The Greatest Happiness Principle

60 Minutes: Happiness


We could learn a lot from the Danes (and all Scandinavians for that matter). A new study shows that they are the happiest people in the world.

I consider myself a Utilitarian in this sense: we should strive to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. I am not a purist, mind you. There obviously are values that would more important (where it would conflict with Justice, for instance), but in a broad sense I find this principle to be the correct one.

Stuck In the Middle

Being a logical, rational person comes naturally for me. From my expertise as a chess player to my legal training, my mind is geared toward acceptance of scientific truths. I am probably unique in that I see no conflict between evolutionary theories of science and a faith that accepts the likelihood of a supernatural creation. Science can answer the question of how we got here; but it is up to philosophy and faith to attempt to explain the why.

Here is how Mark Heard explained his journey and conflict between faith and reason (from the liner notes to Stop the Dominoes):

You referred earlier to your days as a skeptic. Is skepticism a sin, or does it seem to you a plague of sorts to those so minded?

Skepticism doesn't have to be viewed as a liability . Unfortunately, most of the time Christians see it that way. I have had hard times in the past because of that -- my questions were equated with sin by most of the believers around me, and that caused still more questions, like, ''well, shouldn't God's people be concerned enough about me to help me instead of crossing their arms and waiting for me to see things their way?" It bothered me for a long time. When a person has no rational basis for his faith, or feels that he has lost that rational basis, it is quite painful . It's hard to believe with your heart if there is conflicting information in your mind. To ignore the mind and brush off the questions is wrong, and is more an Eastern idea than a Christian one. So finally I figured, "well, if Christianity can't stand up to questioning, it's not the truth, and if it's not worth scrutiny, it's not worth believing." So my skepticism continued and led me to look deeply into the matters in question. Most of my answers came from quiet study. Skepticism was an asset to me in that it forced the roots of my faith to grow deeper.

Like Mark Heard, I have decided to forge my own path. And like Mark, I'm Stuck In the Middle.

Stuck In the Middle

It's a funny world we live in
It's funny every day
Half the world prays like the preacher
The other half don't even pray
So no one understands you
If you pray in your own way

Now I'm stuck here in the middle
Everything is in a jam
Stuck right in the middle
Doors on both sides seem to slam
No one seems to want me
Only God will take me like I am

Well my brothers criticize me
Say I'm just too strange to believe
And the others just avoid me
They say my faith is so naive
I'm too sacred for the sinners
And the saints wish I would leave

Now I'm stuck here in the middle
Everything is in a jam
Stuck right in the middle
Doors on both sides seem to slam
No one seems to want me
Only God will take me like I am

Written by Mark Heard
© 1981 Bug and Bear Music (ASCAP)

Domino Theory

Back in February, I posted on of Mark Heard's songs One of the Dominoes. From the song:

Heaven help a seeker of truth
In an age of lies
Gonna make himself believe
That the truth is whatever he buys
Gonna buy what the world says to buy
In a monotone
Gonna cry when the whole world cries
And the truth is known

Heaven heaven help me
I'm one of the dominoes
Chain reaction coming
Blow by blow

Some economic blog commentators that I read have been mentioning a kind of economic "Domino Theory" of their own. A series of cascading financial failures through derivatives and debt instruments that will lead to potentially horrific economic losses. I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand all this stuff. I'm trying to educate myself on macroeconomic theory and wade through the complexities. Hopefully, I've made the right decisions.

Heaven heaven help me. I'm one of the dominoes.

Retro vs. Metro

Prior to the last election cycle, a website that sought to explain the division in American electoral politics cropped up.

Retro America’s commonalities are religiosity; social conservatism; an economic base of extraction industries, agriculture, nondurable goods manufacturing, military installations; and a commitment to the Republican Party.

Metro American states are loosely held together by common interests in promoting economic modernity and by shared cultural values marked by religious moderation; vibrant popular cultures; a tolerance of differences of class, ethnicity, tastes, and sexual orientation; and a tendency to vote Democratic.

In a great macro sense, it explains a lot. But even in Retro America, things are starting to change. Voting patterns based on old "extraction" industries are not as strong as they once were. The advent of the internet has made even people in rural America aware of the need for their children to have a better education and understanding of the world around them. And many people from rural areas are not as keen on the war in Iraq as they once were. The reality of the loss of loved ones in a foreign land with no perception of greater security for the country is eroding their faith in the President who says it's necessary to stop terrorism.

The economic hardships brought on by massive debts -- from medical debts to mortgages -- are breaking down the commitment to conservative free market political alliances.

Certainly these people are not becoming "Metro" in their worldview. They still have their traditional values; but there is also a realization that their children have to eat. With their relatively low incomes getting eaten away by real inflation and debt, more and more Retro voters are starting to question the wisdom of continuing to vote with a political party that supports narrow wealthy interests -- especially when it is against their own interests.

Traditionally, the conventional wisdom says that people vote their pocketbook. Does this explain why Metro political groups seem to be gaining strength? It also seems to be true that progressive faith-based organizations seem to be winning the war of ideas within the politically active faithful.

All in all, the Retro vs. Metro explanation of American political voting patterns is not as strong as it once was.

Politically Incorrect Nature of Man

From The Nature of Humans:

4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim – I think we already knew this, as I can’t remember any other type of suicide bomber. Almost all of them are Muslim. The author ties this to polygyny as mentioned above. Muslim society allows for polygyny, thus depleting the pool of available women for the guy on the street. There is also the mention of the 72 virgins available for Muslims who martyr themselves. Stay on Earth and have no wife and no sex or blow yourself up and find 72 virgins at your disposal?

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Translation – the lack of sex and promise of it in the hereafter makes men blow themselves into little pieces.

This statement was only one of 10 controversial ideas posted today over at Audience of One, a local Oklahoma blog by a Tulsa school principal. The idea ties into other ideas about power and sex in society. Here is another example from his post today:

2. Humans are naturally polygamous – I wrote about this some time ago in this post. There is certainly much in human history to indicate that monogamy does not come naturally. My friend Patrick (Patrick is the author of Optimus: Praetorian Guard and who is a regular commenter here. --OkieLawyer) commented on that post that monogamy evolved to keep men from killing each other in competition for women. Monogamy increases the number of available women as opposed to wealthy men monopolizing them in a polygamous society. The article agrees with Patrick’s assertion.

Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.

Translation – Tall dark handsome men get to have more sex and produce more children, thus increasing the average height of men as compared to women.

What constitutes "tall, dark and handsome?" Scientific studies seem to indicate it is related to symmetry. I wrote about it before, but only as a brief blurb. The basic idea is that people whose faces and bodies are more symmetrical make more money, have more sex, are more popular and enjoy more power than others. Kinda fits in with my Four Corrupting Influences.

Whatever the motivations are, it is worth talking about.

Modern Day Romans

A web page was sent to me via e-mail. I have thought for some time that we seem to have become modern Romans. The founding fathers of our country tried to set up a system of government that would prevent a repeat of history, but maybe some things just cannot be prevented. Maybe human nature is just too strong.

The web page is called How the Selfish Class Gains Power and Wealth. Here is a quote from that page:

The [Roman] Senators were so wealthy that there was little they could do to squander their wealth; there was also little they could do beyond enjoying it, getting even wealthier by the year, and holding public office. Of course public office also gave them the means and the information necessary to gain even more wealth and to avoid paying most taxes. There was one tax, specifically levied on the senatorial class, which they did not avoid, since it confirmed their class status, but it was insignificant. Public office also gave them the means to take advantage of any government spending when possible. In fact it was the best investment they could make.

Are our contemporary would-be "Senators" at all similar?

In the United States we have a founding myth of the "self-made" man, but social mobility is actually declining rapidly, especially at the highest levels of our society. The top one percent of income earners, and even more, the top one-tenth of one percent of income earners are gaining wealth at a rapid rate, while the bottom 90% of Americans are losing wealth in relative terms. The creation of a senatorial class, that is a wealthy class based on inheritance, connections and the power that goes with it, is progressing rapidly.

Does the existence of a dominant selfish class increase society's wealth? Free market apologists would have you think so, but if you look at the example of the Senators in the Fifth Century, the answer would have to be a resounding "No!"

The Senators couldn't help but be wealthy by the accidents of their births. Unless they were intentionally improvident they couldn’t help but become wealthier, and yet their wealth did subtract from the wealth of society as a whole. How did this work? Wasn't it true that if you did business with a Senator that you would gain wealth and that you in turn would create additional wealth when you did business with others? Wouldn't it also be true that since Senators had large amounts of wealth, their wealth would create little (or large) industries to service them? Didn't that add to total wealth? So goes economic doctrine, but it didn't work that way in the Fifth Century, and it probably doesn't work that way now.

The article is somewhat long, but it sets out the argument well. Here is the main page where you can find links to even more information.

Get Your "Hows" Right

In his New York Times column today, Thomas Friedman writes about the blogosphere:

When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a cellphone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload video on YouTube, everyone is filmmaker. When everyone is a publisher, paparazzo or filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. We’re all public figures now. The blogosphere has made the global discussion so much richer — and each of us so much more transparent.

The implications of all this are the subject of a new book by Dov Seidman, founder and C.E.O. of LRN, a business ethics company. His book is simply called “How.” Because Seidman’s simple thesis is that in this transparent world “how” you live your life and “how” you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor. To win now, he argues, you have to turn these new conditions to your advantage.

For young people, writes Seidman, this means understanding that your reputation in life is going to get set in stone so much earlier. More and more of what you say or do or write will end up as a digital fingerprint that never gets erased. Our generation got to screw up and none of those screw-ups appeared on our first job résumés, which we got to write. For this generation, much of what they say, do or write will be preserved online forever. Before employers even read their résumés, they’ll Google them.

“The persistence of memory in electronic form makes second chances harder to come by,” writes Seidman. “In the information age, life has no chapters or closets; you can leave nothing behind, and you have nowhere to hide your skeletons. Your past is your present.” So the only way to get ahead in life will be by getting your “hows” right.

...

“We do not live in glass houses (houses have walls); we live on glass microscope slides ... visible and exposed to all,” he writes. So whether you’re selling cars or newspapers (or just buying one at the newsstand), get your hows right — how you build trust, how you collaborate, how you lead and how you say you’re sorry. More people than ever will know about it when you do — or don’t.

This is why I like reading Thomas Friedman: he frequently writes very thought-provoking articles. He makes me think. Good writers do that.

I am reminded of the line from the movie Sneakers wherein the character Cosmo (portrayed by Ben Kingsley), tells Martin Bishop (portrayed by Robert Redford): "No more secrets, Marty. No more secrets."

It is been said that it is important to start a blog because you want to define yourself before others do it for you. I am not so sure writing an online diary is such a good idea. Certainly sharing some life experiences are important to fill in the blank spaces -- it is how we build our philosophy of life, after all -- but I don't think that having secrets is such a bad thing.

The openness that the advent of the internet has brought us is both good and bad. We are fragile creatures, you and I. So treat others with kindness. "Respect the dignity of all living things" as it says in the Book of Common Prayer. And to quote a line from Letters from Iwo Jima: "Do what is right because it is right."

Short People

Paul Krugman in his editorial in Friday's New York Times, America Comes Up Short, says that Americans are literally shorter in stature than Europeans.

To the casual observer, Europeans — who often seemed short, even to me (I’m 5-foot-7), when I first began traveling a lot in the 1970s — now often seem tall by American standards. And that casual observation matches what careful researchers have found.

The data show that Americans, who in the words of a recent paper by the economic historian John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale in Social Science Quarterly, were “tallest in the world between colonial times and the middle of the 20th century,” have now “become shorter (and fatter) than Western and Northern Europeans. In fact, the U.S. population is currently at the bottom end of the height distribution in advanced industrial countries.”

...

So what is America’s modern height lag telling us?

...

“U.S. children,” write Mr. Komlos and Mr. Lauderdale, “consume more meals prepared outside the home, more fast food rich in fat, high in energy density and low in essential micronutrients, than do European children.” Our reliance on fast food, in turn, may reflect lack of family time because we work too much: U.S. G.D.P. per capita is high partly because employed Americans work many more hours than their European counterparts.

A broader explanation would be that contemporary America is a society that, in a variety of ways, doesn’t take very good care of its children. Recently, Unicef issued a report comparing a number of measures of child well-being in 21 rich countries, including health and safety, family and peer relationships and such things as whether children eat fruit and are physically active. The report put the Netherlands at the top; sure enough, the Dutch are now the world’s tallest people, almost 3 inches taller, on average, than non-Hispanic American whites. The U.S. ended up in 20th place, below Poland, Portugal and Hungary, but ahead of Britain.

Whatever the full explanation for America’s stature deficit, our relative shortness, like our low life expectancy, suggests that something is amiss with our way of life. A critical European might say that America is a land of harried parents and neglected children, of expensive health care that misses those who need it most, a society that for all its wealth somehow manages to be nasty, brutish — and short.

So basically, we work ourselves to death, we don't eat right and we don't exercise enough -- and the latter two are directly or indirectly related to the first cause. The average American gets one or two weeks of paid vacation, if any. Almost all of the jobs I have worked at had no vacation time at all. If you wanted some time off, you had to take it without pay.

Another problem is that too many Americans fail to realize that that big house, fancy car and credit card debt for consumer purchases (not to mention the health care and college tuition costs) are costing us quality of life. We are so busy chasing the almighty dollar that we fail to see the simple beauty and enjoyment right around us.

Part of it is also that Americans have so far failed to appreciate just how underpaid they are. When they do get paid a decent wage, they spend it on frivolous bric-a-brac that adds very little to their overall happiness.

Life needs to be enjoyed. Go out and see a park. Take the kids to the zoo. Walk along the beach. You would be amazed at how much zest you can squeeze out of life for not much money. All you need is time. It is the sort of thing very few Americans enjoy because we don't demand it enough from our employers (or our elected officials).

If we could do more of these things, we could stand tall -- no matter what our stature.

Seven Years Of Bad Luck

This is going to be a long post, so bear with me.

June 5, 2000

It was a hot late spring day. The temperature was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I had just finished all of my work at the law office and decided to head home early just after 4pm. Almost as soon as I left the office, I got a page on my pager. I stopped in at a local gas station to return the page. All of the public phones were being used so I parked my truck and waited for one to come open. One around the corner of the parking lot became available, so I started walking toward it. After walking a few steps, a guy in a large car had just hung up a pay phone that was closer to me, so I started walking toward it. However, that is when a horrific event happened to me that will stick in my mind much like September 11th, 2001 will stick in the minds of many Americans.

The driver behind the wheel of the car turned the car toward me. He then peeled out and headed right at me. Worse yet, he was looking directly at me in my eyes and he had a look of rage about him.

I had a split-second "deer in headlights" moment as I couldn't believe that some guy that I didn't even know would try to run me over with a car and with the intent to kill me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I came to my senses and realized what was happening, I turned around and started running toward my truck. I figured that the only way I was going to survive would be to jump in the bed of my pickup truck before he got to me. I almost made it. Almost. I had just leapt off my left foot and my right foot was just getting on the bumper when his front bumper caught my left leg and crushed it in between his car and my truck.

According to the damage of my back bumper, the body shop repairman estimated that the angry driver was going about 30 miles per hour when he struck me. After he hit me, I tried to move my leg, but I couldn't. I was jammed in between his car and my truck, so I couldn't move.

Then he revved the engine back up again and peeled out again. His front bumper caught my right foot and threw me backwards onto the hood of his car. He came to a stop on the side of my truck. Then he revved up his engine all the way and peeled out again. However, this time the tires were screeching very loudly. When he peeled out the first time, the tires were not screeching loudly at all. As his car started moving forward, my body was bouncing up and down on the hood. I had landed facing forward on my back with my feet dangling over the front of the car. My first thought was that he was going to drive off and I would be thrown from the car at 60 mph and be killed from the impact on the cement.

Then he started turning. He was heading straight for the gas pump. My next thought was that I would be thrown into the gas pump and be killed either by the impact or an explosion. He kept turning. At this point, I started sliding off the hood of the car and I landed smack flat on my back on the pavement. I turned and looked and saw that the white lights had come on his car, indicating that he had put the car in reverse. I tried to get up and run away, but it was at that moment that as I tried to get up on my left leg, my leg just turned sideways. It was broken. Later, when I got to the hospital, I found out that the impact had caused a compound fracture of my left tibia and fibula.

Realizing that I couldn't get up, I screamed "SOMEBODY HELP ME!" What I didn't know was that a police officer had rushed out from inside the gas station, opened his door and turned off the angry driver's engine. They then moved me to the side of the parking lot. I started to go into shock. The pain was unbearable. On a scale of 1 to 10 -- with 10 representing the most pain -- it was a 10. About 30 minutes later, the ambulance arrived. They asked me if I had a preference of which hospital to go to. I told them to take me to the closest one.

If you have never been in an ambulance when you have a broken bone and you are laying on your back, let me just tell you: it's not fun. They don't have the best shock absorbers in the world. The pain I was feeling was exacerbated by the rough ride in the ambulance.

My parents arrived at the hospital just as soon as I did. They took me to an emergency room and starting giving me painkillers. They weren't helping much. Especially when they had to move me to take the x-rays. It really was excruciating.

The police officer on the scene came by my room and told me that they had simply let the guy leave. They didn't even arrest him. I was shocked. I tried to explain to the police officer that he had done what he did "deliberately." I remember using that same word at least twice at the scene. I remember someone asking me "you mean he did it on purpose?" "Yes," I replied. My pleas went unheard. The guy was never even arrested.

According to the police report that I had read later, it said that he claimed that the accelerator had gotten stuck and that he couldn't control the car. Right. The police officer stated that he drove the car forwards and backwards three times, but the accelerator didn't stick for him.

Back in the emergency room, I was immediately prepped for surgery. The surgeon operated and cleaned the wound with distilled water. They then admitted me as an inpatient for approximately a week. I was discharged and sent home with my parents, but this was just the beginning of my ordeal.

A couple of weeks later when I returned for a follow-up exam, they cut a hole in the cast to take a look at my leg. It was dark black and deep red in color. Something was wrong. My leg had gotten infected. The doctor took a sample and sent it to the lab for testing. It turned out to be a bacteria that could not be treated with either penicillin or Keflex, your two main antibiotics. Because the infection was in the bone itself, the doctors had to fit me with a catheter to inject me with the antibiotics. The antibiotic they had to use was brand new drug in the Quinalone family. The antibiotics cost $8000 per week. I had to have a twelve week treatment intravenously and had to be sent to an internist. Once I completed the intravenous treatment, I required another 10 weeks of oral antibiotics. That cost a "mere" $100 per week.

I remember the internist telling me that I was relatively healthy and that my chances of survival were roughly 80%. When you are in that situation, you (well I) tend to think "that means I have a one-in-five chance I won't make it."

When I took the antibiotics, I had to get up first thing in the morning at 7am and load the machine that injected the medication over 30 minutes. I had to do it again at 3pm and 11pm. I remember always being afraid that I would fall asleep while waiting for the medication to finish injecting. Somehow, I made it through.

Six months and six operations later, with no health insurance and with the other driver only having the minimum $10,000 auto insurance policy, there remained approximately $100,000 in medical bills left to be paid. To make matters even worse, I had not been working for over six months due to my injuries. I believe to this day that I did not receive the best care possible. My leg is crooked because the bone did not heal straight. I believe it might be due to the fact that I was not given a walking cast to keep my leg straight. I don't know that for sure, but I still have my suspicions. The care I received did save my life and I did beat the odds in that I am able to walk (even run) again (I was in a wheelchair during the six months I was in a cast), but I became a victim twice: once by the angry driver and once by a health care system based on profit rather than one based on giving the best treatment with payment guaranteed from a common source. I don't blame the doctors or even the hospital administrators. Medical centers are a business.

Inevitably, with mounting medical bills and not having been able to work for over six months, I ended up in bankruptcy. To make the situation even more unjust, the guy who ran me down with his car had two rent houses. They were not taken to help pay my medical bills. Imagine that: I lost everything in bankruptcy and the guy who was responsible for my condition neither suffered criminally or civilly. He got to keep his rent houses and all. The defense was able to drag out the lawsuit long enough (and convince my attorney that his assets weren't worth pursuing) that he didn't lose anything.

During the time that I was in bankruptcy, my mother died of a heart attack. According to bankruptcy rules, if you are entitled to receive an inheritance while you are in bankruptcy (chapter 13) or up to soon after you are discharged (chapter 7) you must forfeit your inheritance to the bankruptcy court trustee for the benefit of your unsecured creditors. Therefore, I lost the inheritance I would otherwise have received after my mother's death.

There is a famous English maxim: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I tried to apply this lesson by becoming a bankruptcy attorney. I wanted to help people who had been through what I had been through and help them in a way that many other attorneys could not. I knew what it was like.

Then disaster struck again: the Republicans came to power in both houses of Congress and the Presidency. They dealt out their wrath on many attorneys who represented lower class people: bankruptcy attorneys, plaintiff personal injury attorneys, plaintiff medical malpractice attorneys, worker's compensation plaintiff attorneys, etc. All of them saw restrictions on their practice by making it harder for people to access the courts. In most cases, the attorneys were representing people who had relatively little financial power in relation to the opposing parties.

At the time, I didn't hardly have the time to worry about the upcoming changes in the bankruptcy law. In between taking care of clients, I was taking care of my dying father. After he died, I buried myself in my work and the increased caseload that came from people wanting to file bankruptcy before the change in the law.

Once the law changed and the work started to dry up, I immediately started looking for work with a regular employer. I applied with the federal government, state government and private companies and law firms.

I tried the hardest with the federal government. Several times I applied with the Bankruptcy Trustee's office that is part of the Department of Justice when the jobs were announced at USAjobs.com. But now I wonder if I was denied a job because Monica Goodling researched my voter registration and found out I am a Democrat. I had been willing (and am still willing) to relocate to find better opportunities. So if you know someone who's hiring, let me know. Serious inquiries only, please.

There is more to this story, but suffice it to say that I have learned how people who hit rock bottom get exploited as they try to recover from bankruptcy. I have seen and experienced (and still experience) the lack of palatable choices when trying to recover from insolvency. I have discovered that people in this situation don't have enough bargaining power. In theory, two parties to a contract have equal bargaining power. In many cases, however, that is not the case. It is therefore incumbent, I believe, on our elected representatives to write laws to prevent abuse of power by the more powerful party of a contract.

The fact that I possibly was denied a position in the federal civil service only aggravates my situation. I can only wonder if my recovery after the change in the bankruptcy laws was hampered by a wrongful denial of employment with the federal government because I was a member of the "wrong" political party.

If such is the case, who will give me Justice? Who will right the wrong done not just to me, but for others in my situation? Are federal judges now so compromised by their political ideology and dependence on their political connections that they will refuse to protect workers from such an abuse of power? Even if wronged persons can be found to bring a suit, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Look how difficult it is for the Democratically-controlled Congress to get information from the White House. Can you imagine how much trouble it would be for a private party? And then you would have to be able to prove that the specific plaintiff was passed over only for their political affiliation.

I have done everything that wealthy and successful people say you are supposed to do to increase your chances of financial success. I have never done any illegal drugs. I have never been drunk on alcohol. I delayed gratification and got my education. I applied the work ethic and when I couldn't get a job working for someone else, I started my own law business. But what can you do when those who have power literally and figuratively break your legs and pull the rug from underneath you? Isn't it interesting that they tell you to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" but then they take steps to knock you off your feet when you try to do just that.

It has now been seven years since that fateful day for me: Seven Years Of Bad Luck. But I have come to the conclusion that my luck won't necessarily change on its own. Someone needs to give me a helping hand so I can make it on my own once again. I think after all of my Series of Unfortunate Events I deserve some good luck.

It is for these reasons that I have come to a philosophy of life and political conviction that we need a national health care system, a strong social safety net, guaranteed protections for the worker's financial security to prevent companies from raiding worker's pensions (Barack Obama recently made this very point in a recent speech on how many companies are filing bankruptcy to avoid paying pension obligations) and a truly independent judiciary that will protect the weakest members of society. Too many people who have had bad luck have too many roadblocks preventing them from rebuilding their lives. Too many people who lack bargaining power are getting exploited in employment contracts by those who have too much bargaining power due to their money and political influence (which is partly due to their money power).

I have also come to the conclusion that while poverty does not create most problems, it does exacerbate problems that already exist. It limits the choices people have who are caught in its grip. It is like being stuck in a deep pit without a secure rope to help you climb out. And even then, many in that situation don't have the strength to make it out on their own. They need a helping hand. We need to start helping people recover from financial loss (and, for that matter, help people get up on their feet to begin with) here in America.

I am reminded of the lines in Mark Heard's song Everything Is Alright:

Just when I can touch clouds
There is rain on my fingertips
A personal apocalypse
In a land where such is not allowed
Do all the riders in these ruts
Break down and give the good things up?

Here in America, we don't tolerate failure very well -- not even when the failure is the result of circumstances beyond someone's control. We expect everyone to make it in spite of all of the stumbling blocks that might get in their way. This is a problem in our culture and this attitude needs to change.

Everyone who has become a success has achieved it because someone else helped them achieve it. No man is an island. Furthermore, those who have achieved should help uplift those who have stumbled or fallen. Sometimes they can't make it out of the pit by themselves.

Mark Heard's Evening at the Coliseum

Today, instead of a song, I am reprinting some of Mark Heard's liner notes from his album Ashes and Light. The thoughts here should give you some insights to his thought processes. Compare the way he looked at the Coliseum to almost any other popular Christian artist. It is clear from this interpretation of Roman architecture that he was far more introspective and observant than most Christian artists today.

ROME

I spent the evening hours wandering through the ruins of Old Rome, photographing and thinking. It was a beautiful sunset, behind small cumulus clouds, and I was reminded of evenings spent on the islands off the Georgia coast. As the tourists hustled away, tucking guide maps into the pockets of their Hawaiian shirts, I decided to have a light supper of salami and cheese, with a cinnamon flavored soda to wash it down.

It was already dark by the time I finished the meal and headed for the hotel. After a harrowing street crossing episode on the roundabout encircling the Coliseum, I halted briefly to catch my breath, and as I stood in front of the Coliseum I noticed it was not closed in any way, though it was devoid of touring inhabitants. I decided to go walk around inside, despite misgivings about the safety of such a thing. Walking under the bleachers in the portico, I was stunned by the fact that it was not unlike being at Dodger Stadium late at night long after the completion of a game, and half expected to see snack food prices chiseled into the marble in Latin. I had a scare - I nearly tripped over a cat that was eating scraps someone had dropped among the newspapers littering the smooth, almost asphalt-like floor surface. I was to discover that there were literally hundreds of cats living in the labyrinth of the ruins. Their occasional cries and mating sounds were a strange cacophony indeed, and I scuttled on inside to the boundary of the arena and sat on a fallen marble pillar.

During the hour and a half that I sat there, my mind wandered in a number of different directions as my eyes darted around catching street light reflections from the marble finishing still present on some of the seats. I wondered at the grandeur of the architecture. The care of the artisans involved is plainly seen. The workmanship exhibited in the structure, though in various stages of ruin, was exquisite, and I felt I owed appreciation to the hands that had carved, sanded, chiseled and mortared so long ago; they could not guess that history books two thousands years after their deaths would record their feats, as well as the subsequent fall of the civilization they knew as their everyday environment.

Peering through the darkness at the arena itself, I recounted the things I'd read about: the opulence once exhibited there; the terrible games played there; the Christians who lost their lives in that circumference of marble-coated mud and straw bricks. What an awesome juxtaposition of symbols. How very strange to be able to sit as an uninvolved observer, blessed with the retrospect of history, and feel both the passion of the artisan and the pain of the persecuted.

Questions arose in my mind. "Must one ignore the atrocities done to human beings here, in order to appreciate the gift of creativity bestowed on men - architects, artists, sculptors - by the Creator? Is one to cast out of his mind forever the blessings of the existence of aesthetic potential for mortals made in God's image, in order to truly hate and despise the evil done in this arena, indeed the evil directed at God through the persecution of His children?"

I was reminded of the tension the Reformers felt: There were at that time beautiful pieces of statuary standing in small towns as icons. The atmosphere in which the Reformation was spawned found such iconic symbols theologically revolting. Some of the Reformers even went around to the villages knocking down and defacing the statues, and John Calvin had certain stained-glass windows taken out of the cathedral in which he officiated in Geneva. The fervor of the times demanded action. That action was not against the validity of art, but against what the art represented. In the minds of the Reformers, the statues were symbols of a thoughtform they considered erroneous. It was not the face value of the articles that was despised, but the ideas which were connected to the articles by way of symbolism. (Many of these pieces have been saved and reside in museums today.)

As I glanced again at the marble seats of the Coliseum, I was reminded of stories I'd heard about most of that marble being pillaged by Michaelangelo and his contemporaries during the Renaissance. It was needed elsewhere, and sentiment took a back seat to "progress" in those days, much as it does today.

The cats were still at their night noises while I wondered at the complexity of making value judgments about the world as we know it. To decry the intrinsic value in created things because of their marring by evil would not be fair - we would lose perspective on the true and intended value of beauty and the creativity of God, and of man after His image. To forget the evil and allow the cloud of familiarity to obscure it's awesome ugliness would be unfair as well. We live in a fallen world, but one in which the original face of the creation and its intended purpose may still be seen, and we must not let either fact obscure the other.

Someone once told me that she did not like the works of Vincent Van Gogh because he was such a confused man. But Argumentum ad Hominum cannot change objective things like beauty, though subjective criteria for an entity's value to man may be influenced by it. Indeed, bad art often gains popularity because of a friendly and agreeable image projected by the artist, especially in modern electronic media where image subverts truth in favor of a quick caricature that can be comprehended by viewers and readers at the lowest levels of consciousness. They may like the work of someone they consider likable, even though the artistic standards of the work are not very high.

Perception is more strongly influenced by our preconceived notions than we might realize. People will say that the smoke from a wood fire or a barbecue smells good. They will say that the smoke from a crematory's chimney smells bad, but only if they know what it is, because the actual smells are not that different.

If we knew more about any individual whose art we admire, his deficiencies and his failings, we might lean towards denying the value of his expressions, be they art or conversation. Intimate knowledge of character and subsequent disillusionment with the person are phenomena we know all too well. But we must be careful not to judge conscientious work by imperfect creatures as invalid. In so doing, we deny the very validity of the creative expression which was intended by God for much joy in the human spirit, including worshipful joy.

My thoughts were interrupted by a cat bursting suddenly out of the darkness and rubbing against my leg with an explosion of purring energy, and it took me a few minutes to get the hair on the back of my neck to lay down flat again. When I was finally breathing normally, I thought on: "This stadium has been considered an evil place by some, because of events that were known to transpire here. The Reformers tore down beautiful statues because of what they symbolized. Opponents of creative new forms of art or music today decry the medium because of the lifestyle that has at times, unfortunately, accompanied it. Could Nero's next-door neighbor have listened, appreciatively enthralled by the notes emanating from the violin, unaware of the fire in the city? My friend didn't like even Van Gogh's best work because of the inner turmoil it represented. Christians in the first Century abstained from meat that had been offered to idols before being put up for sale. Did Paul eventually convince them otherwise? Were they then patient with those who were not easily convinced? Do arguments based on intrinsic value do any good when opponents see only the symbol and proponents see only the entity itself? Is it possible to carry on a love/hate relationship with this world in which we live? Is it possible to see both sides of a coin simultaneously?"

I felt my bare arms getting chilled in the night air, and stood up to stretch. The silver, nearly full moon was moving ever so slowly just over the top edge of the ancient stadium. I took one last look around the moonlit interior of the wonderful and horrible place, and felt an appreciation and a sorrow. Then I turned to go. The cats continued their symphony as I walked through the arches back onto the street and faced a world of zooming Fiats, amusing hotel clerks and anonymous-looking magazine stands.

From the liner notes of his album Ashes and Light

In the Gaze of the Spotlight's Eye

I have decided that on Sundays I am going to have Mark Heard songs and music videos (not necessarily Mark Heard) and sometimes an interpretation or background added to them.

This particular video is a cover by singer Monte Montgomery of Mark Heard's In the Gaze of the Spotlight's Eye from his Eye of the Storm album (only available now from iTunes).



In the Gaze Of the Spotlight's Eye

In the gaze of the spotlight's eye
A long way from home
Still nauseous from a turbulent sky
Up on the stage alone
The live end of a microphone
Point-blank to my soul
I'm trying hard
To keep my self-control

I want to go home
I wish that this night would end
I've got to go on
And shoot from the heart again

Somebody came for the rock n' roll
Somebody came for a smile
Somebody came for a sermon in song
Or something to call worthwhile
The expectations of who-knows-who
Examining my soul
Unknown faces expecting me to play some role

And oh, I want to go home
I wish that this night would end
But I've got to go on
And shoot from the heart again

I don't have no magical words
No pockets full of spiritual jewels
I only know about the way things are
In light of the simple truth
I don't know which hearts are breaking
Or whose flags are truly unfurled
Between here and heaven and the outside world

And oh, I want to go home
I wish that this night would end
But I've got to go on
And shoot from the heart again

Written by Mark Heard
© 1983 Bug ´n Bear Music

Liner notes from Eye of the Storm:

Would you comment on some of the songs on Eye of the Storm?

How about "In the Gaze of the Spotlight's Eye"?

In order to be honest I'd have to admit that there are many things about being on the road that are difficult. But along with the problems comes much satisfaction, and I'm quite grateful to be doing what I'm doing; the people who support me are a source of deep thankfulness for me. l am just a person who writes about the world around him, and who is a Christian, simultaneously. If that is all people would expect of me, then my job would be a lot easier. But sometimes there are expectations, as I've discussed before. When you have to explain yourself to someone who finds a certain song you wrote not "Christian" enough for his tastes, it can be rather trying. (It is terribly unfair to be treated as "unspiritual" because of something like that, but it happens.) Christian society has been conditioned to expect certain cultural or sociological patterns to be repeated in the presence of other Christians, and these patterns often come from the culture at large rather than from the Bible. I hear so many silly things, and I long for the Church to wake up and gain an acumen for seeing through the veil of the stereotypical Christian sociological standards that shroud so many well-intentioned activities.

"These Plastic Halos" is a plea for that sort of honesty - putting tears back on the list of things to be considered okay for someone who is a Christian.

Could you define Christian cynicism? Is it just a matter of open eyes?

Well, Christian cynicism is not my term, but I'll take a stab at it. I think there is a balance between being cynical and being gullible. I think that before anyone makes a decision that is going to deeply affect his life, he should know what he is doing. I think there is much gullibility going on in the world, and in the Christian world as well. I think it is possible that decisions can be made hastily and without proper understanding. The nature of media-influenced society is that decisions are quick and shallow and information tends to be watered down to a point that it is simplified beyond its complexity. I think we have to be careful not to accept everything we hear whether it's from a television network commercial (or as Alfred Hitchcock so aptly said, "an adaptation of a Japanese non-drama by some Madison Avenue yes-man"), or whether it's from a Bible study teacher. I think a grain of cynicism helps undermine gullibility. If one delves more deeply into matters undergirding his belief, it can serve to strengthen that belief. If Christianity is the truth, we should dig more deeply in matters relating to that truth, such as history, philosophy, archaeology, or dealing with the theory of evolution on a deeper level than is popular within Christian school systems. We shouldn't go around saying things that resemble greeting card slogans and expect the roots of our faith to go very deep. If we are basing our faith on our own feelings about God or our perceptions of the way things seem to be to us, and our message to the word becomes, ''Well, Jesus changed my life'', then I believe our Christianity is incomplete, and brought to the same level for caricatured media competition as every other existentialistic thrust. If our faith doesn't involve our mental processes as well as our hearts, then we aren't going to have anything to say to people because whatever we say will be disconnected from objectivity, and will be perceived as mere opinion. When I see the sort of atrophied, simplistic, absentmindedness that is being passed off as Christianity these days, of course I would encourage people to be cynical; cynical enough to see through the trends that occur even within the walls of the Church, to see them for what they are, and to reject them when they fall short of the truth, even though they may be popular and sound like "spiritual" ideas.

Thanks to the Mark Heard Lyric Project for posting all of this information.

The War on Wages

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) gave a talk last week wherein he talked about the challenges for the working class. A few choice clips from his speech:

What I do want to talk about today is the economy, and it's a problem that we have in America, and it's a problem that is worldwide. It is the increasing separation of the well-being of the average citizen from overall economic growth.

...

The rising tide lifts all boats has always been a problem. If you think about that analogy, the rising tide is a very good idea if you have a boat. But if you are too poor to afford a boat and you are standing tiptoe in the water, the rising tide goes up your nose.

...

That debate appears to be over. We've given out a handout. One of the things that struck me yesterday when we were putting that together was we got some quotes from various people from the left, from the right, from the center about inequality in America and it struck us as we looked at them that we couldn't tell who said what. That's why you were given them as a kind of a matching test. There is now a consensus. The income of 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans has substantially lagged economic growth. That fight about whether or not it happened is over. The questions, though, are now: One, should we be worried about it; two, if we are worried about it, can we do anything about it; and, three, what?

Well, there were some, particularly conservatives, who said, "Oh, don't worry about inequality. Inequality, that's just a matter of jealousy. As long as everybody's got something, that's OK."

FRANK: Well, of course, part of the problem with that is that the definition of what is adequate is not a fixed point. What you believe to be adequate, what your kids believe to be adequate, what you need to live a decent life, is an evolving concept.

It's also the case that when a handful of people have a lot of money, they may be driving up prices for others. There are people, I guess, who don't care about inequality as a moral issue. I do.

But there is a broader point here about why it matters, and that's the political factor. One of the consequences of this separation between economic growth and the well-being of the great majority of citizens is that an increasing number of citizens don't care about economic growth. Not surprising. Not only do they not benefit, but in many cases they get the short-term disruptive effects.

I mean, there was a great concept from Joseph Schumpeter of creative destruction in which, as the old economic order is destroyed, resources are freed up for the new order.

Well, increasingly, we have people who see the destruction in their own lives, but don't see that they're going to be part of the new creation.

And so, for those who don't care about inequality as a moral issue or don't care that there are people who are hurting, think about what it does politically. We are now in a situation in which many of the people in the business community are very frustrated because they cannot get adopted at the national level policies that they think are important for growth.

...

Let me give you an example of what I think is the disingenuousness of those who say we should do trade without any regard for the environmental and labor practices of our partners.

George Bush says that one of the main reasons we cannot do the Kyoto Treaty is that it will not cover India and China, and that will put Americans at a competitive disadvantage because we will be bound by it and they won't be.

Many of us say: Yes, you know, you're right; there is a competitive advantage by not following environmental laws when we are. Let's then require of India and China that, if they want access to this great market that's the United States, that they have to do something about the environment. And we're told: Oh, no, you can't do that; that's introducing something that doesn't belong in a trade bill.

Similarly, with wages, the World Economic Forum, headquartered in Davos, just put out their CEO survey in which they noted that the Asian exporters -- the most active Asian exporters -- and the Baltic states pay wages well below what competition would suggest and what productivity would suggest -- therefore, according to the Davos report, giving them a competitive advantage in getting people to do business there.

In other words, my conservative friends understand that mistreating your workers and ignoring the environment give you a competitive advantage. They just don't want us to do anything about it.

Historically, I think they haven't wanted us to do anything about it because a lack of those things in those countries becomes a reason not to do them here.

At any rate, we are now stalled. We can't get any progress on trade, on foreign direct investment, on immigration, to some extent on the implementation of productivity.

That's why the business community ought to care. Even if inequality doesn't bother them, even if Mr. Nardelli getting $210 million for being fired when other people make $7 an hour for working very hard, even people untroubled by that -- and I envy them the ease of their consciences; they must get a lot more sleep than a lot of us do -- if they don't care on those grounds, they ought to recognize that we are in gridlock;

Editorial comment: There are people who argue that sociopaths are often more successful in business precisely because of their mental illness.

And I understand -- people say to me, "Well, look -- look at what Wal-Mart does. I mean, look what it does for the consumer."

Well, if you can't afford health care for your kid, a cheap T- shirt is not much of a consolation.

And this anti-union policy that we have has been a serious problem. The health care situation in America. We should be -- and this is in business's own interest. It costs more to make a car in Michigan than in Ontario -- by a significant amount -- solely because of our health care system.

If we were to have a universal single-payer health care system, which took health care out of the wage system -- stop depressing wages -- we encourage people to join unions, and we did other things, including in the tax system, we would begin to reverse the inequality.

And there's one very important piece to this, and that's the role of government. Government plays a very important role in achieving the quality of our life and in reducing inequality.

That didn't used to be controversial. A guy named Roosevelt got elected four times on that issue. That was the New Deal: use our collective capacity to work together not to interfere with the free enterprise system, but to work alongside it so you reduce inequality.

Corporate profits as a percentage of the national economy have gone way up in the past five years. God didn't do that. The economy did it and the government helped and -- although to some of these people God and the government are the same thing, but I obviously don't agree with that.

We have now got the beginning, I hope, of an uptick in real wages. But you know what's happening? Many of these same business community leaders and others who complain about they can't get support for trade and they can't get support for immigration and they can't get support for foreign direct investment, they're now worrying about wages going up. Read the financial pages of the papers. There is only one concern about inflation: wages may go up.

Wages have significantly lagged growth. They have significantly lagged productivity. And if they even begin, as they have now, to start going up, respected opinion tut-tuts and says, "Oh, that's a terrible idea; we can't allow that to happen."

Ben Bernanke, to his credit, has said, "Well, if wages go up to the level of productivity, it's not inflationary."

The fact is, we have a catch-up period for wages and people are now saying, "Well, you know what? Productivity may be slowing down, things may be getting worse. We'll have to clamp down." Yes, well, you know what? Everybody else has had a pretty good dinner except the people working for wages. Everybody else ain't a lot of people.

But telling the people who work for wages, "Oh, sorry, just as you were about to eat we're closing the restaurant" -- do it if you think it's right, but don't be surprised when their reaction is this negative one you get.

It has always been my philosophy that no one should be deprived of food, water, shelter, medical care or the means to provide for themselves. Obviously, keeping wages so low and not having some societal provision for health care conflicts with that philosophy.

John Edwards, who just announced that he is running for President of the United States, has stated that "poverty is the great moral issue of our time." I agree. Of course, we are both lawyers, so it is not surprising that we think alike.

I am a capitalist, so I think it is important to maximize profits. But I am also a lawyer, so I also understand the importance of "doing justice." It is also part of my philosophy to balance maximizing profits with the importance having social justice. Right now, our country is out of balance. We have a system that is maximizing profits, but it is not doing social justice.

Lex Taliones

Lex Taliones: literally, "Law as Revenge" (also known as "an eye for an eye").

News came late last night that Saddam Hussein was executed last night for crimes against humanity. I am still sorting out my feelings about the matter. One the one hand, I am not opposed to the death penalty; on the other hand, I think it should be used in only the most extreme circumstances. Having said that, lex taliones is not, in my mind, a good justification for the death penalty. I think that the death penalty should only be used as a means of protecting the public when no other means can be used.

I'll admit it is possible that Saddam was one of those cases. It is well-known that Saddam liked the Godfather movies and wanted to emulate the somewhat fictionalized crime-boss figure when he ruled Iraq. There is no doubt that Saddam was a bad guy and hurt -- even killed -- a lot of people wrongfully. But the question that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times asked was never answered: "is Saddam the way he is because Iraq is what it is, or is Iraq the way it is because Saddam is who he is?"

As I write this, I think of the short story The Lottery. And I wonder if Saddam Hussein became the scapegoat for an endemic problem in Iraq's culture. What if we find out that anyone who vies for power in Iraq simply becomes another Saddam-like figure?

The violence in Iraq has only gotten worse since we invaded. Law and Order have never effectively been established. You can say that it is partially our fault for taking in "just enough troops to lose." The country is falling, or has fallen, into civil war. Many Americans, like myself, cannot fully comprehend how people can have differences so great that they would be willing to kill entire neighborhoods -- even cities -- of residents because differences in race, tribal affiliation or religious beliefs. However, here in America we had a civil war over the issue of slavery -- which at the time had a connection to Southern Christians' reading of passages in the Bible that slavery was acceptable; and we enslaved an entire race of people because of the endemic belief that that race was inferior. We have come a long way since then.

Based on how things are playing out, things will only get worse in Iraq before they get better. That is, if they ever do.

***Update***

A commentator over at Daily Kos who is from Cairo, Egypt, pointed out that the execution was carried out "on the most important feast in the Muslim calendar: Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice." He continued: "My neighbors here in Cairo must have been slaughtering their sheep just as the trap door opened. I wonder if they appreciate the irony."

The New Apprentice

During the Christmas break, I did some resting and watched a little TV. A new commercial for Donald Trump's The Apprentice came on. According to the commercial, the winners get to live in a lavish mansion, while the losers will be destined to live in tents in less than ideal circumstances.

I have previously commented on Trump's new book with Robert Kiyosaki here and here.

Based on the commercial that I saw, I am starting to wonder if the wealthy aren't thinking that this is the type of society that we should create: the "winners" living in opulent luxury, while the "losers" should be relegated to living on the street, or at least in tents.

In fact, if you consider all of the "reality" shows that are on TV, you could get the impression that there is a kind of zeitgeist or milieu of the return of Social Darwinism. It seems to me that the movers and shakers of our society are trying to convince the masses that they all can win -- if only they apply themselves. However, if you play and lose, well then, to hell with you.

I don't know, but something seems terribly amiss with a culture that exalts such norms.

An Old Short Story as an Allegory

I remember reading a short story back when I was in college many years ago about a woman who borrowed a necklace from a friend for a ball that she was to be attending later that evening. For all intents and purposes, the story goes, the necklace sparkled and appeared to be made of flawless diamonds. So, the friend lent the lady her necklace with the promise that it would be returned after the party. Somehow, when the lady got home, she noticed that she had lost the necklace.

Unwilling to admit to her friend that she had lost the necklace, she went to a jewelry store and bought a replacement necklace that looked just like the one she had borrowed. The necklace was very expensive. In fact, it was too expensive for her to buy with her meager savings. So she went and borrowed the money from several lenders, many of whom charged her usurious interest rates.

To pay for the money she had borrowed, she worked extra jobs, haggled on every purchase she made and had a hard time making friends due to her miserliness. She never married. She had grown wrinkly and gray quickly in life.

About twenty years later, she saw her old friend again. Her friend still looked young and beautiful, and had lived a life relatively free of worry. She told her friend about how she had lost the necklace, but had gone and replaced it with a new diamond necklace that was exactly like her friend's that she had lost. She told her how she had to borrow the money and had spent her life working the extra jobs and haggling to pay back the debts -- growing old before her time.

Her friend replied: "Why, you didn't have to do that! That necklace was just cheap costume jewelry."

It was a sad story. The woman had overpaid for the replacement of the necklace she had lost. She had borrowed excessively to pay for an object because she didn't understand its real value.

As I think about this story, I think about all of the people who overpaid for houses or who were steered into loans at interest rates that are far above what are warranted that will grow old before their time. They will have to work extra jobs, haggle on all their purchases and work to pay off debts that are more than they should have -- all because they didn't know that the house that they bought wasn't really worth what they thought they were.

Many times, the value that was placed on their home was based on many fraudulent appraisals. Some of it will be based on foolish speculation and mania. In the end, however, there will be a large segment of the population that will suffer the loss of enjoyment of life because they will be tied to the debt they incurred trying to buy a diamond house when the costume jewelry house will do just fine.

Don't feel less of yourself if you are wearing the cheap imitation jewelry to the party of life. When tomorrow comes, no one will really care whether you wore real diamonds or cheap imitations. The people who pay more attention to the ornaments you are wearing than the delight of your company, friendship and conversation have misplaced priorities anyway.

Too Many Voices

This is a follow-up to my post two days ago reviewing the Blue Man Group concert in Oklahoma City where I mentioned the information overload alluded to in the concert. I was thinking of how much time I spend every day reviewing all the different blogs and news sites for information and how there is more information than I have time to digest, it seems. Sometimes it seems that there are just too many voices.

Of course, I just had to add to the chatter of too many armchair pundits adding their two cents worth on the issues of the day. So I have a lot of room to talk, don't I?

Of course, the founding fathers of the United States always intended for there to be a clash of the cacophony of ideas among the participants in the political process. At the same time, the virtual smorgasbord of sources of information is almost too much to handle.

Although I suppose its better than the alternative. I would rather have access to all the information out there that allows me to make an intelligent decisions about politics, investments or any other interest I have. So maybe there aren't too many voices after all.

Blue Man Group Concert Review

The Blue Man Group came to the Ford Center in Oklahoma City Sunday night. It was a great show, as always. I have now seen them live three times: once in Las Vegas, once in Chicago and now once in Oklahoma City. The show, entitled "How to Become a Megastar 2.0" was about 75% of the same show as you will find on their Complex Rock Tour Live DVD.

As I watched the show, there was a segment about the enormous amount of information that we have access to now. During this part of the show, there was a screen that scrolled three lines of text. It goes across so fast that you would be lucky to read just one of the lines. I decided to pick the top line and just read it. It talked about how just one page of a modern newspaper contained as much information as what an entire paper from the 1700's would have. It also gave some statistics on how much information is contained on the internet every day compared to previous years.

It made me wonder: with all this information that we are bombared with, are we suffering from "information overload?" There are many days that I feel that there is too much information. What I mean by that is that I don't have enough time to keep up with it all.

Anyway, there is also a segment where they spoof U2's Bono and The Edge and their pushing certain causes. Anyway, the segment did a serious take on global warming (with some humor thrown in).

If you get a chance to see the show, it is one of the better ones.