Election Anxiety on The Huffington Post

Jennifer Merolla Ph.D.: Cracks in Obama's Coalition or Conventional Wisdom?

2009-11-09T17:38:03Z

There have been countless articles this week interpreting the electoral tea leaves. One common interpretation of the results is that there may be some cracks in the coalition that ushered Obama into office. The stories generally then conclude that these cracks may serve as a warning sign for Democrats in the future.

An example of this type of article appeared the day after the election in the Washington Post in an article by Dan Balz. In assessing the results of the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, he argued: "Neither gubernatorial election amounted to a referendum on the president, but the changing shape of the electorate in both states and the shifts among key constituencies revealed cracks in the Obama 2008 faction."

In particular, McDonnell's win over Democratic challenger Deeds ended eight years of Democratic control of the governorship in Virginia, while Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic governor Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

As evidence of a fracturing coalition, Balz pointed to the fact that Independents, who overwhelmingly broke for Barack Obama in the 2008 election were key to the Republican wins in Virginia and New Jersey. Exit polls in Virginia showed that McDonnell led Deeds by a 2 to 1 ratio among Independents. Poll results leading up to the election also revealed that Independents were becoming disaffected with some of Obama's policies.

The conventional wisdom among political scientists is that voters punish incumbents during poor economic times, and this is especially the case among those who are not strongly committed to a political party. Balz's account of Independents could be correct or at least correct for some Independents. Some may have punished the Democratic candidates for discontent with Obama's handling of the national economy. This would be an indicator of cracks in Obama's coalition, at least among Independents in these two states.

There is another way to interpret the behavior of Independents. Some independents may have only been focused on state economic conditions and the race in that state. In an article in Politico, Jonathan Martin revealed information that Creigh Deeds' pollster, David Petts, was actually advising Deeds to keep a distance from Obama, which would have separated national politics from the state level race. If some Independents were only looking at who the incumbent party happened to be in their state, then they would punish the incumbent party, which happened to be the Democratic Party in each state. If the incumbent party was instead Republican, then they may have supported the Democratic candidates. According to this interpretation, Independents have not necessarily shifted their behavior from 2008 to now since they are consistently voting against incumbent parties in the face of poor economic performance.

It is likely that both types of interpretations were present among Independents voting in Virginia and New Jersey, especially since these are state level races. If we look ahead to the 2010 congressional elections, it is probable that Balz's interpretation may end up carrying more weight since congressional races are national level affairs.

As another indicator of cracks in Obama's coalition, Balz discussed the fact that turnout was much lower among voters under 30 compared to their presence in the 2008 race. In Virginia, they only accounted for 10 percent of the electorate compared to the 20 percent they represented in the presidential election. If the youth continue to stay home, then it may pose a problem for Democrats in the future.

Conventional wisdom would have predicted that turnout among the youth would be lower than it was in the 2008 race. Turnout is typically much lower when there is not a presidential race on the ballot and the voters who show up at the polls in these contexts tend to be older, more partisan, and higher in socio-economic status. It is likely that voters under 30 will again show lower turnout in 2010 compared to 2008, but that does not mean that they will necessarily stay home in 2012. If they were mobilized into politics in part by Obama's presence in the race, then they may turnout just as strong in 2012. In short, Obama's coalition may not necessarily translate into the Democratic coalition.

While some have made a fairly convincing case that there may be warning signals for the Democratic Party, I would caution against reading too deeply into the electoral tea leaves. First, there are not really enough cases to make broad generalizations. Second, there are several alternative explanations we can use to explain some of the outcomes.

Michael Russnow: David Letterman Apology Redux: Shame on Dave for Buckling Under to Palin's Lies

2009-06-16T06:21:17Z

I feel sad for David Letterman, because in spite of the reasons he put forth in his latest mea culpa Monday night on The Late Show, he caved in, I believe, out of misplaced fear that he might be banished from his late night throne.

He won't admit it, but I believe it's true. In my article last week I felt he went too far when he went on and on about how he would never, ever tell a sexual joke about a fourteen-year-old. He looked straight at the camera and then said something to the effect of, "Hey, I'm sorry we made a mistake as to who was at the game, but you have to believe I was talking about Sarah Palin's adult daughter Bristol." All this, though there was little question that the vast majority of people who had watched knew Letterman's joke was about the Palin daughter who'd gained national fame as an expectant teenage mother.

It wasn't a great joke, but it was typical Letterman humor. This is a man who routinely makes fun of people in the news, often with fantasy references, so the Alex Rodriguez sex tryst fell right in with his normal fare. The sexual escapade was obviously phony and concerned a young woman who'd been much talked about in the national media regarding her youthful promiscuity -- a young lady whose fruits were paraded at the Republican convention and during the campaign by her ambitious mother.

Why couldn't Letterman joke about Bristol? You mean it's okay to make constant fun -- even today eleven years later -- of Monica Lewinsky, still the butt of his monologue barbs, not to mention unkind comments about her weight? And as to his probable left-leaning politics, it didn't stop Letterman from ad nausea comic slurs about Bill Clinton and Hillary's conjugal relationship.

I repeat, no one of any reasonable intelligence thought he was talking about the fourteen-year-old Willow Palin. It was her mother who framed it as such, due to some bad research on the Letterman staff's part, as there was only a passing mention to an unnamed Palin daughter at the Yankee game. It was Sarah Palin, a two bit governor of one of our nation's smallest states and the bottom half of a failed presidential campaign, who, in her zeal to stay in the spotlight, jumped at the chance to get back at one of the many comic commentators who've previously enjoyed many jokes at her expense. And she kept repeating it and repeating it even well after Letterman -- in a smart move to quickly defuse the controversy -- clarified rather emotionally last week on his show that it was Bristol who was the gag's target.

Did Palin change her tune and say, "Oh, but even though you were talking about Bristol it's still not right," which might have been questionable due to her daughter's adult age, not to mention her appearances on TV talk shows about abstinence. But she didn't and chose to ignore the truth, and at that point Palin was no longer a protective mother but an out and out liar.

However, she is not alone to blame, because the media wouldn't let up and gave Sarah Palin far too much leash, rarely questioning her motives or forcing her to deal with Letterman's clarification that the remarks were about Bristol. Indeed, many of the scathing TV attacks featuring Palin let her put forth blistering remarks, characterizing Letterman as a lecher and possibly a pedophile. There were TV reports that actually ended the story there, with no follow-up information that Letterman repeatedly had denied the joke was about the younger daughter, no doubt leaving some watching the news to believe Palin had all her facts in order.

The media coverage was so absurd that, according to Letterman, he felt obliged to apologize again. In particular, because of a remark condemning him by Mark Shields on the PBS Jim Lehrer Report. For Mark Shields to continue spreading Palin's lies about Letterman's joke, saying it was "indefensible," and that Letterman must have been aware he was talking about a 14-year-old was insupportable. It apparently hit Letterman hard, though, leading to his second apology last night.

Look, Letterman is in show biz and is probably a bit egocentric and neurotic. He kept going on about how his intent didn't matter, that it was the perception that counted. But how could there be such a perception, except for the media driving it with unrelenting zeal?

So Letterman buckled under the pressure, and that's too bad, because what he has done in this unusual act of cowardice -- he was one of my heroes -- is open the door for other groups to complain and/or to make him think far too much about satirizing anyone in the future. Satire full of silliness, setting famous people in places and situations clearly untrue in order to pay off the punch line. And his barbs spare almost no one or group.

For goodness sake, he has continually made fun of short people with his constant references to New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg as such. He has mocked old folks, including his mother, about whom he has told nonsensical jokes about her drinking. He has contrasted our president's schedule with John McCain's, giving images of the Arizona U.S. Senator that make him look like someone with borderline Alzheimer's disease, engaged in run of the mill tasks to fill his time. He has offended gay folks with jokes like, "Did you watch the Tonys last night? [after applause]: You must all be gay." And he routinely mocks the ethnicity and competence of New York City taxi drivers.

So I worry, I really do, where all this will lead. It may make CBS happier and it may reassure Letterman's future on his late night forum, but will the show be as good if he has to worry about what he's going to say? Ironically, his monologue prior to his apology had zingers and political humor, and he made fun of the controversy, but all at his own expense. Apart from self-deprecatory remarks, will he now start to censor himself beforehand with his writers and, worse, when he interacts with his guests on the panel? All it has to take is another person to seriously complain and mislead the media and public as Sarah Palin has shamelessly done.

Letterman may insist this is the end of it and he will go back to essentially the way things were. I hope he does, but I won't believe it's true until he gets back on the proverbial horse which recently threw him and summarily launches another zinger at Palin when she deserves it.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com

Virginia Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Vie For Black Vote

2009-06-08T09:55:41Z

In a race without a clear front-runner, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (Bath), former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe and former state delegate Brian Moran (Alexandria) have touted endorsements from civil rights leaders and black newspapers, mailed thousands of fliers and competed on radio for support in areas that are not a natural base for any of the three.

David O. Stewart: Putting "Justice" Back Into D.O.J.

2009-04-06T16:52:58Z

Sometimes the good news can slip right past us, so it's important to savor it when it happens. New Attorney General Eric Holder is the source of this month's cautious hope that the rule of law is returning to the Department of (irony intentionally withheld) Justice.

Several weeks ago, Holder set the hearts of rule-of-law junkies aflutter when he directed that the government abandon its long-held position that Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a legal resident of Peoria, IL, could be detained indefinitely by the military without ever being charged with a crime. Now Al-Marri is preparing for trial in an Illinois federal court, just the way the Framers of the Constitution intended.

Last week the news was more startling: the Justice Department was throwing in the towel in its prosecution of longtime Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Confronted with evidence of substantial misconduct by Stevens' prosecutors -- including the suppression of evidence that contradicted star government witnesses -- Holder directed that the charges be dismissed.

This, brothers and sisters, is a big deal. It takes a lot of work to nail a sitting senator, and it had to hurt to give up the convictions returned last fall by a District of Columbia jury.

In doing so, Holder gave every indication that he actually believes the statement painted on the wall outside the office of the Attorney General: ''The United States wins its point in court when justice is done.'' The new Attorney General is bound to have some rocky times during his term in office, but he's entitled to enjoy the thought that he has begun to retrieve the reputation and self-respect of an agency that was savaged by the last administration.

The litany of outrages from the last regime is long:

-- The politically-motivated firing of United States Attorneys;

-- The use of prosecutorial powers to suppress voter registration efforts;

-- The approval of torture;

-- The application of political litmus tests in the hiring of line attorneys, whose job performance should never turn on their political thinking;

-- the approval of unprecedented intrusions on personal communications of American citizens.

The current, bracing moment of DOJ glasnost should not obscure the problems that the Bush Justice Department brought front-and-center: When the president's lawyers are not independent of the president, there is a material risk that the rule of law will suffer.

This was one of several trenchant points set out by Prof. Garrett Epps in a recent article in The Atlantic. Epps urged the intriguing proposal that the Attorney General be elected directly by the people, to ensure that the nation's chief lawyer will not be the toady of the president. After all, forty-seven states elect their state attorneys general, so that approach is widely followed by . . . Americans!

Making the position elected, which would require a constitutional amendment, would surely change it in some ways, not all of which would be terrific. Political campaigns would focus on hot-button social issues like drug enforcement, the death penalty, terrorism, and abortion. Pandering will ensue. Then again, most of our political campaigns already have those characteristics.

An elective office will draw a different type of person than we are used to having as Attorney General. Candidates will have to be skilled in political persuasion, campaigning, and fund-raising. Also, fund-raising.

But the current system has given us Attorneys General who were (i) the president's brother (Robert Kennedy), and (ii) a presidential sidekick nicknamed "Fredo," evoking the hapless middle brother of the fictional Corleone clan (Alberto Gonzales). It's hard to think that Madison and Washington dreamed of a government whose chief legal officer would have those qualities.

Moreover, electing the attorney general would not strip the president of intimate legal advisers. With the metastatic growth of the Office of White House Counsel, President Obama can turn to upwards of 20 lawyers on delicate issues. Why shouldn't the people also have their own lawyer?

We are supposed to have a government of laws, not of men. An independent Department of Justice might turn out to embody the principles of justice all the time, not just when we are lucky enough to have an Attorney General dedicated to enforcing the rule of law.

Marc Gunther: The Recession Hits Home

2008-12-16T18:44:58Z

Oops! I got scooped on the news of my own layoff. Willie Brent had it first on his blog, and then my friend Joel Makower reported the story, as part of a blogpost headlined, "Are environmental journalists an endangered species?" He writess:

Just after Thanksgiving, Fortune magazine gave layoff notices to Marc Gunther, one of the leading business writers on corporate environmental practices (whose blogs also appear on GreenBiz.com), along with Todd Woody, whose coverage of clean technology has led the pack. (Gunther has been asked to stick around as a "contributing writer" and again chair next year's Brainstorm: Green event.)

Joel got it right, as usual. I got the word on Dec. 4, as Time Inc. and Fortune announced their latest round of layoffs, reported to involved 600 positions in all. Why? The economic slump, of course, and an even more drastic downturn in print journalism, which is creating tremendous pressures on editors everywhere. They didn't get into this business to fire people.

No layoff is fun, and the timing of this one stung. I think the environment will become a huge business story, especially post-recession. The Obama administration is ready to regulate, and greenhouse gas controls or taxes, once in place, will have more impact on corporate America than anything -- yes, anything -- that has come out of Washington in years. Influential companies like Wal-Mart and GE are driving sustainability initiatives throughout the global economy. Young people are passionate about green, and they will bring pressures to bear, as consumers and employees. The China and India environmental stories are only getting bigger. I would have enjoyed covering all that for Fortune.

Still, Fortune handled my situation gracefully and so I hope to stay involved with the magazine. I'm biased but I think Fortune is easily the best business mag around. I've loved working there for the past 12 years, with a great group of colleagues. If we can work out the details, I hope to again chair Brainstorm: Green, Fortune's conference about business and the environment and I may well contribute freelance stories to Fortune or fortune.com. I've got one terrific story in the works now.

What, then, lies ahead? I don't know, though a number of intriguing possibilities are emerging, even as I have just begun to look around. I want two things, above all. The first is to work with people I like and whose values I share. The second is to make a difference in the world. Of course, I'd like to work on sustainability (broadly defined) and business; that's where my expertise and my network can best be put to use. Ideally, I'd love to be able to spend some time in the developing world. (Wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to "green" China, India and Africa, while helping to alleviate global poverty?) Beyond that, I'm going to keep an open mind, considering part-time or full-time work in the world of business or NGOs: writing, speaking, consulting. Blogreaders, you can find me at marc.gunther@gmail.com!

(By the way, I realized the other day that I am far more fortunate that most people who are losing their jobs when I came across this eye-popping statistic in Tim Harford's Slate column: "The median job-loser in the United States has $200 [in savings] when he loses his job..." One more reason why we need to restore the value of thrift in America.)

By coincidence, yesterday morning I read the "On Work" column in the Financial Times by Lucy Kellaway, whose writing I enjoy. The headline: "Money, not meaning, is the new secret of happy work."

Kellaway writes:

Over the past decade, the rich, professional classes have developed an increasingly unhealthy attitude to their jobs...We demanded that work be interesting in itself and, even more preposterously, that it should have meaning.

The result of all these demands was, of course, dissatisfaction. We had climbed to the very top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and discovered that, at the top of the pyramid, the air was very thin indeed....

In the past few months, anguish of this sort has vanished. When one's job is at risk and one's savings are a shadow of their former selves, the search for meaning at work is meaningless.

What a dispiriting thought.

Even as a newly drafted member of what Marx once called "the reserve army of the unemployed," I could not disagree more. Yes, we need to work to feed and house ourselves and our families. But we spend far too many hours a day on the job to settle for work that delivers money without meaning. Indeed, it's the very fact that so many of us want to bring our whole selves to work that will drive business to be more socially and environmentally responsibility. Purpose and profits -- we can have it all.

Unexpectedly, I'm energized by the chance to start a new chapter in my life, and especially by the possibility that I may be able to magnify my impact. Maybe it's time for this reporter-spectator to climb out of the bleachers and get onto the field. We'll soon see.

John Wellington Ennis: Ken Blackwell for RNC Chair

2008-12-16T14:52:49Z

It's not often that you will see the same endorsement on Townhall.com as on the Huffington Post, so let's savor this in the newfound era of post-partisanship.

J. Kenneth Blackwell, the former Secretary of State of Ohio whose administration of the 2004 election made Katherine Harris look like Mary Tyler Moore, is aggressively pushing to become the next chair of the Republican National Committee when its 168 members convene in 2009 to figure out how to pull their party out of the deep, dank hole they have dug themselves into. And I for one support his selection wholeheartedly.

I have spent a tremendous amount of time studying Ken Blackwell. I made a feature length documentary, FREE FOR ALL!, which examines his corrupt stewardship of Ohio elections. Just a few of Ken's greatest hits:

-Purging a quarter of Cleveland's register voters, one of the most Democratic counties in the country.

-Rewarding no-bid contracts to Diebold for its voting machines, while owning stock in the company, your basic illegal conflict of interest.

-Going to court numerous times to make voting even more difficult.

-And when questioned about such anti-democratic maneuvers, the belicose Blackwell emerges, disrespecting the late, beloved U.S. Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

But I'm not here to focus on Ken Blackwell's tireless war against democracy.

You see, in covering Ken Blackwell during his hapless bid for Ohio governor in 2006, I eventually realized that he requires another documentary to do justice to what a poor politician he is the rest of the time when he is not trying to subvert the electorate. (Coming in 2009!)

Here are some qualities the new RNC Chair should have, and how Ken Blackwell measures up to them.

The RNC Chair should be able to navigate past the party's previous losses and expand the brand appeal.

Since the election, many Republicans have stressed that the divisive platform of extreme conservatism not only drives away the expanding electorate, it limits the party's ability to talk about far more relevant issues. (Like the economy, stupid.)

Cut to Blackwell, stressing himself as a "full-portfolio conservative." His very word choice belies how he has amassed conservative credits like a starving actor on IMDB. His titles from the Family Research Council, the NRA, and more help to bury his opportunistic ascension through Cincinnati politics, starting as an African-American activist in college, on to the city council as a Democrat, to Independent, to fiscal conservative, to far right today.

His greatest conservative achievement is championing the amendment that banned same sex marriage in Ohio, even though two other laws previously existed against gay marriage. Blackwell has closely tied himself to the evangelical right wing base, and ratcheted up the heretic talk like he's the Spanish Inquisition.

The RNC Chair should have the respect of his party's leaders.

On page 347 of his book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward describes W.'s apparent fondness for Blackwell during election night, 2004, as he sat in the White House waiting for the election forecasts to swing his way:

At 2:43 a.m., someone noted that Bush was ahead in the popular vote nationwide, prompting the President to sneer, "If the popular vote made it, I wouldn't be here."

The campaign was left to anxiously wait for a statement from Kenneth Blackwell, a former black power student leader who had morphed into Ohio's gadfly Republican secretary of state.

"I'm the President of the United States," Bush fumed, "waiting on a secretary of state who is a nut."

And that was when Blackwell was delivering Ohio at all costs. Does Ken still think he's in the club?

The RNC Chair should know how to get votes.

Ken Blackwell lost his bid for governor by 24 points. His unpopularity dragged down the rest of the Republican ticket in 2006, sealing a takeover by the Democrats and ending the GOP's one party rule that had lasted 16 years. There arguably isn't a Democrat who could affect such a swing.

The RNC Chair should know how to wage an effective campaign.

Blackwell's strategy was simple: All negative, all the time. In the Republican primary for governor, Blackwell savaged his fellow cabinet member Jim Petro with ads that linked him with the Tom Noe pay-to-play scandal Coingate that had ruined the Ohio GOP. Lost in these ads were that Blackwell is also in the Ohio GOP, having also received money from the same Tom Noe, now serving 18 years in prison.

Bob Bennett, the Ohio GOP Chairman not normally known for prescience, had this to sayw about Blackwell: "A man who models himself after Ronald Reagan should have a little more respect for winning on ideas and vision. He knows the accusations in these ads are politically motivated, and this kind of gutteral politics doesn't win votes. If we can't win with substantive ideas for leading Ohio, we don't belong in the race."

In the general gubernatorial race against the Democrat, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, Blackwell lagged in the polls the entire race. His strategy for a turnaround? In the final debate, Blackwell dramatically--however illogically--sought to tie his opponent to NAMBLA. The lowest of the low in scare tactics, it appalled Ohioans, and only cemented Blackwell's defeat.

The RNC Chair should know how to speak.

I am no Peggy Noonan (cough!) but I suspect that in debating an Obama administration, there will be a priority on eloquence.

Blackwell's call to arms in 2006 for civic involvement: "Whether or not we will choose to be thermometers that just take the temperature of our culture, or whether or not we will be thermostats to turn up the heat and define and shape and influence the morays of our culture."

Besides being uninspiring rhetoric (not to mention an incomplete sentence), this oft-repeated meme really just reminded Ohioans how expensive home heating had become. One camera crew I worked with in Ohio had just put in a wood-burning stove to fight their heating bills.

The RNC Chair should have a clue about using New Media to further the party.

Ken Blackwell is proud that he has a Facebook page, and that it even got coverage. What a techie! You'd think with such cutting edge technology such as "spell check," (like on my pirated Microsoft Word 97) he'd be able to spell his own name correctly as he lamely tries to tie Obama to Blago, which even most of the anonymous hotheads at Free Republic could do with more conviction.

Look at this cutting edge video from 2006 to see how he pre-dates Obama's Internet youth army. Just make a mock up of the MTV logo circa 1981, and those whippersnappers will be dying to go door to door for you!

In conclusion, I think that most readers of Huffington Post will join me in supporting Ken Blackwell to lead the Republican Party to a dismal future. Indeed, his penchant for election fraud may be their only chance left.

Bob Franken: Modern-Day Pyramids

2008-12-13T14:45:20Z

I don't really understand why we're paying so much attention to Bernard Madoff.

Oh sure sure, if the charges are accurate, the collapse of his Ponzi scheme might just put him in the Fraud Hall of Fame.

But he'll have plenty of company. In the world of finance, however, it's probably more accurate to say he will achieve new heights in the realm of illegal fraud.

As we're discovering, almost the entire economy is the moral equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.

Hyperbole? Well, let's see:

While the operating details may be different... somewhat anyway...it's undeniable that much of our financial and industrial structure is a Pyramid based on a phantom foundation.

It has been constructed by opportunists who were such con artists they didn't care whether it ultimately imploded, as long as they got theirs.

Or so inept they had no business around the building.

Or worst, the people who adopted the "Get along-go along" approach to success...never going against the grain, no matter what.

Those may be the most corrupt of all, since their expedient "make no waves" mentality was at the very least amoral, which is another way of saying immoral.

By the way, that would include the politicians who looked the other way so they could either get the crumbs in the form of campaign contributions, or because raising a stink was simply too much of a hassle.

Now that the chickens have come home to roost the home has caved in.

There are important differences between Madoff and the others:

First of all, he has not had the chutzpah to ask for a multi billion dollar loan to bail him out. At least so far.

Secondly, a sizable chunk of those who have been harmed by his enterprise are the prosperous, or soon-to-be former prosperous.

The rest of the financial schemes have damaged or destroyed the well-being of nearly everyone..rich, poor and somewhere in between, including those who believe that Ponzi was a character on "Happy Days"

During these UNhappy days, as we clean up this mess, we need to go beyond oversight regulation. It is essential that we write into the law prohibitions that drag a lot of these shady dealings and their dealers across that narrow line that separates barely legal and illegal.

In other words we need to call all this larcenous conduct what it is: A crime.

Trey Ellis: Things Fall Apart

2008-12-12T11:52:59Z

It seemed like a funny joke back when folks were saying that in the movies the only time America elects a black president is either pre-apocalyptic (Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact) or post-apocalyptic (Terry Alan Crews in Idiocracy).

It's maybe not so funny anymore.

Wherever you look, people whom you'd hope would have some inside knowledge of the American near future, seem to be losing their minds.

Sure, Governor Blago might have always been a hoodlum numbskull but how else to explain super lawyer Marc Dreier suddenly gambling an insanely lucrative legitimate career to try to con hedge funds out of as much as $380 million? And just yesterday seventy-year-old Wall Street legend Bernard L. Madoff stands accused of one of the most egregious white collar crimes in history -- bilking his investors of as much as $50 billion.

Do they know something we don't know? It's as if the risk of getting caught was outweighed by their panicked desire to get as much as they could before it's all gone.

It's as if the architect of the Titanic, minutes after they brushed the iceberg, said, "Don't mind me, I'm just going out for a smoke," when really, knowing what he knew about the ship's chances, stole into a lifeboat and set off alone into the dark cold waters.

Leo W. Gerard: America's Choice: Destruction or Construction

2008-12-12T11:41:20Z

From sea to shining sea, America is suffering.

She is, however, afflicted with an avoidable condition she brought on herself, like a hangover. Only this one's interminable and internationally contagious.

She did it by choosing over the past 30 years to establish an economy that worshiped avarice. That decision has destroyed her financial system and taken down with it much of the world's.

Now America must decide whether to be swayed by the greedy urging her to continue basing her economy on the destructive policies of deregulation, de-unionization, globalization and privatization or to construct a new financial system focused on industry and profit shared by the workers who produce it.

Over much of the 20th century, the nation created real wealth by manufacturing -- taking raw materials from the ground, using machines, energy and labor to convert them into products and selling those here and overseas. That process, to make steel or tires or washing machines, was the engine of the economy. In 1947, 32 percent of the workforce engaged in it belonged to unions, which meant workers received good wages and benefits. This enabled them to churn real money throughout the economy by buying homes and cars and television sets and sending their children to college. And it enabled them to save 7.5 percent of their earnings.

Then, in the 1980s, a new narrative for the economy emerged. In this story, greed was good. Self-interest was supposed to lead to the best outcomes for business. To accommodate this concept, Government de-regulated and, in fact, passed laws favoring big corporations and the nation's wealthiest citizens. The idea was that some of the prosperity they created as a result of the abolished protections for workers and the environment would trickle down.

This was the new economy.

This was a scam to move wealth from the middle class to the affluent. And it worked. In 1976, the richest 10 percent in this country possessed 49 percent of the wealth. In 2007, it was 73 percent.

During this time of bowing to corporate demands, the government actually gave multinational corporations tax benefits to offshore their U.S. manufacturing facilities. Sometimes they shut down, throwing hundreds of Americans out of work, then packed the factory pieces into crates, numbered piece by numbered piece, and shipped them to China or Indonesia or whatever country would allow blatant violation of its own labor and environmental regulations. Sometimes they closed American factories and built brand new ones overseas with breaks from foreign governments. As U.S. companies closed, union membership dropped to below 12 percent. And America found herself importing toxic lead-coated toys, paper made from trees illegally harvested in Indonesian national forests and untested pharmaceuticals.

Companies that remained here threatened to leave if workers didn't accept wage and benefit concessions. American workers were vilified for seeking a living wage while CEOs pulled millions out of corporations in annual bonuses.

The American economy began to depend less on manufacturing and more on the "financial sector," where profit was made moving money around, betting on stock trades, and participating in asset bubbles. Remember the tech bubble? That was manufactured value -- not manufactured goods -- and that's why it disappeared when the bubble burst.

The same has now happened with the housing bubble. Those smart guys on Wall Street, among the brilliant ones who sold America on the idea that greed was good, bet on housing prices never falling. A decline in home values never entered their calculations.

Then they fell. And they took down with them a couple of Wall Street banks and the largest insurance company in the world and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit markets and then the economy of the nation and the world.

Now workers are really in trouble.

They were struggling before the crash as manufacturing jobs disappeared and wages stagnated. Personal savings declined so that the average family now owes $8,000 to credit card companies. Without sufficient wage increases to sustain their lifestyle, families borrowed against their major asset, their homes. Now, because the housing bubble burst, a quarter of mortgage holders owe more than their homes are worth and 2.5 million have lost theirs to foreclosure.

All of this is because America failed to give greed the wide berth warranted by one of the seven deadly sins.

Alan Greenspan, who served as steward over the rise of the culture of avarice for nearly two decades as chairman of the Federal Reserve, admitted to Congress in October that his opposition to federal regulation was a blunder:

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

In the song "America the Beautiful," from which the lines "from sea to shining sea, come, lyricist Katharine Lee Bates counseled in the second verse, "America! America! God mend thine every flaw."

Clearly, this greed-based economy is a flaw. It was created by covetous humans. It must be mended by Americans of better grace, people Katharine Lee Bates described as those, "Who more than self their country loved."

America's workers must seize back control of their country and wrest back determination of its priorities. They must re-regulate the financial markets and remove the onerous restrictions placed on unions to prevent organization of new workplaces and bargaining of new contracts to raise worker salaries and benefits.

But, most immediately, America's workers must insist Congress immediately pass an economic renewal package that will reinvigorate Main Streets across the nation. This is essential to prevent a prolonged and excessively painful deep recession resulting from the housing bubble collapsing.

This public investment has two purposes. It will stimulate the economy by providing jobs. In addition, it will strengthen America's manufacturing competitiveness in the international marketplace.

The Institute for America's Future has developed a plan called A Main Street Recovery Program calling for investment of $900 billion over two years.

The money would be targeted to areas that would create sustained, long-term, shared economic growth. This includes investing in green technologies to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and the threat of global warming. Another focus is repair and modernization of the country's physical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and intellectual infrastructure -- its education system. And finally, the third targeted area is assistance to workers most in need, which would include moves toward universal affordable health insurance, a middle class tax cut and expanded unemployment insurance.

More than 250 organizations and economists have endorsed this program. President-elect Barack Obama's recovery plan outlined last weekend includes many of its aspects. Its passage would signal the beginning of conversion to an economy that values production and workers, something the self-interested greed-mongers will oppose.

But let's work for realization of Katharine Lee Bates' final verses:

"America! America"
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!"

Daniel Kessler: How Sustainable is the Fish at Your Market?

2008-12-09T12:12:45Z

It's hard to know if the fish at the market where you shop is sustainable. Supermarket chains can help by stocking only fish off the red list, but only some are making good purchasing choices. In the second edition of Greenpeace's seafood sustainability scorecard released today, the supermarket chains Whole Foods, Ahold USA, Target and Harris Teeter received "passing" scores indicating a small, but significant shift in purchasing practices and policies. Other retailers don't fair as well.

Take Publix, which failed to achieve the 40 percent score necessary to receive a 'passing' grade on the ranking scale (It did move up from the lowest position (20) in last June's scorecard to #13 now.) Everyone's favorite frozen food shop, Trader Joe's, again came in at #17, the worst ranking of the national supermarket chains surveyed. Too bad we didn't score on sweets because their Brownie Bites are delicious.

In June, all 20 leading supermarket chains in the U.S. failed the first of Greenpeace's seafood sustainability analyses. The report demonstrated that the chains are ignoring scientific warnings about the crisis facing global fisheries and the marine environment when they stock their shelves with seafood. Many are continuing to stock "red list" seafood like orange roughy, swordfish, and Chilean sea bass - some of the world's most critically imperiled species. None of the companies featured in the report currently have policies and practices that guarantee they won't sell seafood from fisheries that are harming sea turtles, dolphins, seals, sea lions, and other marine mammals.

Doing seafood the right way
While all 20 supermarkets continue to sell destructively fished and overfished species, several companies have begun developing and implementing sustainable seafood policies and practices. Eight companies have demonstrated their commitment to improving their seafood sustainability by removing from sale some imperiled species such as orange roughy and sharks. Big props to Whole Foods, Ahold USA (brand names include Stop & Shop and Giant), Target, Wegmans, Safeway (Dominick's, Genuardi's, Randall's and Von's), Wal-Mart, A&P (The Food Emporium, Pathmark, Super Fresh, Waldbaums), and Price Chopper.

To help ensure the long-term sustainability of fisheries and marine ecosystems, Greenpeace advocates the creation of a worldwide network of marine reserves and fisheries management based on a precautionary, ecosystem-based approach. Today, supermarkets can help the oceans and meet consumer demand for sustainable products by refusing to sell seafood from fisheries that:

• exploit endangered, vulnerable and/or protected species, or species with poor stock status;
• cause habitat destruction and/or lead to ecosystem alterations;
• cause negative impacts on other, non-target species;
• are unregulated, unreported, illegal or managed poorly, and
• cause negative impacts on local, fishing dependent communities.

Go to greenpeace.org to find out more.

Barbara Dehn: Election Withdrawal

2008-11-14T20:25:36Z

As part of my post on Election Obsession, I was interviewed by CNN. Recently they asked me about an update from people who had been obsessed with the Election. As Nurse Barb, I sent out a survey to people who might have been obsessed with the election about whether they were experiencing "Election Withdrawal." Here's what they had to say:

Are you going through "Election Withdrawal?"

• "I guess it's withdrawal, because my nerves are shot. I couldn't last much longer."

• "I am because I find myself looking at various news channels and thinking, I really don't have a reason to watch the news so intently anymore."

• "I am still obsessed with all the election post mortem... especially the annihilation of Sarah Palin. I have to openly admit, my competitive, combative spirit loves seeing this woman taken out. It (selfishly) gives my own ego great pleasure to see this "shadow" figure of all our egos taken down. Funny thing is, I do not feel this way about John McCain, I feel he fought a more decent battle, lost and gracefully exited the scene."

• "My first reaction to the election was that I felt liberated (like the Berlin Wall crumbling!). I feel that as people we have been belittled and somewhat philosophically oppressed by the current administration....as in "if you aren't with me you are against me".

• "It's good to have the Obsessive Compulsive Election Disorder (OCED) in remission. No longer searching the blogs for polling updates. No longer reading stories about the 'Bradley effect' and Joe the unlicensed plumber. No longer wondering how the ballots are going to be misinterpreted by voters. No longer anxious about the long lines and how people would be turned away from voting. No longer dreading the intervention of the courts in the vote counting process. It's amazing how the antidote of an overwhelming electoral win cures this disorder."

• "A little bit. I am more happy to have it over. The commercials & robo-calls were getting annoying."

What are you doing with your time now?

• "My 6 year old daughter was a Barack Obama supporter and now wants to know what winning the election means for him. Thus, I am now the 'educator in chief' about presidential issues. I am answering lots of questions about what the White House is like. She had previously asked if it had an elevator. Thanks to CNN I now know that it has 3 elevators."

• "I find myself watching the news all the time. I haven't followed the news for years, 6 or 7 years at least. In fact, CNN is on in the background as I'm typing this (Paulson just spoke regarding the Economic Crisis and the Automakers issues) with hopes that I will hear some news from the Obama team."

• "Still watching all the same news shows to see what is going on with the transition and to watch the Republican damage control. No where near as much concern but still trying to keep up and wean myself off the pundits. After 911 it took me 3 months to stop listening to news programs on the radio on the way to work and get back to listening to music."

Are you focusing on the economy, your jobs, your family?

• "I am homeschooling mom that now has many relevant and timely lessons to incorporate in my daughter's curriculum (sic). I am a legitimate version of 'Joe the Plumber' in that I am a small business owner trying to keep my company going."

• "I'm depressed, but my baseboards are clean. I spent the first day after the election in a bit of shock. I know that everyone else knew he was going to win, but I can't permit myself that kind of optimism. So the day after was a surreal haze. Anyway, there were no more poll to watch (sic) and the smell of windex seems to revive me so I started cleaning. I often do this while I'm processing things and it's also an excellent cover up to simple procrastination. When I found myself on my hands and knees vacuuming that little vent on the bottom of the refrigerator (don't feel bad if you have no idea what I' talking about, you obviously have better things to do) I knew it was time for serious help. Or at least a martini."

• "Yes, of course we're selling our home and are now looking at new 8x11 tents at Walmart! Should be enough room for two unless the pesky kids want to move in to save money!"

Are you depressed? Elated? Cautiously optimistic?

• "My emotional reaction is one mainly of relief. Interesting note: when my son and I were watching Saving Private Ryan last night, and the end of the opening D day scene, one of the soldiers sits down and starts to cry. My son asked me why he was crying! As I teared up, I explained to him that he was relieved that he survived a very stressful experience and that's pretty much analogous to how I feel, (though not on the same scale, obviously). What's amazing to realize, is just how stressful these last 8 years have been on some level. I'm just relieved not to be embarrassed and angry and frustrated any more. I'm relieved to have an adult in charge."

• "I am cautiously optimistic that the new administration will make things better for the country. I hope that people don't expect Barack Obama to solve all the world's problems."

• "I am Elated and anxiously awaiting the change. I must say as an African American I feel different. I can't put my finger on it but I feel good!"

• "So I am a bit depressed. In a perverse sort of way, I always looked forward to the next gaff by McCain or especially Sarah Palin."

What are you doing with the time that you previously devoted to following the election?
• "I am trying to resume my daily life and do more of the things that I should have been doing prior to the election. I hope to exercise more, read more, and spend more time being productive."

• "I am now on the web following the recount of the senate race in Minnesota to see if Al Franken can pull it off. I have however drawn the line at looking into the schools in DC that the Obama's are considering for their girls or weighing in on what kind of puppy they should get. I have used the leftover nervous energy to clean my house and I am considering repainting the outdoor furniture."

Clearly the entire country is coming to terms with the outcome of the election. Many are getting back to their routines, others are more engaged in current events. I want to know what's different for you since the election.

Be well,
NurseBarb

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Which Type Of Election Addict Are You? (And How To Recover!)

2008-11-14T09:58:12Z

After finally pulling that lever in the voting booth, many New Yorkers are going through post-election withdrawal. How do you cope without your constant Drudge drip, your nightly fix of Colbert, your online buddy Andrew Sullivan? Addiction specialists like NYU's Dr. Samuel Glazer are helping campaign compulsives detox. "I have one client who's clearly developed CNN dependence issues," he says. "The election was taking over her life." Here, a guide to five types of electoral junkie--and tips to ensure they get better.

If you're a Palin-Hater, A Scandal Junkie, or an Anxiety Relisher: Click here to keep reading...

Mike Papantonio: Finally Seeing Clearly

2008-11-13T11:20:56Z

My wife gave me some great advice this week. She reminded me that it is never a good idea to have a narrow focus on anything for too long. She emphasized that politics is no exception. That advice makes good sense after moving through twenty-one months of a presidential campaign. I suspect that it is not just me who developed that peculiar kind of tunnel vision that develops anytime we focus too closely on any tiny part of the huge world around us.

Every time Terri gives me advice, she bolsters that advice by reminding me of some past event that is always instructional. Here is a memory that came to mind that day I was advised to take a break from political clutter.

In the Catalonia region of Spain, there is a museum that was built by Salvador Dali. A canvas hangs at the entranceway of that museum. The canvas is covered with a rainbow of paints in shapes of squares, cubes and dots. Each shape seems to contradict the other. Hidden in that canvas is the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, but it is difficult to see that image. The museum guide will tell you that only half of the museum visitors see the hidden portrait. I stood in front of that Dali and did my share of squinting and head tilting before I could see our sixteenth president. The museum guide told me that people who never actually see Lincoln usually stare at the canvas too long; or with too much intensity. He believes that most people's minds are too cluttered and their focus is too narrow to uncover Dali's misdirection. His theory is that all the different shapes and colors become so cluttered on the canvas that our mind fails to process Dali's artistic image. There are too many bold contradictions.

In the last twenty-one months, politicians have cluttered our minds with 5.3 billion dollars worth of political advertising.

During this cycle, there have been 90 different national presidential campaign TV ads that have blasted their way into our minds. Political handlers created 90 different ways to scare us, threaten us, and shame us with overwhelming contradictions. The media threw 1,400 presidential race polls at us. Those polls gave us cluttered details about whether voters thought our candidate was too smart, too dull, too old, too young, too mean, or too nice. In fact, one new poll was released every 11 hours for a solid twenty-one months.

All that contradictory information and all those contrasting messages can become just like that jumble of dots, squares, cubes and colors on Dali's painting. It makes sense to step away from the confusing pitches about our new too black or too white Christian, possibly Muslim, socialist, elitist, average guy, Ayers-connected, possibly communist, maybe anti-Christ president. We need to stop analyzing irreconcilable stories about a too old, too unhealthy, erratic, unpredictable, energetic warmongering patriotic decorated war hero. And let that savvy, unread, unworldly, high achieving, rube, bumpkin, only female governor in Alaskan history leave our thoughts for a while. With luck, the clutter will disappear and by Inauguration Day, a clearer image of our 44th President will begin to take shape.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Kay Goldstein: Post Election: How To Restore Your Personal Operating System

2008-11-10T13:06:01Z

Okay. The election is over and we reluctantly or eagerly head back to some older routine, perhaps -- like work, play, shopping, reading fiction, exercise, sleep. It has been a relentless process, sandwiching real life between polls, debates, rallies, canvassing and just worrying. With the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, let's take a real look at how we handled these last few weeks in particular.

Did you find yourself compulsively checking your favorite election blog sites (up to 10 or more times a day?)

How many hours each day did you listen to talk radio or 24 hour news stations?

Do the number of forwarded emails/videos do you still have on your computer with Sarah Palin as the subject threaten to swamp your laptop?

Was your sleep pattern disrupted by late night coverage and SNL?

Did your stimulant and depressant intake increase (i.e. coffee, tea , Red Bull vs. alcohol or sleep meds)?

Did you find yourself a bit snappish at your partner or work colleagues.

Are you behind on projects at work and home?

Does your sleep-deprived mind act like a sieve unless it is processing the electoral vote map?

How many times have you misplaced your car keys or cell phone in the last 60 days?

If these questions are hitting close to home, then take note and learn about how you typically handle stress over the long-term. Awareness is the first step to making a change. Everyone has coping strategies for mitigating pain, anxiety, or any strong emotional responses -- some healthier than others. For a short term crisis or events, those strategies may be just the thing to help us through a few hours or even days. But it is the journey, not the destination that really counts.

The election season has been a long and sometimes difficult journey. Many of us have been training our minds and bodies to get into some pretty self-defeating habits.

Why wait until the New Year to start making and breaking resolutions? You can get a 7 week head start and channel some of that adrenalin addiction into something that might make a difference in your life. Don't think of it as selfish. Caring for ourselves makes us much better at taking care of others. Here are a few strategies for de-toxing and de-bugging our personal operating systems.

Go cold turkey for 24 hours. I dare you -- no phones, media, computers or newspapers. Silence or uplifting music or the sounds of nature are in order now.

Treat yourself to a little nurture: warms baths, sunshine, massage, yoga, candlelight, walks in the woods or park. You've been through a lot. It's time to re-boot.

Cut the caffeine and alcohol. Watch out for withdrawal symptoms. You may have to do this over several days. Notice that your body may bark back at you with a little more agitation. That's a sign that there is a definite dependency that developed during the last few months. Remember, you don't really need those things and your body already knows how to balance itself. It just needs a chance.

Make some soup, bake some apples, take time to enjoy and taste some really simple fresh food.

Straighten your desk. Purge your computer. Clean out the refrigerator. Nothing brings in new energy like removing clutter and restoring a little order. If it seems overwhelming, just pick one thing each day.

Watch the leaves turn or the snow fall. To everything there is a season. Don't miss out on life by spending it all in your head wondering "what if, what next, what the bleep?"
Read a really good fiction book.

Remember:
Don't approach changing your recent habits with the same obsessiveness and anxiety that created them.

Get a grip (on yourself) and let go.

Kay Goldstein, MA teaches meditation and writes poetry, fiction and articles addressing the challenges and joys of daily living and spiritual practice. www.kaygoldstein.com

Derek Flood: A Provisional Irony

2008-11-06T16:20:15Z

I did something absurd the other day. I bought a literally last-minute roundtrip airfare from New York to Los Angeles just to vote. While living in New York for several years, I've stubbornly insisted on keeping my residency on the West coast with every sincere intention of moving back there. But it was iffy at best. On the last possible day, October 20th, I re-registered to vote with some trepidation.

At the eleventh hour, I received a "robo call" as they're now calling it, from the LA county clerk's office saying that I had been registered to vote but it was too late to obtain a sample ballot or any accompanying paperwork. I called the county's voter hotline and then double-checked online that I was, without (supposedly) a doubt on the voter rolls in Los Angeles county.

Before the election, Tim Robbins appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher decrying the use of provisional balloting and extolling viewers to refuse them. Robbins urged voters to document any perceived fraud at the polls and demand their given rights at the polling place. Of course there was inherent risk in my voting jaunt that family and friends warned could be fruitless. But I had triple confirmation. The robo call, the actual call to the county office, and a successful query on the somewhat efficient website lavote.net.

Yet when I arrived at the polling place in Long Beach, my name was not on the rolls. Tim Robbins' dire warning had come true. The poll workers told me not to fret and that if I could just "step aside" while everyone else voted, I could attempt to file a provisional ballot. TTrying not to lose my cool, I explained to a poll worker that someone very famous I'd seen on television had claimed that provisional ballots often get thrown out. The worker said to me "don't believe what you hear on TV, we'll eventually count your ballot." I didn't feel it prudent to tell the polling place people how far I'd traveled to vote and what it had cost me. I then found it beyond ironic that after touching back down in New York, I checked the Google news aggregator on my Blackberry for the latest results to read that none other than Mr. Robbins was asked to cast a provisional ballot.

Flying back to California to cast a vote for Barack Obama may seem harebrained to some but after seeing so many Pakistanis genuinely risking their lives to vote earlier this year and realizing that millions of Afghans were about to do the same in 2009, it seemed like a simple task by comparison. Whether my vote was actually counted, I may never know.

Jill Robinson: Election Morning 2008

2008-11-05T18:28:39Z

"You want to get there before 7 a.m.; the lines will be huge." "Be sure to get your receipt for your ballot." "Take snacks and something to read."
Who could sleep on November 3rd? Coming home from working in Obama's Santa Monica office, "You will not watch CNN. You will absolutely not turn on the TV."
At 10:30, Mike from Obama's Century Plaza office called, "Can you come over and make phone calls tomorrow?"
"All day. I'll vote and be there."
I'd promised to bring something for supper at my friends house on election night.
"Something simple."
"Sure." Cooking. Ideal distraction. Make something new. Chop many things. I bring the chopping board, the veggies I'd picked-up at while canvassing the Farmer's Market for Obama, and I sit in from of the TV. Caramelize some pecans, throw in some chile for the wild rice salad. Sleep.
I wake up at 5 a.m., an hour before the alarm.
I walk up Sepulveda along the vast plain of Los Angeles county land plonked with a giant range of government buildings. When I was a child here - this was where soldiers were trained to go off to fight overseas in places like Guam and Bataan.
The air is gorgeous this morning. A bolt of early morning rain has stopped. A young man crosses the street, joins me, "Are you voting?"
"Sure!" I say.
"It's right on the other side of that building." he says, "I'm voting too. It's exciting. I figured I'd better get here early." We don't even have to ask who we're voting for. You see in the eyes. Like a light's on.
"Me too," I say, "even though everyone said it was better to wait until people had gone to work. Less lines."
"I didn't want to wait anymore. Everyone's so excited."
When we round the big cement haunch of this huge recreation center, we saw the people waiting; calmly organized in three lines, ones for each precinct voting here. A few people had kids with them. Maybe, they figured, those kids will remember the day they got to see the voting. We all smile at each other. People are accommodating, courteous. You feel the pleasure of being here to do the right thing; the rush Americans get from showing up, all Americans, such an easily mixed crowd - Asians, Latin Americans, Blacks; old young, gay, straight. We are all here, all grinning at each other the way you do coming in to a great premiere, when you've heard this is really a winner, and you've got here early.
I started talking to one woman about my age, she'd been living here a long time. "I've never seen anything like this."
We're in a hall now and something about the light, the feel of the waiting, the steadfast, quiet exhilaration reminds of when I was a kid and you'd wait for President Roosevelt when he'd deliver his Sunday Fireside Chat, when he'd talk to America.
We'd all sit so quietly waiting for the reassuring way he'd tell us about our troops and how our war was going: Reassurance. Maybe this is the great gift of Obama's character. The reassurance of someone who has transformed the despair of a culture snatched from its laud into a study for powerful character.
We were in Palm Springs on December 7, 1945, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. My grandmother had a friend named Pearl and I thought she'd been killed. I could see her lying n the floor of her apartment with her silk print dress pulled up, showing her pink panties.
But I remember the sound of President Roosevelt's voice that day and I knew he'd lead us well, like a camp guide through a tough trail. There was a brilliant feeling about being an American during that time - to a child it felt like forever. It was a very few, but very fervent years. We sang, "Oh Say Can You See (The Star Spangled Banner)" at every opportunity and when you said the Pledge of Allegiance with your hand on your chest, you could feel your heart beating with the urgent glory of being there for the world when the world was in trouble. We'd look at each other and believe how lucky we were and we loved our President for his steady presence, through the nights when we'd hide during air raid drills in the cellar. Sometimes my father would read a bit from one of the President's speeches or from one of his own speeches he was working on to reassure the groups he was supporting: refugees, Democrats and Japanese Americans who were being held in detention camps right down the road from where I'm voting now.
My father, Dore Schary, kept writing speeches like that all through his life, through the blacklisting years, then the Joe McCarthy years and on and on, whenever there was a cause, he was there!
He was grief-stricken during the antiwar years, devastated by his America. His generation felt America was very much their own. Their parents had come as refugees, even as the first English had come to invent this new government in this grand sparsely populated land. My father's generation told its stories and entertained it with films of its legends, spellbinding it with its myths and creating a panoramic legacy of its heroic battles, the victories it shared with Britain or France during the Second World War. I remember watching the fields of white crosses rising across the acres just north of where I'm waiting to vote.
By the time our line has reached its voting room, I'm surprised by how friendly the people behind the voting tables are. They look as if they're in on it too. I'd guessed somehow, from my edgy Sixties sensibility, that like all "officials" they'd be tough and chilly. Today they are warm, organized and accessible. I'm asked if I wanted to use this machine with headphones. I tried it. Hated it.
"No," I said. Maybe I looked puzzled or something (i.e., 'old')
"No problem, there's another box right there."
It's like the first time you drive, swim, make love or fly a plane. You have to get it right. Why is Obama marked "8"? Right here, it's explained, so the presidential office doesn't get full of itself (that's what they mean) and expect to be Number One on the ballot all the time. Right on.
What a great gift. I hand in the ballot. Got my sticker: I Voted. I walked back outside past the long line of beaming people. All through the hour or so I wanted, everyone was easy-going, pleased to be here. I'd been prepared to wait longer. Wouldn't have minded. Like most of the best times in your life, voting speeds by. I'll remember this vote like the first kiss; holding the baby when it's all drenched and new, holding a published book, or an armful of roses my son has grown.. The memory's fleeting as the flick of the camera. But being pleased to make this vote, this connection with my land again will stay with me for as long as what forever might be.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Sean McManus: Big Think Presents: What's Your Plan?

2008-11-04T15:10:06Z

If the election of 2000 reminded us that every vote counts, the election of 2008 has provoked a wholesale political awakening. Across every demographic and in every corner of the globe, American politics is, as Tina Brown might say, the big fat story.

At the website Big Think, we interview luminaries from business, culture, finance, entertainment, education, academia, religion, and media--some of the most important thinkers of our time. With the help of the latest internet video technology, these experts share big ideas and users respond, and even remix our videos, to create ideas that are bigger than the sum of their parts.

What we've discovered is that T. Boone Pickens isn't the only man with a plan. Smart, passionate people everywhere are now taking public policy into their own hands. The action plan has become the next evolutionary stage in America's tradition of political protest. Now, if you don't like the way government is working, then get a better idea, write it down, videotape it, digitize it, and share it with the world, or at least the people who have the ability to make change.

Big Think is launching a campaign to solicit action plans on America's most urgent problems with a new video by political filmmaker Max Blumenthal. You can view it at www.bigthink.com/whatsyourplan. "What's Your Plan?" is platform for people to recommend new ideas and fresh perspectives on the challenges we face as a nation, from the economic crisis to the environment, from health care to energy, from education to the war in Iraq.

Essentially, we are uncapping intellectual capital and democratizing public policy. Big Think editors will highlight the best ideas and let visitors respond, vote, and critique. We will aggregate the entries with like-minded (and contradictory) plans as well, fueling further discussion and debate. In addition, Big Think is partnering with the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, to interview public policy experts about their action plans.

Those videos will air beside text-based plans published in Roll Call and on Big Think. So follow the lead of people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Lawrence Summers, and T. Boone Pickens and create a smart, concise plan about something you care about. No plan is too thick or too thin. To submit your action plan, email us at plans@bigthink.com. And visit www.bigthink.com to watch it progress.

Online collaboration means these plans will grow and evolve--they don't have to be perfect the first time. The election season is over. Now is the time for action. What's Your Plan?

Kaltura

Jim Wallis: My Prayer for Election Day

2008-11-04T09:52:55Z

On the eve of this historic election let us pause for a moment of thanks. We should thank God for the men and women who committed themselves to establish a new nation, in which voting was possible. We should thank God for the courage of the women of the Suffrage movement who pioneered the path to the 19th Amendment and ensured women the right to vote. We should thank God for those who risked and sacrificed their lives to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to allow all our citizens, regardless of the color of their skin, to vote.

We also pray for forgiveness, that there are still some in our country whose votes are not allowed to be cast or counted, even in recent elections. We pray for protection of all the voters and the votes of this election.

We pray for the candidates, their family and their staff--who have worked tirelessly to offer the country the vision of the future they deeply believe in. Give them rest and a sense of peace, no matter what the outcome of the election. We pray for all the citizen volunteers, who have made democracy better by their work on this election campaign.

We pray most of all against a spirit of fear. The Scriptures say that "God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of love, a spirit of power and a strong mind." Help us to remember the words of our Lord Jesus, who reminds us that love casts our fear and to be not afraid. If the Scriptures say, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil," certainly we can make it through election day. No matter how we vote, let us vote more for the visions, ideas, and candidates that best represent our best values; rather than voting against candidates simply because of the negative and often manipulative things that others have said about them.

As a people of faith, we do not find in our scripture, we can not locate in any sacred text, a mandate to support a particular candidate for president or vote for a particular political party during this election. While the scriptures may not say what box we should check on election day, we must strive to be clear about the priorities of the kingdom of God and how we can best impact the common good. Voting is one part of the prophet's instruction to "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

Today we also pray for those who will vote differently than we do, for their own reasons also deeply rooted in faith. And we pray, despite the outcome of the election tomorrow, that we will find the ways to build bridges and work together for the common good of the country we all dwell in. And may our votes tomorrow be guided less by a fear of our neighbor and more by a hope for the future.

God has blessed all the nations of the world, not just America. But we pray tomorrow for God's special blessing on our nation, and that the opportunities to fulfill our country's greatest possibilities might be greatly enlarged.

Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening, Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.

Click here to get e-mail updates from Jim Wallis

Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers

Study: The Value Of Voting And Why We Do It

2008-11-04T09:32:54Z

There's been a lot of discussion on the Huffington Post of who you should vote for. The Living page has dedicated the past few weeks helping you cope with your election anxiety - or the side effects you might be feeling from the stress of this race. As it turns out, one of the biggest antidotes to these emotions is to go out and vote. But why exactly do we vote? What emotional and mental benefits do we gain from casting our ballot, from throwing our one-in-300,000,000 opinion into the hat? The New York Times' dedicates an article today on this very topic.

In recent years psychologists and neuroscientists have tried to get a handle on how people make voting decisions. They have taken brain scans, to see how certain messages or images activate emotion centers. They have spun out theories of racial bias, based on people's split-second reactions to white and black faces. They have dressed up partisan political stereotypes in scientific jargon, describing conservatives as "inordinately fearful and craving order," and liberals as "open-minded and tolerant."

None of which has helped predict people's behavior in elections any more than a half-decent phone survey. The problem is not only sketchy science, some experts say; it's that researchers don't agree on the answer to a more fundamental question: Why do people vote at all?

Well, according to Ms. Pam Fleischaker, 62, of Oklahoma City, who was in New York recovering from a heart transplant:

"That one vote isn't going to be decisive makes no difference to me," Ms. Fleischaker said in a telephone interview last week. "Your vote is your voice, and there's more power in it than in most of the things we do. It's a lost pleasure, the feeling of that power."

To read more about the science of voting, including the difference between an "ethical" vote and a "selfish" vote, click here.

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Read HuffPost Living contributor Dr. Judith Rich's take on why your vote matters more than you think.

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Check out HuffPost's Election Anxiety page...

Russell Bishop: Election Anxiety: Nov. 4th Is Here! Now What?

2008-11-04T08:34:24Z

Today the vigil begins. The tension is building and just about everyone can feel it. Many are saying this is the most important election in decades.

The combination of a world at war economically, politically and on fields of combat has many people angry, fearful and demanding of change. The Democrats are campaigning on a theme of Change and the Republicans are sounding a similar call.

So what's up? If you are one of those who are angry, what should you do if the other side wins?

You may have read my last couple of posts on the subject offering thoughts about freedom, focus, and choice along with some "advice" from Abraham Lincoln.

Now it's time to make this personal.

What can you do if wind up on the losing side of this election? What if you are one of those volunteers who campaigned mightily, donated significantly, and worked diligently to support the kind of change you support, perhaps even demand?

Once again, as Sidney J. Harris wrote so many years ago: "If you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of the problem."

You might be tempted to strike back saying something about how you gave everything you could to get your team elected. If that's true, and your team still lost, then here's some sobering thought: perhaps you didn't give enough!

I know, this must sound insane. However, stick with me for another moment or two.

An early mentor of mine counseled "Give until it helps" as a twist on the old cliché of "Give until it hurts." Perhaps you have already given so much that it hurts. If so, what can you do that will help, that will make a difference, even a micro difference? Perhaps you can't solve world hunger, but could you help someone who is hungry or homeless?

If you find yourself angry, ask yourself, "Why am I angry?" I often ask people I am working with if they have ever gotten angry over something they didn't care about. Kind of a trick question if you're not careful.

If you don't care, you do not care. As in, you don't care. However, if you find yourself angry, then clearly you do care. A lot. So what's the deal with the anger?

Anger is an expression of caring along with frustration that things aren't working out the way you would like. Another way of saying this is that anger is an ineffective expression of caring. I know -- thanks a lot!

So if you blend anger and caring with the bit about being part of the solution or part of the problem, you may wind up with something like "What one man can do," a line from an old John Denver song about Buckminster Fuller.

If you were actively involved in this campaign, I suspect it is because you care and care deeply. If you look more deeply under the party or persons you supported, I'll bet you will find some very practical areas of focus, things your care about deeply.

The odd thing is that both Republicans and Democrats are alike in at least one area: both parties encourage active involvement. The Republican mantra is that private citizens can make a difference better than government intervention. The Democrats argue that we have a larger social responsibility and yet they also encourage private citizens to get involved in their local communities.

So what is it that you care about? Homelessness? World Peace? Hunger? Or any of a hundred different issues? Can you make a difference in homelessenss, world peace, global warming, or any of the other pressing issues of our current situation?

Of course you can. Even if your side lost!

If the homeless are a concern of yours, what are you doing to engage with the problem? Many will gladly throw money at the problem, and that's quite different from working with the homeless. The same can be said for the hungry.

Could you imagine getting personally involved by befriending a homeless person or family?

What could you do at a very personal and individual level to impact global warming?

The key here is active involvement. If you are disappointed, angry or otherwise upset about the outcome of the election, you can still do something that has meaning and value. You won't be able to undo the election results in terms of who is in office; however, you can do something about what is important to you.

One of the best and most important things you can do is get directly involved in making a difference about one or more of the issues you care about. And I don't mean donating money (although that can't hurt); and I don't mean talking to others about how concerned you are (and that might help depending on how you frame the conversation). I do mean doing something directly, actually getting your hands dirty as the saying goes.

If you do get involved, and enough of us get involved, we can make a difference. One small piece of the puzzle at a time. Sure, one step won't change the entire world, but it still takes all the steps it takes to make the change happen. If you don't take your step, how will anything ever improve? Mobilize your anger into an active demonstration of caring.

After all, if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of perpetuating the problem!

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You can find out more about Russell Bishop at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell at: russell@lessonsinthekeyoflife.com

The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is an Educational Psychologist, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California.

Election Results: States To Watch

2008-11-04T08:25:45Z

Pundits and pollsters may be trying to take all the fun out of Election Day. So many have predicted a lopsided victory for Senator Barack Obama over Senator John McCain that you might wonder why even to bother watching the returns on Tuesday night.

Check out a slideshow guide of highlights to watch for on Tuesday... adapted from The NY Times...

HuffPost has a great guide for election night. We've gathered all the widgets out there for you to be able to gather the election results online. For even more information, go to HuffPost's "Election Results BigNews Page."

Also, read Tom Edsall's guide to election night results for a step-by-step guide on what to expect.

And for more information about what's happening on the ground, go here.

Related: Over 1,000 Students Lined Up To Vote At Penn State (VIDEO)
Related: Voters Line Up Coast to Coast on Election Day PHOTOS

Robert Kubey: Obama Will Leave Us Without Defense Systems is the Charge in Fake Soundbite Attack Ad Running on CNN

2008-11-04T01:43:59Z

An ad attacking Sen. Obama, apparently just released, convincingly fakes Obama's voice, with him saying he is against various conventional defense systems. The ad was running Monday and election eve on CNN. It comes from a group called letfreedomring.com.

The ad's clear aim it to instill fear in less informed voters hours before the polls open. The ad says that a President Obama would fail to protect the nation or keep it safe.

I posted something earlier tonight on this to learn if others had seen or heard the ad, and indeed others have. It seems to have minimally run in the tri-state area of NY, NJ, and CT; Tennessee, and the critical battleground state of Virginia.

If Obama had said that he was against conventional defense systems, including nuclear as we hear in this ad, McCain and the news media would have surely attacked him for this weeks ago, and run legitimate ads on the subject.

Instead, these ads are being run by a PAC, I presume, and in the final hours before the polls open.

One wonders how widespread this campaign is, and whether it can have any effect in closely contested battleground states among very poorly informed registered voters who may now be motivated to vote when they wouldn't have been yesterday. Also consider they are being hit with a barrage of Rev. Wright race-baiting attack ads from other PACs.

The proportion of such voters may only be a couple percent, but even that very small percentage can make the difference in a very close state. After all, we do not know all the parameters to consider in current polling with the first African American candidate.

If I'm correct that such an ad could bring some people to the polls who were not planning to vote a few days ago, the ad can have a real effect as polls are generally predicated on "likely voters."

Getting unlikely voters up and out the door to their polling place and phoning their friends may be one of the aims of this malicious smear ad, based in complete untruths.

I think Sen. Obama will emerge victorious tomorrow, but it might be much tighter than some think.

Robert Kubey: Obama Soundbites Faked in PAC Attack Ad on CNN Moments Ago

2008-11-03T23:13:02Z

Just moments ago, at 10:55 pm EST on CNN a PAC attack ad ran from something called "letfreedomring.com" in which Sen. Obama's voice is heard arguing against various weapons systems. These appear to be fake soundbites.

The ad's clear aim it to instill real fear into voters hours before the polls open that a President Obama would leave the nation without defense systems, traditional and nuclear.

Are others seeing or hearing this ad elsewhere, or in robocalls?

I don't recall a presidential candidate's voice being faked before in a television ad, and I strongly suspect that this is what was done.

I do not believe Obama has said any of the things I heard. Reminds me of the Bush attacks on Dukakis in 1988 for being against weapons systems that Dukakis did not oppose.

If others see this, I hope they will post or comment.

Campaign Cool Downs: 10 Steps To Inner Peace (SLIDESHOW)

2008-11-03T15:40:44Z

When politically provoked, here are 10 no-fail ways to go from riotous to relaxed.

Debate parties starting to feel like World War III? Are you alienating friends and family with your staunch, hyper-educated self clad head to toe in campaign gear? Be proud. Now check your ego and be effective.

Politics are personal and that's why you feel like showering when you go toe to toe with someone whose opinions insight riot in your. Between the economic upheaval and the ecosystem's "debatable" fragility the hot button issues determining Election 2008 have some of us so heated up that we are lashing out. And it's not becoming or impactful. Where we need to spend energy is in how we elegantly express ourselves and become commanding orators not Dem-ish diehards. So how do you take ferocious passion and turn it into a beautiful, flowing dispatch that might just compel McCain's constituents to convert? A little bit of yoga.

It only takes 5 days for your typical boiling point to be retrained. A study from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education of China and the University of Oregon's Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative demonstrated that 5 days of relaxation training showed an increased ability to resolve conflict and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than in the control group.

These 10 yoga tricks will increase your ability to see political differences as the perfect alchemy for a nation in need of respectful discourse in order to become dominant in peace brokerage, leadership and financial rejuvenation.

Related:

Women's Health Fitness Face-Off

Eat To Beat Stress

Live to be 100

The Home Stretch

Kimberly Brooks: The Election and Art Swimming in my Head

2008-11-03T14:00:55Z

If every cell in my body had a face, it would resemble that of Edvard Munch's "The Scream", with each of the mouths getting wider and wider until November 4th is over with.

As an artist, I have, like the rest of my species, huge antennas and right now I find it simply impossible to make or write or think about art and not think about the election.

Watching history being made in every regard is to see reality afresh; when a few elements are tweaked, whether the first African American or the first woman vice president. Although let's be real about the latter--McCain's injection of Sarah Palin into his campaign was less history and more like an over-dosing Uma Thurman getting a shot directly in the heart a la "Pulp Fiction". I attribute the genuine history making moments to Obama and Clinton. And thanks to them I do not think as a country that we will ever see four white guys lined up on those debate stages again.

I notice, throughout the elections, and especially when candidates are being interviewed, they interrupt or defend their positions by saying "the fact of the matter is" as if everything said before that moment was sort of mushy and not "fact based". That said, the fact of the matter is that things are being shaken up and it is fantastic.

This is not to say that we've reached the very end of white-male dominated patriarchy and that we can now all hold hands in a circle under the moonlight and embrace our inner pagan witch/goddesses just yet. But it does signify an historic reality tweak, and hopefully, one that will lead us to some new post gender, post racial, post carbon age that transcends anything we've known before.

I recently interviewed two artists, Shay Kun and Larissa Bates, who made me think of the election. (Everything makes me think of the election). Shay Kun's show "Nails and Features" is currently at the Buia Gallery in New York and Larissa Bates' just had a much acclaimed show at the Monya Rowe Gallery, also in New York. Both artists have masterfully taken familiar and tweaked it in such a way that we see it anew.

Shay Kun, "Life Is A Journey Not A Destination", 48x72 inches, acrylic and Oil Paint on canvas 2008, Courtesy BUIA gallery, New York.

Drawing on landscape backgrounds inspired by the artists of the Hudson River School (the great mid-19th century American art movement that redefined Romantic landscape paintings of nature and westward expansion), painter Shay Kun projects viewers into an unstable and unfixed natural surrounding. Here Kun tossles and jars the untouched environments that painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church perfected by adding disjointing products of conspicuous consumption and human activity into the pristine landscape paintings.

Shay Kun, "Premonitions", 96x72 inches, acrylic and Oil Paint on canvas 2008, Courtesy BUIA Gallery, New York.

The result is refreshingly disturbing. We question human impact on nature in terms of degradation--not just of mining our natural resources, but of the footprint we leave as environmental tourists and adventure seekers in national parks. As fireworks explode and army soldiers stake out a dugout amidst the glaciers in "Premonitions," the premonition Kun leaves us recalls our wars in Iraq and Afganistan and the celebration to its end that we have not yet obtained. Glaciers serve as a stand-in for human impact on the earth, and the soldiers create a dramatic juxtaposition that pits humans against nature.

Kimberly Brooks: Tell us about "Nails and Feathers", we can start with the title.

Shay Kun: These works are an infusion, a hybrid of absurdities. Drawing on the style and subject matter of the Hudson River School, particularly Thomas Cole's reverent paeans to nature and Albert Bierstadt's awestruck visions of the sublime in the American West, these works captures the grandeur of nature. Despite acquiring a newly cultured look, these landscapes that were made with all the sincerity and attention, are transformed into a juxtaposition of nature and its human invaders, who appear in the guise of tourists or adventure seekers. The contrast between these contemporary characters and their stylized environment is abrupt and, despite their small scale, they're an almost offensively inadequate substitute for the deities or characters of noble bearing that filled their place in painting of the past centuries.

Shay Kun, "Nails & Feathers", 96x72 inches, acrylic and Oil Paint on canvas 2008, Courtesy of the artist and the BUIA gallery, New York.

Kimberly Brooks: What experience led you to create this body work?

Shay Kun: I remember myself in my childhood seating down at my moms' studio -- a commercial landscape artist, asking myself if these welcoming 'greeting card' paintings are in my genes...at that time I could only produce a pastiche of Freudian Van Gogh type of work and this affliction of sublime testimony seemed too simple and sincere to justify. In retrospect I know today that both of my parents work shaped my style, those untouchable materials in my youth and through my education became the only motive that put a chock hold on me and did not let go. My exploration is not a tongue in cheek one, a one liner of an Israeli artist flipping the European/ American sublime but an emotional exploration of the point of departure and how I can add to that my own small voice liquefying this 'unfinished symphony'.

Kimberly: Your metaphor is beautiful and believe me, were you flipping off the American/European sublime you unfortunately wouldn't be alone.

In Larissa Bates', "Hustle and Bustle", she sets hyper-masculinized wrestlers or cupids in lederhosen and other unusual elements in romantic landscapes in a series of gouaches reminiscent of Persian Miniatures of the 15th and 16th Century. The extreme macho within a feminized nature cannot help but remind me of the Bush Administration's attempts to exert itself and its mores onto the world.

MotherMen Birthing Scene at Bingham Bluff, 2008 Acryla gouache and ink on canvas. 16 x 20 inches Courtesy Monya Rowe Gallery

Kimberly Brooks: What were your intentions behind "Just Hustle and Muscle"?

Larissa Bates: My newest body of work focuses on my continued interest in cultural constructions of masculinity. I am fascinated by the kinds of cultural pressures that are placed on men to behave within certain codes and rituals. A lot of people freak out when guys don't follow their prescribed gender role--I think the role is just as limiting and binary as traditional roles for women. For example, my husband took my last name when got married and it ruffled a lot of feathers--even in our very liberal social circles.

MotherMen Wrestling in Washington Allston's Desert Landscape, 2008
acryla gouache on canvas
12 by 9 inches. Courtesy Monya Rowe Gallery

Larissa Bates: There are wonderful parts of our Western construction of masculinity, but the stereotyped characteristics are not necessarily a good fit for a lot of people, men included, and many of these behaviors can actually put the people who try to embody the characteristics at risk. The psychologists Williams and Best summarize these characteristics as strong, independent, tough and self-reliant--the Western influenced cowboy model. Other sociologists have studied the variations in ideas about masculinity across cultures, and found that there are great variations when comparing places like Thailand to the United States. Will Courtenay, a medical social scientist, argues that, when men (I would not limit this to men--but his study looks specifically at men) chose to socially embody these hyper masculine characteristics to increase their social status, they can result in a shorter life expectancy rate. The same behaviors that endanger men's health, like out drinking each other, having to fight when challenged, not wearing a bike helmet or seatbelt, for example, are the same behaviors that signify masculinity and connote power in our culture. The social structure is set up so that not going to the doctor is seen as "self-reliant."

"Single Leg Take Down in Landscape after Joachim de Patinier", 2008 Acryla gouache on canvas
10 x 8 inches. Courtesy Monya Rowe Gallery

On a bigger scale, I would propose it's the reason a country can't just step back and put its hands up when confronted by another; it's the Bush cowboy mentality that ends up strutting to war. There is an interesting documentary by the Media Education Foundation called, "Touch Guise" that gets into the social conditioning of boys. I watched it in college and it touched on my personal experience of being raised by a single Dad from age zero to six. My Dad struggled to both embody this cowboy idea of masculinity while having to play variations of maternal and paternal roles in my life. He did this in a culture that offered him a gender script for masculinity that was highly inflexible. Continuing to think of gender as a binary role system limits the authenticity of people--from living in a way that is true to them. My work reflects my deep desire to see a more dynamic and flexible gender world--one that is more varied, complex, and fluid. I think we have to address the rigidity in the roles that continue to be prescribed for men. I should mention that this mainstream rigidity seems to be more of an American phenomenon, because at my show in Denmark last spring, a male critic was offended that this would even be an issue.

Kimberly Brooks: Indeed, America has a lot to learn in this regard but I think (fingers crossed) we're headed in the right direction.

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First Person Artist is an column by artist Kimberly Brooks in which she provides commentary on the creative process and showcases artists' work from around the world.