Confucius Vanishes From Tiananmen Square

We couldn't have been more surprised when the statue of Confucius suddenly appeared at Tiananmen in the first place. And set right across from and facing Mao Zedong! It's arrival was stunning, but understandable and promising. It is now almost as surprising that the Confucius statue has suddenly disappeared.

But it's disappearance is more ominous, more dispiriting. For it now appears the hard-line Maoist faction in China's leadership is still a notable force exerting influence on the Chinese Communist Party. If it is not powerful enough to blunt the progressive direction of China's economic and societal agenda, it is powerful enough--or has the potential to be disruptive enough--to halt such a public embrace of this singular symbol of what the Communist and Cultural Revolutions had stood so single-mindedly against: the institutionalized Confucian values and behavior system that formed the foundation for imperial China.

In a post to this website last January, "Confucius in Tiananmen Square," I offered this introduction to the appearance of the statue:

In recent correspondence, a friend offered some China news and a reflection about it:

"They just erected a 30 foot bronze statue of Confucius inTiananmen Square,facing the Mao Memorial. One of the rallying cries of the May 4th Movement in 1919 was "Down with Confucius, Inc.!" a theme that has reverberated through the Cultural Revolution. Now that Confucius, Inc. has been dismantled, it is apparently safe to honor Confucius, Teacher."

Apparently not, or at least not so prominently, so boldly representing his "rehabilitated," resurgent self-confidence--his very presence in that place heralding the eclipse of Mao. More than the old-guard Maoist veterans could bear, no doubt.  But this does not mean that the advancing national program to reclaim and teach Confucian values and identity is imperiled. Reporting has indicated that across venues and levels, the program is embraced and supported by the broader Chinese leadership. Let's hope that is true. And in 2012, there is scheduled a broad-based changing of the guard among the oldest, senior-most leadership of the government and military, offering further basis for hopefulness. The announced ascendency of Xi Jinping to succeed Hu Jintao as General Secretary and President marks the rise of yet another, even younger generation of more pragmatic, progressive leaders in China--and they will likely be replacing a number of the older, hard-line Maoist. At least, that appears likely.

So, it is not unreasonable to expect that in a few years the statue of the old sage may again make his appearance at Tiananmen Square. But next time, we can hope it will be more open, more triumphant--that the leadership and people may feel safer, more empowered, to stand there with him, acknowledging that Confucius appropriately, perhaps necessarily, occupies a place as close to the heart of Chinese identity as anyone else.

At this time, China needs such symbols of identity, character, values and discipline as its leadership and people engage the considerable challenges to be faced in their global economic and societal ambitions. But in the short term, it is not at all clear what, if anything, will publicly follow from the statue's disappearance. Not surprising, perhaps, I've seen nothing in China Daily about it all yet. But the following article from the New York Times.com shares what they know about the statue's disappearance, and reports what they've heard about why it likely happened and what it means. From the NYT: 

   BEIJING — ...The sudden disappearance of Confucius, which took place under cover of darkness early Thursday morning, has stoked outrage among the philosopher's descendants, glee among devoted Maoists and much conjecture among analysts who seek to decipher the intricacies of the Chinese leadership's decisions. Although there were some reports that the statue had been moved to a less prominent location within the newly expanded National Museum, those who had a hand in bringing Confucius to the ceremonial heart of the capital were of little help Friday. Tian Shanting, a spokesman for the museum, which had unveiled the statue with great fanfare, said he had no idea what had happened. The sculptor, Wu Weishan, declined to comment, as did city officials who have jurisdiction over Tiananmen Square... 

The statue's arrival in January at the museum entrance, cater-corner from the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong, set off a maelstrom of speculation, with many scholars describing it as a seismic step in the Communist Party's rehabilitation of Confucianism. In his day, Mao condemned that system of philosophical thought as backward and feudal; during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards were encouraged to deface Confucian temples and statues. The scholar's ancestral home was destroyed, and bodies of long-dead descendants were exhumed and publicly displayed.  

But that was then. Eager to fill the vacuum left by the fading of Maoist ideology, the party in recent years has been championing Confucianism as a national code of conduct, with special emphasis on tenets like ethical behavior, respect for the elderly, social harmony and obedience to authority. Since 2004, the government has opened more than 300 Confucius Institutes around the world to promote the country's "soft power."  

Some academics say that placing a mammoth paean to Confucius a stone's throw from Mao's mausoleum may have gone too far. Chen Lai, a Confucian studies expert at Tsinghua University, suggested that those in the influential Central Party School who opposed the statue's placement near the square had been quietly agitating against it...Unrepentant Maoists celebrated the move on Friday. "The witch doctor who has been poisoning people for thousands of years with his slave-master spiritual narcotic has finally been kicked out of Tiananmen Square!" one writer, using the name Jiangxi Li Jianjun, wrote on the Web site Maoflag.net.  

For those who have been heartened by the government's embrace of Confucian values, news of the statue's removal was devastating. Guo Qijia, a professor at Beijing Normal University who helps run the China Confucius Institute, said that only Confucian teachings could rescue China from what he described as a moral crisis.  

--"Confucius Statue Vanishes Near Tiananmen Square," by Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times.com (4.22.11)  

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/world/asia/23confucius.html

An Education Solution: Balanced, Year-Round Schooling

One of the biggest problems with U.S. education may be summer vacations. That's what research and empirical evidence is telling us. There are still issues with teachers and unions, of course; there are certainly disagreements about curriculum and accountability; but it is the long, superannuated summer vacation that has proved a principal factor in both the gap in learning between children from low-income and higher income families, and America's slipping international ranking. And the reason is that students not intellectually challenged in the summer, especially those least engaged, forget a lot of what they learned in the last school year, and as many as six weeks or more of review can be required each returning year.

For some time now, I've been reading articles or references to research that indicate the significance of this problem, the possibilities to remedy it, and the barriers to getting that done. From a 2010 Time magazine article:

[W]hen American students are competing with children around the world, who are in many cases spending four weeks longer in school each year, larking through summer is a luxury we can't afford. What's more, for many children--especially children of low-income families--summer is a season of boredom, inactivity and isolation. Kids can't go exploring if their neighborhoods aren''t safe. It's hard to play without toys or playgrounds or open spaces. And Tom Sawyer wasn't expected to care for his siblings while Aunt Polly worked for minimum wage.

Dull summers take a steep toll, as researchers have been documenting for more than a century. Deprived of healthy stimulation, mllions of low-income kids lose a significant amount of what they learn during the school year. Call it "summer learning loss," as the academics do, or "the summer slide," but by any name summer vacation is among the most pernicious--if least acknowledged--causes of achievement gaps in American schools. Children with access to high-quality experiences keep exercising their minds and bodies at sleepaway camp, on family vacations, in museums and libraries and enrichment classes. Meanwhile, children without resources languish on street corners or in front of glowing screens. By the time the bell rings on a new school year, the poorer kids have fallen weeks, if not months, behind. And even well-off American students may be falling behind their peers around the world. 

--"The Case Against Summer Vacation," by David Von Drehle, Time (8.2.10)

That's the story, and the evidence is pretty strong. But do not take from this that children of better-off families who enjoy more active, interesting or challenging intellectual experiences in the summer, do not suffer from the same effect; it is just less pronounced. And children from better-off families are also more likely to have parents who are college graduates who expect and focus on academic success. They encourage summer reading and learning experiences. Their home environment is more likely to be a source of intellectual stimulation. But that still doesn't compensate for an unavoidable measure of "summer learning loss" for them too, as the months-long summer vacation distances them from last year's studies. And that level of learning loss likely contributes to the performance advantage of students in the year-round education systems of many foreign countries.

But let's consider some of the findings that contribute to the case against summer vacations. More from the Time article:

The problem of summer vacation, first documented in 1906, compounds year after year. What starts as a hiccup in a 6-year-old's education can be a crisis by the time that child reaches high school. After collecting a century's woth of academic studies, summer-learning expert Harris Cooper, now at Duke University, concluded that, on average, all students lose about a month of progress in math skills each summer, while low-income students slip as many as three months in reading comprehension, compared with middle-income students. Another major study, by a team at Johns Hopkins University, examined more than 20 years of data meticulously tracking the progress of students from kindergarten through high school. 

The conclusiuon: while students made similar progress during the school year, regardless of economic status, the better-off kids held steady or continued to make progress during the summer--but disadvantages students fell back. By the end of grammar school, low-income students had fallen nearly three grade levels behind, and summer was the biggest culprit. By ninth grade, summer learning loss could be blamed for roughly two-thirds of the achievement gap separating income groups.

So, it's a no-brainer, right? We need only balance and extend the school year for all American students; we just take some pages from the school calendars of the most competitive countries, right? Uh, no. There are a number of forces arrayed against a year-round school calendar, including middle- and higher-income families. And then there are teachers, unions, and financial constraints, as well. No, this is not an easy sell, not broadly, not right away it seems. And in most places it is not even possible right now.

But the experience and experiemental research in many private and charter school environments have led more and more public school systems to ask the serious questions, and many to make the commitment to change to a year-round calendar. A recent case in point was Indianapolis IN:

Two days before Thanksgiving, the Indianapolis School Board will make a decision sure to heat up discussion around the turkey in just about every home with young children. That's when board members will vote on whether to adopt year-round classes. If the board approves the measure, Indianapolis pupils would go to school in cycles of eight to 10 weeks, with three to five weeks off after each, throughout the year. That would put them among the growing number of children around the nation who are going to school on so-called balanced schedules.  

Indianapolis Superintendent Eugene White said the schedule would add 20 class days every year, giving pupils more time to learn and shorter periods away from the classroom to forget what they've studied. For both teachers and students, the shorter but more frequent breaks will "give them some kind of relief and (allow them to) come back more invigorated," he said. That's important in a district criticized for low standardized-test scores and high dropout rates, said board member Annie Roof, because "what we are doing isn't working."  

10 percent by 2012? 

If the board approves, Indianapolis will hop on a bandwagon that's quietly rolling across the education landscape. Ten years ago, according to Education Department statistics, about 1.5 million public school children went to class on a "balanced schedule"--usually shorthanded as YRE, for "year-round education." Six years ago, that number was up to 2 million. By 2008, nearly 2.5 million pupils were on a YRE plan. But since then, some of the nation's biggest districts have adopted or expanded YRE in their facilities, notably the Chicago Public Schools, and others--including Houston and Indianapolis--could join them next year. By 2012, education groups estimate, more than 5 million pupils--about 10 percent of all children enrolled in American public schools--could be going to school year-round. 

'We don't have them here enough' 

"Society can't keep saying to schools 'have every kid perform better' when we don't have them here enough," said Charlie Kyte, president of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators. A few Minnesota districts have adopted balanced calendars, and many others are studying the idea.  

In Indianapolis, the difference is clear in the small number of schools that are already year-round, said Margaret Silk, a fourth-grade teacher at one of them, Ernie Pyle Elementary School. There, 70 percent of students from low-income families pass their state assessment tests, higher than the Indiana average for all students and well above the average for lower-income students. Silk said that under the traditional calendar, it took six weeks of reviewing the previous year's lessons just to get her students back up to speed. "In this calendar, oh, my goodness, (it takes) maybe two weeks at most," she said.  

---"Year-round school gains ground around U.S.: Shorter but more frequent vacations could slow 'spring slide'," by Alex Johnson, msnbc.com (10.27.2010)

If then, so many private initiatives have successfully ventured into summer learning programs for the willing, and some public systems or schools have also successfully embarked on more year-round calendars as well, why wouldn't Indianapolis follow suit? After all, it has worked well, just as the research indicated it would. And more broadly, why isn't year-round education taking root even faster? From the msnbc.com article:

For one thing, it's not just pupils who don't like the idea of sitting in class all day in the middle of summer. Public opinion polling has consistently shown that a majority of American adults oppose mandatory summer classes, too.The most recent poll, by Rasmussen Reports in July, found that adults opposed a year-round calendar by 63 percent to 31 percent--about the same ratio as other surveys taken in recent years. (The Rasmussen poll reported a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points.) 

Specifically, 71 percent of adults — parents and non-parents alike — said in the most recent poll that children learn valuable life lessons during long summer breaks, by going to camp or by taking temporary jobs. And at public hearings recently in Indianapolis, some parents complained that summer classes would complicate their family vacation plans.  

But the big objection boils down to this: "Show me the money," Randy J. Greene, superintendent of schools in Paducah, Ky., said when the idea was raised there after Obama's comments last month. Year-round buses and lunches and after-school tutoring programs cost more, Greene said, and parents are already unhappy about a 4 percent increase in property taxes to cover the $300,000 cut in state funding that hit the district this year.

Nevertheless, in November 2010, Indianapolis approved implementation of the proposed "balanced," year-round public school calendar. Progress continues. But for the majority of those other places where parents, unions and budgets deny full-scale YRE calendars, why not take a page out of some of the private ventures and at least provide an extended school year--a summer session--for those less well-off students? Well, first, it is unlikely that a school system could or would require attendance by one income group that is not required of all. And then there are still the budget issues.

Even if parents and unions reverse field--and they likely will, eventually--the financial crisis, and the resulting stress on state and municipal budgets, has caused many school systems like Paducah, KY, to delay consideration, and others to delay implementation of plans already approved. Las Vegas provides an example of the latter. From the same msnbc.com article:

The cost concern is playing out differently in Las Vegas, where the Clark County School Board--facing a $30 million shortfall in its budget thanks to reduced state funding and declining property tax revenue--voted in April to abandon a year-round calendar and return to the traditional three-month summer break. The new calendar was projected to save the district about $13.8 million.  

Marcie McDonald, principal of Squires Elementary School, said she understood that the board had to try to balance its smaller budget. But she said doing so would come at a real cost. Ninety-two percent of McDonald's pupils are Latino, and for two-thirds of them, English is their second language. "Our little ones are learning language," McDonald said. "They go home and listen to their primary language of their home for three months and come back. And having not used English for three months--that poses another concern or problem."

So, if the progress continues, if the positive experience of some schools and school systems is strengthening the case for the rest, extraordinary budgetary constraints are clearly slowing that progress. The question is, when will the financial situation right itself? But also, when will the majority of Americans recognize that the individual, community and national interest in a more effective, more competitive educational system calls for embracing a balanced, year-round school calendar? As we've seen, the realization that well-off students would also benefit, albeit to a lesser extent than the least well-off, often does not appear a compelling consideration to their parents. And issues of discrimination or differential treatment would likely deny any initiative to require an extended school year only for those less well-off students. In some of those cases, might alternatives approaches eventually prove availing?

In those more challenging situations, another strategy might be to approach the challenge one step at a time. A summer session might first be offered on a voluntary basis, but where teachers and counselors are required to make clear to all families and students the educational and competitve advantages of attending--especially in terms of competitive job markets and admissions to colleges (and in appropriate cases, performance against international standards). The advantages would be particularly emphasized to those families and students most in need; but the competitive advantage would also be pointed out to those most aspiring students. As a combination of the most responsible and ambitious students from all income groups increasingly attend the summer session, other middle- and upper-income students will likely be drawn in as well--out of concern for falling behind competitively, if nothing else. Then there would likely result the strongest de facto case for requiring summer session attendance by all students. Where appropriate, it may provide another way to get from here to there.

In closing, let me assure you I understand that year-round education is but one of several issue to be addressed in improving American education. We need more able, well-trained, effective and committed teachers. And yes, self-serving teachers unions will have to be denied a material role in matters of education policy. But a more balanced year-round school calendar is nonetheless an important contributing problem. And if we are to more effectively address the higher-income, lower-income performance gap, while advancing the competitive learning of higher-income students as well, then all school systems will eventually have to find the civic will to require year-round education--and the means to finance it. It should be coming to your town, and mine too. It has to.

Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654-1,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39748458/ns/us_news-life/

An Intuition, A Way and Understanding

Psalm 23 

The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want. 

He makes me lie down

in green pastures;

He leads me beside

quiet waters.

He restores my soul. 

He guides me

on the paths of righteousness

for His name's sake. 

And even though I walk through the

valley of deep darkness,

I fear no harm;

for You are with me.

Your rod and Your staff,

they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You have annointed my head with oil.

My cup runs over. 

Surely goodness and lovingkindness

will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell

in the house of the Lord,

forever.

The Bible Is Dead; Long Live the Bible--And Other Provocations

First, from Timothy Beal in The Chronicle Review:

For many potential Bible readers, the expectation that the Bible is univocal is paralyzing. You notice what seem to be contradictions or tensions between different voices in the text. You can't find an obvious way to reconcile them. You figure that it must be your problem. You don't know how to read it correctly, or you're missing something. If the Bible is God's perfect, infallible Word, then any misunderstanding or ambiguity must be the result of our own [failings]. So you either give up or let someone holier than thou tell you "what it really says." I think that's tragic. You're letting someone else impoverish it for you, when in fact you have just brushed up against the rich polyvocality of biblical literature. 

The Bible is anything but univocal about anything. It is a cacopho­ny of voices and perspectives, often in conflict with one another. In many ways, those dedicated to removing all potential biblical contradictions, to making the Bible entirely consistent with itself, are no different from irreligious debunkers of the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general. Many from both camps seem to believe that simply demonstrating that the Bible is full of inconsistencies and contradictions is enough to discredit any religious tradition that embraces it as Scripture.  

But you can't fail at something you're not trying to do. To ask whether the Bible fails to give consistent answers or be of one voice with itself presumes that it was built to do so. That's a false presumption, rooted no doubt in thinking of it as the book that God wrote. On the contrary, biblical literature is constantly interpreting, interrogating, and disagreeing with itself. Virtually nothing is asserted someplace that is not called into question or undermined elsewhere. Ultimately it resists conclusion and explodes any desire we might have for univocality. 

We don't know, and will never know, many details about the history of the development of biblical literature. No doubt there have been countless hands, scribal and editorial, involved in writing, editing, copying, and circulating the various versions of various texts that eventually were brought together into a canonical collection. Nor do we know very much for certain about the ancient life situations—ritu­al practices, oral traditions, legal systems—in which these texts had their beginnings. Nor do we know everything about the complex process by which the canons of Jewish and Christian Scriptures took form. What we do know for certain is that the literature now in our Bibles was thousands of years in the making. 

Given how many hands have been involved in so many contexts over such a long time in the history of this literature, can we honestly imagine that no one noticed such glaring discrepancies? Can we believe, for example, that the seam between the first and second creation stories in Genesis, as well as the many other seams found throughout the Torah, were not obvious? That if agreement and univocality were the goal, such discrepancies would not have been fixed and such rough seams mended long ago? That creation stories would have been made to conform or be removed? That Job would've been allowed to stand against Moses? That Gospel mix-ups concerning who saw what after Jesus's resurrection would have been left to stand? That Judas would have died twice, once by suicide and once by divine disgorge? And so on. Could all those many, many people involved in the development of biblical literature and the canon of Scriptures have been so blind, so stupid? It's modern arrogance to imagine so. 

The Bible canonizes contradiction. It holds together a tense diversity of perspectives and voices, difference and argument—even, and especially, when it comes to the profoundest questions of faith, questions that inevitably outlive all their answers. The Bible interprets itself, argues with itself, and perpetually frustrates any desire to reduce it to univocality. 

---"The Bible is Dead; Long Live the Bible," by Timothy Beal , professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, The Chronicle Review (4.17.11)

 I sent a link to the article excerpted above to several friends and acquaintences, including a few friends who have neither read the Bible nor have any desire to do so. One, a very able, good and selfless civic contributor, a person I like, allowed that she would read the article on my recommendation. This would not likely have been something she gravitated to unprodded.

It's just that so many good folks won't read the Bible because of the types of expectations and limitations impliedly placed on the experience by very "religious" people on the one hand, and very "athiestic" anti-Diests on the other. But there is a more intelligent middle ground for reading and understanding the history of the Bible and what it has to say, both for spiritual seekers and the merely interested or curious. It can be a fertile ground for open-minded exploration in faith, but also a wonderful experience in fascinating literature and cultural history. For some of us--a fair number of us, actually--it is both.

The article shares a refreshing understanding of the unencumbered, open-minded and challenging venture into the rich, but often ambiguous experience it can offer. Like all good educational processes, it raises as many questions as it answers, and the answers as often as not reveal different understandings when seen through different perspectives, contexts and times. Like the life experience it addresses, it is often complex and confounding, and defies simple answers or understandings. It is anything but what many people want it to be.

I sent the article to some who have no interest in reading the Bible, not to entice them to read it--although I think they could be enriched by the experience. (And it is a notoriously difficult book to make sense of by just picking it up and randomly reading.) Rather, it was my hope just to share this third perspective on reading and understanding the Bible, an open-minded, open-hearted exploration of either spirituality, faith, literature or cultural history. And as much, to make clear that some of us who claim some variation of a faith journey read it with the same accountability and intellectual honesty with which we pursue other experiences and aspects of our lives that challenge understanding.

But at the risk of wandering off the reservation, I also must share that I have always been a student of human behavior. And a walk in spiritual exploration or faith--an accountable walk--must also be taken with eyes and mind wide open for what existential life and scientific research tell us about who we are, what we do, and why. My studies in psychology, genetics, brain, neural and endocrine systems as an undergraduate (and through a graduate fellowship) have remained active areas of interest for me throughout my life-- and for some years, evolutionary science, as well. And I believe there is ample evidence to suggest that our personalities and temperaments have a lot to do with our orientation to spirituality and faith. We can see those personality types reflected in the range of both political and faith expressions.

And the likely level of determinism involved can be unsettling--more so to some than others, but to some extent to all. For our genetic prescriptions and predispositions appear to govern far more of who we are and what we do than we are comfortable acknowledging. And the deterministic power of our family, educational and cultural conditioning is also greatly at odds with our preferred understandings and sense of freedom, choice, and self-determination. Very uncomfortable, ambiguous stuff for most people--just as uncomfortable as Mr.Beal's shared understandings and approaches to experiencing the Bible are to most believers.

Such ambiguity and challenges to identity are so much of what life offers. I too think it a shame if the discomfort of wrestling with them keeps us from exploring and better understanding the determinants and possibilities of our identity. And to ignore those invitations and challenges may also be to fall short of our potential.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Bible-Is-Dead-Long-Live/127099/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Just Right: Obama's Budget Speech

President Obama's response to the Republican budget--and all it's draconian implications--was for me just right. Yes, it was as much a policy speech and campaign speech as a budget speech. It had to be as he effectively articulated the differences in his approach from that of the Republican's plan--a plan that had more an ideological agenda than a budget agenda. He made it clear he is ready to fight for the healthier socio-economic balance our country expects and needs, and our people deserve.

While we must move quickly and effectively toward a balanced budget, we must also protect and invest in America's people and future. Social programs--including social security, Medicaid and Medicare--will have to be reformed to make them both effective and cost-efficient. Health care policy will have to be more realistic, and provided more cost-efficiently. Defense spending will have to be rethought, reined in, and right-sized. And tax code reform will also be necessary, including restoring higher effective tax levels, especially on higher-income Americans. Obama will not be a party to placing a heavier, unworkable retirement and healthcare cost burden on our next generation of seniors.

This excerpt from NBC's First Read on-line sums up well the audiences the President was addressing and the messages he delivered:

*** Obama's three audiences: President Obama's deficit/debt/entitlement speech yesterday appeared to have three audiences. Those elusive independent voters were his first audience, and he told them he would cut the budget but with balance and sacrifice for all.     

Democratic liberals upset by Friday's spending-cut deal and December's tax-cut deal made up a second audience. To them, Obama gave a full-throated defense of the safety-net programs and vowed he would sunset the tax cuts for the wealthy. 

Republicans were his final audience. To them, he skewered their proposal to phase out Medicare and to keep those tax cuts for the wealthy. And Obama delivered another message to the GOP: It was under their party's previous president and GOP-controlled Congress that began racking up the deficits. In short, the speech was as much about defining the GOP budget plan -- coming before the House votes on the Ryan proposal on Friday -- as it was checking the box on addressing the deficit and debt.  

---"First Thoughts: Off and running," First Read from NBC News (msnbc.com), NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg (4.14.11)

Going into the speech, I thought that the President had to give us more detail on the budget, but I was wrong. I underestimated the need and his ability to deliver a strong, effective speech that builds his policy statement as he touches all the important bases, a speech that gives enough detail to make his points, but does not lose sight of policy essentials and the big picture. A strong and important speech, a good beginning. Now let the budget debate and the presidential campaign begin in earnest.

...and now Libya.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya. Let your mind and heart and emotions speak to you; let the realities of our experience and history inform you; let your highest hopes and worst fears have their say, too. And whether all that offers up joy, despair, bewilderment, or a confusion of all three, let's at least hope for an end sooner rather than later, a more representative government, a better society for Libya resulting--and at the lowest possible cost of life and resources.

And may we learn whatever there is to learn from it all. Our collective sense of national discernment can use all the insight, wisdom and refinement our experience and history offers.

As for me, I share the humanitarian values and goals that motivate President Obama. But the experience and lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan cast a long, cautioning shadow over the best intentions and hopefulness that animate this intervention in Libya. I am not optimistic; I expect a longer, more painful and expensive process than NATO plans. Still, we are there, and I join everyone else who hopes and prays those best intentions are realized.