Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
EN | IT

587 posts since 2006

Category: World Situation

  • Not about politics but about good versus evil

    Chris Nolan who is the editor and founder of Spot On (www.spot-on.com).  Interviewed me the recent presidential election and why I was such a strong supporter of Obama when I had been suggesting ten years earlier that the Internet was going to make Goverment and Politics less relivant.  You can read her post here.  But I thought I list some of the main points I think I made during a 30 minute conversation with Chris.

    The internet and technology will reduce the importance and power of governments.
    The structure we now have is a hold over from the beginnings of the industrial age and even before
    One example of loss of control is the regulation of information.  Even China is having difficulty controlling what their Citizens learn
    We now have major corperations that are truely global and can move money and people etc around the world with limited interferance by any goverment
    Good versus Evil
    I believe that the Bush  administration is evil.  I don’t know if Bush is evil or easily manipulated but look at the actions of his admistrations.
    Obama is a good.  He cares about people and has demostrated that through his life choices
    McCain and Palin seemed to be more of the same but maybe even worse.  I am sure that McCain knew what he was doing and was willing to give up his principles for a win.
    For me this is not about politics
    I have no issue with having two parties that have different points of view and policies.   But politicians have turned social issues into ways to win by taking away the rights of others.
    Politicians seem to have one job these days and that is getting reelected.
    Leadership
    Leaders need the right circumstances but the right circumstances do not create leaders
    We have not had inspiring leadership in the USA since JFK, RFK and King.
    The world needs leadership but they do not have to be politicians

    Finally, I should say that this election was very meaningful to me like it was to so many.  In the 60s I was arrested for cilvil rights demonstrations.  I did voter  registration for Willie Brown’s for election.  Frankly, I never thought I would see an african american president.

  • Barack is the real thing

    Barack speaks at the Getty homeTonight, my wife and I had the privilege of attending a small reception for Barack Obama at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty.  All I can say, is he is more impressive and more fun in person than on TV.  They closed off the street in front of the Getty’s home which is on Broadway and Lyon in San Francisco .  We were just going in when he showed up right on time along with about 20 secret service people etc . He jumped out of the car with a huge grin on his face and said “Hi guys!  I’ll see you inside”.    About fifteen minutes later he came into this rather large room (the Getty’s are good people but they live like they are the Medici Family so think of this as being more a palace than a house”.  He joked about the place not being up to his standards.  Then he began to give his stump speech.  The crowed was in rapture not because they were hearing some God speak but because they were hearing a real human being speak.  Here are the things that had an impact on me:

     

    1)       The urgency of the moment

    2)      His belief in all of us. In the intelligence and values of the American people

    3)      That there are no real differences in policy between him and Hillary but there is a very different view about how to achieve these policies

    a.       Transparency

    b.      Involvement of all parties

    c.       Not being influenced by lobbyists

    4)      He treated Hillary with great and I think sincere respect

    a.       He thinks that the press makes people think there are great issues than there are.

    b.      He said that after the convention he and Hillary will be standing together

    c.       She is an amazing and strong competitor.

    5)      How he will keep in touch

    a.       He now has small dinners with small donors that are selected randomly.  He will continue to reach out and have direct contact with normal citizens when he is president

    b.      He will also make sure his cabinet does the same

    6)      He believes in us which is even more important than us believing him

    7)      He is very smart but also very intuitive

    8)      When someone asks a question he is thoughtful and then answers them and looks at them when he replies.  He is in a conversation and does not see the question as just a platform.

    9)      He really believes in young people and thinks that he can make politics “cool” just like in the days of Kennedy.  He pointed out that young people are comfortable with being more open (al la Facebook).

    10)  He loves to be with people.

    11)  He likes himself.  He is comfortable being himself. 

    12)  He is a man that did not really have a father but want to be a father and a brother to all of us.

     

     

     

     

  • Thomas Friedman for President

    I read a great op-ed by Tom Friedman (a man I have respected since he first quoted me in The Lexus and the Olive Tree J).  Tom made me realize (again) that many if not all of the great problems before us actually have solutions except maybe one?  How do we get rid of the people that occupy (and I mean occupy) our government.  We are dying of a political cancer.  Our politicians only seem to care about getting elected. They think we are too pety or too stupid to hear the truth or maybe they don’t even know what that word means.  I don’t know if Tom can manage but Tom can think.  Bush can manage. He managed to drag this country into an awful war. He managed to tarnish our image around the world.  He managed to screw up our economy.  He managed to transfer our wealth to our enemies.   I am hoping the Barack is different but frankly I do not know.  He is the only serious candidate for president that I can consider now.  But he needs to speak out and be clear about his solutions to the problems facing this country.  In the mean time can we start a draft Tomas Friedman campaign?  

  • Can I be an honorary woman?

    No I don’t mean that I want to cross dress although I have to say my calves looked pretty good the one time I tried on my wife’s red patent leather pumps and I do think I might be the original metro sexual.  But this post is about something else. There is a Jewish concept called Tikkum Olom. It means healing or repairing the world.  It is a powerful concept because inherent in it is understanding that this is  our mission as human beings .  Actually the concept can be taken much further when applied to the universe as we know it but I won’t go into quantum mechanics and cosmology here.   During the last several years, I have noticed that it is women that are taking on the role of healers and repairs of the world.  Of course there wonderful and caring men, like my dear friend, Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org or even Al Gore  or even my own sons, but more and more I have been seeing women reach other to take action.  A few nights ago, we were invited to a reading by Riane Eisler,  The event was organized by three women.  Riane, talks about the need to move from  “dominator”  societies to “partnership” societies.   And while she did not say it, I thought this about moving from the masculine to the feminine.  It interesting to me that when we talk about the future and the macro changes we can expect, we mostly talk about things such as the continuing impact of technology (for instance, The World is Flat, by Thomas Frieman), the potential of genetic engineering, and  the economic progress of developing countries like India and China as well as issues like Global Warming,  the rise of Islam.  I have not seen much written about the potential of a change from male driven societies to societies lead by women.  But we are starting to see women taking greater and greater roles in the leadership of government and business. The 21st century may be the first century where woman will play the leading role and if that happens, then we can be optimistic about the future of our planet.  I believe that technology can provide the billions of people in this planet with all the basics for survival (food, medicine etc) but only when our business leaders think that it is more important to help others than to buy a bigger jet.  And when our government leaders understand that wining is not someone else loosing. It will not be easy for woman to  assume the leadership role.  Most of women in the world our suffering under the domination of male oriented societies.  So those of us  in the develop world have to lead in freeing them to make their contributions and heal the world.  

  • Fourty four years ago, I went to jail for the first time

    Forty four years ago I went to jail for the first time.  I was arrested at the Palace  Hotel in San Francisco as part of a Civil Rights demonstration.  It is funny to think that the last time I was at the Palace Hotel it was for a Web 2.0 conference.   I doubt that many at that conference were even born before that day.  We were practicing non violent demonstrations then.  We lay in the street before the Palace Hotel. You can read about that at and even see a video at. They picked us up and threw us into a police van.  Then they booked us.  When the police asked me if I had an scars, I said yes (I have a major scar running up my back that looks like I lost in a sword fight).  I told them I had a lung operation.  They asked if anything had been removed and I said both lungs which they wrote down.  It was a demanding time.  I had to choose between anti war activates and civil rights.  I tried to spend my time equally.  The anti war stuff was more demanding and the music was not as good.  And believe me it was not as it is now, where most people know  that our government is lying to us. But watching the Jenna Six stuff reminded me of this time forty four years ago and it made me sad.

  • Christian protesters disrupt Hindu prayer in U.S. Senate

    Christian extremists disrupted the first ever senate prayer lead by a Hindu. It is really sad. Below you can read this beautiful prayer that these self appointed defenders of the “faith” tried to disrupt.

    “Let us pray. We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the Heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.

    Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening. May no obstacle arise between us.

    May the Senators strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world, performing their duties with the welfare of others always in mind, because by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. May they work carefully and wisely, guided by compassion and without thought for themselves.

    United your resolve, united your hearts, may your spirits be as one, that you may long dwell in unity and concord.

    Peace, peace, peace be unto all. Lord, we ask You to comfort the family of former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. Amen.”

     

  • This will (should) make you think

    Below you will find a description of a project by Chris Jordan that I think is excellent.  You can find the site here.

    By the way, speaking of excellent.  We are in Tuscany for the week and it does not really get much better than this.  I am definitly coming back as an Italian in my next life (assuming I am worthy). This is where we are staying.

    “Running the Numbers
    An American Self-Portrait

    This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

    My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so. The series is a work in progress, and new images will be posted as they are completed, so please stay tuned.

    ~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007 “

  • Bush must be thankful for Imus

    George Bush must be so thankful for entertainers who do stupid things. They keep the focus of TV news shows away for him. When you look at the priorities of the news organizations (do the reflect the priorities of their audiences or create them) you have to think we are living in a mental institution. Here we are locked in a “war” in Iraq, see the potential development of nuculear wepons in the hand of a mad man in Iran, have thousands of people dying in Dafur as we slowly burn our planet and all the news shows can do is report on Imus and his stupid remarks. Lets put things in perspective.

    Speaking of which: Check out a post by my son Asher on his blog Climate Changers in rebut the chairman of the London Stock Exchange (and by the way a former Executive at BP).