Woulard and Woullard Family Reunion

"Family" is a term that has both a sociological and scientific meaning. We see that with the various ways that family has been defined in the past and today. We also see the approaches to define family reflected in biological and sociological approaches. What do these differences mean for who we think we are and why?

In many ancient and traditional societies, family is traced through the mother (matrilineal). We are familiar with the nod to this ancient tradition with the contemporary observation, often meant as a put-down, of "mama's baby, daddy's maybe." This is also associated with "dignity" cultures which feel that all people have self-worth regardless of the status or achievements. This approach is relational and based on kinship ties.

While in more recent history (even though we are talking about a long time ago) the rise of  family traced through the father, or patrilineal, has become a dominant cultural practice. With this orientation we find the use of the ideas of 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' children. This approach is thought to be primarily contractual and designed to define inheritance. It is reflected in the idea of 'bastard' child.

The two cultural approaches of honor cultures and dignity cultures result in big differences of ideas and approaches to issues of identity and worthiness. In dignity cultures, you were born with a purpose. That fact that you are alive means the Creator brought you here with a purpose and therefore you have value. In honor cultures, you have to earn your right to be respected and your value is based on your accomplishments.

The dominant European culture in the United States is a patrilineal honor culture. But echoes of ancestral  Afrikan cultural practices continue to shape and impact  us even today. While the Woulard and Woullard Family Reunion uses the surname of a male potential patriarch, Benjamin Woulard, it clearly identifies our kinship through a matrilineal process because we all recognize and identify our kinship through Mary Woulard. Genetics and genealogy can provide biological and sociological information and context to our journey. But we all know that we are the descendants of mama's babies (Frank, Frances, Martha, Tom, Jerry).

 

 

 

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Organizing our ideas and actions in terms of organizational obligations

 We view the world through a cultural lens. One of the challenges that we are faced with in European social culture is the tendency to segregate, separate, individualize experiences and ideas that, as a result, decontextualizes them. This results in social disaffection and spiritual disconnection from our actual interdependence. One place we see this is with community members, in particular, serving on boards. This is not exclusive to or true of all board members who are community members. It can be true of board members from corporate backgrounds also.

Organizational management theory suggests that board members have three duties to the organization they serve. They are the duty of care, the duty of loyalty and the duty of obedience. These requirements are in relation to the organization's mission.  This does not require us to abandon or neglect other organizational commitments that we may have with other groups due to these duties. But it does mean that we are obligated to understand and identify the interests that we are called upon to serve. Once it is clear that there is a conflict or there may be an appearance of a conflict, the board member is obligated to declare or disclose the situation.  

The duty of care requires us to use our best thinking and best effort to care for and to ensure the organizations health. This includes the fiduciary responsibility of board members to ensure the financial health of the organization by fundraising, personally donating or just using your best judgment in financial matters. It also asks that we use our relationships and resources to the benefit of the organization.

The duty of loyalty speaks to our serving the interests of the organization when we are functioning in our role as a board member. This includes the concept of "conflict of interest." We often are required to choose between different options by weighing the impact or consequences resulting from the potential or projected/expected outcomes of our choices. The duty of loyalty requires you as a board member to make those choices with the intent to benefit the organization on whose board you serve and on whose behalf you are acting. When, inevitably, you are faced with making choices where you have more than one interest or relationship represented and impacted by your choice, you as a board member are required, based on your duty of loyalty, to disclose the actual or apparent conflict. Your role may or may not be restricted due to this situation but disclosure and transparency is required to make others aware of the situation.

The duty of obedience reaffirms that the voice and brain of the organization is the collective will and collective decisions of the board. While individual board members are called upon to bring their talent, spend their time and share their treasure to promote the mission of the organization, it is within the context of individual board members contributing to the collective board process for decision making. Once the board makes a decision it becomes the will of the organization and board members have them duty of obedience to abide by that collective will. If you feel you  cannot submit to and comply with the decision of the board, you should step down and step aside from the board. If you are not willing to abide by and be obedient to the will of the board express by their collective decision, they should/could remove you.

While this is nonprofit management principles and practices it is based on a core of ideas, ethics and values that are relevant to a much wider range of life circumstances.

 

 
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Rites of Passage/Rights of Passage

Industrial society has subordinated the interests of the family to the interests of the economy. Once economics served social ends now society serves economic ends. The role of social education and acculturation is accomplished through the media and popular culture. The role of the community in traditional societies was to incorporate the technology for living (culture) in a series of classes or social experiences that were part of the educational system delivered through intensive experiential instruction at significant points in the social and physical development of community members.

Desire and duty
One of the most persistent and pronounced aspects of the human experience is the urge that facilitates procreation. On the one hand there is the spark that creates the flame that we call desire. On the other hand there is the patient tending of the relationship, the gentle stoking of the fires, the consistent feeding of the flames that sustains it that we call duty. Differences in expectation between cultures results from varying arrangements and approaches to acknowledging, addressing and responding to these two important aspects of the human experience. The grand design and purpose of both impulses serve to ensure propagation and continuation of the species. Each society due to unique environmental or emotional conditions, circumstances and needs adopts an approach and expression that best supports it. Knowing the role and responsibility in that dance is conveyed to community members through rites of passage.

Infatuation and obligation

There has been much research that is slowly catching up with the ancient wisdom that guided traditional societies. One area is in the science of the mind. The modern world is a manifestation of European culture. This cultural orientation is profoundly shaped by an experience called "the enlightenment." The basic orientation of this worldview is low context. In cultural terms it translates into individualization of relations (social, economic, etc.). The cultural kernel that was embedded in social relations of Europe prior to the enlightenment survived the protestant reformation. The low context worldview propagated by the enlightenment combined with the per-enlightenment binary cultural focus  allowed for the elevation of values like greed and self-interest to the exclusion or deprecation of values like sharing and collective interest.

The Enlightenment era was ushered in by objections to corruption of the Catholic Church. The desire to command and control, extract and exploit, created conditions where religion was used for secular purposes. While the church extolled the divinity of the head of the church, the Pope, accounts of the person in that role both promoting and indulging behavior and values that were antithetical to the professed religious values of the church. This behavior by church officials were common and rife up and down the church hierarchy. Violation of vows of celibacy and selling of indulgences, among other major and minor moral violation, were so rife within all levels of the church hierarchy that the protest movement against it, whose start is usually attributed to Martin Luther, resulted in the creation of a new religious Christian tradition, the Protestant movement. Those challenges to religious authority extended to secular and scientific authority and an examination of biblical based understanding of the world. However, this moral response did not root out the cultural kernel that made such behavior acceptable and desirable.

When faced with choices like "do I pursue that which I am fascinated with even when it conflicts with my obligation?" our worldview based on our values provides the answer. For low context individualistic cultures like modern (European) cultures, individual needs and satisfaction are held to be the highest value. For high context collectivist cultures like many traditional (non-European) cultures, collective needs and collective agreements are held to be the highest value. That does not mean that in either case the tug of infatuation won't be present. It also doesn't define or limit the range of emotional responses to infatuation. But it does determine and limit the range of behaviors one might engage in as a response to the infatuation.

Carnal/Lust and Caring/Love
The role of rites of passage is designed to lift up the ancient worldview and perspective we see reflected in the writings of Kemet. The role of education is designed to prepare members of society for appropriate and effective behavioral responses and promote the appropriate beliefs that support desired values. Inappropriate behavior is considered a failure of education not a failure of character. While it is not described in this way, popular culture educates a society in what is right and what is wrong. The images and ideas conveyed through media and formal educational processes also promote and provide behavior and values.

The low context thinking that characterizes european culture divides our lived experience in a way where we can only be one thing. We are horny or we are holy. We divide our physical expression of attraction that is mediated through hormones from our emotional expression of caring through compassion and caring. But what is love and how did it get conflated with lust? 

We love our parents, our siblings and our children (for example). But that has nothing to do with sexuality. It is all about sociality. When we say we "love" it speaks to affection not necessarily attraction. The two are not mutually exclusive. But neither are they mutually inclusive. Also, they can be present serially. The sexual attraction that is sometimes referred to as love is a product of the limbic brain system. It is automatic and often considered autonomic. But with training and conditioning that is part of a structured program, such as a rites of passage, and with reinforcement and support from society, our physical reactions can be mediated or provided the meaning that we determine. 

Of course, we may not be able to control our physical reaction but we can interpret its emotional significance and the appropriate response. You get a warm feeling and are appreciative of the sexual energy of a friend or associate. What is the appropriate emotional response to the physical activation? Whether you think "I want to get some of that" or whether you think "someone will be lucky to be with them" depends significantly on our cultural conditioning and what is deemed appropriate. We see this as part of the concept of "taboo" in more traditional cultures. But even in modern european culture and society the practice of sexual activity between immediate family members, i.e., incest, is considered taboo. Active and intentional socialization provides direction for society and guidance for individuals. 

 The role and need for intentional informal socialization that is provided by rites of passage programs
is real and present. It is lacking due to a general commodification of most aspects of capitalist consumer culture. The home is the first school and the care givers are the first teachers. In order to support the vision and values we hold for community and as a community, rites of passage are essential. They provide new entrants with the  "rights" of passage into a new social role. May it be so.

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What is owed in justice should never be given in charity.

We are in an abusive relationship with europeans. In fact their paradigm from the 17th century, in relation to the human family and race, still holds today. They have dropped the pre-enlightenment, heliocentricity paradigm that was based on the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary. The have resisted the notion that human activity (fossil fuel) affects climate but are relenting, albeit reluctantly and begrudgingly, in the face of scientific evidence, and practical experience, to the contrary that has become common knowledge.



The human genome has been sequenced and the scientific consensus is that there is no such thing as "race" based on biology or genetics.


The solution, partially and initially, is a public health campaign to raise general awareness of that fact. The public health campaign would challenge the use of "race," i.e., white (melanin deficient) people and black (melanin enhanced) people, as descriptors for and categories of the human family with certain common and essential characteristics. The public health campaign would be based on the science that reveals this is not true.

This addresses perceptions at the individual level and interactions at the social level. We also have to deal with policies and their implementation at the institutional level. But as long as the perception that melanin is a meter for placement of a person's humanity on the family tree, e.g., those who are melanin deficient can lay claim to being supra-human, the epitome and universal standard of what it means to be human, based on the absence of melanin and those who are melanin enhanced will be considered subhuman, not fully human with diminished mental and moral capacity, based on the presence of melanin, who are complicit in a mass delusion and suffering from a manufactured illusion.

This scheme was crafted as part of the enlightenment view based on the mechanical universe paradigm. In colonial America, we see its institutionalization with Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, it affirmation with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, its re-authorization with post-reconstruction in 1876 and its modernization with the Bakke Supreme Court decision, roughly 100 years later, in 1978.

It appears that there is a roughly 100 year cycle where the choices of one generation are abandoned by their great-great grandchildren approximately four generations later. What persists through the generations is a fundamental paradigm that shapes the world view of the society. On the one hand, many of the movements and efforts toward acknowledging the humanity of people who are melanin enhanced, and particularly people of Afrikan descent, are taken out of a charitable attitude. The negatively impacted party, melanin enhanced or marginalized as the case may be, are given or granted certain rights or privileges based on the assumption and fact that the giver has the power to also take away the rights and privileges. In effect, their actions are charity. We see this when the rights or privileges are rescinded. In fact, the distinction between civil rights and civil liberties reflect this distinction.

Were the humanity of Afrikan people, in particular, and melanin enhanced or marginalized people, in general, were accepted, acknowledged and respected, any denial or infringement of their rights and privileges would be viewed as a matter of justice not charity. The same clarion call for liberty and justice that the euro-descendants of today's, and yesterday's, racist have sounded in the preservation of the discrimination would be asserted on behalf of people who are melanin enhanced if they believed they were equally human. But the ideas and actions that have maintained the degradation of people of Afrikan descent, have been based on the belief that people who are melanin enhanced are in some way less worthy than people who are melanin deficient.

According to a quoted variously ascribed to different people including Pope John XXIII, "What is owed in justice should never be given in charity."

That's the analysis and policy prescription for a solution.



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Hidden purpose/Exposed intent/Prostate Radiation Treatment

Life is messy. We would like to imagine it all squeaky clean with each hair in place. But ideas and experiences are birthed like newborn babies. We like to think of them handed to us neatly wrapped in a blanket. But really the ideas and experiences of life emerge from pain and effort covered in piss and shit just like babies. But they are full of potential and possibilities.

They ask that I show up for treatment with empty rectum and full bladder. So I drank prune juice before bed and am up drinking water so my bladder will be full. Waiting on bowel movement. That is how I begin my day for the next month. Start with piss and shit but full of potential.

 This same duality is a feature of our lived experience. The binary/low context orientation of euro-culture would have us think that the way we should experience things is as distinct, "pure," and abstracted from all the contextual factors that contribute to and create our experience.

I am making a distinction between "duality" and "binary." I am using duality as a noun and in its sense where it reflects "interchangeability"  or the equivalence of two seemingly different things. I am using "binary" as a verb in its sense where it reflects two mutually exclusive conditions. 

We see this concept of non-binary duality in conditions and circumstances such as:

 System change = self change

Biomimicry = Nature Culture

Fractals = As above, so below

Inelligent Design/Divine Design = chaos theory

mundane = divine

secular = sacred

dialectical = Tao



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Mindfulness as a waking, walking meditation

According to Maxwell Maltz (1960) there are behaviors that contribute to a "success-type personality." He developed an acronym as a mnemonic or easy way of remembering the elements of the behaviors:

S = sense of direction
U = understanding
C = courage
E = esteem
S = self confidence
S = self-acceptance

He provides additional explanation on how each of these elements contributes to accomplishing or having a "successful" life. He states that "(t)he reason .... that a man does not simply 'find' success or 'come to' failure (is that) ....  (h)e carries their seeds around in his personality and character" (p.102)

This viewpoint is of the social construction variety. We create the social world we live in by our actions and attitudes.  Our actions contribute to what happens. Our attitudes contribute to how we feel about that happens. A basic element of his prescription for success is to focus on the process not the product. Being successful is differentiated from wanting to be a success. Maltz suggests that success is hidden in the process of becoming rather than embedded in the state of "being."

"S" or Sense of direction is related to the idea that we are happiest when we are attempting to do something or engaging in an experience. Maltz says that the human animal is a "goal-seeking mechanism." We are happiest when we are busiest working on a project or doing something which "means something." He gives a nod to concept of "flow" without ever mentioning the word when he suggests that "(w)hen you are not goal-striving, not looking forward, you're not really 'living' ."(p. 102) This immersion in goal seeking is what I am suggesting is akin to 'flow' where you are absorbed in what you are doing.

But I sat down today to peck out a hunk of what Maltz has to say about the second element of the success personality. "U" or understanding is listed second. I don't think he necessarily intended to list them in order of importance just providing meanings to correspond to the letters in the work 'success."

"U" is understainding. Maltz says that:(u)nderstanding depends upon good communication. Communication is vital to any guidance system or computer. You cannot react appropriately if the information you act upon is faulty or misunderstood. Many doctors believe that "confusion" is the basic element in neurosis To deal effectively with a problem, you must have some understanding of its true nature. Most of our failures in human relations are due to "misunderstandings." (p.105)

The idea of understanding is further explained to include the idea that (w)e expect people to react and respond and come to the same conclusions as we do from a given set of "facts" or 'circumstances.' " Maltz reminds us that he had mentioned earlier in the book that people don't react to things "as they are" but rather as we see them to be based on our own perspective, perceptions and conclusions. This is very similar to the concepts propounded in the Landmark Forum which some have characterized as a cult or commercial scam. However, counsels "there is what happened and then there is the story we tell about what happened." This is very similar to maxim shared by Maltz but also consistent with existential thought and social constructionism.

Other aspects of understanding include being able to differentiate fact from fiction. An example used is a husband who cracks his knuckles and his wife who concludes that he does it only to annoy her. The experience is explained as the wife is making the assumption that the husband is deliberately trying to annoy her  which are fiction. But her assumption affects her experience of the situation and results in her choosing to be annoyed by the imaginary intent of the husband. We make other assumptions about the intentions of others with similar results. Also, being willing to see the truth is another element of "understanding" is to "be willing to see the truth." This is meant that honesty with ourselves and with others is necessary for true understanding. It sort of suggests that if you have an incorrect (false) diagnosis of the problem it will result in a incorrect (false) prescription for the solution. A suggested attitude in this regard is "it doesn't matter who's right, but what's right."

These first two steps are preliminary but important. While we have been talking about these concepts applied on a personal basis they are also relevant when we look at collective behavior. There are behaviors that groups adopt that reflect these same problems or their corrective principles. Healing ourselves emotionally is the purpose and intent of these ideas. Change the frame and change the future.




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Obama at the Gate

I am watching the Obama Arising with interest. It is really interesting to reflect back on my initial musings about the potential of the Obama Administration by completing this post which I started writing in 2008. Much of what  I feared and some of what I hoped has manifested itself. This has not been surprising or unexpected. But, again, often, disappointing and sometimes encouraging.

 As I watched the Obamamania sweep the progressive political community and the reactive dominant community I saw two things. Each is an aspect of an experience that informs my worldview. While not wholly or totally the same but similar to the situations that I will share.

First, Barack Obama's election reminded me of two earlier electoral political events. The earliest, and possibly the most similar, example was the election of Harold Washington. The other was the election of Nelson Mandela. Both these events had similarities to the election of Barack Obama.

There were several features of the election of Harold Washington that foreshadowed or reflected the Barack Obama experience. One of the similarities between Barack Obama's election and Harold Washington's election was their status as a "first." Harold Washington was the first African-American elected as mayor of Chicago. Of course, Barack Obama was the first African-American elected as President of the United states.

I remember the actual election day for Harold Washington. There was a huge turnout of voters. This was possibly one of the highest voter turnout of African Americans since the founding of Chicago by the fur trader of African descent, Jean Baptiste DuSable. Reflecting on that day evokes images of elderly voters leaning on canes standing in line with voters on hospital gurneys pulling  hospital equipment along with them. There were stories of long lines and long waits, polling places that ran out of ballots and hours that were extended to accommodate voter turnout.

We saw similar pictures of the response to Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa. There were the same, or similar, long lines with elderly voters leaning on canes, voters discharged from hospitals leaning on canes and lying on gurneys, first-time young voters and, ultimately, one time only voters. The fact that the election held promise and reflected a vision of equity and inclusion brought out and engaged sectors of the electorate that had been disengaged and disenfranchised with the hope, and expectation, that their vote would make a difference. One significant difference between Chicago, a municipal election, and South Africa, a national election, was that it was the first time that many Mandela supporters were able to vote; whereas Chicago voters felt for the first time that their vote could matter.

Barack Obama's election brought a similar type of energy for voters of African descent across the nation. Partly there was the notion that he (Barack Obama) could actually win. Based on the essentialist notions that are a basic premise of race certain expectations and assumptions regarding values were a major motivating factor. In all three cases the promise reflected by electoral promise was stunted by the institutional demands of white supremacy. The need to maintain the basic social and economic structures that reflects the European onslaught that began in 1492 constrains and contains the possibility of change.




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Valentine's Day -Love, Lust and Enlightenment

It is that time of year when the commecial demand for consumerism captivates and overtakes the spiritual connection that occurs when the vibratory fequency of two beings harmonize.

I have long attempted to differentiate the term "love" from its fraternal and its physical manifestations. We use the same word to describe the sexual experience and the filial experience. During a sermon on 'desire' a new way of articulating the connection and the contradiction occurred to me. The distinction in reflected in the Greek language with the terms "agape" or friendship and "eros" or eroticism.

Love is caring. Desire is wanting. One of the simplest ways to contrast the two experiences is to look at what we mean when we say we "love" a parent, a sibling or a child versus what we mean when we speak of "love" regarding a mate or sexual partner. Caring and wanting are not mutually exclusive but each has a distinct manifestation in its own domain. Caring connects with wanting in terms of memory in the Agape domain. Desire connects with caring in terms of romance in the Eros domain.

Love is light. Desire is heat. Love creates the desire to be responsive to the needs of the other. This means we look for what we can do or how we can interact and relate to them. This seeking is analagous with light. Desire is heat. Desire is often described with the metaphor of fire. This refelects the tendency for desire to consume us emotionally and stimulate us physically resulting in physical heat and emotional heat. Love and desire joined and connected offer both heat and light.

Love is attachment. Desire is attraction. Love results in our connection with another even when apart. This connection is an important component of fidelity. Desire is attraction. Desire results in our moving towards our target and seeking the object of our attraction. It can be fleeting, impermanent and transitory but powerful nonetheless. This duality is often a source of confusion due to the imprecision of our use of terminology related to the concept "love." When men are attracted to women based on desire it does not mean they will feel attached to them but often this is not the case due to their lack of interest or understanding of the person. It mght take me a few more minutes to clearly articulate this analogy.

Love is contentment. Desire is yearning. These two descriptions are in line with the same distinction of the agape and eros domains. Caring, light, attachment all contribute to the contentment of agape love. Wanting, heat, attraction contributes to the yearning of desire. What we must do is to understand that either domain has both its strengths and its weaknesses. We must choos wisely for our own emotionand and spiritual health and that of the one we love.



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Democracy defined and desecrated

It was very interesting to see the response to the Egyptian uprising among American politicians both in office, formerly in office and running for office. Also the American people jumped for joy for this demonstration of the power of the people exerting their influence.

It is with a jaundiced eye that I listen to the American political establishment talk about how supported and proud they were of the Egyptian people. Little do they nod to the reality of the American political project, agenda and interests.

The Obama administration supported the Mubaruk regime, the two previous Bush administrations supported the Mubaruk regime, the two Clinton administrations supported the Mubaruk regime, the H.W. Bush administration supported the Mubaruk regime, both Reagan administrations supported the Mubaruk regime, the Carter administration supported the Mubaruk regime.

Republican or Democrat, young or old, Black or White, they have all supported the Mubaruk regime. Whether conservative, Liberal or Moderate they have all supported the Mubaruk regime.

The politicians and the politicos that praise the overthrow of the Mubaruk regime are masters of misinformation as only weeks before they supported the Mubaruk regime.

What have we to hope for if we support the will of the people and punish the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip for electing Hamas? What will happen if the Iraqi people elect a pro-Iranian administration? What will happen if Afghanistan elects a pro-Taliban administration? What will happen if the Egyptian people elects the Moslem Brotherhood?>

Is there truly support and apprecaion for democracy? We will see.




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checking in from the front lines

Dang. It is hard to believe that it has been September since I last posted. Well, there have been several fun and interesting things going on since then. One such event was the 2010 Citywide Manchester, NH Kwanzaa Celebration. I don't know if I have pictures. I will have to check. But it was a lot of fun.

I have been living in a pressure cooker. it is not a good thing that I haven't been able to convince myself to depressurize. But I think maybe that is the direction that I am heading in.

Welcome me back and expect to hear from me again soon.


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10 years of celebrating Manchester

I participated in the 10 gathering of people of African descent and other residents of Manchester on August 7th. It has been a long road and hasn't really gotten any easier and in some ways present administrative challenges that become more ingrained each year. But it is a community treasure and personal delight to see people dancing, talking, smiling and hanging out in the park moving to the soundtrack flowing from the stage.

When I moved to Manchester in 1992 after living in Chicago for over 30 years my friends and associates would often ask me how I managed to remain in Manchester. I told them then what I would tell you now if you asked, "we create community wherever we go." It is much like the title of my friend Roy Morrison's book, "we build the road as we travel." In many ways the annual African/Caribbean Celebration is a wide path on the my journey to community in Manchester, NH.

From my earliest days in New Hampshire I recognized that a major challenge then, and continuing even till today, for people of African descent was/is social isolation and cultural alienation. In 1992 there were limited to opportunities to gather in public places for anyone in Manchester and those few that did exist (Christmas parade, St. Patrick's Day parade, etc.) were usually not welcoming for people of African descent. Shortly after arriving, at the behest and in agreement and collaboration with my wife, we began to host activities like the annual Kwanzaa event, annual Black History Month film series, and other activities that served as platforms for community members to meet and share their experiences. The activities began to put little nicks in the armor of social isolation. Part of the significance of the experiences that we hosted was the cultural content. It served to address the cultural alienation experienced when you live in a world where the rituals, ceremonies, images and practices are all foreign to you. This feeling of invisibility was countered through programs that provided cultural affirmation by reflecting cultures from across the African continent.


This year was one of the biggest and best events so far. Of course, each year for the last ten years we have felt or been told the same. Well, we celebrate the fellowship and look forward to the next time in Manchester, NH.




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Ending the new beginning

I guess it was about six to eight months ago that I claimed I was going to be good and post on a regular basis. Unfortunately and not unentirely unexpectedly I remain a "slogger" instead of a blogger. Some many things happen so fast that it seems almost a waste of time to take the time to document what is happening in my life and what I think about what is happening in the life of others.

However, I think of my blog often and fondly. For me blogging does not serve a commercial purpose. So it is, by my definition of life, a toy. Being a toy and having toys and even playing with toys is not a bad thing even though they have that connotation in terms of adults in American society. Being able to take a break and enter the world of toys and imagining is a powerful skill, ability, and power to have. In fact being able to play with toys opens a door into an inner world that is akin to being in trance. During this period we are hypersensitive to suggestions.

Trance can work both ways just like dreams. If you enter a trance, either self-induced or induced by others, you view your imagined environment as real. During this period you assume the trappings and behaviors of your imagined world. What does the brain know? If we turn of the internal critic, the mental 'governor' then the brain accepts the mental manifestations provided it and in turn expresses them physically. This thought has a number of parts to it. It connects to stories of people who exhibit physical infirmaties when adopting different personalities. It connets with the behavior of our dream self and the impact that our waking self has on it. It relates to our waking self and the impact our dream self can have on it. It relates to religious estatic possession, demonic possession and daydreaming. All this from toys.

This brings the mind the impact of contemporary videos and wii-electronic environment interfaces, and such. What does it do to us and our chilcren to not have a stick that we can mentally transform into a horse or a cardboard box that we can transform into a house? Toys can be useful. Money is not the end all and be all. Saying that reminds me of the maxim that those who feel that way usually don't have any and won't be getting any. But I think the wisdom of the Native American Cree proverb ('only when the last tree has been cut, the last buffalo hunted, the last fish has been caught will the White man realize you can't eat money) is the last word on that. but it doesn't let any of us off because "the White man" in this proverb is a metaphor for the culture of consumption that many of us partake in.



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One World, One Aim, One Destiny

"If inner-city blacks are experiencing the greatest problems of joblessness, it is a more extreme form of economic marginality that has affected most Americans since 1980. .... solutions to problems of economic marginality in this country including those that stem from changes in the global economy; can go a long way toward addressing the problems of inner-city joblessness, especially if the application of resources includes wise targeting to the groups most in need of help. Discussions that emphasize common solutions to commonly shared problems promote a sense of unity, regardless of the different degrees of severity to which these problems afflict certain groups. Such messages bring races together, not apart, and are especially important during periods of racial tension. In comparison with the rhetoric highlighting racial divisions, however, messages promoting interracial unity have been infrequent and are generally ignored by the media." William Julius Wilson, (1997). When Work Disappears. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.


Wilson made an observation regarding public policy, public media and public perceptions that is both profound and commonplace. The role of racial rhetoric (grounded in White Supremacist ideology) in the political economy of America, the West is oft cited, well-known and axiomatic except for those who are most impoverished by its its effect. The power of dreams in the minds of those with the least to lose and the most to gain can be counter-productive and their role counter-intuitive. The assertion that racism has been the fulcrum used by the rich (which some might think includes people like Oprah Winfrey and the two Michaels - Jackson and Jordan) and the wealthy (which is clearly mostly male and virtually all White - - - in America) to keep the poor (both Black and White) in their place is both bold and pedestrian. Who can deny it, disprove it or debate it?


Many historians point to one hundred years before the hallowed American revolution for freedom and justice in 1776 to Bacon's Rebellion in colonial Virginia in 1676 as the trigger for the institution of chattel slavery for people of African descent in America. Prior to Bacon's Rebellion both Whites and Blacks were subjected to indentured servitude where they would give their labor for a prescribed number of years before being released to live as free (though often impoverished) men and women. However, the response to Black and White indentured servants joining together in an uprising against landowners triggered the faithful decision to divide and conquer the poor by relegating Blacks to chattel slaves and Whites to wage slaves. The unequal treatment of Blacks and Whites was evident in the 1640 decision resulting from Bacon's Rebellion where three indentured servants ran away. When recaptured the two Whites had their term of service extended a few years. The Black indentured servant, named John Punch, was sentenced to 'serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural life.'


We see a distinction made in law that came to be a part of the cultural consciousness of America. Though you may be opressed and downtrodden, if you were of European descent you are viewed as having more rights than someone of African descent. Enshrined in law this became enshrined in the general consciousness of both Blacks and Whites. Then the wheels of social replication began to turn with Blacks relegated to lower status jobs, positions and places in society and the economy. This reinforced the role and place of both Blacks and Whites to the point where we have fallen into a trance and unthinkingly mimic our prescribed roles. However, this form of subjection and dominance was based on greed and the need to fuel the economic base with labor. Now with globalization the impact of this attitude has hit both those on the bottom of the political economy as well as those in the middle. With cheap foreign labor satisfying the need for production the White middle class is shrinking.

For American society this has resulted in the declining significance of race; not because Blacks are doing relatively better but because no-elite Whites are doing increasingly worse.







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Leaking the essence of energy

As the information regarding the Gulf Coast oil spill continues to leak out, it becomes increasingly likely that the U.S. energy policy is going to take a hit. With the ideas presented by the Obama administration regarding expansion of offshore drilling seeping into the progressive public's consciousness there was sure to be big-time support. Now it seems that the newly minted policy will be dead on arrival.



The absence of moral suasion as an aspect of the decisionmaking process for generation of energy results in amoral decisions that kill, maim and hurt the environment and individuals.




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Better Living Through Science

In reading the Tuesday, March 2, 2010 edition of the USA Today on page 3A there was an article titled "Weedkiller alters frogs in research." This article chronicles the impact of a commonly used herbicide on the natural environment. The presence of this chemical, atrazine, is identified as the cause of sex/gender confusion and changes among frogs.

The result of exposure to atrazine at levels commonly found in tap water is reported to have caused male frogs to experience sexual dysfunction. This included male frogs to have testosterone and sperm levels so low that they were unable to produce. It also caused male frogs to change gender to female with some able to breed and lay eggs.

This is 'deep' because it created a physiological change in the biology of the frog. While frogs are much less complex than humans in their biology, we see changes in human physiology that mimics similar disruptions. While not identified in the article the culprit was most probably "endocrine disruptor" that are estrogen mimickers.

What does this mean? There have been reports of chlororganic compounds in the environment from both plastics and insecticides and herbicides. These chemicals disrupt the human (as well as other lifeforms as evidenced by the frog study) endocrine system by mimicking estrogen. Evidence of this has been attributed to precocious puberty in males and females by a fringe element of the medical community.

Can we take the chance of making an error where we neglect to take action until the problem is indisputable. Because that does not help us prevent a problem. In fact, it ensures the presence of a problem. This is exactly the reigning scientific paradigm in the U.S. because the chemical, atrazine, has already been banned in Europe.

We are a crazy drug crazed people whether we like it or not.





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Community Economic Development: Principles and Practices

What was I thinking about when I wrote this last year? I didn't post it so I am pushing it out now for my and your edification.

What is community economic development? It is a combination of community building, cooperative economic strategies and institution development.






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new reality or old dreams

I was talking with my cousin from New York City recently. She said that she was incredulous that there seems to be a persistent desire and demand to return to a storied past where the USA was the world's political, economic and cultural super power. The promises currently being made by the Obama administration and the clamoring for even more from its detractors are all shades of a time past that may never return. The nation currently exists as a shadow of its former self with the outline of its glory days clearly laying behind it.

She asked me what did I see as the future of the nation. After reflecting on what appears to be a tendency on the part of the Obama administration to hold onto the 'old way of doing things' that is reflected in the selection of Guitner and Summers I began a stream of consciousness riff. When we think about what has been the experience of other empires one of the primary reasons for their demise can be traced to dietary causes.

The roman empire may have fell due partly to the use of lead for wine goblets. Several major ancient empires have their decline traced to their food supply including the Mayans. This speaks to the current situation created by use of nitrogen fertilizer for food production.

The decline in yield from nitrogen fertilizers combined with their environmental impact (degrading soil, poisoning streams, etc.) argues for their being part of the problem rather than the solution. Combine that with the factory food production system and we teeter n the edge of empire collapse. While this is seriously over wrought and alarmist, it is a corollary to the economic decline that the U.S. is experiencing.

Just as the British once bragged that the sun never set on its empire, the U.S. must now face its declining position as the premier economic international power. This is not a particularly cogent or coherent treatment of this topic. But this serves as a beginning not the end of my thoughts on this topic.





























































































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Understanding the understood

I engaged in a conversation with an associate who shared an community organization affiliation last week. He stated an opinion with which I did not agree. In informing him (and others since we were on a listserve) of where I disagreed with him and why he was offended and withdrew. This was a disappointment to me.

The art and ability to engage in a discussion of differing opinions while remaining civil is becoming increasingly difficult. It is not just that there is an air of incivility in the air. It is also that the option to withdraw, walk away, don't show us for the meeting, stay at home, drink beer, watch t.v., find new friends, volunteer somewhere else, pop in a DVD, otherwise occupy ourselves is a real and present possibility. We don't have to see the offending individual and 'poof' they are gone from our lives and so too the disagreement. Our world is righted. Our view of self or others is confirmed to be true and accurate. We can find solace in unanimity of opinion and outlook.

The fact that we are not able to exercise our intellect, emotions and outlook in a vigorous debate without injuring one another, either literally or figuratively, is a sure sign of weakness intellectually, emotionally or socially.

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The long strange trip of Skip Gates

I apparently wasn't able to get my comments about the Skip Gates episode out of my head and into my fingers before it dribbled out my mouth in conversations with young and old, friend and foe voicing my incredulity regarding Gates naivete.

The incident in a nutshell was an example of individual ego meeting institutionalized authority. Skip was trippin' when he started flippin' about the refusal of the police officer to submit to his authority as a citizen. Of course, it has been said more than once (because it is true) someone who did not live in such affluent surroundings might have got more hurt than their feelings. So Skip may have dodged a bullet, both figuratively and literally, this time.

Let's see if he is able to integrate this experience into his life.

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Thinking about the future

I was reading something the other day that had an Eskimo proverb "yesterday is ashes. Tomorrow is wood. The flame burns brightly only today."

I found myself quoting this proverb several times over the weekend. I was attending the graduation of my niece from Dental School and this was an occasion for her parents, family and friends to reflect back on their and her life. This frequently resulted in comments like "where did all the time go?"

Another cultural tradition that has the observation made by the Eskimo proverb as a central tenet of their practice is the Zen tradition. Their admonition to live in the moment is an acknowledgment that all we have is this second but it too slips away too fast.

My mother died last week. This is the epitome of the need for being present in ones life. The separation of the physical from the spiritual in the life of the deceased and in the lives of those who loved them is irreconcilable, immediate and emotionally intense. It is in death (particularly the death of a parent or child) that men are granted the right to cry in public without being considered weak. I cried. I loved my mother and grieve her passing. But I truly believe that today and every other day should be dedicated to a celebration of life, the life of the deceased, the life of the celebrant and the only part of life that we can truly experience, the now.




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