51% ...

I am obsessed these days with the juxtaposition of information. Take, for example, this week's "The Economist". The article on health care ("But don't ask how much it costs") is followed by the article on climate change ("The road to 60"), followed by the article on homosexuality in the Lutheran Church ("Brotherly Love"), followed by an article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans ("After the storm"). What would you follow those articles with? How about the war in Afghanistan ("To surge or not to surge").

These articles all have at least one thing in common: Numbers. It's all about numbers. And the numbers are always either dollars or people ... except the people are usually reduced to percentages.

Health care: The Senate Finance Committee voted 13 to 9 in favor of the Senate-sponsored bill. The hope is to increase the number of people with insurance from 85% (currently) to 94% in 10 years. The cost: $829 billion.

Climate change: cap and trade. Is that really what we need? Senators John Kerry and Lindsey Graham (Democrat and Republican respectively) recently co-wrote a NY Times article headlined: "Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)". More nuclear power (a nod to Republicans; a set-back for "Green Democrats"), renewed offshore drilling (a nod to conservatives; a set-back for environmentalists), and a proposed "border tax" on goods imported from countries with lax environmental standards (the language leaves room for plenty of "fudging") - All this to try to get the 60 filibuster-proof votes in the Senate for cap and trade.

Homosexuality: 1,200 Lutherans, upset about last summer's vote by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) to allow gays in committed relationships to serve in the clergy, gathered in Geist, Indiana to consider staying in or leaving the denomination. Here's where we start talking percentages and comparisons. 10.5% decline in membership over the past decade; a denomination more than twice the size of the Episcopalians. ("A majority of Americans oppose gay marriage ..." writes The Economist".)

New Orleans, Louisiana: Statewide unemployment percentages (lower than the national average).

Afghanistan: I had no idea it cost $250,000 a year to keep a single American soldier in Afghanistan! ("An Afghan soldier who speaks the language and can drink the water costs only a twentieth as much," says the article.) The Gallup organization tells us 48% of Americans want to send more troops to Afghanistan; 45% are opposed. Those percentages don't help the president make a popular decision.

My brain is reeling after reading these pieces. What do the numbers mean?

Here's something else I learned this week: 51% of the US population are women; but they hold only 3% of the decision-making jobs in the media. 65% of the graduates in journalism and mass communication are women. But in the past 15 years women hold 25% of the media jobs that have been created.

What percentage of any of this truly matters?

Well, one thing that might matter is this: Were there more women in the media we might be on the receiving end of an entirely different set of facts. I wonder ... would people be reduced to percentages? Would dollars give way to stories?

This is simply an observation ... the information we have been getting doesn't seem to be making a significant difference in terms of our behavior. With so few women in the decision-making media positions, I'm ready to sit at the feet of the 51%. Those of us in the "49" seem to be in a rut - in more ways than one. Or, as that old U2 song says - "We're stuck in a moment, and we can't get out of it!"

I'd be interested in hearing from folks your recommendations with regard to new streams of information from which I might drink! Any suggestions?

Another Day At The Office ...

It always leaves me wondering when I listen to the radio and hear about some natural disaster or family tragedy immediately followed by the weather report or an advertisement for cereal. Tragedy to triscuits in the blink of an eye. Maybe we are nationally ADHD, or, in order simply to survive, perhaps we have evolved such that our psyches shut down after 5.7 seconds of bad news.

On Thursday Governor Patterson announced proposed budget cuts to, among other things, education and health care. Mid-year cuts in state aid to school systems would run around 3% per district. $471 million would be cut from Medicaid and other mental health programs - including a $14 million cut to the Child Health Plus program. The governor is responding to a projected $50 billion deficit in the state budget over the next three and a half years.

Something has to be done.

The DOW is up over 10,000, pushed largely by rising oil prices. Bank of America's CEO, Kenneth Lewis, has resigned and is returning his entire 2009 salary and bonuses - not to worry, though, because he leaves with a $50 million-plus nest egg. His exit is brought on as a result of suspected impropriety and cover-ups over Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

Millions come; billions go. For some, it's just another day at the office.

But for others it will mean no "After School Program", and no health care - or no payment for health care provided. It appears as if corporate executives make and lose money as quickly as we move from FOX to CNN. One hopes that politicians feel the pain more deeply, that there is some kind of existential turmoil going on before making the announcements.

With education and health care on the state chopping block - our brains and our bodies, as it were - it seems all that's left is our spirit. Can they cut that as well?

Jesus teaches that treasures can be laid up where neither moth, rust, corrupt executives, nor inept politicians can have at them. Here's hoping he's right.

Ooops ... gotta go. I'm meeting a friend for coffee.

Not Quite, Tom ...

Tom Friedman has probably forgotten more than I will ever learn, and I have read some of his books and read his column in the NY Times faithfully. Today, he let me down.

Weighing in on the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Barack Obama, Friedman commends the president for receiving the prize “as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.” (Read the full culumn at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11friedman.html.)

Then Friedman writes Pres. Obama's acceptance speech for him. "Peacekeeping" is done by "peacekeepers", writes Friedman, and in his recommended "acceptance speech", "peacekeepers" apparently are always soldiers.

America's military make sacrifices every day, sometimes putting their lives on the line. They deserve our support, the best equipment we can provide, and more than just a parade when they return home, often to families splintered and fractured by extended separations and the painful reality of post-traumatic stress. But our teachers put their lives on the line, too - and they deserve our support, the best equipment, and more than an apple on their desk.

Emergency medical personnel put their lives on the line ... and so do politicians. You get my point. "Peacekeeping" is not a profession. Friedman quotes the prophet Isaiah in his column today - as if to say that the challenge of convincing nations to put down their swords is solely on the shoulders of the military. He has it wrong. And Obama is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize precisely because he refuses to look at the world's conflicts only through the lens of a rifle scope.

How long will it take us to acknowledge that guns - no matter how big - are not enough? They never were; they never will be. If stating that fact is a bruise to the military's ego, then so be it. It's not intended to be, and I'm not so naive as to assume all the world's problems can be solved at a Kum ba yah Sit-In. But much of the world reads Tom Friedman. He has earned his audience. He has challenged us to re-think corporate strategy, to take stock of our educational system, to wake up to the realities of climate change. Today he put soldiering and peace in the same bag and then he tied the knot. He did the Nobel Committee, our President, our Military - all of us - a disservice.

Tom, usually you are right on the mark. But, today ... not quite.

In An A-Ward ...

Jelveh Javaheri was sentenced to 6 months in prison for her participation in a peaceful protest on June 12, 2008. She is one of what organizers hope will be a million women, working hard for equal rights for Women in Iran. This is not her first prison sentence. She recently spent one month in prison - including 16 days in solitary confinement - because she participated in a demonstration marking International Worker's Day on May 1.

Leila Alikarami, an Iranian woman, is in London receiving the Anna Politkovskaya Award on behalf of the Million Signature Campaign. Alikarami bears witness to the fact that women have been tortured while held in detention because of their participation in the Campaign. Azar Nafisi was on hand for the ceremonies. An interesting note - Alikarami will not accept the money that accompanies this award. That would lay the Million Signature Campaign open to the criticism that they are being funded by western interests and do not reflect the opinions of the Women of Iran.

And - President Barack Obama is the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. A surprise to us all! His award is given because of his words - because his words have paved the way for conversation and negotiation. He has described a vision of a "nuclear-free world"; he has attempted to open dialogue with the Muslim world and to re-start talks between Israelis and Palestinians; and - he is "re-thinking the strategy" in Afghanistan.

Maybe the operative word in that last phrase is "-thinking". President Obama's predecessor left many of us wondering: "What is he thinking!" And there were times it seemed as if he wasn't thinking at all. Now we have a president who carefully crafts his sentences, who articulates his thoughts ... well, thoughtfully.

I see a connection between these two awards - the one given to the Women of Iran and the one given to the President of the United States. They both have received awards because of words. Both are "signing on the bottom line", as it were; and we are reminded by both recipients that words matter. Azar Nafisi said the Women in Iran are a collective "weapon of mass destruction". Their names on a piece of paper are a direct threat to an oppressive regime. Their names written on the line are an indication that they are willing to go to prison, if that's what it takes, to move the ball of freedom, justice and equal rights up the field.

Barack Obama has put a lot on the line. His political future is vulnerable now to the fulfillment of dreams. And, for the US President and the Women of Iran, everything is riding on what they have said. While incredibly powerful, these words of theirs are also fragile - the fragility lies in the fact that they cannot themselves make the dream come true. Unless their words inspire us to action, not only will their dreams fade, but their very lives - politically and physically - are threatened.

We can only hope that people on the planet realize the price everyone pays if these dreams don't come to fruition. It's not only Obama and the Women of Iran who will suffer. We all will.