Not So Grounded

Conscious Planning a Thousand Years Out

2011-10-23T11:59:43-04:00

It didn't take long for the guy next to me on the train to ask if I was pretty liberal. He was merely confirming the obvious, as we amicably disagreed on several current lightning rods: health care reform, sustainable energy and the growing practice of natural gas hydrofracking, which, it turns out, was also his profession. He didn't dismiss the environmental hazards -- most notably permanently poisoning millions of gallons of water -- but instead emphasized the vast potential yield, that fracking can satisfy our energy needs for many many years to come.

But not 200 years or 300 or 1000 ...

I suddenly realized how infrequently we plan for centuries. 18 months, maybe 24, a large corporation may vision 10-20 years perhaps, or too often we plan just 'till the next election ...

But our future scope is frighteningly narrow.

We revere history. We are fully engaged in protecting a ruin, holding sacred a ceremony, honoring the dead, studying the past ... we explore our ancestry, re-enact past battles ... we celebrate foundings, anniversaries, ancient texts, long-standing beliefs ... We insist our children learn vast swaths of history, and our daily media stream the past and present with mind-numbing force.

I'm not suggesting that's wrong. But why not the future in equal measure? How come our future is relegated to video games and sci-fi or to those we sequester in ivory towers? We're closer to 2200 than 1776, so how come our kids aren't exploring that with as much vigor? Imagine a bunch of 2nd graders spending half their school day envisioning 2492. Then imagine them over the course of their education honing those visions, creating new inventions & skills, defining their world 800 years from now. What if communities routinely came together not to fight over a shrinking economic pie but to explore what commerce and exchange might look like in 2500? What if we were consciously planning our way-out future?

Instead of justifying (and having to earn a living justifying) a practice that may momentarily keep our lights on but will, as the nice guy on the train admitted, permanently destroy our water tables, what if he could describe how his multinational was thinking energy in 500 years?

Gloria Steinem

2011-08-15T18:35:24-04:00

Tonight on HBO, a documentary about Gloria Steinem. And, so, an excuse to post my interview with her (such a cool gift!) for All About Women (For some reason the magazine took offline the first several years of issues.) From All About Women, 2/08:

In 1968 journalist Moses Znaimer conducted a lengthy, intimate interview with then 34-year-old Gloria Steinem in her New York City apartment, subsequently broadcast on the Canadian Broadcast Centre show entitled, The Way It Is. “New journalism” was the primary topic, Znaimer and Steinem discussing the new trend among an elite group of writers, including Steinem, who blended impeccable reporting with their own personal perspectives and connections with the story. Certainly it was interesting to learn about the origins of a journalistic style we now take for granted. But I found the interview’s equally overt sub-text even more fascinating.

Gloria Steinem was a “girl” and Moses Znaimer wove that fact into the interview with easy, casual frequency:

Do you distinguish in your work between the fact that you’re writing and you’re a lady writing?

I just want to get past one uncomfortable & fairly obvious fact … that you’re a pretty stunning woman. And I want to know whether you capitalize on that?

While Steinem inexplicably ironed a blouse during a portion of the interview, Znaimer asked, How many “ladies” things do you like doing? Do you cook? You iron … exceedingly well, too.

While discussing Steinem’s undercover expose as a Playboy bunny, Znaimer asked, “Forgive me, but I always thought you had to be stacked, absolutely stacked to be a bunny girl. How did you get the job?”

After the interview, the closing anchor, holding an iron in his hand, summarized with a smile, “[That was] Moses, ironing out a few things with a heck of a good writer, and not a hateful looker …”

Last night I shared those 40-year old quotes with my fifteen-year-old daughter and her two friends for their reactions. The two girls’ jaws dropped; the boy, equally shocked, assumed the interviewer was intentionally egging the woman on. They couldn’t believe it.

My daughter and her friends never heard of Gloria Steinem. Yet they struck me as living success of one of the revolutions Gloria Steinem helped create. These teenagers were stunned that people would seriously ask a professional woman such things. My daughter’s friends – girls and boys -- are so certain they can do anything they choose, and so comfortable engaging equally with each other that they don’t register an alternative. Constraints or biases based on their gender are just not part of their lives. I know it’s not universal, and horrendous inequalities persist. But I realized something fundamental was afoot when my exasperated daughter recently texted a boy, Ugh! Just grow some fallopian tubes!

For me, a generation older, Gloria Steinem is the icon of feminism. She’s its epicenter, the point from which I subsequently ventured into feminist writings, concepts, and understandings. Imagine women’s equality and she is my first vision.

It is wildly incomplete merely to say Gloria Steinem has been a well-known writer and activist throughout her career. Over the last 51 years she has written six books and been published or featured in virtually every major media in the U.S. and many more around the world. Her political reporting as staff writer for New York magazine shattered professional journalism glass walls. As founding visionary, editor, and writer for Ms. magazine she helped turn all things feminist, complete with its signature moniker, into household words. Still going strong at age 73, Steinem recently helped create the Women’s Media Center and GreenStone media programming to amplify the voice of equality even louder. Not content with mere words, Steinem has also marched, rallied, and advocated for equal rights for all people disempowered or oppressed, domestically and across the globe.

She remains present and vocal in uncountable ways, from her sound bytes in David Usher’s 2005 song “Love Will Save the Day,” to her quotes closing the final credits of the 2006 film “V for Vendetta,” to her January 8, 2008 editorial about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the New York Times. In 2007 alone, at least a dozen of her appearances have been added to YouTube. She has always – in word and in deed -- pushed conventional edges further than most thought they could ever stretch. As a result, those edges continue to widen. And we all, women and men alike, benefit.

Gloria Steinem will be speaking at Appalachian State University’s Farthing Auditorium on Monday February 4, 2008, at 8:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public. I interviewed Ms. Steinem by telephone two weeks before this appearance.

JS: You’ve been quite visible during this presidential campaign. What do you consider the most important issues relevant for the presidential election?

GS: There shouldn’t be a hierarchy of issues because they’re all important. The Iraq war feels most important but, of course, the money we’re spending on it is the reason we’re depriving our schools and our infrastructure from funds. Everything is connected. One really can’t isolate individual issues. But clearly the Iraq war and the economy are on the top of most people’s lists. The question of how this differentially affects women is something that should get more coverage. For example, there’s a recent article in the New York Times saying that the mortgage crisis is penalizing women homeowners even more than men. We need to look both at the overall issues and the ways they affect different groups in this society.

JS: You have said your first choice support is for Hillary Clinton, but that you also consider this an inspiring group of Democratic candidates. Talk about your support.

GS: [My February 7, 2007 New York Times] op-ed piece was devoted to the hope that we could see this as a coalition. First of all they are the best group of candidates we’ve seen in quite awhile. And secondly, Obama & Clinton should be a coalition of the “out’s” that can [best] win if they have the support of each other’s constituency. For as long as possible when people asked me, “Are you supporting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama,” I just said “yes.” Of course, the primaries force one into a choice, but [while Clinton is my first choice] I have never opposed Obama or said a critical word about him. I would be happy to work for him.

It seems to me Hillary Clinton has the chance to arrive in Washington with a deep understanding of how Washington works. I remember when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton arrived; it took them two years to figure out the, sometimes arcane, way Washington works. I don’t think we can afford that now. I would like Hillary Clinton to be president for eight years and then Barack Obama to be president for eight years. And then perhaps we have a chance to repair some of the damage Bush has done.

JS: Where do you see the U.S. internationally right now and what will be the new president’s first task?

GS: We’re at the low point of popularity in the polls in pretty much every country. We are regarded in many instances as dangerous, or more dangerous, as terrorism itself because our foreign policy is perceived as encouraging, or inspiring, or justifying terrorism. That’s a pretty low point, the lowest I’ve ever seen. So the first task probably would be for the new president to make contact with all of the crucial chiefs of state [to rebuild relationships.] Hillary Clinton already is familiar with, already has a level of credibility with [many of these heads of state], one of the reason I think she’d be a first choice [as president] and Obama a chronologically next choice.

JS: Tell me about the inspiration and mission of the Women’s Media Center and GreenStone Media.

GS: We founded [The Women’s Media Center] on the philosophy of Lily Tomlin [who] once said, “I thought somebody should do something and then I realized I am somebody.” While we were mourning the narrow coverage in the media, we thought, well, there are now a large number of women with experience in the media, so why not bring them together to create a force that might be able to get more accuracy and diversity and reality into the media. Less frivolity and more real issues, especially that affect the female half of the population, the female half of the world. And also to offer better employment opportunities in the media. Only about 3% of so-called “clout positions” in the media are occupied by women of any race. It’s our hope we can increase coverage, improve coverage, and also increase the presence of women employed in the media. We have a website www.womensmediacenter.com, where we provide hot links to progressive women columnists and direct people to stories of interest. When coverage is lacking we try to assign that subject and provide stories, original editorial on the website itself.

GreenStone was an outgrowth of that. [GreenStone Media, founded in 2005, offered radio programming to radio stations across the country, with streaming online. It ceased operations in 2007.] There were a number of women who had worked in radio & understood the opportunity that should have presented itself. The mainstream media, that is the drive-time AM and some FM media radio to which more than 90% of people still listen, is “underperforming” because it so over-represents the ultra right-wing and is so full of confrontation, conflict, and yelling. It turns off many listeners, not only women, but especially women. There seemed to be an opportunity for a new kind of programming. Our programming did very well on small stations, but we could not find larger stations open to it. I have faith that it will happen, but we were premature.

JS: What do you consider the current burning women’s & human rights issues in the U.S. and across the world?

GS: Internationally we’ve seen the growth of sex and labor trafficking, becoming almost as profitable as the drug trade and the arms trade. Indeed some studies show it is more profitable. The number of enslaved people in the world compared to the world population is actually higher now than it was in the 1800’s.   85% of [those enslaved] are women and kids. It is a very crucial issue. And it’s not one that just takes place outside this country; on the contrary, many sex traffic women and children come in across the Mexican border or are trafficked within this country.

The customers also sometimes come from this country. For instance, I was just in India where they estimate that 25% of the [sex trade] customers are men from the U.S.   So the women’s groups in this country try to stop the solicitation here. For instance, Equality Now, a women’s rights / human rights organization, spent three to four years trying to get a judgment against Big Apple Sex Tours in Queens, which offers sex tours with photographs and a catalogue. [Initially] the judge said the criminal act took place out of the country so it wasn’t subject to U.S. law, but the lawyers for Equality Now argued the solicitation took place inside this country. Eventually they were successful in closing that agency down. Many women’s and citizens groups are now looking at want ads, classified ads, Craig’s List, where sex trafficking and sex tours are offered.

My most recent trip, with [Blowing Rock resident and Westglow Spa owner Bonnie Schaeffer] was to attend a meeting in Katmandu, Nepal of grassroots women’s groups working against sex trafficking from a variety of countries … Peru, Kenya, Nepal, Iceland, and more … who met for the first time so they could learn from each other. They’re very embattled [in their own countries] so it’s important for them to be able to share lessons and to be able to raise money together. Bonnie has been very supportive of that group.

JS: What messages do you offer young women?

GS: Sometimes I think young women are more likely to advocate for women in other countries than for themselves because they see it as a greater need. I have great faith in their activism. But I hope they also understand they have a right to equality. For instance, I still hear young woman say “How can I combine work and family?” yet rarely hear young men say that. And women will continue to have two jobs – one inside the home and one outside the home – until men are caring for children as much as women are. And until that work of nurturing has an attributed economic value. Many young women feel there’s no choice, they have to do both. But, of course, there is a choice.

They’re taking on the burden instead of saying “We can change the system for all of us.” For instance, this is the only developed democracy in the world without a national system of health care. And this penalizes women even more than men because women’s childbearing capacity means we need the healthcare system about 30% more than men do. Another example is childcare. Every other developed democracy has some national system of childcare, and we don’t.

JS: We’re also the only developed democracy in which individuals pay for their own college education.

GS: Yes, and the cost of college has gone up in the eight years under Bush, I believe 30% on average, while student loans have gone down because lending agencies are allowed to take greater percentages. If we ask a room of students how many will graduate in debt a lot of hands go up. That means they’re indentured, they have to repay that debt in the early days of their careers. They find themselves taking jobs they would otherwise not take, or lowering their living standards in ways that are painful. And we need to understand that that’s connected to the political structure.

[Overall] I’m encouraged to see many are getting activated on their own behalf.

JS: What are the overall messages – about anything at all -- you most want to convey to audiences like the one at ASU on February 4^th?

GS: We’ve been made to feel disempowered and that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would like to provide as much encouragement and examples as I can to show that individual actions, actions of small groups matter.

I also would like to support the unique value that lies inside each person – female, male, all of us. We come into the world with a unique combination of heredity and environment over millennia, a combination that could never have happened before and will never happen again. There’s a person inside every baby, as everyone who’s ever met a baby knows! So [we must] support each other in expressing that uniqueness. No one can contribute exactly the same thing. We need to support each other in that [unique] contribution. We’re communal creatures. If we’re with people who think we’re smart we’re smarter. If we’re with people who think we’re not smart, we’re less smart.   We need each other’s support in order to express the uniqueness, the unique values and talents in each person.

JS: I would love to hear your vision, the vision that has inspired you through all your work. What does that ideal gender-free, race-free, hate-free, oppression-free world look, sound and feel like to you?

GS: I have faith in organic growth, trying to make each step we take embody the ideas we want. And then see what happens. Being open to spontaneity and new things we never could have imagined. But that said, [in general] there would be less ranking, more linking. Less hierarchy and more circles, in every way. Less zero-sum- games and more empathy. Our bodies – men and women -- would be at least as respected as private property is currently. Families would come together by choice and embody the democracy we want to see in the larger world. If we don’t learn democratic habits when we’re young it’s harder to acquire them when we’re older. And we would understand that violence is never an acceptable way to solve conflict. It just begets more violence. The ends don’t justify the means. The means become or shape the ends. [There would be] more sense of connection, of being part of nature. Neither conquering nor saving it, but being part of it.

If we want a future in which there is humor and dancing and poetry and sex and empathy …, we have to do our best to have humor and dancing and poetry and sex and empathy along the way.

Gloria Steinem: Biographical Summary

Born March 25, 1934, Toledo, Ohio

Graduated Smith College, Phi Beta Kappa, 1956

Published The Thousand Indias, 1957

Published 124 articles in national magazines, 1957 – 1972

Published The Beach Book, 1963

Cofounded National Women’s Political Caucus and the Women’s Action Alliance, 1971

Jointly founded Ms. Magazine and served as editor and writer, 1972-1987; Ms. was sold in 1987, but repurchased in 1998 by Liberty Media, partly owned by Steinem. The Feminist Majority Foundation now publishes the magazine quarterly.

Cofounded Coalition of Labor Union Women, 1974

Participated in the first National Conference of Women, 1977

Published Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, 1983

Published Marilyn: Norma Jean, 1986

Diagnosed with breast cancer, 1986

Founded Choice USA, 1991

Published Revolution From Within, 1992

Published Moving Beyond Words, 1993

Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, 1993

Diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, 1994

The Education of A Woman: The Life and Times of Gloria Steinem by Carolyn Heilbrun, published 1995

Married activist David Bale, 2000; Bale died from brain lymphoma in 2003

Jointly founded Women’s Media Center, 2004

Appeared in the documentary, “I Had An Abortion,” 2005

Cofounded GreenStone Media, 2005; GreenStone discontinued broadcasting 2007

Continues to be published and featured in national and international media and continues national and international activism

Pull of the Moon

2011-07-25T08:59:45-04:00

Message to a friend who just showed up in my dream ... life is supposed to feel good, feel blissful in fact, if we actually allow such things. Love, too, but that goes without adding. Even change or growth or those expansions we invite or that life imposes sometimes unawares: shouldn't be a pit weighing heavy in our gut, but butterflies alight with anticipation or excitement, even if laced with a little healthy scarededness. Any decision quietly fueled by guilt, or god forbid shame, (or a twinge of that characteristic Stubborness that gets us in trouble every time) really should be reconsidered. Or maybe redone, even if such a radical wave makes the tides themselves shift direction. Cause when parts of ourselves fly through the pull of the moon seeking advice from others who slumber, somthin's up. Or at least it seemed to be as I softely brushed the first sleep from my eyes, back in the room where last night I lay my head.

Aaron O'Connell

2011-06-02T13:05:26-04:00

This is the coolest 7 minutes & 51 second worth of info. [And here's the TED link for those of you who don't receive the embedded video.]

Salmon Khan - Flipping the Paradigm

2011-05-20T13:03:41-04:00

Besides the obvious personal implications for Alden and his fellow middle schoolers, my mind is popping with all sorts of other contexts ... for my therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist colleagues: similar self-paced, interactive video, private & blissfully personal learning for those elements of recovery, wellness, illness management, psycho-ed, family supports, healthy relationships. And then saving precious face-to-face time for deeper applications -- wrangling troublespots, making it real with loved ones & groups, finding tailored sweetspots unique for a person or relationship.

Certainly has relevance for all my trainings. We're so locked into an expert training or facilitating a group of participants through content and exercises, whether live or tech-fancy remote. And sure we have eLearning, but imagine tossing those boundaries. Offering spaces of time, with instructions like "go watch these videos and then these times we'll play together with the concepts."

People want engagement, conversation, discussion, "relationshiping" over getting expert content poured into their heads, now more than ever. TED itself has proven the utter bliss that can be offered in 20-minutes (honestly, the limits to my attention span anyway). The Kahn Academy just propels it to so many cool new horizons.

Leaning the Present Moment One-Step

2011-03-30T18:52:02-04:00

Living fully in the present moment is far more disorienting than advertised. Don’t get me wrong – I feel great. But I have lost my familiar landmarks. When unconstrained by time and space, my boundaries bleed seamlessly into some universal pool so I can't quite feel any ground beneath my feet. If I'm One with the dang cosmos, then where do I reside on the map? And if I can't punch in my point of origin, then it totally messes with the whole concept of "direction," let alone the familiar process of setting a course. Seems all backwards now: I used to be tethered to an evolutionary past, using previous experience to guide my next journey. And I got pretty good at self-reflection, goal-setting, planning then doing. But now I’m all glorious imagination, dancing from this moment to any of a zillion new desires. And I can’t find my starting point. Hell, I can’t even find the atlas.

I'm pretty sure it’s all gone … the map, the linear plane, the sequence of logical events … I suspect those things have always been an illusion. But, sheesh, this totally messes with skills I’ve honed for eons, not to mention mucking with the brain chemical that helps me find my hotel in a strange city ...

I am exhilarated, to be sure. But this is a huge change, and the new learning curve is making me kind of dizzy.

The Stuff We Should Talk About

2011-03-27T17:13:12-04:00

A writer recently interviewed my niece, Lindsey, for a magazine feature about an inspiring young woman who transformed after a harrowing experience. (Quick recap for the uninitiated, October 2009 Lindsey – barely 20 -- and her boyfriend were robbed, and he was shot and killed as they left their house to go out to eat. I blogged periodic updates.)

The interview was painfully magnificent; Lindsey offered details I’d never heard, and, as always, her wisdom astounded me. But afterwards she and I talked about her one glaring omission. When asked what helped her recover she readily described support from friends and family, wonderful sessions with a therapist, stability with school and work … she even described her own fortitude.

But she didn’t mention several valuable sessions with spiritual intuitives and ongoing help from a man we can only inadequately describe as an energy healer. Laughing she said, “I didn’t know how to bring that up. How do you describe those things without sounding crazy?”

Yet those things probably helped her the most, even if they seemed too weird to talk about in public. In fact, I’m finding this increasingly true for so many I know, myself included. Incessantly worried? Perpetually sick? Cycling through the same relationship woes, the same circumstance over and over again? I’ve seen decades of intractable, repetitive bad choices, ill health or patterns of catastrophe shift almost immediately after a session with someone skilled at shifting those energies we don’t believe exist. While I’ve never witnessed spontaneous cures from cancer or clinical depression (although I no longer doubt they happen), I have seen crippling illnesses – mono, severe allergies, chronic fatigue, dangerous blood pressure, paralyzing anxiety, and life-stopping grief – disappear so subtly and so completely, it’s as if they never appeared in the first place.

Lindsey has come to believe that this wacky chiropractor – this “crazy” man who taps her head, waves his hands, and talks a language that is about as comprehensible to her as ancient Greek -- is the health care provider she counts on the most. She doesn’t know what he does, but she knows that he has been the catalyst behind her healing and her resulting transformation. It’s like he cleared away all the debris blocking her path so that she can get on with her true life.

I sure don’t blame her for not mentioning this in a magazine interview, given how people tear at things outside the mainstream. But I wish she could. (And she did say yup to this blog.)

John Lee's Art Show

2011-03-02T11:51:02-05:00

John's Art Show Friday Night: In a turn of unexpected, divinely-inspired (and less than a week) events, Renee Furman, brand new owner of Boone's Gladiola Girls (as in today is her 2nd day), is proud to be hosting the first show in umpteen years of brand new, original artwork by John Lee.

For real. And it's beautiful, even if I am wildly biased.

This Friday, Gladiola Girls, as part of Downtown Boone's Art Walk, 5:00 - 8:00. Renee's hosting the party so you KNOW it will be fabulous.

Woo Hoo!!!!

Use Your Inside Voice

2011-03-01T11:40:00-05:00

I'm a parent, not a teacher, but recently joined the debate about conflicting merits of external rewards and intrinsic motivation. (As always, complaining about stifling systems, not the fabulous teachers constrained by them.) My daughter, Maddy, attended a Montessori school ages 4-14, one that not only purely emphasized the intrinsic coin but also embraced a structure that allowed -- demanded, in fact -- all the time a teacher needed to create democratic, participatory, tailored, intrinsic learning. (With one exception: their middle school teacher said the kids could collectively cut his hair -- their choice among several reward options -- upon successfully pulling off a presentation night for parents; Maddy's philosophy professor dad cried as he listened to his 13-year-old eloquently perform and explain Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Their teacher's hair was a mess for months afterward.)

Admittedly it was a tiny school in a tiny town with full autonomy, and the shoe-string budget such freedom usually implies. But more than half her classmates had one LD label or another. (Several kids were recent transfers after disastrous experiences in other schools.) And the kids flourished.

Despite having never taken a test (standardized or otherwise) or received a report card until 9th grade, and despite her own reading comprehension LD, my daughter subsequently soared in her traditional high school and her current freshman college year, her teachers routinely calling her the dream student -- self-motivated, assertive, self-aware, and full of critical thinking (including when she told both her sophomore English teacher and me that her B-level work was really all she felt interested in doing).

So it was a gut-wrenching shock when my stepson, Alden, entered my life and I became involved in his traditional school experience, full of stickers, silent lunch and select-member pizza parties (not to mention grades, report cards and end-of-year testing). Alden's just as happy, secure and self-poised as Maddy. He's technically smarter, too -- he can grasp new information, concepts and intricacies with lightening speed. And he's far easier to engage - takes about 2 minutes for him eagerly to jump into something new & interesting. AS LONG AS someone else initiates or requires it.

Compared to Maddy & her Montessori alum, he just doesn't know how to find & follow his own curiosities or work tough things out for himself. He doesn't understand the learning process: getting curious, investigating a little, feeling dumb for awhile, things beginning to click, then mastery. At 12 he still resists unless required, he looks for external rewards, he demands exact instructions not so much to guarantee perfection but to make it as easy as possible, and he still considers our computer or video game limits as punishment.

Don't get me wrong -- my daughter said, "I'm bored" more often than my stepson, and I bribed her big on three occasions with stellar results (when she wanted to quit swimming lessons, age 5, and dance, age 14, and once on vacation when she & her best friend had melted down into fueding puddles.)

But when I mentioned to Alden that at his age Maddy & her friends organized & held a wildly successful poetry slam fundraiser -- for passion, not a school assignment -- he was utterly bewildered. "Why did she do that if she didn't have to?" was his reply.

Join My Virtual Book Club (It's Free)

2011-03-01T10:07:55-05:00

I'm hosting a free virtual book club, sponsored by the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare to highlight the keynote speakers at the Council's annual conference in May. We'll be reading President Bill Clinton's Giving, leadership fables by Patrick Lencione and works that blend memoir and advocacy in mental health and addictions.

No charge, no membership required, heck you don't even have to be familiar with behavioral health. Just sign-up and then join any or all the book club gatherings.

I'm really excited. The idea's been brewing awhile and though I'm not sure how we're gonna handle a lively discussion among 1000 or more folks (so please be patient & sympathetic!), I think it'll be really fun.