Post No. 131b: Re-Posting Of Post No. 92: Dobermans. Surrounded by Dobermans

© 2009, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

We have a colleague, a nice guy, who loves Doberman Pinschers. He loves them so much he’s raising 29 of them at his place.

When we visit him, the dogs do what Dobermans always do.

They bark. They snarl. They attack.

They do so not because they know who or what we are. They’re just in attack mode; in that mode by virtue of the way our colleague raises them.

(About dogs: You can’t make a Doberman behave like a Cocker Spaniel anymore than you can stop a Labrador from curling up on your lap and slobbering all over your sofa. Dogs are simply what they are. So be careful when you fall in love with a puppy, okay?)

Our colleague’s Dobermans got us thinking.

All of us have stress in our lives, and we all react to it differently.

Even though we, individually and collectively, are facing what any reasonable person would call dire circumstances, it seems to us that more and more people these days are firmly set in a default mode on the “attack” side of the register, and as a result, civilized discourse may well have become as extinct as the poor dodo bird.

With fear, well-founded fear at that, running rampant through the land, our recent attention has been directed to a radio commentator whose new book, “The Audacity of Failure,” is expected out soon.

However, for several years now, we’ve been subjected to a constant stream of “something,” which does not have the most pleasant aroma.

How odd, we’ve thought, that so many would resort to the slinging of this “hash.”

Don’t they realize that failure - on the part of any of our institutions at this stage in the game – would amount to a Pyrrhic victory? That incessant ideological chatter will take us nowhere?

Are the slingers, on both sides of the debate, so completely devoid of Common Sense that they fail to recognize that their slinging might negatively impact the personal empires which they’ve built?

Derail their ability to collect dollars from their advertisers, not to mention dampen their listeners’ interest in spending money for the things their advertisers hope to sell?

Try a little enlightened self-interest on for size, we say. Your own. Your country’s.

Our country’s.

Last week, we ran across an article entitled, “Running Scared? Fear Isn’t Good For The Economy Or Your Health.” We could only say, “No hash, Sherlock.”

Feeling a little exhausted, we sent an email to a friend: “… people claim that politics has always been nasty. However, there is something different going on now. Nasty has gotten real nasty, and personal. All the attacks, the name-calling, the questioning of people’s intelligence, the constant dissection of every word and move, with all of it designed to make people look bad. Is getting one’s way that important? It’s as if much of society has had this pent up anger and frustration, which they previously chose not to express, and that the political campaigns gave them license to say what they really felt. What thinking person would want to enter public service?”

We’ve obviously chosen our friends wisely, because she responded with a new insight.

“Anger and negativity have become synonymous today,” our friend wrote, “when in truth they’re two different emotions.”

“Negativity in the national discourse,” she noted, “has become purely intellectual.”

“None of us are born [negative],” she said. “In fact, I dare you to stop by any grade school playground and find one child who would qualify as negative by nature.”

Fear. We’ve all felt it on occasion, and we’re feeling it again.

Earlier today we sat in front of the computer, fearful, unsure, stomach churning. Probably like a lot of people.

The thing about people, it dawned on us, is that all of us, some to a greater degree than others, were born with the genetic coding necessary to think through the obstacles we encounter.

Paraphrasing our friend’s comment about the lack of negativity of children, it also struck us that, unlike our colleague’s Dobermans, none of us are genetically coded to bark, snarl and attack only.

Common Sense says we must be guided, in Lincoln’s words, “by the better angels of our nature.”

There has to be something bigger than this ideological dispute.

Do we still have those angels?


© 2009, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Post No. 131a: Article of Interest: More than Just Talk about Cultural Divide

While sitting in a doctor’s office last week, we picked up a copy of the April 25-May 1, 2009 issue of “The Economist.” We’re always interested in how those outside of our borders view what takes place here in the U.S.

Much has been said about the cultural divide which exists in our nation today. Within this context, we found this article, about a movement to divide California into two separate states, interesting. Since one of the goals of the Institute for Applied Common Sense is to stimulate thought resulting in innovative solutions to societal problems, this piece about the state of affairs in our largest state (by population) immediately captured our attention.

As we move forward through these rocky waters, we need to devise innovative ways to “manage” or address our cultural differences, lest they draw us further apart.

Of Ossis and Wessis – California Splitting

Berkeley
California is now divided more east-west than north-south

“The problem with those lefties on California’s coast is that they [‘] love fish, hate farmers,[‘] says Virgil Rogers in his Okie twang, so common in California’s Central Valley. Actually that’s just where the problems start, and he begins to list them. So different are the folks by the sea and in the interior, he says, that the only way forward is to split the state in two.

“Thirteen coastal counties, from Los Angeles to Marin, just north of San Francisco, should become the 51st state... [Click here for the remainder].”

Post No. 66a: Television Broadcast of Interest -- America - United We Stand

As this article is being generated, C-Span2 Book TV (http://www.booktv.org/) is airing a panel presentation conducted on November 1, 2008, several days prior to the election of the President. It was a presentation made during the 2008 Texas Book Festival, entitled “America-United We Stand.” The panel explored the social and political divide in America and how it developed over time.

Paul Stekler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stekler), a political documentary film maker and Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, served as the Moderator.

The assembled authors presented some very interesting arguments, even prior to the election. The panel consisted of three authors.

Robert Cushing (http://www.texasbookfestival.org/Author_Page.php?aid=276) is a retired sociology and statistics professor from the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (http://books.google.com/books?id=mbjOZTx9u_cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+big+sort%22&ei=DCUXSfHLAZLKM5CW6Z0L).

Bill Bishop (http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php) is a journalist who, in 2004, first coined the phrase, “The Big Sort.” He is Cushing’s co-author.

Ronald Brownstein (http://www.nndb.com/people/149/000104834/) is a CNN Political Analyst, and author of The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America (http://books.google.com/books?id=mSPCGAAACAAJ&dq=%22The+Second+Civil+War%22&ei=hiYXSf-VLIaoM9eVvfsL).

Interestingly, a couple of the speakers made strong arguments for the continuation of the Electoral College. They fear that direct popular vote would actually bring out more bitterness and extreme partisanship.

Since this discussion is so pertinent to the events of the day, we are reasonably sure that C-Span2 Book TV will air it again at some point during the coming week.

In that same vein, later this afternoon, Sunday, November 9, 2008, at 3:15 pm, C-Span2 will air another panel discussion from the 2008 Texas Book Festival, entitled “The War over American Ideals” (http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=9964&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No). The panelists discuss the Bush Administration’s war on terror and its effect on America’s standing in the world.