"God’s law is nowhere written, unless it be in the hearts of men, the memory of trees, or the paths of streams by which we recognize it." –Gregory R. Maier 17 December 2008

War: The Real Twilight Zone

Love your country because it is eminently worthy of your affection. Respect it because it deserves your respect. Be loyal to it because it cannot survive without your loyalty. But do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history... Read More—even if history points this up by its repetition. That men die for causes does not necessarily sanctify that cause...that men are maimed and torn to pieces every fifteen and twenty years does not immortalize or deify the act of war. Are you tough enough...to try to build a world in which young men can live out their lives in fruitful pursuit of a decent, enriching consummation of both his talents and his hopes? ...If survival calls for the bearing of arms—bear them, you must. As we all have. Keep in mind only this—that province of combat is not the end—it is simply the means. And the most essential part of the challenge is for you to find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow-man.

–Rod Serling (1924-1975), decorated WWII veteran, 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division

The Hugh Beaumont Experience

The Hague on Line Two, Mr. Cheney...

No Yahoos!

"George W. Bush, thank you for sharing your midlife crisis with us."
--G.R. Maier 6 October 2008

9/11, the US and the World Seven Years Along

Seven years ago the United States was the victim of a premeditated attack that killed more than 3,000 people. In the days following, as expressions of support and sympathy and offers to help poured in from around the world, our government faced a choice of how to respond.

In the grief and panic that gripped the nation after September 11, 2001, the US faced a choice: Seek immediate vengeance or build the foundations of strong and lasting peace. The US chose retribution and preemptive violence. Today we see the results of that choice: More violent groups are planning attacks on the United States than before the attacks, support for the United States has fallen throughout the world, and here at home government policies are undermining fundamental constitutional principles in the name of national security. It is time to take a new approach to global security and to stop living in constant fear.

Terrorism seeks to suffocate hope, tear apart communities and break spirits. It is heinous and insidious. Can we afford to continue giving in, ceding civil liberties at home and condoning torture and barbarous violence abroad?

Questioning the Faith

The United States is the only Western country that goes to extreme lengths to protect and insulate corruption by its politicians and business executives, to preserve and defend a governing culture in government and industry that is fundamentally diseased and unwilling to change. The military bureaucracy and various intelligence services are insatiable beneficiaries of this racketeering, bullies and tramps in tow who shred and wipe with the Constitution, almost completely unconcerned with the rights enshrined therein. Generally speaking, all the aforementioned apparently lack respect for proper authority, ethical conduct and fail time and again to serve those for whose benefit they ostensibly exist.

The governmental framework given by the Founders has been so twisted and compromised that I now question whether that framework is the ideal blueprint for any democracy, at least as it currently exists in the United States, where the purpose and nature of our government has become self-service and self-preservation, the People a secondary concern, an annoyance.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people has been ceded to the grasping, greedy few, the arrogance, hubris and vice of an unholy military-industrial complex in bed and making plans with criminally incompetent, institutionally-coddled, country-wrecking CEOs and moneyed interests whose depravity, ignorance and myopia may yet assure America’s final decline rather than its place of preeminence in the world as a beacon of peace, progress and hope.

At times, like this morning, I've got such terrible anger consuming me. It stems from feeling utterly powerless, helpless, at the mercy of "everything else."

I so dislike feeling so hopeless, in despair...e.g. several recent polls show almost half to two-thirds of Americans think Gov. Sarah Palin is the bee's knees. Adios Obama? Can it really be that Americans will vote for the senile grandfather and his whiz-bang a-go-go VP pick, not for substance, intellect, vision, a shot at real change? For whatever reasons, many Americans seem better able to relate to this religion-consumed, gun-toting political provincial with a rigid worldview and closed mind. It could be because they don't like change and they resonate with the destructive mythology of rugged individualism.

The truth is that change has always come and will continue to come from the Coasts, where the intellectuals, academics and visionaries are, where there is always more cultural diversity. But Lord, why does it take so damn much time, so long to get to the rest of Wonder Bread America, if and when they can look up from under the hoods of their pick-up trucks?

Hell, 40 years ago one had to drive miles and miles and miles to find anything like a recycling center or even just a county dump. Today, we have curbside recycling. Change comes, but why is it often so damn slow?

I think I've identified part of the reason(s) Middle America just never sat well with me, and I've lived "out there." To a large extent my fellow Americans in between the coasts have struck me as being slow on the uptake, rather set in their ways and routines. For all the praise of the common sense of "average Americans", many may possess it to an extent but only to an extent, e.g. they may know when they feel like they smell a con, but they do not seem to grasp who's doing the conning. Many like to believe it's "those liberal elites" trying to dictate to them, con them, and they will vote against them (as in 2000 and 2004, for example) just like their Lucifer, Karl Rove, has so brilliantly planned. In short, they know when they smell a rat but most cannot seem to identify one.

Do we require an explanatory epic to bring things into focus for these people? Perhaps something like Vergil's Aeneid?

The Georgeid


BOOK I

I sing of malfeasance and of a man: His presidency
had made him a fugitive; he was the first of many
to journey from the coasts of Texas as far as
South America and the Paraguayan shores.
Across the lands and waters he was battered
beneath the violence of High Ones, for
the savage Columbia’s unforgetting anger;
and many sufferings were his because of war and other high crimes
and misdemeanors—
until he brought a city into being
and carried his ill-gotten goods to Paraguay;
from this have come the Master Race, the lords
of Asuncion, and the ramparts of high Margaritaville.

Tell me the reason, Muse: What was the wound
to her dignity, so hurting her
that she, jewel of the Americas, compelled a man
remarkable for licentiousness to endure
so many crises, meet so many trials?
Can such resentment hold the minds of Americans?

Personal Ethics Statement

Is vita est qua ego creo meus somnia –so I’ll dream big.

I will do no harm; where I find I have caused injury I shall ask for forgiveness, seek that which was lost, bring again that which was driven away, bind up that which was broken and strengthen what has been made sick.

Compassion and generosity toward and concern for the welfare of my fellow human beings and the planet we share shall form one side of the foundations on which I build and from which I act.

I will seek to give succor and comfort where it is needed, to all children of the earth.

I will choose courage over conformity, responsibility over immunity, and in all my undertakings act with the intention of bringing about peace whenever and wherever possible. Where I cannot achieve or foster accord, I will apply, to the fullest extent of my abilities, every gift, learning and skill at my command in an effort to understand and, if possible, accommodate.

Each day I draw breath I will give thanks for and care for my life, my wife, my children, my family, my friends, my health, for the wonder and privilege of living another day to enjoy the ones I love and serve my fellow travelers.

I will seek no sordid gain, nor knowingly serve those who do, choosing instead to make my life and conduct an example of virtue, humanity and honesty, true always to myself and thereby to all others.

I will be mindful and considerate, deliberative and, in so far as is possible, fair and just. Where I find I cannot satisfactorily do this I will recuse myself from the judgment of my fellow human beings(s).

Where there are no voices for rightness and morality I will be a voice. Where there is injustice or unfairness I will, if appropriate, intervene. I will be the change I seek.

I will make excellence a habit every day in all of my endeavors, though I may not succeed in each: It is the practice of excellence that forms the habit; my practice and pursuit of excellence will not be unnecessarily or selfishly compromised by undue external pressures.

I will laugh at myself, not take myself too seriously too often, and will make a point of poking fun at things like writing personal statements of ethics in rather stilted language, realizing I could’ve said in a few lines what I have written in many:

Don’t be a jerk; don’t willingly hurt others for my own gain; be honest; be fair; care for my family, friends, humanity and the planet; be a good friend and confidante; obey the law, and if I don’t like it, try to change it; help those in need; maintain my dignity and character and respect and encourage the same in others; use my best judgment; realize I’m not always going to be right, and don’t get into trouble if I know I can avoid it.

Really, this personal statement can’t create too much trouble for me employment-wise because I would not seek employment with any organization or entity I sensed would be in conflict with my ethics, morality and/or values. In my current occupation there is no conflict, though a future employer could find me, like a bamboo fly rod, rigidly flexible, when in fact I am willing to do much more :)

Too much self-esteem spoils your child

Too much self-esteem spoils your child

Andrew Lam, New America Media

Sunday, July 15, 2007

In the age of Myspace and YouTube and Google Earth, the space between East and West seems to shrink. But in the area of self- perception, especially, there remains a cultural gap that can often be as wide as the ocean.

Take Jeong-Hyun Lim, 24-year-old business student in Seoul. Popularly known as Funtwo on YouTube, his rock rendition of Pachelbel's "Canon inD" has turned him into a global phenomenon. Lim's dizzying sweep-picking -- sounding and muting notes at breakneck speed -- has had some viewers calling him a second Jimi Hendrix. His video, uploaded by someone on YouTube has been viewed 24 million times so far.

But Funtwo is self-effacing, a baseball cap covering much of his face. No one knew who he was until Virginia Heffernan wrote about him in the New York Times last August. She called his "anti-showmanship" "distinctly Asian," adding that "sometimes an element of flat-out abjection even enters into this act, as though the chief reason to play guitar is to be excoriated by others."

Some in the West with this kind of media spotlight and Internet following would hire an agent and make a CD. But Lim told Heffernan, "I am always thinking that I'm not that good a player and must improve more than now." In another interview, he rated his playing around 50 or 60 out of 100.

Lim's modesty is reassuringly Asian, echoing the famous Chinese saying: "Who is not satisfied with himself will grow." In a classic 1992 study, psychologists Harold Stevenson and James Stigler compared academic skills of elementary school students in Taiwan, China, Japan and the United States. It showed a yawning gap in self-perception between East and West. Asian students outperformed their American counterparts, but when they were asked to evaluate their performances, American students evaluated themselves significantly higher than those from Asia. "In other words, they combined a lousy performance with a high sense of self-esteem," noted Nina H. Shokraii, author of "School Choice 2000: What's Happening in the States," in an essay called "The Self Esteem Fraud."

Since the '80s, self-esteem has become a movement widely practiced in public schools, based on the belief that academic achievements come with higher self-confidence. Shokraii disputes that self-esteem is necessary for academic success. "For all of its current popularity, however, self-esteem theory threatens to deny children the tools they will need in order to experience true success in school and as adults," writes Shokraii.

A quarter of a century later, a comprehensive new study released last February from San Diego State University maintains that too much self- regard has resulted in college campuses full of narcissists. In 2006, researchers said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory evaluation, 30 percent more than when the test was first administered in 1982.

Researchers like San Diego State University Professor Jean Twenge worried that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty and over-controlling and violent behaviors." The author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before," Twenge blamed the self-esteem movement for the rise of the "Myspace" generation.

Has the emphasis for self-confidence gone too far in America? Twenge seemed to think so. She points to the French tune "Frère Jacques' in preschool, for example. French children may still sing it as "Brother Jack! You're sleeping! Ring the bells!" But in America the once innocuous song has been converted to: "I am special! I am special! Look at me!" No surprise that the little train that could is exhausted: It's been laden with super-sized American egos.

That Asian Americans dominate higher education in the last few decades in America is also worth noting. Less than 5 percent of the country's population, Asian Americans typically make up 10 to 30 percent of the student body in the best colleges. In California, Asians form the majority of the University of California system. And at UC Berkeley, Asian freshmen have reached the 46 percent mark this year. Also worth noting is that of the Asian population in the United States, 2 out of 3 are immigrants, born in a continent where self-esteem is largely earned through achievements, and self-congratulatory behaviors discouraged, and more important, humility is still something of a virtue.

In the East, the self is best defined in its relation to others -- person among persons -- and most valued and best expressed only through familial and communal and moral deference. That is far from the self-love concept of the West -- where one is encouraged to look out for oneself, and truth seems to always originate in a minority of one.

In much of modernizing Asia, of course, individualism is making inroads. The Confucian culture that once emphasized harmony and unity at the expense of individual liberty is now in retreat.

But if there's a place in Asia that still vigilantly keeps the ego in check, if not suppressed, it's the classroom. In Asia, corporal punishment is still largely practiced. Self-esteem is barely a concept, let alone encouraged. Though not known to foster creativity, an Asian education with its emphasis of hard work and cooperation, critics argue, still largely provides the antidote to the culture of permissiveness and disrespect of authority of the West.

In the West, the word kung fu is known largely as martial arts. It has a larger meaning in the East: spiritual discipline and the cultivation of the self. A well-kept bonsai is good kung fu, so is a learned mind expressed, and so, for that matter, is the willingness to perfect one's guitar playing, sudden fame aside. East and West may be commingling and merging in the age of globalization, but beware -- that ubiquitous baseball cap that Funtwo is wearing on YouTube can mislead -- it houses very different mentalities in Asia -- for when it comes to the perception of self, East and West remain far apart.

Andrew Lam is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora"(Heyday Books, 2005).