Meanwhile, I would like to recommend the following TED talk. No matter which side of the fence you may have stood during this recent campaign this brief talk may explain how the entire spectrum of thinking - liberal to conservative - is critical for our long term success as a civilized nation and world.

(Note: if you do not see an image below, select either “player 7 or player 8″ below to activate the video player. Or, if you have a high speed connection, you may wish to view the short talk in High Definition here.)

As if candidate Reagan returned to hand off the baton to Obama, here he is making the simple and connected case with a simple but connected question.

Elections in the mid-19th century were festive affairs, and people gathered to carouse, jostle one another and vote. They sometimes cast their ballots on a stage to cheers and jeers. Voting, even their choice of candidates, used to be extremely public.

A series of progressive reforms in the late 19th century turned voting into a private affair. Campaign operatives were kept clear of polling stations. People got to vote in secret, and few knew whether their neighbors voted.

Turnout plummeted.

Get out and meet some people this election. It’s fun. Joe and I got to meet our congressman (Rep. Bart Stupak) this weekend when he joined our group for a door-to-door canvassing. No booze, but the pizza at our little party was pretty good.

Obama ‘08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

Almost daily Andy asks the GOP Vice-presidential nominee to submit to the press. When the McCain campaign bans the press Andy wonders if this is happening in America .

This is America, Andrew, where we do not let facts obscure our vision.

Idealism of the Sullivan variety is like most idealism. It sometimes forgets where it is when it chases “ought.” Mr. Sullivan looks down on Sarah Palin like a helicopter pilot spotting a pack of wolves from the air who hollers at the armed guys in the passenger seats to shoot while they can, and he is flummoxed when they only stare.

Idealism amuses us Americans. Sure, we are an exceptional lot. Yet, just because we Americans know what we “ought” to do does not mean we are inclined to do it. For that sort of dish we need to be hungry. But hungry we rarely are, because we constantly stuff ourselves with snacks and almost always spoil our dinner.

We snack on simple characterizations, slogans, and tasty fear. A real meal? We do not have the patience and will to prepare lasting nourishment for ourselves, nor do we have the determination to hunt down and kill the beast that might starve our freedom. Here, have another snack, instead.

We avoid the dirty work of reality, which may be why we leave it to others to do. Or, we give it to those who say they will and turn them into superheroes, like Sarah Palin.

There is something superhero-like in Sarah’s schtick. Never mind that she would gleefully shoot your dog if, in crossing her path to progress, the animal might delay her journey. Because superheros know what they are doing we accept the destruction their actions create, all the while hoping Bowser and the rest of what makes life good survives.

Americans value superheros because superheros do what needs to be done. So, why question them? They do our work so we can eat more snacks.

So when Mr. Sullivan idealistically demands Ms. Palin cast herself at the feet of the infotainment pool of what is left of American journalism so they might accurately take measure, he misses the fact that we Americans just do not scrutinize our superheroes. No. We just believe in them while we can. And, who wants to change America?

A few days ago we met a semi-retired farmer and his wife from Paw Paw, a little farming town in southwest Michigan. They were parked in a parking lot of a vacant building not far from here, having brought a flatbed trailer loaded with fresh apples and other fruit from that wonderful part of Michigan known for its delicious fruit.

I used to live in Berrien Springs, not far from Paw Paw, and I remember the area’s abundance of fruit and vegetables. The farmer picked out an apple and said “Try this,” as he handed it to me. The crisp tartness woke fond memories as I grabbed some bags and filled them with food from the land I once called home.

The aroma of cooking apples in my kitchen brought with it memories of simpler times living in Michigan’s fruit belt where I would pick tomatoes by the bushel and devote a day to canning them for chili during the winter. The canning equipment, meanwhile, rests under a thick layer of dust somewhere in the basement having lost its shine long ago.

In 2002 I returned to Michigan’s Alaska where apples are sometimes found in an old orchard but few grow much bigger than the berries scattered around the wild. Until grocery stores began to stock fresh produce people living in this part of the north survived on wild game and a few root vegetables kept cool in the root cellar.

Alaska has been in the news lately. The state with a view of Russia isn’t the only place where Americans learned to make a home out of the wilderness. Moose live here, too. I know because once on a walk in the woods I almost walked into a mommy moose and her baby (cow and calf, I think may be the terms). There is something primal about living in a place where “modern” is a concept that depends on keeping the one road open.

Today, while the smell of cooking apples filled the house and as I struggled to renew my pie-crust-making skills I thought about the amount of time I was spending to make what I could buy at the grocery store for the same price. Something about making apple sauce and pie felt good but what was it? I wondered if maybe the complex information I accumulate from media sources every day is cheating me out of simple?

By making our lives easier do we lose the point of life? Had I lost the connection between earth and my tummy? Certainly its’ size would suggest otherwise. At what point in our simplified lives where we never need to lift a finger to feel what matters?

I stared at the sticky sauce dripping from my fingers as I turned the wooden mortar - forcing the cooked apple through the mill. I drew my hand to my mouth and licked off the steaming apple sauce and started to feel something. A connection.

Our world seems accessible yet is as limiting to the touch as it ever was. We physically must go and do to touch it - to feel it. For us to internalize a culture or a moment is to physically take it in - eat its food, drink its water, touch its people, and feel their breath on our skin. Television and the internet transports our imaginations to the ends of the universe and introduces us to people and cultures we might otherwise miss. But it cannot substitute first hand experience.

I made the connection. I could easily get apple sauce from the store. But these apples fed my soul.

Republicans want one thing. To eliminate all regulation or oversight of big corporations.

But don’t Republicans care about social issues like protecting marriage and the sanctity of human life?

Please. Sanctity of human life? Show me what Republican policies actually do to human lives.

Republicans since the 1970’s act on behalf of environment-be-damned corporate earth plunderers who would sell out their own mothers before giving up a penny of profit.

How do Republicans get away with it?

By pandering to a group of social conservatives who care only about a few issues. These voters are suspicious of so-called “liberal elitists” and windbags like yours truly. and Republicans know how to stir the pot of anger and distrust by telling this group that Republicans care about their “values.” Republicans give their well-meaning religious pals keys to the club and even call them “Republicans” before stepping out back for a smoke and to snicker about tricking yet another election.

Republicans know the sizable portion of social conservative fundamentalists tend to be a very loyal group. Once they make up their mind, there is almost no changing it. So what better group to have on your team? And ever since the 1960’s and 1970’s Republicans have been feeding to this narrow (but significant) band of the electorate empty rhetoric about protecting marriage, stem cell research bans, and abstinence training for randy teens. Nice. Whatever works.

Republicans when in power are then more able to stay in power by turning government over to what it euphemistically calls “the private sector,” otherwise known as big business. So, 99 percent of Americans grow more dependent on deregulated corporations to get mortgages, provide health care, and deliver energy. Guess who profits? The 1% of the population who need you to vote Republican.

As corporations get stronger and bigger and take over more of the responsibilities of government the little businesses have a harder time competing and the private citizen has less recourse when getting screwed by power.

Simply put, Republicans want corporations to run your lives. Democrats want government to referee the game between corporate America and the little guy. And, libertarians are just Republicans who didn’t manipulate religious fundamentalists to gain power.

The new symbol of rural America is Walmart, who comes to a little town near you and gets to pay little or no tax because it creates jobs. Good thing, because the neighbor kids will need a place to work when Walmart closes the local grocer.

Exxon Mobile made more money this year from high gasoline prices than any corporation ever has. Yet, Republicans want to eliminate taxes and regulation from the oil industry so it can drill everywhere it wants like some kind of stud on an island of virgins who never cares for the kids that later come.

Republican single-minded focus on enabling corporate greed and misdeed is huge. They distract with social issues, which they care nothing about except to trick enough voters to keep them in power.

We may never get the Republican social conservatives to join the social conservatives in the Democratic party and vote with their brains instead of their feelings. But, if we do it will be in no small part because we learned how to talk with them.

posted using Phreadz by attitude

posted using Phreadz by attitude

And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming.”

–John McCain, at the GOP Convention last night apparently acknowledging defeat to the candidate of change.

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.

Meanwhile, we still haven’t gotten a single idea during the entire Republican convention about the economy and how to lift a middle class so harmed by the Bush-McCain policies.

Too bad so many single-issue voters (e.g., anti-abortion, prayer in schools, right to assault weapons, anti-gay, etc.) are bamboozled into supporting the GOP and its personal agenda of corporate wealth care. While the GOP will tend to favor conservative social agendas, they do so while recklessly inserting the country into war and dangerously push us away from solving our energy problems. Yet, for single-issue voters losing our country to keep prayer in public schools is worth it. Sad, indeed, that the only way Republicans can win is by pandering to Evangelicals.

Giving attention to what people say before Thursday is generally a waste of cognitive resources. Pre-Thursday hype is little more than an orgy of over-acting by a cast of politicians. Nonetheless, I do love the show. But what a stupid time to poll the public.

Remember a convention is not a pre-arranged wedding. Hillary people are there to support Hillary. Why is this so difficult to understand? Obama people support Obama. Everybody goes to Denver to rant and rave for a few days about their candidate and their pet issues. Two days later the party wizards perform magic and the Dems are mesmerized into inviting Obama home for some luvin’. The luvin’ will happen. But, not before Bill yells “last call” Wednesday night. Everyone knows the Clintons are masters who will ignite the enthusiasm of most Hillary supporters who will start to feel the Obama luv by Wednesday close of business. The Hillary people not on board by Thursday are Democrat frauds and should go start their own party or go over and kick the GOP while it is down.

Thursday is when true Democrats will come together in a giant mutual Obamagasm. Four years ago it was Kerryasm. Four before it was Goreasm. This year, the “asm” just goes better with the name Obama.

The weekend will show Obama’s expected brief bump in the polls. It won’t last, however.

Be sure to tune in for all the pundit hand-wringing next week when McCain’s poll numbers get goofy sometime around Wednesday. Those numbers will stabilize and be very close to Obama’s by the following weekend until the election. Why?

Because the media has mostly forgotten there is a huge difference between fair and balanced (thanks Rupert Murdock and FOX). If media see dirt about a candidate media scamper to find equal dirt on the other candidate. If media only report hard news they are labeled a bully by the newsworthy candidate. The media fall for it every time.

Brilliant. Not brilliant because media fall for it, but brilliant because the corporations that own the media know a tight dirty race makes good television and it sells newspapers and pays the talking heads and gives dividends to retired shareholders.

With so many microphones and cameras these days there is no shortage of material. Plenty of lies, distortions, and pot-stirring to go around. The result? Equal poll numbers until the election.

CNN’s “Keepin’ ‘em honest” slogan is not actually what they and their colleagues do best. In fact all big media should be honest and adopt the slogan about their reporting on political candidates “Big Media - keeping ‘em even.”

Media trash, doubt-monger, or swift-boat any candidate moving too far ahead in the polls.

See the problem here? We ignore issues because media irrationally embrace an erroneous definition of “fairness” as meaning “balanced.”

Much of this reductionism to labels, slogans, and truth is a norm of Western culture where we are compelled to find ONE CAUSE for each phenomenon we encounter. We regard with suspicion ambiguous or complex information as less-than-truthy because it doesn’t feel or sound truthy to our stimulus-craving hyper-aroused and attention-disabled FOX News “fair AND balance” conditioned brains.

To reach a Western “truth”:

Step 1: Instantly form a belief about something or someone. (Really, we do it all the time)
Step 2: Scavenge for evidence in support of the belief. (Pay no attention to non-supporting evidence.)
Step 3: Enjoy the resulting “know-it-all” nirvana.
Step 4: Roll eyes when someone doesn’t “get” the truth.
Step 5: Hang out with other people who “get” your truth.

Media talking heads don’t get famous and rich saying “I don’t know.” That boring uncertainty we assign to scientists paid on a scale commensurate to their charm. We smug gluttons of truthy-sounding nonsense giddily wallow our vast land of all-knowing plenty while secretly hoping the sky waits a little longer to fall.

____
p.s. I drink Obama Kool-aid. What do you drink?

Source: Bought by Big Oil (do you think they are biased?)

This pastor performs meme Jujitsu with a billboard near Goshen, Indiana (my previous state of residence).

With advertising like this just imagine the sermons.

Hat tip to Ben Smith over at Politico.

I grew up next to Lake Superior and it shaped part of who I am. Every time I approach its beaches I feel a sense of respect and appreciation - and perspective. No problem in the world seems as big when I think about it on a Lake Superior beach in August - especially when I get to go with Joe and Gus.

Gay Closet from Tim Moore on Vimeo.

…The left won’t accept this awful truth about the American soul, a beast that they believe they can fix “if only the people knew the Truth.”

But what if the Truth is that Americans don’t want to know the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over truth when given the chance—and not even very interesting lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies?…

…

Put your ear to the ground in this country, and you’ll hear the toxic spite churning. It’s partly the result of commercial propaganda and sexual desperation—a d