Last week we brought you 11 awesomely creative billboards, but adventurous advertising isn't reserved for the highway. The surprising reveal elevators offer can be used by creative companies to hammer home key selling points. Which one do you like best?
November 23, 2009
The Orphan Of The American Political Spectrum
Were one to design a political philosophy calculated to appeal to large numbers of "conservatives" and "liberals," it might look very much like contemporary libertarianism: tolerant and supportive of individual rights in matters ranging from sexual orientation to religion, and committed to the rule of law and free market capitalism.
For a host of reasons, however, libertarianism in the US today is politically parentless, and largely unrepresented in most of our major cultural and educational institutions, a socio-political orphan. It's an odd state of affairs, and unfortunate as well.
In part, the underachievement of libertarianism is explained by the existence of the Libertarian Party and the philosophy's concomitant lack of standing in either the Democratic or the Republican Party. But it's also a consequence of libertarianism's embrace by some as a kind of religion--thereby yielding fanatical and anarchist schemes like abolishing the state, legalizing drugs, selling the sidewalks, whatever.
Still, it's one thing to be burdened by (what shall we call them?) exuberant fans, and something else again to be ignored as a political philosophy altogether. To understand why you have to look at the roles played by others, starting with the parties of the right.
To neoconservatives, for instance, libertarianism is a direct threat to their "nation building" agenda (from the beginning many libertarians and libertarian think tanks, like the Cato Institute, were opposed to the Iraqi adventure), made all the worse by their appeal to many of the same people that the neocons attempt to cultivate and corral.
The so-called social and religious conservatives--represented by people like Mike Huckabee--represent another barrier. Particularly within the GOP, religious conservatives (not to mention religious populists) constitute a bloc that is hostile to the individualistic and freedom loving stance most libertarians espouse re social issues.
So-called K Street Republicans, and many big business groups, are also dismissive of libertarianism, preferring instead a political environment conducive to legislative and regulatory deal making, the sort of value-free mindset that arguably led so many to blindly follow George Bush and John McCain right into a ditch.
The right's hostility, of course, isn't the only, or even the controlling, reason for libertarianism's lack of political clout. The fundamental disinterest of their sometime allies on the left, like the ACLU, is a bigger factor, and one that explains its total lack of influence within the Democratic party.
Because of the hold "economic progressives " (such as the education lobby, public employee unions, faculty lounge Marxists, and trial lawyers) have over US liberalism and the Democratic party, libertarians and their ideas are countenanced only insofar as they are useful--usually in promotion of some social issue on which liberals and libertarians agree.
If, however, the pollsters and a growing number of economists are right, this may change. According to the folks at the Pew and Gallup organizations, Democrats and liberals are at risk of major losses in next year's congressional elections. This, because of the public's unhappiness with the state of the economy, and their lack of confidence in the plans proffered by the administration, and the majority party in Congress, to deal with it.
At the same time a number of economists in and out of government are suggesting that, far from being solved, the nation's economic problems are at risk of worsening. If these economists and pollsters are right, and the Democrats take a terrible drubbing next year, it may occur to many liberals to reassess their hoary economic nostrums, and to link arms with the libertarians on economic issues, not necessarily because of what's in their hearts as because of what's in their heads.
If so, it won't be a minute too soon. Because the plain truth is that the lubricant necessary to maintain, in a country as large and fractious as the US, both our social services and our civil rights is money, and lots of it. And the only way that money can be produced in sufficient quantities is by the application of those pro-business and pro-growth economic policies that are at the very heart of libertarianism.
For a host of reasons, however, libertarianism in the US today is politically parentless, and largely unrepresented in most of our major cultural and educational institutions, a socio-political orphan. It's an odd state of affairs, and unfortunate as well.
In part, the underachievement of libertarianism is explained by the existence of the Libertarian Party and the philosophy's concomitant lack of standing in either the Democratic or the Republican Party. But it's also a consequence of libertarianism's embrace by some as a kind of religion--thereby yielding fanatical and anarchist schemes like abolishing the state, legalizing drugs, selling the sidewalks, whatever.
Still, it's one thing to be burdened by (what shall we call them?) exuberant fans, and something else again to be ignored as a political philosophy altogether. To understand why you have to look at the roles played by others, starting with the parties of the right.
To neoconservatives, for instance, libertarianism is a direct threat to their "nation building" agenda (from the beginning many libertarians and libertarian think tanks, like the Cato Institute, were opposed to the Iraqi adventure), made all the worse by their appeal to many of the same people that the neocons attempt to cultivate and corral.
The so-called social and religious conservatives--represented by people like Mike Huckabee--represent another barrier. Particularly within the GOP, religious conservatives (not to mention religious populists) constitute a bloc that is hostile to the individualistic and freedom loving stance most libertarians espouse re social issues.
So-called K Street Republicans, and many big business groups, are also dismissive of libertarianism, preferring instead a political environment conducive to legislative and regulatory deal making, the sort of value-free mindset that arguably led so many to blindly follow George Bush and John McCain right into a ditch.
The right's hostility, of course, isn't the only, or even the controlling, reason for libertarianism's lack of political clout. The fundamental disinterest of their sometime allies on the left, like the ACLU, is a bigger factor, and one that explains its total lack of influence within the Democratic party.
Because of the hold "economic progressives " (such as the education lobby, public employee unions, faculty lounge Marxists, and trial lawyers) have over US liberalism and the Democratic party, libertarians and their ideas are countenanced only insofar as they are useful--usually in promotion of some social issue on which liberals and libertarians agree.
If, however, the pollsters and a growing number of economists are right, this may change. According to the folks at the Pew and Gallup organizations, Democrats and liberals are at risk of major losses in next year's congressional elections. This, because of the public's unhappiness with the state of the economy, and their lack of confidence in the plans proffered by the administration, and the majority party in Congress, to deal with it.
At the same time a number of economists in and out of government are suggesting that, far from being solved, the nation's economic problems are at risk of worsening. If these economists and pollsters are right, and the Democrats take a terrible drubbing next year, it may occur to many liberals to reassess their hoary economic nostrums, and to link arms with the libertarians on economic issues, not necessarily because of what's in their hearts as because of what's in their heads.
If so, it won't be a minute too soon. Because the plain truth is that the lubricant necessary to maintain, in a country as large and fractious as the US, both our social services and our civil rights is money, and lots of it. And the only way that money can be produced in sufficient quantities is by the application of those pro-business and pro-growth economic policies that are at the very heart of libertarianism.
The Cancer Vixen Mission: No Breast Left Behind
Ever since I kicked that bitch cancer's bony ass, I've been pretty fearless. And feistier than ever.
So when The United States Preventive Services Task Force said Monday that women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, and that doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis, you can imagine that it raised my ire. I got more than a little irked.
Why? For starters, I was 43 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I fall in that weird age-range. Luckily I caught it in its early stage. But what if I was discouraged to get tested if the new guidelines were actually implemented? And will others my age (my friends!) be as lucky as I was if they're not getting screened? The later breast cancer is caught, the less chance there is for survival.
I know about all this because for the last six years I've had breasts on the brain.
I'm a cartoonist/activist (yes I am) who wrote Cancer Vixen (Pantheon), a graphic memoir, and I've traveled all over the world talking to women who've had breast cancer and survived it because they caught it earlier before it was too late. And I couldn't disagree more with the USPSTF. There has been a consistent reduction in the rates of death from breast cancer in every country--including the United States--that has instituted a regular screening program.
Mammograms, while not perfect, do detect breast cancer. If you catch breast cancer early, you have a 98 percent survival rate. If you don't test yourself until you're 50 - then you risk receiving a later diagnosis, which could lead to death. To be blunt: it could kill you. A higher death rate from breast cancer is unacceptable in the United States of America.
More alarming, 80% of women find breast cancer themselves, yet the USPSTF urges doctors to stop teaching women how to give themselves a self-exam. This is another stark example of how incredibly irresponsible the USPSTF is, and how they are endangering the lives of every woman in America.
Thank you USPSTF, thank you so much.
Dr. Larry Norton, Breast Cancer Research Foundation Scientific Director; Chairman, BCRF Executive Board of Scientific Advisors, had an 11 year-old patient with breast cancer. We're hearing about women and unfortunately, even girls diagnosed at younger ages, and yet now they're raising the age for women to get screened. How could this possibly make sense?
I feel cautious about what the next step is: the government will not pay for your mammogram unless you're 50 and over. This is common in Europe, where medicine is socialized so the government doesn't have to pay for it. If this is the case, it's only a matter of time before each and every woman in this country is under 50 and has insurance will have to pay for a mammogram. We're in a recession. Paying for a mammogram is an additional obstacle for something that no one wants to do in the first place. It's just one more reason not to do the very thing that can save your life.
I started the CANCER VIXEN FUND here in New York City for women who are uninsured so they can get free mammograms. (When I was diagnosed, I was uninsured.) I believe that each and every woman has the right to live. The Cancer Vixen Mission: No Breast Left Behind. We've done over 600 mammograms and have saved at least two lives. I can say with absolute certainty that mammograms do work.
Women of America, we cannot let the USPSTF change the guidelines for mammograms. We must fight for ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, our aunts, our friends and even our frenemies. (Yes, even frenemies. You'll get good karma points.)
Each and every woman in this country should have an equal opportunity to kick cancer's bony ass, and the best way for that to happen is when you catch it early.
USPSTF, get out of our way because if you insist on implementing these guidelines, you're next.
I'm putting on my killer 6-inch heels.
Watch out.
So when The United States Preventive Services Task Force said Monday that women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, and that doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis, you can imagine that it raised my ire. I got more than a little irked.
Why? For starters, I was 43 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I fall in that weird age-range. Luckily I caught it in its early stage. But what if I was discouraged to get tested if the new guidelines were actually implemented? And will others my age (my friends!) be as lucky as I was if they're not getting screened? The later breast cancer is caught, the less chance there is for survival.
I know about all this because for the last six years I've had breasts on the brain.
I'm a cartoonist/activist (yes I am) who wrote Cancer Vixen (Pantheon), a graphic memoir, and I've traveled all over the world talking to women who've had breast cancer and survived it because they caught it earlier before it was too late. And I couldn't disagree more with the USPSTF. There has been a consistent reduction in the rates of death from breast cancer in every country--including the United States--that has instituted a regular screening program.
Mammograms, while not perfect, do detect breast cancer. If you catch breast cancer early, you have a 98 percent survival rate. If you don't test yourself until you're 50 - then you risk receiving a later diagnosis, which could lead to death. To be blunt: it could kill you. A higher death rate from breast cancer is unacceptable in the United States of America.
More alarming, 80% of women find breast cancer themselves, yet the USPSTF urges doctors to stop teaching women how to give themselves a self-exam. This is another stark example of how incredibly irresponsible the USPSTF is, and how they are endangering the lives of every woman in America.
Thank you USPSTF, thank you so much.
Dr. Larry Norton, Breast Cancer Research Foundation Scientific Director; Chairman, BCRF Executive Board of Scientific Advisors, had an 11 year-old patient with breast cancer. We're hearing about women and unfortunately, even girls diagnosed at younger ages, and yet now they're raising the age for women to get screened. How could this possibly make sense?
I feel cautious about what the next step is: the government will not pay for your mammogram unless you're 50 and over. This is common in Europe, where medicine is socialized so the government doesn't have to pay for it. If this is the case, it's only a matter of time before each and every woman in this country is under 50 and has insurance will have to pay for a mammogram. We're in a recession. Paying for a mammogram is an additional obstacle for something that no one wants to do in the first place. It's just one more reason not to do the very thing that can save your life.
I started the CANCER VIXEN FUND here in New York City for women who are uninsured so they can get free mammograms. (When I was diagnosed, I was uninsured.) I believe that each and every woman has the right to live. The Cancer Vixen Mission: No Breast Left Behind. We've done over 600 mammograms and have saved at least two lives. I can say with absolute certainty that mammograms do work.
Women of America, we cannot let the USPSTF change the guidelines for mammograms. We must fight for ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, our aunts, our friends and even our frenemies. (Yes, even frenemies. You'll get good karma points.)
Each and every woman in this country should have an equal opportunity to kick cancer's bony ass, and the best way for that to happen is when you catch it early.
USPSTF, get out of our way because if you insist on implementing these guidelines, you're next.
I'm putting on my killer 6-inch heels.
Watch out.
“The Blind Side’s” 20-20 Vision
Movies often are about escape and adventure. We root for the underdogs and cheer their success. Sometimes heroes beat the odds with dazzling superpowers. But many of the great cinematic stories come from a uniquely American well, where real life trumps even the best fiction and inspires us to strive toward our better selves.
The headlines today are rightly focused on the box office success of New Moon, but buried in the news is another remarkable story — the quiet outperformance of a film called The Blind Side. Based on the Michael Lewis book, it tells the true story of Michael Oher, a young African American man who while homeless on the streets of Memphis in high school was taken in by an affluent white family and went on to become a first round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.
I defy anyone to see this movie and not be profoundly moved and inspired. Sandra Bullock is sweet charity incarnate as adoptive mom Leigh Anne Tuohy. And, newcomer Quinton Aaron holds his own as a young Oher, whom his newfound family likens to the gentle hero of the classic children’s book “Ferdinand the Bull” (news, I’m sure, to many a defensive player on the receiving end of Oher’s swiftness and strength).
The movie does a deft job with difficult circumstances. A mother who is alive but absent. A father who passes away but was never really known. The overwhelming ’slip through the cracks’ fate of teens in similar situations. The depictions of homelessness are especially poignant, with the young Oher picking up sacks of left-behind popcorn after a high-school game and seeking shelter in a 24-hour laundromat, underscoring the sheer hopelessness of his circumstances.
Yet the movie soars by resisting the temptation toward self-congratulation. Quite the contrary, it passionately insists that, as much as Oher gained from the kindness of others, he returned it 10-fold in the richly fulfilling relationship he forged with his new family.
Asked why his wife insisted he pull the car over to the side of the road that fateful winter night, Sean Tuohy explained simply: “Because he needed some clothes. That’s all it really was. Then he needed a place to sleep. The depths of need never stopped. And she got so far into it, she couldn’t get out of it. And she fell in love with him.”
As country singer (and promising actor) Tim McGraw, who plays the Tuohy patriarch, put it — if it weren’t a true story, “then you wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it.” The family that stopped on a cold winter night. The teacher who took an interest. The high school football coach who intervened on Oher’s behalf. What makes each of these characters so powerful is that they are portrayals of real people who stepped into the void and changed the course of this young man’s life.
It’s a story we as a nation need right now. A recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that nearly 50 million Americans are struggling to get enough to eat amid today’s record unemployment. That’s the largest number since the USDA began counting, and it includes 1 in 4 kids. Our nation has its share today of Michael Ohers. The question before us all is do we have our share of Tuohys?
Repeated throughout the movie — from Oher to his new and increasingly extended family and back again — is a simple, reassuring mantra, “I’ve got your back.” In a time of such need and want, it’s an important and uplifting motto for us all to embrace. The Blind Side leaves you with an infectious desire to not turn a blind eye, but rather to do something that matters in your own community — to find our own way to pull over to the side of the road and make a difference for our fellow man, yes, but also for ourselves.
Dan Glickman is a former U.S. secretary of agriculture in the Clinton Administration. He now serves as Chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.
What Spirituality Has To Do With The Health Care Debate
As a practically minded psychiatrist, I have developed a great tolerance and deep sympathy for human foibles. Even when our choices don't make sense to anyone else but us and cause us great pain, we still don't change them very easily. Yet, despite this level of understanding, I still can't help being at times amazed, enraged and disgusted when I hear the healthcare debate. I am even more amazed about how we, the public, have come to accept such flagrant displays of irrationality with resignation as the normal state of affairs and elect people who choose to carry on like this year after year.
Why do we so value our passions and self-interest in areas where reason should prevail? What gives us the hubris to so openly defend our self-interest above that of the common good? What can be done about this aspect of human nature?
Since taking a more rational approach to spirituality is my great passion, I would like to offer my thoughts as to how it would make us less prone to emotional logic in all areas of life and even raise the bar in the healthcare debates. The reason is that for those of us who strongly believe in another dimension to life -- and the vast majority of Americans do, we have only been taught to approach spiritual life through inspiration, emotion and blind faith. This makes us more positively predisposed to the same kind of logic in other areas of life. A greater reliance on evidence can counter our natural tendency toward self-serving thinking in all its forms. Taking such a radically rational approach to knowing more about what was previously considered unknowable automatically raises the bar in debates of issues like healthcare and the debates with those close to us about who should take out the garbage or clean up a certain mess around the house.
Since greater attention to evidence is so crucial to our coming up with better solutions to conflicts of interest, let me give you an example of the role evidence plays in decision making in healthcare before turning to the role it can play in making spirituality into the medicine of the soul and solidifying the grasp of reason in the very foundations of our thinking. If you look at the controversy over mammograms, you can see a good example of how evidence informs a discussion but can't make the final decision. When new evidence raised the question as to whether or not mammograms are justified in women under 50, it caused an uproar. Other experts rushed forward with other evidence. Consumers were shocked that they or their loved ones might die because of being denied a test. We consumers add up the risks and the benefits far differently from experts. Yet, the new evidence cited raised the level of the debate so that individual women could be aware of the conflicting opinions based on the evidence and make better informed decisions for themselves. It makes us all more aware of what evidence can and cannot do so that we will weigh our healthcare decisions differently--as long as this incident remains fresh in our minds.
As I was raised as most of us to think that anything spiritual was beyond understanding, I carried out a kind of pilot study that proved to me the possibility of an evidence-based medicine of the soul so that would make healthcare truly holistic. Drawing on my forty years of practice as a psychiatrist and twenty five years of decoding my own spiritual experiences, I collected the spiritual experiences on which several hundred people's beliefs were based. What seemed like random acts of help and guidance now seemed more like the results of a system of feedback -- spiritual reactions to our thoughts feelings and actions -- that were different from the kind of influences my common sense and experience as a psychiatrist had taught me to expect. I called this feedback spiritual messages because it also affects our thinking in ways that convey a deeper level of information that only now are we in a position to decode by using the modern scientific methods of psychology to define basic laws of human nature that govern our highly personal and unique interactions with material reality.
I realized from my pilot study that although each of our experiences is very limited our collective knowledge of the spiritual dimension is actually quite vast. No matter what question a person might have there were thousands of people around the world who had already faced and resolved that same issue -- albeit in the highly personal terms of his or her own life circumstances. Similarly if someone had learned something in his or her life, then there were thousands of others who could benefit from it. If we could use the internet to formulate our collective wisdom in resource centers that would be freely accessible to all, then progress could be made far faster than was possible in the past. Such resource centers could function as advocacy groups do in medicine today, pulling together our experiences and our concerns in one or another facet's of our spiritual health so that it could be used to prod the religious and spiritual institutions that we are involved with to be more attentive to our collective evidence.
If words like data or evidence seem a bit scary to you, let me give an example of the kind of common sense thinking that will begin a revolution that we can all be a part of and benefit from. When our body feels weak and we can't get ourselves to do what we want to do, we might wonder if the cause is that we are hungry, malnourished, overweight, out of shape, tired, sick, weak, depressed, or preoccupied. We draw on all we know from past experience to come up with the right diagnosis and treatment. So when we are feeling weak spiritually and can't keep our attention on what we know is important or find ourselves doing things that we wish we hadn't, we can start to wonder why. Is our soul in some way hungry, malnourished, overweight, out of shape, tired, sick, weak, depressed, or preoccupied? We can think about which remedies work well with which diagnosis. Each time we act on a given plan and observe the results, whether they be what we anticipated or not we gain a more concrete understanding of our own soul.
When we integrate our experiments with those of thousands of others who diagnose, treat and observe the outcome of their own lapses in a similar way by analogy to common everyday experiences, our own treatments will become better -- and our overall appreciation of the value of evidence increase. We learn in this way to make adjustments for the nature of our own soul, doing the equivalent of comparing the diet and how many calories per day others found were necessary to maintain their weight to orient us to what might be a good diet for us but adapting it to the actual needs and preferences of our own body.
Bits of evidence become meaningful and useful as we understand how it informs us about an aspect of a far larger coherent system. That's why I think of spirituality as the medicine of the soul, for just as we organize the experiences of our body as parts of a larger physical ecosystem so we do better organizing our experiences of our soul by thinking of it as being a part of a larger spiritual ecosystem. It's far more useful than thinking of it this way than as a nebulous blob of infini-potential energy living in a dimension beyond understanding. As we gather more and more evidence of the effects of our soul and the spiritual dimension in general on us, I am confident that it will bear out initial data suggesting that the material and spiritual dimensions of life are two aspects of a larger system that are well integrated and in constant interaction. Then our understanding of how things work in the material dimension will provide the basis of systematic analogies that help us make even better sense of spiritual experiences.
This kind of evidence-based approach to spirituality will have, I maintain, a ripple effect that will positively influence both the healthcare debate and debates with my wife over who does what at home. The more our spiritual approach is based on evidence the stronger our investment in spiritual values will become. It will thus help us to be more honest and help others. It will decrease our tolerance for greed and self-centeredness. This will make us even less susceptible to the kind of self-serving emotional logic that politicians, those close to us and even ourselves use to say blatantly false things with complete conviction that we have a right to do so.
Peeling the more irrational elements from our way of thinking has very positive effects on our emotional life as well--both psychologically and spiritually. You can see it clearly in our close relationships where a good understanding of the other's position and good communication skills are now more necessary than ever before. And just as keeping our body healthy makes us able to love someone better, so keeping our soul healthy helps our spiritual love life as well. By being attentive to evidence, one can enter the twenty-first century with the faith and love of a scientist who is so confident in his spiritual beliefs that he is determined to prove their validity rather than the faith and love of a pilgrim who follows his spiritual path without trying to understand.
Let's bring spirituality into the twenty-first century and change the way we think about everything that is important to us. Let's move the debate to a whole new level. It won't be heaven on earth, but it will be a start.
However, since everyone else seems intent on getting what they want packaged into healthcare reform and the change I am thinking of is long term, I'm going to withhold my vote for the reform package until several billions of dollars of funding for research in the medicine of the soul is included.
Why do we so value our passions and self-interest in areas where reason should prevail? What gives us the hubris to so openly defend our self-interest above that of the common good? What can be done about this aspect of human nature?
Since taking a more rational approach to spirituality is my great passion, I would like to offer my thoughts as to how it would make us less prone to emotional logic in all areas of life and even raise the bar in the healthcare debates. The reason is that for those of us who strongly believe in another dimension to life -- and the vast majority of Americans do, we have only been taught to approach spiritual life through inspiration, emotion and blind faith. This makes us more positively predisposed to the same kind of logic in other areas of life. A greater reliance on evidence can counter our natural tendency toward self-serving thinking in all its forms. Taking such a radically rational approach to knowing more about what was previously considered unknowable automatically raises the bar in debates of issues like healthcare and the debates with those close to us about who should take out the garbage or clean up a certain mess around the house.
Since greater attention to evidence is so crucial to our coming up with better solutions to conflicts of interest, let me give you an example of the role evidence plays in decision making in healthcare before turning to the role it can play in making spirituality into the medicine of the soul and solidifying the grasp of reason in the very foundations of our thinking. If you look at the controversy over mammograms, you can see a good example of how evidence informs a discussion but can't make the final decision. When new evidence raised the question as to whether or not mammograms are justified in women under 50, it caused an uproar. Other experts rushed forward with other evidence. Consumers were shocked that they or their loved ones might die because of being denied a test. We consumers add up the risks and the benefits far differently from experts. Yet, the new evidence cited raised the level of the debate so that individual women could be aware of the conflicting opinions based on the evidence and make better informed decisions for themselves. It makes us all more aware of what evidence can and cannot do so that we will weigh our healthcare decisions differently--as long as this incident remains fresh in our minds.
As I was raised as most of us to think that anything spiritual was beyond understanding, I carried out a kind of pilot study that proved to me the possibility of an evidence-based medicine of the soul so that would make healthcare truly holistic. Drawing on my forty years of practice as a psychiatrist and twenty five years of decoding my own spiritual experiences, I collected the spiritual experiences on which several hundred people's beliefs were based. What seemed like random acts of help and guidance now seemed more like the results of a system of feedback -- spiritual reactions to our thoughts feelings and actions -- that were different from the kind of influences my common sense and experience as a psychiatrist had taught me to expect. I called this feedback spiritual messages because it also affects our thinking in ways that convey a deeper level of information that only now are we in a position to decode by using the modern scientific methods of psychology to define basic laws of human nature that govern our highly personal and unique interactions with material reality.
I realized from my pilot study that although each of our experiences is very limited our collective knowledge of the spiritual dimension is actually quite vast. No matter what question a person might have there were thousands of people around the world who had already faced and resolved that same issue -- albeit in the highly personal terms of his or her own life circumstances. Similarly if someone had learned something in his or her life, then there were thousands of others who could benefit from it. If we could use the internet to formulate our collective wisdom in resource centers that would be freely accessible to all, then progress could be made far faster than was possible in the past. Such resource centers could function as advocacy groups do in medicine today, pulling together our experiences and our concerns in one or another facet's of our spiritual health so that it could be used to prod the religious and spiritual institutions that we are involved with to be more attentive to our collective evidence.
If words like data or evidence seem a bit scary to you, let me give an example of the kind of common sense thinking that will begin a revolution that we can all be a part of and benefit from. When our body feels weak and we can't get ourselves to do what we want to do, we might wonder if the cause is that we are hungry, malnourished, overweight, out of shape, tired, sick, weak, depressed, or preoccupied. We draw on all we know from past experience to come up with the right diagnosis and treatment. So when we are feeling weak spiritually and can't keep our attention on what we know is important or find ourselves doing things that we wish we hadn't, we can start to wonder why. Is our soul in some way hungry, malnourished, overweight, out of shape, tired, sick, weak, depressed, or preoccupied? We can think about which remedies work well with which diagnosis. Each time we act on a given plan and observe the results, whether they be what we anticipated or not we gain a more concrete understanding of our own soul.
When we integrate our experiments with those of thousands of others who diagnose, treat and observe the outcome of their own lapses in a similar way by analogy to common everyday experiences, our own treatments will become better -- and our overall appreciation of the value of evidence increase. We learn in this way to make adjustments for the nature of our own soul, doing the equivalent of comparing the diet and how many calories per day others found were necessary to maintain their weight to orient us to what might be a good diet for us but adapting it to the actual needs and preferences of our own body.
Bits of evidence become meaningful and useful as we understand how it informs us about an aspect of a far larger coherent system. That's why I think of spirituality as the medicine of the soul, for just as we organize the experiences of our body as parts of a larger physical ecosystem so we do better organizing our experiences of our soul by thinking of it as being a part of a larger spiritual ecosystem. It's far more useful than thinking of it this way than as a nebulous blob of infini-potential energy living in a dimension beyond understanding. As we gather more and more evidence of the effects of our soul and the spiritual dimension in general on us, I am confident that it will bear out initial data suggesting that the material and spiritual dimensions of life are two aspects of a larger system that are well integrated and in constant interaction. Then our understanding of how things work in the material dimension will provide the basis of systematic analogies that help us make even better sense of spiritual experiences.
This kind of evidence-based approach to spirituality will have, I maintain, a ripple effect that will positively influence both the healthcare debate and debates with my wife over who does what at home. The more our spiritual approach is based on evidence the stronger our investment in spiritual values will become. It will thus help us to be more honest and help others. It will decrease our tolerance for greed and self-centeredness. This will make us even less susceptible to the kind of self-serving emotional logic that politicians, those close to us and even ourselves use to say blatantly false things with complete conviction that we have a right to do so.
Peeling the more irrational elements from our way of thinking has very positive effects on our emotional life as well--both psychologically and spiritually. You can see it clearly in our close relationships where a good understanding of the other's position and good communication skills are now more necessary than ever before. And just as keeping our body healthy makes us able to love someone better, so keeping our soul healthy helps our spiritual love life as well. By being attentive to evidence, one can enter the twenty-first century with the faith and love of a scientist who is so confident in his spiritual beliefs that he is determined to prove their validity rather than the faith and love of a pilgrim who follows his spiritual path without trying to understand.
Let's bring spirituality into the twenty-first century and change the way we think about everything that is important to us. Let's move the debate to a whole new level. It won't be heaven on earth, but it will be a start.
However, since everyone else seems intent on getting what they want packaged into healthcare reform and the change I am thinking of is long term, I'm going to withhold my vote for the reform package until several billions of dollars of funding for research in the medicine of the soul is included.
Joe Lieberman’s Anti-Public Option Rationale Keeps Shifting
This past Sunday, America was treated to the sight of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) rolling out yet another argument against why he will filibuster any health care reform bill that contains a public option.
LIEBERMAN: One last word on the public option. I understand that some who have-- who have advocated say we need to have a government insurance company in the market to keep the insurance companies honest. This is a radical departure from the way we've-- we've responded to the market in America in the past. Here's what I mean.
We rely first on competition in our market economy. That's brought us a lot of wealth and-- given people a lot of jobs. But when the competition fails, then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate. We have never before said in a given business-- we-- we don't trust the companies in it, so we're gonna have the government go into that business. An irony of all ironies, Congressional Budget Office says, I repeat, the government run public option company will charge more than the private companies will.
Steve Benen has been tracing Lieberman's opposition to the public option, and has an excellent piece that points out the fact that every 30 days, Lieberman basically comes up with a new reason to inveigh against it:
In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.
In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.
In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.
In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.
In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."
Now, it's worth pointing out that Lieberman hasn't entirely moved along from his Octoberfest line of reasoning on yesterday's "Meet The Press", continuing to talk "about filibustering a deficit-reducing bill in order to try to remove a cost-reducing provision, and doing so on grounds of fiscal probity." But, as Benen points out, this is a brand new rationale, "shifting towards opposition based on traditions."
In a nutshell, reform advocates are saying, "Giving people the choice of a public option is likely to help consumers by cutting costs and promoting competition." Lieberman is effectively responding, "We haven't done things that way in the past."
The other malformed component of Lieberman's reasoning is that he finds the fact that "the government-run public option company will charge more than the private companies will" to be an "irony of ironies." Of course, one of the things that will keep those private premiums low is that private insurance companies will be offloading the sickest patients into the public plan.
But the real irony of ironies is that, as I already mentioned, Lieberman and other conservative Democrats oppose the sort of cost-reducing provisions that would keep the public option premium low, like tying reimbursement rates to Medicare.
Naturally, there's a much simpler explanation for why Joe Lieberman keeps shifting wildly between different, incoherent rationales for opposing the public option: he's entirely beholden to the health insurance industry, who have given him millions of dollars, through thick and thin!
RELATED:
Another Month, Another Excuse... [Washington Monthly]
LIEBERMAN: One last word on the public option. I understand that some who have-- who have advocated say we need to have a government insurance company in the market to keep the insurance companies honest. This is a radical departure from the way we've-- we've responded to the market in America in the past. Here's what I mean.
We rely first on competition in our market economy. That's brought us a lot of wealth and-- given people a lot of jobs. But when the competition fails, then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate. We have never before said in a given business-- we-- we don't trust the companies in it, so we're gonna have the government go into that business. An irony of all ironies, Congressional Budget Office says, I repeat, the government run public option company will charge more than the private companies will.
Steve Benen has been tracing Lieberman's opposition to the public option, and has an excellent piece that points out the fact that every 30 days, Lieberman basically comes up with a new reason to inveigh against it:
In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.
In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.
In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.
In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.
In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."
Now, it's worth pointing out that Lieberman hasn't entirely moved along from his Octoberfest line of reasoning on yesterday's "Meet The Press", continuing to talk "about filibustering a deficit-reducing bill in order to try to remove a cost-reducing provision, and doing so on grounds of fiscal probity." But, as Benen points out, this is a brand new rationale, "shifting towards opposition based on traditions."
In a nutshell, reform advocates are saying, "Giving people the choice of a public option is likely to help consumers by cutting costs and promoting competition." Lieberman is effectively responding, "We haven't done things that way in the past."
The other malformed component of Lieberman's reasoning is that he finds the fact that "the government-run public option company will charge more than the private companies will" to be an "irony of ironies." Of course, one of the things that will keep those private premiums low is that private insurance companies will be offloading the sickest patients into the public plan.
But the real irony of ironies is that, as I already mentioned, Lieberman and other conservative Democrats oppose the sort of cost-reducing provisions that would keep the public option premium low, like tying reimbursement rates to Medicare.
Naturally, there's a much simpler explanation for why Joe Lieberman keeps shifting wildly between different, incoherent rationales for opposing the public option: he's entirely beholden to the health insurance industry, who have given him millions of dollars, through thick and thin!
RELATED:
Another Month, Another Excuse... [Washington Monthly]
Wall Street Journal Supports Break-Up Of Big Banks
Add the Wall Street Journal editorial board -- of all people -- to the growing ranks of those calling for a restoration of barriers between commercial and investment banking.
In an editorial today, the Journal's anti-regulation free marketeers threw their weight -- albeit in a back-handed way -- behind government limits on "risk-taking" by commercial banks.
The editorial was mostly an assault on Democratic proposals described as offering "unlimited taxpayer funds" to bail out "just about anyone... engaging in finance of one kind or another" in a way that "would entrench moral hazard (and cheaper funding costs for the likes of Goldman Sachs) even deeper into the financial system."
But the editorial concluded: "The other way to reduce moral hazard is to limit certain kinds of risk-taking by institutions that hold taxpayer-insured deposits, as suggested by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Bank of England Chairman Mervyn King."
That was a reference to Volcker and King's idea to restore the separation between Wall Street investment banks and Main Street commercial banks. "This has its own problems. But unlike the emerging plans in Washington, it is credible and would give capitalism a fighting chance to survive regulatory reform."
Volcker, King, former Citigroup CEO John S. Reed, and Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz are four financial and economic luminaries advocating for at least a partial return to Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era law that banned commercial banks from underwriting stocks and bonds. It was repealed in 1999 at the urging of, among others, Larry Summers, President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser.
While progressive economists such as James K. Galbraith and Dean Baker support a return to at least some tenets of Glass-Steagall -- on the premise that banks with taxpayer-guaranteed deposits shouldn't be engaged in risky trading -- the Obama administration does not. The White House wants to regulate the behavior of these banks, rather than break them up.
For the Journal's editorial page to be taking a more pro-regulatory position on any issue than the Obama White House says a lot about our times.
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In an editorial today, the Journal's anti-regulation free marketeers threw their weight -- albeit in a back-handed way -- behind government limits on "risk-taking" by commercial banks.
The editorial was mostly an assault on Democratic proposals described as offering "unlimited taxpayer funds" to bail out "just about anyone... engaging in finance of one kind or another" in a way that "would entrench moral hazard (and cheaper funding costs for the likes of Goldman Sachs) even deeper into the financial system."
But the editorial concluded: "The other way to reduce moral hazard is to limit certain kinds of risk-taking by institutions that hold taxpayer-insured deposits, as suggested by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Bank of England Chairman Mervyn King."
That was a reference to Volcker and King's idea to restore the separation between Wall Street investment banks and Main Street commercial banks. "This has its own problems. But unlike the emerging plans in Washington, it is credible and would give capitalism a fighting chance to survive regulatory reform."
Volcker, King, former Citigroup CEO John S. Reed, and Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz are four financial and economic luminaries advocating for at least a partial return to Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era law that banned commercial banks from underwriting stocks and bonds. It was repealed in 1999 at the urging of, among others, Larry Summers, President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser.
While progressive economists such as James K. Galbraith and Dean Baker support a return to at least some tenets of Glass-Steagall -- on the premise that banks with taxpayer-guaranteed deposits shouldn't be engaged in risky trading -- the Obama administration does not. The White House wants to regulate the behavior of these banks, rather than break them up.
For the Journal's editorial page to be taking a more pro-regulatory position on any issue than the Obama White House says a lot about our times.
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Sestak Ties Specter To Palin In Latest Attack
In her short time on the public stage, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has proven to be an enormously polarizing figure both in her own runs for office and other Republican campaigns.
Now, she's being pulled into a Democratic primary as well.
On Monday, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn) released a web advertisement tying his opponent, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn), to the provocative former vice presidential candidate. Titled "Going Rogue's Missing Chapter," the spot accuses Specter of campaigning "hard" for Palin during the 2008 election, appearing with her at rallies in Pennsylvania, donating to the McCain campaign and telling the national media she had the potential to be president herself.
"That kind of loyalty deserves a place in the former Alaska Republican Governor's new bestseller," reads the accompanying description of the ad.
Set during the height of Palin's book-tour buzz, the spot is a cost-effective way of reminding Pennsylvania voters just where Specter stood politically one year ago. It will also provide a test of sorts for two key 2010 election questions: how effective will Specter be at whitewashing his Republican past and what role will Palin play in the upcoming campaigns -- including, in this case, a Democratic primary?
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Now, she's being pulled into a Democratic primary as well.
On Monday, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn) released a web advertisement tying his opponent, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn), to the provocative former vice presidential candidate. Titled "Going Rogue's Missing Chapter," the spot accuses Specter of campaigning "hard" for Palin during the 2008 election, appearing with her at rallies in Pennsylvania, donating to the McCain campaign and telling the national media she had the potential to be president herself.
"That kind of loyalty deserves a place in the former Alaska Republican Governor's new bestseller," reads the accompanying description of the ad.
Set during the height of Palin's book-tour buzz, the spot is a cost-effective way of reminding Pennsylvania voters just where Specter stood politically one year ago. It will also provide a test of sorts for two key 2010 election questions: how effective will Specter be at whitewashing his Republican past and what role will Palin play in the upcoming campaigns -- including, in this case, a Democratic primary?
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Unhappy With Your Bank? Blame Silicon Valley
Forget bailouts. Forget regulations. Forget stimulus packages and executive pay caps. If we want to see real recovery, we need to see real innovation. Yet the traditional financiers of innovation, venture capitalists (VCs) are fiddling while Rome is burning. A recent survey of US venture capital activity shows that the three sectors with the least investment in the second quarter of 2009 are health care, retailing/distribution and financial services. Quick, what are three sectors of the economy that the U.S. depends on for a sustainable recovery? You got it.
Should VCs be the new scapegoat for a painful and slow recovery? Why are they under-investing in the areas most in need of change and growth? Or is the problem due to a lack of innovators?
At first glance, innovating in these sectors seems daunting. Healt hcare, distribution and financial services all require enormous economies of scale to operate profitably, and they rely on massive, established systems of providers -- stores, insurances, banks, payments networks -- that are resistant to change.
An under-served market
But I argue that VCs and, to some extent, innovators, are missing the opportunity. Innovation is not the same as invention: it is about applying ideas successfully to improve the world (see The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun). How this as a starting point: serve the under-served in these three sectors with products that are better, faster and cheaper than today?
Take the financial services sector. Given the misdeeds of the banking industry, the sector could make huge improvements simply by focusing on serving the ill-served with better, faster and cheaper products. (Anybody who doesn't fit the description of ill-served by your bank, please write me.) The best way to do so is to use the obvious and frictionless engine of innovation and growth: the Internet. I don't mean just providing online access to existing bank services but building online-only services that have none of the legacy and overhead costs of brick-and-mortar banking.
Despite the lack of venture capital, some financial pioneers have introduced new, online-only banking products. ING and HSBC both offer direct savings products that deliver significantly higher-than-average interest rates because the banks don't carry the overhead of distributing the product in branches.
A newer wave of services such as SmartyPig adds a social component by letting users share saving goals with family and friends.
And peer-to-peer lending from companies such as Lending Club make a better use of Internet-enabled person-to-person interactions, because they cut out the middle man and offer better rates at lower risks for both borrowers and lenders.
My company, Plastyc, offers an online money management portal called iBankUP based on a prepaid card account. We are able to eliminate account opening fees, overdraft fees, and in most cases account maintenance fees as customers interact with us through their browsers or even Facebook accounts.
These "pure-play" online companies, which can forego branches, tellers, and sometimes even corporate offices, are at a huge advantage over any of the incumbents. They have wide, instant reach and low operational costs.
But to spur economic recovery, we need even more, competitive new financial products.
Rally cry to entrepreneurs
The good news is that timing could not be better for newcomers: big-name banks have lost recently whatever little was left of consumers' trust, and Internet users now spend most of their time visiting online destinations that did not exist 10 years ago.
A little known fact is that, besides the Internet, innovators can also gain access to the huge and reliable networks established by Visa, Mastercard and the North American Clearing House Association. Granted, you have to be trustable and abide by many rules to get such access, but still, there's no receptionist or water-cooler needed.
Imagine having access to not one but three or four4 worldwide networks established more than 40 years ago to carry your business.
Overall, entrepreneurs can check all the boxes that investors look for when making new investments: fast product delivery, low startup costs, a hungry market and a technology infrastructure that can support real innovation and value.
So what's up with the VCs? Hopefully, the recent acquisition of Mint.com by Intuit will validate financial services as a worthwhile field of innovations and investments.
Please someone else addresses the under-investment in healthcare and retail services innovations. Meanwhile, I'll get back to running my own contribution to the financial services sector out of my virtual corner office.
Should VCs be the new scapegoat for a painful and slow recovery? Why are they under-investing in the areas most in need of change and growth? Or is the problem due to a lack of innovators?
At first glance, innovating in these sectors seems daunting. Healt hcare, distribution and financial services all require enormous economies of scale to operate profitably, and they rely on massive, established systems of providers -- stores, insurances, banks, payments networks -- that are resistant to change.
An under-served market
But I argue that VCs and, to some extent, innovators, are missing the opportunity. Innovation is not the same as invention: it is about applying ideas successfully to improve the world (see The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun). How this as a starting point: serve the under-served in these three sectors with products that are better, faster and cheaper than today?
Take the financial services sector. Given the misdeeds of the banking industry, the sector could make huge improvements simply by focusing on serving the ill-served with better, faster and cheaper products. (Anybody who doesn't fit the description of ill-served by your bank, please write me.) The best way to do so is to use the obvious and frictionless engine of innovation and growth: the Internet. I don't mean just providing online access to existing bank services but building online-only services that have none of the legacy and overhead costs of brick-and-mortar banking.
Despite the lack of venture capital, some financial pioneers have introduced new, online-only banking products. ING and HSBC both offer direct savings products that deliver significantly higher-than-average interest rates because the banks don't carry the overhead of distributing the product in branches.
A newer wave of services such as SmartyPig adds a social component by letting users share saving goals with family and friends.
And peer-to-peer lending from companies such as Lending Club make a better use of Internet-enabled person-to-person interactions, because they cut out the middle man and offer better rates at lower risks for both borrowers and lenders.
My company, Plastyc, offers an online money management portal called iBankUP based on a prepaid card account. We are able to eliminate account opening fees, overdraft fees, and in most cases account maintenance fees as customers interact with us through their browsers or even Facebook accounts.
These "pure-play" online companies, which can forego branches, tellers, and sometimes even corporate offices, are at a huge advantage over any of the incumbents. They have wide, instant reach and low operational costs.
But to spur economic recovery, we need even more, competitive new financial products.
Rally cry to entrepreneurs
The good news is that timing could not be better for newcomers: big-name banks have lost recently whatever little was left of consumers' trust, and Internet users now spend most of their time visiting online destinations that did not exist 10 years ago.
A little known fact is that, besides the Internet, innovators can also gain access to the huge and reliable networks established by Visa, Mastercard and the North American Clearing House Association. Granted, you have to be trustable and abide by many rules to get such access, but still, there's no receptionist or water-cooler needed.
Imagine having access to not one but three or four4 worldwide networks established more than 40 years ago to carry your business.
Overall, entrepreneurs can check all the boxes that investors look for when making new investments: fast product delivery, low startup costs, a hungry market and a technology infrastructure that can support real innovation and value.
So what's up with the VCs? Hopefully, the recent acquisition of Mint.com by Intuit will validate financial services as a worthwhile field of innovations and investments.
Please someone else addresses the under-investment in healthcare and retail services innovations. Meanwhile, I'll get back to running my own contribution to the financial services sector out of my virtual corner office.