in the community. We are protesting for the birth of justice in the community. Their methods lead to violence and lawlessness. But in our protest there will be no cross burnings. No white person will be taken from his home by a hooded Negro and brutally murdered. There will be no threats and intimidation. Our method will be that of persuasion, not coercion. We will only say to the people:
"Let your conscience be your guide." Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must be our regulating ideal. Once again we must hear the word of Jesus echoing across the centuries. "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." (The audience in on its feet shouting affirmatively.) If we fail to do this our protest will end up as meaningless drama on the stage of history, and its memory will be shrouded with the ugly garments of shame. In spite of the mistreatment that we have confronted, we must not become bitter and end up hating our white brothers. As Booker T. Washington said: "Let no man pull you down so low as to make you hate him." (The audience is cheering and shouting.) If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people--a black people-- who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." That is our challenge an our overwhelming responsibility.**
We wish and earnestly hope that in the current racial unrest, imbalance of power and unwarranted killings of black men and the ensuing protests, the United States  could find a voice that could and would emulate, echo and enhance the rhetoric and the leadership that we heard from Dr. King.

*(San Francisco: Harper, 2004, p.19)
**Paul Hawken, ibid, p 81-2, from Steven Millner, The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Case Study in the Emergence and Career of a Social Movement, in The Walking City, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56, ed. David Garrow (New York: Carlson, 1989), p. 461

Fringe voices from left and right leading U.S. political polls

Trump leads by at least 5% over his nearest opponent in the Republican race for the nomination while, in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton 44% to 37%.

Both Trump and Sanders are giving voice to a deep reservoir of anger, resentment and alienation among the ordinary people. Of course, there is the lingering residue from the economic collapse of 2008-9 which burst the bubble of dreams for millions of Americans, and linked to this development is the continuing bitterness directed toward the Wall Street perpetrators of those credit default tricks and the continuing skyrocketing of the Dow and corporate and investor profits. Sanders is the public voice of this anger and disappointment; as he repeats in every speech, “The billionaires cannot have it all!

Trump, the billionaire himself, is also protesting the straight-jacket of political correctness that pervades public discourse. Like a ‘white rapper’ Trump is giving the metaphoric “thumb” or “finger” to that kind of pre-programmed, focus-group-tested political persona. Relying on no ‘sugar-daddy’ (he is his own!) Trump can and does reject all forms of dullness, boredom, headaches and other snoozes he attributes to his opponents, while he “brings energy” and unpredictability and showmanship to the race for the Republican nomination. Fox, of course, loves Trump, given the 24 million viewers who tuned in to their debate last week, featuring Trump and the ‘nine dwarfs’, the mini-dwarfs having been dispatched to a smaller stage, with microphones powered by less electricity, politically and metaphorically.

Hillary, for her part, is mired in an increasingly muddy morass around her use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State, aided and abetted by her own (and her husband’s) penchant for shaving the truth so finely that many wonder if they don’t actually ‘break it’ with their fine tuning (remember the definition of ‘yes’?). The inevitable consequence of when a message was declared “classified” is lost on many, while to Hillary, if it was not so “classified” at the time of her writing or receiving it, the her hands are clean.

Whether Trump or Sanders, both are voicing the margins of their respective party ideology: trump to the far right, Sanders to the far left.

The issue is becoming, Is the United States giving voice to a bi-polarity that has always existed in its political culture? And if so, what are the implications of this extreme expression on both sides?

To be interesting, even riveting, all drama must seize the sensibilities of the audience, through a portrayal of character, plot, setting and language that grabs the audience by the shirt collar and pushes it up against the wall, in empathic identification with the main characters. In the political theatre that United States politics as polished to an art, perhaps even tarnished to a fault, has become, without the creativity and the nuance of language of the artistic playwright, political aspirants have had to adopt the persona of a Swarzenegger in Terminator, the pose of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky in his many iterations, Patton, and Evil Knievel rolled into one. In order to garner the attention of the media serfs, the “act” has to trump the substance, otherwise the substance is never heard, listened to or even acknowledged. It is a truism of politics that candidates must campaign in the primary by pandering to the base, and then revert to the centre when competing for the top prize in the general election. Another truism is that one campaigns poetry and governs in prose.

This campaign is so bereft of poetry that, if any of these candidates actually wins his party’s nomination, each will need an infusion of Obama’s literary talent even to enter the final campaign. Wrestlers, even with a hint of political gravitas, are still wrestlers in a ring of faux flips and phoney throw-downs. And, given the early stages of these two races, phoney and faux are ‘trumping’ substance, garnering media attention and disclosing a vacuity of both aspiration and inspiration. Rhetoric that shouts out “that is the problem” is not rhetoric that either inspires or solves that problem. Muscle, macho-media power, and even charisma are no substitute for nuanced and relevant feasible and credible proposals on policy, governance and making a broken Washington function effectively.

Does the American voting public have such an insatiable appetite for “the show” that they do not even require political nourishment. Are they so determined to die of political diabetes, given a surfeit of “sugar” and “salt” by both sides of the political spectrum. Certainly the media is not above reproach either. They really seem starved for horse races, opinion polls by the nano-second, so co-dependent are they on ratings and so deeply embedded are they in ‘the show’ as well.

In professional sports, when one makes it to the big leagues, one enters the “big show” as a rite of passage. And then the performance is measured and monitored so microscopically as to be the literal definition of one’s career and fortune. However, the analogy with professional sports does not hold in politics. Decisions, even those recommended by presidential candidates will not be enacted, no matter how charismatic the “voice”, unless and until the Congress debates and votes on the measures. At best, only the broad outlines of a prospective policy will waft across the podium from all candidates, stirring as much passion and adrenalin as it is possible to generate. It was a candidate for the Prime Minister’s office in Canada, back in the early 1990’s, Kim Campbell, who uttered a fatal statement that campaigns were no place for serious debate on government policy. She was both right and vilified. Right because her observation is factual; vilified, because no one in the political class can accept that mere sound and fury are the stuff of political campaigns, and not nuanced debates about policy merits. Only broad brush strokes are delivered, and then couched in such narrow caveats that no one has to deliver. Furthermore, issues in both domestic and geopolitics are so complex and so rife with differing points of view, even among those in the same political party, that scorecards of accomplishments, of a leader, and of a representative body are and have to be left to historians.

Furthermore, if it takes sound and fury to get attention, then how is character, that so sought after and so proferred commodity, to be judged. Is getting attention from a public addicted to another reality television show really a valid measure of character? Hardly. Is even a political record (Sanders has one, Trump does not) a determining factor in judging character, possibly. Are the friends one keeps a sign of one’s choice of company and thereby one’s upstanding character. That may have had some legitimacy when we were adolescents but no longer.

The real danger in this melodrama of the larynx is that billions will be expended to buy the air time necessary to make that larynx audible, and that only an emotional ‘gut check’ will be available to voters who are both victim of the money used to purchase the air time, and victimizers of the political process by permitting it to be high-jacked by the wallets and the suits. In the U.S. voters will be choosing the “leader of the free world” as we are so often reminded. And the choice has to be founded on much more than the demonstrated capacity to attract a crowd. That, in itself, is merely another “paint-by-number” program available from millions of good marketers and political consultants. It is highly possible that literally anyone can master the twists and turns of such a program, if s/he is willing to prostrate his/her person to the dictates of the program’s designers. Someone even wrote a book outlining the campaign of Richard M. Nixon as comparable to the marketing of a Coke bottle. The world needs serious, and complex and sensible and articulate and collaborative leaders who can and will do more, much more, than draw big crowds and then feed them political pablum.

This is not yet a third world country, and its political campaign must be a visible and credible manifestation of the high level of sophistication to which the United States has reached in so many fields of human endeavour. What we have seen so far fails the candidates, the voters, the media and the rest of the world. And as one listens to the sound bites in the Canadian election campaign, without the loud decibels (we are Canadian after all!) one is struck by the  simplicity of the offerings as little more than the minimum requirement to “make the nightly news casts”.

A Marshall Plan-size campaign of information and education to confront ISIS

So Stephen Harper says he is the only political leader in Canada who will attack ISIS. Beating the drum of war, along with the U.S., U.K. France, and to a lesser extent Germany and more recently Turkey, Iran along with what’s left of Iraq, against this most virulent and scurrilous band of thugs, in the hope that by bombing the hell out of them, they will somehow disappear, has considerable cost.

Of course, the western allies are keeping their losses to a minimum by refusing to “put boots on the ground”...the “only” way ISIS will ever be eradicated according to the military Mensa group..

Nevertheless in the midst of a Canadian national election which is basically a referendum on the decade of Harper rule, the Prime Minister is using his “military bravado” as another weapon against his two main opponents, Trudeau and Mulcair. And while that poses a threat to their potential for replacing Harper, in either a majority or minority government, there is certainly a case to be made for alternatives for the campaign against ISIS, outside of bombing them.

Clearly, the bombs that drop on ISIS locations prompt the vigorous recruiting of more radicals from around the world. Also, the capacity to erupt without warning in any town or city in any country, gives the radical Islamic terrorists a kind of unpredictability and massive media coverage for a minimum attack (not minimum for the victims, but compared with the more virulent and massive attacks on ‘infidels’ in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan). This capacity does not abate with the continuing bombardment by high-powered jets. Also, given the “pseudo-religious’ fervor of the Islamic radicals and their avowed dedication to suicide bombing for Allah, there is no time frame, in their mind, for the termination of their cancerous effort to establish an Islamic caliphate. On the other hand, there is no way the western bombers can or will sustain an interminable bombing offensive, whether the cessation comes as a result of empty coffers or public counter-terror-fatigue.The likelihood of a ‘peace treaty’ with this bunch of troglodytes is so remote as to be ethereal. Further, the flood of refugees pouring out of countries like Syria and Iraq is putting such serious strain on the capacity of adjacent countries like Jordan and now even reaching into Europe and Great Britain, without any prospect of stemming the tide. And the longer the bombs keep falling, the more refugees will seek asylum elsewhere. They really have nothing to lose in their pitiful pilgrimage to whatever looks like peace and security to them.

And while there is really no precedent, and no library of research among the armed combatants pointing to a potential resolution/termination of this plague, this ‘enemy’ of civilization is like no other. Furthermore, they are, by all accounts, highly adept at drawing their desired opponents into a pitched battle, thereby reinforcing their commitment and determination to continue their various methods of circumventing legitimate state governance using even stolen and “found” weapons abandoned by U.S. forces following the two Iraq wars. They have weapons, and they have oil which they sell on the black market. And, although we “know” most of their activities, we continue to rely on bombs and missiles as if we are bankrupt of creativity, ingenuity and the courage to experiment with potentially more radical, if potentially less physically lethal approaches.

Even “The Donald” has leapt into the vacuum with a suggestion that their access to oil reserves somehow be cut off. He does not say how, at least not yet. Yet the public discourse around the danger and the ways to eliminate ISIS continues to focus on bombs and missiles. Public security, the core of vulnerability among the nations and people in the crosshairs of the ISIS forces, is much more complicated an issue that needs more than bombs and body-scanners and ‘watch lists’ to combat. It needs the kind of Marshall Plan-size financed massive educational campaign, using all the various social media, formal curricular institutions, marketing creativity and public dollars. This idea is to saturate the environment of these Islamic infidels (assuming that they are indeed outside the mainstream of Islam) with information of an historic, religious, philosophic , gender-equality-infused, from all points of view of the world’s faith communities. Central figures in the campaign would have to be respected imams who are prepared to risk the wrath of these punks, in the short run, in order to reclaim the international respect for their faith community in the long run. There is so much to commend the moderate, tolerate, rights-respecting multiple political and faith expressions that have painted themselves into the landscape of the human population and culture, including those who prefer agnosticism and/or atheism. Individual freedom of choice, including individual freedom to worship or not, including individual freedom to speak whatever language(s) one prefers, and to seek to make a living in any of the legitimate, lawful and proven paths, following a full formal education that exposes the learner to the widest possible range of human experience, and academic pursuits (something Islam has historically been highly reputed to value)....

These are just some of the  themes of such an educational campaign, delivered through the most interactive and creative platforms available, without any attempt to prosletyze for a specific religion, in fact, at the outset, an agreement would have to be tendered for all participants that conversion from or to a specific religion is outside the scope of the project. And there would also have to be included in the initial agreement prior to funding commitments, a pledge to avoid prosletyzing for a specific political ideology.

In fact, these two caveats could well pave the way for a larger agreement on the reduction or elimination of poverty, disease, and the provision of clean water, air and food for all humans, linked to a joint commitment to work toward full employment in all countries. Imagine the potential from such a campaign, where the “participant teachers” become the participant learners and demonstrate their awakening through decades of collaboration to eliminate ebola, and other pandemics as they appear, and to reduce carbon emissions everywhere.

There is truly a hollow sound and impact to the dropping of bombs and missiles: of course, select targeted individuals are eliminated, and there is the instant gratification of a short-term win; yet there is also the spectre shared by even those engaged in the military mission, that there is no end game, no long-term conclusion to this war and no prospect that minds and hearts and bodies will be changed, resulting in the self-immolation of this incendiary movement. The bombs and missiles remind this writer of the taunts, insults and headline-grabbing of “The Donald” who has so perverted the Republican campaign for the White House into a narcissistic egomaniacal television drama. There are no characters, (and no character demonstrated by the protagonist) no plot and no resolution of the many besetting issues facing the United States, and the international community. Sucking all the oxygen from the rooms where rallies are being held, parallel to the bomb sucking all the oxygen from the newsrooms covering the military campaign, is no recipe for governance, nor for thoughtful confrontation of this many-faced demon of radical Islamic terrorism. “Sound and fury signifying nothing” is what the world is left contemplating.

Let’s get real and roll up our sleeves, together, in an international effort to put the best brains together to design and then to “sell” a different modus operandi than simple reversion, regression even, to the military stand-by. Cut off the access to oil, cut off the access to the social media on which ISIS depends, cut off all access to disparate armaments, cut off the flow of recruits, open up the channels for the abundant flow of mercy ships, medical transports, compassionate volunteer agencies with food medicine and shelter for refugees, open the borders of all countries to take in as many displaced refugees as feasible, train as many as possible who are willing to contribute expertise, knowledge, methodology and marketing, generate a tidal wave of human energy to palpable and so self-sustaining that its sheer strength and longevity outlasts the terror movements. Leadership can and must include the United Nations, the Security Council, and the multiple trade agreements that are being signed and threatened by the continuing menace of ISIS and all other faces of this monster.

If the campaign to eliminate radical Islam is contemplated as a long-term effort, then let it be an effort that leaves us all feeling blessed for the opportunity participation in such a campaign would offer. Perhaps, the soon-to-be-retired President of the United States, Barack Obama, could and would serve as the working chair of such a campaign? And his two immediate predecessors (George W. Bush and Bill Clinton)  as well as former UK  Prime Minister, Tony Blair would agree to serve as part of an oversight board.

Inter-connected as we all are...why not take the opportunity it offers?

It is revealing to watch the BBC News America program, given two observations:
first, the newscast is not afraid to dedicate several minutes to an in-depth examination of what it considers the most important stories and
second, the stories, exhibiting a distinctive 'British' flavour and attitude, are gathered from correspondents around the world.
PBS Newshour, too, is well-known for its critical probing of important issues, through the insights and even opinions of expert witnesses. Increasingly, we are be exposed to news stories that document, beyond any doubt that parochial perspectives would deny, the deep and permanent interconnectivity of all humans currently living and previously contributing to who we are and how we are growing.
Fires, droughts, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes are one 'disaster' theme with which the whole world is contending. Similarly, micro-organisms know no national or even continental boundaries. Also, and just as important but not appearing in our daily menu of international news, music, art, literature, dance and all of the many platforms through which these expressions 'spread' continue to influence us, and through us the events in which we participate no matter where we live.
Listening to a Rimsky-Korsakov composition, in Canada, one cannot help but feel, deeply in one's bones, the throbbing pulse of the Russian heart beat; similarly, while taking in a Rachmaninoff performance of his Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini one cannot help but absorb the technical mastery linked to the virtuosity of the musicality of another  Russian musical genius. These shared gifts, like the novels, plays, poems and canvases that overflow museums and galleries of art around the world, re-acquaint readers and explorers of how the human mind and spirit are much more aligned than divided, notwithstanding the unique differences in both perspective and expression that characterize each work.
Mahatma Gandi wrote:I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
Two news stories this week, caught my attention. Both indicate our deep and permanent connectedness.
The first comes from the world of sports. The International Athletic Association reported that the testing of some 5000 athletes, from 2002 through 2012, indicates that some 800 showed dubious results for banned substances, some of these were medal winners. Most countries' athletes were involved, and the issue is so troubling that Dick Pound of Canada has been asked to head an investigation into the report's findings. Pound is quoted as saying that he doubts any punishments can or will be meted out to offending athletes. International trends to cheating link the world's athletic federations in a common cause to attempt to eliminate the abuse.
The second story comes courtesy of CBC:
Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Canadian doctor whose vocal opposition to the anti-nausea drug thalidomide helped keep it out of the United States, has died at age 101...
Thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women in the 1960s before it was discovered that it caused serious birth defects such as missing limbs, internal organ damage, deafness and blindness.
Kelsey was a reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who raised serious concerns about the safety of the drug.
Ontario Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell had travelled to London on Thursday afternoon to present Kelsey with the Order of Canada, which was bestowed on her in the spring. 
Dowdeswell suspects that because Kelsey lived in the U.S. for much of her life, it took longer for her to be honoured in Canada...
Kelsey's refusal to agree with approval of the drug for use in the U.S. saved thousands of children from serious birth defects, and led to new safety standards for prescription drugs, a statement from the Governor General said. Only 17 children were born in the U.S. with thalidomide problems...
Kelsey was hailed as a hero in the U.S. and given the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by John F. Kennedy.
But the drug's dark legacy continues in her home country: In May, the federal government announced Canada's nearly 100 thalidomide survivors will be each provided pensions of up to $100,000 a year for the rest of their lives. The aging survivors are seeking help to cope with their day-to-day needs.
Kelsey demonstrated how one person can change the world, said Alvin Law, a thalidomide survivor, currently in Crystal Lake, Sask.
"She was a hero. She was just simply that. She was a guiding angel. She was an amazing human being," Law said.
"She stood up to a lot of people and made us as a group have more relevance.… We weren't mistakes, we were human beings."
Through Kelsey's actions, not only did regulation of the pharmaceutical industry change, but she changed our mindsets about women taking drugs during pregnancy, he said. (CBC News, August 7, 2015)
Athletes using banned substances to enhance their potential for victory and pharmaceutical companies advancing their 'morning sickness prevention' for profit are issues that know no national boundaries. They are both at the heart of a common human ambition...to compete and to overcome various odds and to succeed.
Restraint, of all human ambition to power, especially in a time when the unleashed venom of extreme power for its own sake is ubiquitous, may not garner headlines. Nevertheless, the need for such restraint, such prevention and such resistance, coming from individuals like Dr. Kelsey, and inspiring the efforts of international bodies like the Olympics, and the much-berated World Health Organization, has never been more demonstrated.
Dr. Kelsey, when interviewed by the CBC's Knowton Nash, sadly bemoaned the absence of an international drug-review and regulating agency that would have prevented the thousands of deformed babies resulting from the use of thalidomide by expecting mothers for morning sickness. It would appear that such an agency still does not exist, in spite of the many pharmaceutical products whose physical and emotional and psychiatric impacts have damaged the lives of millions.
It is not past time for such an international empowered agency with real enforcement powers?
In a week in which the world commemorates the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the threat of nuclear weapons rears is ugly head, could we not now 'come to our senses' in pursuing enhanced nuclear disarmament in conjunction with other collaborative, preventive and enforcement agreements of restraint of  the pursuit and imposition of harmful even deathly powers?

Reflections on TIME

Let’s take a look at how our perception of time plays a significant part in many of the actions, thoughts and beliefs in our lives.

How long will it take for the gazillions of out-of-control forest fires currently raging in California and in Canada’s western provinces to wake up those decision-makers who could begin a reversal of global warming and climate change?

How long will it take for the employers of many workers for to wake up to the fundamental truth that happy and engaged workers are more productive and also a better investment than “starved” workers?

How long have human beings inhabited this planet?

How long have men and women fought over their respective gender “rights” and “responsibilities”?

How long has racism plagued the species, with little or no bending of the curve of remediation?

There is apparently a direct co-relation between our perception of time and many of our urgencies. How urgent do we need changes in specific situations, in order to continue to engage in those situations? For example, if there is a persistent theme in the negative manner in which another speaks to us, how long do we “take” such treatment before we push-back, and how forceful is that push-back? If we belong to a church or another civil organization, and there are issues that are especially evident and persistent, issues that really matter to us, how long do we take to express our discomfort, to propose alternatives, or even to withdraw?

When we are children of parents whose behaviour is abusive, for example, how long can/do we tolerate the abuse, before ‘reporting’ our situation? If we are in a marriage in which our needs are not being met, and we have expressed those needs to our partner without noticing much change, are we equipped with the necessary skills to negotiate the changes we seek? Or do we consider, after “some time”, that we have waited long enough for those changes to take effect, without inquiring as to how together those changes might be accomplished, and make a complete break?

When someone asks us for something, some help or an opinion or an answer to a question, and we are deeply occupied in another activity, and we know that whatever response we offer will be token at best, do we have the courtesy to inform our ‘seeker’ that while we would like to oblige his/her request, we need a little more time to get to a place in our current activity when we can stop without impairing the success of our project? When our new baby cries, for the first six months, as parents we are all trained or programmed to respond to the cry, without knowing fully the degree of discomfort of the child. As time passes, we relax a little, consider the situation adn the pitch and volume of the cry before rushing to respond. Similarly, when our new born falls the first time, we cannot respond quickly enough, believing that our response will pay dividends over the next several months when we know there will be other falls.

When we are at work, perhaps in retail, have we been trained, role modelled, or just extra-committed as a sign of our motivation to impress either the customer or the boss by our prompt and courteous response time. Time is one of the currencies all workers trade in, just as it is also a “commodity” in which the employer trades, depending on the need and the capacity to pay especially when overtime is required and if the contract calls for time-and-a half or double-time.

How precise are we when it comes time to estimate the size of a job or project we have to complete? Here is a skill required by those who estimate construction jobs for prospective clients, for doctors, dentists and lawyers who have to bill by the hour and quote for scheduling purposes. Operating rooms, emergency rooms, clinics, court cases and court rooms depend on some estimate of the length of the procedure prior to its beginning. In fact, some of our professionals are so adept and precise in their “guestimates” that they can be relied upon by those executing the schedule.

And then there are those who long ago threw time and their watch out the window, preferring to take as long as it takes to study a client’s problem, research the issue deeply, comprehensively and thoroughly, without regard to the cost, because they have utterly rejected the maxim “time is money” that so plagues businesses and most professional organizations.

Have you also noticed that some people use estrangement over a long period of time as punishment or revenge for a betrayal they consider inappropriate, unwarranted, or even unacceptable, and their silent and presumably inconspicuous punishment will go unnoticed by their peers while the target of their abuse will presumably suffer immeasurably. That is, after all, their intent, and the duration into permanency and even until death is their payback?

In diplomatic theatre, for example, America has remained estranged from Cuba for a half-century-plus, until the recent ‘thaw’ initiated by the Obama administration, initiated under the Kennedy administration for the Bay of Pigs and for the Castro revolution. Similarly, Iran was put in the deep freeze for several decades by the United Satess, a freeze that included economic sanctions and a ‘red card’ from engagement in international markets where she could sell her crude. Individuals in the military or quasi-military organizations who cross the rules of their hierarchy, are often court-martialled, or dismissed, terminated, fired, excommunicated or merely trashed, often for the remained of their lives, with or without due process, given the tyrannical authority and the expected absolute compliance of the minions with that authority. Frequently, such sentences do nto match the infraction, yet incur the wrath of the commanding officer(s) whose reputation for a “trim ship” without a blemish on his/her watch is required for any potential promotion. Of course, prison sentences are also “time-sensitive” depending on the considered severity of the crime, and the cultural conditions extant at the time of the occurrence. “Lifers” are those prisoners who have committed what society considers the most heinous offences, up to and including murder, in those jurisdictions where the death penalty has been abolished.

And then there are the romantic flavours, applications and connotations of time: “I feel as if I have known you for a century!” is an expression from one who has just met the one s/he considers a potential soul-mate. Another phrase in the romantic vernacular goes this way: “Time flies when I’m with you!”

A similar “fleeting time” experience attends those people, among them athletes, artists, musicians, writers, composers, laboratory scientists, philosophers who simply lose track of time, given them deep entry into an activity so engrossing and so consuming that it seems to literally “take over” their consciousness. On the other side of this part of the coin, are those students, audiences, and congregations who experience what they consider interminable lectures, speeches, homilies respectively and they cannot wait until the  pain and discomfort comes to an end. In these situations, time has replaced the content as the focus of the listener, and has literally taken over the experience.

In the broadcasting business, time is measured in seconds, 10, 15, 30, 60 or even 90 seconds of time sold to a prospective marketing client, seeking to sell a product or service. Similarly, in the news business, the length of a story, and its place in the order of the newcast, are both signs of its considered importance, by those editors responsible for the preparation of the “program.” Television programs, too, have a “time-slot” to fill, given the half-hour or one hour allotted to is, minus the time needed for commercials.

Digital communication has taken this measurement of time to another level: given the instant transmission of data, whether voice or text, from anywhere to everywhere. Again, time is measured and sold sometimes to re-sellers and sometimes directly to the consumer/digital device user.

We have become so enmeshed in the tick-tock of the clock that our lives are measured out by its numbers, its demands and the discipline it requires.

Of course the classical music composers, (as well as those in the contemporary arena) build their notes, arpeggios, chords and scales around the beat of a metronome, complete with a time signature, bar lines, a range of notes all of them symbols of lengths of time (a thirty-second note is half as long as a sixteenth note, a sixteenth note is half as long as an eighth note, which is half as long as a quarter note, a quarter is half as long as a half note, which is half as long as a whole note).

And of course, we are all on a timed-thread from birth to death, the length of which is unknown, except in the higher end when statistical data can usually predict an upper limit to our time here.

Is time a master or are we its master? Is our attitude, perception and concept of time one of the more important characteristics that define our interactions with other. Those of us who seem to be always in a hurry are very annoying to those who prefer and adopt a more leisurely pace, for themselves and for any changes they wish to integrate into their lives. (I once worked for a supervisor who said he would sent me to any graduate school where they would teach me patience, so much in a hurry was I for change in a public bureaucracy!) Governments traditionally, like huge aircraft carriers, move very slowly when considering change; corporations, on the other hand, have to adapt to changing market conditions, or cease to operate. Entrepreneurs, naturally, have to be even more adept in the timing of the changes they implement in their operation, given their size and ability to move quickly. Field generals, in the middle of conflict, have to integrate all the signals of the enemy’s next moves, adapt and deploy his resources in q manner that is timely and tactically and strategically optimal.  Baseball pitchers who have a range of “speeds” in the quiver of their pitches, knuckle-ball slow, change-up, fastball, breaking ball have a considerable advantage over the hitters they face, given the element of surprise in the timing of their choice of pitch and the timing of its trajectory to home plate. Hockey players, too, who can move from one end of the rink to the other in the shortest time rank high in their coaches’ evaluation, as do those who shoot the puck at a very high rate of speed, thereby making it more difficult for the goalie to block the shot. Once again, time is the critical factor in the exchange.

What kind of sense of time are we leaving with our children and grandchildren, if in all aspects of our lives, we are hurried, harassed, exhausted, incessantly moving and constantly complaining about the speed of time’s passing. Are we telling them that our lives are normal and even exemplary, as models for their future? Are we capable and willing to take “time out” from our  busy schedules and our imposition of excruciating demands on our time, to smell the roses, to play with the dog, to take a casual walk or  bike ride? In our conversations, are we intent upon fixing things as quickly as possible, or are we willing to explore the relationships without having to impose a result on those conversations? When we read a book, are we determined to “learn” something we can apply to our lives, or is helping to satisfy our general interest and curiosity, while gaining some new perspective enough for our time and effort?

Are we using our “time” here to work our way into some heaven, in an inexhaustible penitential process, paying for our many sins? Or do we see a deity as our friend, ally and even advocate who seeks our optimal engagement with time and others, based not on some deficit imposed by some external authority, but rather on an authentic and trustworthy acceptance and generosity? These questions may not be the subject of the next homily or holy book reflection. They are, however, cogent to how we reconnoitre with our time here.

Some perspective on the carbon footprint that threatens our future

Paul Hawken's book, Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World*, puts the issue of global warming and climate change in historic perspective:
To roughly calculate the geometrical quickening of our footprint on the planet, consider that the population is 1,000 times greater today than it was 7,000 years ago. Additionally, people use 100 to 1,000 times more resources and energy than their ancestors did. In sum, the earth today withstands at least 100,000 times the impact it did in 5000 BCE. In other words, we have the same impact in five minutes than our ancestors had in one year. Expanding the equation means that we have the same impact in one year as our ancestors did in 100,000 years.(p.33-34)
And also:
Perhaps the most difficult concept to grasp about climate change is how even minute changes in CO2 levels can magnify to have such potent effects. But it is not just carbon dioxide that does damage. The large influence of small changes to our environment appears repeatedly. When tadpoles are exposed to the pesticide Atrazine at 1/30,000th of 'safe' levels, 20 percent on them become hermaphroditic and sterile adults. Infinitesimal chemical exposure during development can have a drastically different effect from that at maturity. If natural El Nino cycles of rain and drought influence annual changes in speciation in Galapagos finches, consider the myriad long-term impacts of combusting 10 trillion pounds of mercury-bearing coal every year, or overspraying farms and suburbs of California with Malathion to eliminate the Mediterranean fruit fly. The magnitude of such macro-activity creates countless micro-interactions that can't be tracked or monitored. (p.33)
It is so easy, given the headline diet to which North American citizens are exposed, to gloss over the finer details of the damage human activity is doing exponentially to our ecosystem. It is also virtually out-of-mind to bring ourselves up short with the long-term view that compares our consumption of energy and resources to our ancestors.
Perspective based on objective reliable and verifiable information is sometimes so uncomfortable and so unsettling that it cannot be digested by the public. And for every corporate lobby effort pushing back against today's announcement by President Obama that coal-fired energy producers will have to cut their toxic emissions by 32% by 2030 based on 2005 levels, grow renewable energy production by 20%, there are numerous citizen-led organizations attempting to advance the story of how the human community can change the narrative from one of potential disaster to one of credible and sustainable hope.
Quoting from William Kittredge's The Nature of Generosity** Hawken borrows the following:
A society capable of naming itself lives within its stories, inhabiting and furnishing them. We ride stories like rafts, or lay them out on the table like maps. They always, eventually, fail and have to be reinvented. The world is too complex for our forms ever to encompass for long. (p.25)
We cannot afford to permit lies and dissembling to compromise either the dimensions of our threat or the potential of our capacity to reverse that threat.
It is only through truth-telling, full disclosure and hard, courageous and repetitive confrontation with the most dangerous and threatening implications of our individual and our collective carbon footprint, based on our level of comprehension and acceptance and acknowledgement of the most penetrating details of the implications of that legacy that we will possibly see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Those in power, significantly in Canada, would prefer to keep the kind of details Hawken outlines hidden from public view, leaving that public undisturbed by a failure to take action, which is the unequivocal legacy of Harper's Conservative government for the past decade.
Unfortunately, the fact that environmental curricula for elementary and secondary students include such catch phrases as "refuse-free lunches" while admirable and worth the effort, in order to mint new generations of eco-sensitive adults, such efforts will not take hold until long after the mega-multinational corporations and governments (India and China being the two most obvious examples) have awakened to their responsibilities to clean up their acts.
For example, the International Olympic Committee's awarding the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing seems to turn a deaf ear, a blind eye and a hollow mind to the eco-disaster in which the athletes will have to compete. The following excerpt demonstrates that even in China, there is a growing voice of eco-sensitive activists:
Chinese environmental advocates are expressing fear that construction and snowmaking projects associated with Beijing’s successful bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics could damage one of the region’s few nature reserves, according to a new report Monday. The International Olympic Committee’s decision to select China’s bid sparked an outcry on the country’s Internet forums and social media platforms that government censors quickly silenced.
The Beijing 2022 committee’s plan for the event called for the construction of Alpine skiing courses and buildings on and near China’s Xiao Haituo Mountain in Yanqing, the proposed site of the Olympic village. Using satellite photos and IOC documents related to the proposed construction sites, critics discovered that some buildings would be placed within the Songshan National Nature Reserve, which could damage its delicate ecosystem, the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong reported. (International Business Times, August 3, 2015
It is not only the plight of refugees and the countries in which they seek to live that poses a threat to the stability of those countries or the conflicts initiated by Islamic radical extremists, or the open war between Shia and Sunni Muslims, or the potential failure of state economies facing the world. While all of these are important and starving for significant address, the upcoming UN climate conference poses an urgent deadline for world leaders to demonstrate their capacity to grapple with what we all have to frame as the greatest threat to our shared life-sustaining and global eco-system.
Are those leaders, and the people who live in their jurisdiction, up to the task?
The world is watching and putting the issue under their individual and collective scrutiny...and the political fortunes of the leaders could be at risk if they drop the ball this time, as they have done following both Kyoto and Copenhagen.

*Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest, Penguin Books, 2008
**William Kittredge, The Nature of Generosity (New York, Vintage Books) p.9

Reflections on "cheating"....

In a culture driven by symptoms, refusing to look either at the unseen or the unconscious, we find the  meaning of words restricted to their "empirical" and public use.
"Cheating" is a word and a behaviour written into many television dramas and movies, depicting the betrayal of one partner in a relationship by their other and the betrayal takes the form of "another man or woman". It is as if that form of cheating is the stereotype, perhaps even the archetype and conventional definition of the word "cheating." Too often, also, the act is attributed to the male of the relationship, without any regard for the conditions that may have precipitated the "affair".
In a culture both replete with sexual images and also contemptuous of any kind of intimate relationship that stretches or breaks the boundaries set centuries ago mainly by the churches and their dogmatic definitions of morality, propriety and perfection, "in God's eyes"! Surely, the churches are highly implicated in the pushback that witnesses an exponential growth, for example, in pornography, given their categorizing as evil all sexual encounters outside of marriage.
 "Recall" is a word and a behaviour describing the millions of automobiles that have been produced requiring return and repair because of some defect, some serious enough to have resulted in fatalities.
Never is the word "cheating" applied to those car companies, for their betrayal of their clients.
Similarly, we never hear the word "cheating" about an intimate relationship in which one partner lies about the behaviour of the other, misrepresenting the facts in order to seek and wreak revenge. We also never hear the word "cheating" applied to an intimate relationship in which one partner harbours a secret and vicious contempt for the other partner, yet refuses to leave the relationship for reasons of pride and public humiliation. We also never hear the word "cheating" applied to an intimate relationship in which one partner withholds sexual favours from the other, for reasons of power and control.
Similarly, physical abuse demonstrating bruises, cuts, broken bones will attract law enforcement, the courts and public contempt in a nanosecond, especially as it regards children and women. However, as a survivor of both physical and emotional abuse from my mother, while I wore long-sleeved shirts to school to cover the welts on my arms, after a beating, I never spoke of the profound and much more lasting impact of the insults to my person and character, in words that projected her own self-loathing onto my father, my sister and me.  "You are no good and you will never be any good!" are the kinds of statements that ring in one's ears, mind and spirit for decades long after their utterance and long after the person uttering them has died.
And yet, those words were never called "cheating" as they legitimately ought to have been.
"Cheating" takes other forms, in public life also.
For example, when a prospective hiring agent listens to the public "gossip" about an individual generated and perpetuated by those who are or were enemies of the candidate, and refuses to offer a position, is that not another form of subtle, undetectable and therefore cheating with impunity.
Are we not also cheated when an employer expects us to work overtime without remuneration, because 'this in an emergency' and there is no one else available, especially in employment situations in which there is no contract and no labour support?
Are we not also cheated when our high school principal writes a letter of reference that assassinates the character of the referee, in the believe and expectation that the confidentiality of that letter will never become public. Is the writer not guilty of "cheating" again with impunity. Refusing to write the letter, and telling the candidate would have been far preferable.
Are we not cheated by our grocery stores when they knowingly hike prices, to capitalize on either a bad growing season or a public spike in demand, yet these are normally called "market adjustments" in order to protect the offending corporation?
Are we not cheated by our politicians when they lie and dissemble knowingly about their own behaviour, yet we accept a journalistic qualification of such lies as "political rhetoric" thereby exonerating the offending politicians from their "cheating"?
Are we not cheated by our drug companies when the produce drugs whose impact on our bodies and our minds and our very lives has not been previously ascertained through strictly controlled clinical studies/trials, conducted by independent academic scholars who are not in the "cash-flow" stream of research grants to their respective universities? Never mind the cheating that takes place in the setting of the prices of many of the most needed drugs for the most deadly of diseases!
Are we not cheated by the religious institutions whose pews are being vacated because they have adopted moral and ethical dogmatic positions that are, in a word, incompatible with both human and the rest of nature? However, these positions are considered as "high moral standards" expected of those who chose to belong to those institutions.
Are we not being cheated by the auto industry both in the setting of prices and the monopoly, unregulated, that permits them to gouge their clients through both false advertising and false representation of vehicles? Yet we all know that these are just the "way car companies operate" in the public vernacular.
And then, is the public not being "cheated" when those in power exert completely and totally unnecessary force to subdue a potential or suspected offender? Of course, we are, and we may not even be a member of the victim's family, neighbourhood, race or gender. Nevertheless, we feel "cheated" by the abuse of power in the first instance, and also in the second or third instance when that abuse is not dealt with appropriately.
When Vladimir Putin denies any involvement in the downing of the Malaysian jet over Ukraine, and then blocks a United Nations Security Council resolution seeking to investigate the incident, the whole world, not only the families of the victims, nor the airline that owned the plane nor the Ukrainians on whose soil the plane crashed, but each person on the planet is "cheated" out of the legitimate knowledge that must accompany such incidents. Otherwise, how is the world to sustain what is commonly considered the common trust on which all human relations depend.
When the Litvenenko murder is deem to have been conducted by Russian operatives, and the Kremlin denies any involvement in the dastardly assassination, the not only is his surviving spouse "cheated" along with the British judicial inquiry process, but the whole world is "cheated" out of another important element of the "public domain of testimony and truth" on which the conduct of civilization depends.
When the United States Congress denies all prospective proposals from the White House, for example, on comprehensive immigration reform, for various and sundry excuses, when we all know that behind all of their rejections and denials of anything this president has proposed on all issues, lies the "race card" and the racism that plagues that country, then not only are those undocumented immigrants "cheated" out of what ought to be their rightful path to citizenship, but the whole world too is "cheated" out of the depth of the malaise that infects the governance of the most dominant country in the world.
And if the U.S. cannot and will not debate the agreed-upon facts, while arguing a specious case of some other replacement issue such as amnesty, or border security, or dangerous people from abroad, then what are the limits to "cheating"?
Has not "cheating" become 'the way we do business these days'?
And is that development not another of the many indications that we are complicit in our own failure to acknowledge and address the many large issues we face together.
If together, we believe that "cheating" is more beneficial than telling the truth, or arguing the reasons behind our public statements is more troublesome than telling the truth, then how are we ever to begin the journey that commits every child, every parent, every teacher and every public official to removing the protective mask of "justification" and cover-up and rationalization and "cheating" that barnacles too many of our social, educational, religious and political conversations.
As the Russian chess Master Garry Kasparov put it, "With Putin there are no rules, whereas in chess, at least we have rules."
And when there are no rules, no one is safe, and no one can live in security, no matter how many billions are spent to "protect" us from danger, no matter the source of that danger.
Let's stop cheating, as a commitment to beginning to resolve our many serious and dangerous enemies.
Like Pogo before us, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"