It's Been a Long, Long Time

A friend responded to a recent email and wrote one of the nicest things any amateur writer could hear - that I should consider blogging. 

Obviously, my musings on all sorts of subjects did not result in my being discovered as a brilliant voice in a sea of mediocrity.  I didn't even make it to mediocrity.  I went back to look at some of my old posts.  Some are bad.  Some are vain.  Some are poorly written.  On the other hand, some of them weren't half bad. 

The last couple of years have been complicated, frustrating and even extremely dangerous.  I stopped because I simply couldn't do much of anything except work to eat and work hard at other things in order to live.  I have learned so much in the last couple of years.  I began to wonder whether I should take an hour or two each week to offer some opinions, suggestions and questions to think about.  Given a few more important experiences, maybe I could help someone.  I have no idea but it poses little threat of doing any harm to others or myself.

If you care, visit the site when you have a minute.  Be brutally honest.  I can handle it.

Civil Rights - A Bigger Picture

After years of legislation that never made it to a vote in the State Senate, same-sex marriage is available with all of the (state) benefits it confers. It was a long process but we got there. I have written somewhat extensively about this topic not just for myself, but for the children of same-sex couples and for young people struggling to come to terms with their own sexuality and sexual orientation. My country has always struggled with civil rights issues. Slavery, the right of women to vote and own property in their own right, racial equality, the right to unionize, the right of women to birth control and the right of women and their doctors to privately decide to terminate a pregnancy, the rights of women to work in a place free from sexual harassment and the right for same-sex couples to marry just scratches the surface. In some cases it took a civil war. In some cases it involved many years of marches, letter writing campaigns and appeals of cases to the Supreme Court. Hard work can pay off.

There is more work to do, though. Achievements made in the last 50-75 years are being threatened. There are elected officials committed to destroying a social contract by radically changing or repealing legislation that established Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and a host of federal and state benefits and rights that most of us began to take for granted. A fiscal crisis caused by squandering federal budget surpluses to start a military adventure in Iraq, among other terrible public policy decisions, makes it easier for enemies of dignity and freedom to claim we cannot afford to maintain, much less improve, access to health care, fully funded secondary education or a long list of other programs that are relied upon by some our most vulnerable fellow citizens.

Everyone with a paycheck and a checkbook knows that spending more than one earns cannot go on forever. Federal tax policy ignores this reality. We are sold the often repeated line that we can grow more prosperous by limiting taxation on the wealthiest households and corporations but, frankly, that is simply not true now, if it ever was in the first place. Modest increases (or repealing tax breaks that are unnecessary) in taxes do not make us a Socialist nation. They make us a responsible nation that can well afford to take care of the most vulnerable among us.

It's a choice. What kind of communities do we want to build or maintain? For me, I want to know that my Mom's next-door neighbor at 90 years old and entirely dependent on Social Security and Medicare can live in dignity and remain in her home. I want to know other vulnerable people who have committed no crimes and ask for very little beyond roof over their heads and food in the house get those things. Many devoutly religious people know that most mainline religions ask us to remember that we are our brothers' keepers. They also know that we cannot trust individuals to do the things their religions teach them. To me, that is when our federal government needs to step in and make hard choices about taxes (and, yes, spending) so we achieve some stability and keep our promises. Philanthropy is a big part of keeping some institutions alive but it is optional. Helping others retain their dignity requires more than lip service. It does not matter whether the check comes directly from me to them or that I leave my checkbook at home and pay slightly higher taxes. The issue is about stability. When we get so disconnected from the reality of others' lives, it is easy to forget that people with substantial wealth can, through a rational tax policy, well afford to stabilize and guarantee that market-based capitalism is not destroyed by a social safety net. It means we are a pragmatic, caring, understanding citizenry that pays its bills. That is hardly radical.

Enough Is Not Necessarily Enough

I am not joking when I ask this: when can we individually say to ourselves we are "enough" in our private and public lives or whether the judgment must come from others based on their own standards over which I had no input? I'm not talking about whether we made enough widgets for an employer. It goes far deeper than that. I wish there was a formula or even an online calculator (like they have for determining how much you can afford to borrow for a home mortgage) that would give individuals some sense of their value. It would probably have to start with what you have to offer in terms of intellect, time, money, age, compassion, physicality and would probably have to end with what you should offer given your life circumstances and opportunities. Most people - unless they are complete sociopaths who don't give a damn - want to think that what they do and who they are measures up. Most people who value their privacy (and I confess I don't care to spend much energy on people who don't value their privacy) are somewhat handicapped when it comes to turning one's life trajectory over to someone else in an effort to determine to what extent they need to re-think their priorities or simply do more or be more than they already are. Sometimes I ask myself which David does this person or group want or need me to be today? Nice David who asks for nothing? Hardworking David? Generous David? Tell-it-like-it-is David? Compliant David? Conversational dinner party guest David? Political David? Apolitical David? Defensive David? Self-assured David? Crisp, breezy, funny David? I can do all of them authentically without performance anxiety but it strikes me that very few people beyond my closest family members, friends or partner ever appear to wonder what I need them to be at a given moment. I think it's cheesy to ask or imply that there are times when I actually do need a handful of people to consider what I need but there are times I wish I could get away with telling them. The farther I drill down, it gets more superficial and more personal. I have been told I am too rigid, usually by people who are unable to develop any sort of discernible value system. I have been told I don't respond quickly enough to non-business voice mails on my mobile phone, usually by friends I love but who don't realize I get tired like the rest of the world. I have been told I am too thin, usually by people who could probably stand to drop a fair amount of weight. I have been told by a casual acquaintance I should let him become my personal stylist. That happened to be a day when I thought I had done a pretty good job on my own, thank-you-very-much. In each case, I could respond in a way that would probably be very hurtful to the messenger. I freely admit I enjoy thinking of responses that would shut them down but I do listen and usually eat a shit sandwich and give a polite response which typically involves yessing someone to death. The common thread that runs through all of these little encounters is that on some level or another, I am not "enough" yet. I suppose I could just dismiss all of it and become a self-satisfied jerk but that is not who I want to be and, of course, I realize I have as many character defects as anyone else, even if they are different. I'm guessing that much of it involves the perception of a fair number of people that I am too privileged and therefore insulated from the reality of "ordinary" lives. (Actually, I have been told that by someone who hasn't even seen or spoken to me in nearly 40 years. I have to thank Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for making it so easy to use email as a form of drive-by shooting.) Rightly or wrongly, I interpret that as telling me that my opinion does not matter because it comes from a place they don't understand as well as they might like. I'll admit I am privileged but I can't bring myself to sincerely apologize for it because I think I earned a fair amount of it and I am not as privileged as many others but do not run around assuming a more privileged person could not relate to my own life experience. Perhaps there will come a day when I stop thinking about whether I am enough and won't fall into the trap of being smug and dismissive or unable to accept legitimate criticism. I know a few people like that and they will never get an invitation to any social or other event over which I have any control. By the way, I generally think that most people I know on more than a superficial level are enough, sometimes much more than enough, and for those I don't know as well, I try to suspend judgment until it is obvious that they are or are not. I know that sounds self-serving but after spending as much time as I do thinking about the issue, I think I get to at least say something nice about myself.

Is it possible to listen on the Internet?

I suppose that the answer to the question posed in the title suggests the answer. I am not convinced that "listening" is easy based on text. I have run into this problem more than once and each time, I got it wrong. There is too much left unsaid. It's almost impossible to interrupt at the right moment to explain oneself. There will always be lingering questions about what the sender meant and what the recipient thought. When I am trying to be my best self I try to follow my own advice: it does not matter what your intentions were when you wrote to someone; what really matters is how it is perceived by the recipient. That may sound "politically correct" to some, but most of what people complain about being "politically correct" is more properly described as polite and loving. If the internet exchange is purely transactional or otherwise socially innocuous, it does not matter as much. If the exchange is personal, email is a poor substitute for a telephone call or airline ticket. You can hug a loved one even when you are angry with them. As a person is writing, you won't know if they were shedding a tear as they did so. If you don't know, you are in no position to ask why and that question you did not know to ask might be the key to understanding everything the person is feeling because it prompts a question or two. Technology permits so much back-and-forth. (I won't say "communication" because I have come to believe that there are far too many grades of communication to call every keystroke communication in its proper context.) Often, it seems like a substitute for real communication, a way of saying we are communicating without actually communicating. I'm working on this. I'll continue to get it wrong sometimes. I am grateful for the technology that permits various forms of communication than would otherwise be available but it cannot take the place of the real thing when it comes to one's closest friends and family.

Public Sector Collective Bargaining

Having spent nearly 13 years in public employment as a manager - specifically as an advocate in contract and disciplinary arbitrations and on the negotiating team for three rounds of collective bargaining with public employee unions - and another dozen working for unions in a similar capacity, I can say with some authority that collective bargaining rights are perhaps the most stabilizing part of labor relations in the public sector. To this day, I still find it odd that so many of us view people who work for a democratically elected government to be worse than private sector employees who answer only to shareholders of corporations or, in truly private enterprises, to no one but their bosses.

Teaching is a good example. I think many of us forget that teacher salaries - with some exceptions - have traditionally lagged behind those of occupations requiring the same (or less) formal education and the real bargain most teachers made at the time they were hired was to get job security, good benefits and a decent pension in exchange for accepting less salary. Some - particularly the brightest, best educated women in the 1950s through the early 1980s - had few choices if they chose to work outside the home. Less than 10% of women earned a bachelor's degree in the late 1950s. Their choices were generally limited to teaching, nursing or secretarial work. Let's not forget that Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, graduated at the top of her law school class at Stanford University in the 1950s. The only private sector work she could get at a top law firm was as a secretary. She had more opportunities in the public sector, took them, worked hard and became the most important swing vote in the Supreme Court for over 20 years.

The same is true for other types of public employment. It's a fair trade. If we now want to to change that social contract that has existed in some states for more than 50 years and individualize negotiations with every teacher, whether a new hire or a 30 year veteran, your kid's art teacher will make a lot less than the math teacher even if your child wants to be an artist, not an accountant. Your football coach will make a lot more than your English teacher even if you see a budding poet at your dinner table. Those who think that is acceptable often speak about unregulated market economies being the perfect 'invisible hand' that ensures compensation matches the value of the employee to the enterprise. If that is true, why did so many of us decide that multi-million dollar bonuses to people employed in finance were grotesque? There were no relevant regulations on compensation for most finance jobs. Those employees knew that they either performed and contributed to creating profits or were out on the street. Personally, and I have said this before in other posts, I think it is silly, insulting and counterproductive to broadbrush an entire industry as being filled with incompetent, undeserving employees, whatever the industry. There will always be bad teachers. There will always be bad finance employees. In most teaching jobs, there is a three year probationary period before achieving tenure. You can tell pretty quickly if a newly hired teacher can deliver and terminate them at will if they cannot get up to speed. It may take a bit longer to locate the bad hires in finance and, other than a severance package, they have few rights to challenge their termination even after 20 or 30 years of employment.

You can bet on one thing: if you attempt to strip non-managerial public employees of their right to collectively bargain and get a due process hearing before firing them, there will be chaos and it won't be primarily of their making. If you think your teacher earns too much, shadow them for a day. Having grown up with one, I can tell you that good teachers get up at 5:30, are exhausted by 4:00 p.m. and after dinner, most are not watching television. They are grading papers, fine-tuning lesson plans and do not get to sleep by 10:00 p.m. It is certainly true that I experienced some really terrible teachers in junior high school and high school. The blame rests squarely on the school administration for not identifying them early and terminating them or being squeamish about seeking their termination and letting an arbitrator decide whether their decision holds water or doesn't. Not for nothing, but my mother's salary went a long way towards helping me end up in a tax bracket most Americans would find pretty satisfactory. I have paid more federal and state taxes than many people my age and although I don't consider myself wealthy, I do not think I deserve a tax break.

This last couple of years is so full of craziness and shifting allegiances it's hard to get one's arms around the whole thing. First, demonize the finance industry. Three cheers for the common man! Then, let's go after public employees. They are lazy, stupid and are not like the rest of us. Three cheers for the people who toil in the private sector with no job security! Mandated health care coverage for people in their 20s and 30s? They'll never use it and just subsidize those who are older and use too many resources. Three cheers for the young and healthy!

If people care about other hardworking people or those who have very limited choices and few resources, agree to cough up a little more in taxes or raise taxes on people who can best afford it. This is not about charity and don't forget that most families making under $50,000 per year effectively pay no federal taxes at all.

The vast majority of us would have to admit that we want excellent public services, no matter what our income. There is nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong when we're not willing to pay for it or negotiate with a union over the ability to pay for increases in salary or benefits.

Please don't tell us you did not realize that many states were headed toward a fiscal crisis long before the recession hit. They were borrowing money to pay for day-to-day expenses with no assurance that tax revenues would rise quickly enough to pay it back. Meanwhile, our sage leaders decided to grant wage increases and improved benefits to themselves and public employees. New York State counted on free flowing tax revenues from those working in finance to cover the State's obligations. Forget party affiliation. The worst spending blunders came from a Democratic-controlled Assembly and a Republican-controlled Senate. I certainly love the term "tax and spend" liberal a lot more than "borrow and spend" conservative. They are the ones who say 'vote for me, I won't increase your taxes'. What they don't say is that eventually taxes will have to be increased or your garbage won't be picked up, your streets won't be plowed, your schools will have outdated textbooks and your teachers will end up spending hundreds of dollars of their own salaries to subsidize your child's education. Honestly. Who is more responsible? Is it the candidate who says we have to pay as we go or the one who says we have to borrow as we go?

How about some common sense: To States: Borrow to build your bridge (even if it goes nowhere). Pay cash for services. Not enough money to pay cash for essential services? Increase taxes or find a way to make delivering services more efficient. Tell the union at negotiating time that you are broke and can't afford wage or benefit increases and propose cuts. If the union screams about it, make sure you have a system where a neutral arbitrator is appointed with a legislative mandate that he or she cannot impose a contract that has a potential to bankrupt the state. Impose layoffs if you have to but understand the consequences of doing so which include, among other things, paying unemployment benefits and filling up emergency rooms with people who lack health insurance for primary care.

It's no different from the advice a rational family would give: Borrow to renovate your house if it will increase its value. Borrow for post-secondary education for yourself and kids because it is the best investment you can make. Pay cash for everything else. Not enough cash? No flat screen TV. No vacations beyond your back yard. No eating out. No ordering in. It's actually pretty simple, right? Sure, this is a political game, but at its root is really about the value we place on people who teach kids, protect us and help lock up criminals and rescue you from a house fire that might even be the result of your own negligence. If you have a specific number in mind for the salaries of these folks, let us know. The last time I checked, contracts get signed by at least two parties - the union and the employer. If you think the employer made a bad deal, let them know. I promise you that eliminating collective bargaining won't do a thing to make it cheaper to provide essential services. When you see the foreclosure notice and badly peeling paint on the house of the teacher who inspires your kid and wrote him a recommendation that helped get him into college and who took a 20% pay cut because she had no collective bargaining rights and based her purchase on a social contract that she was reasonably certain would not radically change, don't complain that the value of your own house is diminished because the neighborhood is perceived as going to Hell in a handbasket.

Egyptian Autonomy

A friend on Facebook suggested a link to the following URL. It's worth reading. My comments after having read many posts may sound like absolute drivel but you can skip them if you want.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112611181593381.html

The more posts I read, the more convinced I am about all of the missed opportunities to admit our lack of understanding of other nations, cultures, religions, creeds and how they are intertwined with economic, political and social systems that grow from them. It seems to me that we could easily have studied our own history to understand the Middle East at critical moments in its history. Many of the first European settlers in what is now the United States claimed they were motivated by a desire to guarantee themselves the religious freedom they lacked in Europe. I am certain that there was a percentage of those early settlers who were very sincere about their motivation. I am also certain that there were many early settlers who envisioned building an economic system that better suited their spiritual beliefs and a political system that would be more consistent with their faith.
The reality is these early settlers accomplished very few of their stated goals. They imported existing European common law on property ownership, the rights of women and until the middle part of the 18th century, tolerated the notion that the nations of their birth considered them as merely colonizing land in the name of the U.K., the Netherlands, and other countries with no true democracy as we understand it today. Religious sanctuaries were certainly built but what we now understand as our Constitution's protection of the free exercise of religion and the prohibition on the government's establishment of religion was not in place for at least 150 years after the Mayflower's arrival in what is now Provincetown, MA.

These new colonists realized they needed to develop trading relationships with the nations of their birth in order to survive and until the second half of the 18th century lacked the military power to resist European domination. Of course, this includes newly created slave trading that forever changed Africa and what became the United States. By aligning themselves with British, French, Dutch and other nations, the colonists cleverly exploited old hatreds and used the militaries of those nations to protect themselves. Once addicted to those trading relationships and the material wealth they created on both sides of the Atlantic, it didn't require much imagination to understand that the socio-political ties could not be easily severed.

It seems to me that modern revolutionaries reject the notion of voting with one's feet as early U.S. settlers did and with few exceptions, when governments do not answer their people, they will eventually be replaced. Other than European pilgrims to the U.S., the main exception to staying put and not 'voting with one's feet' are European Jews, who learned early their survival in Europe depended on a strategy of elevating the importance of education, the development of portable skill sets that permitted them to pull up stakes when it was clear they would otherwise be divested of whatever wealth they had amassed or killed. Their ability to move, adapt, offer necessary services and preserve their traditions and religion left them permanent outsiders wherever they settled because, as most of us know, the most portable, critical professions and endeavors were ultimately more lucrative than the endeavors of the agrarians around them. Of course, we know how well that strategy worked in the long term.

When compared to the colonization of North America by Europeans, it's not difficult to understand the similarities between the U.S. and many Middle Eastern countries, particularly as it relates to the importance of religion, attempting to avoid European domination and maintain cultures and value systems thought to be existentially important. Religion played a key role, as did the necessity to develop trading relationships amongst themselves and with other nations. Skipping over the next 150 years from the U.S.'s political independence from European powers, the West's insatiable demand for crude oil inflated the potential of Middle Eastern military and political power, bringing with it wealth but not the kind of independence it sought to preserve. European and U.S. businesses flourished in the Middle East and, once addicted to the wealth that came from trading with the West, Western nations came to dominate the Middle East's political independence and autonomy. The 20th century is littered with American and European involvement in determining the leadership of individual Middle Eastern nations, often preferring dictatorships and sales of military equipment to cut out the middle man in negotiations over crude oil and the future of Israel. The resentments of Middle Eastern citizens inevitably led to protests and in some cases, revolutions.

It should come as no surprise that Egyptians have been watching Middle East conflicts and, despite their peaceful end to decades of wars and skirmishes with Israel, do not want a dictator or to be bought off for a few billion dollars that apparently have not trickled down to its poorest citizens. We played a large role in creating an environment that has already led to chaos in other Middle Eastern nations. If we haven't learned any lessons at this point, we better start to do so. Mubarak may be considered a long term "friend" but if his citizens want him out, the only answer that will save us in the long run is to either help the Egyptian people pursue peaceful, democratic change or stay out of their way by acknowledging Mubarak must go and permitting their autonomy and will to govern their future. They already know we will support Israel in the event a new Egypt decides to attack Israel. I, for one, believe that ordinary Egyptians will give the U.S. a great deal of credit for permitting the peoples' will to be done and will find ways to punish us if we don't. The United States slogged through years of war to win its independence. We should understand that other nations, whether toppling a dictator or king or taking other actions to improve their collective lot in life, deserve the same respect we demanded for ourselves in the late 18th century. An apology might not hurt, either. I think it's important to add that this involves listening carefully to what is being said by ordinary Egyptians. As with any other issue involving human beings, listening is essential. It is why I started this whole blog in the first place.

Active Listening

My best friend for nearly 30 years launched his own consulting firm a couple of years back. Its focus is to help companies evaluate their existing business models and take better advantage of their strengths and minimize whatever weaknesses they might face. He has a natural gift of putting people at ease, shrugging off things and people that cause the rest of us to line up at the local pharmacy to buy antacids and is annoyingly, effortlessly good looking. He truly loves his wife and two daughters and, aside from my partner, is the most reliable person I have ever met. Of course, his life has not been perfect by any means, including issues with parents, siblings and, more notably, not always being taken as seriously as he should be. Some skip over the Ivy League education, the resume, the hard work and succumb to jealousy and treat him like the classic dumb blonde. With those blinders on, they don't realize why he knows he is going to sell them on his approach. He is actively - very actively - listening to them. They have no idea what is cooking inside of his head because they are too busy trying to figure out why they are drawn to him. Some will never know.

I see some parallels in our philosophy today that I did not see until recently. We both place a great deal of value in listening closely to what others say, how they say it and why. When I launched this little blog, it grew out of a desire to start conversations on topics that are often political and controversial. (I haven't done a thing to advertise it and have no idea if it would be popular if I did.) This post is more about foundation, principles and style than who wins the argument or sells his product.

Recently, we were writing back and forth about intelligence, social grace and how it is that each of us are in the early stages of starting our own practices (mine in law, his in business realignment) that have been, so far, gratifying and objectively successful. He suggested that what I consider to be my own oddities might actually be gifts. He always manages to say something no one else would think about, much less articulate, and turn (at least my) oddities into attributes. He believes I am much more socially graceful than I think I am and believes I am empathetic or sympathetic, intelligent and humbler than I do. He is also an expert in telling me I am full of crap when I lament my shortcomings. That's what good friends do.

To some extent, I think he is right and I would tell him the same thing about himself. I am usually polite and can summon up the energy to exhibit some social grace although I think politeness and social grace bleed together and for a person who is as generally shy as I am, I cannot say that whatever social grace I have is primarily rooted in shyness or something else. I like leaving very light footprints wherever I go although I don't always achieve it.

For me, trying to be more polite and actively listening to others is about avoiding conflict, especially in my personal life, because my professional life is almost always about dealing with conflict even when I am not the person at the center of the conflict. If intelligence plays a role, I'll take the compliment but I think it is not so much about native intelligence. If I had a nickel for every intelligent person who lacked a molecule of social grace, I would be happily working for free. At least for me, it is mostly about two things that I think are often underappreciated - truly active listening and having read enough books to turn an otherwise unsatisfying conversation into something distracting and interesting.

When I am able to tell someone that despite their troubles they remind me of a character in a novel where everything works out fine in the end, I walk away thanking my mother for telling me to read everything I could get my hands on. Doing that, appreciating the sincere efforts of others without regard to their immediate success and keeping an open mind make life a great deal easier. Let's not forget smiling and making the person with whom you are speaking feel like they are the only person in the room. It's not phony. It's smart.

We both go to a fair number of rubber chicken dinners with rooms full of people we barely know. 20+ years ago I would have been terrified. Today, all I truly dislike about those events are the bad food and mean drunks. I have been asked many times about my background when at these sorts of gatherings and have learned to keep it to a couple of sentences. To the extent I am perceived as "lucky" in my solo practice, the people with whom I speak seem to think I have some social or class advantage. Note to parents: I think it has more do with having decent table manners and what people consider to be my unaccented English which, of course, is silly because what I believe they really mean is that I sound far more patrician to them than I actually am and it is generally because I have a relatively flat, Midwestern accent. All English speakers have an accent. Mine just happens to sound more standard on television.

I continue to believe my best skill is to leave an event after speaking to 5-10 people in any depth never having revealed very much about myself. I don't think the people with whom I speak at these events even realize they learned nothing very personal about me because they are hungry to be heard or, more specifically, are hungry to have someone really listen to them. Those I know very well already have all the personal information they need about me and if they need more, they ask. Whether I tell is another story. One colleague who knows me pretty well, including aspects of my private life, asked me, quite audibly - at a table of 10, nine of whom were perfect strangers - whether gay men in long-term relationships were generally monogamous. I was more than a bit shocked at first but I knew it was not meant to embarrass me. I deeply value my privacy but would never hide my sexual orientation because I believe it is important that people understand that every profession includes lesbians and gay men and am a firm believer in being out and moving on quickly to a more interesting topic. I answered the question at the same volume he asked it, told him I could not speak for others but that I was monogamous after 17 years with the same guy and then we talked about other things. No one at the table flinched. Perhaps it was because my colleague is far, far more prominent than I am in my field and if he felt comfortable with me and was my friend, they should be, too. If I am right, I am delighted. If I am wrong, that's fine, too.

Ironically, the best conversations I have with strangers start with professional discussions and end, if they ask, with the person finding out I am gay. They are the people more likely to contact me on a professional basis. Merit first; irrelevant personal information second. If you flip the conversation around, the entire thing becomes about me and the focus is completely different. I don't want any conversation to be entirely about me. We cannot tackle any issues or solve any problems if all that I am is a member of a small demographic group with a decent resume.

If you have read this far, thank you. If you have a business in need of realignment, my best friend is your guy. He's an excellent listener and radiantly energetic and smart.

Ask If It Matters To You; Tell If You Want To

Finally, after millions of hours, millions of dollars and millions of blog posts and other Internet chatter, gays and lesbians can serve in the military without fear of discharge if they choose to reveal their sexuality. From arguments about protecting "unit cohesion" to avoiding "unwanted advances", opponents of dumping a hastily drafted policy on who merited the right to serve in their nation's military lost their fight. Their fight included some of the nastiest, uninformed, poorly reasoned comments I have ever heard. Both my father and stepfather served honorably in the military during the 1960s. Despite my father's relative conservatism and my stepfather's relatively progressive views, they both agreed that it was profoundly stupid to imply or directly state that one's sexual orientation had anything to do with honorable service. They both served with men whom they knew were gay and both told me they never, ever had a problem befriending or working with gay military personnel. Frankly, it would not have mattered to me if they said the exact opposite.

Although votes were taken and the end of the debate was reported as coming from the U.S. Senate, the extenstion of full civil rights are not about majority rule. Civil rights guarantees are embedded in the United States Constitution and are in many cases designed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Social mores change. The beauty of the Constitution is its modern relevance and elasticity. It practically invites us to search every day for those who have been left out of its promise of equality and work to include them in it. It is perhaps the best living document on the planet and has helped make us a wealthy, stable, forward thinking global power. What weakens our influence abroad is the abandonment of the principles we preach to other nations as essential in a civilized society.

This past week is one important example of how a civilized society can come to terms with social change with little or no bloodshed. It is part of the reason so many people try desperately and even risk their lives to emigrate to the United States, despite its unresolved flaws. My heart goes out to the families and friends of gay soldiers who were dishonorably discharged because of who they loved or were or in some cases paid for their service by being murdered by their fellow soldiers. They are heroes and they deserve our recognition and our gratitude.

Are Sarah Palin and Diana, Princess of Wales Sisters Under the Skin?

I admit I did a bit of a double-take when I read the squib on AOL about likening Sarah Palin to Diana, Princess of Wales, including a shot of anger that is, admittedly, mostly political. I initially bristled at the suggestion that the two women had anything in common and that Diana has been dead for over ten years and obviously could not defend herself even if she chose to do so. Then it occurred to me that there might be a kernel of truth in the piece and even famous political families I admire (including the Kennedys and the Bushes, believe it or not) share an ability to mold their images through managing their media coverage that even Bill and Hillary Clinton have to envy to some extent. Let's also not forget Brooke Astor, the second (or third?) wife of John Astor, who apparently had one of the first pre-nuptial agreements amongst 20th century blue-bloods. She took what she got (which admittedly was a lot) but became one of the most admired, recognizable charitable givers of the last century despite her aversion to uncontrolled media coverage.

Although most people except rabid haters of royalty considered Diana an iconic beauty, most of them would also be constrained to admit that she - as many of her detractors preferred to highlight - pursued little formal education and was not considered intellectually gifted. Palin, no matter who does her hair and make-up, is not by any measure an iconic beauty but is quite pretty, and is roundly considered intellectually bankrupt despite having a bachelor's degree. Diana was clearly a clothes horse. Palin showed us early on she likes $3,000 suits even though she denies caring much about clothes. Both women shied away from unflattering media coverage and ended up learning - probably on their own - how to manage it and manipulate their images to suit their needs and desires.

The differences between Sarah Palin and the Princess of Wales are equally stark. Diana was thrown into a role at the age of 19 with little support and, at least from the perspective of the royal family, had three main jobs to do - produce heirs to the throne, look attractive and follow her husband's lead in her service to her subjects, all while knowing early on that her marriage, as she so deftly put it in an interview, "was a bit crowded". She took care of the first two expectations about as flawlessly as anyone could have done and once she discovered her husband's inability to part with his mistress and barely made an effort to hide it, she excused herself from following her husband's lead in any arena and did the bare minimum when it came to public appearances with him. Palin was thrown into her role with extraordinary support, at a time in her life when she should have been expected to know more about the world around her and did not have to contend with a philandering husband that might have destroyed her self-esteem. Those are big differences. Had Diana lived, what would she be doing right now? I suspect she would be counseling her sons and lending her name to charitable pursuits and would likely have married again and pursued a life much more like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's than Sarah Palin's, even with Palin's new wealth. Diana and Onassis were never seriously accused of exploiting their children or failing to raise them to become solid citizens. The same cannot be said for Palin. Diana's lack of formal education did not stop her from being curious about global politics. Palin still shows no real signs of being curious about anything except how to make more money. Few ever questioned that Onassis was more than a triple threat: a protective mother, great pedigree, beautiful, well educated, curious and perhaps the best media player of her generation.

Obviously, the biggest difference between Diana and Palin is that Palin has time to study if she cares to do so, has more technology at her fingertips to mold her image while bypassing mainstream media and lives in a country where bootstrappers - or perceived bootstrappers - are admired by most citizens. She has the freedom to change at a reasonably young age and to soften at least some of the harsh rhetoric that made her famous in the first place. Diana never engaged in harsh rhetoric and is frozen in time as a budding global ambassador whose interests ran to helping the most vulnerable people on the planet rather than Ms. Palin's obvious interest in pandering to her admirers' worst fears and hatreds.

Whatever one's political stripe, we can be sure of one thing. We won't likely see Sarah Palin in a boat with an Arabian man and we won't see her repurposing a $10 million necklace into a headband at a State Dinner at the White House. Prince Charles may truly love Camilla and certainly hated Diana's ability to upstage him whenever she chose, but had he shoved Camilla to the side or was at least more discrete and learned to respect his first wife a bit more while she was alive, there would be no question about his eventual ascendency to the throne. Jack Kennedy - even though he was a known philanderer himself - at least had the common sense and confidence to say so famously, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris." The reason Charles might not become King is, in my view, because of the worst character defect of all: making everything in life about yourself.

Is the Presidency Too Much for One Person to Handle?

Newsweek recently printed a piece questioning whether the job of President of the United States is too big and complex for one person to manage. Online comments to the article are often hateful, racially-charged, or involve 7th grade name calling.
Fawning over Obama never truly helped him. Even Hillary Clinton underestimated the importance of early success in caucuses and the momentum that got him nominated. Using GW Bush as a foil instead of focusing on McCain was helpful in the general election but serves little purpose once the reigns were in Obama's hands. It is his to clean up. You can blame others once or twice. Then you have to govern. All Presidents start off with the baggage left behind. Surely, President Obama and his staff knew that. The question is what they do with problems created by the old Administration or new problems. The economic crisis was not of Obama's making, nor were foreign policy and military blunders. GW Bush, with little or no help from John McCain and support from then-candidate or President-elect Obama, set up our initial response to the economic/credit crisis. We all have a right to expect a statute of limitations on blaming prior administrations for every failure of the current one. Otherwise, the message is of blame, not hope. If that's what some Democrats are doing, voters will surely sense it and vote accordingly. If Republicans attempt to take advantage of big issues that are unresolvable in one term, they run the same risk in the next election cycle. People who vote regularly tend to be older and have the sophistication to understand the difference. I do not believe the modern presidency is too overwhelming for one President. The roots of Obama's problems are aloofness, lack of visibility and the huge risk he took in pushing his agenda almost solely based on the votes of Democrats. We won't know if it paid off until the spring of 2012. We won't know what issues will be the biggest or whether Obama will deserve credit for steering the country for 3+ years or will have confidence in giving him a second term.
Name-calling in the meantime will not fix anything. Americans voters are often impatient people, including me. Bill Clinton was written off in 1994 but was handily reelected in 1996. Ronald Reagan was written off in 1983 but overwhelmingly won another term the next year. To me, the two big priorities right now are taking rational steps to increase job creation and stablilize the economy and to either make important strides toward or actually resolving Middle East issues. The Presidency is certainly an exhausting, frustrating job but I do not believe Barack Obama is unable to handle it. What troubles me more than that portion of the debate is trashing politicians on the basis of where they went to school.
Most Presidents in modern times, with the exception of Reagan and Johnson, either had a West Point or Ivy-League education. Obama and Clinton lacked wealth but went to elite universities because they were innately smart. I thought that was what we wanted: a nation that rewarded boot-strappers. GW Bush has an MBA from Harvard and did his undergraduate work at Yale. Many people have concluded that the younger Bush was Ivy League because his father intervened to make it happen. I have no idea whether that is true or not but it doesn't matter at this point, if it ever did. If you voted for GW Bush and think he did a good job, you can't say Obama is an elitist or broadbrush every politician as out of touch because they went to an elite college or university. There is nothing dishonorable about attending less prestigious schools, nor do Ivy League graduates have a lock on intellect and problem-solving skills.
Even Sarah Palin - on the six or seven year plan after hopscotching through a number of second or third tier schools - should not be cut out of the political process because she didn't go to Harvard. The problem is not the school(s). The problem is the lack of lifelong curiosity and the inability to admit when you lack knowledge on a subject but refuse to consider new ideas and change your mind without licking a finger and sticking it up in the air to determine which way the political wind is blowing.
There is some history to suggest that some politicians actually can change their minds. Robert Kennedy comes to mind. He didn't seem to have much of a problem with our country's involvement in Vietnam until the middle and late 1960s. Cynics may say he changed his mind to have a viable opportunity to be elected President or because he hated Johnson. I sincerely doubt those were the main reasons he shifted to the left. Yes, Lyndon Johnson's handling of the war was about has ham-handed as it could be but Kennedy knew there remained a huge conservative consituency that would make his run very difficult, especially considering that his brother had escalated the war before Johnson was sworn in in 1963. They were all Cold Warriors back then and continued to believe there would be a domino effect if they did nothing. RFK was in on almost every major decision his brother made. Had he lived to debate Nixon, you can bet Nixon would have attempted to shred him for being a hypocrite. He might have got a lot of traction out of it. Sadly, we'll never know for sure but that isn't the point. The point is that smart people, from whatever alma mater, can listen, learn, grow and change. Don't forget that Hillary Clinton had been a Goldwater Girl before she entered Wellesley in 1965 and by the time she was finished with law school at Yale she was assisting the Senate in the effort to expose Watergate and impeach Nixon. If that is not change, I don't know what is.

Shall We Meet for Tea at 4?

American voters show each other over and over again how fickle they are. They say they want change and when a Presidential candidate articulates the type of change he would work toward, describes what he would do in Iraq and Afghanistan, knows the world economy is in the toilet before he is even elected and undertakes to address those issues, suddenly voters say "wait a minute; we weren't that serious about change".

Democrats took a huge political risk in passing bold legislation with no Republican support in the House and very little in the Senate. They set themselves up to be unfairly viewed as steamrollers, entirely ignoring Republicans. That was never true. Republicans made their own wager, assuming their lock-step failure to support any change proposed by Democrats would give them easy cover when the economy did not bounce back from a nearly catastrophic global recession in two years. Few thinking people believed it would but the Republicans were right in assuming the average voter expected it would.

As cynical as that appears, Democrats needed to listen more to their constituencies and, perhaps, slow down the pace of change. Nancy Pelosi might have been too good at her job or she might have been in over her head, depending on how one looks at the job. She certainly - with help - whipped her fellow Democrats into line and was tough on Republicans. She claims she tried to reach across the aisle but, even as a moderate Democrat, I did not see much of that. Governing should not be about humiliating one's opponents but for the last couple of decades, it is exactly how the game has been played. For those of us who believe that the policy choices were right, particularly not permitting the country and the world to slip into a full-blown depression, the question is not whether Democrats are bold enough and smart enough to devise long-term solutions to problems. The question is whether the majority of voters really want long-term solutions or would rather stick with what they know: sloganeering masquerading as policy, name-calling as a stand-in for explaining different approaches and a throw-the-rascals-out mantra that leads us to having a revolving door of rascals going in and out of office.

We could easily call Tea Party Republicans a right-wing group of disaffected, frightened people who were used by powerful interest groups to halt any meaningful policy change. With all of the technology, media outlets and competition for television viewers, most of us prefer catchy names that conjure up an image with no explanation. Most of us are too bombarded with garbage to take the time to consider anything more sophisticated than can fit on a bumper sticker. And, frankly, most Tea Party adherents hate Democrats because so many of us smugly consider ourselves smarter, better educated and better prepared to lead. Take yourself back to high school. The smart kids usually hung around together, studied, did well on their college boards and went on to university. The less smart kids hung around together, smoked in the parking lot, loathed the penny-loafered "rich" kids, lobbing insults at them while some of their friends dropped out of high school or community college before getting a degree which, of course, made it almost a certainty they would be the most economically vulnerable adults. A precious few of them quietly went on to college even though it was a struggle. We call them moderately conservative swing voters. I don't see much difference here.

It all comes down to what I believe is the development of a certain kind of deafness and lack of connection that afflicts powerful elected officials. It certainly afflicts Republicans and Democrats but when the party in power is afflicted, it's a fair bet they'll be taught a lesson, especially during an off-year election. The kids smoking in the parking lot grew up. They're still pissed off. Maybe they have a right to be. The problem is the reason they're still pissed off is - whether they realize it or not - right wing Republicans voted against nearly every piece of legislation that may have helped them find better, more plentiful jobs, opportunities for post-high school education and health care. In other words, by permitting an underclass to exist, cynical politicians and special interest groups can corral them in times of electoral crisis and persuade them to vote against their own interest.

Anderson Cooper and the Interview with Eminem

Anderson Cooper, at least from many of the interviews I have seen him conduct, is a decent reporter. Cooper's recent 60 Minutes interview with Eminem was more than disappointing. At best it let this guy off the hook too easily for his homophobic slurs that pepper his art form. At worst, Cooper and CBS are complicit in the rash of gay bashing, including the suicides, murders and general violence that keep young gay men in fear and destroy their self-esteem.

One of the reasons it has become easier for lesbians and gay men to be honest about their sexuality over the last two decades is because organizations like GLAAD have applied pressure to media outlets to include positive images of lesbians and gay men and to point out and speak loudly when media outlets back track. My age group - I'm 45 - was the first to benefit from GLAAD's mission. I wish it happened sooner and that I had an opportunity to see some positive images at a critical moment in my transition from adolescence to adulthood but I appreciate that by the time I was in my early 20s, I no longer felt ashamed of that part of who I was and am.

I took a calculated risk coming out in my mid 20s but I thought it was important not just to me, but to younger men and women as well. When I dived into what I assumed would be a very cold pool, it was not easy. While in law school, I was shouted down and publicly threatened after speaking before a community school board meeting in Queens (ironic, no?) on inclusiveness and its importance and spent a lot of time marching around demanding equal rights. I made sure my resume included unmistakable information so potential employers would know beforehand that I was gay. About two years into one job, the guy who hired me and engineered my successive promotions to executive-level titles asked me why I made sure my resume was so clear. I told him that I would not work for an organization that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. I did not want the hassle of lawsuits nor did I want to waste my time in interviews with bigots. If some employers folded my resume into a paper airplane and threw it at the trash can for that reason, shame on them. They threw away a smart, dependable attorney. I'll never know if that happened or how many times it happened. I honestly don't care. What I found out was that many people with whom I worked thought it was courageous, including many straight men far older than I was. One senior executive wouldn't work with other attorneys in my office. He was a bombastic, hot-tempered, smart guy who told my boss I was his lawyer because of his perception of my skills and ability to strategize and fight for him. I think he liked the idea that whatever assumptions he had about gay men, I didn't fit his stereotype and could claim he was more enlightened than others. I came away from that experience more confident than ever that if you worked hard, played by the rules, were your authentic self and treated others respectfully, a gay man in a big company could do very well.

During that time, I think I blazed a small but significant trail. A fair number of closeted colleagues came out with no ill effect on their careers and, in my opinion, became better lawyers and employees. (It takes a lot of time and energy to stay closeted that could be better spent on actual work.)

I hope Mr. Cooper, CBS and all media don't need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Let the Fox network specialize in hate-mongering so we can understand the difference between journalism and garbage. They are masterful at throwing garbage at its audience and need no competition. I hear Ann Coulter thinks she is being out-bigoted by Tea Partiers and is looking to establish a new ideological beach head. When Ann Coulter is afraid she isn't bigoted enough to command her usual audience, you know we're in for a long, tortured slog. Fasten your seatbelts. We're about to experience a little turbulence.

Are We Always Destined to Repeat History?

Our culture is littered with opportunities to learn from past mistakes. Whether it involved writing slavery into the U.S. Constitution, denying suffrage to and treating women like chattel, denying real voting rights to minorities, giving up on the League of Nations, incarcerating Japanese-Americans during WWII, conducting witch hunts of individuals suspected of advocating communism, engaging in covert surveillance of American dissidents, lying to the public about our involvement and strategy during the Vietnam War, sleeping through the first 5-10 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, stealing the 2000 Presidential election, starting a war with a country that had not attacked us and using bogus intelligence to justify it, the country I love has a track record of making mistakes. We are lucky those mistakes - and others - did not ruin the American promise and all of the weight this country carries as an example of a type of freedom too few people enjoy.
We fixed most of those mistakes, sometimes based on public outcry and sometimes based on the leadership of a President of the United States and Congress. It is sad to know that we continue to make mistakes that directly impact 15-20 million lesbian and gay Americans, many of whom simply want the same rights as the other 280-285,000,000 take for granted. They are even willing to pay more individual income taxes, serve their country in times of war and get thrown into the mix of the general population. No one should be surprised. The last time I checked, lesbians and gay men love their country, too. All they really want is the right to fully participate in the ongoing project of fulfilling the promise of equality on which this democracy was founded.
Adults and children who are suspected of being lesbian or gay or announce their sexual orientation are subject to violent physical attacks, job discrimination, isolation from their communities and in extreme cases, kill themselves out of shame or embarrassment. Many live in fear every minute of every day. How is it possible that we have not learned or remembered the corrosive effect of discrimination against nearly every ethnic group we can imagine?
We can fix this just like we fixed so many other mistakes. It's not as complicated as we have been led to believe. Federal action is necessary. Laws which would grant full equality would be a good start but it has to begin with parents who teach their children it is wrong to bully, wrong to engage in violence based on immutable differences and wrong to stereotype. It's not happening. Under the cloak of organized religion, there are far too many supposedly pious adults who are unwilling to look past three or four sentences from religious texts that are repeated over and over again by bigoted pastors and who would send us back to 1950. At nearly 46 years old and to quote Fannie Lou Hamer addressing Congress in the run-up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." It harms no one to extend nationally recognized same-sex marriage rights. If one's only justification for discriminating against lesbians and gay men is based on religious scripture, consider looking for real estate in a country that did not invent the separation of church and state.

Are Women Tougher than Men?

To ask the question is to answer it. None of this is particularly new but we rarely remember it until Mother's Day rolls around. This is not meant to trash men. Many men are terrific at helping out and sharing responsibilities, love their kids and are happy to cook some meals. None of this necessarily applies to women in same-sex relationships and doesn't necessarily apply to men in same-sex relationships. I realize these are generalizations but there is a reason they are generalizations: they are mostly true.

1. On average, women earn 75-80 cents for every dollar men earn. Most women under 50 work as many hours as their husbands do.
2. Women do most of the child rearing in this country, often while holding a full or part-time job.
3. Women do most of the regular housekeeping and indoor cooking (often as a short order cook for picky kids) even if they work full-time and arrive home from work at or about the same time as their husbands.
4. Women do most of the food shopping and clothes shopping for the entire family. They are charged with remembering everyone's sizes - including relatives on both sides of the family in the event they need to buy a gift. If a gift item is particularly expensive, despite who makes the purchase, women do the wrapping; men sign the card.
5. Most women do the majority of holiday gift shopping, remembering birthdays, wrapping, and sending invitations, congratulatory, thank-you and condolence cards.
6. Most women do most of the ferrying of kids to sports, music and dance practice and are expected to attend all of the events associated with it.
7. Women tend to keep all of the medical records of their kids, including innoculations, etc., and ensure that the kids get regular medical check-ups.
8. Many women pay all of the household bills, keep a budget and try to stick to it.
9. Most women are expected to be photo-ready before leaving the house to do anything, including stopping at a garage sale. They are expected to look younger and slimmer than their husbands regardless of age.
10. If their husbands are not handy or not interested, women are expected to learn the mechanics of all HVAC, electrical, plumbing and appliances and find the appropriate contractor or service provider to come on schedule for routine maintenance or in an emergency.
11. If widowed (women's life expectancy is longer than men's), a woman is expected to look like Malibu Barbie no matter what their age in order to attract a sloppy widower who is most interested in whether Malibu Barbie can cook and has a recliner chair and a wide screen television.
12. Women who drink a little too much are labeled drunks. Men who drink a little too much are labeled men who are stressed out.
13. Women who are good at their jobs and supervise or offer advice to others are bitches. Men who are good at their jobs and supervise others or offer advice are rising stars.
13. To paraphrase Ginger Rogers when discussing her film career with Fred Astaire: women do everything men do but it's harder for women because they have to do it all backwards.

Where Are the Parents?

When will this end? The young college student who was surreptitiously videotaped by two of his classmates, outed on the Internet and who took his own life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge is only the latest example of how much more work there is to do to before lesbians and gay men can expect their privacy will not be violated and will be able to lead their lives without shame, fear or discrimination.

These sorts of things do not just happen with no explanation. Where were these kids' parents or guardians and what were they teaching them as they grew up into twisted, homophobic criminals? This is much more than simple bullying. I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist and I am not a parent. All I know is what most gay men know. Some of us never come out because we are afraid of psychological or physical violence, being shunned by family and friends or losing a job in a state with no prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Two months before I came out 20+ years ago, I intentionally cut myself off from some of my oldest and dearest friends, my family and others just to see what it would be like to permanently lose it all. It was torture to do it but for whatever reason, I had to know. At the end of two months I realized it would be traumatizing and it would take a very long time to repair my self-esteem but I no longer felt like a I had a choice. I also resolved that I would never work for any employer that would promote or tolerate that type of discrimination. I used some of my time reading about the courageous people who formed the Mattachine Society, those who bravely stood up to police during the Stonewall riots and the legions of black men and women who fought for their own civil rights. I knew I could find new friends and could live in gay ghetto for the rest of my life and find a way to be happy. All I wanted was to find one man to love and who loved me. I confess I did not even consider the possibility that marriage would ever be an option during my lifetime. I started to join LGBT organizations, speak before crowds (ironically the first time I was not petrified to speak before large groups), be interviewed on radio and television and put all of it on my resume.

It worked.

Very few people abandoned me. My parents, sister and the rest of my family embraced me. My friends did the same and, by the way, had been waiting for a long time to hear from me what they already knew. A handful were shocked because I did not fit their stereotype, perhaps because I knew how to tune up a car.

I found my partner a couple of years later. For the past 17+ years, we have built a life together. It's not perfect. I did not expect it to be perfect. To shatter another myth, our relationship remains completely monogamous.

I faced some discrimination along the way. I assumed I would. But I was hired by unions and then by the largest mass transit company in the United States and regularly promoted. When I started a solo practice as a neutral labor arbitrator a couple of years ago, my mentors were mostly well-established, well-known, straight male arbitrators before whom I appeared as an attorney/advocate and who all said their profession needed more diversity and, to hear them tell it, I would probably end up being - at least for awhile - the only openly gay arbitrator in the state.

Despite right wing salesmen of hatred in the name of religion or politics, I didn't lose a sense of who I was and was not ashamed. I knew that my sexual orientation was a part of who I was but it was not all that I was or am. Sadly, thousands of men lacked any sense of their own value and many died of complications from HIV/AIDS, wiping out nearly a generation's worth of would-be activists, friends and contributors to all facets of society. I am grateful my partner and I dodged that bullet. I am most grateful for my parents who always believed that every human being deserved to live their lives free from discrimination and were not afraid to say it to anyone, even those who might have disagreed with them. They didn't count on my little revelation (on Father's Day, no less), but it didn't take them long to ask two questions and audibly exhale after my response: was I telling them this because I was sick and was I prepared to deal with discrimination? The answers were no and yes, in that order.

If we want a truly modern civil society, everyone must have a place at the table. I did not make a choice to be gay. I made a choice to make it known that I was gay. There is an enormous difference between the two. Even my parents' neighbors, some of whom are politically very conservative, are very happy to see me during holidays and other times when I visit. (Well, maybe it's because I am helping my mother keep her lawn looking nice and improving their view from across the street but I think it runs more deeply than that.)

None of it would have happened had so many people I never knew failed to demand equal rights long before I was old enough to tie my own shoes. We can't stop now, even if marriage becomes available as an option in every state in the country. Every kid, no matter where he or she might live, needs to understand that if they realize they are lesbian or gay, they can lead a full, rich life. There is no prayer that will change one's orientation. There is no pill, shrink or ministry that will do it, either. It should be up to us grown-ups to make sure they are free of fear, violence and discrimination no matter where they choose to go to school, where they decide to live or what occupation they choose. Until that happens, kids will continue to be killed or take their own lives. That, ladies and gentlemen, is unacceptable no matter what your religious leaders tell you or your own personal beliefs are. If you are complicit in promoting discrimination and keeping silent about violence, you are complicit in maiming or killing innocent people who have never caused you one bit of harm. No legitimate creed or religion teaches anyone to permit the death of another who has done you no harm. To the parents of the kids who caused their classmate to jump to his death, I hope your children and you think about that young man every day of your lives and make some attempt to atone for your own sins.

Sarah & Laura

You knew it would happen. Sarah Palin and Laura Schlessinger are apparently teaming up to teach us about their First Amendment rights and how the "liberal media" is interfering with their quest to talk to millions until they are hoarse. I can't wait to see Ms. Palin standing next Ms. Schlessinger on the same dais. Schlessinger spent a fair amount of time during her radio broadcasts to ask the question so many other Americans did in the last election: couldn't John McCain have found a woman with kids who also had the intellect and sophistication to lead the country if McCain was unable to complete his term in office?

The old saying - the enemy of my enemy is my friend - does not apply here. Dr. Laura was no fan of Palin but it appears they are no longer enemies (if they ever were). They are cut from the same cloth. It was only a matter of time before Dr. Laura - who unfairly attacked the integrity and intelligence of many women who called her for advice - would see more dollar signs and jump on the Palin Express to wherever it is going. These women don't care about you or your families. They care about making money and being celebrities. Don't confuse that with ex-presidents who command six figures for a half hour gig in front of friendly crowds. Whether or not you believe any of Obama's predecessors did a good job, they have a measure of credibility by virtue of sitting in the Oval Office making decisions.

The First Amendment has always protected both women, no matter how stupid, hurtful or uninformed their pronouncements sound. There are few checks on First Amendment rights. As long as you don't yell fire in a crowded movie house, avoid advocating radical overthrow of the government or make defamatory or libelous remarks about a person with nothing to back it up, you are pretty safe. Both women like to talk about how tough they are but when they are legitimately attacked for spewing hate speech or for sounding like a 7th grader, they immediately cry foul. It's hypocritical and, more important, dangerous. If either woman's rights are elevated over the rights of the general public, we're in big trouble. To get their attention, see what happens when there is no audience and no paycheck. Boycotts worked well during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. If they move to satellite radio, cancel your subscription. If they appear on television as commentators or guests, call the station and tell them you won't be buying any product advertised and will not watch the channel any longer. (Make sure you also tell the advertisers.) Neither woman has a First Amendment right to be paid for speaking nor is it illegal to keep them off the air unless they want to buy some time on a public access station. Reporters should simply skip reporting their every utterance. They are not making news. They are thumbing their noses at legitimate news outlets by refusing to answer legitimate questions about their level of understanding of various topics. They aren't required to answer those kinds of questions but if they are not willing to answer, stop covering them as if what they are saying is newsworthy. They can blog all they want but we don't have to buy the products advertised on their websites or buy the ideology they are selling. I'll give them credit for having the street smarts to bamboozle millions of people into believing they have something genuine and relevant to say. That's not easy. The good part is that it doesn't take very long for the substance of what they say to end up forgotten and hauled to the political dumpster.

Dr. Laura

The vitally important news is out. Dr. Laura is "retiring" so she can play victim and claim that dangerous, mean racial minorities and white liberals are stomping on her First Amendment rights. She seems very happy when dispensing her particular brand of hate-mongering, insulting diatribes against everyone who is not like her. If you agree with her, you are a First Amendment champion. If you disagree and do something about it - like boycotting advertisers - exercising your own First Amendment rights is just too much for Dr. Laura to bear. She's made millions with her brand of sociopathic hatred of those with whom she disagrees but can't seem to handle being challenged and embarrassed when she utters things so incredibly stupid that they don't even bear repeating here. Don't worry. She'll continue to build her wealth in different venues and pack the houses at places where angry white folks congregate. Her First Amendment rights are very well protected - at least better than mine are. I'm one of those over-educated East coast white guys she fears the most because we won't just stand by and let her get away with dividing my country along racial, ethnic, religious and social lines. The only questions are how long she can milk the victim bit and how much money she'll make doing it. I'll guess the victim bit will last as long as it takes to get a book advance and publish her sage wisdom about every topic imaginable. It seems like the hardest thing for Americans to say is "I can't form an opinion because I don't know enough about the topic yet." If someone can find a moment when Dr. Laura has said anything remotely like that, I'd love to know. Otherwise, she is a blowhard - a very well paid one.

Tweeting About Mosques

It should surprise no one that Ms. Palin, freed from her gubernatorial responsibilities, with a loyal following, and with enough cash on hand to do and say what she pleases, would weigh in on the wisdom of building a mosque and Muslim community center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site. Encouraging her supporters to reject the mosque is, at least in some ways, akin to encouraging them to reject the construction of a denominational Christian church and community center within the vicinity of the Murrow building destroyed by Timothy McVeigh - an American who claimed he was a Christian - who committed, along with Terry Nichols, the worst single act of domestic terrorism the country had experienced in modern times when he made a crude bomb that killed hundreds of innocent people.

Mr. McVeigh was not a real Christian. The WTC and Pentagon hijackers, including the thwarted hijackers headed directly for the White House, were not real Muslims. They were all terrorists. No mainstream religious figure in any established religion teaches their flock to kill others. The 9/11 terrorists had hatched a warped religious justification for their planned murders long before they killed thousands in the name of Islam. Few things could be more damaging to a religion whose roots began in Christianity in the middle of the first millenium following Christ's crucifixion. I would agree that mainstream Muslims in this country and others have not done enough yet to separate their religion and its teachings from these evil people. Ms. Palin's comments do not help. Osama bin Laden wants political control over Middle Eastern treasure and social control over men and women who inhabit the Islamic world. He's a classic despot, in the mold of Hitler and Stalin, and has walked away from his religion (if he was ever truly a peace-loving Muslim), reinterpreted it to justify his own goals, and uses the American occupation of Iraq to help him recruit desperate men and women to do things they would otherwise find abhorrent.

The earliest European Pilgrims risked their lives to journey here to create a nation that respected religious difference, something lacking in their home countries in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, they participated in fashioning amendments to the American Constitution. The First Amendment makes clear that the government must guarantee religious freedom and not favor one religion over another. Ms. Palin ought to know this, especially if she chooses to remain politically influential.

I would have skipped over the poorly written "tweets" Ms. Palin sent out to supporters because everyone makes or could make mistakes in their use of technology to push their message. However, Ms. Palin's apology for the poor vocabulary in her messages was not an apology at all. Instead, she purports to apologize and then almost immediately likens herself to William Shakespeare in defending herself as if she had intentionally made up a new word or two when she clearly knows that she had made a mistake. The inability to genuinely admit a mistake or a gap in one's knowledge or education - formal or not - is perhaps the most dangerous and depressing part of Ms. Palin's ascendency in the Republican Party. Ms. Palin's currency and gift is her ability to sound homespun and cheerful while validating and encouraging the fears, hatreds and insecurities of her admirers. Pandering to legions of citizens who are insecure about their own knowledge base or education is simply cynical. Many will say that Bill Clinton did nothing different when he lied about his affair with a White House intern, but it is different. His failure was lying about his private acts, not his public ones.

I am sometimes pessimistic about our nation's future, not because Sarah Palin put out a few tweets, but that there are many voters want to read them and feel better about themselves while trampling on others' free exercise of religion. She makes it easier to hate. She is just the latest in a long line of hate-mongering men and women who sometimes get elected to public office. History usually treats those people poorly but it is usually after their corrosive politics have damaged my country. The rest of us end up working to clean up their messes while they sit in some luxury that their followers could never afford.

I hope that Ms. Palin at some point realizes that she need not promote fear, hatred and hypocritical piety. She could very easily become a political force for good. She could call upon her followers to be their best selves, to remain vigilant but forgive and to acknowledge our own country's blunders that have made international relations more complicated and more dangerous. I have no confidence that will ever happen but I do have confidence that other national figures will emerge that challenge the notion that we must hate in order to survive and prosper.

Our best moments as a nation have always been when we seek to be better, more careful, more generous, less divisive and, yes, listen to each other.

Living Simply

Based on some news accounts available on the Internet, about 13 million Americans visited Europe in 2006, about 4% of the population. If you take away business travelers and people who went more than once, the number of regular travelers is less than that.


Many people cannot afford the airfare or hotel rates (especially right now) or simply want a different kind of vacation. That's fine. I love beaches, too. The reason I cite the statistic is because I think we could learn a great deal more about different, less expensive and appealing approaches to daily living by actually witnessing how many Europeans live. While I am not advocating confiscatory income taxes or value-added taxes that are common in Europe, I do think that our quest for energy independence and a "greener" way to live starts by learning from people who have been doing it for far longer than we have. I know that many people will immediately shun this as emulating "socialism" but if we could suspend judgment and labels for just a few minutes we could take some ideas - cafeteria style - and make them as American as apple pie.

To start off, most Europeans live in dwellings considerably smaller than most Americans. Unless they are farmers, Europeans tend to live much closer to one another, at walkable distances to markets for fresh food and when they want to travel, they have invested in rail systems that will take you practically anywhere on the continent in far less time and far more efficiently than it would take to drive. They don't tend to tear down and throw away perfectly good buildings in favor of building 5,000 square foot houses where half the house is never used but has to be heated and cooled. They shop for food on a daily basis in many cases, often in farmer's markets, buying only what they need for a day or two instead of stockpiling food and other items as if the world were coming to an end.

The differences between rich and poor are far less stark. That does not necessarily mean that there are not super-rich people and very poor people but the homeless plague that exists in many American cities and towns is much less a problem in Europe than it is here. Their universal health care systems are not exactly what they are cracked up to be - long waits for elective surgery, etc. - but life expectancy is at or above what we have. On the other hand, their obesity rates are lower; their heart disease rates are lower.


I have no interest in copying everything Europeans do. There is a good case to be made that our brand of capitalism with a less generous social safety net does a better job at rewarding creativity and entrepreneurs that invent things that make life more pleasant. It is easier here to move from one economic stratum to another but the likelihood that most people of my generation will do better economically than their parents is pretty low.

If you get the chance to visit, give it a shot. I think most people will come away from the experience with a better sense of how to live well without landing in bankruptcy court or being perpetually dependent on nations that hate us to supply us with petroleum and credit.

Thrift, Wealth & Velveeta Cheese

I guess the new trend spawned by the Great Recession is to adopt "thrift" as our operating theory although I am not altogether sure "thrift" is good for job creation, at least in the short run.

Many people could probably benefit from thinking about thrift and true wealth in terms of being less ostentatious and less insecure. If you came from or ever hung around "old money", you're likely to find the family wearing clothes that they have owned for 20+ years, driving orange diesel-fueled Mercedes Benz wagons from the early 1980s, letting parts of their houses go to Hell, slipcovering old furniture, talking about ideas, books and music instead of other people and never, ever, talking about what material things they have or don't have. Save money, buy quality stuff and never get rid of it until it's completely destroyed. The Lily Pultizer shift dress, purchased in 1962, still looks good. If it still fits, why get a new one?

You probably won't find a flat screen television in their houses. (By the way, it's "houses", not "homes", i.e., "I live in a neighborhood where all the houses have marvelous shade trees" or, "what a wonderful house..." Trust me on this.)

You will often see their philanthropy listed at the back of a publication under the name "Anonymous". They are quieter, better listeners and if they talk about politics or religion, they'll be gentle about yours and won't talk much about theirs. Often, they are lousy cooks but superb bartenders so by the time you're eating, you don't care what they made or who made it. (Please wait until the hostess picks up her fork before you pick up yours and compliment whatever was burned in your honor.) You'll leave knowing very little about them because they value their privacy more than whatever cash they have lying around (which probably isn't as much as you think). They probably spend far less than you do on an annual basis except for property taxes. If they trust you, you're a friend forever - but probably not too close. If they don't trust you, they will be even more polite than if they did trust you. They appreciate a hand-written thank you note, lending them a book you enjoyed or inviting them to a picnic instead of a restaurant. Obviously, not everyone can or would want to live that way, but if I had limited choices, I'd probably choose that lifestyle over many others. The best part is that you can adopt any political stripe you like, be eccentric and wonderfully witty and will never be nervous hosting a dinner party and can even run for office if you're genuinely humble and let others deal with fundraising.