Our Quote of the Day is from Theodore
Roosevelt who said, "There
is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that's
softness of head."
Some observations on the news...
Finally someone in our government has gone on notice against
the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to her
considerable credit, met with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in
northern India, site of Tibet's government-in-exile, and called
for "an independent outside investigation on accusations
made by the Chinese government that His Holiness [the Dalai Lama]
was the instigator of violence in Tibet." She added, "The
situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world.
If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out
against China and the Chinese in Tibet, we have lost all moral
authority to speak out on human rights." Pelosi said that
while she isn't seeking a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, but
the "world is watching" what the Chinese do in Tibet.
Peace talks are bearing fruit in Cyprus. The Turkish and Greek
leaders there have agreed to reopening Ledra Street, which runs
through the divided 600-year-old capital city of Nicosia. The
street has been barricaded for decades, a symbol of the intransigence
of the two sides to come to terms with their sharing the island.
Ledra Street should be reopened by the end of March.
When does religious devotion cross the line of insanity? The
answer is personal. In the Philippines, there is a man who has
had himself crucified on Good Friday 22 times, screaming in agony
as nails are driven through his hands and feet into a cross.
After five minutes they are removed. Seven other men in the town
also got themselves crucified today. One former Catholic wag
here in California wondered about sort of god would encourage,
or even allow, such behavior in his name.
Congratulations to the party hacks who run the national Democratic
party and the state parties in Michigan and Florida. They aren't
the only idiots messing up the political scene with their depravity
and incompetence, but this year they have risen to the very top
of the cesspool. In defiance of the Democratic National Committee's
edict that only four states could conduct their primaries and
caucuses before February 4th, Michigan held their primary on
January 15th and Florida held theirs two weeks later. They had
been warned not to, that their delegates wouldn't be seated at
the Denver nominating convention, but that didn't deter them.
None of the candidates campaigned in either state and Hillarod
was the only one who left her name on the Michigan ballot, enabling
her to win the bulk of the vote against that incorrigible opponent, "Uncommitted".
She also won in Florida. But when it came time to deal with reality
- that the states had conducted their elections in violation
of the national party's rules and the DNC wasn't going to budge
- efforts were made in the nation's fourth and eighth largest
states to figure out a new way to poll their party faithful...but
they failed.
Perhaps it was inevitable that they wouldn't come up with a
viable plan, since there was a whole slew of conflicting interests
- Hillarod and Obama, state and national, executive and legislative
- who were never going to agree. Both states declared that they
had failed to come up with an acceptable plan and have dumped
the issue in the hands of the national committee. The DNC rules
committee will meet next month and try to work something out.
If they do, we can be sure that most everyone will be unhappy
with the resolution.
For those who cynically believe that most of our institutions
are failing, more evidence is supplied by the once-heralded Red
Cross. The charity got slammed for its mishandling of the mess
in New Orleans after Katrina hit. There were reports of infighting,
mismanagement and squandered resources. Now it's reported that
the Red Cross paid $688,000 for unused hotel rooms during the
fires in Southern California. Some 6,000 rooms, or about 22%
of the total number of rooms booked at hotels in the San Diego
area went unused. It's good to be prepared, but spending nearly
$700,000 on unneeded facilities is yet another demonstration
of incompetence.
If Geraldine Ferraro knows anything it isn't when to keep her
mouth shut. She knocked herself off the Clinton campaign finance
committee, albeit a mostly ceremonial post, by her comments that
Barack-O wouldn't be where he was if he were white. Even though
there was a measure of truth in her remarks, she was unnecessarily
clumsy in their delivery and failed to provide adequate context
for her thoughts. She stuck her foot back in her mouth yesterday
by complaining that Obama alluded to her comments, though not
by name, in his well-received speech on race and divisiveness.
Ferraro objected to the inferred comparison with Preacher Wright.
Carped Fritz Mondale's 1984 running mate, "To equate what
I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is
unbelievable. He gave a very good speech on race relations, but
he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing
hatred." Not long afterwards a photograph surfaced of Wright
meeting with Slick Willie at the White House in 1998.
Governor Ahnold was behind a terrible plan to put a highway
through a state park. He wanted to run a toll road through a
beautiful piece of land by the San Onofre State Beach in San
Diego County. There was tremendous opposition. The only people
who supported it were developers, and the unions who would get
money to, as Joni Mitchell put it, pave over paradise put up
a parking lot. Among the opposition were most of the folks on
the state parks commission, including the governor's brother-in-law,
Bobby Shriver, and fellow Republication action-hero actor Clint
Eastwood. So Ahnold has decided that their slots on the commission
should go to others who would be more likely to do the governor's
bidding. Just politics, you know, and it again reveals the mercurially
second-class character of this governor.
Scooter Libby was banned from practicing law in our nation's
capital. The ruling by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
had been expected. Libby was convicted of perjury in the leak
of CIA manager Valerie Plame's identity to punish her husband
for revealing lies by the White House that helped to persuade
the American public that Saddam Hussein was obtaining material
to make nuclear weapons. Libby, who should be doing hard time
for treason, was instead subsequently pardoned by The Bush Boy.
Doesn't that all seem so long ago?
An investigation of the collapse in New York City of building
crane in which seven people were killed has netted a building
inspector who claimed to have investigated the site on March
4th but in fact had not. Irony of ironies, his failure to inspect
had nothing to do with the collapse of the crane on March 15th.
In fact, there had been several other inspections in the interim
and none of them turned up flaws in the procedures that would
have caused the crash.
SetonnoteS
One of my favorite films is "The Big Chill." It was
directed by Lawrence Kasdan and featured a bunch of then-unknown
actors who went on to become known for their talent. Watch the
movie, the uncut version, and you'll see what I mean.
I mention the film because there is a particular moment in it
that has been swirling around my head of late. It has to do with
Kevin Kline confronting William Hurt. They had been students
together in the Sixties and now Kline was a successful businessman
and Hurt, a Vietnam vet who has bounced around from one thing
to another, was driving a Porsche and involved in drugs. At this
point in the film, Hurt had been pulled over for a traffic violation
and had been brought back to the Kline house by a local cop,
who didn't press charges because the cop was a friend of Kline's.
After the cop leaves, Kline acerbically asks Hurt if jail is
just another experience he wants to try. It gets Hurt's attention
and...well, rent the film.
I bring up this moment because having lots of experiences is
a good thing, if people are living their lives openly and purposefully;
as opposed to criminally. Some experience happen by design, some
serendipitously. If you believe in a larger reality - that there
is some force in the universe of which we are a part and which
guides us - then you might infer that many of these experiences
are designed to teach us, to move us in directions that will
make us better people. I truly believe that there is some sort
of system and that it's ultimate purpose is to make a better
world.
(Sigh. That said, there are times when I think that who ever
is in charge might have been distracted by a soccer match or
is napping off a second large glass of single malt.)
Some of the lessons are very tough, especially when they require
unlearning of behavior patterns that have been with us from our
beginning; from the time we invented them in our early childhood.
We created these response mechanisms - personal macros, if you
will - to negotiate our way through our world. I do not speak
of them lightly. Sometimes these patterns protected us or gave
us a feeling of safety in what we sensed were dangerous situations.
For instance, how to avoid confrontations with an abusive parent..
So most of these patterns are deeply engrained, both in terms
of years and the life-saving importance we gain them.
But the world has changed, our consciousness has broadened and
we've learned different ways to interpret the world around us,
and new ways to adjust our defense perimeters. That greater awareness
requires that we stop reacting "automatically" in the
same ways that we have since our earlier years.
Using our more introspective mind we can discover how to defuse
the patterned reactions, or to tailor them differently. Ultimately,
we will not to run macros, especially not the way we created
them originally. As we learn more about ourselves, we discover
the greater value of engaging our lives more spontaneously, more
of the time.
The process of unlearning the macros makes for a healthier soul.
We discover we are more capable than we thought of dealing with
all sorts of challenges, and of producing better results. And
finally, it's worth it, because we get to have many more new
and interesting experiences.
And that's SetonnoteS...for March 21st
Respectfully,
Tony Seton
* * * * * * *
Tony Seton
Quality News Network
PO Box 2318
Monterey CA 93942
