We Americans set great store by happiness. Its pursuit is enshrined in our founding manifesto as an inalienable right.
Those who are not by nature and temperament "upbeat and positive" are often looked upon with some suspicion, as though their "negative attitude" might be a contagious disease that will spoil the party.
And yet life really isn't on the side of the upbeat and positive folks. Through the centuries the wise have counseled against clinging to the ephemeral. Triumph is fleeting. In the words of the poet, "...every tower ever built tumbles/No matter how strong, no matter how tall...someday even man's best laid plans/Will lie twisted and covered in rust/When we've done all that we can but it slipped through our hands/And it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust..."
Lately we've had hard times in the land of the free. Living in the richest society in human history hasn't made us especially happy, and many are learning that the riches of our promised land have indeed slipped through our hands.
The hard truth is that we lose what we love. Yet that loss is a profound teacher.
Last week, my wife Marilyn had to put her beloved horse Hotshot down. He was an older horse with a chronic metabolic condition that eventually ruined his feet and once a horse's feet are shot, he's done for. It was clear that he couldn't go on and the decision was not a hard one in the end.
But it was painful.
Hotshot was a horse with an outsized personality. Everybody who knew him, including our non-horsey neighbors, fell in love with him.
Our family treasured our hours in the woods with him and we miss seeing him hang his head over the gate to greet us when we come home - and to remind us that it's 15 minutes past dinner time.
Those moments and the memory of those moments validate all the hard work and expense that go into keeping a horse, all the strain and worry that accompanied his decline.
We are thankful for moments.
Thankful for the glint of the rising sun on a chestnut coat, the steam of a horse's breath on the chilly fall air. Thankful for the lessons in responsibility caring for a horse brings to a young girl. Thankful for the sense of connection you feel when you're out on the trail in the Sisters Country, everyone and everything working in unison.
Those moments are fleeting indeed, and all the more powerful for their poignancy.
Jefferson was right to exalt the pursuit of happiness, for it is in the pursuit that the cherished moments come. Kipling wrote of the need "to fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds of distance run." It is the race itself that matters, not whatever prize you might think is waiting at the end.
The exultation of standing on a peak comes not from the view from the top, spectacular though it may be, but from having earned it by the long slog to get there. After all, the brief time at the top must end; you must climb down.
The moments and the memories always seem to come from the long trail, from the struggle, not from the attainment of the goal.
There is a solace and a grace to be found here that cannot be found in trite platitudes about "keeping a positive attitude."
Success and failure are redefined when our eye is turned to our moments. Success lies in the courage to embrace the struggle, the fortitude to accept the inevitable losses. Failure is only possible in turning away from the fear and the pain, failing to engage.
It is good that we set aside a day to give thanks for the good things in our lives. No matter how hard times may be, we all have moments of beauty, moments of grace to mark. We remember them, celebrate them, stoke them like a warming fire.
We must. In the end, they are what we can keep.
Quotes from "Ashes to Ashes" by Steve Earle.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Osama bin Laden is smiling
Somewhere in the Pakistan tribal areas, or — more likely — the remote district of Chitral, Osama bin Laden is smiling.
The principles of asymmetric warfare are working like a charm. The United States, the mightiest nation on earth, the most powerful nation in the entirety of human history, is dancing like a marionette on strings pulled by terrorist specters.
The traveling public and the national media are in full frenzy mode over new body scanning technology and, er, thorough patdowns at airports. The outcry has grown to the point where the TSA is pleading with the public not to engage in a boycott that could turn the busy Thanksgiving travel weekend into a total nightmare.
The outrage has spawned its own immortal phrase: “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”
Not exactly “Give me liberty or give me death” or “We would rather die in these ditches than give them up to the enemy” is it?
The threat of a bomb on an airplane is, of course, real. The attempt last Christmas by the “underwear bomber” was a serious one and so was the thwarted cargo plane bombing earlier this month. But the tactical beauty of asymmetric warfare is that attempts don’t have to succeed to create fear and disruption. The ever-present possibility of an attack is enough to set our transportation system on its ear.
A UPI poll indicates that, while people find the patdowns overly invasive, a pretty good-sized majority are OK with the body scans and are willing to let security trump privacy. The likelihood is that the current brouhaha will fade away in a week or two and body scans will become the new normal. Until the next threat or attempted attack ratchets up the tension again.
We have a strange attitude toward risk. The possibility of dying in a terrorist attack in America is infinitesimally small — and always has been, the 9/11 atrocity notwithstanding. You’re at far greater risk of death driving over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house this weekend.
At some point the law of diminishing returns has to kick in — ever greater security measures chasing an ever-smaller threat. Simply put, when it gets too difficult to bomb or hijack a plane, terrorists can always turn to other targets. Trains or subways as in Madrid or London — or a bomb-and-rifle attack on a shopping mall. Imagine the disruption that would ensue from a few coordinated attacks on shopping malls at the height of the Christmas season.
Living in a state of heightened anxiety over such deadly but rare episodes gives terrorism an impact far beyond its material effects. Creating that fear is, at once, the method, the tactics and the strategy of terrorism.
We are, in fact, at war with al-Qaeda and its ilk and we are all targets. Accept that, but don’t fear it. Choking to death on your sandwich is still a greater danger. We need to draw some lines and say enough is enough. We’ve done what we can to reduce our vulnerability to attack. Beyond a certain point lies the realm of “acceptable risk.”
Looks like when TSA employees are required to "touch our junk" we have bumped up against that line.
As Ronald Bailey wrote in Reason magazine:
That’s how you wipe that smirk off of Osama’s face.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The principles of asymmetric warfare are working like a charm. The United States, the mightiest nation on earth, the most powerful nation in the entirety of human history, is dancing like a marionette on strings pulled by terrorist specters.
The traveling public and the national media are in full frenzy mode over new body scanning technology and, er, thorough patdowns at airports. The outcry has grown to the point where the TSA is pleading with the public not to engage in a boycott that could turn the busy Thanksgiving travel weekend into a total nightmare.
The outrage has spawned its own immortal phrase: “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”
Not exactly “Give me liberty or give me death” or “We would rather die in these ditches than give them up to the enemy” is it?
The threat of a bomb on an airplane is, of course, real. The attempt last Christmas by the “underwear bomber” was a serious one and so was the thwarted cargo plane bombing earlier this month. But the tactical beauty of asymmetric warfare is that attempts don’t have to succeed to create fear and disruption. The ever-present possibility of an attack is enough to set our transportation system on its ear.
A UPI poll indicates that, while people find the patdowns overly invasive, a pretty good-sized majority are OK with the body scans and are willing to let security trump privacy. The likelihood is that the current brouhaha will fade away in a week or two and body scans will become the new normal. Until the next threat or attempted attack ratchets up the tension again.
We have a strange attitude toward risk. The possibility of dying in a terrorist attack in America is infinitesimally small — and always has been, the 9/11 atrocity notwithstanding. You’re at far greater risk of death driving over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house this weekend.
At some point the law of diminishing returns has to kick in — ever greater security measures chasing an ever-smaller threat. Simply put, when it gets too difficult to bomb or hijack a plane, terrorists can always turn to other targets. Trains or subways as in Madrid or London — or a bomb-and-rifle attack on a shopping mall. Imagine the disruption that would ensue from a few coordinated attacks on shopping malls at the height of the Christmas season.
Living in a state of heightened anxiety over such deadly but rare episodes gives terrorism an impact far beyond its material effects. Creating that fear is, at once, the method, the tactics and the strategy of terrorism.
We are, in fact, at war with al-Qaeda and its ilk and we are all targets. Accept that, but don’t fear it. Choking to death on your sandwich is still a greater danger. We need to draw some lines and say enough is enough. We’ve done what we can to reduce our vulnerability to attack. Beyond a certain point lies the realm of “acceptable risk.”
Looks like when TSA employees are required to "touch our junk" we have bumped up against that line.
As Ronald Bailey wrote in Reason magazine:
...security measures — pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards — increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It's easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place — to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the "tools" they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty. As President Franklin Roosevelt in his first inaugural speech said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter — because it doesn’t really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized.
That’s how you wipe that smirk off of Osama’s face.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
“Conspiracy theories exacerbated by the local press”
The Sisters City Council and EDCO finally addressed concerns raised by citizens and one councilor over the process used to hire Mac Hay as Sisters’ economic development manager.
They did it begrudgingly and with poor grace, but they did it.
EDCO executive director Roger Lee, visibly annoyed at having to be there at all, explained to the council last Thursday EDCO’s candidate search and interview process. Lee wants to put to rest what he called “conspiracy theories in the Sisters community exacerbated by the local press.”
Whatever.
Can’t have those pesky citizens and reporters asking questions about how their local government (and its private, nonprofit agents) work.
A couple of ironies here: First, it wasn’t really EDCO’s feet that were being held to the fire; the fundamental question was whether the Mayor followed the city’s rules. City Attorney Steve Bryant makes a not-entirely-convincing argument that the rules didn’t apply in this case. Nobody’s going to fight it out in court, so the Mayor’s actions stand.
Second — and most importantly — if Lee had explained the process six weeks ago, when questions first arose, instead of saying essentially, “We don’t have to and we ain’t gonna,” this whole issue would have long since blown over. Better yet, the city could have checked in advance on whether they were following their own ordinances and explained to their constituents how things were going to work.
Thursday’s theme was “let’s move on.” That’s all well and good; everybody’s sick of the issue and we do need to pull together and support Hay’s efforts. But it really should be recognized that it wasn’t the people asking the questions but the people who refused to answer them that dragged this little controversy out for SIX WEEKS.
A little due process up front would have saved a lot of headaches at the back end. Failing that, more responsiveness would have cleared the air a lot sooner. That should be a lesson learned, but Lee’s attitude and the attitude of some on the council makes me think the same thing is going to happen again. Too bad.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
They did it begrudgingly and with poor grace, but they did it.
EDCO executive director Roger Lee, visibly annoyed at having to be there at all, explained to the council last Thursday EDCO’s candidate search and interview process. Lee wants to put to rest what he called “conspiracy theories in the Sisters community exacerbated by the local press.”
Whatever.
Can’t have those pesky citizens and reporters asking questions about how their local government (and its private, nonprofit agents) work.
A couple of ironies here: First, it wasn’t really EDCO’s feet that were being held to the fire; the fundamental question was whether the Mayor followed the city’s rules. City Attorney Steve Bryant makes a not-entirely-convincing argument that the rules didn’t apply in this case. Nobody’s going to fight it out in court, so the Mayor’s actions stand.
Second — and most importantly — if Lee had explained the process six weeks ago, when questions first arose, instead of saying essentially, “We don’t have to and we ain’t gonna,” this whole issue would have long since blown over. Better yet, the city could have checked in advance on whether they were following their own ordinances and explained to their constituents how things were going to work.
Thursday’s theme was “let’s move on.” That’s all well and good; everybody’s sick of the issue and we do need to pull together and support Hay’s efforts. But it really should be recognized that it wasn’t the people asking the questions but the people who refused to answer them that dragged this little controversy out for SIX WEEKS.
A little due process up front would have saved a lot of headaches at the back end. Failing that, more responsiveness would have cleared the air a lot sooner. That should be a lesson learned, but Lee’s attitude and the attitude of some on the council makes me think the same thing is going to happen again. Too bad.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Populists vs. the elites
America is going through one of its periodic paroxysms of populism.
It’s a fundamental feature of the political and cultural landscape in a country founded on the principle “that all men are created equal.” We don’t like folks who set themselves above us, as a general thing.
The Tea Party has gone hard after the “elites” — by which they mean the inside-the-Beltway Washington insiders, academics, the media. They’ve been easier on the usual targets of left-wing or “progressive” populism: the financial elites, those that Theodore Roosevelt (a progressive but not a populist) pungently called “malefactors of great wealth.”
I have some sympathy with the disdain for the “elites.” I have fond memories of going toe-to-toe with Marxist academics in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, whose prattling about “the workers” only demonstrated that they didn’t actually know any — and wouldn’t have liked ’em if they did. They certainly wouldn’t have liked “the workers” at the glass company I worked for during the summers. Way too “bourgeois.”
I’ve also spent a little time waging guerrilla warfare against a literary establishment that looks down its nose at genre fiction that, in my estimation, offers more treasures than any navel-gazing exploration of the angst of the northeastern suburban intellectual soul.
There is a long tradition in Anglo-American culture of believing in the wisdom and virtue of “plain folks.” And it’s a valid tradition.
But it has a dark and dangerous side. It can too easily fall into a fetishization of ignorance. Rejection of expert opinion simply because it is expert opinion (and conflicts with our ideological biases) is foolish. The reflexive rejection of the “elite” is part of a psychology that allows us to settle for mediocrity in education and leads our culture to celebrate fame for its own sake above genuine accomplishment.
We demand that our presidential candidates be “the kinda guy I could have a beer with.” We’re less rigorous about attainments that demonstrate wisdom, intellectual acuity and real leadership capabilities. I don’t want political leaders who get elected because Joe Six Pack can relate to them. I want political leaders who are smarter, tougher and more capable than average folks.
Words are tricky things. “Elite” often means something good; “elitism” usually connotes snobbery. We need to separate the two in our thinking so that attacks on illegitimate high-hat snobbery don’t slide into exaltation of simple-mindedness.
When I hear “elite” I think of our most highly-trained and motivated warriors (I’m talkin’ to you, Greg). I think of the geniuses who push our technological capabilities forward in ways the rest of us can barely imagine. I think of artists who have dedicated themselves completely to the perfection of their skills and produce works of timeless value. I think of athletes who perform at a level the rest of us duffers can only dream about.
A genuine populism does not reject authentic elites — it celebrates the possibility that anyone with sufficient talent and drive can attain elite status in their chosen field.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
It’s a fundamental feature of the political and cultural landscape in a country founded on the principle “that all men are created equal.” We don’t like folks who set themselves above us, as a general thing.
The Tea Party has gone hard after the “elites” — by which they mean the inside-the-Beltway Washington insiders, academics, the media. They’ve been easier on the usual targets of left-wing or “progressive” populism: the financial elites, those that Theodore Roosevelt (a progressive but not a populist) pungently called “malefactors of great wealth.”
I have some sympathy with the disdain for the “elites.” I have fond memories of going toe-to-toe with Marxist academics in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, whose prattling about “the workers” only demonstrated that they didn’t actually know any — and wouldn’t have liked ’em if they did. They certainly wouldn’t have liked “the workers” at the glass company I worked for during the summers. Way too “bourgeois.”
I’ve also spent a little time waging guerrilla warfare against a literary establishment that looks down its nose at genre fiction that, in my estimation, offers more treasures than any navel-gazing exploration of the angst of the northeastern suburban intellectual soul.
There is a long tradition in Anglo-American culture of believing in the wisdom and virtue of “plain folks.” And it’s a valid tradition.
But it has a dark and dangerous side. It can too easily fall into a fetishization of ignorance. Rejection of expert opinion simply because it is expert opinion (and conflicts with our ideological biases) is foolish. The reflexive rejection of the “elite” is part of a psychology that allows us to settle for mediocrity in education and leads our culture to celebrate fame for its own sake above genuine accomplishment.
We demand that our presidential candidates be “the kinda guy I could have a beer with.” We’re less rigorous about attainments that demonstrate wisdom, intellectual acuity and real leadership capabilities. I don’t want political leaders who get elected because Joe Six Pack can relate to them. I want political leaders who are smarter, tougher and more capable than average folks.
Words are tricky things. “Elite” often means something good; “elitism” usually connotes snobbery. We need to separate the two in our thinking so that attacks on illegitimate high-hat snobbery don’t slide into exaltation of simple-mindedness.
When I hear “elite” I think of our most highly-trained and motivated warriors (I’m talkin’ to you, Greg). I think of the geniuses who push our technological capabilities forward in ways the rest of us can barely imagine. I think of artists who have dedicated themselves completely to the perfection of their skills and produce works of timeless value. I think of athletes who perform at a level the rest of us duffers can only dream about.
A genuine populism does not reject authentic elites — it celebrates the possibility that anyone with sufficient talent and drive can attain elite status in their chosen field.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
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