THAT'S NOT TRUE

     There was for me a wonderful moment during the presidential debate on Tuesday night.  Mitt Romney had just made a statement and the moderator, Candy Crowley, immediately said to Mr. Romney, "That's not true." I can't remember the last time I heard someone who was functioning in the position of being a journalist actually doing their job. Most Americans now get what passes for news from television. As we all know the content of television is controlled by ratings. The networks are owned by the very same large corporations that have gradually gained control of our political process. "News" is therefore defined as whatever will generate the highest ratings rather than the information that is vitally important for us to have an educated electorate. That's why we know far more about what Lindsay Lohan had for breakfast than we do about the real consequences of Paul Ryan's budget plan.
   
    So thank you Candy Crowley for a brief glimpse of how great television could be.

OUR INTERESTING VALUES

     I am currently in Vail, Colorado.  While on a hike yesterday 5 people passed me on the trail.  They were rescue workers and they were going up to rescue a dog.  I was deeply touched to see these people on a late Sunday afternoon taking their time and energy to do such a lovely thing.

     And then I was struck by the dichotomy of what I was seeing before my eyes and the American political system.  Let me be clear, I have nothing against animal rescues.  I think it's beautiful to see. However I currently have two female clients who fear for their lives because of abusive husbands.  The rate of poverty in American is going up and if hunk Ryan has anything to say about our lives Medicaid and Medicare will be decimated.

     We have no money for people, bridges and education.  But we have all the money we need for cruise missiles.  I wonder how many people died of malnutrition and inadequate healthcare while these guys were saving the dog.   

NOT THERE YET

Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee, 10/09

Treat people and live amongst them in such a way so that when you die they will cry over you, and while you are alive they long for your company.

Traditional Muslim saying

We grow neither better nor worse as we grow old, but more like ourselves.

May Lamberton Becker

For NEW subscribers click here to receive the Dose:  http://www.bobshermanphotography.com/daily_dose

     As many of you know every day I send out a photograph of mine along with two quotes.  I call it the "Daily Dose".  Above is a dose from ten days ago.  I first started sending out the dose in 1997.  At that time it was one or two quotes from  spiritual traditions around the world.  My intent was to show my readers the similarities of these traditions and also to help them find their own spiritual path.  I started including one of my photos after 9/11.  We were about to blow up Afghanistan I wanted to put a face on the Afghan people.  I had been fortunate to have traveled through Afghanistan in 1974 and 1975 and I was one of my favorite places on the planet.
     Today the dose is read every day by thousands of people all over the world and I'm the guy who not only composes and sends out the dose but I'm also the one who manually adds and removes people from my distribution list.  On most days this usually means adding a few people.  During an average week one or two people might ask to be removed.  I'm always curious about when and why someone would ask to be removed.  On the day of this dose five people asked to be removed.  So I asked myself what's so special about this dose?  The picture may not be my greatest but it's not particularly offensive.  The quotes on the surface seem benign.  And then it hit me.  The attribution for the first quote was that it was a Muslim saying!
     The continued intention of the Dose is to share the beauty of the world in images and words.  It is my hope that with sufficient contact we will become far more aware of our similarities than our differences.  Isn't it sad that at this point in our country (none of the people who dropped out were foreigners) we are so polarized that just the word Muslim would prompt some to stop receiving any information that might allow them to expand their field of view. 
      

TIME TO SHOW US

   For the past twenty-five years or so many of my female clients have bemoaned the "fact" that the men they are meeting are all Neanderthals who are not capable of true intimacy.  They yearned to be able to have one conversation with a man who has actually seen their face.  Recently there has been a lot of talk about how much better and less violent the world would be if women were in power.  Well ladies it appears that the Grand Old Party is determined to have you in the position of putting up or shutting up.
     The wisdom of the the best that the Republicans have to offer us has presented us with a Congressional hearing on women's reproductive rights featuring a number of male "experts".  A number of Republican controlled states have attempted to force women to undergo uterine ultrasounds.  And now we are learning about the essential differences between "legitimate" rape and all other forms of rape.  I bet you didn't know that if you really didn't want to get raped your body would not let you get pregnant.
     Ladies, please help us degenerate men to see the folly of our ways.  Please demonstrate if there is any truth at all that you have the capacity to stand up for us all and stop this madness before it gets any louder or more pervasive.  Please show us with your votes that you are not all Michele Bachmanns.

     I was sent this link after I posted these comments.  Perhaps there is reason for hope after all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Anc_gP2_QeI

THE HUNGER GAMES

      Over the past weekend I had the misfortune to see the movie, “The Hunger Games”.  The movie was preceded by 7 coming attractions.  One was an animated film and the rest appeared to be trying to outdo each other in gore, brutality, and stupidity.  How staggering that our evolutionary process has culminated in an artistic endeavor about Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter.

     “The Hunger Games” was deeply troubling for me.  The thought of an elite ruling class that entertains itself on the suffering and death of the “little people” is no longer really science fiction.  The elimination of the draft in the U. S. has terminated any threat that the wealthy will ever have to dirty their hands.  With no threat to their own children they can so easily send “our volunteers” to do their bidding.  We appear to have all the money we need for bombs but none for social programs.

     I watch the Republican debates in horror.  Except for Ron Paul I have seen a bunch of old men trying to convince the universe that their genitals are so much bigger than Obama’s.  (I’d just love to see them all naked on stage.)  They scream for the destruction of Iran and talk so loudly about how Obama is an appeasing Muslim wimp.  Their rhetoric is very effectively picking up where Carl Rove left off.  There are now more militia groups in American than ever.  There are now more guns in circulation than ever.  This process of dividing and conquering is working.  Workers rights and unions are under direct and very clear attack in the states with Republican governors.  Women’s rights are under attack.  The ability of the poor and elderly to vote is under attack.  Medicare is under attack.  The lie is that the rich need their money so that they can create jobs.  It’s unbelievable to me that the masses have not noticed that the rich have gotten staggeringly richer over the past few years while the rest of us have lost our jobs.

     For me the thing that really sticks in my craw (wherever that is) is how all of  this is also guised under the pretense of “Christian values”.  The beauty of Christ was his love and compassion.  In Matthew 25:40 we are clearly told that, “… whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  Somehow this has now been repackaged as “Socialism” and really bad. In my photography and in the Daily Dose my intent is to share a moment of beauty, a sense of connection between ourselves and others or our environment.  It is my belief that the more we know about others the more we can see ourselves in them and feel a sense of compassion.  For me this is a central core of my spiritual belief.  I don't understand a spiritual pursuit that results in separation and disdain.

     One of my friends has told me that “The Hunger Games” is a trilogy and there is a revolt in the second book.  I wonder how much worse it will have to get before the revolt is on CNN.

A PLEA FOR WISDOM AND DECENCY

I have this deeply felt sadness and ache.  I watch the Republican debates and I hear the crowd  cheer about letting people without insurance die.  Last night the crowd booed an openly gay soldier asking a question.  The candidates appear to be lining up for their chance to throw more meat at their hungry wolves.  My fear is that this movie won’t end well.

In my opinion leadership is not just about rallying the troops.  Appropriate leadership also educates.  Appropriate leadership does not sink to the lowest common denominator.  If this were not true then men like Hitler and Mussolini would be celebrated.  They each did a masterful job in getting a lot of people to do their bidding.  It was the direction that they led their followers to that was the determining factor.

It’s easy to understand that in our current political climate the Bachman’s, Santorum’s, Limbaugh’s and the rest of the Mensa corps that are the loudest in the Republican Party will have their moment in the sun.  But where are the voices of rationality and wisdom? Not everyone who has ever been a Republican politician takes their marching orders from the Koch brothers and some unfortunate directive from God.  Why their silence?  They have nothing to lose since they are out of office.

George H. W. Bush stopped our troops from invading Baghdad.  He was able to have the wisdom to not destabilize that  country.  I wonder what would have happened if he had had the strength to openly criticize his son.  Honest differences of opinion is wonderfully healthy for growth and insight.  

Today's news was partially about Obama changing No Child Left Behind.  There is much talk about how the school system is letting our children down.  If the clowns on the stage are in fact the best that America has to offer it won't matter what we do with the school system. 

A Moment of Hope

The past few months have been a rather difficult time for me.  The national political system of America is not just broken it has become the repository of whores that can be easily bought by the highest bidder.  The elation that I felt when Barack Obama was elected has faded into an underlying sense of disappointment and despair.  I never would have dreamed that Obama's eloquence could have been matched by his absence of spine.  In addition the recent events in the stock market added yet another blow to my illusion that one day I might be able to retire and leave my children a modicum of inheritance.

     I live  in the wealthiest Republican district in America.  Marsha Blackburn theoretically represents me in the House of Representatives.  She is the Marsha Blackburn that espouses all the talking points du jour of the Republican Party and never heard George Bush say anything that she didn't love.  I live in an area that upon first meeting me wants to know what church I go to in order to ascertain whether or not I'm decent or worthy of talking to.  I live in an area in which the sign that I had on my lawn supporting Obama during the last election was destroyed 3 times.  I live next to the town that hosted the Tea Party convention.

     So it is within this context that I went to the movies today.  I saw "The Help".  I believe that it is a wonderful experience that should not be missed.  I will not give any details about the movie except to state that it is about Mississippi in the 1960's and what it was like to be a Black maid at that time.  There is a scene in the movie in which one of the maids exacts a small measure of revenge on a woman who was deserving of all that she got.  To my total shock the mostly White audience applauded.  I found myself instantly sobbing.  For a brief moment hope poured through my body.  How glorious that every so often I can still experience the possibility of better.