Honesty and the Political Process

Jimmy Carter wrote about the need for presidents to be honest this morning.

There were quite a few people who wrote in and said awful things about him in response. The venom of Republicans against this man is incredible. They can't stand that he actually lives his Christian values, it seems. He tries to be a peacemaker, and that means meeting with those who live in ways that you don't agree with.

That said, the following was the comment I sent in:

This discussion reminds me of Gandhi, and his philosophy of Satyagraha.

People take Carter to be naive, if not foolish, for saying things like this. But that's because most people have their lives wrapped in tangles of little lies, and it's generally believed that this is the way you 'get by' in life. The world is a mess, largely as a result of this. We can't trust our politicians or the political process. We can't trust the media. We can't trust businessmen, or those who represent them. We can't trust people who say they're in need at social services offices. Webs of lies are all around us, and cynicism grows with each passing year.

Gandhi believed in the power of truth. He believed that one must find the truth and live it. And he showed that it works.

"Be the change you want to see in the world," he said. We can't wait for Presidents to tell the truth. We can't wait for the oil industry to tell the truth. It starts with us. Each individual and each community must strive to live the truth, and then it will become far less tolerable to accept these untruths from political and business leaders.

Driving a Donkey to Drink

Ann Telnaes has a wonderful cartoon in the Post. Check this out:

Obama is Taking the High Road

Barack Obama has won the primary in North Carolina by a considerable margin. Hillary Clinton held on to win a very close one in Indiana. Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod, pointed out that this narrow margin of victory for Clinton can be credited to Rush Limbaugh's get-out-the-vote for-Hillary campaign. 10% of the voters in the Democratic primary in Indiana were Republican, and a sizable number of them supported Hillary. I don't know for certain how many Republicans came to the polls for Hillary at Limbaugh's behest, but I do know that the Clinton's victory came by such a small margin that if even 10% of the Republicans voting for Hillary did so in order to mess up Obama and the Democratic Party, it worked.

Through all the Clinton mud-slinging, Obama has chosen to take the high road. He keeps to an optimistic message. He believes that real change is possible in Washington that will help average Americans. And I am pleased that Obama is able to present the face of a better future for our country.

Now it's on to West Virginia, Oregon, and Kentucky. Puerto Rico will come after that. Clinton had to loan her own campaign more than $6 million dollars this month, because she can't get enough money in from supporters. I'm not sure that's the way campaigns out to be supported in America. One of the problems of this country is that it's run by the wealthy. And having candidates who can throw that kind of money at a campaign that isn't supported by the people is just a symptom of this same disease that continues to weaken the ideals and the promise of our country. But it's legal--for now. We should all be aware of what's going on, however, and ask ourselves if we want to nominate a candidate whose campaign can only continue because she is obstinate and filthy rich.

Clinton is determined to have this nomination decided at the convention by the super delegates. My concern is that, by leaving the nomination to be decided there, the news that Obama is our nominee will provoke a strong negative reaction in the Clinton camp that won't have time to heal before November. The Convention is in August. The election is in November. Having a huge uproar of internal hostility at the Convention could easily spill over with such venom into the fall that the Democrats may not have time to recover and take on the real challenge--keeping the Republicans from retaking the White House.

"The Thrill of Victory"

As a native Washingtonian, I was thrilled to see the parts of the Wizards-Cavs game that I did get to see yesterday. It was Game 5 of the best of 7 series. The Wizards were down 3 games to 1. It looked like Lebron James--I refuse to use his moniker "The King" as he's most definitely not my king--was going to wrap things up in Cleveland. Then we found out before the game that Gilbert Arenas, the face of the Wizards' franchise for the last several years and an athlete with enormous talents, is finished for the season. He tried to make a comeback from knee injuries twice this year. He played the first eight games of the season, and then bits and pieces of the last few games of the season. He could never make it back. The issue was compounded when he suffered a bone bruise on his surgically repaired knee early in the series against Cleveland. But Washington learned how to win without Arenas this year. That's why they were the fifth seed in the playoffs. Caron "Tough Juice" Butler knew he had to step up and deliver and ('lo and behold') he did! Butler scored 32 points on 11 of 22 shooting from the field. And the Wizards won 88-87.
I watched the first quarter of the game at "The Grad" in Chico. They have good food and a whole slew of t.v.'s, big and small. One of the Grad employees was watching from the next table over, and told me his family knows Arenas and he's a big fan of his. (It's nicer when you're not alone watching these events.) The Wizards had a steady lead through the first quarter. Then I had to go to give a test to my Logic class. So, off I ran. I was able to monitor the game through ESPN's "gamecast," which lets you know the score and who did what. Washington still led at the half. When I finished helping students after the test, I looked and saw that Lebron James had just made a slam dunk to put the Cavs up by 1 in the 4th quarter, with less that 8 minutes left, and I thought 'Uh, oh! Here it goes." I raced back to the Grad in time to see the last 4 minutes of the game. With less than 2 minutes left, the Cavs were up by 5 points. The Wizards' center, Brendon Haywood, fouled out. I figured they were finished. But the Wizards weren't finished. James missed a 3-pointer, and the Wizards got the rebound (which was not a sure thing in this series by any stretch of the imagination). The ball was put in Caron Butler's hands. He drove down the right side of the lane with Lebron James guarding him. Everyone agrees he was fouled at least twice, but no call was made and he made the tough shot that put the Wizards up by 1 with 3 seconds left. Again, everyone knew that James would get the ball for the final shot. James tried the very same move up the right side of the lane on his side of the court. Without a doubt, James was also touched on his way in, but again no foul was called and, unlike Butler's shot, James's shot rimmed out. Game over. Lest anyone feel sorry for James, I read one account that assures us that the "foul" that wasn't called was a result of James's teammate, 7 foot 3 inch Ilgouskas, pushing Wizard center Darius Songailla from behind into James. Songailla tried to avoid James. The refs just made it a no-call. James missed the shot. The game goes back to Washington for Game 6. So, the Wizards have made it a series now.

ASOKA: A Very Impressive Indian Film

Every semester in my Eastern Religions class, I speak briefly about King Ashoka in India. He won a series of wars and become the Mauryan Emperor. Afterwards, he converted to Buddhism.

I just watched a beautiful Indian movie about his life called ASOKA. (There's an accent on the S that makes it an 'sh' sound). It takes a little getting used to seeing the Indian musical productions inserted here and there, but they are lovely, too. But the story is remarkable. Ashoka garners our sympathy in the beginning. He's a terrific warrior-athlete who is also very handsome and charming. But his character grows darker and darker as time goes on. We are drawn into his dark quest as a kind of Clint Eastwood revenge cycle. He has been done wrong, and we appreciate his right to fight back. But with success, he goes over the top. There's no end to his thirst for revenge, and by the end, the whole world is his enemy. He tells us that he doesn't care if he destroys everything. There's a beautiful love story in the midst of this that is, at first, the tragic cause of his undoing, and then, later, is the cure that brings him back to his senses. We don't get to see the results of his conversion. I wish that we could have. Buddhism was established in India by his conversion in the 3rd-century BC. I would love to have seen how that developed. But this movie helps us understand why the powerful emperor might have grown tired of war, and how he might have come to see the folly of his ways. Personally, I was very moved by the tragic dimension of this story.