AntonellaGraef, lensed in Vogue Russia July 2010 by photographer Ben Weller juxtaposes important values subsets around the globe.
We doubt that Vogue Russia intended to make any global values statements with these photos, but they capture perfectly the milkmaid who loves nature and baubles, too. She is the Smart Sensuality woman.
Dr. Paul Ray and Cultural Creatives
We embrace the research of Dr. Paul Ray and his wife Sherry Anderson and their identification of Cultural Creativesas a growing group of international globalists who embrace human values considered female-centric.
My strategic focus on Smart Sensuality women highlights a subset of Dr. Ray’s values-driven universe. In my conversations with Dr. Ray and in reviewing his research through the prism of my own observations about American culture and consumerism, I find his insights rock solid.
The AntonellaGraef’s photo dramatize the conflicting issues around materialism, wealth, nature and environment, international development and the relationship of the individual to her/his group status.
We oversimplify the Integral Values research, positing these trends as an American mindset vs a Scandinavian one.
Yet the comparative lens reflects the concerns of millions of independent-thinking, creative achievers — who aren’t socialist threats as argued by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in the tradition of Joseph McCarthy.
Like them but perhaps more thoughtfully and definitely in lower-toned voices, we consider what defines a life well-lived life and the nature of our obligations to the rest of the world community and Mother Nature.
We regret that CulturalCreatives.org — the top Google entry in a search on Cultural Creatives hasn’t been updated since 2001. The finding suggests that Cultural Creatives are no big deal, which is not the case.
On rare occasions, good writing grabs us, clutching us tightly. This moment, the writing belongs to Carolyn Lochhead, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle Washington Bureau. Just in case any of you are not clear, this is US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s moment, not President Obama’s.
Pelosi says Rahm Emmanuel wanted her to back down, taking a smaller version of health care reform that she calls “kiddie care”. Like Rep Bart Stupak and the Catholic bishops, Pelosi also has beliefs, as a devout Catholic.
In January’s darkest days, after Democrats had lost their filibuster-proof Senate majority, President Obama publicly hinted that he might vastly scale back his ambitions on health care, and top House Democrats all but declared the project dead. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said no.
“We will go through the gate,” she said. “If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”
Today, thanks largely to a San Francisco Democrat driven by a profound faith in Catholicism and in the ideals of the Democratic Party, Democrats stand on the brink of enacting a $940 billion health care overhaul that they have dreamed of but failed to achieve for more than half a century.
Pelosi is gambling everything on what is expected to be a razor-thin vote: her speakership, Obama’s presidency, and the political careers of Democrats in swing districts. Polls show the public deeply divided and tilting against the legislation.
To all the men who have said that women don’t have the right stuff, that we’re chickenshit when the chips are down, you take back your words. Win or lose, Nancy Pelosi makes a mockery of the argument that women can’t play hardball and with heart.
Win or lose, Nancy Pelosi, we’re proud of you. The President is quite frankly, your guy on the sidelines at this moment.
If you win, you’ll take a bow and pass him the baton. He’ll have the headlines. Either way, you’ve won for women.
With America in total gridlock politically — at a time when some form of collaboration and action seems imperative — Republicans have spent most of their time saying ‘no’ and attacking President Obama and Democrats.
In writing about Republicans today, I’m not condoning Democrats. On every front, I’m fed up with hypocrisy and cheap-thrill soundbites.
Like climate scientists, Republicans assume that smart folks know what they recommend for the country, in terms of action plans. Watching Republican leaders every day, I can honestly say that I have NO idea what the Republicans recommend, in terms of action on several fronts — especially healthcare.
I am clear about their views on dealing with terrorists. I have no view how they propose to cut a deficit that was created largely by engaging in two wars and treating them as ‘add-on’ items in a budget.
Any college economics student could predict the mess we’re in today, even without the added burden of a recession caused by pursuing the American dream, as if it was a monopoly game. My view is:
All of us are guilty. Period. America has no future vision anymore. We are the party of NOW. I want it NOW. I’m entitled to have the good life NOW. My focus is my own good life and screw the future. Since the 60s, advertisers have told me that I am uniquely special and deserving of a good life, and damn it, I want it NOW — as real prosperity is evaporating before our eyes.
Many Christians say that America is divinely entitled to lead a privileged existence. I’m getting mine TODAY is simply a reflection of American destiny, even though this attitude doesn’t seem to be the historical reality of American excellence and pursuit of hard work and success.
Smart people who care more about the country than media ratings and poll numers, are deeply concerned about fixing America, and not with rhetoric.
This week’s Newsweek writes an in-depth article What Republicans Really Want, besides being known as the party of “no”. I’ve tried my best to summarize the article fairly and accurately.
1) Jobs: tax cuts
Specific Recommended Action: No additional stimulus package. Beyond that nothing.
“We’re not going to look to Washington to create the jobs,” says GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, summing up the Republican liturgy. Most in the party (like most Americans, according to polls) want nothing to do with another expensive stimulus that would smack of expanded government. Yet the GOP has also rejected Democratic bills that tried to lure Republicans by including significant tax cuts. Earlier this year Republican Sen. Charles Grassley reached an agreement with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus on an $85 billion jobs bill. It combined small-business tax breaks with an injection of money for the Highway Trust Fund, more unemployment insurance, and agriculture emergency assistance. Other Republicans resisted Grassley’s entreaties to sign on, even though the bill was adorned with the tax-credit extensions for businesses that Republicans wanted.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, we share his inspiring, motivating “I Have a Dream Speech” speech, delivered on my birthday on Aug. 28, 1963.
These words inspired me as a young woman on the Minnesota prairie in ways I can’t explain, bearing an impact on my thinking and values that I don’t fully understand to this day.
Racism At My House
We didn’t have Black people living in my Midwestern town. I didn’t grow up in a segregated society, and race relations weren’t part of the culture of my daily life.
It would be 1968 before racism hit home. I accidentally overheard a family member on the telephone, speaking with the builder of our suburban development. I still can’t articulate publicly what was said, because I am both ashamed and still incredulous over the event.
My family member explained to the builder of our house — without an ounce of ambiguity — what would happen to him, if he sold the house across the street to a successful Black veterinarian. The words of that phone conversation — never discussed or even acknowledged until now — have rung in my ears for decades.
I knew this man quite well, as the first Black person I spoke with, in my teen-girl life. He chatted with me in the evening, waiting for his prescriptions to be filled each night. I worked in the cosmetic department next door.
The Black veterinarian did not become our neighbor, even though he was well-qualified, and we never discussed the incident.
Starry Nights and ‘Yes We Can’
Watching footage of the civil rights movement, I was transported in memory to a warm, starry night in Wainscott, LI. My weekend guests were my dear friend Lauryce and two of her African American girlfriends, who I knew casually.
We were dining outside on the deck of my house, enjoying one of those glorious, East End summer night dinners under the moon, a night so beautiful that we all felt blessed with the beauty and good fortune of our lives.
No matter that I was the hostess. I was technically the outsider, because these three Black women had grown up in Charleston, SC.
Relaxed with our wine drinking, the three Southern belles fell into animated, larger-than-life conversation about life in the segregated South. There was a lot of hollering and laughter going on, even if the trio was terribly sophisticated.
When the women laughed about the so-called advantages of sitting in the balcony of the movie theater — God knows, I don’t remember what benefits were for real — I could only cry inside, that these beautiful Black women would endure such humiliation in their young lives.
They weren’t play-acting for my benefit. Many oppressed peoples develop humor to help them deal with misfortune, and I was seeing it first hand.
Inspired and winesappy, Lauryce ran into the house, dragging out the boom box, and the dancing began.
Those three African American women were some sight to behold, a vision straight out of Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations.” I admit that I didn’t join in — not because I’m a White person with no rhythm.
The moment was so gorgeous and memorable, so full of historical magic, that I wanted to watch every nuanced detail of this spectacular, unrehearsed production. Maybe they reminded me of ‘American Bandstand’ or some other show I watched as a kid.
The beauty of our Wainscott evening was short-lived.
Fragility and Time Running Out
Mickey would die of cancer 10 years later, at 45. Her death lingers still in my mind, as a reminder that our days to “get things right” are not limitless.
On the subject of race relations in America, we may have reached our current limits. Partially, this is because we no longer have agreement around the nature of the problem.
We Americans celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday today, having sent a great message about race around the world and lived with the result for a year. We did not elect Barack Obama to be our first African American president — we elected a man who happens to be Black.
The scope of Barack Obama’s victory one year ago leaves little ambiguity around the reality that America is a vastly different place, than in 1963. Yet Blacks are disappointed that President Obama hasn’t done more, without doing much to articulate their list of expectations in the mainstream media of what they expected — a bailout? a national tongue-lashing of White America?
Are we racism free in America? Of course not. This reality does not undermine our success, however, in moving forward on race relations in the country.
A fundamental reality that I’ve learned in life is when people act in positive ways, the naysayers lie in wait, ready to entrap us in total distortions of our good intentions. It’s so easy to say and do the wrong thing. A person isn’t judged by a lifetime of behavior but instead by a slip of the tongue.
I’m on record saying that I love watermelon and recommend it for the White House garden because it’s so darn healthy and delicious. This belief confirms the suspect nature of my comparatively non-racist character. Lurking inside me are my true colors and they are red.
I heard a young Black musician on NBC right before the inauguration, suggesting that we elected Barack Obama, because he is biracial … that Americans would not elect a “real” Black man.
It was clear to me that this young man on NBC owned an icy heart, refusing to acknowledge that something truly good had happened in America. What is he protecting that’s so precious to him?
Martin Luther Kind delivering his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
New World View
When I reflect on the role the race has played in my life, I realize that age and life experience have released me from my racial guilt.
In all my years researching and reading about sexuality, I’ve never heard of the Disgust Sensitivity Scale (DDS), and yet it makes perfect sense.
via Flickr’s CLearly NoviceCornell University researchers are exploring the relationships between one’s DDS score and one’s political views. In our ongoing dialogue of Traditionals, Moderns and Cultural Creatives, DDS could also play a role. One assumes that Cultural Creatives would score lower on the Disgust Sensitivity Scale, because we are generally more open-minded about novel and new experiences, more adventurous explorers of life.
Interestingly, the researchers remind us that disgust evolved as an emotion to keep us safe from potentially hazardous or disease-carrying environments.
Disgust, as we know it today, is focused on morality and purity; but not originally, say researchers.
Building on yesterday’s post around narcissism, today we have a “current state of the American dream” read from Vanity Fair magazine.
In the past decades the American Dream has been redefined from a sense of opportunity to succeed and build a better life, in a relatively free relationship with government, class, caste and social heirarchy to making it big, amassing wealth and all things shiny.
Achieving the American Dream has moved from working hard, managing expectations and generating real value, to “pre-approved for the good life”, just because we are Americans.
via twnklmoon at FlickrDagny Taggart may be my literary role model, but I admit that on occasion, even I enjoy being rescued. Living as I do at the World Trade Center site, destruction and rebirth are always closeby.
Last week was an intensely moving and emotional one for me.
After being “fired” by my writing teacher, not over the quality of my words but procedural issues, I was beyond sad.
This eccentric but very talented young woman, has been a key stimulus and supporter of my desire to become a writer.
A dear friend reminded me that when we have tears in our eyes, we can’t see things clearly. He’s right, of course, but I couldn’t contain the flood of melancholy pulsating through my veins last week, four days after my abrupt dismissal.
Immediate Action
I knew enough to ask for help. My can-do, positivism always prevails, even when my eyes are wet.
One of the truly amazing aspects of the Internet, is our ability to send a well-scripted SOS into cyberspace with near-instantaneous results. An hour after posting my call for help, I was in the care of a prominent American intellectual and writer, and cocooned deeper in the counsel of a first-tier supporting cast of artists, writers, and Wall Street executives.
Unfortunately, I can’t share with you the method of my digital madness. Each of us is entitled to a few precious secrets in our increasingly transparent world, and I have mine.
They Said No
Not only did my strategy deliver me the best aggregate advice I’ve received in my whole life, but these word-generous, critical men began excavating the most private parts of my psyche. I thought my heroine character was exactly what men wanted to hear. Not so fast, they cautioned me.
They challenged me to find a literary voice in closer alignment with the real me: bold, confident, talented, but with more heart. My girl was a little too bitchy for their taste, not sensitive like the woman writing these emails.
Sidetracked
To get to the post office on the north side of New York’s World Trade Center site, I must cut around on Church Street.
The construction is gradually eating up the neighborhood, shutting down lanes of traffic and rerouting pedestrians further off their desired trajectories. My familiar streets are now a human stockpile of reconstruction pandemonium and industrial might.
I stood last Friday afternoon on Church Street, diagonally across from the police-protected, tarp-fenced construction entrance. Seriously concerned for my own safety and others, my focus was one of bringing order to the intersection, before someone got killed. Taking charge is so second nature to me, that I actually directed traffic in Rockefeller Center during the Son of Sam summer New York blackout.
These 10 or more red-flag-waving, sweaty, hard-hat workers directing pedestrian and vehicle traffic near the site, seemed to lack an organized plan, although crowd control in Manhattan is never easy.
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Mon, June 28, 2010 
