Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas
1952

The Magic of Dialogue

The Magic of Dialogue

The act of collaboration must start with dialogue. You cannot build relationships without having an understanding of your potential partners, and you cannot achieve that understanding without a special form of communication that goes beyond ordinary conversation....But what is dialogue, and what can it do for us that other ways of talking cannot?... Doing dialogue takes special skills that most Americans do not yet possess.

Webster defines the purpose of dialogue as "seeking mutual understanding and harmony." I put less emphasis on harmony than the dictionary does, because the outcome of dialogue is not always harmony. In fact, as a consequence of dialogue you may come to understand why you disagree so vehemently with someone else; there will be better understanding but not necessarily more harmony.

All practitioners of dialogue emphasize that debate is the opposite of dialogue. The purpose of debate is to win an argument, to vanquish an opponent. Dialogue has very different purposes--it's about exploring common ground. Dialogue is also different from discussion. Like discussion, dialogue can take place among a larger group than two people. There are distinctive features of dialogue that differentiate it from discussion or other forms of talk.

1. Equality and the absence of coercive influences. Mixing people of unequal status and authority does not necessarily preclude dialogue, but it makes it more difficult to achieve. Dialogue becomes possible only after mutual trust has been built and the higher-ranking people have, for the occasion, removed their badges of authority and are participating as true equals.

2. Listening with empathy. The gift of empathy--the ability to think someone else's thoughts and feel someone else's feelings--is indispensable to dialogue. This is why discussion is more common than dialogue: people find it easy to express their opinions and to bat ideas back and forth with others, but most of the time they don't have either the motivation or the patience to respond empathically to opinions with which they may disagree or that they find uncongenial.

3. Bringing assumptions into the open. Unexamined assumptions are a classic route to misunderstandings and errors of judgment. Dialogue requires that participants be uninhibited in bringing their own and other participants' assumptions into the open, where, within the safe confines of the dialogue, others can respond to them without challenging them or reacting to them judgmentally.

4. Err on the side of including people who disagree. Many meetings take the form of preaching to the converted. This is because it is much easier to spend time congratulating people who agree with you on the wisdom of their views than to seek mutual understanding with people holding different views.

5. Initiate dialogue through a gesture of empathy. A gesture of empathy is probably the closest thing to an "open sesame" for dialogue. Gestures of empathy often come as a surprise. In our transactions with one another, we are so used to wearing defensive armor that expressions of empathy are unexpected--and disarming. (A gesture of empathy usually involves acknowledging the validity of the other person's point of view.)

What to focus on during a dialogue:

Play the clip, it says it all

Holy Shit !

From USA Today, Jonathan Turley writes:

Just Say No To Blasphemy

Perhaps in an effort to rehabilitate the United States’ image in the Muslim world, the Obama administration has joined a U.N. effort to restrict religious speech. This country should never sacrifice freedom of expression on the altar of religion.

By Jonathan Turley
 
Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.

While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any "negative racial and religious stereotyping." The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians. Though the resolution was passed unanimously, European and developing countries made it clear that they remain at odds on the issue of protecting religions from criticism. It is viewed as a transparent bid to appeal to the "Muslim street" and our Arab allies, with the administration seeking greater coexistence through the curtailment of objectionable speech. Though it has no direct enforcement (and is weaker than earlier versions), it is still viewed as a victory for those who sought to juxtapose and balance the rights of speech and religion.

A 'misused' freedom? In the resolution, the administration aligned itself with Egypt, which has long been criticized for prosecuting artists, activists and journalists for insulting Islam. For example, Egypt recently banned a journal that published respected poet Helmi Salem merely because one of his poems compared God to a villager who feeds ducks and milks cows. The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Hisham Badr, wasted no time in heralding the new consensus with the U.S. that "freedom of expression has been sometimes misused" and showing that the "true nature of this right" must yield government limitations. 

The Morning Read

This from Garrison Keillor;

 Conservatives and liberals can agree on the basics -- that the nation wallows in debt, that it is shortsighted of the states to cut back on the most essential work of government which is the education of the young, and that somehow we have got to become a more productive nation and less consumptive -- but the ruffles and flourishes of Washington seem ever more irrelevant to the crises we face. When an entire major party has excused itself from meaningful debate and a thoughtful U.S. senator like Orrin Hatch no longer finds it important to make sense and an up-and-comer like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty attacks the president for giving a speech telling schoolchildren to work hard in school and get good grades, one starts to wonder if the country wouldn't be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the GOP, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order. Read entire article HERE

Sometimes the title says it all.

David Neiwert at Crooks & Liars;
Glennbeckians protest outside school full of kindergartners because they didn't like Obama song

Jim Hightower;
Goofing up health care reform

Robert Reich;
The Audacity of Greed: How Private Health Insurers Just Blew Their Cover

Elyse Siegel at HuffPo

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/jindal-fires-state-employ_n_315631.html at HuffPoat HuffPo

Jindal Fires State Employee Day After She Criticized Him

Real ID? Real Stupid

OK. You've got ID, "Real I.D.", the kind that let's you do stuff. Fly, among other things. Right? Well, maybe. Does it say, for instance, that you're Joe Smith? Got reservations for Joseph Smith? Opps, not a match, won't work. Oh, you do have ID that says you're Joseph Smith. No middle name or initial? Good. The ID says you're Joseph J. Smith? Bad, not a match. Bummer

James Fallows over at the Atlantic has a great column describing I.D. stupidity and the T.S.A at it's best. TSA: bringing us ever closer to China!

Groucho Marx was a republican. Honest

I don't know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway,
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it.

Your proposition may be good,
But let's have one thing understood, Whatever it is,
I'm against it.

And even when you've changed it or condensed it,
I'm against it.

I'm opposed to it,
On general principle, I'm opposed to it.

For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn,
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
And I've kept yelling since I first commenced it,
I'm against it!


Thanks to the Washington Monthly

Support your insurance Co.

I keep hearing it. The Public Mandate. Let's make everyone buy insurance. We'll give them some kind of break to buy it. And we'll punish anyone who doesn't. It's no different from car insurance. Everyone has to buy it. Wrong!

First, while 49 states require car insurance, Tennesee doesn't. One entire state removed from the everyone catagory.

Second, there are people that choose not to drive. Like 1/3 of New York City (Pop. 8,363,710. Number of drivers; 3,286,899).

The people without a drivers license in those states that require insurance for one.

The people without a car.

The people that can't be licensed for one reason or another. D.U.I. convictions, the blind.

Everyone has car insurance? Everyone?

Happy 50 Th. Twilight Zone

October 2, 1959 "You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!"