Go occupy a job...

This whole "occupy" movement (which I'm absolutely refusing to capitalize) is getting pretty old now. I admit, it was amusing at first, like watching from a distance while a kid throws a tantrum in a grocery store. As long as it's not your kid, it's kind of funny. Now, two months later, it's maddening - like watching an adult throw a tantrum while you wait behind them in line at the grocery store.

Gary Hufbauer and Martin Vieiro wrote a fantastic piece, published in Foreign Affairs on Nov 2 - "Big Business is Good for America." They explain how "corporations" differ from wall street, and how equating the two truly misses the mark for what our country needs right now. Mitt Romney was blasted from the left after he quipped, "Corporations are people, too!" Democrats who've been calling him elitist since the last election suddenly felt vindicated. Ah ha! We've got him! He supports big business! He's not one of us!

In reality, by supporting business, Romney is supporting jobs, and this is the basis of the Hufbauer article. Understandably, this country is full of angry people right now - people who've lost homes and jobs and retirement funds and fishing boats and pick-up trucks. Bored and frustrated, I'm sure they want to direct that anger somewhere. Overpaid bankers and political hacks, quite frankly, aren't bad places to start. But you can't attack business for being business in a capitalist society. Unless you're making a serious push for agrarian precapitalism or some kind of kibbutz system - which some of these jokers might actually push for - you really can't attack the basis of our economy without attacking America. So occupiers - you're attacking America.

Here's the disturbing part of the movement - although I don't like calling something this stagnant a "movement." Douglas Rushkoff wrote a piece trying to explain how this is not a phase and won't be going away and deserves our respect. In his words,

"Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful."

Fair enough, Doug. We all know they are protesting greed, corruption, inequality, the intermarriage of government and business, oil dependency, obscene mortgage payments, jobs going overseas....right? Look, I'm not the enemy here. I'm not the 1%, so in theory I should feel some sense of belonging to the 99%. It's not that I don't know what they're protesting. It's not that I don't know why they're upset. But it bothers me that I don't know what they expect. I don't mean to sound cynical, and I'm all about fighting corruption and social inequality. But until this group can coalesce around a consistent and practical demand, how is this a movement??? Further, Rushkoff notes this is not like a book and more like the internet, that it's not a focused campaign with a clear goal in mind. It's not a phase.

So...it's a lifestyle? I can just assume these people are going to keep on occupying places? Can you make a living as a protester, sleeping in a tent? Can you raise a family like that?

I believe in the principles - some concrete and some more nebulous - that founded this country. We enjoy the freedom to express ourselves, the freedom of peaceful demonstration. But we also enjoy the freedom to work, to create, to innovate. In general, I agree that things need to change. We need to get people back to work, to create jobs. I agree - who doesn't? - that the gap between the "have-a-lot's" and the "have-not-quite-as-much's" is now a chasm. But how do you change any of that by holding a sign and dressing up like a zombie? Clearly, "occupy" is generating enthusiasm and excitement, particularly among those with nothing else to do right now. I just wish I was seeing them do something.

Bothered again...

I've been considering this move for some time now, but the news coming out of "Happy Valley" this week pushed me start writing again. To be clear, this blog is not intended as a means of keeping up with friends or family, or keeping you apprised of everything going on in our lives. It's not for posting pictures of dogs or kids or trips to Target. It's going to be a collection of things that keep you up at night, things that are real - things that matter.

So we start with Penn State. I read through the grand jury report against Jerry Sandusky this morning. His crimes will shock you. They will horrify and disgust you. You'll wonder what kind of a man can willingly destroy lives this way. You'll wonder how he hid this from family, from his wife, or if hid it at all. You'll wonder what he did to his foster children. That's the surface of the situation.

I believe the Jerry Sanduskys out there represent a small fraction of the population. They frighten us, they represent a threat to our sense of security, and they should be separated from the rest of society. I believe that.

However, with all due respect to his victims, the (other) shocking aspect of this story stems from the gross negligence of Sandusky's colleagues and peers - the group that represents the rest of us. David Brooks and Gail Collins engage in a fairly even debate about whether Penn State should cancel it's football season next year, but I really don't think this even begins to address the issue. In many ways, as this story unfolds I'm having an easier time understanding Sandusky's actions than those of anyone else. And that's disturbing.

If you read the report, you'll notice there's a history of behavior here. Who knows where this all began, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts it didn't start at Penn State. Going back to 1994, there's a list of 8 victims and roughly 40 counts of sexual abuse against children. But equally alarming, there's a history of people reporting this behavior! On occasion, first-hand witnesses were reporting this stuff; it wasn't hearsay. Yet, here's the kicker. They weren't reporting to police authorities. They were telling their bosses.

Now I can understand if you walk in on two co-workers, or two teenagers, or two adult strangers for that matter. Maybe you tell your boss, maybe you don't tell anyone at all. But an adult molesting a kid?!? We're not talking drug or alcohol abuse, gambling, or pornography. We're not talking recruiting violations, bribery, or some "oh shucks, this could happen to anyone" moral dilemma. We're talking heinous, violent crimes, felony offenses that tend to earn perpetrators life sentences and daily prison beatings. How does anyone not call the cops in on this one?

Penn State, understandably, is in an uproar. The trustees have fired Coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier, and my guess is some more heads will roll before this thing blows over. I agree with the firings, as much as I've admired Paterno for years. These guys clearly had to go and may yet face legal charges. But again, this only scratches the surface. What about the janitor, or the grad student, or Sandusky's wife for that matter? What about all the King Herods in this story that washed their hands after they reported the incident?

In many ways, this story reminds me of the murder of Kitty Genovese. The woman was stabbed, raped, and murdered - with witnesses watching the whole thing. It was everyone's responsibility to stop it, so no one did. Most people never even consider committing crimes like these. They're totally foreign to us. They're not human. But neither is letting them happen.

"The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.

The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.

The killer whale's heart weight one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.

There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun."

- Wislawa Szymborska, In Praise of Self-Deprecation

Fred Flintstone Bowling

We got to do a little bowling in Iasi. This place was pretty incredible, the lanes were alright, the pins were a bit outdated, but my second-favorite aspect of this adventure was the surface of the bowling balls. I'm pretty sure these were rocks that someone had whittled down for days on end, until they closely resembled spheres. Then they cut out little pockets for fingers. You need to be careful when picking these up, lots of jagged edges.
Little did we know that the professionals next us would be putting on a show. The video shows my favorite part of the experience.

The Road to Iasi

Desperately in need of a road trip, Paige, Sean, and I decided we'd spend a weekend in a little Romanian town called Iasi (pronounced Yawsh for all you foreigners out there). It's not too far from the border of Moldova, and the road is smooth and clear. Ironically, the president of Moldova had this road resurfaced and it is now the nicest road in Moldova, and also the road that leads out of the country. This irony is not lost on Moldovan citizens.

We ended up hitching a ride with a band of wandering missionary nomads. The video really tells the tale. They were kind enough to let us share a van with them, help us through the border, and even made us pancakes in the morning!

Meeting the Neighbors

This is a video from a few weeks back. We came home to find some unexpected visitors in the Buddhist meditation center/apartment we were living in.

Human Trafficking in the News

There have been some important articles recently regarding human-trafficking. They'd be worth checking out through the links to the right.

no smoking unless you want to

So we're here, stomping the streets of Chisinau, trying to make a difference in the former Soviet Republic. And I think we're slowly carving out a little niche for ourselves. We've become regulars at a little Greek restaurant called "Opa." The food's great and relatively cheap, the service is sub-par, but all in all it's a great place to sit down next to a "No Smoking" sign, light up, and eat a gyro.