A Day in the Life of Chaos

Civil Service is such an innocuous term.  It sounds like it could represent a myriad of different things none of them having anything to to do with being an anonymous government employee.  In reality it is a time honored term to represent those that give their lives and careers to government in a belief that it has a role to play in society.  These days the very guardians of our Civil Service seem neither civil nor dedicated toward service.  Instead of dignity and courtesy we are treated to a barrage of indignity and down right insolence.  Esteemed former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "The central conservative truth about politics is that it is culture not politics that determines the fate of society.  The central liberal truth is that politics can help change a culture and save it from itself." While Senator Moynihan does a brilliant job of phrasing the philosophical clash of ideals between liberals and conservatives at its heart is an underpaid and often

I have been having an ongoing conversation with my father about the Occupy Wall Street protests going on around the nation and how they compare to the protests of the 60's.  I was born in the 60's, 1967 to be exact and less then a year later Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were both dead.  I wish I could say I remember it but I believe I was likely more concerned with the flavor of my creamed spinach.  As a result in order to gain perspective I have turned to someone that was much more cognizant of the changes going on in the nation.  In an odd way, we tend to remember the period with some nostalgia yet my father reminds me that it was the seeming hopelessness of it all that drove both him and my mother independently of each other to migrate to Alaska. Bloody Sunday, Selma AL I wanted to know if the protests of the 60's as undefined and counter culture as they were, had an impact on public policy.  My father's conclusions were that they did and he listed a

One of the problems of being cognoscente of history and of the world around us is that  leads to self questioning.  What would I have done?  What would I do? They are questions that can be postulated but never really answered.  The truth lies only in the resolution of the moment as it confronts you, nothing more, nothing less. Of course there are the radical questions of true moral sincerity.  For instance if you lived in Germany during the war would you have sheltered a Jewish friend?  What if the decision came at risk to you and the lives of your family?  I like to think that I would have helped but only the moment could have really shed light on the true answer.  It is always easy to find reasons and make excuses for not doing something.  The people I truly admire are the ones that don't.  The ones that have convictions so strong they set aside the implications on their own lives.  I know a woman who gave up a life in America based on her political convictions during the Rea

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up." Martin Niemöller We are now 6 months out from the next election cycle.  America will again look at itself in the mirror and maybe 30% of those eligible will actually vote.  The vast majority of those will vote based on their fears and misconceptions, few will vote for a vision or a future.  Negativism will overwhelm us as corporate money will flood the airwaves with messages by inauspicious sounding groups like "Citizens for a Clean America" funded quietly by the oil industry.  If there should be any lesson learned from the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it is just how much power corporate America an