"Could this crisis get any stranger?"

Step right up for the $20b red-spot special
Annabel Crabb October 14, 2008

COULD this crisis get any stranger? We're now in a state of confirmed international fiscal panic, but there's money everywhere.
Six months ago, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan were heavily involved with two mysterious women - one called Budgetary Prudence, and another one called Inflation Jeannie, whom they were keen on stuffing back into some kind of bottle.
Everyone was most insistent that Australia should be saving all its pennies for tougher times. Yesterday, all that went out the window.
"Those tough times have come, and we are well positioned to act in anticipation of them," declared Mr Rudd, with the slightly alarming blend of conviction and nonsensicality on which we have come to depend in his historic public statements.
That's right, working families: if I may translate from the original Ruddese, it's time to spend the surplus.
Prudence be damned. If you can think of a good way to spend $20 billion, then step right up.
If you have a plan to irrigate the Red Centre by means of snowballs propelled by a series of giant pea-shooters ranged around the Antarctic, don't be shy - just ask Kevin for the seed funding.
Looking for funding for your chip-fat-fuelled personal jet pack?
Get yourself to Canberra.
Got a madcap scheme to put bags on the bottoms of cows to catch their gaseous emissions?
Actually, whoops - scratch that. We're already funding the bovine bottom-bags.
Even as the Prime Minister spoke, a faint drumming sound became audible, reminiscent
of wildebeest stampeding across the Serengeti.
No prizes for guessing what it was; hordes of lobbyists, descending upon the capital to share their ideas about how to blow a gazillion bucks, pronto.
Nation-building is the new national security.
It used to be that to prove your patriotic love for this great country, all you had to do was uncomplainingly surrender your right to habeas corpus.
Nowadays, you have to be cool about personally underwriting the Government's guarantee that by the end of this decade, no Australian bank will live in poverty.
Also, you have to be really, really enthusiastic about nation-building.
Yesterday, the Opposition suggested that the surplus should be spent on tax cuts for Australians.
Mr Rudd was utterly withering in his response.
It was as though the Libs had turned up to an Ashes decider wearing Barmy Army outfits.
The humble taxpayer, watching question time yesterday, could be forgiven for feeling a bit disjointed from all of this. We know there's a crisis, because we've seen it on television.
But apart from some nervous near-superannuants and those with speculative share-holdings, there aren't too many Aussies who have felt any actual pain yet, and for plenty of home-owners, the global financial crisis so far looks like kind of a nifty way of getting an interest rate cut.
Their greatest risk of injury at this stage is getting hit on the head by a falling wad of Government hundred-dollar bills, or hearing damage from Anthony Albanese noisily digging a Paris-style metro under the nature strip.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/13/1223749937096.html

Beneath the financial crisis waits a nastier beast

Waleed Aly October 13, 2008

The most lasting fallout of the global financial crisis is unlikely to be economic. This is the nature of true financial disaster: in the long run it brings down ideas, recasts societies and redistributes power in a way that resonates far beyond its lifespan. One day, the markets will stabilise and even recover, but the political terrain will likely be altered irrevocably.
Some ideological consequences are relatively obvious. Many commentators have already written obituaries for the creed of zealous deregulation that has prevailed throughout the Western world and especially in America. Indeed, that the Australian Government faces pressure to guarantee bank deposits establishes emphatically that people still want their governments to protect them, and are simply not soothed by promises of "market correction".
In short, regulation and state intervention are likely to become more fashionable than at any time since the end of the Cold War. In political science terms, it seems we're about to veer left. Witness a Republican president's $US700 billion example.
But few are yet asking what this might mean for social politics. Perhaps this is because it seems a separate matter to questions of economic policy. Yet it is foolish to assume that each can be quarantined from the other.
Economics is important precisely because it has the power to topple social dominoes. And it is in the realm of social politics that some of the most frightening possibilities of the financial crisis suggest themselves.
Consider the Great Depression, to which some are ominously likening this crisis. Latin America, which was hit particularly savagely because of its significant trade links with the US, retreated into a shrill form of nationalism. The result was the rise of fascism across the continent.
The Netherlands witnessed a series of riots, increased xenophobia, and the emergence of the National Socialist Party. And most infamously of course, there was Germany. With the national economy overwhelmingly financed by American loans, the collapse of the New York sharemarket had a devastating impact. A desperate working-class sought solace in communism, while an emasculated middle class leapt sharply to ultra-nationalism. The familiar consequence was the ascension of the Nazis, whose support base suddenly broadened.
This is what happens in times of great insecurity. As the foundations of our lives erode, we search for an anchor, and social politics very often provides it. When all else fails, we may still rally around old certainties: nation, culture, religion, race. We crave strong authority figures that can imbue us with certainty and articulate for us a sense of self. That often involves fabricating a scapegoat who becomes a mortal enemy.

In Germany, of course, Jews principally fulfilled that function, becoming the victims of an entire mythology that blamed them for the economic difficulties of "real" Germans. Such virulent prejudice soothes the insecure.
The bad news for us is that malignant social politics have been slowly returning for a while in Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Britain, Denmark and Norway. And it is an affliction that spreads well beyond Europe in the form of radicalism in the Muslim world and Hindu and Buddhist nationalisms in Asia.
Ours is an age of hostile identity politics. These are not all directly referable to economic crises (even if they clearly have a relationship with the anxieties of globalisation), but they suggest something deeply troubling: that the world is rich in the kinds of xenophobic resources so easily amplified by economic turmoil.
Should the financial crisis become a global recession, there is no telling precisely what forms of extreme social politics might be unleashed. An explosion of anti-Americanism across Asia and Europe? Possibly. But what about America itself? Here, the seeds of xenophobic resentment are being sown.
Writing in The National Review, Michelle Malkin blames the crisis on illegal immigrants and Hispanics who were "greedy" enough to seek subprime loans. Blogging for the same publication, Mark Krikorian wonders if Washington Mutual's demise was caused by its propensity for employing Latinos and gays. On Fox News, Neil Cavuto blames congressmen who were "pushing for more minority lending" without disclosing that "loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster".
The audacity is extraordinary. Suddenly, this crisis is something poor blacks and Hispanics have inflicted on rich white people. That is beginning to sound, well, Germanic.
A reaction is inevitable: one that sees in the crisis the exploitation of poor black people who will lose their homes, by white fat cats who skip away from the rubble with millions. The potential cycle of conflictual identity politics is terrifying. And that is to say nothing of developments we cannot predict.
We can hope none of this comes to pass. Obviously much is contingent on precisely how deep this financial hole is, and how much suffering awaits. But however many reasons we have to hope this crisis will not match the depths of the Depression, after contemplating the possible social consequences, we may add several more.
Waleed Aly is a lecturer in politics at Monash University.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/12/1223749846530.html

Archetypes

Two-System Integration Chart
Focus/Motivation Core Desire Leadership Style (Element) Stability/ Structure Desire to feel safe and in control Administrator (Earth) People/ Belonging Desire to belong and feel valued Facilitator (Water) Results/ Mastery Desire to have a special impact on the world Manager (Fire) Learning/ Identity Desire to be yourself and find out about the world Mentor (Air) Stage One: Preparation Socialization Archetypes (Locates power in the group and social systems) Caregiver Orphan (Regular Guy/Gal) Warrior (Hero) Innocent Stage Two: Journey Change Archetypes (Takes back personal power and freedom) Creator Lover Destroyer (Outlaw) Seeker (Explorer) Stage Three: Return Restabilization Archetypes (Exerts personal power in the world) Ruler Jester Magician Sage From http://www.herowithin.com/arch101.html

Education for the Waist Down

From All Men Are Liars blogger Sam De Brito.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/allmenareliars/archives/2008/10/social_intelligence.html

As I've written previously, for many people, walking up to a stranger of the opposite sex at a bar and starting a conversation can be more more terrifying than public speaking, swimming with sharks or showering in a maximum security prison.
This anxiety is magnified if they happen to find the other person just a little bit attractive. I've seen it countless times: grown men, absolutely paralysed, friends urging them to 'go talk to her' but they won't move except to sip the beer they're holding like a baby's bottle.
If they do manage to start a conversation they'll 'umm' and 'ahh', can't meet the person's eyes, default to brutally boring questions like "so what you do you do?" or just get so drunk before they 'make the move' their dialogue sounds like Barney from The Simpsons.
One of the greatest skills an adult can possess is being able to communicate with the opposite sex, yet you could scour every school syllabus in the country and not find a subject titled 'Social Dynamics' or 'How to Talk to a Girl' ...
I've got nothing against logarithms and algebra but I've used neither since the HSC and wasted hundreds of hours of my teenage life mastering what has amounted to useless crap.
On the other hand, I've spent hundreds of nights out trying to talk to the opposite sex, yet the number of minutes I was instructed in how to make a cute chick laugh was ... exactly none.
British creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson told the TED Conference in Monterey California recently that "as children grow up we start to educate them progressively from the waist up and then we focus on their heads and slightly to one side (the left)."
One of Robinson's bugbears is that 'modern' schools are still based on an early 19th century model created to churn out workers for industrialism. As such, they value subjects like English and maths but not dance or drama, let alone body language or how to deal with a boyfriend hassling you to have a threesome.
His thoughts were echoed last month by Tim Hawkes, the head of Parramatta's The King's School, who wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald "the Western world does a poor job in preparing its students to be intimate ... in general students are required to navigate their way through the sexual swamp with minimal direction."
Arguing that "too many schools have lost sight of those things that will be used by our students when they become adults", Hawkes short-listed ten subjects that should be taught to children but are not, including "how to forge good relationships", "communicate well" and "handle intimacy and sex."
Some reading this might say "you can't learn this stuff, you pick it up along the way" but it is the belief of many experts that they're skills that can be studied and practiced just like your times tables, piano scales or goal-kicking.
Part of the problem is that some people are just born with "it", so we assume being able to walk into a party and charm the opposite sex is like having a big dick or good legs - a genetic Lotto win.
Thankfully, it is not, which has been proven by the success of the American Pick-Up Artist culture, popularised by David DeAngelo, Ross Jeffries and Neil Strauss, men who've made millions teaching socially awkward blokes the secrets of the 'alpha male'.
Unfortunately, much of what these 'love gurus' pioneered is exploitative and manipulative and ignores the needs of women, but it does show that boys (and girls) can be taught social intelligence.
Imagine then if kids were bought together and schooled in fundamental skills like 'how to talk to the opposite sex', 'body language and vocal tonality', 'how do I know if they want me to kiss them?', 'how to deal with rejection' and, conversely, "how to reject someone and not humiliate them'.Now imagine these subjects were taught just like geography - four times a week, for your entire school life: I doubt you'd have women getting double-teamed by Broncos players in toilet cubicles.
In his speech, Ken Robinson goes on to quote the United Nations, which says that in the next 30 years more people worldwide will graduate through education than since the beginning of history.
"While none of us have any idea what the world will look like in ten years, yet alone 30, our schools are educating children for that future," he says.
Now doubt we'll all need to be able to spell and count in 2038, but even more certain is that girls and boys will have to talk in pubs, ask each other to dance, kiss, have sex and get married.
I know which subjects I'd want my kids getting an A in.

He ain’t no Lucha Libre - Mexican Superheroes

These ain't the kinds of heroes usually seen on our big screens. They're amazing everyday heroes of struggle handed a rare moment of elevation in front of photographer Dulce Pinzon's camera. I found them on Mother Jones last night, as part of their impressive library of photo essays.

Tilt your hat and hand these dudes the 15 minutes they deserve.

Mexican Superheroes It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's a Mexican Immigrant

Photographer Dulce Pinzon posed undocumented Mexican immigrants in superhero costumes and captured their feats of derring-do in New York City.

From Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/photos/mexican-superheroes/

Minerva Valencia (Catwoman) works as a nanny. She sends $400 a week home to Puebla

Luis Hernandez (The Thing) works in demolition and sends $200 a week home to Veracruz.

Window washer Bernabe Mendez (Spider-Man) sends $500 a month home to Guerrero

Oscar Gonzalez (Human Torch) is a cook. Originally from Oaxaca, he sends home $350 a week.

Straight, White, Middle Class Man... a surprising absence in Obama's definition of person.

Greed Fed Market Turmoil, Says Rudd

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has foreshadowed a stronger place for government intervention in business in a stinging attack on the "greed is good" ideology that he says fuelled the global financial crisis.
In his fiercest critique yet of what he termed "extreme capitalism", Mr Rudd said the market crash pointed to the need for a debate about corporate values and "the general values of our current age".
He spoke of "predatory financiers" who misled ill-informed consumers and of American bankers who were paid hundreds of millions but had no obligation to repay companies that later crashed.
"They literally laughed all the way to the bank," he said in a provocative address to the Federal Labor Business Forum on Friday night, which was only released yesterday.
Meanwhile, the former treasurer Peter Costello argued yesterday the banks should have passed on bigger rate cuts.
Mr Rudd said it was time to admit that people had not learned the full lessons of the greed-is-good ideology.
"We have seen the triumph of greed over integrity. The triumph of speculation over value creation … of the short term over long-term, sustainable growth. The fact is that Gordon Gecko was not tamed in 1987; he was simply ignored," Mr Rudd said of the character from the film Wall Street who proclaimed "greed is good" at the time of the 1987 market crash.
"Today we are still cleaning up the mess of the 21st-century children of Gordon Gecko."
Mr Rudd called for a rethink of the corporate culture of short-termism which, he said, threatens Australia's long-term future. "When we are through this crisis, it will be time to take stock."
With the Government under fire over its handling of Australian banks' interest rate policies, Mr Rudd's spokeswoman confirmed that the Prime Minister met the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, late on Friday for an update on the financial crunch.
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, yesterday defended the Government's relaxed stance on the banks' likely refusal to pass on the full extent of a mortgage interest rate cut expected tomorrow.
But Mr Costello said yesterday that "prima facie" the banks should pass on the full rate cut, given they had already kept back half a percentage point of previous interest rate adjustments. "They're already in front," he said. "They're highly profitable."
Mr Costello also accused the Government of "contradictory" policies on interest rates - on the one hand trying to pressure downward rates by spurring competition among the banks but on the other hand "giving comfort to banks to keep profit margins".
Mr Swan yesterday released Treasury analysis showing that since last month's interest rate cut "extreme turbulence" in global markets had blown out the banks' borrowing costs. He warned the banks that when global markets stabilised "banks will have absolutely no excuse not to pass on their lower funding costs".
In his speech, Mr Rudd said much of the cause of the subprime crisis was due to the financial markets rewarding people for taking extravagant risks.
The crisis had the fingerprints of free market ideologues "who believe that government is always the problem, never the solution".
They had opposed government regulation, having privatised their profits, but now argued the public should socialise their losses.
Instead of the culture of short-termism, Australia needed long-term planning for productivity, infrastructure, ageing and climate change, he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/greed-fed-market-turmoil-says-rudd/2008/10/05/1223145175365.html

Question...

Is it only a vision-logic that can ponder the complex interactions like 'action-logics'?

It's All Yours! ;-D

On Passion

I'm charging through Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality Vol. 1 (in the sexy new Penguin Classics series), and loving the PoMo perspectival shift he takes in lines like: "The question I'd like to pose is not, Why are we repressed? but rather, Why do we say, with so much passion and so much resentment against our recent past, against our present, and against ourselves, that we are repressed? By what spiral did we come to affirm that sex is negated? What led us to show, ostentatiously, that sex is something we hide, to say it is something we silence?"

Anyhow, doing a bit of biographical archaeology of my own, I came across this sublime quote about his long-term relationship with philosopher/activist Daniel Defert, and I wanted to record it on this blog as a totem to the joys of conscious relationship: "I have lived for 18 years in a state of passion toward someone. At some moments, this passion has taken the form of love. But in truth, it is a matter of a state of passion between the two of us."

Family First Moving Last

From SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/man-who-holds-power-over-rudd--a-hrefhttpmediasmhcomaurid42171bunder-the-flagba/2008/09/25/1222217430711.html

Mr 2%: why Steve Fielding bothers
Mark Davis Political Correspondent

AT THE entrance to Family First senator Steve Fielding's office in Parliament lies the detritus of his penchant for publicity stunts.

There is the jerry can he lugged around to highlight the effect of petrol prices on the family budget. And there is the miniature shopping trolley filled with groceries to symbolise the rising cost of living.

The only thing missing is the giant drink bottle costume Fielding donned to promote his anti-litter plan for a container deposit scheme.

But now the Victorian senator's appetite for the political oxygen of publicity is getting serious.
He has adopted a "last-mover advantage" tactic in the new Senate where the Government needs an extra seven votes to pass legislation opposed by the Coalition.

Here is how it works.

On contentious bills, Fielding lets the Government wrangle the five Greens and the South Australian independent Nick Xenophon into a deal.

As these negotiations proceed, he keeps everyone guessing about his position.

Then, when the Government has the Greens and Xenophon onside, Fielding votes their deal down and the real negotiations start.

This was the tactic Fielding used to extract concessions for farmers and tourism operators on the Government's luxury car tax increase this week after he voted the bill down last week.
Now he is trying the same gambit on the Government's plan to lift the income thresholds where people start paying the Medicare levy surcharge.

The Government was close to a deal with the Greens and Xenophon on the surcharge this week. But on Wednesday Fielding voted with the Coalition against the second reading of the bill.

That prevented it from going to the "consideration in detail" stage where non-government senators usually move amendments seeking to improve a bill for their constituencies.

Despite voting down the Medicare bill, the Victorian senator remains open to a deal that compensates low-income-earners for any increases in private health insurance premiums caused by the changes.

Fielding's conduct has bemused and infuriated the people on the other side of these transactions.

"He strung us along," said one player. "He is hard to contact. When he does return calls he doesn't level with us."

Yet, for now, the tactic is achieving its goal: maximising Fielding's bargaining power.

Rather than share the balance of power in the Senate, the "last-mover" approach aims to parlay Family First into holding the balance of power all by itself.

The party desperately needs the profile which comes with the balance of power. Fielding was elected in 2004 with less than 2 per cent of the primary vote due to preference flows unlikely to be repeated. He faces re-election at the next poll.

But his approach is unlikely to prove sustainable.

For if the Greens and Xenophon find every deal is gazumped, they may start playing last-mover advantage themselves, seeking to leap-frog Fielding's concessions in their dealings with the Government.

And it is not impossible that the Government could bypass Fielding and find that elusive last vote from an independent-minded Nationals senator.

Then the Family First senator from Victoria would be forced to fall back on his old tricks of costumes and props.

Living Your Own Life

Krishna said to Arjuna, "It is better to follow your own calling imperfectly than follow another's perfectly. If death should come while following your own path, this is surely better than living with the fear and anguish of following a false path".

Bhagvad Gita, 3:35

Integral Diagrams in What Is Enlightenment Magazine

Congratulations are in order for my friend, and integral cartographer, Stephen Lark. His integral diagrams website was mentioned in the recent What Is Enlightenment men's issue. It's an astonishing collection of maps from all corners of the integral world which you can see here: www.flickr.com/photos/slark/sets/939928

Also: integraldiagrams.blogspot.com/

My Word To All Who Would Find Heart-Breaking Freedom - Adi Da

"The illusion that sexuality can “cause” Spiritual growth stems from the fundamental illusion that Spiritual practice is a process that starts “below”, and moves from there to Above. That illusion is an unwitting validation of egoity — a declaration that, in effect, the ego must “propel” itself upward, to the Divine (thus, “taking Heaven by storm”). “Below” is not (and never can be) “causative” relative to What Is Above. Rather, What Is Above Must Purify and Transform and (Most Ultimately) En-light-en what is “below”.

- The Avataric Great Sage, Adi Da Samraj

What's good for the goose...

From the transcript of Malcolm Turnbull MP interview with Chris Uhlmann ABC AM Program 25 September 2008.

UHLMANN:
You say that they have mocked pensioners, they knocked back a bill which you raised in the Senate which was…do you believe that that bill was constitutional? You’re also a lawyer.

MR TURNBULL:
Well I take the Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, who is a greater expert than either of us in these areas.

UHLMANN:
And he disagrees with the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

MR TURNBULL:
Well I accept what the Clerk of the Senate said, Chris. But Chris let’s not argue about the constitution here. Let’s look…

UHLMANN:
But wasn’t it a stunt?

MR TURNBULL:
I do not believe that giving pensioners $30 extra a week is a stunt. These are pensioners who are living, trying to live on a pension that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister and the acting Prime Minister have said is impossible to live on. This Government has so little respect for pensioners they’re prepared to say, ‘We are sitting on a $22 billion surplus, you pensioners are trying to live on a pension, we the Government could not live on, but we will not give you a cent.’ Now that is just cruelty. It’s cold indifference.

UHLMANN:
But the cabinet last year, a cabinet that you were a member of also knocked back that $30 a week pay rise. So why wasn’t that cruelty and cold indifference?

MR TURNBULL:
Last year was last year. The cabinet this year, Chris, the fact is there has been enormous price inflation in the…

UHLMANN:
But you’re asking them to do something which you would not do yourself?

MR TURNBULL:
Chris last year the circumstances were different. There was enormous price inflation just in the last six months. I mean Margaret May in the parliament yesterday ran through the figures. Massive increases in milk, in bread, in tea and coffee, petrol of course. Not luxuries, necessities. Now that is what this Government has been indifferent to. That’s the arrogance.

UHLMANN:
So too hard for you last year when we had some inflation and easy now that the world financial system is melting down and we have inflation?

MR TURNBULL:
Chris we have a Government that is indifferent to the plight of the people in Australia who are doing it toughest. They have a $22 billion surplus; they say you cannot live on the pension. They cannot live on the pension and they will not lift a finger. And it is that inaction, that arrogance, that indifference- it is hypocrisy. How can you say, how can you look pensioners in the eye and say it’s impossible to live on what you’ve got but I’m not going to do anything to help you?

UHLMANN:
Malcolm Turnbull, thank you.

Bush brings socialism to citadel of capitalism

BY MARTIN SCHRAM

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/380223_schramonline24.html

It was a true September Surprise. A calamitous financial crisis that not only toppled Wall Street's corporate icons and sent global markets plummeting but may have given Barack Obama's seemingly mired campaign the one thing he may never have secured on his own: victory.
Among Obama's most effective helpers was John McCain. The Republican presidential candidate responded to the crisis' first burst of pressure with tough-talk -- a calculated but wrong-headedly furious call for the firing of little-known Chris Cox as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, charging he had betrayed the public trust. McCain's response was so lacking in judgment that he was pilloried by his natural party pillars.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized that McCain's call was "false and deeply unfair" and "unpresidential." Conservative columnist George Will questioned whether McCain's "boiling moralism and boundless reservoir of certitudes" meant he was "not suited to the presidency."
But before we get to the presidential politics of it all -- and opine on outcomes we won't know until America votes -- we need to take note of a mind-boggling truth that has become self-evident only in the past few days. A new chapter of the presidential legacy of George W. Bush has now become clear: He, of all people, will inevitably go down as the president who brought socialism to the citadel of capitalism -- Wall Street.
The now necessary federal bailout of the banks and investment entities is the sort of big government effort that often has been labeled by the political right as socialism -- also, welfare -- when it has been proposed for the have-nots. Now that it is being proposed for the have-lots, it must be called the same -- and indeed, that too has come to pass.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., called the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout plan "economic socialism ... it's un-American!" (I think I hear your mind boggling even as we speak. But hold on, for it gets curiouser and curiouser.) The case can be made that this is more rare than anything envisioned by Eugene Debs or Norman Thomas, back when they ran for the presidency as Socialist Party candidates in America's past.
For the case can be made that this bailout of the bankers will be seen as the Czar's own Socialist Revolution. After all, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's original three-page remedy gave him unfettered powers to bail out the banks and investment entities holding shaky mortgages -- without review by Congress, the courts or regulators. Legislators from both parties warned that he would be acting as "a czar."
This has been a rare burst of bipartisanship -- it has been hard to separate the far left from the far right. Try it yourself:
One senator said: "If the government is going to get into the bailout business, shouldn't we also be focusing our resources on average Americans, rather than sophisticated and well-compensated bankers? The Treasury's plan has little for those outside of the financial industry. It is aimed at rescuing the same financial institutions that created this crisis with their sloppy underwriting and reckless disregard for the risks they were creating, taking, or passing on to others. Wall Street bet that the government would rescue them if they got into trouble. It appears that bet may be the one that pays off."
Another senator said: "Whatever we do, we have to insist that those who created the scandal do not benefit from the bailout. No golden parachutes. Let them feel the hard landing that my constituents faced when they were laid off from Bethlehem Steel. Let them feel the hard landing of knowing what it's like to have your home foreclosed upon. ... We do not need to subsidize bad behavior."
The first quote was Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a leading conservative. The second was Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a prominent liberal.

Nicolas Sarkozy, Hero of the 63rd UN General Assembly

"Let us rebuild together a regulated capitalism in which whole swathes of financial activity are not left to the sole judgment of market operators, in which banks do their job, which is to finance economic development rather than engage in speculation"

- French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Kings of Leon

The wait is over. The Kings have (on my b'day) released the not-so-long awaited Only By The Night. There's five stars spinning around two thumbs up on my side of the bed… Sass ain't as convinced. It's a huge follow up to last year's magnum opus, Because Of The Times, and they've largely followed, if not evolved, the spacious turn they took from their two earlier rock revival records, and which, for mine, started with Milk on Aha Shakebreak.

she saw my comb over, her hourglass body
she had problems with drinking milk
and being school tardy
she'll loan you her toothbrush
she'll bartend you party

"Happy Birthday to Me..." (Repeat 31 times).

Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain

(from The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/evolutionists_flock_to_darwin)

DAYTON, TN—A steady stream of devoted evolutionists continued to gather in this small Tennessee town today to witness what many believe is an image of Charles Darwin—author of The Origin Of Species and founder of the modern evolutionary movement—made manifest on a concrete wall in downtown Dayton.

"I brought my baby to touch the wall, so that the power of Darwin can purify her genetic makeup of undesirable inherited traits," said Darlene Freiberg, one among a growing crowd assembled here to see the mysterious stain, which appeared last Monday on one side of the Rhea County Courthouse. The building was also the location of the famed "Scopes Monkey Trial" and is widely considered one of Darwinism's holiest sites. "Forgive me, O Charles, for ever doubting your Divine Evolution. After seeing this miracle of limestone pigmentation with my own eyes, my faith in empirical reasoning will never again be tested."

Added Freiberg, "Behold the power and glory of the scientific method!"

Since witnesses first reported the unexplained marking—which appears to resemble a 19th-century male figure with a high forehead and large beard—this normally quiet town has become a hotbed of biological zealotry. Thousands of pilgrims from as far away as Berkeley's paleoanthropology department have flocked to the site to lay wreaths of flowers, light devotional candles, read aloud from Darwin's works, and otherwise pay homage to the mysterious blue-green stain.

Capitalizing on the influx of empirical believers, street vendors have sprung up across Dayton, selling evolutionary relics and artwork to the thousands of pilgrims waiting to catch a glimpse of the image. Available for sale are everything from small wooden shards alleged to be fragments of the "One True Beagle"—the research vessel on which Darwin made his legendary voyage to the Galapagos Islands—to lecture notes purportedly touched by English evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace.

"I have never felt closer to Darwin's ideas," said zoologist Fred Granger, who waited in line for 16 hours to view the stain. "May his name be praised and his theories on natural selection echo in all the halls of naturalistic observation forever."

Despite the enthusiasm the so-called "Darwin Smudge" has generated among the evolutionary faithful, disagreement remains as to its origin. Some believe the image is actually closer to the visage of Stephen Jay Gould, longtime columnist for Natural History magazine and originator of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, and is therefore proof of rapid cladogenesis. A smaller minority contend it is the face of Carl Sagan, and should be viewed as a warning to those nonbelievers who have not yet seen his hit PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

Still others have attempted to discredit the miracle entirely, claiming that there are several alternate explanations for the appearance of the unexplained discoloration.

"It's a stain on a wall, and nothing more," said the Rev. Clement McCoy, a professor at Oral Roberts University and prominent opponent of evolutionary theory. "Anything else is the delusional fantasy of a fanatical evolutionist mindset that sees only what it wishes to see in the hopes of validating a baseless, illogical belief system. I only hope these heretics see the error of their ways before our Most Powerful God smites them all in His vengeance."

But those who have made the long journey to Dayton remain steadfast in their belief that natural selection—a process by which certain genes are favored over others less conducive to survival—is the one and only creator of life as we know it. This stain, they claim, is the proof they have been waiting for.

"To those who would deny that genetic drift is responsible for a branching evolutionary tree of increasing biodiversity amid changing ecosystems, we say, 'Look upon the face of Darwin!'" said Jeanette Cosgrove, who, along with members of her microbiology class, has maintained a candlelight vigil at the site for the past 72 hours.

"Over millions of successive generations, a specific subvariant of one species of slime mold adapted to this particular concrete wall, in order to one day form this stain, and thus make manifest this vision of Darwin's glorious countenance," Cosgrove said, overcome with emotion.

"It's a miracle," she added.

Cognitive Affective Connections in Teaching and Learning

I read an intriguing article by Arthur Zajonc today entitled 'Cognitive-Affective Connections in Teaching and Learning: The Relationship Between Love and Knowledge' (Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, 3(1) (Fall 2006), 1-9.). Arthur's a professor of physics at Amherst College and Academic Program Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.

His argument is that the cultivation of love is not only an essential human practice, but that even the mere pursuit of knowledge relies on the affective relations one has with the information in ways we rarely pay attention to. I responded especially well to his discursive style of writing, which was an interesting point for me given his thesis isn't hot off the press for me. I read mountains of these kinds of arguments when I was studying organisational communication at uni and also when I was reading NLP sourcebooks a few years ago. Both times prior, I had no real love for the information I was consuming, and so (at least arguably) that lack affected the willingness of my mind to recall it. This time around, the relationship I garnered with Arthur's words moved me to digest the article and post this. His style spoke to me in ways the others hadn't, and by the sheer passage of time, I'm in a more privileged intellectual and emotional position nowadays to appreciate Arthur's words.

"When the German poet Goethe declared, "In all things we learn only from those we love," he was speaking directly to the profound connection between cognition and affection. We are especially open to and receptive towards one we love. We are more likely to remember the words of a beloved mentor and to ruminate on them long after they were spoken. Teachings go deep when carried into the human being by deep affection; they can change us, teach us even to see the world differently. I have grown increasingly convinced of the importance of the connection between cognition and affection, or to state it more clearly, the crucial relationship between love and knowledge.

First, a personal remark: as a scientist, any attempt to relate knowledge to love feels like an enormous breach of etiquette; it is very bad form, especially so in a public setting such as this. But I have come to conclude that the fear I have felt when broaching this topic was based on particular institutional forms and forces that have ultimately worked against our fundamental human interests. So please join me in setting aside your suspicions and hesitancies and explore with me the possible relationship between knowledge and love especially as they meet in contemplative inquiry.

If I were to ask: What should be at the center of our teaching and our students' learning, how would you respond? Of the many tasks that we as educators take up, what, in your view, is the most important task of all? What is our greatest hope for the young people we teach? In his letters to the young poet Franz Kappus, Rainer Maria Rilke (1954) answered unequivocally:

To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task, this is what [young] people need….For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but a preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love, they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. (p. 41)

Need I say it? The curricula offered by our institutions of higher education have largely neglected this central, if profoundly difficult task of learning to love, which is also the task of learning to live in true peace and harmony with others and with nature.

We are well-practiced at educating the mind for critical reasoning, critical writing, and critical speaking, as well as for scientific and quantitative analysis. But is this sufficient? In a world beset with conflicts, internal as well as external, isn't it of equal if not greater importance to balance the sharpening of our intellects with the systematic cultivation of our hearts? Do not the issues of social justice, the environment, and peace education all demand greater attention and a more central place in our universities and colleges?"

Play as an Integral Life Practice

I really enjoyed reading the recent article by Gwen Gordon and Sean Esbjorn-Hargens called Integral Play: An exploration of the playground and the evolution of the player.

Their developmental hypothesis on the evolution of the player rings in loud resonance with my experience of growing through play-forms. I feel it quite accurately accounts/describes notions of play that I have discarded and longed for at different points on my road.

The hypothesis also made me ponder how my relationship to experiences at my edge of development completely transform when framed as play. In particular, I can take spiritual practice so seriously at times that it becomes a form of burden and toil. Seeing Gwen and Sean frame the exploratory nature of practice as a form of play brings a bright new constellation to my relationship with it.

Here's a wonderful excerpt from the paper:

"The Eight Play Selves are based on Susanne Cook-Greuter's and William Torbert's full spectrum Action-Inquiry research on postautonomous ego development. Their research represents the most sophisticated and extensive full-spectrum (prepersonal, personal, postpersonal, and post- postpersonal) research available… Each play self has a unique way of relating to itself, other playmates, and the playground. In brief:

1. The impulsive self is a Magical Player who connects with the cosmos by balancing dichotomous forces such as good and evil. They have a strong concern for creating safety and satisfying basic needs. The Magical Player has a sense of unlimited power combined with superstitious and magical notions. Their play is often highly repetitive. They view other people primarily as a source of self-gratification and feel confused and anxious by the complexity of the world.
   
2. The self-protective self is an Aggressive Player who is self-serving. Their play often takes the form of heroic acts. They identify the self in terms of its will, ideas, and wishes. Self- preservation is central. They project all their feelings and rarely self-reflect. They think globally with many judgments and simple ideas. They see other people as competitors for space, goods, and dominance and have little capacity for insight into self and others. They often cross other's boundaries in a crusade of low trust and hyper-vigilance. They experience the world as a dangerous place filled with perilous risk.
   
3. The conformist self is an Ordered Player who is rule-oriented and concerned with group membership. They define themselves through others. They have no stable and clear boundaries between the self and the group. Projection and introjection are their common defenses. They suppress negative feelings and overemphasize positive ones. They have a strong need to be accepted and to reject those who do not conform to the group. They view their world through a concrete-literal lens.
   
4. The conscientious self is a Status Player who is defined by their orientation toward linear causality, objective (third-person) thinking, and a newly emerging separate self-identity, which lends itself to competition for status. The self has greater independence and confidence. They have an interest in their emotional life, though rationality is emphasized. They associate with others with similar goals and desires in life. They are drawn to achievement and accomplishing goals by being concise, efficient, and effective. They have a genuine interest in others, independent of their own needs and values. The world is experienced as predictable and measurable.
   
5. The individualistic self is a Sensitive Player who emphasizes connectivity between people, especially by sharing experiences, acknowledging contextual aspects of play (e.g., gender, class, race), and systemic dynamics of reality. They are aware of the observer and multiple viewpoints. They abandon objectivity and logic in favor of more holistic and organismic approaches. They value feelings and express them. They are aware of the conditioning dynamics of culture and context. They have the capacity to empathize with others and take their perspective. They understand their world is filled with diverse perspectives and competing truth claims.
   
6. The autonomous self is a Complex Player who welcomes chaos and multiple variables in service of self-development. The Complex Player understands the self as embedded in many contexts and dimensions. They accept many aspects of self through a complex psychology that integrates shadow material. They tolerate others in spite of their negative traits and differences of opinions or values. They experience their world as multidimensional with overlapping contexts and systems.
   
7. The construct-aware self is a Dynamic Player who integrates multimodal and multidimensional elements across contexts in service of humanity. They are aware of the subtle ways the ego filters experience. The Dynamic Player recognizes paradox and the limits of "mapping." They desire to work through their own limits and blind spots and increase their capacity to witness themselves in the moment. They understand others in developmental terms and encounter them without judgment. They have a profound understanding of other's complex and dynamic personalities. They experience the world as a place full of potential and paradox.
8. The ego-aware self is a Unitive Player who is a transparent manifestation of Being, completely spontaneous and open. They have stable access to transpersonal realities such as the capacity to witness all experience and keep their boundaries open. They view others as manifestations of Being. They experience the world as an immanent expression of timeless Spirit (see figure 6 below)".
   

Fig 6

Ctr. Of Identity	Play Selves	Style of Play	Examples
Pneumacentric	Unitive Player Play as Lila	Spontaneous, Witnessing, highly creative, Original, and open	Identification with the play of the world. Improv. at psychospiritual levels, Crazy wisdom, Tantra, and playing with luminosity. Unites determinisitic and free, structured and open chaos and order
Kosmocenttric	Dynamic Player Play as transformative	Multimodal and multidimensional	Improvisation with transformation, Meditation, holotropic breathwork, inquiry
Worldcentric	Complex Player Play as chaos	Fast and unpredictable	Improvisation with the world, improv. Movement and theater, multidimensional simulations, virtual reality
Worldcentric	Sensitive Player Play as cooperation	Connecting and sharing	Name games, ropes courses, New Games, team building exercises
Sociocentric	Status Player Play as competitions	Winning and Losing	Video games, gambling, poker, competitive sports, games at fairs and carnivals, ropes courses (trans.)
Ethnocentric	Ordered Player Play as structure	Following the rules	Board games, collections, hobbies, card games, intellectual games
Egocentric	Aggressive Player Play as conquest	Acts of heroism	Survivor, war games, chicken, drinking games, boxing/fights
Egocentric	Magical Player Play as connection to cosmos	Balancing good and evil	Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy games, divination: Runes, Tarot, magic tricks, charms, rituals

US Bailouts

.

In God We Trust

I trusted you. I didn’t know we’d been embedded - so unwittingly enmeshed. Deposited here, within another myth of moving beyond. Inside the network, no one has created, but we all enact. You’ve been thrust here too, but by now, you should have known better. On the sheer balance of time, you should have known. I trusted you. I was a good boy. There were supposed to be spoils. Just do good. We don’t need that God. Gawd, no. We’ve gone beyond, left that behind. I trusted you. Kneeling to their sermon of images and sound. You should have protected our domain. I trusted you. Entrusted to you. We were supposed to have gone beyond. Gone, gone beyond. There were supposed to be spoils. I’m silently passed below the industrial snarl. I trusted you. Unwittingly, sub manu. I trusted you. We’re so shackled and forced, you and I. I want us both to leave. There were supposed to be spoils. Worshiping their divine logics. Fed the post-holy cause to all of its effect. Work will set me free. When all is fear, where do the brave tread? You weren’t to know. You poor soul, strung across the subterranean familial snarl. You trusted them. But on the sheer passage of years, you should have known. By now, you should have known. I trusted you. You should have protected our domain. There were supposed to be spoils. Be a good boy, and work will set you free. What is my work? To kneel before this God? I’m waiting for you to save me. Jesus Christ, will you hear me?! The Gods of this realm will never come! Work will set me free. Here, kneeling, my true work will never come. Cause and effect is clear, like this we’ll never be free. Why won’t you come with me? You should have known. How could you sell me to this Pater? How couldn’t you have known? We were supposed to have gone beyond. The tyrannical Gods of old were beneficent nonetheless. There were supposed to be benefits. God Is Not The Man. Be a good boy. Kneel. We were supposed to have gone beyond. A dollar for a pound. They own our fat and our land. They own us from within, and yet we are them. Kneeling here, I defile my own flesh. I feel nothing. Only work will set me free. There were supposed to be benefits. Your Man is blind. I was a good boy. You should have protected our domain from this entanglement. Private isn’t public. Inside and outside become one only above the violent snarl. Above this terrible, invincible God. The God I trusted too. I trusted you.

Including the Self Beyond Self Through Me.... or Remember Meditation

Watering the Tree of Life

"When generativity, creativity, generosity, and the capacity to embrace life dry up, the Water of Life has gone underground. At such times, the earth becomes arid, life becomes devoid of meaning, the ground of culture cracks and splits, and gaps develop among peoples and between people and nature. Only water can bring the pieces back together, awaken seeds hidden in the ground, and enliven the parched Tree of Life. - -from Men and the Water of Life"

Michael J Meade, Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men
http://www.mosaicvoices.org/

Battle Weary

"My war—and I have yet to win a decisive battle—is with the modes of thought and conditioned feelings that prevail in psychology and therefore also in the way we think and feel about our being. Of these conditions none are more tyrannical than the convictions that clamp the mind and heart into positivistic science (geneticism and computerism), economics (bottom-line capitalism), and single-minded faith (fundamentalism)".

- James Hillman

A Monkey With A Drum

I've got some money put away for a great escape
And I could run for a girl like you.

- Josh Pyke

Shhh! Listen... they're talking.

Free In His Heart Is All He Could Be

Straighten Yourself

The Shoulder Joint

Ram Dass

"What one person has to offer another,
is their own being, nothing more, nothing less".

Forever Young – Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

GTD Altitudes

Going through old files earlier today, I dug out this Getting Things Done altitude statement which I put together in early 2007. I've found ruminating on this list exceedingly helpful when I've been stuck, and so felt moved to share it.

Runway:

Current Actions

This is the accumulated list of all the actions you need to take—all the phone calls you have to make, the e-mails you have to respond to, the errands you've got to run, and the agendas you want to communicate to your boss and your spouse. You'd probably have three hundred to five hundred hours' worth of these things to do if you stopped the world right now and got no more input from yourself or anyone else.

 

10,000 Feet:

Current Projects

Creating many of the actions that you currently have in front of you are the thirty to one hundred projects on your plate. These are the relatively short-term outcomes you want to achieve, such as setting up a home computer, organizing a sales conference, moving to a new headquarters, and getting a dentist.

 

20,000 Feet:

Areas of Responsibility

You create or accept most of your projects because of your responsibilities, which for most people can be defined in ten to fifteen categories. These are the key areas within which you want to achieve results and maintain standards. Your job may entail at least implicit commitments for things like strategic planning, administrative support, staff development, market research, customer service, or asset management. And your personal life has an equal number of such focus arenas: health, family, finances, home environment, spirituality, recreation, etc. Listing and reviewing these responsibilities gives a more comprehensive framework for evaluating your inventory of projects.

 

30,000 Feet:

One- to Two-Year Goals

What you want to be experiencing in the various areas of your life and work one to two years from now will add another dimension to defining your work. Often meeting the goals and objectives of your job will require a shift in emphasis of your job focus, with new areas of responsibility emerging. At this horizon personally, too, there probably are things you'd like to accomplish or have in place, which could add importance to certain aspects of your life and diminish others.

 

40,000 Feet View

Three- to Five-Year Vision

Projecting three to five years into the future generates thinking about bigger categories: organisation strategies, environmental trends, career and life transition circumstances. Internal factors include longer-term career, family, and financial goals and considerations. Outer world issues could involve changes affecting your job and organization, such as technology, globalization, market trends, and competition. Decisions at this altitude could easily change what your work might look like on many levels.

 

50,000+ Feet View

Life

This is the "big picture" view. Why does your company exist? Why do you exist? The primary purpose for anything provides the core definition of what its "work" really is. It is the ultimate job description. All the goals, visions, objectives, projects, and actions derive from this, and lead toward it.

Integral Life and God in Second Person

There's an interesting conversation brewing on Integral Life at the moment regarding the G-word and the face of spirit in second person. Check it out here.

I'll leave you to read it for yourself, but I couldn't avoid posting this excellent blurb from a member of the Sydney Integral list in relation to a post by Joseph Dillard.

"Later in the piece Joseph refers to the expansion of "I" which results, paradoxically and in my language, from the surrender of the illusion of control over these phenomena (or of the illusion that they don't occur) and the inclusion of "my" intentional parts in the constellation of internal autonomy of which I am neither only witness nor only participant".

HEY! California Waiting…

Seem too close to be losin' touch
By givin' in, what am I givin' up
Am I losin' way too much

Hey,
California waiting.
Every little thing's gotta be just right.
Say,
While you're tryin' to save me,
Can't I get back my lonely life

California Waiting
Youth and Young Manhood
Kings of Leon

Internal Family Systems

The Laurel and Hardy Theory of Consciousness - Colin Wilson

The Need for Community

There's a great interview with progressive Christian minister Erwin McManus and WIE editor Carter Phipps in the recent Men's edition of What Is Enlightenment magazine, which I found laden with pearls. This is one the bits I resonated with (in answer to a question of the benefits and shortcomings of the two major men's movements in the last twenty years: the Promise Keepers, and the Iron John movement):

"There's an interesting proverb that says hope deferred makes the heart sick. If you elevate this hope – this sense of belief that something beautiful and true and good can happen from your life, that you can live a life of real integrity and be a good person of character and wisdom – but then you don't provide a process to help them succeed, they're going to stop believing in the vision.
It's important to get in touch with the primal masculinity, which I think both of those groups did. It's important to get in touch with tour sense of manhood, to dig deep, ands to find the courage, resolve and resilience to live a life of honour and nobility. At the same time – and I know this just from being in L.A. for the last sixteen years – the most well-intended person, if not given a process to move towards success, will stumble and fall and then come to the conclusion that while someone else can succeed, he just can't pull it off, can't live that life. So I think it's also important to say: "Here's a process. Here are steps you can take". In the best case scenario, you need to find people who will journey with you, people who will mentor you and help you along the way.
What's why community is so critical. We don't' need someone with us all the time, but we d need community some of the time. There are critical transition moments where it's really essential".