Passages

Daughter Laura is visiting with us from Portland OR.* She joined Ginny and me for our 38th wedding anniversary dinner at Siena, a favorite restaurant. Really, 38 years! On her agenda today, a Memorial Day family cook-out at our place, and celebration of Dad's 93rd birthday! With Mom, too, 89. Dad's health is slipping fast, but he is still unbowed and in there fighting. Mom's dementia challenges her, but whenever, wherever she can, she holds on. It is good, if a little sad, for Laura to be here at this time.

We are selling our house in EG, RI; it has been our home, then summer refuge, for 24 years. It is time. Naples FL is our home base now, has been for a few years. So Laura is also here to go through the boxed memories of her growing-up years, to select those things she will keep and treasure. It is a nostalgic time for her. But good memories, all good.

Awaiting us all are the inevitable corners that must be turned, the bows that must be tied--then, the new people and places to be embraced. Passages.


[*Son Adam and his wife Nilofer cannot be with us. They have just moved from Spokane WA to Irvine CA, and are acclimating to a new home and work responsibilities. But Adam had earlier taken what he wanted from among the things of his youth.]

"Direct" Democracy's Erosion of Representative Democracy--and the Republic

I'm an Independent--a real Independent--and a fan of David Brooks. We part ways on some issues, of course, but I tend to agree with much that he writes. But I've never agreed with him more than I do with his recent column in the NYT. It's about the problem of America's drift toward "direct" or plebiscite democracy--simple majority rule, by any other name--and away from properly functioning elected leadership roles in a representative democracy. Mr. Brooks:

The United States, as you know, was founded as a republic, not simply as a democracy. The distinction has been lost over the past few decades, but it is an important one. The believers in a democracy have unlimited faith in the character and judgment of the people and believe that political institutions should be responsive to their desires. The believers in a republic have large but limited faith in the character and judgment of the people and erect institutions and barriers to improve that character and guide that judgment.  

America's founders were republicans [small "r"]. This was not simply elitism, a matter of some rich men distrusting the masses. This was a belief that ran through society and derived from an understanding of history...The first citizens of this country erected institutions to protect themselves from their own shortcomings. We're familiar with some of them: the system of checks and balances, the Senate, etc. More important, they believed, was public spiritedness — a system of habits and attitudes that would check egotism and self-indulgence.  

[T]he meaning of the phrase "public spiritedness" has flipped since the 18th century. Now we think a public-spirited person is somebody with passionate opinions about public matters, one who signs petitions and becomes an activist for a cause. In its original sense, it meant the opposite[:]...curbing one's passions and moderating one's opinions in order to achieve a large consensus that will ensure domestic tranquility. Instead of self-expression, it meant self-restraint. It was best exemplified in the person of George Washington.  

Over the years, the democratic [small "d"] values have swamped the republican ones. We're now impatient with any institution that stands in the way of the popular will, regarding it as undemocratic and illegitimate. Politicians see it as their duty to serve voters in the way a business serves its customers. The customer is always right... 

We no longer have a leadership class — of the sort that existed as late as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations — that believes that governing means finding an equilibrium between different economic interests and a balance between political factions. Instead, we have the politics of solipsism. The political culture encourages politicians and activists to imagine that the country's problems would be solved if other people's interests and values magically disappeared.  

The democratic triumph has created a nation that runs up huge debt and is increasingly incapable of finding a balance between competing interests. Today, the country faces three intertwined economic challenges. We have to make the welfare state fiscally sustainable. We have to do it in a way that preserves the economic dynamism in the country — that provides incentives for creative destruction. We also have to do it in a way that preserves social cohesion — that reduces the growing economic and lifestyle gaps between the educated and less educated.  

These three goals are in tension with one another, but to prosper America has to address all three at the same time. 

Voters will have to embrace institutional arrangements that restrain their desire to spend on themselves right now. Political leaders will have to find ways to moderate solipsistic tribalism and come up with tax and welfare state reforms that balance economic dynamism and social cohesion.  

--"The Politics of Solipsism," by David Brooks, The New York Times (5.5.11)

Most people appear to miss or misunderstand this point; their history or civics courses just didn't stress enough this distinction about a properly functioning republic based on popular election of leader-statesmen. It was James Madison, an architect and draftsman of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, an author of the Federalist papers, and President of the United States--as well as other early thinkers on democracy--who warned of the dangers of plebiscite democracy. As today's leaders abdicate their roles and duties, we move more, faster in that direction. Mr. Madison:

Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. 

[And further:] The effect of [a representative democracy is] to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. 

---The Federalist Paper No. 10, Publius (James Madison)**

And England's estimable, ever vigilant and thoughtful Edmund Burke offered the following reflection making the same point:

 Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Representative, to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and, above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But, his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you; to any man, or to any sett of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the Law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. 

--"Speech to the Electors of Bristol," Edmund Burke (3 Nov. 1774), Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 1:446--48 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854--56)

President Eisenhower and Edmund Burke embraced the same view on the imperative of a compromising spirit in leadership:

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. 

--Edmund Burke 

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters. 

---President Dwight D. Eisenhower 

It is hard not to see some of the warned-against weaknesses of direct democracy playing their part in the crisis levels of our national and local debt. It is sad and dispiriting, but so very human, to observe the demands from every income level or political orientation that someone else bear the costly burden of recovery--including the cost of essential reform to necessary public goods, human services, and retirement and health programs. And, of course, no group sees the need or fairness in raising their taxes, and that prominently includes high income folks: "Oh no, not us, we must keep our money and consumption to contribute to economic growth." Among other dispiriting aspects are the bankruptcy-threatening levels of public retirement and healthcare obligations blithely agreed to by politicians for peace and votes from state and municipal public employees. And a concomitant darkening of the larger economic picture is provided by the uncomfortable dominance of China as financier of our irresponsibly distended national debt.

And then there are the ills of state government, which in many ways are succumbing to the same temptations and failures of direct democracy in various forms. The Economist recently ran a Leaders piece and a Special Section on the perils of "extreme democracy," focusing on California as the poster child for irresponsible, unaccountable state government and the abdication of elected leadership to increasing direct, referendum democracy.

CALIFORNIA is once again nearing the end of its fiscal year with a huge budget hole and no hope of a deal to plug it, as its constitution requires. Other American states also have problems, thanks to the struggling economy. But California cannot pass timely budgets even in good years, which is one reason why its credit rating has, in one generation, fallen from one of the best to the absolute worst among the 50 states. How can a place which has so much going for it—from its diversity and natural beauty to its unsurpassed talent clusters in Silicon Valley and Hollywood—be so poorly governed?  

It is tempting to accuse those doing the governing. The legislators, hyperpartisan and usually deadlocked, are a pretty rum bunch. The governor, Jerry Brown, who also led the state between 1975 and 1983, has (like his predecessors) struggled to make the executive branch work. But as our special report this week argues, the main culprit has been direct democracy: recalls, in which Californians fire elected officials in mid-term; referendums, in which they can reject acts of their legislature; and especially initiatives, in which the voters write their own rules. Since 1978, when Proposition 13 lowered property-tax rates, hundreds of initiatives have been approved on subjects from education to the regulation of chicken coops. 

This citizen legislature has caused chaos. Many initiatives have either limited taxes or mandated spending, making it even harder to balance the budget. Some are so ill-thought-out that they achieve the opposite of their intent: for all its small-government pretensions, Proposition 13 ended up centralising California's finances, shifting them from local to state government. Rather than being the curb on elites that they were supposed to be, ballot initiatives have become a tool of special interests, with lobbyists and extremists bankrolling laws that are often bewildering in their complexity and obscure in their ramifications. And they have impoverished the state's representative government. Who would want to sit in a legislature where 70-90% of the budget has already been allocated?  

They paved paradise and put up a voting booth 

This has been a tragedy for California, but it matters far beyond the state's borders. Around half of America's states and an increasing number of countries have direct democracy in some form (article). Next month Britain will have its first referendum for years (on whether to change its voting system), and there is talk of voter recalls for aberrant MPs. The European Union has just introduced the first supranational initiative process. With technology making it ever easier to hold referendums and Western voters ever more angry with their politicians, direct democracy could be on the march. 

And why not? There is, after all, a successful model: in Switzerland direct democracy goes back to the Middle Ages at the local level and to the 19th century at the federal. This mixture of direct and representative democracy seems to work well. Surely it is just a case of California (which explicitly borrowed the Swiss model) executing a good idea poorly? 

Not entirely. Very few people, least of all this newspaper, want to ban direct democracy. Indeed, in some cases referendums are good things: they are a way of holding a legislature to account. In California reforms to curb gerrymandering and non-partisan primaries, both improvements, have recently been introduced by initiatives; and they were pushed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a governor elected through the recall process. But there is a strong case for proceeding with caution, especially when it comes to allowing people to circumvent a legislature with citizen-made legislation.  

The debate about the merits of representative and direct democracy goes back to ancient times. To simplify a little, the Athenians favoured pure democracy ("people rule", though in fact oligarchs often had the last word); the Romans chose a republic, as a "public thing", where representatives could make trade-offs for the common good and were accountable for the sum of their achievements. America's Founding Fathers, especially James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, backed the Romans. Indeed, in their guise of "Publius" in the "Federalist Papers", Madison and Hamilton warn against the dangerous "passions" of the mob and the threat of "minority factions" (ie, special interests) seizing the democratic process. 

Proper democracy is far more than a perpetual ballot process. It must include deliberation, mature institutions and checks and balances such as those in the American constitution. Ironically, California imported direct democracy almost a century ago as a "safety valve" in case government should become corrupt. The process began to malfunction only relatively recently. With Proposition 13, it stopped being a valve and instead became almost the entire engine.  

You don't know what you've got till it's gone 

All this provides both a hope and a worry. The hope is that California can right itself. Already there is talk of reform—though ironically the best hope of it may be through initiatives, since the push for a constitutional convention died last year for lack of money. There is talk, too, of restoring power and credibility to the legislature, the heart of any representative democracy. That could be done by increasing its unusually small numbers, and making term limits less onerous. 

More important, direct democracy must revert to being a safety valve, not the engine. Initiatives should be far harder to introduce. They should be shorter and simpler, so that voters can actually understand them. They should state what they cost, and where that money is to come from. And, if successful, initiatives must be subject to amendment by the legislature. Those would be good principles to apply to referendums, too. 

The worry is that the Western world is slowly drifting in the opposite direction. Concern over globalisation means government is unpopular and populism is on the rise. Europeans may snigger at the bizarre mess those crazy Californians have voted themselves into. But how many voters in Europe would resist the lure of a ballot initiative against immigration? Or against mosque-building? Or lower taxes? What has gone wrong in California could all too easily go wrong elsewhere. 

---"The perils of extreme democracy: California offers a warning to voters all over the world," The Economist (4.23.11)

We can be grateful that in their practical wisdom, the founding fathers crafted a representative democracy to lead us, a republic that contemplated that it's elected representatives were to be as much statesmen representing the nation's interests as representatives of the narrower interests of particular, often provincial constituencies. All would be popularly elected, but there would be a balancing of powers and representative roles among the executive function and a bicameral legislature to prioritize and balance the representation of those tiered constituencies. 

That "balance of powers" has been largely effective. And if our representative democracy has sometimes been an uneven and rocky road of political, economic, and social turns and changes, we've come out of each challenge a stronger, better government, a stronger, better society and nation. On the whole, it has functioned well enough to accommodate the development of the most stable, advanced and generous social democracy, and the most robust, productive market economy, in the history of the world.

But now things have changed. The wrong turns, errors, protracted delays or failures to act--our political irresponsibility, abdication of leadership roles, and dysfunction--are now more widespread, more irresponsibly accepted than ever before, and they are subject to finer tolerances as the global community and economy is less forgiving.

As much or more than any other time in our history, our two dominant political parties have now become internally dominated by the most extreme elements of their constituencies. This is particularly true of the Republican party and its resurgent, now dominant right wing, and their cousins, the Tea Party. Where once, both parties united behind the executive on matters of global importance, that is no longer the case. Where there was often compromise on legislation and matters clearly in the country's interest, that is no longer the case, either. Rather, in a time of clear, sometimes dire, national and global challenges--both economic and societal--the Republican leadership now says that its principal goals and priorities are to deny the Democratic president re-election, and to deny or reverse any legislation advanced or passed during his term in office. That's what it has come to. That is the range of vision and depth of responsibility that now passes for national and international leadership. And this is our face to the world that still looks to us with hope for more balanced, responsible global leadership.

If there have been times in our history when the dysfunctional polarization of party leadership and members has rendered our government less able to serve the best interests of the country--at home and abroad--it was clearly not at a time when so much was at stake, when effective, timely and balanced responsiveness was so critical to the nation and the international community. And it was not at a time when the ascendant economic, military and geopolitical power and influence of other countries was so clearly poised to take advantage of our internal weakness, even to threaten or eclipse our power and influence in the world.

But once this addictive, destructive opiate--abdicating more to direct democracy--is out of the bottle, how do we get it back in? How do we save ourselves--except by those same politicians suddenly realizing and embracing the essential need for their responsible leadership?


**Federalist No. 10 is an essay written by James Madison and the tenth of the Federalist Papers, a series arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. It was published on Friday, November 23, 1787, under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. The essay is the most famous of the Federalist Papers, along with Federalist No. 51, also by Madison, and is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings.^[1] (Wikipedia)

**Federalist No. 51 is an essay by James Madison, the fifty-first of the Federalist Papers. It was published on Friday February 8, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. One of the most famous of the Federalist Papers, No. 51 addresses means by which appropriate checks and balances can be created in government and also advocates a separation of powers within the national government. One of its most important ideas is the pithy and often quoted phrase, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." (Wikipedia)

Links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/opinion/06brooks.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

http://www.economist.com/node/18586520?story_id=18586520

Vermont To Be First "Single Payer" Health Insurance State

I must admit, I didn't see this coming. But after all, we are talking about Vermont. I just didn't think any state would be ready to take on such an ambitious, daunting commitment: creating a statewide, "single-payer" health insurance system. But they have. It will take some years to get there, but they have the outline of a plan, and the commitment to pursue it. And I'm pleased they did, for it may turn out to be just the experiment we need to better inform us about the possibilities and the barriers. Here's more from a recent edition of The Economist:

...In Vermont Peter Shumlin, the Democratic candidate for governor, insisted that Barack Obama's reforms had not gone far enough. "Vermont needs a single-payer system," he told voters. "Get insurance companies out of the picture." Mr Shumlin won the election. Now he is preparing to fulfill his promise. 

On May 5th Vermont's legislature passed a bill that lays out steps to adopt a single-payer health system. Mr Shumlin is expected to sign the bill shortly. No state is likely to follow Vermont's lead, at least in the near future. But with Vermont, America begins its first experiment with government-run health care.  

Vermont is an appropriate setting for the test. It is the state that re-elects Bernie Sanders, the self-described socialist senator who in 2009 presented a 700-page single-payer amendment. For local politicians, reforming health care is something of a hobby. They have debated universal coverage for decades, notably in the 1990s. But they have also enacted other changes, such as a state-subsidised health plan and a requirement that insurers cover services for autistic children. Vermont's Medicaid programme is among America's most generous. As a result only 10% of Vermonters are uninsured, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, compared with 17% of Americans. Health spending per person is 15% higher than the national average.  

---"The American exception: Vermont may become the first state to have government-run health care," The Economist (5.14.11)

But if per capita health care spending in Vermont is 15% higher than the national average, what is the game plan to significantly reduce healthcare costs, and move toward the level of some of the European single-payer systems that operate at half the per capita costs of the US? From the same article:

The new law attempts to expand coverage and lower costs. The state will move forward in two steps. The first goal is to create a health exchange by 2014, as required by the national health reform. The second is to use the infrastructure of that exchange, such as a single system for paying claims, to introduce publicly-funded health care in 2017. An independent board will set payment rates for doctors and hospitals, as well as benefit packages for patients. Costs will be contained, Mr Shumlin says, by cutting administrative expenses, slashing fraud and rewarding doctors for the quality rather than just the quantity of care.

As moved as I am to see healthcare as a "public good," and the need for a government-based, single-payer system to equitably and effectively administer it, there's more to cost reduction and cost containment than that. It's not just about the insurance structure, as friend Dieter Haussmann, informed observer and skeptic of a single-payer US healthcare insurance system, is wont to remind me. It's about effective cost reduction and cost containment; that's the sine qua non of any universal health care system if it is to be both effective and affordable. And it has to be both.

Dieter is understandably skeptical about the ability of government to effectively lead and manage such an enterprise, especially on such a cost-conscious basis. The government record in the US is not inspiring. And regardless of my insistence that among those single-payer systems in other countries are good benchmarks for healthcare coverage policy, cost-efficient service systems, and good medical practice, those countries have their cost containment challenges, too.

But Vermont clearly appears to appreciate that there are many unresolved issues and unanswered questions to be addressed as they move forward: how to reduce cost per capita, to be sure, but also related issues of defining the scope of services and identifying reliable funding sources:

However, this progress may not proceed as hoped. Single-payer systems are not a panacea—health spending is growing at a faster clip in Britain and Canada than in America. Furthermore, the main aspects of Vermont's plan have yet to be worked out. Most crucial, politicians have not decided how the scheme will be funded. In a study for the state legislature, William Hsiao of Harvard University recommended a payroll tax on companies and employees, rather than paying for it out of general taxation. But the governor's office has until 2013 to present a plan. It is also unclear which health services will be covered and how to pay for Vermonters who seek care out-of-state. And the whole scheme will need federal approval.

This process in Vermont should be instructive for the rest of the country to observe. I am hopeful, of course. But I have questions about whether a small state has the economies of scale and resources to prove a good test of the possibilities. But it's the only opportunity we have, and we are fortunate to have that. I'll be watching; so will Dieter. So will the nation, the Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all.

One or Two Things: Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver so often provides what I need, when I need it--whether I'm looking for it or not, whether I know I need it or not. It's so easy to relate to her most insightful, transcendent or uplifting reflections on life as she looks deeply at the simplist, most common earthly things and events. But now and then she surprises with that sober reflection, that recurrent lesson of reality, that causes us to stop and just feel it, often uncomfortably, then look for something more comforting or transcendent. Reading through Dreamworks (1986) again, I was struck that way by parts of one poem I'd read a few times before:


One or Two Things

1
Don't bother me.
I've just
been born...

3

The god of [earth]

came up to me many times and said

so many wise and delectable things, I lay

on the grass listening

to his dog voice,

crow voice,
frog voice;

now, he said,

and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

4

which has nevertheless always been,

like a sharp iron hoof, at the center of my mind...

7

For years and years I struggled

just to love my life. And then

the butterfly

rose, weightless, in the wind.

"Don't love your life

too much," it said,

and vanished

into the world.


Just the instinctive reflection of her spiritual intuition? Perhaps. Or, perhaps her own translation and experience of the Zen, Sufi or Christian contemplatives? But isn't it also possible to see a foreshadowing of her future life-and-loss lessons, her spiritual rebirth, her own deeper, personal experiences and understandings to come?

Osama bin Laden. Pakistan.

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, based upon new American intelligence, and at the direction of President Obama, an elite American SEAL team succeeded in it's mission to take Osama bin Laden. He was killed in a compound in Pakistan not far from Islamabad, and he had apparently been there for some time.

So it is done, finally. Everything's been said, and said again. There is joy, a shared national, even global joy about it--and also relief, but the kind attended by a shade of unhappiness and resignation that it unavoidably took so long.

We were so close to him in those early days in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan. It's been a long time. And for some time we've heard the coninuing, apparently credible reports that Pakistan was often protecting, even directing and financing the Taliban and its leaders, perhaps even keeping Mullah Omar. We dared not think Osama bin Laden, for there was little al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan or Pakistan--and Pakistan couldn't be that bold.

But then we found him. He was in a high-walled, large and conspicuous compound without any detectable communications connections. It was located in an affluent community some 60 miles from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, and two miles from their principal military academy. And the residents of that community include many Pakistani military families.

When it was built five years ago, someone might have noticed how unusual it was for that residential area, both in size and configuration. Someone might have noticed how anonymous the occupants, how clandestine, perhaps furtive, their activities--especially given it's location, neighbors, and the reputation of the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) for knowing all that goes on and who is doing it.

Surely it is apparent why President Obama chose not to inform the Pakistani government or military of our mission to take bin Laden from that compound--and in all likelihood, take him dead.

Congratulations to the intelligence team and the elite SEAL team that made the mission possible and made it a success. Now we must sort out what kind of continuing relationship with Pakistan remains necessary for regional stability and security--and what kind of relationship is still workable, given our history with this unreliable, mendacious "ally," whose interests and agenda have often proved contrary to our own.

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.