First of all, stop arguing over  science. I love science, but science is not foolproof.  We do NOT know it all- not by a long shot.  Sometimes when we learn new things, it puts things we knew before in a different light.  For example, we discovered that high levels of cholesterol in our bodies caused plaque buildup in our arteries, leading to heart attacks.  We also discovered that eggs were high in cholesterol.  For a while, eggs were bad guys.  We were advised to severely limit their consumption to like 1 egg a week.  Rash conclusion? I figured it was a good idea to not O.D. on eggs, but at the same time, if this conclusion were 100% correct, the average lifespan of a Chilean would probably be something like 32, as they consume dozens of eggs a week.  Now, further studies have revealed that there are different kinds of cholesterol, LDL and HDL and one kind needs to be elevated and another needs to be lowered. Eggs aren’t all bad cholesterol, and unless you have a huge genetic disposition to high cholesterol, you can probably eat as many eggs as you please.  See how that works?  The knowledge we first gained wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t complete, either.

Bottom line?  Don’t jump to hasty conclusions.

As it is right now, most studies are backed by one side or the other, specifically looking for something to support their stance.  Each side accuses the other of manipulating data and poor science, which most likely sometimes is true, other times not.  If everyone could just hold back their pride and judgment and try to have studies done together, on a variety of factors and look objectively at the big picture, we would have a much better idea of what is going on right here on our planet.  We would be more likely to come to a consensus on what our choices related to our environment should be.  As it is now, you’re just wasting time, money, energy and hot air.  Both of you!

Kids, NOTHING and I mean NOTHING good will come out of your constant bickering. All your “is nots”, and “is toos” are turning everyone else in the house’s stomach. There is a difference between disagreeing and making logical arguments and plain old bickering.

Remember, Neither one of you know it all.  It’s O.K. You are still worthwhile.  You are both important.  You both bring different qualities to our home that are important.  Let’s just accept that and let go of some resentments and rigid thinking patterns.  Take some deep cleansing breaths, will ya?   Connor is reticent to change.  It’s understandable.  Change is often painful.  On the upside, he can help us recognize what things are good and important to preserve.  He can help impulsive Conny to look at things more carefully before she just leaps in and changes things with no thought for what those changes might bring.  Conny, on the other hand, could gently help Connor let go when necessary of old things that are not working for us.  Conny can help us look outside ourselves and see what we might be missing or not appreciating.  She can help us build a better more compassionate world.  For the love of Mom, would you please start appreciating your differences?

Please keep these things in mind if you are going to tackle the subject of global warming:

-Climates are not stable.  Mom has been around almost half a century now and has seen changes.  Some changes may be concerning, others may be natural waxing and waning.  Be careful not to confuse the two or decide too quickly which one is which.

-There have been increasingly more extreme climate conditions more frequently over time in the past century or so.  Ignoring this fact is a little bit silly. Pretending to know exactly what it means is too. Being careful and learning as much as possible about these changes and whether our actions can make a difference would be sensible.

-It appears the world has been cycling between warm, tropical times and icy, frozen times, with much more amenable times luckily, most of the time.  This has been happening independent of what plant and animal life there was on the planet at the time.  Indeed, both extremes existed before humans did.  Obviously, there is more at play here than human influence on the environment. Logically, many of the possible factors influencing the global climate are completely out of our control.

-However, our presence on this planet has had an impact on it as well.  We do leave a foot print.  It is unrealistic to expect us and other forms of life to not leave a footprint.  We are going to create both positive and negative effects on the planet and the other life around us, just by existing.  It will not help to stop breathing, or ostracize obese people, or decide cattle have too big of a carbon foot print so we should stop raising them, or any other number of absurd assumptions or actions.

-It would make sense to learn as much as we can about our impact on our environment. It would make sense to try to be gentler on our environment and make the best possible choices to make our footprint as positive as is reasonably possible. Even if we didn’t  have global warming on the table, there is a case for being better stewards of this planet, for our own health and welfare at least. In that vein of thought, Connor maybe you could lighten up and relax and let some change happen anyways.  Probably, we could find better ways of doing things with less negative impact to the planet.

-In all the arguing about whether or not global warming exists or if it does, whether it is a natural phenomenon or a man made event, you are both ignoring something much more important.  Sooner or later, on a small or large scale, people on our planet will have to adapt to changes.  Eventually, there will most likely be some big changes that will effect us in major ways.  Odds are, even if humans are totally responsible for this, we won’t buckle down and work together to fix it until it is too late, so why don’t we all just work together on ways to adapt to major insults to our survival instead of becoming extinct and leaving this planet to the cockroaches? Because that would just be pathetic, really to leave this all to those disgusting little insects, just because we were stubborn and uncooperative.

As for new technologies, it’s a good thing to work on new technologies.  It is all right to consider new ways of doing things.  As a matter of fact, putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good idea.  Having different energy options for example, just makes sense.  At some point, you may need another option for a myriad of different reasons anyhow.  Why not just work together on what might be the best methods and make them the most available? It might turn out that all this will lead to new forms of energy that are all around just better. Be open to new technology, Connor.  It’s not going to hurt you, and it might make you some money too!  Even if it seems unlikely the human race may outlive the supply of fossil fuels, it’s a bad idea on so many levels to  expect problems to just go away like that.

Conny, it is unrealistic to expect an immediate ceasing of all uses of fossil fuels, for example.  Take a deep breath.  Even if the sky is falling, your hysteria will not turn your brother around.  You are going to have to find better ways than a tantrum to convince him.  Work on your charm.  Try to play on Connor’s motivations to get him to do what you want.  Look for baby steps like choosing the least damaging sites or uses for fossil fuel, or more cleaner technology for their use.  We don’t have a better way to do some things yet, so accept where we’re at.   Then you will both be happy.

Lastly, please stop all the hype!  I am not going to sit around trying to figure out which one of you two comes up with all these stupid, pointless “green” campaigns and products that are gimmicky and don’t improve anything.  They bear all the marketing savvy of Connor pretending to appease Conny, or it could be Conny, trying to take a page from Connor’s book at the expense of any real useful change.  Whichever of you it is, just stop it.  It is counter-productive.  For example, selling a cleaning product that is supposed to be made from natural plant material and hyping up it’s greenness, and selling it’s concentrated form in a little tiny plastic container with an empty spray bottle, so I can mix it with water is insulting to my intelligence. It’s true you’re not shipping around a bunch of water, but we aren’t seeing the savings in the retail price, and how much plastic are you going to waste on all those tiny little refill bottles?  That doesn’t sound very green to me.  Selling a gallon of concentrate and letting me use my own spray bottle sounds way more green to me.    It respects my capacity to measure and fill a container all by myself as well.  And let’s not even go into all those green “credits” schemes.  Supposedly, Conny, you are trying to lower our carbon emissions, not get us to save a million ways only to blow all that lack of emissions on some big plane trip later.  What is up with that?  Just stop it, will ya?  It makes mom really irritable.

In conclusion, if you both want to avoid these big long lectures from mom, and truly make our home a better place, why don’t you respect yourself, respect your siblings, truly work on cooperating and coming up with creative ways for you to both be comfortable together.  Then the whole earth, I assure you, will have one less thing to worry about.

Lecture over.  Questions?  I have a few.  Am I the only Mom out there?  Also, what do you think the best green changes out there are?  What are the worst?  What ideas do you have on making this a better planet?

I loved the fact that the foreword has a set of pictures from a wonderful book I highly recommend. Not just because it is mostly a picture book but because it speaks so powerfully to what we all have. It is called Material World by Peter Menzel. Each main page shows a family of typical economic stature in their respective country in front of their home with all their possessions.  It gives a lot to think about.  Personally, I sometimes wonder who is wealthier: those with all the stuff or the unencumbered ones with less to distract them from real life.

The first chapter deals with how much people shop as a hobby, or shop for therapy, how much time we consume shopping, roughly 6 times more time than we spend with our kids, on average.  It mentions how much we spend on Christmas, for example and black Friday, and how people are often still paying for Christmas well into the next year, even as we say we wish Christmas were less commercial.  It points to details about the phenomenon of the Mall and how mindless shopping fever can be.  It has a section on mail order catalogs and home shopping networks, as well as how much cyber shopping there is today.    Granted, a certain amount of shopping is healthy and even necessary.  It’s nice we have several options available for a healthy amount of shopping.  There is nothing wrong with having these things, it’s the lack of balance that is alarming.  My own opinion is  our economy should not have to depend so heavily on people buying stuff, no matter what stuff it is.  I personally agree that in our country, it is way out of control.  Even those of us who don’t like to shop or don’t put a lot of stock in material things find ourselves wasting a lot of money and energy on a lot of worthless stuff.  This chapter points out how skewed our values are if we look at what we spend our money on.  Again, the stats I can’t promise are true, but it states that 70 % of us visit a mall once a week, more than visit places of worship. (In my case, I visit  malls an average of 3 times a year and church most every Sunday, but we are talking national averages.)   The facts may be more or less than that, but the trend is definitely visible when we compare how much is spent on accessories as compared to education for example.

My favorite part of this chapter is a comment on page 13 that says, ” The urge to splurge continues to surge.  It’s as if we Americans, despite our intentions, suffer from some kind of Willpower Deficiency Syndrome, a breakdown in affluenza immunity.”    I loved the Willpower Deficiency Syndrome idea.  I wish this idea had been explored a bit more.  It is something I have noticed that has bothered me and I have decided it is due to the fact that we have so many resources and so many choices available to us, with easy access to so much, that we become gluttons-not just gluttons in the food sense, but with everything.  Now, I’m not promoting abject poverty, but I’m trying to point out that the more resources one has, the more money one has, the more available and affordable things are, the more necessary it is for one to develop an awareness of the concept that you can choose to get too much.  It also means that the more you have, the more willpower you are going to have to exert to have a balanced life.  I feel you have to have the awareness first that often less is more and that there is such a thing as too much.  Without that awareness you will have no motivation to work on your willpower.  Once we have the will, we need to look at where the pitfalls are and what obstacles we face in exerting enough willpower to have more stability.  What do you think ?  What are the biggest challenges to our willpower, and how do we face them?  Even more importantly, how do we teach them to our children?  If you don’t answer me, I will have to keep giving my own opinion .

I’m going to share one story in the book that I liked because it showed the same person not having moral courage and then later displaying it.  I like it for the humanness and complexity it showed.  It was about Egil Krough, who was a codirector of the White House Special Investigations Unit in 1971, i.e. Watergate time.  He explains that even though he had been raised in a home of faith and was a student of the Bible, and considered by all to be a straight arrow, he found himself embroiled in this scandal.  Somewhere along the line his views got skewed and he was totally sucked into the concept of the president as the authority, and as leader of the government, he saw the president’s best interests and designs as the best interest of the whole nation’s security.  His mistake was getting sucked into that and putting moral principles and the law and constitution in second place to loyalty to the president.  It seems incredible at the outset, but how many people have been driven to do bad things under the guise of following authority, or of their views being skewed by seeing one loyalty as equating another, higher authority?  I think that is what happens a lot with terrorism, or fanaticism in tight organizations be they religious or political or whatever.

So, here’s this previously upstanding guy off track and mixed up in the Watergate scandal.  In 1972, under oath he lied when asked about his involvement in order to protect the confidentiality of the investigation unit.  Nearly a year later, he was working with his lawyer to plan his defense in the trials.  He had a wife and two young children to support.  He had a great career as a lawyer and statesman hanging in the balance,  but his conscience was now eating him up inside.  He also was seeing his possible defense as hopeless.  He hit rock bottom.  He says on Thanksgiving afternoon of 1973, he was praying.  He had been praying with an open heart for guidance for a few months by then.  He just didn’t know what to do.   He was uncomfortable with the “national security” defense.  He got an answer that day and decided to plead guilty to the charges.  He said he felt extraordinary peace, clarity and certainty after  an answer came to him.  In his own words he says,   “the answer came as a steady stream of ideas which flooded my consciousness and fell into place like the tumblers of a precision lock.-

“Just look at this,” came the thought which seemed to come from a mind outside and yet still inside myself.  “Just look at the rights you and your family are enjoying right now.  These rights emanate from the founding ideas of this country that  are protecting you.  You’re under indictment in both federal and state courts.  You’re publicly identified with a profoundly serious crime.  Yet just look, just look at what you’re enjoying.  You’re able to travel where you want.  To speak to whomever you wish.  To pray freely in any church.  talk to the press.  Now, what are you standing for in the defense you’re putting forward to the charges against you?”…

“You’re standing for the right of a person in government, serving a President at the seat of highest power, to make a judgment based on his personal, subjective sense of the national security interest to strip away from another American his constitutional, Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unauthorized search.  How can you continue to enjoy all of these wonderful rights, guaranteed to you and your family by the Constitution you were sworn to uphold, while defending conduct that abolished a similar right for another?  …”You can’t do it anymore.  You must stop defending yourself.  If you defend further, if you continue to justify violating rights you’re continuing to enjoy, you’re a hypocrite.  Even worse, you’re a traitor to the fundamental American idea of the right of an individual to be free from unwarranted government intrusion in his life.” (pp 163, 164).  Amazing.  I think we need to encourage people in government to pray like that… but, the important thing is that he decided what to do that day and turned around a big series of mistakes in his life.  He realized because of politics if he stuck to his defense he might get off clean but he couldn’t salvage his career but continue on doing the wrong thing.  He went to jail for 6 months and was disbarred but he finally felt at peace.  After he was able to put his life back together again and be successful.  If only he had have employed as much thought and prayer to what was happening and what he was doing from the outset, he would have avoided a lot of grief.  Some of the things we learn from this are that people are human.  Even good people can mess up bad at times.  Not thinking and getting caught up in strict loyalty without remembering really why or where our highest loyalties lie can get us into messy situations. It can lead us to behave very unethically, even though we may have started out with good intentions.  Relying on our highest instincts or trusting in a higher power or inspiration can also help us before or even after we mess up.  I also daresay, we can all be enthusiastic members of institutions, political parties, businesses, religions, etc.  but we need to be very very extremely careful not to excuse means for an end or get sucked up in following blindly at any cost.  It is amazing to me for example how when people on both political sides start talking different issues how quickly they abandon what should be their own religious beliefs or principles as they pursue their political agenda.    People who in their neighborhood may be kind and sharing are callous and have an every man for themselves attitude and a lack of humility that they could ever possibly be one of those less fortunate people they don’t care to consider who might be adversely affected by their planned way of handling things.  Or those who should reverence life, but don’t care to reverence all forms of human life.  It’s sort of like a case of mass split personality.   Scary.

O.K. Since this may be my last post on this book at least until I bring up the subject of ethics again,  I’ll leave you with one more story.  This was a US Coast Guard captain in the mid 1990′s.  He was patrolling a strait in the North Atlantic that separates Puerto Rico ( a commonwealth of the US)  from the Dominican Republic ( a Caribbean nation).  They were based out of San Juan , PR.  Although he was not Latino, he knew and understood the language and culture of the islands and really loved it.  So one day an INS plane tells them that up ahead they  have spotted an unauthorized boat they would like them to intercept.  As they approach, he can see through his binoculars a small boat with small children and grandparents.  Up farther ahead on the beach is a group of people picnicking and holding up signs that said things like “Welcome home, Grandma”.  He knew these had to be Dominican people already established in PR and wanting badly to unite their whole families.  He could understand how they felt.  He sincerely doubted that these people would ever leave PR or cause an added burden to PR or the US.  So what do you do?  Do you break up a family, or stop unauthorized entrance?

If he only thought of the family and how big the impact would be on them versus the impact on society, he might be tempted to let them go.  If he went slow enough, they would make it to shore and he wouldn’t have to take them in.  But, on the other hand, he had a responsibility to enforce the law.  Granted, these weren’t drug runners or anything, but a law was being broken in any case.

In the end, he ordered his men to go out on an inflatable to pick up the people on the small boat.  Whatever they may have felt, the crewmen went at full speed, ordered only to draw back if it looked like those on the boat might jump, further endangering themselves.  They caught up with the boat people and brought them in.  They had a two hour ride back home.  No one spoke and not one of them had a dry eye.  The captain said ” We all knew that we’d done the right thing. And we all knew we’d done something terribly wrong.”  (p. 105) In the end the rule of law won out, but something else right was stomped all over.  It is complicated, but maybe there were several wrongs on both sides of the law leading up to this decision that pitted two rights against each other.  The point is, those imperfect situations already existed.  In the end the principle that won out in this case was the rule based principle of duty and fairness, instead of the care based principle of compassion.    The author points out another officer might have done differently and still acted ethically.  And I guess, unethically at the same time.  The thing about this example that made me think was this.  I think I would have done something similar.  If we, especially someone with a charge or duty to uphold the law and obey orders doesn’t, well, everything falls apart.  On the other hand, as just average citizen in the community, no enforcement position, I don’t think it would take much for me to break a law, as some people talk of making laws,  that would require  me to not even give a ride to someone who may not have entered the country legally.  First of all, I wouldn’t ask.  Second, it may be wrong for someone to be here, but it would be equally wrong for me to  deny them a basic courtesy or human right because of that.  Hopefully we will not have laws like that, for a lot of reasons I won’t get into now, but some of which are actually, if you think about it ethical reasons, but I think the care based principle would have to win out in my mind in these types of situations. In the end, whatever you may choose, we can see that just being a good person isn’t enough to automatically make you the most ethical person.
So, get you thinking caps on as you watch what goes on in the world  and as your life unfolds.  Think about the underlying principles that we pin ethics on.  Talk about them.  TEACH THEM TO YOUR KIDS.  Talk about good examples, bad examples, how things could be different.  Try to be an example of ethics in action because it is civilization that is hanging in the balance.  If we wait to think until the moment of truth arises, it may well pass us by and leave us regretting our lack of preparation.  All workplaces and professions could benefit from applying more ethics, not just the finance sector and political sector where we see such glaring examples of failure.  We need it in all kinds of businesses, sciences, religions, neighborhoods, schools,  and homes.  We don’t need to crucify people for being human and making mistakes but as a culture we can’t get away with  not expecting ethical behavior of each other.  It should not be a cute anecdote or all right for a huge chunk of students to cheat their way through school or pay someone to do their work, for example.  There are repercussions every time we individually or worse, collectively dismiss ethical behavior as passe, and unethical behavior as no big deal. If we discuss the why’s of ethics and the complexity of it, we can get better at understanding what is and is not ethical.  If as a people we value and expect ethical behavior, it will naturally become more the norm.   Humankind seriously needs a good strong dose of ethics if we plan to survive the future, so let’s make it the norm.

In a nutshell, the structure behind the subject is this. There were several examples of surveys and workshops done in a variety of settings and situations and all the studies showed the same thing. People, no matter if they are old or young, male or female, no matter their culture or location or language or education or religion or race or profession, whether they are convicts in a prison or law abiding citizens, when asked about their values, come up with amazingly similar answers. Five core values are identified as being the highest ranked consistently in all these settings. They are Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness and Compassion. There are others, such as freedom, which interestingly enough is valued more where it is less available, but in these words or synonymous words, everyone around the globe seems to agree these are right up there. So, living by these principles is behaving ethically. Since there is a consensus across the human race, we should have a consensus on what is ethical and teach people to be ethical. At least in theory. Apparently, everyone lives by these principles when it is easy to, but when it gets a bit inconvenient or increasingly more challenging to live by these principles, people start dropping like flies.
Next, moral courage is the commitment to moral principles such as these, combined with an awareness of a danger, or negative impact of supporting those principles and a willingness to endure that danger anyways. Dangers can vary from physical dangers to emotional or social dangers, economic dangers, like losing your job, etc.
Another useful analysis is of the qualities that those with moral courage seem to possess which are: A greater confidence in principles than in people, a high tolerance of ambiguity, exposure and personal loss, and an acceptance of deferred gratification and simple rewards, independence of thought, and formidable persistence and determination. One psychologist noted that people who are heroic in defending these principles actually have a very powerful feeling of serenity in spite of the hardships they endure. In other words, it really is rewarding, in a much richer way in the end.
Obstacles we face in having moral courage include refusing to take the blame, caving in the face of danger, indecision, secretiveness, inability to face criticism, to name a few and counterfeits to moral courage are plain old willfulness and conceit.
For many people it is easy to behave ethically when we have a clear decision between right and wrong, but what about when we have to make a decision between right and right? What if we have to choose between truth and loyalty? Between what helps an individual vs. what helps the community? Between the short term good vs. the long term good of humanity or a group? Or good old justice vs. mercy? That’s when things get trickier. there’s not necessarily one right answer either. Do we choose an end based analysis-what will do the most good for the greater number of people? Or a rule based decision-following what appears to be a set rule or universal law no matter what the outcome? Or is our decision more care based? This is basically following the golden rule- what if the roles were reversed? What would we want another to choose in our place if we were to be affected by it?

That, is the gist of the book. In the end the author discusses how ethics can be taught and then how it applies to public issues and events. I liked a lot of things said in the book, but I wish some things had been explored more. Why don’t we as a human race make choices that line up with these values more often if they are so universal? How much of the problem is education and how can we better educate each other? How much is rooted in understanding our natures and our weaknesses and learning how to deal with them better? How much is developing courage, as is brought out so much in this volume? How much is understanding the big picture or feeling enough empathy for the rest of the world to care about the choices we make? Another interesting thing that is briefly mentioned is that we often apply these 5 core principles in our most inner circles, like our family our friends, but as the circle gets ever wider, we get ever more callous and less likely to care to apply these principles. Are we really all that short sighted that we can’t see a problem in that? These are questions I would like to explore more and discuss with others. I listened as Madoff, after pleading guilty explained that he initially thought he could eventually turn the whole deal around and make everything all right, but eventually he realized it had ballooned out of control and there was no way he was ever going to get a handle on it. He knew eventually he was going to be caught and everything was going to fall apart. O.K. The initial decision to cook up an illegal scheme was bad, and unethical and just plain stupid. It showed he didn’t have a strong sense of ethics and at least was in a materialistic frame of mind at that point in his life and didn’t think through the consequences of his actions much. But once he made that realization, why did he continue to behave so badly? Why did he continue to do the same thing, with absolutely no regard for how it was going to affect others or himself? He continued to take people’s money instead of trying to return it or save it to pay back. Even after getting caught, he gave away all kinds of expensive gifts to family and friends, as if trying to pawn off all he stole on those closest to him since he was going to lose it anyways. What a bout all the people whose future income he wiped out? Why has this man absolutely no sense of empathy for those people? I’m sure he never once stopped to consider how this affected the stock market, our country’s economy, the world’s economy, and individuals all over the globe. He didn’t even care for himself, because trying to turn it around and make amends certainly would have been better for him when he had to face justice. Where did the big disconnect occur? You could blame it on his parents. Maybe they were great, loving parents who taught him good morals, maybe not. Society? His neurological makeup? Extreme selfishness and stupidness? I just don’t know. These are things I wonder about. As big as his example is, don’t we all do similar things on a much much smaller scale? I think we all underestimate the impact our decisions have on ourselves and others, even people around the world we don’t touch personally. Everything we say and do is like a ripple in a pond, ever spreading outward, so we need to be more thoughtful of our responsibility to ourselves and the world.
One of the things I most liked about this book was an example given in closing. He poses the huge violations of these five principles in recent world history such as the 9/11 attacks and that many people feel a need to do something about the problems we face, to get involved, but we doubt we can make a difference. How can one person change a world that is so full of so much evil? Mr. Kidder tells of a series of interviews he did on a project for global education. He spoke to people all over the world who had a horrible start at life, only disadvantages, suffering, etc. but they had turned out to be successful, contributing adults. As he asked them how they made it and invariably they would tell a story about one good teacher, one good neighbor or such that was a good example, took an interest in them and inspired them. And there it is, the power of one single good example time and time again made a real difference. Believe it or not. The parable that explains this is called the candle and the closet and it goes like this: If you find a closet that is shut up and hasn’t been opened for eons, with no access to light in it, so it’s pitch dark in there with the door shut and you open the door, does all that darkness gush forth and take over the adjoining room? No, it never does. The reason why is because light is not the opposite of darkness, it is the absence of darkness. If light and dark were opposites, every time we opened the door the opposing forces would act on each other and we would need to light a lot of candles to try to combat all that darkness. But it doesn’t work that way because light is the absence of darkness- once light enters, there is no darkness wherever the light touches. We all know this, but our language often treats light and darkness as opposites and often our attitudes follow. then he poses an even bigger question. What if we flip it around? What if wrong is not the opposite, but the absence of good? If we just had more good would it fill up the empty spaces of wrong? This may be simplistic, issues are complex, but if we each strive to fill more good and right into our lives and the world, this would be a better world. If we all expressed our highest sense of moral courage, lived it to the fullest we could, and passed it along to others, could we really change the world? I think so. We all should spend some time weaving these concepts into the fabric of our lives and spreading these principles.
Join me next time for discussion of some real life examples from the book. Also, give me your thoughts on the subject here!

This is my first post to this end. I suppose everyone has been watching what’s been going on the last year or so with the economy and reacting in various ways to the housing crisis, the bailouts, the car industry caving, the stock market plummeting, Madoff making off with billions of dollars, politicians passing laws that made for unsound financial policies, financial institutions going crazy and making a run for the money with every absurd risk imaginable, people all over society buying into these crazy schemes without considering the risks or even the responsibilities.

The house of cards is being blown away. All of these things really have been building up for decades. I know 17 years ago when I went to buy a house, you could get a loan for something you couldn’t afford. The level of consumerism and materialism in this country has seemed frenetic and out of control for a very long time to me. One day about 5 years ago I went looking for some sippy cups for my kids. I went to a baby outlet, and there was a whole wall of choices. There were like 12 different sippy cup options and just as many pacifier options and lets not mention the bottles, I think some of them could fly. I just looked at that wall and I was flabbergasted. Who in the heck buys all these things? Do we really need this much stuff? How much of this just ends up in landfills? How much of our hard earned money do we waste on this stuff we don’t even need or get any satisfaction from? And I didn’t even find a sippy cup that would stack and have a truly tamper proof, leak proof lid like I wanted. I just walked away.

Do you know what is one of the things that I find most disturbing of all? All the talk about what a problem it is that consumers are not spending and that more people are saving. If that is a problem for out economy, then we already had a big problem to begin with! It is healthy to save and to not spend like you are on an episode of Supermarket Sweep. So, I think NOW would be an excellent time, as we look at building up our economy that we think of building a more balanced economy based on something more than making mindless stuff and buying it all. Why is it that we have a society that doesn’t pay anywhere near what it’s worth to teachers, policemen, social workers, researchers, and things that could improve the world. Why do we spend billions more on spectator sports and movies? Everyone from the child just beginning to think, to the people on Capitol Hill need to spend some time pondering things like this. As for products and services, and technology, lets think of what the world really needs and can use the most, and lets start building up those things. Let’s come up with better products, not more products.

Another thing I wondered all through the housing boom was similar. Aren’t we eventually going to have too many houses? I mean, like there are only so many people to live in them, so any dumb housewife could have told you the bubble was going to burst on that one. Especially when loans were getting crazier and crazier and riskier and riskier, going to people who had less and less a capacity to keep up with the mortgage. As I’ve thought about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that any intelligent person had to know that a lot of what we were doing was unsustainable. They just didn’t care. They could make a whopping amount of money on it now, and so what would happen later or how it would effect themselves let alone others didn’t really matter to most of us. That is probably the biggest problem of all, so that’s where I want to start.

I know that all these events have put a lot of people into terrible situations and they didn’t necessarily deserve it. Many people who have tried to live responsible lives are paying for this along with those that didn’t. It may be frustrating, but it does us no good to waste a lot of time in anger and finger pointing. As a society, we all failed. There wasn’t a big outcry to stop the madness when bad laws were being passed and bad practices were blooming like mushrooms all over the place. Most of us weren’t even aware or were too busy to protest, but that is a big problem too. We need to increase our awareness and our avenues of speaking out and fighting for change so that more good people can come together and make a difference. But even deeper still, our society needs to take a good hard look at some facts.

1. You really can’t get something for nothing or not much. A price will be paid sooner or later.

2. Everything we do affects not just ourselves but everybody else. The effects of the bad choices of even just one individual have had repercussions all around the globe. Unfortunately, not good ones.

3. It needs to matter to us what the consecuences of our actions are on our future and society as a whole.

What is lacking here people, is good old fashioned values and ethics. We are not stepping up to the challenge of being an ethical society, and if we would rather not implode, we need to do something about it. This may seem huge, but luckily, we don’t even need to start with laws or politics. Moms all over this country can start raising the ethical politicians and bankers and manufacturers and consumers of the future. We can find ways to spread the word and get a movement going all over this country and the globe. We can start a more ethical society now, because it starts with the individual. To this end, I propose the very first book club reading. The book is called Moral Courage  by Rushworth M. Kidder. Go to your local library and check it out, or go to your favorite bookstore, online or in town, and get a copy.  Read it, comment on it.  Tell me what ideas you get from it.  How can you improve your own ethics, as well as train others to improve on theirs?  I hope to read and post a review on this and then add my own comments.    I’ll keep this up as our book club book for the month of May, so get your copy and start reading.  Hope to hear your comments soon.

Here’s another question.  Where do you get your news from?  What do you consider the most reliable sources to turn to when you want to get informed on whatever news or issues are out there? Just curious, again.

OK, here’s a doozie.  What do you think is the best way to eliminate terrorism around the globe?  I was hearing a very interesting commentary on this, and the interviewee was saying we need to get to the root of the problem if we are ever going to solve it, and that is when someone changed the channel on me.  Now I know what the root of the problem is with my HOME, but not with terrorism.  What do YOU think the root is?

Now,  this story just made me sick inside.  To me, it was a cautionary tale too about our busy lives and how they balloon out of control all too often.  In this case, the result was tragic.  Devastating for all involved.  I wondered how on earth this woman was going to go on.  The thought of the baby’s death was horrid. The thought of the mother’s guilt, bottomless, I imagine.  I’d like to think I could never be that air headed and forgetful.  I’d like to think that I always have my children utmost in my thoughts and I would never forget and leave them in a car.  In my case, it is unlikely because they are just too dang noisy.  If they were to sleep, the magic of silence would probably keep the thought that the child was there in my mind.  But, what if?  I am also the epitome of air headed.  That thought makes me really uncomfortable.  That my air-headedness could actually lead to a true tragedy. It strikes fear in my heart.

When I read this article, I also read some of the comments.  One in particular was extremely scathing and angry.  Pretty much, every time I read comments to articles there are at least a few very angry, ruthless commentaries.  I have to think, when I read these, that underneath the anger, almost always, at the root is a fear.  Fear of something, discomfort at something we don’t want to accept or consider.  So, when issues get you angry, think.  What is it that i’m afraid of?