"Sitting this one out" by Adolph Reed

Reprinted without permission--I like this piece. I basically agree with everything he says. It is the best cogent articulation I've seen of the dilemma we're in. Why it's simultaneously true that the "serious" candidates of the Democratic party aren't what we want or need them to be, and why we have to vote for them anyway, and what it's going to take to change that.

The part of the piece that I most concur with is this "This bleak reality reflects the left’s failure to build any durable extra-electoral force between elections that can bring pressure to bear on the Democratic contenders and debate."

Let me know what you think of it.

By Adolph L. Reed Jr.
November 2007 Issue THE PROGRESSIVE

OK, HERE WE ARE AGAIN, a year out from a Presidential election, and we’re all supposed to be figuring out which of the Democrats has the best chance to win—determined mainly by the standard of raising the most money—and subordinating all our substantive political concerns to the objective of getting him or her elected. This time, I’m not going to acquiesce in the fiction that the Presidential charade has any credibility whatsoever. I’m not paying any attention to the horse race coverage—that mass-mediated positioning in the battle for superficial product differentiation.

The Democratic candidates who are anointed “serious” are like a car with a faulty front-end alignment: Their default setting pulls to the right. They are unshakably locked into a strategy that impels them to give priority to placating those who aren’t inclined to vote for them and then palliate those who are with bromides and doublespeak. When we complain, they smugly say, “Well, you have no choice but to vote for me because the other guy’s worse.” The party has essentially been nominating the same ticket with the same approach since Dukakis.

The last straw for me was the spectacle of all the “serious candidates” falling over one another to link Castro and Chávez with Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, and Kim, thus endorsing the Bush Administration’s view that any government that does anything that ours doesn’t like—including giving its own people’s needs higher priority than those of our corporations—qualifies it as a supporter of terrorism, a rogue state, part of the Axis of Evil, or whatever comic book slogan is operative this week. Then came the supposedly anti-war Obama buttressing his commitment to increase overall American troop strength with a pledge to invade Pakistan. Then came his and HRC’s tiff over the etiquette of publicly declaring a willingness to use nuclear weapons on a case-by-case basis, with both parties treating the issue as purely a matter of foreign policy gamesmanship. And this was during Hiroshima and Nagasaki week, no less!
Each serious candidate has boosters who will tell us that we should be more sophisticated than to take what their candidates say at face value, that their empty, inadequate, or objectionable proposals are the best, most realistic versions of whatever we think we want—from ending the war, to universal national health care and access to quality education, to public investment in rebuilding the Gulf Coast and the rest of the country’s physical and social infrastructure, to worker protection and fighting environmental degradation.

A friend of mine characterizes this as the “we’ll come back for you” politics, the claim that they can’t champion anything you want because they have to conciliate your enemies right now to get elected, but that, once they win, they’ll be able to attend to the progressive agenda they have to reject now in order to win. This worked out so well with the Clinton Presidency, didn’t it? Remember his argument that he had to sign the hideous 1996 welfare reform bill to be able to come back and “fix” it later? Or NAFTA? Or two repressive and racist crime bills that flooded the prisons? Or the privatizing of Sallie Mae, which set the stage for the student debt crisis? Or ending the federal government’s commitment to direct provision of housing for the poor?

This time, the nominal frontrunners have Rube Goldberg health care proposals that protect the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, the chief sources of the health care crisis. They discuss the murderous adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan mainly in bloodless, managerial terms—as a “broken policy” or some other such technician’s euphemism. Not only do their references to the tragic loss of American lives seem pro forma and constructed by focus-group engineers; they also reinscribe the presumption that only American lives count. This is part of what undergirds the broader framework of a foreign policy hinged on cavalier use of military assault and invasion in the first place—what used to be clearly recognized as imperialism. Edwards, who seems somewhat better than the others on Iraq, apparently needs to make up for it—lest what seem like expressions of decency be grounds for accusations of weakness—by being even more bellicose than they regarding Iran. However, all of them have indicated a lusty willingness to attack Iran, Syria, or any other country that can be demonized either for not dancing to our government’s tune or even just because it’s convenient to do so as a prop for some other purpose.

At the end of the primary campaign, one of the “serious candidates” is going to get the nomination and form a ticket with another version of his or her triangulating self. (I still wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be Clinton-Obama, in an all-Oprah ticket, an exercise in massive short-term self-delusion and empty identity politics that will guarantee the White House to whichever combo the GOP puts up.) Maybe by Election Day I’ll be moved or guilted or frightened into voting for that ticket, whatever it is. But I’m just as likely to sit this one out.

And I’m prepared to blow off every liberal who starts whining and hectoring, in that self-important and breathless way they do, about our obligation to protect “choice” or to make sure we can get another Stephen Breyer or Sandra Day O’Connor onto the Supreme Court.

I know that some outraged readers are going to write in, fulminating about how nihilistically ultraleftist I am to criticize the Democrats in this way and how irresponsible The Progressive is to publish the criticism—especially now, when the stakes are so great and it’s so crucially important for the future of the country, the world, the galaxy, the cosmos, that some Democrat—anyone, no matter how worthless—wins the Presidency. (That they make the same cataclysmic claim about every election never seems to dull their self-righteous fervor.) They’ll explain that we have to understand that we can’t get everything we want all at once, that the Democrats can’t go any further than they go, and that a half-hearted promise of part of a stale loaf of bread in some unspecified future is better than no bread at all—especially for those who don’t really need the bread at the moment.

Well, in part, they’re right. The Democrats are what they are. We should all know that by now, after two decades of their failing to stand up to the rightwing juggernaut, of presenting themselves as more responsible and steady managers of the country’s slide to the right. By the time the national elections come around, there really are no options other than to vote for their predictably worthless nominee, make an existential statement (or engage in wish-fulfillment, if you think it’s more than that) by voting for a third party candidate, or just not bother. This bleak reality reflects the left’s failure to build any durable extra-electoral force between elections that can bring pressure to bear on the Democratic contenders and debate.

Elected officials are only as good or as bad as the forces they feel they must respond to. It’s a mistake to expect any more of them than to be vectors of the political pressures they feel working on them. This is a lesson that progressives have forgotten or failed to learn.

As an illustration, consider the recent contretemps between John Conyers and the pro-impeachment, anti-war activists who attacked him as a sellout for failing to push impeachment over Nancy Pelosi’s and the House Democratic leadership’s opposition. His critics accused him of betraying the spirit of Martin Luther King. But that charge only exposes their unrealistic expectations. Conyers isn’t a movement leader. He’s a Democratic official who wants to get reelected. He’s enmeshed in the same web of personal ties, partisan loyalties and obligations, and diverse interest-group commitments as other pols. It was the impeachment activists’ naive error, and I suspect one resting on a partly racial, wrongheaded shorthand, to have expected him to lead an insurgency. If the pro-impeachment forces had been able to organize a popular movement with militant local to national expressions on a wide scale, Conyers would have had the leverage necessary to press the movement’s case to Pelosi and Democratic leadership, or at least he and the others would have felt real pressure to act more boldly on this issue. Instead, an understandable sense of urgency led them to take a politically self-indulgent, doomed shortcut. The result is much wasted effort, unnecessary enmity, and another demoralizing defeat.

Unfortunately, like the Democrats, our side fails to learn from experience. Despite a mountain range of evidence to the contrary, we—the labor, anti-war, women’s, environmental, and racial justice movements—all continue to craft political strategy based on the assumption that the problem is that the Democrats simply don’t understand what we want and how important those things are to us. They know; they just have different priorities.

That’s why the endless cycle of unofficial hearings and tribunals and rallies and demonstrations and Internet petitions never has any effect on anything. They’re all directed to bearing witness before an officialdom that doesn’t care and feels no compulsion to take our demands into account. To that extent, this form of activism has become little more than a combination of theater—a pageantry of protest—and therapy for the activists.

Then at the apex of every election cycle, after having marched around in the same pointless circle, chanting the same slogans in the interim, we look feverishly to one of the Democrats or some Quixote to do our organizing work for us, magically, all at once.

We need to think about politics in a different way, one that doesn’t assume that the task is to lobby the Democrats or give them good ideas, and correct their misconceptions.

It’s a mistake to focus so much on the election cycle; we didn’t vote ourselves into this mess, and we’re not going to vote ourselves out of it. Electoral politics is an arena for consolidating majorities that have been created on the plane of social movement organizing. It’s not an alternative or a shortcut to building those movements, and building them takes time and concerted effort. Not only can that process not be compressed to fit the election cycle; it also doesn’t happen through mass actions. It happens through cultivating one-on-one relationships with people who have standing and influence in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, families, and organizations. It happens through struggling with people over time for things they’re concerned about and linking those concerns to a broader political vision and program. This is how the populist movement grew in the late nineteenth century, the CIO in the 1930s and 1940s, and the civil rights movement after World War II. It is how we’ve won all our victories. And it is also how the right came to power.

The anti-war movement isn’t coherent or popularly grounded enough to exert the pressure necessary to improve the electoral options; only the labor movement has the capacity to do so, but it doesn’t have the will. None of the other progressive tendencies has the capacity to do anything more than lobby or exhort. Effective lobbying requires being able to deliver or withhold crucial resources, and none but labor has that capacity. Exhortation works only with people who share your larger goals and objectives; other than that it’s useless except as catharsis.

We also need to think more carefully about what our demonstrations and protest marches can and can’t do. Here we could take a lesson from Martin Luther King. His 1962 Albany, Georgia, campaign failed because the local authorities figured out that the success of King’s mass marches depended on meeting brutal resistance from local officials. When they didn’t forcibly stop the marches, the movement fizzled.

Our approach to mass mobilization is like the Albany campaign. Our actions don’t raise public consciousness because they’re treated dismissively, if at all, in the mainstream media. They don’t even connect with the residents of the cities where we hold them because we agree to strict march routes and rally sites that make certain we don’t engage with anyone other than ourselves. And we agree not to disrupt routine daily life more than a homecoming parade would in exchange for having a designated place to gather and talk to ourselves. Even the civil disobedience is carefully choreographed and designed to be minimally disruptive.

Whether or not we admit it, these are features of a politics that is focused mainly inward, on shoring up the spirits of the participants in the actions themselves. They don’t send a message that those in power can’t simply ignore, and they don’t inform, excite, or win over anyone who’s not already on board with the movement’s agenda. It’s telling in this sense that our movement culture has evolved elaborately clever techniques for keeping participants entertained through the stale, all-too-predictable cavalcade of speeches and chants and puppets on stilts.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t need to engage in rallies and protests. It is self-defeating, however, to collapse the difference between the activities that make us feel good and the work that is necessary to build the movement. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets. And, if we don’t confront that fact and act accordingly, we’ll be back in this same position, but most likely with options a little worse than these, in 2012, and again and again.

Adolph L. Reed Jr. is professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

(:)(:)(:) for Escape to Witch Mountain

Three enthusiastic snouts up for Escape to Witch Mountain the 1975 Disney classic. What is happening to me? I'm in this movie period where I have to recover from the violence and gore of today's hollywood with Disney drivel. Yet, there it is, the night after I subjected myself to No Country for Old Men, I watched Escape to Witch Mountain with my 12 year old.

We both liked it a lot. I, however, was distracted by the residual effect of the carnage from the night before. Essentially I saw two movies: one, the Disney classic, and two, the movie as the Coen brothers might have made it.

My son giggled as I worried that the two super-powered orphans would be brutally torn apart by the hounds that pursued them. I was sure that grouchy man with a heart of gold Eddie Alpert would be shot in his skivvies at point blank range by the millionaire who desperately wanted the children (whom Eddie was saving) back.

I knew that the helicopter and car filled with angry vigilantes who hated the children would crash, burn, explode on the kids, fire machine guns, etc. None of this happened.

When a car crashes into a tree, the guys laugh and get out of car. When the children hold the millionaire's minions at gunpoint with a pistol that floats in the air, the pistol drops to the ground after detaining them in their pursuit. It does not blow their brains out.

The 1975-level special effects of this film do not hold up over time--they seem comical by 2007 standards. And the acting and writing are a bit wooden and contrived (especially the kids). But the story is sweet, suspenseful and hopeful. A nice change from the Coen brothers.

My son informs me that the sequel, "Return to Witch Mountain" is much bloodier. Apparently the kindly high-powered uncle who whisks the kids away at the end of the first film becomes a hired killer out for revenge.

(:)(:) for No Country for Old Men

Two snouts up for No Country for Old Men the pointless "thriller" by the Coen brothers (known in Hollywood as "the two-headed director") now playing in movie theaters. I have loved many Coen brothers films despite the violence, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona, and Barton Fink, to name a few.

But this may have been my first foray into the really relentless Coen brothers films. I had previously spared myself Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple which I believe were much more bloody. So if it had just been me, I might have discounted my experience of this film. I don't tend to like overly violent pictures, and might have overlooked the brilliance of the Coen brothers as I sat bathed in the blood of the movie.

My husband, who has a high tolerance for violent films and also loves the Coen brothers , seemed to largely share my experience of this one. Our reaction could largely be summed up as "Whaaa?"

Despite compelling performances by Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and, the stand-out, Tommy Lee Jones, arresting cinematography and lots of thrilling near death experience for our "hero" Josh Brolin (a vietnam vet turned n'er-do-well welder who stumbles upon $2 million in cash in a drug deal gone bad and goes on the lam with it), the movie is ultimately completely pointless.

Tommy Lee Jones character says things that sound like they are supposed to be profound or would give us some insight into why we've been subjected to what essentially is a horror show of the character played by Javier Bardem stalking his prey, Llewelyn (played by Brolin).

The Coen brothers make a number of completely inexplicable choices in the movie, providing us with a massively anticlimatic series of "endings," and no sense of why on earth we would ever want to have endured this movie. We get to watch Bardem kill person after person and sometimes compellingly not kill some people. And we watch Tommy Lee Jones, the near-retirement sweetheart Texas cop, not do a blessed thing about it despite his concern.

Do yourself a favor and skip the carnage. Read a good book instead.

(:)(:)(:)(:) for The Golden Compass

Four snouts up for The Golden Compass opening today in Sacramento, California.

I struggled with the number of snouts for this one. It is a beautiful film, with a compelling plot, well-conceived, well-acted, well-written.

It held my attention throughout. I truly cared about the main character Lyra (an 11 year old girl played convincingly by 10 year old Dakota Blue Richards) and I was even interested in the dubious character of Mrs. Coulter played by Nicole Kidman (whom lately I have hated). (Coulter shown here attempting to intimidate her charge Lyra)

It doesn't help me sort this out that my kids are obsessed by the "His Dark Materials" series, of which The Golden Compass is book one. Their high expectations for the film were not dampened in the sneak preview we got Monday.

No. What makes me struggle here at all is the violence. The film ends with a massive battle scene on the frozen tundra between the forces of the all-controlling Magisterium and witches, ice bears and "gyptians" who stand for freedom. Even my children tell me the scene was gratuitous, not in the book on that scale.

Why, in an era where we so desperately need peace, must we send the message to children that the only way to freedom is through violent combat? As much as I liked this movie, I am close to banning them from watching the sequel 'til they're 18.

Meet Top Thought Policewoman Jane Harman

You wouldn't think the Congresswoman who represents drug and street-people laden Venice, California would be the leading Democrat for the thought police, but she is. This past week, Harman, former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, steered the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" through the House of Representatives with an overwhelming bipartisan mandate of 400-6. The bill, dubbed "Patriot Act Lite" by some civil libertarians is now headed to the Senate.

The ACLU says this bill could herald in a new government crackdown on such dissident activities as talking, writing and walking. The bill would create what Randi Rhodes has called a "roving commission" to examine dissident activity in the country and potentially criminalize hundreds of legal gatherings, writings or speeches. Rhodes compared the commission to McCarthy's notorious House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

While Rhodes, being the left's answer to Rush Limbaugh, is somewhat prone to exaggeration for effect, the notion is frightening to me, one more sign that fear of terrorism is leading the country further into the throes of fascism.

Even more disturbing is the way the newly elected House Democrats have nothing to say about it--they simply roll over in droves, voting for what seems like a blatantly unconstitutional measure out of fear of being called soft on terrorism.

I don't know about you, but I'm about this close to going completely third party nutball on the Democratic party and Pelosi. I have this problem, it hurts me a lot worse to be screwed by my supposed friends than by the Republicans whom I wrote off years ago.

How long are we supposed to endure this date rape? At a minimum, House members like Harman (who has long identified as a "Blue Dog" or more conservative Democrat) need to be primaried by Democrats who are serious about standing up for the Constitution, making this country a safer place by spreading peace and love, not fear and hate.

Harman fought off a primary challenge by Democratic activist Marcy Winograd in 2006--someone who can win needs to run against Harman again this year. And we need similar challenges all over the country to send a message that this isn't what the Democratic party should stand for.

Consider: your Congressmember almost certainly voted for this bill too (only 6 did not). And your senators (mine are Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein) will likely have an opportunity to vote on the bill's counterpart, S. 1959. Call them all at (202) 224-3121 and tell them you oppose this bill.

Could Hillary's Attacks on Obama Help Edwards?

In what is seriously a 3-way dead heat in Iowa, Edwards may be the beneficiary of the animosity between the two presumed front-runner camps.

Thanks to Vince Marchand of Sacramento (I say that like I have readers all over the country and as if Vince isn't one of my best friends) for sending me this Dave Corn column on Hillary's attack on Obama dubbed "Kindergate." Apparently Hillary's camp viscerally hates Obama and has released devastating evidence that proves conclusively that Obama has been planning to be President since he was in Kindergarten--gasp!

The most damning thing the Clinton camp has to say about Obama according to Corn? "It's his presumptuousness," according to one Clinton operative Corn talked to. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?"

I doubt whether Kindergate will hurt Obama, but repeated negative attacks might eat into his support. The attacks may also backfire on Clinton. Who stands to gain? John Edwards, that's who.

(:)(:)(:) for The Shaggy Dog (1959)

Three snouts up for The Shaggy Dog (colorized version) made in 1959. I watched this movie the other day with my kids and I was surprised how well it held up. I kind of expected that it would be so silly and predictable that I would have to answer my email through the whole thing. Not that I was riveted, but it held my attention throughout.

Actually it made me realize (for the umpteenth time) how much worse most kid movies are today. Most of them rely on action, gadgets, visual tricks, and constantly changing images to hold a kid's attention. This relies on the old-fashioned idea of character development and story to hook you.

Fred MacMurray is at his finest as the grouchy (mailman Wilson Daniels) dad who hates dogs with such a passion that he reaches for his shotgun when one is nearby. The whole rest of the cast is wonderful. His sons are cast beautifully, especially Tommy Kirk as Wilby Daniels, the son who accidentally turns into a dog.

The movie takes pains to create a credible thread for its ridiculous premise. It's a joy to watch these kids in their 1950s vehicles and tuxedos driving around town (with Annette Funicello no less)--so cute!

This movie is well made, well-acted and directed. It's a predictable plot, but with some fun twists and a lot of genuinely funny physical comedy. I like that there's a cold war twist and cop and robber action but the only gun that ever comes out is Fred MacMurray's shotgun. There are no gadgets. There is no loud music. This is sweet fare for the whole family.

Dead Heat in Iowa?

I don't know how much I have to add to the media buzz on polling out of Iowa this week, but I am interested in this. It seems that there is no front-runner in either party 6 weeks out in the Iowa caucuses, with Obama holding a (probably statistically insignificant) lead over Clinton followed closely by Edwards.

In the Republican caucus race, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has pulled into a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney (read New York Times blog on that for more).

The main thing I wish to point out is something I try never to say (but other columnists revel in): I told you so. I predicted that things were going to tighten in both races considerably, and they have. I'm also not surprised to see Huckabee moving up. For a long time it has seemed likely that a former Arkansas governor with strong conservative credentials would have massive appeal with Republican voters.

However it's certainly too early to make any predictions about outcome. John Kerry was polling at 4% this far out in the last Iowa caucus with Howard Dean in a massive lead. This ABC News clip (click on the headline) indicates that most Iowans (probably in an ABC News poll) find Hillary Clinton the "most electable" which mystifies and terrifies me in turn. They also point out that Edwards is still very much in it.

I Heart Hillary

I feel defensive after receiving comments on yesterday's blog Prediction: Hillary Clinton will not Win the California Presidential Primary. I wish to clarify: I love Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a smart, successful, funny woman. She is a good mother and a steadfast wife (to say the least!). She is powerful and interesting. As compelling as these reasons are, they do not explain my love for Hillary Clinton.

I love Hillary because she is a fellow human being. She lives and breathes and walks this planet with me. She and I are separated only by illusion. I pray for her highest good daily, especially because she has such a strong effect on the world.

I love Hillary the same way I love George Bush.

Prediction: Hillary Clinton will not Win the California Presidential Primary

I'll let you in on an important political secret: my mother is the unit California Democrat. As she votes, so vote the Democrats of California. As long as I have been tracking it, this has been proven to be true.* And my mother doesn't like (putting it mildly) Hillary Clinton.

Here are the facts: she is a retired schoolteacher, born and raised in the deep south east, she has lived in California 55 years (40 of them in San Diego). Although widowed by a radical leftist (yes, my father) who registered Peace and Freedom Party and often voted for losing third party candidates against mainstream Democrats, my mother is a yellow dog Democrat. There isn't an ounce of swing voter in her. She is relatively socially liberal, tends to be comfortable with and support the mainstream Democratic choices.

She supported Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis (she loves Greeks), Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry in their respective primaries (and she supported them long before the historically late California primaries rolled around). She still holds bitterness and resentment against some of her children for "throwing the election to that man (W)" by supporting Ralph Nader in 2000. "That man" was also what she called Ronald Reagan.

Closer to home, she supported Gray Davis until the San Diegans started to experience blackouts and electricity rate hikes. Then she started to hate him and voted for Cruz Bustamante in the recall--I think she voted against the recall because she was worried about Schwarzenegger winning, but I'm not sure, I should check.

She always votes in every single election. She calls my husband and goes over any questions she has on her ballot with him, taking his advice if she doesn't know more about it herself from locals. She is also very interested in how the local teachers' union tells her to vote. If the teachers' union's opinion differs from ours, she'll usually go with the union.

So last night, I gingerly broached the subject of who she was favoring in the California Presidential primary. I had been avoiding the subject for months afraid that it would be Hillary, given her affection for her husband.

Her response? "I'll tell you who I don't favor, Hillary Clinton. How anybody could vote for that woman is beyond me. I don't think she can win. The Republicans are all united against her. And I don't want her to be President. I don't trust her. I'm afraid I'm going to have to support that Obama, Barat (sic) whatever is name is, whom I've never even heard speak."

Music to my ears. A white woman brought up in the cradle of the confederacy, with all that that implies, would rather support a black man whose name she doesn't even remember over Hillary Clinton.

There's hope!


*Exception, my mother did not vote for stunning upset Assembly primary winner, Lori Saldana in 2004. Perhaps she is only the prognosticator of statewide outcomes, not local races.

Revising the Snout-based rating system

It has come to my attention that my snout-based rating system, as wonderful as it is, needs revision. Many people have emailed and commented about this (btw, have you seen that I have now made it easy to comment? You don't have to register or anything, you can do it anonymously, so please do comment--many of you email me wonderful comments but only I read them).

The problem with the current system is that it jumps from 3 snouts being "flawed but worth seeing" to two snouts "just atrocious" and then there's nowhere to go but down. The reason there are 5 snouts instead of 4 is simply to differentiate between good movies and best movies of all time.

So here is the revised system:

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) One of the best movies ever made (American Beauty)
(:)(:)(:)(:) Wonderful (The Big Easy)
(:)(:)(:) Worth seeing (Hair)
(:)(:) Flawed (Syriana
(:) Irredeemably bad (Terror of Tiny Town--all midget western)

I don't have time to revise my page template to reflect it right now, but that's coming. Thanks for your interest.

(;)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Deepak Chopra, M.D.

Five snouts up for Deepak Chopra. This is the first time I've ever used my snout-based rating system to rate a person, rather than one of their books, movies or plays. But I make an exception for Chopra. I love Chopra. I devour Chopra books and speeches (although I've never seen him in person). If I had TiVo I would TiVo him. If they made Chopra t-shirts and bracelets, I would buy them and wear them.

And I'm not the least physically attracted to him! This may be my first all out obsession with a public figure that wasn't based at least in part on physical attraction. If I had been using my snout-based rating system as a teenager, I'm ashamed to say that I would have issued 5 snouts to such luminaries as Bobby Sherman, John Travolta, and (shudder) Sly Stallone (I haven't given up the habit of celebrity crushes, but I no longer have posters of them in my room--now they would be of George Clooney and, well, Bill Clinton, but not Hillary).

No, I love Chopra because he is able to explain in scientific terms such concepts as thoughts, dreams, intentions, coincidences, past, present and future, and, ultimately, God.

In a speech the kids and I listen to called "The Cosmic Mind and the Submanifest Order of Being" he really walks us through the quantum physics of consciousness. It's all very well and good for people to stand up in church and say we are all one. To me, it's another thing entirely to be shown that at the subatomic (quantum) level, the boundaries between our bodies absolutely do not exist.

We are light and energy and intention. We are not even specific masses of light, energy and intention. There is nothing to indicate where one person (or for that matter, one chair, table, mountain or river) starts or ends--we are all literally one.

By the way, my kids have trouble interpreting his South Asian accent. They insist that he is northern European, rather than Indian. They call him "that Swedish guy."

PELOSI CALLS FOR HANDWRITTEN IMPEACHMENT LETTERS?

This may be an internet hoax, but what do we have to lose--this was forwarded to me from Cindy Asner, Ed Asner's wife, a Hollywood activist:

Pelosi purportedly asks for 10,000 handwritten impeachment letters. Will you send one before Friday?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
235 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

IT'S WORTH A SHOT!

House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney
is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary
Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and
the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that
impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is
reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she
received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What
are we waiting for?

Bay Spill, Crises and Public Policy

Listening to an extensive series of interviews yesterday on the Forum show on KQED (Northern California public radio) about the big oil spill in San Francisco bay, I was struck by how strongly crises affect public policy in California, and elsewhere. Crises seem to have become a necessary ingredient for social change to occur.

From this vantage point, using only anecdote and my limited memory, it seems that clear, obvious, well-documented systemic problems are not sufficient to capture the attention of the public or their legislators. Well, I overstate the case. Problems such as millions of uninsured people, indisputable global warming, and widely weakened bridges do reach the attention of the public and their legislators, but for the most part, those systemic problems are not sufficient to result in policy changes.

Instead, we need Hurricane Katrina, dramatic bridge collapses, and killing sprees in highschools to force legislators to pass legislation and appropriate money to address such matters.

The container ship spilling oil into the bay recalls the dramatic massive oil spill of the Exxon Valdez many years back--that crisis resulted in legislation, which according to experts on the Forum show, produced a 90% decrease in the number of oil spills since then.

Crises are clearly the only way we get ethics or campaign finance reform too.

Perhaps this is the problem with health care reform--despite the many horror stories suffered by people without insurance or with inadequate health care access, it is all still at the level of individuals, documented systemically.

Maybe what we need is for a container ship to crash into the bay bridge and spill into the bay hundreds of uninsured middle class Americans on their way to Europe for medical procedures, then we could leverage the passage of universal health care.

(:)(:)(: for Love in the Time of the Cholera

Two and a half snouts up for Love in the Time of the Cholera soon to be playing in a theater near you. Beautifully filmed and costumed, with an able performance by Javier Bordem in the lead role, nevertheless the film cannot transcend a stagnant screenplay and some atrocious performances (not mention casting choices).

I was looking forward to the first adaptation for the screen that I have seen of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. This was a beautiful book, which I urge you to read. Fortunately or not, I remember little of it. I was able to simply experience this as a film, unfettered by the book.

Nonetheless, it doesn't work. The single worst problem being Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno in the lead female role of Fermina Daza. Her cold withholding performance and tired screen presence leave every doubt as to how Florentino Ariza (Javier Bordem) could possibly pine away for her for 51 years. There is no chemistry or energy between the two of the them. Her side of the story is not believable.

Having said this, somehow within the constraints of a weak script and a terrible leading "actress," Bordem's character comes to life. I absolutely believed that he was a mild-mannered clerk bedding over 600 women while he waits "with fidelity" for Fermina's husband to die.

One problem is that Fermina's husband Juvenal Urbino is played so well by Benjamin Bratt, that you can't believe Fermina could have lacked for anything--he comes across as handsome, loving and wonderful, the ideal husband, save for a brief affair later in the marriage.

Finally, in 2007 I consider it an unforgiveable choice to create the movie, set in turn of the (previous) century Columbia, in heavily-accented English instead of Spanish with subtitles or unaccented English. This stupid choice was made all the odder by random bursts of Spanish song or calls of "ayudame!" from the many cholera victims. Do people switch from heavily accented English to Spanish as they grow sicker?

Skip the movie and read the book, in Spanish if possible.

The Ring Cycle--Part III

Spiritual Lessons Learned by Losing (and Finding) my Wedding Rings

You would think, having lost one of my gorgeous antique unique diamond platinum wedding rings out at our spot on the Cosumnes River, I would have learned my lesson but no. On another occasion, I go out to the river with a group of women (see previous column for observations about nudity, still true).

We swim, we talk, we eat a great feast. We clean up. We return home.

As I'm getting out of the car, I remember that I took off my wedding rings before swimming (while it was still vaguely light), I begin looking through every bag I have as I walk to my house, reassuring my concerned women friends with call over my shoulder that "all will be well."

I get to my house and finish inspecting every bag in the light--nothing. Now I'm starting to panic. I call one of the women whom I drove home with, she's still up, where is the table cloth from the table? It's plastic, she tells me, she through it way with all its detritus.

Where is the trash bag? She has already taken it back to the dumpster in our cohousing community.

I look at the clock, it's late, my husband and kids are long asleep. I grab a flashlight (this is before my obsession with headlamps, a piece for another post) and walk back to the dumpster.

Good news bad news when I get to it. The good news? it is completely obvious which bag is the one Amy has just dumped in. The bad news? it's the only bag, alone and the bottom of a full size dumpster.

I pull over a milk crate and reach down low attempting to fish out the bag. Can't get it. I use tools. Still no luck. So, no choice, It's a warm night, with some moon and the alcohol from the evening hasn't completely worn off my bravado. I hoist myself INTO the dumpster.

I look through the bag painstakingly, hopefully. I find nothing. Disappointed, I move to get out of the dumpster. I discover that there's nothing to stand on except a small bag of garbage.

It isn't enough. I discover that I have virtually no upper body strength and cannot hoist myself out of the dumpster, gravity is no help here.

It's 2am and I'm trapped in a dumpster.

I consider yelling for help but I don't want to wake anyone up, but I sure as hell don't want to spend the rest of the night in the dumpster. When I'm under stress of any kind, I eat. I briefly consider the pie pan with remnants that I found when looking through the bag. I discard that thought--I might need the pie more at about 6am.

The floor is gross so I can't sit on it. I have to stand while I think. Periodically, I try to get a toehold on some side of the dumpster or to pull myself up. No luck.

I look at my watch again, it's 2:30am. I've been in the dumpster for half an hour. Time is passing very slowly. I want a shower, bed and clean pie.

The thought of a shower and clean pie somehow gives me a creative impulse and I realize that I have not been fully utilizing the garbage bag. My memory is foggy but there was a breakthrough of some kind and before you know it, I've found a way out of the dumpster.

Hallelujah! I am free. I come home, take my shower and get in bed. I thank god for getting me out of the dumpster, even if the rings could not be found. In the morning, as I open my eyes, I see my wedding rings on the bedside table next to my head.

Spiritual lessons learned: Before I go to drastic lengths to find something, make darn sure it's lost.

Take the Light Rail To Folsom and Ride the American River Parkway

Monday I took my bike on Sacramento's Regional Transit light rail train to the last stop in historic Folsom and then road it all the way back home, some 30 miles along the American River bike path.

If biking holds any appeal for you whatsoever, I highly recommend replicating some or all of this adventure. Some of my readers will be the sorts that can ride 60 miles in a day, in which case, enjoy riding both ways (uphill and down). But up until Monday I had never ridden more than 20 miles in one day, so this was a stretch for me.

It took me an hour and $2.00 to get from Sacramento to Folsom on the train. It took me 4 hours (even on my killer (borrowed) custom-made road bike I bike really slow) to bike back. A fit fast pedaling individual would probably do it in half the time.

There were some challenges presented in planning the trip. Nowhere online could I find an address or description of where the light rail station is in Folsom. The RT website confirms that it goes to "historic Folsom" but declines further information. Various friends of mine speculated as to where I would get out, most visualizing that I would be on the south (wrong) side of Highway 50, needing to cross it to get to the river parkway.

The reality is that it couldn't be easier to get on (I almost said "access" but I really think that's an obnoxious verb) the bike trail from the train stop. The Historic Folsom light rail station is located at Sutter and Reading in old Folsom. When you exit the train, you turn left, go to the end of the parking lot and there, to the left of the American River Bridge, is a little path that dumps you directly onto the parkway. It's maybe a total of 150 yards from the train to the river!

The ride from Folsom to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery is breathtaking. You're on the south side of the river, right down by the river seeing and hearing no traffic. On a gorgeous fall day, with my ipod blaring (hmmm, traffic?), I was completely blissed out. If riding all the way from Folsom to Sacramento intimidates you, consider doing just this stretch and then peeling off and crossing over the fairly obvious pedestrian bridge at the Fish Hatchery to return to Sacto from the Hazel ave.

Once you circumnavigate that part and the recreation places at the base of Lake Natoma (all easy and obvious on bike path that takes you slightly away from the river), there's another great stretch down to Goethe (inexplicably pronounced by the locals "Gay-tea") Park where you are forced to cross the river on a nice bridge. The whole rest of the way is very nice but less compelling than the initial stretch since you are often separated from views of the river by bushes or trees. If you're like me, you may spend the last hour thinking mostly about how sore your butt is.

Living right downtown, 5 blocks from the Sacramento River, I, of course, road to Discovery Park at the junction of the two rivers, crossed back over the American and headed down the Sacramento through Old Sacramento to get home.

Most importantly, I remembered along the way and at the end to be grateful for my health, the bike, the time on a weekday, healthy kids at school, the great weather, the river itself and the years, money and imagination it took to build the parkway and the light rail.

All in all, a day well spent.

Anti-Hillary Sentiment Tests Spiritual Principles

In the past few months, I have moved from generally worried that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee to full-on panicked that she will be. In this same period, I have moved from concerned that she might not win the White House if she were the nominee, to terrified that she will be President. [Note: Unlike most of the media, I do not assume that she will win the primaries. Stratified random samples of likely voters are not the same as real voters. I am still hopeful that the contrarian people of Iowa and New Hampshire will come to their senses.]

My spiritual and practical principles have kept me from ranting about this much in this blog. Why? Because I believe that wherever I put my attention and energy will bear fruit. So I should put my attention on what I want (peace, prosperity, sustainable development) not what I don't want (war, poverty, global climate change--aka Hillary for President--hey, I wonder if her handlers considered that as a slogan "Hillary for President--war, poverty, global climate change!").

I truly believe that one of the reasons that George Bush got (re-)elected President is the amount of energy that was focussed anti-Bush instead of pro-Kerry. The whole country was thinking Bush Bush Bush and so it happened.

Now I keep thinking Hillary Hillary Hillary. Here's why I don't want her to be the nominee:

• She's for the war. She's never stopped being for the war in Iraq and now she's helping move along the war in Iran.
• She's got no articulated position on how to address global climate change quickly and effectively as president. There's no evidence that it is even in her top 10 issues.
• Her health care proposal could have been written by Republicans, it is a joke.
• There is no evidence that she has any closely held beliefs about anything--what does she care about except gaining power?
• She's a "centrist" without having any appeal in the center--the worst possible combination. She really is Republican light but the Republicans and center hate her viscerally. So we're forced to run a pro-Hillary (or anti Bush--no matter who the nominee is Democrats will run against Bush) campaign without being excited about anything she does.
• Nobody could galvanize and organize the Republicans like Hillary.

1. Now I am aware of the inherent contradictions in this piece and in the list above.
   
2. I'm equally afraid of Hillary winning and not winning in a general election--that I think makes some sense. Basically, she can't be the nominee because both outcomes are bad either we get a Republican as President, or we get Republican-lite as President.
3. If being anti-something is such a powerful force, than that might be what gets her elected in the general election. And that's true.
4. I can't get the numbering to turn off in this blog so I'll end it on this thought: if anything in this column resonates with you, go out right now and work really hard for John Edwards or Barack Obama and then when the first primary results are in, coalesce around the candidate that shows the most chance of beating Hillary. But please, concentrate on being pro-them instead of anti-her.
   

Was Dr. Jekyll a drug addict?

My guess is that this is a trite or tired observation, but it struck me hard as it hasn't before that the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde could really have been Robert Louis Stevenson's way of exploring the issue of drug addiction in the 19th century.

The good doctor drinks a concoction of his own making and becomes a different person with base instincts. He finds that he soon has to go to the apothecary for more and more of the ingredients. He must have the potion or he will go out of his mind.

At first, he denies that his drugged self is doing anything terrible. But slowly the evidence grows. Soon he is face to face with the horrible things he has done. Yet still he cannot stop. He must have the potion, he must become Hyde. He must pretend he is only Jekyll. In the end, he is driven into madness by his obsession and his inability to return to his former self.

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Jekyll and Hyde at Runaway Stage

Four snouts up for Jekyll and Hyde at Runaway Stage, now playing at Sierra 2 in Curtis Park through November 25th.

I struggled with the number of snouts on this one, so here's the caveat, I am giving this four snouts out of a possible five judging it by the standards of community musical theater not Broadway (or better yet, off Broadway) productions. Second caveat, I hate community musical theater (even though I like Broadway musicals). Interesting for me, since I grew up absolutely obsessed with performing in children's community musical theater.

But this is a quality production. I've never seen this musical staged before. The show itself is well-written, well-scored, very dark, with the music echoing the themes. The script takes liberties with the plot of the original Robert Louis Stevenson book (as recently recounted to me by my 12 year old, and vaguely remembered by me)--in this version, there's sort of a trumped up love story focus rather than a detective story focus. Also, Hyde's rapacious sexual appetite is developed here.

The cast was really excellent for this sort of show--the vocal leads of Tevye Ditter (Jekyll/Hyde) and his fiancee Norma-Jean Russell (Emma) made up for their wooden acting skills and (in Russell's case) dubious physical charms) with extraordinary voices. Russell's is out of this world Broadway recording quality--you can see why she was cast. The ensemble is filled with voices you can tell could play leading roles in other such productions.

But the standout performance in the show clearly comes from Amber Jean Moore (Lucy) who is the only performer who has it all: voice, acting, physicality and perfect casting. You absolutely believe her as the hooker with a heart of gold who is simultaneously repelled and in Hyde's sexual thrall.

So if you like this sort of thing, see the show. Warning: I thought the themes and simulated (clothes on) sex on stage/dancing were too mature for my 10 and 12 year olds. I'd recommend limiting this to a mature 15 year old or up.