Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Stay the Course?

I was listening to President Bush's press conference today. As an informed citizen, I've always thought it critically important to keep myself up to date on current events, administration policy, etc. In the past few years I've generally avoided listening to him whenever possible, mostly because I end up yelling at the radio. Also, since the administration has been something of a broken record for several years now, I guess I haven't felt it necessary to listen to Bush's misguided, unreflective pronouncements. The president's use of language (dripping, as it is with ideologically-charged words designed to key into emotions but otherwise utterly lacking in substance) seems to me the ultimate catachrestic endeavor. Of course, his choice of words is made to elicit fear amongst voters: fear of change, fear of taking responsibility for our past choices, fear of attack from vague, ill-defined threats.

His urgings to "stay the course" over the past several years have started to fall out of favor in the public. It's about time. The phrase has never made much sense to me, since it implies that self-reflection about the Bush Administration's Iraq policy is off-limits, anti-patriotic, and somehow a bad thing. "Staying the course" also carries with it a host of problems, since it also implies that we Americans supposedly accept the assumptions that Bush does: that it was correct to attack Iraq, that finding/destroying alleged weapons of mass-destruction was the reason to attack Iraq, that it is sound policy to plunge a country into civil war in the name of "taking the fight to the terrorists" (i.e. the terrorists that didn't exist in Iraq before we invaded their country).

It is comforting to see Americans beginning to wake up from their long slumber and recognize that the Bush Administration's "stay the course" policy--along with most of its undergirding assumptions--is a dangerous one. They have an opportunity on November 7th to send a message to the Bush Administration that it has clearly failed the course.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Convergence or Coincidence?

It's not often that my usually divergent interests move the opposite direction: toward convergence. This seemed to change, at least in a small way, yesterday, when Arizona State University announced that they are completely switching over their email communications infrastructure so it is hosted by Google. This is a relatively new area of growth for Google, and one I think is pretty cool, especially for schools and non-profits. Here's the info:

http://asu.edu/news/stories/200610/20061010_asugmail.htm

I've never been to ASU's campus, and I don't work on Google Apps for Your Domain, so why would I say these things are convergent? At first glance, I admit it is a bit of a stretch! But, it's not so far-fetched a connection when one considers how far-flung my interests have been over the past few years. I work for Imagining America, a consortium of higher-educational institutions. Arizona State University has been one of the earliest consortium members to join up. I've been very impressed with their commitment to public scholarship and community involvement for several years now.

The connection: I've worked with both ASU and Google. Not very strong connection, huh? Ok, I admit it's a tangential connection at best. That other part of my life, the working at Google part, doesn't involve public scholarship, and I don't think anyone at Google has ever heard of Imagining America. Consider this though: Google does want to use its philanthropy arm to do public good, and this makes me think that more substantive convergence might be possible! What a great potential avenue for philanthropy to take: offering non-profits basic applications like email, chat, calendar, and basic web-site hosting so that non-profits can work on the things they need to without having to worry so much about IT infrastructure. This could really revolutionize the way that non-profits work.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Imagining America National Conference

The following entry has been sitting as a draft, not posted, for the last four months. I just wanted to get it out there since I love Imagining America and I've been so proud of the work they've been doing.

__
I recently attended the 6th Annual Imagining America national conference and was incredibly impressed with the engagement, commitment, and vision of the attendees. This was an "un-academic" academic conference in that the attendees were almost exclusively from higher education circles. I've attended my share of academic conferences and never cared much for them. They tend to feel a little dry, a little sterile, and sometimes even a little alienating. The IA national conference, on the other hand, was filled with people who want to change the world through education and change higher education by bringing the world to the ivory tower. I've worked for Imagining America as their webmaster and tech guru for several years now, and this was my first time at their national conference. I'm glad I went.

I've always been inspired by many things about Imagining America, but meeting people running humanities centers, creating structures for their campuses that contribute to a lively and rich campus cultural life. IA members are especially engaged in reaching out to the various communities within which the university/college is based. I have found that universities focus on such specialized knowledges and address such specific academic communities that I sometimes wonder how they can make any sustainable claim to universal knowledge.

It makes me very happy to see organizations like Imagining America--and all the individuals and organizations who are part of it--there to remind us that it is so critically important to support the humanities and the cultural work of empathy and understanding that they do.

Go Imagining America!

To learn more about IA, visit their web site at: http://www.ia.umich.edu.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Iraq Coalition Casualties Soon to Surpass September 11th Fatalities

President Bush has made the argument on numerous occasions that America has been made safer as a result of his decision to attack Iraq. I'd like to refute this assertion by pointing to a sobering statistic: the total number of casualties in the US-led coalition will soon surpass the number of fatalities as a result of the September 11th terrorist attack, probably in the next twenty-four hour period. (1) Here's a count of the two numbers side by side:

Number of fatalities as a result of the September 11th attacks: 2,973 (2)
Number of coalition forces who died as a result of President Bush's decision to attack Iraq: 2969 (3)

I do think it is important to draw attention to this sad statistic. The immense loss of life is just heartbreaking as I think of the families who lost soldiers in Iraq. Sadly, the moment is imminent when it will no longer be inaccurate to say that President Bush's war in Iraq has taken more American lives than even the terrorists' most horrific attack.

This simple comparison fills me with an unshakeable anger. President Bush is poised to beat the terrorists at their own game: he's taken more lives than them. Mission Accomplished.

I think it is right to hold President Bush to task for this, for it was his decision that has cost the lives of so many American and coalition soldiers. When will we begin to hold him and his administration accountable for this?


1 - Bush's justifications for the war have been fairly consistent, and are regularly mentioned in speeches and press briefings. The number of casualties suffered by coalition forces pales in comparison to the number of Iraqi civilians who have perished since the US-led attack. An exact number is hard to determine, but is in the tens of thousands.

2 - The September 11th figure is drawn from Wikipedia, which has a well documented and footnoted entry on the events that transpired. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)

3 - The coalition figure comes from the following site, http://www.icasualties.org/oif/, which gathers its information directly from the US Department of Defense, Centcom, MNF, and the British Ministry of Defense.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Swift Bank Organization For Truth

The disclosure last Thursday by the New York Times that the Bush Administration has secretly been using the bank transaction data from the finance industry cooperative, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), is hardly shocking or revelatory. It is not surprising that the Bush Administration is acting like reporting this is tantamount to treason. An administration so obsessed with its own secrecy seems not to have forgotten that it regularly broadcast its intentions to track and cut off the financing of terrorist individuals and organizations. Those engaged in terrorism would have to be rather clueless not to imagine that inter-bank financial transfers have the potential to be monitored.

What is most striking is not that the Bush Administration asked for access to information held by SWIFT, but that they have been gathering such information for close to five years and apparently have not sought the eventual approval and authorization of congress. Some extreme measures immediately following the 9/11 attacks were clearly justified, but what makes little sense is why the administration did not seek a congressional mandate for such a program, something congress surely would have granted.

The Bush Administration seems not to understand the value of working with the legislative branch of our government. The administration's blatant and arrogant disregard for congress--a Republican-controlled one, no less--seem dangerous, yet consistent with past excesses, the domestic warrantless wiretapping program. This latter program has the added bonus of illustrating an even greater disrespect for the judicial branch. Who needs FISA court oversight just because it's mandated by law?

Americans must demand greater accountability from the administration. No official, not even the president, is above the law. The "war on terror" does not mean American citizens should willing give up on our democracy, and the balance of powers as enshrined in the constitution.

The original NY Times article is viewable at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html

The president's reaction is viewable here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/washington/26cnd-prexy.html

UCSC Loses a Chancellor

Last week I signed up for a UC-Santa Cruz alumni gathering in downtown Los Angeles. The idea was to have a wine-and-dine for alumni to meet the new chancellor, Denice D. Denton, who joined UCSC last year. Yesterday I heard she tragically plunged to her death from the 42nd floor of the Paramount building in San Francisco in an apparent suicide. Understandably, the Alumni Association cancelled the meeting with Los Angeles alumni. I have to say, I've never had a meeting cancelled due to such circumstances.

Denton seemed like a great catch for UCSC when she was appointed in February 2005. I had been particularly impressed with her advocacy of women and minorities in the sciences. While not one with a track record of supporting the humanities, Denton still seemed like a candidate with a strong administrative background and an asset for UCSC. More information about Chancellor Denton can be found at UCSC's Chancellor Page. I first read about the news of her death in the LA Times, but found more comprehensive coverage at the SF Chronicle's web site.

My sympathies go out to Chancellor Denton's family and friends.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Lay and Skilling Convicted

The verdict came down on the corporate criminals, Messrs Lay and Skilling, both are guilty on multiple counts. Mr. Lay was, in fact, found guilty on all counts brought by the prosecution, ten in total. Mr. Skilling was found guilty on nineteen of twenty-eight counts. I'm glad. It seemed pretty clear they were intentionally misleading the public, their shareholders, employees, etc.

Now if only the selfish and unethical energy traders who were causing power-outages in California can be charged too. Three cheers for criminal prosecution: an important weapon in the arsenal to force capitalists to act more ethically. I wonder if our society might connect the dots and realize that efficiently and rigorously regulating capitalism is a social good. One can only hope.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Planned Parenthood Launches New Effort to Preserve Choice

I am a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood. In fact, I've been supporting them so long I don't even remember how long I've done so. I think 1989 was when I first started contributing to their efforts. I have been truly shocked at how successful the anti-family, anti-choice groups have been at mobilizing against a woman's right to choose elective abortion. The Republicans gaining control of congress in the mid-90s seems to have inaugurated increasingly successful efforts by these individuals and groups. It is a frightening time.

Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice and family planning organizations have finally begun to recognize that fresh, new strategies to save civilization are called for. While I'm not sure how successful they've been I certainly commend them and their efforts. They have a number of options that are an important part of any strategy: educating voters and encouraging them to be politically active, lobbying efforts, general education among the wider populace and, most importantly, a continual effort to offer family planning services--including abortions--to women in need.

The most recent effort--to which I signed up to participate--is to use my blog to discuss issues pertaining to abortion, choice, anti-choice terrorism, and civil liberty issues. I received my first email from PPFA Action Fund suggesting I highlight the case of an Indiana girl and her mother trying to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic and being confused by a predatory "crisis counseling" center that set up shop next door to the actual clinic in order to confuse women. The "crisis counseling" group took down the girl's information for an appointment at the center next door, never telling her that they weren't affiliated with the clinic. Instead, illustrating their great respect for women and privacy, they used her private information to harass her, her family, and friends at school.

PPFA recommends voters contact their congressmen and women and request the support of H.R. 5052, a bill designed to make it more difficult for Anti-Family Planning organizations to deceptively prey on unsuspecting women. To take action on this issue, you can visit PPFA's website: http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/fake
Their interface makes it incredibly easy to send off a letter of support (or if you really wanted, dissent) of the bill, sponsored by Representative Carolyn Maloney.

This is the story that PPFA has provided to me. They didn't provide any more information to substantiate the story, perhaps for reasons of privacy for the girl and her family, but I really would appreciate more information from them. Maybe providing the name and contact information of the anti-family planning clinic would help. I don't have time to launch into a whole discussion of strategy in this entry, but I think part of their effort must involve framing the issues more successfully. My use of the "anti-family planning" phrase begins to gets at some of the rhetoric that needs to be deployed. But there's a lot to do, and rhetorical strategy and framing are both only two parts of a larger problem. To be continued...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Google and Censorship In China

I just read a great New York Times Magazine article on the subject of censorship in China and how internet companies are working through this complex issue. The author, Clive Thompson, a NY Times contributing author interviews the major Chinese players in search and also muses extensively on the technical and social workings of censorship in China.

I suppose that, as an employee of Google (or a contractor at least), I am potentially biased. (I also can't comment on any internal stuff and only hope I can post about stuff that's entered the public domain without breaking the strictures of non-disclosure agreements.) I think its a great article. Thompson focuses on the actual workings of China's internet market and information consumers and does so in a way that leaves me with impression that Google has made the right choice. Engagement in the Chinese market is better than no engagement at all.

It broaches the topic of censorship, how it works, and what it means to accomodate, self-censor, and fight for change. This is a good discussion to have and much more productive than calling Google a lackey of the Chinese government, or comparable to Nazi collaborators. Thompson quotes Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican who, during the recent congressional hearings, asks "[s]o if this Congress wanted to learn how to censor, we'd go to you." The answer is, of course, yes. Not how to censor but how to work within a regime of censorship. Its a critical distinction, and one I hope more people focus on.

Al Gore Speaks, Is not a Bore, but Is Scary

Ok, I'm a little late getting to this posting, but Al Gore came by Google on the 7th and spoke about global climatic change. Gore was articulate, extremely well-informed, interesting, and witty. He delivered a well-honed presentation that was the basis of the upcoming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I don't know if I need to see the film now, since he gave such an amazingly detailed and convincing analysis that I find it hard to believe the movie would add much. If you haven't seen the movie, I would recommend it highly. His presentation was chilling, relevant, and extremely engaging.

The synopsis: basically, we're doomed. Or put in a more palatable light: we are doomed if we don't start making the environment a political issue. Gore's most important contribution is not that global warming is a problem, but that there is something that Americans can and must do about it. He points out that the changes in the climate are already so dramatic that the only way to ensure our survival as a species is to take the environment seriously. Most of his presentation is not preaching to stubborn Americans who don't want to give up their Hummers, but rather a simple, logical, presentation of facts.

Only the spectres of disinformation (the Bush Administration, pro-oil industry pundits, and Exxon/Mobil's vast array of well-funded organizations [54, by Gore's count!]) continue to downplay the real threat of global warming to our world. One of my favorite statistics actually touches on the media, another topic of interest to Gore. He pointed out that the scientific community unanimously concurs (and has for the last several years) that human beings are the direct cause of global warming but that somewhere around half of major media articles

I've not always counted myself much of an environmentalist. I mean I send off my letters to my liberal congresspeople every time ANWR drilling proposals come up (which seems like every other week), and I participate in the whole BioGems effort set up by the NRDC. Easy stuff, but that's about it. I'm one of those concerned citizens who does very little beyond feeling guilty about getting my groceries packed in plastic. One strength of Gore's approach was not to make us feel more guilty, but to try to establish some ground for political action. He is interested in some of the things I've been interested in for a long time: the public sphere and a politically responsible and engaged public.

See the movie trailer here.
Ezra Klein's insightful essay on Gore's media savvy ways is worth reading. It is a great compliment to the film.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Straight to Landfill Release

Ok, in my effort to recover content from Amazon.com--and resist creating new content for this blog, I've pulled another zinger from the handful of reviews I've left there. I was forced to watch this movie on a return-trip from Europe in 2000. The middle-aged American woman sitting next to me on the plane, seeing I was preparing to watch it, sang its praises. I was polite to her, but I can't say I withheld judgment before watching. I expected a sappy, product-placement-laden lukewarm bowl of poorly-prepared and nearly undigestable tripe. I was not disappointed. I can't remember when I originally wrote the review but I did "update" the review in 2004 in order to try to get it higher up the rankings. That didn't work. I'm on page 5. Sadly, only 12 of 21 people found the review helpful. I guess this is not surprising since most people wanting to view a romance film don't really want to read harsh criticism about it.

Straight to Landfill Release, March 18, 2004
Reviewer:Christopher R. DeFay (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)


It is difficult to redeem a movie as deeply disturbing as You've Got Mail. And I don't mean to knock the reviewers here who said they liked it. If you bracket the disturbing political messages of the movie and just talk about the "romantic" part then, yeah, sure it's ok. But...

I'd have to say that a 119 minute commercial for AOL, Starbuck's coffee and Giant MegaBookstore Corp. was just too much to bear. What was Nora Ephron thinking?

The political message of You've Got Mail seems to be that corporate monoculture (as embodied by AOL/Starbucks/Barnes&Noble/etc.) is really just grand. That if you're a small bookstore (or coffeestore owner, or whatever) owner trying to survive against mega-conglamorates that as long as you fall in love with the enemy that it's all ok.

Kathleen Kelly's (Meg Ryan's character) consciousness of the real political struggle facing small business owners is staggeringly shallow. There is no small irony that she and Joe Fox (Hanks' character) can go to the same Starbucks and she is oblivious to the parallels between her choice of coffee and the choice she expects her customers to make when they buy books.

That irrepressible scene toward the end of the film when she loses her business and goes in to Joe Fox's Mega-Book Corp's store is enough to make one physically ill. She sees, lo and behold, that Mega-Book Corp really can be a wonderful, caring place. It's enough to make her forget that she's just lost her business she'd developed for years. And the thing that moves her to this new state of unconsciousness? Love for Mr. Joe Fox. Wow!

I'm not saying that Nora Ephron needed to make a politically engaged story. It is a romantic movie, after all. But why a long commercial for conglamorates like AOL and Starbucks?

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Revisiting the "Contract With America"

So, many commentators have pointed out that the Democrats have great opportunity this year to pick up a number of congressional seats. Others have said that, minus a legible and relatively unified agenda, the Democrats will not mount a serious attack against the Republicans, even an increasingly fragmented one. I think the Dems will certainly gain a few seats as the Republicans falter with corruption, division, a lame-duck president, and an ailing foreign and domestic policy. This will not be the year they sweep back into power. More energy is needed in creating a unified agenda. The Democrats should take a look at the 1994 Republican Contract With America (http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/contract.html).

I'm certainly not advocating becoming more Republican than the Republicans: this is the unfortunate strategy of the DLC and the pseud0-Democratic Blue Dogs. I do look at the "Contract" and a few things stand out. First of all, the ten bills proposed are broad, open-ended, and undergirded by carefully considered and unified neo-conservative ideology. For instance, stating that the government as an institution should model its spending on families and businesses. There's the standard focus on punitive measures for individuals and social groups that could be pegged as "bad" and "socially irresponsible." So, criminals and social welfare recipients are targeted.

Ever read George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant? It's an important book that I think rightly reminds Progressives the importance of controlling the debate by framing it in terms that resonate with core constituencies. If you look at the Contract, it definitely does that. What Progressives need is a similar contract to unify them. Those on the left are generally more tolerant of diversity, and thus more likely to be sympathetic to divergent points of view. This would seem to make unity difficult. It will be. but if you look at the Republican agenda it needs to be challenged at a very fundamental level. Assumptions need to be challenged, and this needs to be accomplished at the level of language. The common terms repeated throughout the Contract ("responsibility" "restoration" "reinforcement") have their 21st century equivalents for the left and center-left. But what are they?

One of the reasons for calling my blog "catachresis" has to do with the gulf that separates my understanding of the world with the one framed by the neo-conservatives. Theirs is a misuse of language, and one that recalls Orwellian double-speak. Legislating discrimination against lesbian and gay families becomes the "Defense of Marriage Act." Privatizing public space, eliminating the safety net and social services is billed as the new "ownership society" filled with "personal [savings] accounts" and a "small" government. The list is long and painful.

What is the answer to ending the neo-conservative madness? Should the left become better propagandists than the right? One of Lakoff's most sobering statements is that framing isn't really about truth and the real truth is that people believe what they want to believe. Apparently, the truth doesn't set you free. Catachresis is about finding that misuse of language that works to further a progressive agenda.

I believe that irony and cynicism, bless them, are probably not part of a successful progressive agenda. A catachrestic progressive agenda must involve the positive misuse of language. By positive I mean both non-negative (i.e. little room for irony and cynicism) and "scientific" in the Comtean sense. To develop a progressive "science" of language misuse is really the flipside to what the neo-conservatives have already done. I'm not saying I know exactly how to carry out this agenda, but I do think its important.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Intolerance explained...

Ok, since I don't seem to have time to actually write a new blog entry, I'm trolling for content. I wrote this review on Amazon.com and it's actually pretty good. When I last checked, "24 of 29 people found the following review helpful"! I don't know what that means, however.

Ever think about that content you publish on sites like Amazon.com? I'm sure their terms of service state that I've given them all rights to my screed, and thus republishing here is technically illegal. Well, 29 people reading a review on Amazon over a four year period is more volume than I'll be getting here!


Intolerance explained..., May 30, 2002
Reviewer:Christopher R. DeFay (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Many of the reviewers here rightly praise Griffith's well-deserved credit for his technical achievements. Others criticize him for a poorly constructed film. The fact of the matter is that, for 1916, this film is an incredible feat. The first American big-budget extravaganza, it followed closely in the steps of other big multi-reel films in vogue at the time(Griffith's own Birth of a Nation, and others coming out of Italy). The spectacle alone makes this film worth a look, but viewers should try to contextualize it. There was a great expectation across the nation to what would come from Griffith after the amazing--and incendiary racist-film, Birth of a Nation.

What is Intolerance really a metaphor for anyway? Griffith was fighting off attempts by legislators to regulate or censor the motion picture industry. An anti-censorship booklet released by Griffith in 1916 suggests he continued to respond to "moral reformers" even as he assembled Intolerance. In fact, his film is an attempt to address these reformers while simultaneously opining on nothing less than the historic importance of the film media itself.

Intolerance is really about a nation's cultural memory and Griffith's attempt to offer a totalizing, yet entertaining version of it. His belief that if we were educated on the subject of past "sins of hate, hypocrisy and intolerance" through the magic of film that we could inoculate ourselves against war, capital punishment and other evils. He argued that film was a better education than traditional education. To quote the master: "Six moving pictures would give students more knowledge of the world than they have obtained from their entire study." Such an understanding is, of course, naïve and dangerous.

Griffith was caught in a double-bind. In order to fight the censors he needed to simultaneously argue that his epics (like Birth and Intolerance) were a kind of filmed truth, yet the construction of this "truth" should only be the purview of the director. Griffith's logic is dangerously flawed. Birth of a Nation is hardly true history. In fact its racist vision of blacks fanned the flames of racial hatred in whites and surely accounted for many more lynchings than if the film had not been made. What's missing from his vision is how truth is arrived at: certainly not from a lone man's dictates. We have another word for that...

Intolerance is worth viewing because it is a wonderful illustration of the limitations of film. It's a simple morality tale blown up to epic-and phantasmagoric-proportions. It's greatest weakness is the cross-cutting between the four time-periods, and the attempt to narrate all history, yet this is precisely what makes the film interesting. The failure to arrive at an overarching metaphor that somehow spans history and unites us with our past points to Griffith's own flawed vision. It reminds us-contrary to Griffith's own advice-that understanding history in all its irresolvable complexity is absolutely essential.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

To Filibuster Or Not To Filibuster

I don't have much hope that the Dems can mount a successful fight against the forces of the far right on the nomination of Samuel Alito. The words from John Warner (R-VA) in the Senate were ominous: he relished dragging the Democrats through the mud if they attempt a filibuster of the Alito nomination. I'm sure he's not alone.

What I'm not sure of is what the Dems should do. My gut tells me that this is not the battle to fight. The extreme right is far too powerful, and the Dems will just geld themselves in the process of unsuccessfully filibustering the candidate. But gelding might be a good option since the Democrats are truly powerless in the face of an authoritarian executive that continually uses the threat of war/terrorism/etc. to pillory and silence dissenters. Congressional Republicans seem to want to prove to the nation that they truly have no legitimate opposition. And maybe the opposition needs to learn the painful truth. But I think the darkness might be good for us: it might make more Americans realize that their rights are slowly deteriorating before their eyes.

Maybe I'll contact Feinstein and Boxer and throw my support for a filibuster. I really do think it will be an instructive lesson for Americans to see that Congress can be just as anti-democratic as the Executive Branch. I think I can already hear the haunting words of Alexis de Tocqueville warning against the tyranny of the majority. Maybe the majority needs to be tyranical for a while longer before we all get the message.

On a tangential note, I was preparing my lecture tonight (on 19th century artistic modernism) and came across a great site devoted to crushing the ACLU: http://stoptheaclu.org/. Don't even ask me how these two topics relate to each other. Basically, searching for images of Manet's "Old Musician" and instead found the blog of an American in France with a link to the site above. His images of the Metropolitain and art nouveau were beautiful. His politics, disappointing. Not worth a linkback I'm afraid.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Jimmy Carter Visits Google, Depression and Inspiration Follow in His Wake

So, late last week we heard that former president, Jimmy Carter, was going to come by Google and chat with those of us at the company. On Tuesday he was up in Mountain View, and those of us at the remote offices (i.e. Santa Monica) had a video link and were set up to ask questions if we liked. Our geeky founder, Larry Page, introduced Carter and two staff members from the Carter Center. The first staffer was a male doctor who's working on eradication of the Guinea Worm (primarily in Central Africa), the second, a woman working on preserving and strengthening democracy in the Americas. After their brief comments, Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) came up on stage, invited President Carter on up and they had a talk-show like discussion for about an hour.

Schmidt asked Carter a bunch of questions, mostly spurned by the reading of his book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. I was truly moved by Carter's efforts at improving the lives of so much of the world's humanity.

I wondered why Carter was there and the sense that I got is that the multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires minted by Google's public stock offering wanted to know how to use their newfound wealth, not only to "do no evil" but to actually do some good. What better person than Jimmy Carter to get some great advice on the subject. What impressed me is how Larry Page and Eric Schmidt both seemed sincerely interested in helping the world through sincere humanitarian efforts. It was equally interesting to see how Page, a newly minted multi-billionaire, works through the complex of feelings associated with being so rich and recognizing that so many in the world have so little. I respect his desires to help and wish him luck.

When Jimmy Carter spoke, I was pretty awestruck. Here's a guy who's 81 years old, in the process of writing his 25th book, worked tirelessly with Habitat for Humanity, pushed constantly to further peace efforts around the globe, and shows no sign of slowing down. Carter is a man of deep Christian faith who is very disturbed by the mounting strength of fundamentalism in this country and around the world. He spoke eloquently.

Carter did not have kind words for President Bush, and the Bush Administration. It is difficult to live in our country with such an authoritarian and cynical administration (and congress) running the show. It frankly is difficult to remain optimistic when considering the damage the Bush regime is doing to the United States, its citizenry, and the world. Carter spoke to some of the more dangerous aspects of the current administration: its authoritarianism (he used a slightly
less severe term), lack of interest in engaging with those with whom it disagrees (North Korea, Iran, etc.). The current administration is so bad that it has made many of us despondent and hopeless.

What I appreciated was Carter's discussion of his own faith and the parallels many of us (who are not religious) feel with his perspective. I felt like an ethical vision connected us both, and it filled me with hope that those of us who aren't in the right-wing camp can actually start building a coalition that will pull us back from the negativity, authoritarianism, arrogance, and cynicism that have dominated over the last five years.

After Carter spoke, there was a question and answer period. The two statements that were made that had the most impact on me were as follows: the first was a gay man (speaking over the telephone from another Google office) who simply asked for political and spiritual guidance from Carter with regard to how to survive in a society that seems to be getting increasingly intolerant of gays and lesbians. Carter was very positive and clear in his support of non-discrimination. It moved me to hear a Christian of deep religious faith say he saw no incompatibility with his religion and acceptance of homosexuals. The second statement was when Carter was wrapping up: he made a plea to Googlers as to what they could or should do. It was an impassioned plea to go out and do something that helps people, to reduce the distance between rich and poor (both in the world and in your own neighborhood), to help the less fortunate. I hope some of the millionaire Googlers present took his plea to heart. I may not have millions, but he sure motivated me to keep trying to do good in the world.

It is amazing that a company like Google has a former president of the United States come on by for a chat, and that so many of us were interested in what he had to say.