"...close enough to touch" | Medgar Evers + the price of freedom

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Public Privacy | not everyone enjoys over-sharing

A JWT Intelligence survey (reported February 8, 2013) found that teens and Millennials are more sensitive about online sharing than many assume. Does this reflect sound judgment, wisdom gained from watching others get crossways on the internet, or lessons learned the hard way? 

In any event, can you help less experienced internet users develop good judgment to protect their own and others' privacy?

Won't you be my neighbor?

An expert on the Bible decided to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

“What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”

The expert quoted from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,'" he said; and then quoting from the 19th chapter of Leviticus he added: "and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

“Good answer,” Jesus said.

For some reason, this did not satisfy the Bible expert, and he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 

To which Jesus replied: 

C.S. Lewis | ...the same old game under the new system

What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001 edition, p. 73

This is not the least of our problems just now ... substituting — perhaps mistaking — agreement or compliance for goodness; and excusing bad behavior ... illegal, immoral, cruel, dehumanizing behavior ... because the perpetrators are on the side we call good. As the saying goes: God is not mocked; we reap what we sow.

So … sow fair and equitable dealing, maybe?

To that, add this: Of citizens surveyed by Pew in 25 nations, more people in the U.S. — more than half — see their fellow citizens as morally bad. 

It's one thing to look at our neighbors and see badness; it's another, far worse thing to believe they are irredeemably bad.

Getting over *that* is gonna take some work.

source

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-country-survey-americans-especially-likely-to-view-fellow-citizens-as-morally-bad/

Follow the Money: What's a Teacher's Worth?

OK, First:

In the same time frame as the screen above, the average salary in Wisconsin for:

Gaming Managers was $65,760

Securities, Commodities and Financial Services Sales Agents was $72,550

Art Directors was $72,840

Fashion Designers was $77,780

Broadcast News Analysts was $79,610

Public Relations Managers was $84,900

Athletes and Sports Competitors was $97,250

Marketing Managers was $103,150

I don't begrudge the salary of anyone doing honorable work — certainly not teachers. On average, I don't think practitioners in any of these categories add more value to Wisconsin's (or the U.S.) economy than teachers.

Second: Aren't some of the people moaning about teacher salaries today the same ones who steadfastly argued two years ago that $250,000 a year is barely a living wage? You know who you are; pick a side.

E.B. White | 1952 | This is Bad

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. This is bad. I think the most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a communist.

—E.B. White, April 27, 1952, Letters of E.B. White,  p 328

Barack Obama in Tucson | the video 01.12.11

Quite a few friends appreciated easy access to the transcript of President Obama's remarks at yesterday's memorial gathering in Tucson, AZ. Here's the video.

Barack Obama in Tucson | full text of speech 01.12.11

Remarks by the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona

McKale Memorial Center

University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

6:43 P.M. MST

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you very much.  Please, please be seated.  (Applause.)

To the families of those we’ve lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants who are gathered here, the people of Tucson and the people of Arizona:  I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today and will stand by you tomorrow.  (Applause.)

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts.  But know this:  The hopes of a nation are here tonight.  We mourn with you for the fallen.  We join you in your grief.  And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy will pull through.  (Applause.)

Scripture tells us:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

Ben Stein | The Gift of Forgiveness

The Twelve Days of Christmas have passed; now on to this year's real work.
Thank you Mr. Stein.

Jon Stewart + Rachel Maddow

Expecting More from Our Leaders

As we were finishing our elections last week, a UK court was busy voiding the election last May of a Mr. Phil Woolas. 

Mr. Woolas' error was simple to comprehend: He knowingly made false statements about his opponent in the election in violation of election law which makes it an offense "to publish 'any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct' to prevent them being elected - unless they believed it was true and had "reasonable grounds" to do so."

The court found:

Having considered the evidence which was adduced in court we are sure that these statements were untrue. We are also sure that the respondent had no reasonable grounds for believing them to be true and did not believe them to be true.

Mr. Woolas was ordered to pay £5,000 and costs to his opponent. 

He faces a three-year parliamentary ban.

He was suspended by his party, a deputy leader saying: "It is not part of Labour politics to try to win elections by saying things that are not true."

A party deputy from the opposition said: "Mr Woolas has come severely unstuck and I am very pleased for politics and the rule of law that the judges have said so clearly that this was unacceptable."

What do you call it when we tell our children not to lie but teach them the opposite by tolerating — even celebrating — people in politics and business who gain an advantage by lying?

What could possibly prevent us from embracing in practice the standards we declare with our words?

Passionate But Not Careful

The other day a friend of a friend informed me matter-of-factly:

The fact is most of The presidents cabinet has no clue how to fix the problems they are worsening. Interesting fact, only 8% of the presidents cabinet members were previously employed in the private sector. That is the lowest amount of any president ever. Eisenhower had 57%, Reagan had 53%, and W Bush had 51%.

Setting aside issues of who does what in government, this 8% of cabinet members previously employed in the private sector struck me as just the sort of thing that's easy to check these days.

8% of 20 first-term cabinet members comes to just 1.6 individuals this person claims were previously employed in the private sector.

Susan Rice and the recently-resigned Peter Orszag were both consultants for McKinsey & Company — so we're already at 10%.

A Message from Charles Sherrod | On [G]RACE

Salon's Joan Walsh sent a message to Charles Sherrod, husband of the now celebrated Shirley Sherrod, inviting comment on a piece at Salon.com.

"He got back to me," Walsh writes, "and this is all he said:

The attack on my wife has opened up an avalanche of discussion on a tabooed subject...RACE. It is a blessing to be an instrument of God's GRACE.

I wonder: What part do (can, should, must) people like you and me play as instruments of God's grace on this subject, in this moment?

Not Ever

Rape Crisis Scotland takes on the victim-blaming ethos that excuses sexual assault.

See also the comment in the British medical journal The Lancet titled: Key to prevent HIV in women: reduce gender-based violence.

Kids | Who Are They Really?

Interesting commentary from Martha Irvine at Associated Press this morning: Kids labeled 'generation next' before they grow up. Ms Irvine takes on the cultural propensity to put people—whole "generations" of them—in boxes and leave them there.

At a loss for something more original, many call them Generation Z, because they follow Generations X and Y.

They've also been referred to as Generation Net or "iGen," since they've never known a world without the Internet.

That's the one point most everyone can agree on -- that they are the tech-savviest generation of all time, so much so that even toddlers can maneuver their way through YouTube and some first-graders are able to put together a PowerPoint presentation for class.

But beyond that, who are they, really?

Most people agree it's just too early to know for sure. But that hasn't stopped marketers from trying to figure out this young crowd of consumers. Or employers from attempting to prepare for them in the workplace.

William Gheen's Allegedly Tiny Penis

William Gheen, President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, appears to have an unusually—some might say freakishly—tiny penis. I have not seen it but I know a guy.

While many influential people know this, the general public and ALIPAC constituents do not. I call on Mr Gheen to suspend his interest in Senator Lindsay Graham's penis until he has been entirely forthcoming about his own.

Ben Stein Takes on the Bureaucrats

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Health Care News: The Sky May Not Be Falling

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you can spare 12 minutes to consider the upside of the health care reform bill, you may be less apt to panic when someone who claims special knowledge tells you this is the end of the world as we know it.

Jim Wallis on The Daily Show

Barack Obama | Here's Your Transparency

Yesterday, Mr. Obama answered unfiltered questions from House Republicans for an hour and seven minutes.

No one has to agree with the president, but between this exchange with members of Congress and last Wednesday's State of the Union Address, I don't believe anyone needs a political analyst from [insert-your-channel-here] to tell them where the man is coming from.