Commitments that I owe my teachers...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Chop Suey...Richard Cheese...
Topic: personal

After an exhausting then exhilaratingly productive day...and after recognizing all the various commitments that my teachers made to me throughout the years...I decided on the way home that I have some commitments that I owe some of my teachers...

I'm leaning heavily in favor of a Ph.D. in policy, right now, given a couple of my commitments...

Mr. Perry, my junior year trigonometry teacher, gave me a 1-on-1 tutorial in trigonometry in what I can only imagine was his planning hour...I ended up dropping Calculus second semester my senior year, which is the reason why he gave me the tutorial...so I figure I owe it to Mr. Perry to finish at least one semester of Calculus and finish up the sucker...

Which will support very nicely my other very important reason to do a Ph.D. in policy, which is to seriously brush up on statistics (which, after a long and exciting conversation with two math students at a party Saturday night) to be much more prepared for more serious social scientific research and more serious interpretation of statistical data and prepare the strongest possible empirical research (and experiments, when appropriate)...

For my book, I think I'll need between now and writing that book I will need to do serious depth study in both international policy and counterterrorism, to prepare and deal with the strongest case against my ideas in international policy and counterterrorism, and criminology, to prepare and deal with the strongest case against my ideas in crime and domestic policy (I will need the help of Carson, Bond, Brian White, Brian, John, and that smart-as-shit debater from UNI and now Illinois State from the ISU camp, Chris, and other folks to help me build the strongest countercases, and to test arguments in favor of limits on power, free will and morality discussions as a function of realist policy discussions, and my theoretical work around least possible necessary aggression, if they might help me out)...

So a Ph.D. in policy might come in handy:):)...

I plan on writing articles/chapters ahead of applying for Ph.D. programs so that I can guarantee entry into a program of my choice and to hopefully substantially beef up my preparedness for grad school...

I owe all of this and to finish my senior Honors' thesis from my undergrad at Wichita State -- as a publishable article in political history on the first Federal education legislation touching schools below the college-grade, the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 -- to Dr. David Ericson, my favorite prof from undergrad and someone who has been waiting to read a finished copy of that thesis for almost 10 years now (ok, I have a feeling it hasn't been keeping him up at nights:):)...

I also think that I owe Mr. Jestmore, my high school forensics, debate, and drama teacher, and EMU theater, here in Lawrence, to which I belong, to go ahead and work on the writing workshop next summer and to write (and maybe act in) at least one really quality publishable play/screenplay for production/filming...Mr. Jestmore always wanted me to be an actor and was really disappointed when I told him that I had decided to do forensics in college rather than drama, for which he secured me a scholarship when I was an undergrad...so I figure I owe him some substantial contribution to the theater world in return for his countless hours of devotion to my learning and growth and development as a young man and as an actor...

I also think I owe it, over the course of my lifetime, to write (and maybe sing) at least one really quality song to Mrs. Johns, my 7th and 8th grade music teacher who so thoroughly believed in my singing/musical abilities, and Doris Prater, my 9th grade music teacher, who turned our rag-tag, low-income Truesdell Junior High School choir into a powerhouse Worlds of Fun competition sensation and a hell of a stage choir...

Finally, I think I owe it to Tom and my education profs at KU, my teachers throughout my life, including and especially Conrad Jestmore -- whose commitment to libertarian/classical liberal virtues have had an indelible impact on my life -- and Dave Ericson, the smartest professor I've ever worked with, and to my principal Dr. Ogburn, my other favorite principal in my life, Keith Wilson, and all of the people who have dedicated time to helping me to become the outstanding teacher that I have become and am becoming to both write abundantly, for the rest of my life, about the significance of education in a liberal democracy in an authentically and classically liberal democratic tradition that I hope will rival my other favorite education scholar, John Dewey...and to teach in the most inclusive, open, free thinking, free expressing, and freedom-supporting university and department that I can find...where I can work with the broad range of students that I work with now and where, as much as possible, everything else always takes a back seat to the ever developing ideals of a free and democratic education...

And I owe it to Jim Henson, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain and the million of other great childrens' authors/film directors/entertainers to several brilliant stories and books for children, since this may be the legacy that counts the most, anyway...

I owe it to all my teachers to take full advantage to the quality education they afforded me for free and at affordable prices at all of the quality public schools and universities (and the private prep school I attended the first three years of my grammar school) to do only the biggest and best things with my education...with everything they dedicated to and sacraficed for my education...

And I owe it to myself...to take full advantage of all of the opportunities that they and life has afforded me...

So much for taking it easy as a teacher, huh?:):):)...

Yeah...setting the bar high for teachers -- as much as for thinkers or just average folks -- won't be a bad legacy to leave, either:):)...

I better get some sleep if any of these dreams are to become reality...

Have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love, Ben

It's lonely, sometimes, caring about people...
Mood:  down
Now Playing: Let Her Cry...Hootie and the Blowfish...You've Got a Friend...James Taylor...
Topic: personal

I'm feeling like shit, this morning...so be warned...this is a vent...

I have three ex-girlfriends that I've written or called in the last year who have gotten married and are not returning communication...I have a couple of friends that I just got in touch with in the last few months who have not written back...

I think I've given up on a friendship with Brandi...which is breaking my heart, right now, because she was the best friend I ever had and we promised after we broke up that we would not stop talking with each other just because we met other people and now, for the first time since we broke up, I'm not sure if I'll ever hear from her again...

I would rather live with my heart open and breaking occasionally than with my heart closed for fear of having it break...

But that last one is quite the heartbreak...

I hate this world, sometimes...with all its pettiness and its defensiveness and its jealousy and its possessiveness and its bitterness and all the ways that we fuck up our own lives and the lives of people around us...

But I hate this one most of all...because Brandi really wasn't just my girlfriend...she really was the best friend I had ever had...

When we broke up, it took a long time, but I finally made my peace that we wouldn't be together, again, as a couple...but Brandi promised that we wouldn't lose our friendship...and now that seems to be gone, for all practical purposes, too...

What a fucked up world we've created, here...this world where we pretend that we've resolved problems and situations that we clearly haven't...where we pretend that we've found solutions to problems that aren't solved...where we pretend like the way that we do things makes them better when they don't...

I wish I could say I felt safe sharing this stuff with someone in my life...I share it with Melissa, but I don't think she really cares, frankly...Brandi was the person I shared this sort of stuff with...but I can't anymore, for all practical purposes...

I just sit and listen to Hootie for comfort, because I don't trust anyone else to provide it...

I guess for Brandi I was just some cute guy to spend some time with and maybe date, at some point...

But Brandi never was to me...I didn't even think about dating her when I first met her...she was really just my best friend for a year who I didn't think about, romantically...

And had I known that this would be the consequence, I don't know if I would have dated her...I would have missed out on so much had I not...but I'm missing out on so much, now, that I did...

All I know is that any marriage or relationship that needs distance from ex's is on weak ground...I don't plan on doing that with Brandi or Jenny or Kathleen -- the three ex-girlfriends who haven't written or called back -- or any of my ex-girlfriends, in the future...and I don't care what my girlfriend or wife has to say about the matter...I don't sell out friends for love...I don't sell out friends for anything and I don't sell out anything for love or anything else, for that matter...

When Brandi and I were dating, I didn't even think twice about going to spend time with Jenny to comfort her after her divorce...and I just won't live like so many people do, scared of themselves, scared of their feelings...its weak and cowardly and I won't live like that...I don't need or want to protect myself from my feelings...or to protect anyone else from their feelings...if I'm dating someone who needs her feelings protected, she is definitely the wrong girl for me... 

I guess that is the major way that I am different from a lot of people...I have no interest in living my life scared...scared of every little feeling or consequence or thought or influence or whatever that I just don't think I can handle or that I'm afraid might challenge me or that I've just convinced myself that I have to isolate myself from...

I'm just not a coward like so many people are...and I refuse to live my life like that...

Hiding behind ideology or marriage or religion or ethnicity or gender or intelligence or money or rock star status or gang affiliation or being a bad-ass or all of the million ways that people hide themselves in corners so that they don't have to reach beyond themselves and connect with people is cowardly and weak...and I have no interest in being cowardly and weak in that way...or in any way, frankly...and I have no interest in hearing peoples' excuses for why they do...why when the world gets polarized, they just give in rather than hoping and working for something bigger and better...

I'm no coward...and I don't give a shit how many people are...

Figuring out which group you belong to and who doesn't belong in your group takes no courage, at all...it is the essence of cowardice, really...and it is the polarizing tendency that has taken hold of the country and the world in the last 6 years or so...a brilliant and proud way to welcome in the 21st century, don't you think?

It's lonely and painful keeping your heart open like that, sometimes...we just had a very nice conversation about that at our school this last Friday...about how hard it is to keep saying hi to kids or teachers when they don't say hi back...how hard it is to keep your heart open to kids and people who shut their heart down...

And I just think Brandi's shut her's down to me, even though she promised she wouldn't do that...

It's so amazing to me how much courage so many adults have when they're young...how much more open their hearts are, often...and then shut them down as they get older...some people open their hearts up, more...but a lot of people just get lost in their cowardice...

But there is no progress without courage...as individuals...and as a culture...

And I'm not so tied to any friend or family member or ex-girlfriend to hang up my own learning and growth until they learn to take up more courage to promote their own learning and growth...

I'm learning that this is how all of the most serious foolishness and injustices in the world remain in our midst for so long...because, as Bobby Kennedy said...true moral courage is rare...most people will never dare to risk the rejection or approbation of their peers to demonstrate it...that's why we always look back on our ancestors and shake our heads...because courage is rare...and most people are too scared to shake loose of even the most terrible legacies for fear of looking bad to their peers...and most people are too scared to look honestly at themselves to face up to that personal legacy...

And, right now, you have cowards leading cowards...people too afraid to think for themselves following people too afraid to imagine something better...

With Brandi, I had a friend to imagine things better with...someone who believed, at one time...

And now, I'm afraid, I don't have that or much of anything with her...

Why does the world have to be so full of so much senseless tragedy?

I've dealt with a lot of it in my lifetime, like everyone else, I imagine...

But this one is taking the cake, right now...

Why do so many people grow up only to shut their hearts down?...Why do we pretend that this is what being a grown up involves?...

And most importantly...why do we think anyone, nevertheless our children, should follow our lead when we do so with such cowardice?

Maybe that's why we insist...because deep down we're afraid that maybe our lead isn't worth following...perhaps we don't deserve it...but we insist on it anyway...that may or may not fair...but working with people to be responsible for their own lives is not only a more sustainable way to supporting the learning and growth and progress of a culture...it is the way that involves more courage, because it means learning to trust people to make judgments on their own, rather than with some sense of omniscience on our or other peoples' parts...

Well, I don't insist that Brandi be my friend...if she doesn't want to be my friend, then fuck her...

I don't insist that anyone be my friend...or that anyone listen to a goddamn thing I say...

It wholly possible that I'm just completely or even substantially full of shit... 

But if people don't listen because they want to be small and petty and weak, then so be it...I just don't want anyone to insist that I follow their small and petty and weak asses if they don't have the courage to be bigger...

And when people do insist...which they inevitably do...I just want them to know that they will never have my heart or mind until they live an example or have an idea worthy of following...

I don't give a shit how many times Brandi sells me out...I'll never sell her out...or any of my friends...ever...it's not in me...my door is always open...

I guess that I'm just aware, now, that I am out on this limb completely on my own, at this point...and so be it...

True friendship is extremely rare, I'm learning...perhaps it is always just beyond reach...because we are all such fuckin' cowards...

But what a lonely world it would be if there was no hope for something better...

Love, Ben

Feeling shitty...
Mood:  down
Now Playing: Pride (In the Name of Love)...U2...Louis Armstrong's 1970 recording of What a Wonderful World...
Topic: personal

I just got back from the Illinois State speech camp...had a great time, for the most part...it's a great team...competitive...smart...ballsy...nice and supportive as all hell...just a great group of folks...

I was something of an anomaly, I guess, since I was one of the very rare non-Big-L-liberals at the gathering...I'm a small-l liberal...meaning I believe that democracy and freedom are the foundations for everything that we value in modern societies...small-l liberalism is big tent liberalism that has plenty of room for conservatives and liberals, alike...my whole life has been liberal -- both Big-L and small-l -- in all functional respects...my family, and my father and I at the forefront, were peace activists and poverty activists...I got into special education and education as a part of my commitments to poverty efforts and inner city school reform...I'm a vegitarian and eat organic, as much as possible, for health reasons, primarily, but also for non-self-righteous moral reasons...I've been gay-friendly and environmentally aware and committed for an awful long time...much of my study in grad school was of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and Ghandi's Independence Movement in India...I have this really soft spot in my heart for outsiders, the downtrodden, and others that it is all too easy to exclude or hate or hurt or repress...I generally have a much stronger commitment to keeping people together on a team or in a group or in a family or a world than most people do...I genuinely care about people from all backgrounds, even people who it is very easy to not care about or to hate...

In all personal and social ways, people would probably recognize me as a liberal...

Except one really important caveat...

I don't think that liberals have all the right answers...and on many very important questions, I think conservatives, particularly more libertarian conservatives -- the Economist may just be the smartest periodical in the world as far as I am concerned -- have better answers...and I'm not shy about saying so...

Which is kind of awkward, sometimes, when you are in social gatherings where liberals dominate, I have to say...

Now, I would far prefer to deal with that kind of awkwardness with so many friends than somehow align myself with the nasty, vengeful, punitive, controlling sort of conservativism that characterizes, say, the Chicago Sun that I read for a bit while we were visiting Chicago...and I'm definitely not socially conservative, though I do very much understand the concerns of social conservatives...I just think a moral society is best achieved with more freedom and thought than with more control and punishment and conversion...and like Mark Twain, I just think the whole world would be a lot better off if it just wasn't so obsessed with morality and controlling one another in all kinds of unhealthy ways, even as I think moral concerns are important and valuable concerns in a free society...

But I seriously digress...

It was a great time, in most respects...but also an awkward one, at times, because I'm just not a radical...and I felt like my liberal friends were being somewhat unfair to conservative ideas and thought while we talked politics...I also though folks could be a little obsessed with forensics success, at times...I was surrounded by national champions:):)...but that's for another day:):)...

Anyway...we talked about Israel and Lebanon, health care and education, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and a whole lot of forensics...

And I guess the biggest thing I took back with me is that I'm just kind of tired of all the fighting, I guess...

Brian and Bond, my fellow extemp leaders, were right and I was dead wrong, as it turned out, in our conversation about Martin Luther King...they were saying that King got more radical as the civil rights movement progressed...I was convinced that King's later years were the ones where he got more focussed on love and compassion and changing hearts and minds...

And I was wrong, as it turned out...King did get more radical over the years, it seems...he advocated a poverty Bill of Rights and for racial reparations, and social democratic programs and politics...none of which I would advocate, today -- and just think those same concerns are better cared for in the civil society than by the government -- but none of which are serious concerns for me...

The big concern for me was King's support for the various left-wing revolutions of the 60's...that advocacy -- of revolutions that killed so many and destroyed so much over the the course of the 20th Century which so many liberal and Marxists, like conservatives who rationalize the means of Nazis and Fascists, never seem to be able to face up to and take responsibilty for and which is the basis of support for so many terrorist groups, today -- is the one most seriously dissappointing quality in King's legacy, as far as I'm concerned...his cheating was human and not something that seriously concerned me in the same way that this kind of ill-considered advocacy of revolutionary activity that has so undermined so much progress in so many areas of the world and killed and maimed many people and their futures in the process...

And as someone who spent so much time studying Martin Luther King in grad school -- civil rights and poverty issues are at the heart of the reason why I wanted to teach in inner city schools -- I was just kind of embarrassed to find out that I didn't know about King's advocacy for left-wing revolutions (King argued, foolishly, that America was on the wrong side of such revolutions)...

Apparently King not only seriously underestimated his own and Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent legacies, he was unaware that it was left-wing revolutionaries that would go on to kidnap the 11 Israeli athletes killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics...and left-wing revolutionaries who would slaughter millions of Vietnamese after the U.S. abandoned its military engagements there...and left-wing revolutionaries who sponsor terrorist groups including the Irish Republican Army, the armed ETA Basque separatists in Spain, the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, and several other bloody left wing terrorist and revolutionary groups in the latter half of the 20th Century...not to mention the Bolshevik, Maoist, and Communist revolutions in Cuba and North Korea...and certainly not to mention the domestic left wing terrorism in the United States...the Weathermen, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers (though, to King's credit, he was also very critical of violent and radical civil rights organizations like the Panthers and the later ironically-titled Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)...

Plenty of right wing radical activity that was bloody and ugly in the 20th century...Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy and Spain, radical Islam in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Palestine and much of the Middle East...Al Queda and the Muslim Brotherhood...dictators like Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Major General Park Chung Hee of South Korea, the KKK and militia groups including the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the late 90's...

The lists of terrorist and violent groups who have killed and maimed and threatened and bullied in the name of ideology is really far too long for me to list them all...

And the point really is that everyone thinks they're right...and everyone seems to be willing to go to some pretty gruesome extremes to prove just how right they are...

And this weekend, I just got really tired of listening to people rationalize and excuse all that bullshit...like somehow it was/is really more noble than it really was/is...

I'm tired of fighting about it...but I'm more tired of people acting like its no big deal...like murdering people in the name of a cause is really ok...like the only thing that matters is winning, no matter who gets hurt...

I have to say that the reason why I don't identify as a Big-L liberal anymore...is because I am just so goddamned tired of listening to this bullshit like it should taken more seriously than it really should...
It is kind of interesting to me how the debaters I meet -- the far more aggressive competition between speech and debate I think most of my debate friends would agree -- have tended to be far more moderate than many of my forensics friends...crazy, huh?...I had this really long, great talk with this CEDA debate champ from University of Northern Iowa about truth and reconcilation, which happens to be central to a lot of my political thinking and was the case that she ran in the final round the year she won the national championship...she was thinking of working on John McCain's campaign because she, like I, was terrified of Hillary Clinton as President and because she thought McCain would swing the country left (the latter reason I doubt, but I imagine that she, like I, is beginning to see beyond the blinders of ideology)...

I also met some really smart, bitchy, ambitious liberal women this weekend, that totally reinforced my feeling that I am much more interested in someone nice and decent and smart for a wife/life partner much more than someone smart and ambitious, alone...the latter can also mean heartless, I'm learning -- my concern about Hillary Clinton, really -- and I just want no part of that for my daily life...I met a girl this week who reminded me very much of my first really serious girlfriend, Jenny Burrington, who was and is a doll, really, and it totally reinforced for me that I would, in a heartbeat, rather date someone nice and decent than brilliant and bitchy, any day of the week...though I must say that Illinois State is largely a team of really wonderful girls and guys...

I guess I'm just weary of the fighting...and mostly, of all the rationalizations of all the people we kill in the name of the "right" ideology...which doesn't exist...never has existed...never will exist...
I feel very much like Thomas Hobbes in 17th Century Great Britain trying to make sense of all of the religioius warfare of his time, watching the foolish divisions among Catholics and Protestants rationalize warfare that would take so much life for so little reason...and beginning to understand the first and foremost responsibility of government is to protect people from that kind of violence...though much more squarely with John Locke, Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill that such protection must be democratic and protect freedom as fundamental...

As I watch the Bush Administration and the Olmert government in Israel rationalize an ugly incursion in Lebanon and longer term warfare that has clearly not ended hostilities in the Middle East and never will...ever...absent a realistic peace process...

I am sad as I watch so many of my friends line up on sides...rooting on the killing and the death...in the name of ideology...

I just want it all to end...

And the excuses for it that make it all possible, most of all...

The world has just taken this really ugly path the last 6 years or so...conservatives...liberals...even many moderates...it's been a period of coercion and force rationalized as if they really can solve problems if we would just give force a chance (John Lennon must be rolling in his grave)...

That 14-year-old kid in Talahassee died on the altar of all of our hubris...

And I just want it all to end...

Do people really believe that the Soviet Union could have made the independence efforts in Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia go away by rolling in tanks?...do people really believe that China and Cuba and North Korea and Vietnam really will be the last remaining bullwark of a socialist utopia? Do people really believe that democracy, at its heart, is really no different from Nazism or Fascism or Communism or theocracy, even as all of these ideologies can be accomodated in a democracy? Do people really believe that murder and political blackmail and violence are really no different from democratic engagement and discourse to resolve important problems that humanity faces?...Do people really believe that we can make terrorism in Palestine, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, Communism in North Korea, China, and Cuba, the nuclear ambitions of a theocratic democracy like Iran, or any of the other most important problems of the world go away with military force?...Are we that completely blind to the power of ideology and politics and the universal aspirations of freedom and equity?

I'm just tired of all the pointless, destructive fighting...I'm tired of so many people being killed for absolutely no good goddamn reason at all...and certainly no reason that has ever ended any of the hostilities...
That's why Louis Armstrong's 1970 version of What a Wonderful World was always Brandi's and my song...

As Louis says,

"Some of you young folks have been sayin' to me, 'Hey pops, what you mean what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either.' Well how about listening to old pops for a minute? Seems to me, it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it. And all I'm sayin' is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lot's more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be Odessa."

I just want all this stupidity to end, is the truth...

I'm realistic...but I also know that its the only way through this mess...it's like a peace process in the Middle East...I'm realistic that the Administration, the Israeli Government, and Hezbollah and Hamas are not going to take up a formal peace process, right now, for whatever stupid, foolish, destructive reasons...but I'm also realistic about the long term enough to know that there is no way out of that mess without a mutual commitment to a peace process...no side will ever admit defeat...they will go on fighting until they finally exhaust their foolish rationalizations and save some face through a peace process that they, like Gerry Adams in Northern Ireland, develop something of a genuine commitment to that peace...

But what I'm most frustrated with...is the 6 billion or so people throughout the world who just can't seem to find it in themselves to think for themselves and to stop encouraging this ugly nonsense and find the courage to speak in favor of a world where they can be independent thinkers and not have to root on this ugliness as if one side or the other is ever going to win in any meaningful way...

Our children and grandchildren, I'm convinced, will look back on all of this foolishness and shake their heads as we do, today, at Catholics and Protestants fighting for dominance in 17th and 18th century European governance and imperial ambitions...

So much destruction...so little reason...

And I just want it all to end...

And it'd be nice to surrounded by more folks who also want it to end and aren't interested in rooting on the various groups around the world who murder in the name of ideology and being right...

The Economist did this really great piece in their recent Kim Jong Il Rocketman edition celebrating the political accomplishment of the Socialist Prime Minister of Spain Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in brokering a deal with the ETA, the militant wing of Basque separatism in Spain which is responsible for the deaths of approximately 800 people, and criticizing Spain's conservative leaders for opposing the deal...the conservative editors of the Economist surely recognize the proven success of the Belfast Agreement in their home country of Great Britain in ending terrorist violence in Northern Ireland with the approval of the Clinton and Blair governments and the significance of conservatives in Britain supporting that agreement...

And that's what democratic engagement should look like...looking a reality square in the face and doing the right thing and being willing to criticize even those you identify with if it means moving the world ahead several paces...

The consistent theme in so many Economist articles, these days, is "bad to worse"...that's how so much of the world has moved in the recent weeks...bad to worse...and there's nothing that good faith observers can do but watch it, note it, and hope for an end to all of the senseless tragedy...

I just want it all to end...and I especially want for average people to stop rationalizing it like it's somehow all better than it really is...

Martin Luther King was mistaken when he excused left wing revolutions for the sake of social democratic ends...supporting democratic revolutions is one thing and certainly justifiable when there is no way to peacefully usher in a democracy, as was the case with the American revolution...a democratic revolution, not an ideological revolution, largely...but justifying perpetual violence and revolution for the sake of an ideology, any ideology, except to usher in a democratic government where people can peacefully and freely decide these questions together is wrong...and so are everyone who do it today...it has caused and causes today so much death, destruction, violence, and power gambles that are arrogant and fail to face their own terrible legacy...King's far stronger legacy was his legacy of non-violence and his commitment to peace and democracy and love and compassion and forgiveness and the more authentic justice that comes out of those impulses and values...it is that legacy that is the basis for the truth and reconciliation processes in South Africa, East Timor, Chile, and around the world...and the only hope for escaping the cycle that Desmond Tutu and Pablo Friere and Martin Luther King and Mohatma Ghandi and Henry David Thoreau and The Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth have so eloquently cautioned us against of groups exacting revenge one another into perpetuity...and the practical justification for a world of love and compassion and decency...

And I just want all the violence and bloodshed in the name of ideology and certainly in King's name to end...

We will never resolve our various political concerns until this fundamental respect for one another is taken more seriously...and as often as humanity seems wont to prove that it is unworthy of such faith, it not only stumbles forward in this direction, consistently...this direction is the only direction that it can stumble forward into lest be stuck in cycles of violence and power and destruction and control and inequality that humanity is forever trying to escape...

And as the Economist recognizes...this is just a really bad time for humanity, right now..."bad to worse"...has been for a while, truth be told...

Darkest before the dawn, I can only hope?

All I know is that it has to end...

Including the moral support that we all provide to this ugliness...

"Seems to me, it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it. And all I'm sayin' is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lot's more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be Odessa."

That's the secret...he's right about that...whether we find the courage to dig deep and move in that direction or not, at this moment...

Love,
Ben

Making peace...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: February...Dar Williams...These Days...Rascall Flatts...It Was a Good Day (original version)...Ice Cube...
Topic: personal
Well I think I've finally made some peace...

After 4 years of torturing myself about my decision to leave grad school...I think I've finally decided that, on balance, I think it was a good decision...

It had all kinds of consequences I never expected...alienating my professors...foreclosing, for now, my Ph.D. and two M.S.Ed's (gifted and adaptive special education)...abandoning what I think was a really brilliant dissertation idea, that I could never have done a millionth of the job I'm capable of now that I've spent 4 years in the real world...

But the most important consequence it had for my life...and the reason why I think that it was on-balance, the right decision...

Is because it made me less afraid...

Of everything...of grad school...of writing deadlines...of being fired...of taking unpopular positions...of what kind of person and leader that I might be...of innovating...of defying ideology and orthodoxy...of following my heart and conscience and developing a more genuinely strong and independent mind...

I left...and I proved my mettle...and of that, I'm really proud...

It'd be great for those things to come with a Ph.D...

But if that or anything comes at the expense of what really matters in an education or a life (which it definitely felt like was the case when I was in grad school, even today)...then fuck it:):)...

As it turns out...for all of the twists and turns of my decision to leave...all of the economic uncertainty, the really profound self-doubt, the loss of faith from my family and some of my friends...

I actually think after the whole ordeal...

That it may really have been worth it...

Crazy, huh?...

Because it put my feet underneath me...it made me me my own man...and it demonstrated to me, at least, a commitment to learning and independent thought no matter what fears I might have had about the matter...

That's what I wanted out of a graduate education...

And quite accidentally, much of the time, that's exactly what I got...

Now, 4 years later, I have come to terms, much better with my own personal limits and the more universal limits that life offers...gotten to know people and the real world much closer and in person than I ever had in grad school...secured a much more real sense of independence and freedom, financially as much as anything else, ironically...

I've developed my thought much more than I was able to do when I was in grad school, I think (grad school was an invaluable experience, giving me the time and opportunity, as much as anything else, to expand my thinking and challenging me to think about life with my deepest capacities...but there's just something about the real world that anchors all that thought that I very much appreciate today in a way I couldn't before I left)...and developed a far more independent mind and outlook than I had before I left school...

I wish all the pressures of grad school and all the mistakes I made amidst them wouldn't have taken down Brandi's and my relationship...

If there was one thing in the world I could take back, it would be that...

But I'm glad she's happy and in love, now...I wish I would have been better about it, up front...I just didn't know anything about heartbreak like that, I suppose...I know better now...

As I head off to this camp...I remember why I loved debate and forensics so much...all the learning, and the friendships, and the bullshitting, and the love of serious thought for its own sake...

I put together what I think is this really killer extemp source and serious policy thought resource list that I can't wait to talk with the kids about next week...

It will be my first informal chance to teach kids about policy...

I have these really great ideas for teaching policy in a university setting...more open-ended reading and sharing (with none of the bullshit lying that college students have to perpetually engage in to pretend to have read shit they really haven't)...more student direction and more equitable relationships with students...more serious problem solving and workshopping of real-world problems with accountability to serious analysis and data-collection about efforts...all kind of laid back and totally consistent, as much as possible, with a healthy and balanced life that doesn't create, I hope, the kinds of pressures that help take down mine and Brandi's relationship...

All the shit I wanted more of in school...

And I have a week, here, where I get try some of those out...

I'm looking forward to it, and the beginning of the school year here soon enough...

And there's a dance at the camp, so that can't be a bad thing:):)...I'm bringing plenty of music, though I've lost my B-Side compilation version of Ice Cube's It Was a Good Day (a WSU team favorite) so I'll probably have to burn some CD's, for Bond to take with him as much as for us for the week:):)...

My one experience with making a tape for a friend was a collection of audio and music dedicated to love and politics for Brandi, when she was in D.C...this will probably have to be someting similar, including Bobby Kennedy's impromptu eulogy for Martin Luther King in Indianapolis in April of 1968, the most beautiful political speech I have ever heard in my entire life...

That speech captures better than any other I've ever heard the essence of politics and life...

Bobby Kennedy announcing the news of the death of Martin Luther King...April, 4, 1968...

"To tame the savageness of man, and make more gentle the life of this earth"...

Yeah...that's a worthy way to live one's life, I think...

Have a great week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

A life for myself...and not believing my own bullshit, so much...
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Lay Down Sally...Wonderful Tonight...Eric Clapton...
Topic: personal
I've got a week to get some important stuff done in my life before I head off to Normal, IL...I've been a serious slacker these last couple of weeks, but in a good way...I spent 12 years in school being crazy ambitious and anxious the entire time that I was going to somehow fuck it up in some major or minor way...

And now...4 years after I did kind of fuck it up -- but also got some independence for myself, as a scholar and as a person...as a grown up -- the great thing is that I'm not afraid the way I was then...

In preparation for this trip, my conversations with Bond (via email) have totally reminded me of just how crazy ambitious I was when I did forensics...how political I was (and sadly, much of the time, successful in my politicking)...

When I went to grad school, I had had enough of that bullshit...I could see how patently superficial and useless all of the political nonsense was...and I was totally committed to a more genuine, honest academic experience in grad school...

In the biggest picture, that's what got me in trouble, in grad school....that I wanted too pure an experience...that I was just too goddamned ambitious and demanding of myself and others than really was feasible...or fair to people, probably, in many ways...

But I was young and dumb and unrealistic...and now I have a whole life ahead of me to take the lesson learned and to appreciate a teaching and scholarly career, as well as a life as a husband and father and whatever I end up doing with my life, with a more realistic understanding of the possibilities and limitations of teaching and scholarship, of the consequence of my life, and of people, in general...

I've got a life to get organized before I head off to Illinois State next week (which I just found out, tonight, was the 2005 AFA-NIET Championship team...I had no clue I was signing up for such an ambitious gig...but Bond assures me that they are very laid back and like having fun as much as competing, which is just alright by me)...

In the meantime, all this free-time outside of any real serious institution or structure (except for my June classes) has taught me this really valuable lesson...

That my life...and everyone's life...is, ultimately, my/their own...if things are going to get done in my lifetime to achieve my goals, I will have to do them...and I, ultimately, am completely responsible for those efforts...

A lesson better learned, in my experience, by having the freedom to determine my own destiny than strictly following any particular template for life...

Having experienced that freedom out of grad school and fairly thoroughly thought about the possibilities and limitations that one life can have on this world...I think it's about time I start organizing my life the way that would better support my aspirations...

Also...something I'm definitely learning from my adventures at the International Debate board at EZBoard.com and out of my discussions with Carson in a way that I think is really good...and something that virtually everyone is guilty of, I think, especially in politics and political discussions...

I'm learning not to take my bullshit so seriously, any more...there is so much more that I don't know than I do know...history, knowledge, principles, ideas...especially in policy discussions...nooone knows exactly how to deal with all of life's most serious issues...the amount of stuff that I don't know so far exceeds the amount that I do know, that it gets very hard to keep up with my ignorance, much of the time...

I've decided to give it a rest, some...to make some peace with it...to do my best...and offer what I have to offer...

And spend the bulk of my time with my family and my wife (someday) and raising my kids and just kind of learning and growing and not taking myself nearly as seriously, any more (I know...Brandi's got to be thinking, "Finally!":):)...

Hope everyone has a great week...

Love,
Ben

Missing old friends...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Blues Traveler...Run Around...
Topic: personal
I was having a moment, tonight...at a point in my life when I feel more settled than I've ever felt before in my life...I'm at a point in my life when I feel like I understand my parents and my teachers and older folks in my life better than I ever have...I'm just feeling like I'm growing up, I suppose...

I was having a moment, tonight, where I was really missing old friends...friends from school and from forensics, in particular...close friends...my best friends...

It's funny how I spent 4 years studying my Ph.D. in special education policy (and a Master's in adaptive special ed) and another year before that studying for my Master's in gifted education...all of which I abandoned when I left grad school...

And how a lot of my closest friends in the world I made while I was in undergrad...

Brandi was the closest friend I ever had...we met the year after I finished forensics...

But all of my other closest friends -- other than Melissa, my ex-girlfriend, Jenny, who I'm still relatively close with, my best friend in high school, Angela, and my best friend before that, Mike Coupland -- have been from that time I spent competing with the Wichita State University forensics team...

Bond Benton...Carson Brackney...Scott Wells...Brian White...Mike...Kate Cady...Tommy Patrick...Rachel Miller then Jorgenson now Asbury...Jeremy Pankratz...Jim Harrell...Skippy Flynn...Zach...Travis...Jessica...Kevin Keplar...

Jas Abramowitz -- who I met during that same time since we competed at sister schools -- and Dolly and Dave and Blick and the rest of the gang and I were close...we had a falling out...and I haven't known how to approach it without feeling like I'm gonna suckered again by the whole thing...

It's crazy, isn't it?...it feels kind of lame...

But I just haven't made friends as closely as I did during that time (though I just started at my job, and that could change over time)...

My friend Kenny and I were fairly close while I worked at Amarr...as with my friends Josh and Kevin and Deway...my friend Jesse and I got close while he and his girlfriend, Melissa, lived here at 6th and Michigan:)...I made many friends in the jobs I worked...Brent McCall, who I need to get back in touch with...our mutual friend Matt, who I see when I head down to Liberty, the independent movie store here in Lawrence (Brent and Matt are aspiring directors:)...and Jenny Thunder, who I dated, and Raimi, who was my roommate for awhile...my friend Bill and I, from the Honors Department at Wichita State, were good friends...

And of course I can't forget the EMU Theater folks, here in Lawrence, who I have a very similar bond with...that we do theater for fun and to put on a great show...but we're mostly just there for one another...Andy and Rachel and Jeff and Honey and Joel and Julie and Gwetholyn and Claven and Dean and Melissa, of course:)...and everyone at EMU:):)...

But there's something about competing with the same group of folks for years together...hanging out together in motel rooms and student unions and van rides and such...without the threat of being fired or cast aside or otherwise being ostracized (not seriously, anyway) hanging over your head...that just brings people together, I suppose...

I made plenty of friends when I was in grad school...but it was a really intense, hypercompetitive environment, much of the time...there was a genuine sense of community, as well...a really strong sense of community, at times...

But it just wasn't quite the same thing, I don't think, as hanging out with a bunch of people with whom you don't have to impress...you don't have to be politically correct (that is for damned sure when I think about that common bond for our team:):):)...you don't even have to win or be successful to feel that togetherness...

You just have to be together...a lot...and be working for common goals...

And tonight I just found myself missing them...

I guess because anytime I ever catch up with any of them I am totally reminded of how strong a bond we shared with one another...more out of just being together than out of working together, I think, after doing grad school with more work-oriented relationships and as I work with people where the threat of losing your job is always looming over people...

I think other than Brandi it is the closest that I've ever felt with other people in my life, outside of my family, of course...

And I'm just missing them, right now, I think...

And that feeling that I belonged to something just because...no proving myself necessary...

We need more of that in the world...a lot more of it...

And I am reminded of a time in my life when I felt it...and it was something special...

Hope everyone has a great week...

Love,
Ben

A quiet confidence...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Change the World...Eric Clapton...February...Dar Williams...What a Wonderful World...Louis Armstrong...
Topic: personal
I haven't felt this feeling in a long time...

This feeling I've been feeling, lately...

This quiet confidence...this total certainty that I have quite the future ahead of me...

I don't know what's it's been...maybe it was the Mark Twain...reading A War Prayer and Letters from the Earth, late at night...knowing what it's like to know in your heart that your fellow man needs to make important course corrections...and to feel helpless to steer the ship except to try to give better directions...and to know that the ship will only change direction very, very slowly...

"Trimtabbing" as my friends at RESULTS would say...

Or if it's been being successful, again, in school...and having all arrows point in the direction of a very, very bright future...

Or if it was my birthday...and have more people, among them my dad, my Grandma Miller, Angela, and my Grandma Sutherland, especially -- who is a special light in my life, right now -- remember, this year, than ever before:)...

Or maybe it was doing this annotated bibliography and knowing intuitively and quickly that the first books or people I recommend are people with big ideas...and slowly feeling the quiet recognition that I would be among the ranks of people that others will recommend soon enough...

I don't know what it is...

But today has been a good day, as Ice Cube would say...

I haven't had this feeling in a long time...

Since I was in school, quite a long time ago...when Brandi and I were in D.C., together...when I had everything I could ever want, and I didn't even know it...

That quiet confidence that comes when you're in love with life, and you don't even know the difference...

I guess it's because I just know that I'm on the right track, at this point...

And it's been a long time since I've been this sure:):)...

You ever wonder what it's like to live a dream?

I think I'm getting a glimpse:):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

The Notebook...
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: The Notebook...James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands, Joan Allen...
Topic: personal
I've never seen a movie capture unrequited love quite so well...

Definitely one of the most beautiful stories about true love that I've ever seen...

An unqualified affirmation that a life of love is a life of freedom...which is run by noone...but one's own heart...

It makes me regret what an ass I was when Brandi was faced with a similar choice...and how little I respected what she wanted/wants...

And it reaffirms my belief in true love...in a world that often acts like it doesn't exist or doesn't matter...

When really it matters most of all...

Love,
Ben

Have you ever bet your life on something?...
Mood:  down
Now Playing: February...Dar Williams...No Woman, No Cry...Bob Marley...
Topic: personal
Have you ever believed something so strongly...believed in its capacity to change the world for the better so powerfully...

That you bet everything on it?...

I did...

I've been feeling like that was a bet I would never get credit for, lately...

But something tells me that I couldn't have gotten as far as I've gotten, this far in life...

Without something of substance to it all...

My principal has been really great, lately...

I think she's maybe trying to create the space for me that I need...I hope...

I've always said...that...after Conrad Jestmore...my high school speech and debate coach...and later high school drama teacher...

That the most important thing I've ever wanted from my coaches and teachers and bosses and leaders of all kinds...

Was to just get the fuck out of my way, much of the time...

And my principal...is not just a great teacher...

She seems to be trying to do just that, lately...

Which I really appreciate...

What I need, now...is a muse...

Our school psych...the girl I had the big crush on...has a boyfriend...

The math teacher, though...the one who was friendliest to me when I first arrived at Eisenhower...

Is single, as far as I know...

And she does seem to glow, these days, when I look at her:):)...

She reminds me a lot of Brandi, actually...

Though she does seem to be learning to get over her young idealist's cynicism...

I don't know...I just know I need to get over this pain that I feel on my heart letting Brandi go...

And Brandi not talking with me has left me a little gun-shy about getting into a relationship where I might really fall in love, again...

But Molly did ask me out the first time we hung out...

So I guess it's my turn, this time...

I was just...so deeply invested in Brandi...

My heart just feels so bad...so terribly bad...letting go...I think I'm the only one who will really know how terribly my heart has ached letting Brandi go...

I would have done literally anything for Brandi...

And now I barely know her...

It's the most tragic thing I've ever experienced in my life, really...

No matter how painful...and unfair...the financial and employment troubles I experienced after grad school were and are...

Losing Brandi is definitely the most tragic thing that I've ever experienced in my lifetime...

I sometimes wonder if she'll ever know just just how powerfully I loved her...how deeply I was invested in her...just how much she took for granted...

I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who will ever really know...

It's amazing how much love will inspire you to do things, isn't it?...

That force...and pain...and threats...never could...

Brandi will probably never know just how integral she was to helping to shape me...and my ideas...

Noone will, I don't think...except me...

I don't think I've ever cried so much in one evening...I'm sure I've had some pretty weepy nights...but it's been a long time since I've cried like this...

I don't think Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry has ever felt so sweet to me as it does tonight...

I better try to sleep, now that I can...

Goodnight...

Love,
Ben

The insight I needed, today...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Dar Williams...February...
Topic: personal
No school tomorrow...President's Day...and I have plenty of work to do...so it will be a refreshing bit of time to get some of that work done...

I finally got a bit of insight, today, that I've been needing this week...

I've been kind of discouraged, this week, about why I care so goddamn much about serious thought and helping others...when it hasn't always paid off for me, in a more self-centered way...meaning, financially or whatever other kinds of ways that many people center too much of their lives around...

The insight I got...

Was that when I feel shitty about me...or choices I've made...

Generally...it's because I've not really cared much about others...and how my choices affected them...I've cared about myself more...

And I just don't want that in my life...

I like caring about others...

I like caring...

I like giving a shit...

Even with all of its disappointments...

And even with all of the disappointments I feel with myself, sometimes...

I like having my heart open...

Even with all of the pain...and lessons to be learned from that pain...that an open heart invites...

What I miss, I think, actually...

Is not my naivete about caring about others...about giving a shit about the world...

It's the taken for granted feeling that this is how good people should live their lives...

The feeling I had when I was a kid...

Before a lot of cynical folks tried to convince me of just how naive my idealism and compassion were...

Francis Fukuyama has an article in today's New York Times that a good friend of mine sent me that I'm enjoying reading very much, right now (I haven't finished it yet...it's a pretty long, involved, and very thoughtful article)...that kind of gets at this feeling...

Francis Fukuyama...After Neoconservativism...

So does an article I read by Daniel Pipes in the Winter 2005/2006 edition of the National Interest...

The National Interest...

The theme that both of these articles picks up on that I really appreciate...

Is the need for some sense of idealism to guide us...

And for me...that idealism is a feeling that I can just take for granted...

That caring...about doing a great job...about others...about life...

That it really matters...

That it's a good thing...

Even with all of its disappointments...

The shittiest choices that I think any of us make in life...

Are the ones where we just didn't care enough about something...

About others...about ourselves...about doing a good job...about being thoughtful...whatever...

And I just take for granted, again...that idealism...that caring about my deepest values...about aspiring to be my best...even as I fall short...often...

That caring...about others...and about doing a great job of looking out for others...

That this matters...that it matters independent of any cynicism that I or anyone else might feel in the moment...

That's what idealism means...

It doesn't mean naivete...we just associate it with naivete...because many of us feel most idealistic when we were more naive...because we didn't know about all the pain that the world had to offer us...and we sometimes get stuck in that pain...and that's when the cynicism sets in...

When idealism, ironically...doesn't need for us to be naive...or unaware...

Even though all of us who at least at a certain age know the times when we knew a lot less than we do, today...

Idealism just needs for us to give a shit...for us to care...about others...about ourselves...enough to open ourselves up...to new ideas...to new thinking...to questioning whether we might be wrong...to questioning our most sacred assumptions...

I love caring, is the truth...I hate the disappointment...but that's not because I hate caring...it's because I love caring...and disappointment is a natural function of caring...and having the world be less than my ideals...which is perpetual, as long as I am always and forever expanding my ideals:):):)...

You know what my best memories of life are?...

When I cared so goddamn much...

And I didn't even think twice about caring...

Because I hadn't accumulated all this crazy pain and disappointment on my heart:):):)...

That's why I have such fond memories of that summer in 1998:):):)...

I was naive, to be sure...I was young...and totally in love...and I really had no clue about the world...

But I also just cared...without questioning it...I just cared...because I knew...that that was the right thing to do...no questions...I just knew that I cared...and that's what animated my idealism...and that's what animated my life:):):)...

You know why I love Dar Williams' February so much?...even though it's so terribly sad and needlessly tragic...very much like Brandi's and my break-up?...

Because it is so clear just how much she cared about the guy that she's singing about in this song:):):)...

It's so beautiful...if you ever get a chance, you really gotta check out this song...February...

Maybe Katherine's right:):):)...maybe I'm just being a drama queen:):)...

Life doesn't always work out the way we want it to...and sometimes we fall flat on our faces:):):)...

But you know what?...

I would definitely...without a doubt...rather fall flat on my face...trying to do some small or great good in this life...than fail doing anything else...

Because it matters to do good...it matters...not to be a perfect person...which doesn't exist...but to be a better person...to be someone who is thoughtful...who makes choices...and sometimes fucks up...but then makes better choices from the lessons learned...

And having that kind of outlook on the world...

Makes all of the failure...and disappointment...and pain...

Well worth it...

That feeling...that taken for granted feeling that caring...that idealism...that doing the right thing....and that loving ourselves and each other through all of the successes and failures, the moments of inspiration and the moments of disappointment...that all of this matters...

That feeling is worth more than any price that you could ever put on anything in this life...

It's the feeling I love most, in this world...

And there is no price you can put on that feeling...

And nurturing that feeling among young people...is one of more worthy ways that I can imagine living my life:):):)...

I have much to contribute in my lifetime, I think...

But maybe that more sustained sense...of commitment...of idealism...of caring and keeping my heart open...no matter the obstacles...no matter how many obstacles...and how many disappointments I face along the way...

Maybe that's the most important legacy I leave with my life...

Because it is out of that idealism...that sense of possibility...and hope...and commitment...

That everything else flows out of:):):)...

Is just so goddamn priceless...

Living a life that you love...

And loving it enough to feel it to its fullest:):):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):):)...

Have a week that you can give a shit about...

Love,
Ben