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August 11, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around this time last year that I returned from Cooperstown completely energized about life and distracted from my health problems by the Orioles. After spending a weekend with thousands of other Orioles fans, I returned home excited that I wasn’t the last Orioles fan standing. After reviewing my own pictures, I started searching the Internet for other fan’s pictures from that amazing weekend, and somehow, in my search, I stumbled upon Mindpinball. After more than a year of severe sleep-deprivation, I misread one of his posts about a vacation and left a comment on his blog harassing him for not spending his vacation in Cooperstown. It was just a silly comment, all hyped up as I was about the weekend. Never did I imagine the impact…
Glutton for punishment, Mindpinball, curious about the nut who visited his blog, became my first regular reader outside of my family. Believe it or not, knowing that I had a reader, even if only one (besides my mother-in-law and mother), gave me something to look forward to during a really rough time. Though at the time my blog was solely an outlet to take my mind off more difficult things, eventually the thought that I had an actual reader somewhere out in the ether helped to give me hope…something that probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone besides me even if I could put it into words. If I could put it into words, they would be words of gratitude and appreciation, words to thank serendipity and Google, words to express how humble and fortunate I feel for unexpected gifts of friendship when you most need them.
Mindpinball also became the first blog I ever followed and I looked forward to his always well-written and articulate posts. At that time, having anything to look forward to, anything that made my day better in any way was a big deal. Now, a year later, in a very different place, I still look forward to his posts and I am still grateful, for these things that bring me some measure of pleasure.
Eventually, there were others who came to this url and I was grateful to them too, even if then, as well as now, I am in disbelief. Every comment (except from spammers), every interest, cheers me still! (Would you find it interesting to know that my most popular post is about sociopathic killers? Does that say something disturbing about our society?)
You never know the impact that your actions, however insignificant they may seem, will have on others. I have considerable guilt about some things I said to USAIR in particular last year during the nadir of my despair, on my last nerve, and completely empty of any patience for any mishap, first after being bumped from a flight at one end and then having a flight canceled on the other (and four hours waiting in line to find out). There are a lot of words, and a couple letters I wish I could take back. There is always a nice way to say things. I, of all people know better, because it is I who am always amazed at (and preaching) how much impact such a little action can have, the chain of events that one event can set in motion.
Often we might not realize how much the things we say or do matter, but they do. We touch people in more ways than we will likely ever realize. Mindpinball, just by being there in the ether, made a big difference to me, at a time when he couldn’t possibly have known how such a simple action could have touched another person. We do well to not forget how connected we all are to each other.
We are all connected to one another.
(Even, grudgingly, I’ll admit, Orioles fans to Ys fans. Well, I don’t know, maybe I’m on the fence with that one.)
Thank you to every person who reads this blog, but most especially thank you Mindpinball for brightening the blogosphere with your sunshiney clicks, posts, articles, and emails!
I hope you will all continue to read, and that in the future I will be able to provide useful or interesting information to somehow enrich your life (in between the other stuff). It is my goal that everyone who reads this blog will find it worth their time, at least sometimes.
P.S. MP, I owe you a poem, but I respect you too much to tarnish this post with my poor and pathetic poetic abilities (I can alliterate though).
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June 8, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
“Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing controversy.” Tobacco Industry Policy 1969
This morning I started working on a new feature for my website. I started composing my article with this: “I have a confession to make. I have a mission on this website. Two missions really, to help you find happiness and a fulfilling life and to convince you to value your time more than money so that you work less. It’s a mission you’ll hear me repeat over and over.
Why? Why is this so important to me? It is my firm belief that all the ills of society can be eliminated if only we had more time. It is my belief that happiness comes not from having an oversized house and overpriced car to impress strangers, but from our personal accomplishments in making the world better, from fulfilling and meaningful relationships, and from the rewarding experience of creating strong communities.”
I made a list of all the things that I need to research and listed one of the ills that I hope we can eradicate, if only we had more time, is the widespread corruption in our government. With the most corrupt government in history since man evolved from the apes, we should be outraged. We should have twenty-four hour picket lines in front of the White House until someone is locked behind bars. But I digress…
After spending an hour documenting the page layouts and agenda, I decided to take a break and try to finish at least one of the magazines from my growing stack. To my utter dismay and disgust, I found even more evidence of how our government is failing to serve us in an October issue of Discover. The article discusses how funding for scientific research is increasingly from the private sector, that is, those who have an interest in suggesting a certain outcome from a study, an outcome that happens to maximize their profits.
It’s important for you to know, so I’ve included quotes from the article, as well as the link to it. I’ve also provided a link to help you find your own corrupt representative, to whom I hope you will write a letter expressing your distaste for his/her complete and utter lack of efficacy in instituting policies to protect our citizens. (Will November never get here??)
In the interest of space, I’m not indenting the quotes. I’m starting with two paragraphs that appear toward the end of the article because they elucidate just how disgusting and manipulative the corporate machine and politicians are. Please research and be skeptical about every pharmaceutical you are prescribed and please read the entire article.
Obama has his work cut out for him. Also, I’m sorry for such a depressing post.
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Discover Magazine, October 2007, Science Under Seige/Science’s Worst Enemy: Corporate Funding
…As a result of these trends, Lisa Bero says, science has become one of the most powerful tools that private companies can use to fight regulation. The strategy they most often deploy was pioneered by the tobacco industry, which learned to foment scientific uncertainty as a means of staving off regulation. A famous tobacco industry document from 1969 spells out the strategy succinctly: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing controversy.”
In 2003, Frank Luntz, a political consultant to the Republican Party, recommended using the same strategy to combat public environmental concerns. “Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community,” he wrote. “Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
Merrill Goozner argues…“In many precincts of the scientific enterprise, the needs of industry have become paramount,” he says, turning science into “a contested terrain” where facts are increasingly contingent on who is funding the research. “The whole scientific revolution, which was a product of the Enlightenment, is threatened when you commercialize science,” he warns.
“We can only make good decisions in science when all of the information is available for physicians, scientists, and patients to review,” he says. But drug companies are increasingly keeping physicians and their patients in the dark. Last year, Nissen grew suspicious about possible health risks associated with GlaxoSmithKline’s top-selling diabetes drug, Avandia. “We requested access to the original patient-level data,” he says, but “we were not afforded access.” Nissen wasn’t surprised; for years he has perceived a growing tendency by the drug industry to suppress negative research data.
Searching the Internet, Nissen stumbled upon a remarkable cache of data belonging to Glaxo. His search unearthed 42 Avandia clinical trials—only 15 of which had ever been published. Nissen didn’t know it at the time, but the reason Glaxo’s data were just sitting there on the Web was the outcome of a lawsuit filed by former New York attorney general (and current governor) Eliot Spitzer in 2004. The lawsuit alleged that Glaxo had concealed negative trial data associated with its popular antidepressant drug, Paxil. When the data were properly analyzed, they showed that children given Paxil were actually two times more likely to experience suicidal thinking and behavior than children given a placebo, or sugar pill. When Glaxo settled the suit, it denied having suppressed data and consented to posting results of all its clinical trials online—including its data on Avandia.
Nissen knew there were limitations to the public information he had. He lacked any original patient-level information, and a meta-analysis of prior drug studies is always less powerful than a large prospective, randomized clinical trial. This May, however, Nissen felt compelled to alert doctors and patients to what he had found.
Publishing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Nissen reported that Avandia raised the risk of heart attacks in patients by 43 percent. The news made front-page headlines. Two days later, the FDA, which had already been assessing the health risks of Avandia, imposed its toughest warning label, the “black box,” on the drug, as well as on Actos, another drug used to treat diabetes.
At a subsequent congressional hearing chaired by Representative Henry Waxman, it came to light that the FDA had known about Avandia’s risks for some time. Rosemary Johann-Liang, a former FDA drug safety supervisor, had recommended a black box warning label for Avandia due to its harmful effects on the heart one year prior to Nissen’s publication. Glaxo’s own meta-analysis, presented to the FDA in 2006, showed a 31 percent increased risk of heart attacks. Yet according to Johann-Liang, “my recommending a heart failure box warning was not well received by my superiors, and I was told that I would not be overseeing that project.” She was also told to obtain her supervisors’ approval before making any future black box recommendations. After the hearing, the FDA completed its own meta-analysis of the original patient data and found virtually the same heart risks Nissen had reported.
Nevertheless, Nissen found himself under attack, often by people with explicit financial ties to the drug industry. His challengers have included Valentin Fuster, who wrote a critique of Nissen’s work in Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine. Fuster receives Glaxo funding and serves as the chairman of Glaxo’s Research and Education Foundation. Peter Pitts wrote a stinging attack on Nissen in The Washington Times; he is a senior vice president at the PR firm Manning Selvage & Lee, which represents Big Pharma, including Glaxo. Douglas Arbesfeld, a senior communications consultant at the FDA, disparaged Nissen in a biting e-mail to the media. He formerly worked as a spokesman for Johnson & Johnson.
Press reports over the last 15 years detail how whistle-blowers inside academia and within the FDA who have attempted to expose drug-research and safety issues have been pressured. Some were threatened with legal action, others punished by their superiors and discredited. “Whenever we’ve raised safety questions about drugs,” Nissen says, “there’s always been a reaction like this. Exactly the same thing happened in 2001 when we published a manuscript that suggested that Vioxx might be causing excess heart attacks.” Nissen was coauthor of one of the first studies on the dangers of Vioxx. Three years later, Merck pulled the drug from the market. By that time, one FDA analyst estimates, the drug had contributed to up to 139,000 heart attacks. (A Merck representative states that the paper from which the estimate of 139,000 was derived had “serious limitations” and did not necessarily reflect the views of the FDA.)
“What academic institutions always argue is that they have sufficient safeguards in place to protect against any influences on the academic research,” Bero says. “Here at UCSF I sit on what’s called a conflict of interest advisory committee, and believe me, I’m familiar with our gazillion policies. Universities do have a lot of policies, but I would argue that they’re not sufficient.”
One meta-analysis published in BMJ (British Medical Journal) found that pharmaceutical-industry-funded research was four times more likely to reflect favorably on a drug than research not financed by industry. Even when Bero controls for a variety of other factors, she finds that the effect of industry funding on the research outcome is huge. Research on secondhand smoke conducted by researchers with industry ties is 88 times more likely to find no harm; industry-funded studies comparing cholesterol drugs are 20 times more likely to favor the sponsor’s drug.
This happens, Bero contends, because private industry has become increasingly sophisticated about how it uses “science” to achieve its commercial objectives. “We’ve looked at the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, and now we’re looking at legal documents pertaining to the asbestos, vinyl chloride, and lead industries,” she reports. The techniques they use are remarkably similar: Positive research gets published; negative research doesn’t. The sponsor’s drug is given at a higher dosage than the competitor’s drug. The sponsors control study design, access to data, and statistical analysis. They ghostwrite articles and pay prominent academics to sign on as “authors.”
University policies governing conflicts of interest and research integrity vary widely from campus to campus—and most still have a lot of holes, Bero contends. One 2005 study examining more than 100 academic medical centers found that half would allow the corporate sponsor to write manuscripts reporting on study results and only allow faculty to “suggest revisions”—a policy basically authorizing commercial ghostwriting of academic research. Thirty-five percent allowed the sponsor to store clinical trial data and release only portions to the investigator; 62 percent allowed the sponsor to alter the study design after the researchers and the sponsor had signed an agreement.
Consider the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The center has only two full-time employees and one part-time; until recently the rest of the center’s workforce was supplied by Sciences International (SI), a private consulting firm that has been funded by more than 40 chemical industry clients. For nearly a decade, the center had been outsourcing much of its work to SI, which assessed health risks and drafted reviews for 21 chemicals that the center was reviewing for their possible impact on human reproductive health. This April, NIH terminated its contract with SI after learning that the company or its employees had business ties to the chemical industry.
Another variant of privatization can be seen at the FDA, which currently draws more than 50 percent of its total drug review budget from user fees paid by the pharmaceutical industry. David Kessler, a former head of the FDA, recently told The Wall Street Journal, “There is no doubt that user fees give the industry leverage on setting the agency’s priorities. There are significant risks.” Marcia Angell, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, puts it more bluntly: “The FDA has been captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate.”
At the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, regulators do not have the authority to inquire as to who paid for the studies they receive. The Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also lack any formal mechanisms for identifying potential conflicts of interest or for assessing the level of industry influence over the research.
In general, industry-funded studies are also subject to far less oversight than comparable federally funded studies. The data underlying private research do not have to be made public, unlike the data from federally sponsored research. A privately funded study can also avoid external scrutiny simply by being labeled “confidential business information.” One study by the Government Accountability Office found that a majority of the applications submitted to the EPA to market new chemicals contained science-based information that industry had labeled confidential.
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We need this to change. Link to the full article here.
Find Your Own Corrupt Member of Congress:
US Senate Shepherds of the Devil
US House Shepherds of the Devil
Related Books
Undermining Science
Doubt is Their Product
I haven’t read either one so I can’t attest to their quality.
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May 17, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
In the mid-1940’s, frustrated with growing bigotry, Stetson Kennedy set out on a mission to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan. Kennedy, posing as a fellow racist, joined the Klan with hopes that, in figuring out how they operated, he might find a way to destroy them. He largely succeeded and is attributed with making the Klan impotent and preventing a post-war Klan revival.
One person can make a difference, and in the case of Kennedy, a remarkable one in changing the course of history and the fate of a nation.
Creating positive change takes courage, imagination, and determination, and what we’ve learned from Kennedy, is to be undaunted by the size of the job. While the mission for change may seem insurmountable, and we too small to tackle it, we must remember all the examples of history that have proven how much difference one person can make. How often the whistle-blower, the sole individual with courage to speak up among a sea of participants who further enabled that which they knew to be wrong, that one intrepid person of integrity and character, unraveled a tangled plot of deliberate, intentional, and destructive misconduct. Conversely, one self-serving individual, one man consumed with pursuing the desires of his inflated ego unchecked causes irreparable damage.
Information and disclosure are the tools that protect us. Often the answer to change can be as “simple” as revealing that which the power structure wants to remain hidden, that which happens behind closed doors, or as in the case of the Klan, the cowardly and ugly that lay hidden beneath their bed linens.
The Klan’s source of power came from their secrecy. When Stetson revealed the Klan’s secret codes and passwords, he removed all their allure and power. We have too many examples from recent years showing us the harm that is done by secret societies. Politics, Enrons in the stock market, a war, the pharmaceutical industry, sub-prime loans. Too many examples of a few profiting at the cost of many. We should regard authority with the same eye as the hippies of the 60s. It is not disrespectful to question. It is disrespectful and, yes, immoral, for those in positions of authority to introduce red herrings that cut-off dialogue with distracting arguments about patriotism. (We are fools for falling for it.) Those who have nothing to hide are not afraid of discussions and disclosure.
Even in our personal lives, we see the negative effects of secrecy. Our employers threaten disciplinary action if we disclose our salary to a coworker. Who profits? We, as employees? No, we stab in the dark when we timidly ask for a raise, not knowing how much the person in the next cube with a similar, or inferior, skill set is making. The lack of information about salary ranges leaves us on shaky ground, never knowing for sure if we’re being fairly compensated. Our employer is completely at his own discretion to make things equitable, with a whole arsenal of rationalizations about shareholders and “the good of the company” to allay any self-doubt, protected as he is from ever owning up to any unfairness, encouraged to give as little as possible.
To some extent our economy is built upon a foundation of secrecy. We have a cultural taboo about speaking too directly about money. We don’t feel comfortable sharing our salary or bank balance. We solve this by consuming lots of things so that we can say through them that we’re doing “okay,” okay always defined as and measured by our material possessions, not by our charitable acts, volunteerism, leisure activities, vacation time, or how happy we are. If we’re keeping up with the Joneses, no one has to know the staggering, crushing debt we’ve accumulated. Sales are made by tightly guarding the amount of profit made on the good or service. Whether it be a negotiation for a car or a consulting service, the person in power is the one who has the most information.
Information and disclosure keep our democracy intact and people safe. As Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner state in their book, “Freakonomics,” those who control the flow of information control everything.
Read Levitt and Dubner’s account of Stetson Kennedy here and more about Freakonomics in my next post.
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April 11, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
Today is the last excerpt of Martin Luther King’s speeches. For now anyway. There is enough material to keep me posting for a month. There’s so much more from his “loving enemies” speech that I want to share, but instead I’m going to switch gears and share an excerpt from his Letter From Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963. It was a week ago that I chose this quote before there was any news about extinguished Olympic flames and protestors, but again King’s words are as timeless as they are wise.
Do you ever wonder at our distaste for protest? In a country where we claim to so value the first amendment and the right to free speech, it seems that we hold protestors in such contempt, or at least annoyance. We find their reminders of injustices inconvenient when we’re trying to get lost in the enjoyment of the Olympic ceremonies.
Protests take place at the wrong time, in the wrong way, using the wrong methods, and disrespectful of “authority,” with which we should only ever silently disagree. Some might argue that human rights abuses are inconvenient. Some might argue that a war protest is not disrespect for troops, but an act of love for the precious lives that might be prematurely lost, and the psychological trauma that will not be eradicated over a lifetime, for soliders who will never receive benefits commensurate with the sacrifices they made.
It’s easier for our government to draw negative attention to protestors and away from its own misdeeds than perhaps to succumb to the interests of the people it’s meant to represent. When writing letters and quiet protests are not effective in getting a government to respond, what then should be done? When we don’t have million dollar campaign contributions, what recourse is left to get the attention of our government? If China, deaf until now, was embarassed enough to end it’s human rights abuses, what would we think of the Olympic ceremony protestors then? Would we admire their courage?
If nothing else, even if we don’t agree with the methods used, perhaps we should admire the courage of people who are trying to make conditions better for others. And maybe wonder why we’re not joining in the protests with them.
Again, enough of my blathering.
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We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
Hope you enjoyed this edition of Heros.
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April 10, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
A recent issue of Discover featured two remarkable scientists:
Elizabeth Blackburn is figuring out the role of telomerase in cell replication and aging. Her work with telomerase shows promise in finding a cure for cancer and controlling metastasis.
Hans Rosling who invented Trendalyzer, a visual representation of statistics useful in illuminating trends that will help spotlight societal ills like poverty, CO2 emissions, and mortality rates. Rosling has also worked to make data more widely available.
I wish I did something that made a difference in the world. That must be a nice feeling. One day, when I quit or get fired, I’ll get to share all the tales I have pent up. For now, let’s just say that I help support an evil empire.
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April 10, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
Here is one of my favorite passages from MLK’s speech on “Loving Thy Enemies” (as if I could choose). Again, I’ve divided up the paragraph, but choosing the parts to highlight was a challenge, as every word is powerful.
When I read King’s words I think about their significance in our personal relationships, their wisdom for our nation, and their considerations for the attitudes and values we hold in the more abstract sense. I have trouble understanding suicide bombers, religious or political extremists who want to oppress others, the insatiable greed that drives people to unspeakable acts, but each of us is limited by our experience and understanding of the world. Perhaps these people are fueled by hate, and perhaps not, but either way, a combination of culture foremost, and DNA and environment set them on a course, just as we were set on a course, and still within them, within each of us, is the power for great love. Like the Indian proverb says, it just depends on which wolf is fed.
I may not understand the acts of some, but I cannot judge. How can I say that given the same set of circumstances I would behave better? I want to believe I am different. I want to believe in my own goodness, that my goodness is better and purer than the goodness of others. It is easier to give myself permission to judge others and feel superior by comparison, to set myself apart as somehow infused with more purity of spirit. But this is naive. We are more alike than we are different.
So I may not understand, and it is not easy, indeed, sometimes it seems impossible, but it behooves us to follow King’s advice and achieve our noblest abilities, to love and respect others as a unique realization of creation even if we condemn their acts. To love someone is not to condone all they do, it is only an acknowlegement of how frail and fallible we are. This admission of weakness, of the impossibility of perfection, cannot be made without a long stare in the mirror in which we cannot hide from ourselves our own many transgressions. The forgiveness of ourselves permits the forgiveness of others, and vice versa. It is all tied up together and forgiveness allows us to emerge from the shadows, perhaps still afraid of our shame, but knowing that weakness is the price of breath.
Always to remember, there but for the Grace of God, go I.
We’re better served by shining light in the darkness to help others to see the way to peace than by standing on the sidelines critiquing, all the while congratulating ourselves, taking credit for favorable circumstances over which we had no control. To use King’s metaphor, we must know when to dim the lights, when to not fan the flames and nourish the fire…
Enough of my opining. Now for the words of the truly wise Martin Luther King. Please take the time to let the words sink in as you read them.
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The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. And agape is more than eros; agape is more than philia; agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return.
It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men.
And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.
Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.
If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends.
Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.
The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.
I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power.”
And I looked at him right quick and said: “Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”
Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction.
It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.
And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. Somewhere somebody must have some sense.
Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
King’s metaphor about us having the sense to dim the lights reminds of the many metaphors about sharing the light:
Yes, we need to have the courage to dim the lights. By doing so, we brighten the light within.
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April 9, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
Tonight starts American Idol Gives Back 2008. If you want to contribute, you can find the website here. The website also has links to the individual organizations, to which you can contributed directly.
You don’t have to want to give, you just have to give.
Levels of Tzedakah
Here are the different levels of tzedakah. Even the least “meritorious,” is still meritorious:
Giving begrudgingly.
Giving less that you should, but giving it cheerfully.
Giving after being asked.
Giving before being asked.
Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity.
Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity.
Giving when neither party knows the other’s identity.
Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant.
It is not our choice to help others in need, it is our obligation. It is an act of justice.
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April 9, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
More MLK. Today, I split up the paragraph so as to make the words stand out. I’m hoping you at least read the bold parts if you don’t read it all. Just another one of my tricks.
So somehow the “isness” of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: that within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals.
The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it.
And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of.
No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy.
And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
Another way that you love your enemy is this: when the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something.
Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men.
It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
Perhaps, like me, your favorite philosophy is that revenge is a dish best served cold. But no, we must suppress our pugilistic urges and always seek the path of kindness and healing.
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April 8, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
More from Love Thy Enemies. (Oh, don’t be such a baby. It only looks long. Read the whole thing and you’ll be glad you did!)
But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.
…Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.
A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.”
Of course, MLK wasn’t talking about me. I have nothing of a schizophrenic personality and always do the right thing. But the rest of you, out there, take this to heart. (If you’ve been reading long enough, you know that’s a big lie and I have two minds about everything and am constantly fighting my own evil.)
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April 7, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
More from MLK’s “Loving Enemies” speech:
Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.
Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.
Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you. Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you. They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.
More to come…
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