The Dole Blog

It is not my intent to blog at you. Some of the things I say here require no reply. For those things that engender – provoke – a reply, this blog should be a running conversation. This is, as I call it, a social commentary. But it is not sufficient that I am commenting on society. If you read along, change my world-view.

My view alone is not sufficient. My view is unique, but simultaneously it cannot be unique. There must be things that you, the reader, agree with. There must be things that you disagree with. This writing is my output, but it should be shaped by more than just me. I am not, for better or for worse, alone. When I blog, you are also here. You, the reader.

stolen. Thanks!

Chutzpah (huztpah)
Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, sheer guts plus arrogance;
it’s Yiddish and, as Leo Rosten writes, no other word, and no other language, can do it justice.
This example is better than 1,000 words….read on!

THE ESSENCE OF CHUTZPAH…

A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner for 25cents each. Every day a young man would leave his office
building at lunch time, and as he passed the pretzel stand, he would leave her a quarter, but never take a pretzel.
And this went on for more then 3 years. The two of them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old lady’s
stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him.
Without blinking an eye she said:
“They’re 35 cents now.”

Today is the 65 Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It’s time to check in and see if we are where we want to be.
Thought interruption
This is an issue that hurts to write about. it’s much easier not to think about, to write about, Auschwitz, Treblinka, World War II, or any other issues of contention.
Response to Thought Interruption
That’s part of the problem. No one wants to think about, write about, consider, confront, deal with, any of these issues. They’re so much easier to avoid. Let’s move on about our daily lives. Our daily lives containing high unemployment, several wars, poverty – and on the bright side, a good response to an earthquake. Yes, let’s move on and forget the past.
Continuation of thought
It seems right, necessary and proper, to confront these issues. Not just trying to figure out why Virginia banned the new edition of Anne Frank’s diary. That was an odd decision, Virginia. We can expect the Deep South to want control over literature. But not Virginia, not The Old Dominion. Not the state of glory.
I’m getting sidetracked, a bit. Where are we? What did we take away from when the Big Red One liberated Auschwitz? Israel became a state. Now it’s a police state, or close to it. Then again, so are we … but nobody will tell you that. Israel thinks the best solution to the Palestinian Problems (oops, did I just call it that) is to build walls, deprive a nation of jobs, and enforce ways of life – sound familiar? Think ghetto. Countries want nukes. After all, we’re all safer when we all play M.A.D., right?
Things aren’t all bad. Miranda, Roe, Loving Brown v. Board of Ed. made sure of that. That’s some progress. All suggested by the same court that at times overturns those decisions. Most countries have a political system. Is it the system they want? Well … there don’t seem to be many choices. DEMOCRACY, or we say nothing works. We’ll make sure nothing works.
Strangely, there’s still hope. There’s always hope, but a lack of bad sure is nice. We’ll take hope. Just give us a reason. We need a reason.
Destroy the modern Auschwitz’s. It’s time to do things right.

I was at Subway tonight with a friend after the State of the Union and a thought flashed through my mind that was important enough to pull out a pen and write it down on the back of the receipt – I always have a pen in my pocket, don’t you? Here’s my thought. Reality – feeling, accepting, dealing with reality – is just another form of escape from reality. Or, conversely, escaping from reality is just another way of dealing with reality.
What’s real to you? It’s hard to know, isn’t it. How do you deal with the parts of reality you don’t like? Do you drink? Smoke? Overwork? Study constantly? Read? Keep yourself so busy you don’t have time to remind yourself of the things you’d rather not remember anyway? You have a form of escape. You might not call it that. You might not know it’s that. You might tell yourself – or you might be told – that what you’re doing is helping you with reality. And maybe it is. But isn’t it a form of escape?
Let me reemphasize my point. Accepting reality is just another form of escape. By thinking that you’ve come to terms with whatever your reality is, aren’t you also escaping from not knowing how to face reality. A very real, scary, Catch-22. There are lots of them. Your reality may be that you think you have accepted reality. Which means you’re running from reality. Or if you’re not running from reality, you are running from reality, because you think you’re not running from it. Scared yet? That’s the reality I see.

Crossposted on facebook

I don’t want to do a book review.  That is not my forte, and I’ve always found that book reviews are a bit unfair to people who haven’t read a book – even if it’s a review that makes them want to read said book.  That said, I’m going to do something like a book review.  A thousand Splendid Suns.  I don’t want to say, ‘this was good,’ ‘this was bad;’ that’s not my point.  I want to comment on the human condition. What the author wrote was not fiction. Nor was it non-fiction. It was something more – it was reality.
Imagine Afghanistan, if you can, that has not been destroyed by thirty years of war. Sometime in the 1970’s. Imagine a world where you are what you are born as. You are a bastard? You are always a bastard. You are a son of a fishmonger? You will be a fishmonger too. You sell rugs in the bazaar? So will your sons. That is this world. Europe was like that once, too. We are not so advanced, or so different. Ideas, ideals, and ideologies. They are so unavoidable. Our way changed because our ideals changed our ideas. Someday, quite without meaning to, we may change again.
I want to make just one more observation (a short post is a relief after the State of the Union). Our ideas of justice change. Sharia under the Taliban in Afghanistan is very different from Sharia in North Africa which is very different from Sharia in Saudi Arabia. And all of it is based on interpreting the same text, the same rule of laws.
Not such an explicit book review, eh? All I’ve told you is that the book exists. I hope you read it.

State of the Union 2010 liveblog and commentary. Or see a good livebog on Obama’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ by Andrew Sullivan

FINAL UPDATE. WITH COMMENTS DURING SPEECH BELOW THE UPDATE.
The pre-speech media hype (what I caught of it) on MSNBC was predictions, as always. And, as usual, predictions that were probably lacking. I heard MSNBC expecting a conservative speech, and one that focused on healthcare. After all, Obama is The Great Conservative, right? Elected by a fairly good lead (if not a small landslide), with a mandate to govern, if there has been one at all in the last twenty years. And elected by lots of states colored blue on the map, no matter how much he may push for a lack of blue-state red-state divide. As for healthcare, that has consumed political news cycles for … about eight months now. I guess it’s fair for the news to expect one more round of healthcare. We got that, and a bit more.
Obama began, not surprisingly, with the economy. If he is good for nothing else (and I still have hope that he is good for more) he is a master with words. The belief that progress is inevitable has led us through good times and bad, to where we are currently. It is time – this is the time, this is what this speech is for – to shape the destiny of America. After our markets crashed in September, 2008, “we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.” Mostly. It sure sounds good. He didn’t talk about the wavering response of his presidential-election opponent, McCain. But, maybe we’ll skip that tonight. It didn’t belong in the State of the Union, but it deserves being remembered. The speech began with the economy; the sensible thing to do, if the question really is jobs, jobs, jobs, as the media likes to tell us. Jobs would be nice, really. I just can’t speak for all of America. As always, Obama is professorial. He defined his constitutional role – to address congress, at the moment – and outlined a history for his audience they all already knew. And he doesn’t expect the easy job. “These struggles are the reason I ran for president.” He can also comment on his own failures, “change has not come fast enough.” That, I believe, was the reference to Guantanamo, among other things, that the media didn’t pick up on. But maybe I’m reading in to things.
Obama wants us to be all that we can be. No, seriously. He didn’t suggest that we should all join the army (although he did say that he will work to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell), but he did bluntly tell congress that Americans deserve that parties work out their differences. There’s a doctrine of Supreme Court decision-making called aspirationalism, which is the belief that all law should aspire to create the best society (as opposed to a society in line with the constitution as the framers meant it, or other specific doctrines). Take aspirationalism slightly out of context, into a legislative role, and that’s what Obama (lightly) pushed congress to do. There’s an American spirit to want to succeed. Hope! “It’s time that the American people get a government that matches their decency, that embodies their strength”. He wants to move on to how to govern, and says so. Obama, as I said, is professorial. He will tell you the next topic, give you time to finish taking notes on his previous thought, and allow filler time to catch up. He promised, while campaigning, to do what was “not just proper, but necessary.” Nice constitutional reference (if you’re looking, that’s Art I, Sect. 8, cl. 18. Is it scary that I know that without looking?). We’ve recovered most of the money we spent on banks. But not all of it, he emphasized. I just have the easy job of coding emphasis into those words. So, his necessary move was to add a $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) deficit to our economy last year. (Just as a sadistic thought, wouldn’t it have been interesting if we hadn’t bailed out lots of companies, and just let them fail. That would really teach them not to screw up). And as his next necessary move, he proposed a fee on banks! They can afford to pay back the taxpayers.
Allow me a brief detour, which Obama created in his speech, to address the issue of why we have government. That is a topic for several other posts and many volumes of writings. However, Obama moved the conversation from proposing a fee on banks – that did not need much time to address, he simply said he would do it – to what he has done in the last year for the economy. Forget Geithner, Bernanke, Orszag, and everyone else for a moment. Actually, remember them, but in your periphery, perhaps. The purpose of government, John Stuart Mill will be only too happy to tell you, is to assure people liberty and to do all things for collective well-being that people can’t do on their own. I can’t levy taxes on myself (actually, I’d like to figure out a way to do that and make money off myself), I can’t very well provide for my own defense, and I can’t regulate currency or international or interstate commerce. So, if Obama and his economic advisers, who are smart even if I don’t agree with them, believe they have some ideas about taxes and deficit-reduction, it is my role to let them come up with rational solutions. That’s why they exist (at least, as part of a large institution). I get to question, cajole, and disagree, but they have some duty to try to provide for the common good. Therefore, since Obama outlined his tax cuts and changes over the last year, it is my part to accept that what he did was with good intention.
There were some good examples of people with success stories. It was also nice that Obama didn’t bombard us with these stories, and only gave a few. He promised that jobs are the number one focus this year, with a new jobs bill. Not surprising, given all the hype this last week. But nice, very nice. Much better than focusing on Abdulmutallab (some of the news organizations did right after the Speech). Obama encouraged entrepreneurs and business success – I don’t think any sane president would discourage entrepreneurs in America. But the problem, Obama said (and I’m glad he mentioned this) is that, even with credit flowing, banks are lending to bigger companies, not smaller, new, ones. Obama said he’s taking money that big banks (the big four, really) are paying back after being bailed out, and giving that money straight to community banks. Your dream, Huffington Post! And Obama promises tax reduction for all new businesses. Much more important than it sounds.
What’s in the jobs bill? Glad you asked; I’m having fun typing this. The answer: domestic jobs. Actually, domestic jobs, that can’t be outsourced. Something Obama has been promising for a while. I don’t doubt that he means it; jobs can’t just magically appear and it’s only been a year. I think the idea is a nice one. Jobs that focus on one of Obama’s priorities, transportation. Money for high-speed railroad. Hey, sign me up to be a conductor. I’d love it. So, jobs for building a transportation network and for green energy (and, apparently, nuclear energy. It was a strange addition to the speech. But there is was.). We should not complain that action is slow, as long as he believes their should be progress. Every once in a while, Obama gave congress a little verbal kick. “How long should we wait? How long should we put our future on hold?” Just for … actually, I don’t know how long, Mr. President. Until we reach our fiftieth president? But that might not work. After all, “I do not accept second place for the United States of America.”
This led to a discussion of the international economy, and America’s falling, failing, place in the world. Goal: protecting the economy. Method: reform, and innovation – research funding. Energy, energy, always energy. Nuclear power, as I mentioned. Which seems strange, coming from an administration dedicated to reducing nuclear stockpiles. I know there’s a difference between domestic and international, and weapon-grade and nuclear-for-power, but still…. And off-shore oil. I’m sorry to see congress so divided that this is one of the few things Republicans clapped for for the first two-thirds of the speech. Even more sadly, clean coal. Obama wants clean coal. Show me some coal that’s clean. I don’t want to disparage him exactly, but these are ways to deal with current issues, not future ones. I mean, these issues are already here. Which is great, if you want oil for the next generation of car-drivers. What happens after that? The nice part, I thought, was a concentration on an export economy. For those of you that know what used to be compared to what is, you know that America used to make things. We used to be a production economy. I’m not a great person for working in a factory, but for those people who are … wouldn’t it be great to have a factory to make things in? The goal? Double our exports over the next five years.
Strangely, this segues nicely into education. After all, to run a factory, it’s nice to have educated people. Here’s what I got out of it, although there was more: A $10,000 tax credit for four years of college. And reducing the debt that students owe for years to ten percent of their monthly income for a maximum of twenty years, ten if they choose to be public servants. “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”
Speaking of people going broke. Housing and health insurance. Here comes the hard, boring, part that everyone wants to hear. Healthcare. Childhood obesity. A good topic, since most kids will be home eating tv-dinners while their parents watch the State of the Union. And now, the real healthcare talk? Do you like your plan? Keep it. Do you like your doctor? Keep him/her, and take him/her home with you. Do you have a healthcare plan? Or are you one of those 30,000,000-50,000,000 (gee, it looks bigger that way, doesn’t it?) people who doesn’t have healthcare? Republicans love you, but if you get sick … just listen to Alan Grayson. According to the Office of Management and Budget, healthcare could reduce deficit by one trillion dollars over two decades.
Why are we where we are, economically? Remember Bush, Clinton, and Bush? I do – vaguely. In 2000, we had surplus of $200 billion. In 2008, we had deficit of trillion a year, eight trillion projected for deficit. Note the difference between the billion and trillion. Ouch. And what about the necessary as well as proper role of the president (by the way, the president is assigned neither a necessary nor proper role in the constitution, beyond signing or not signing laws, and commander-in-chief. Different than issues here)? Obama wants to remind you that he took office during a crisis. That he added a trillion dollars to the deficit – says this is right thing to do – although he didn’t want to. What’s necessary and proper now? The federal government will cut spending. Like it or not, and the blogosphere has lots to say about it, a spending freeze starting in 2011. Social security, national security, healthcare, will not be affected. I have some issues with not cutting defense spending. Other people will take issue with not cutting social security spending. We’ll compromise and not cut either. Also part of the solution, tax cuts, but none for those with over $250,000 a year. The Republicans were … well, they didn’t applaud this suggestion. I’m going to not comment. I don’t have any good suggestions for the Republicans at the moment, and they don’t have any either.
Obama’s ideas are nothing new. They are, however, long out of style. They’re good ideas, like ‘invest in the people;’ there’s nothing wrong with that idea. It is, after all, “Common sense.” But we have a failing system – and Obama recognizes this – that doesn’t want to expend the effort to invest in the people. There are doubts about how well Washington works. Outlining transparency and fairness, that may or may not be there, Obama mentioned the lack of lobbyists on important committees. A nice thing, certainly. And something that either was booed by a Republican, who wants lobbyists on committees deciding policies, or was booed by a Democrat, with fairly bad timing. It was hard to tell. Much better was that Justice Alito said that’s not true when Obama slammed the Supreme court for Citizens United. Obama – and frankly, the rest of us – are a little tired of the ‘hostage-taking’ in congress. The essence of democracy is debate between parties about how best to govern the nation, for reasons I mentioned earlier about the role of government. “Leave behind fear and division, and do what it takes to protect this nation,” and he’s not only speaking of national security.
He is, however, speaking of national security. Remember his campaign promises? I remember three. He would end the war in Iraq, he would pursue Afghanistan, he would do whatever else is necessary under his role as commander-in-chief to keep the nation secure. He’s still promising an end to Afghanistan in July, 2011. I’m glad it will only take us twice the length of World War II, and the length of Vietnam, to end a war we do not need. I’m just as glad we’re ending just as useless a war in Iraq – he says we are – by August this year. “This war is ending, and all our troops are coming home.” I’ve read, and I apologize that I can’t find it right now, that American academics in foreign-policy role-played a nuclear discussion game between Iran and America, and America lost (according to current stated goals) every time. That said, Obama is continuing to pursue Iran and the nuclear weapons issue. I can’t imagine a better strategy than the one he has.
Inspirational and professorial. The philosopher-king has come to the City on the Hill. Change isn’t easy. Change isn’t meant to be done by Obama alone. “The only reason we are here is because generations of Americans were not afraid to do what is right, what is hard.” I cannot imagine how the right-wing continues to fight Obama. He professes – he always has – a love of the decency, and determination of American people. I don’t understand how you can fight a person who considers you decent. You can disagree, I hope you do, but to fight, to fight without end, to fight for the sake of fighting? That I cannot understand. “The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives in on in you, the American people.”

There is more to be said. There is always more to be said. But this is enough for now. There was a formal response minutes later by McConnell. I don’t mean to ignore the response. But I think I’ve said enough, for now.

Thanks for reading along, and I’ll have comments, grand and small, in a bit. Good luck maintaining hope until his next speech.

Fox:
lack of tax raises.
not sure about Obama’s optimism, because people might not be as optimistic as Obama.
didn’t see the same humility about healthcare as Clinton showed in ’95.
“McConnell looked like a star, especially compared to Jindal”
‘there is common ground – energy, education’ (Fox Juan Williams response to McConnell)
Obama did nicely concentrating on international competition
Obama never mentioned Guantanamo Bay

MSNBC responds:
didn’t seem left-wing (Maddow)
Republicans began to respond [favorably] as the speech progressed
“there’s nothing there that’s news” (in response to GOP response by Bob McConnell)

7:20 PDT
THE END

7:16 PDT
Losing hope, when people betray our system. Understandable disappointment.
Believing in change? Change isn’t easy. Obama can’t do it alone. But there’s no putting it off for the next generation.
“The only reason we are here is because generation of Americans were not afraid to do what is right, what is hard.”
Determination, activism, decency of American people.
“The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives in on in you, the American people.”

7:11 PDT
Bioterrorism prevention, linking this statement with that what we do is right.
We always stand on the side of human dignity and morals. Ignore for a moment Gitmo Suicides, black sites.
“If you abide by the laws, you should be protected by it.”
Working to repeal DADT
Immigration system improvement.

7:05 PDT
Afghanistan; homeland security. Troops home by July ’11.
Iraq: our troops home by August, 2010! Woot! “This war is ending, and all our troops are coming home.”
Responsibility to support veterans when they come home.
Threat of nuclear weapons. We are reducing our stockpiles, along with Russia. I completely agree, but find it strange he wants domestic nuclear power plants. I understand he means domestic, meant for power, but still find it odd.
Iran and nuclear weapons. They will face consequences, he says. Eh?

7:02 PDT
Reminds Democrats that people expect them to solve problems. Disses, for lack of a better word at the moment, Republicans for obstructionism just because.
Everyone loves this country. “Leave behind fear and division, and do what it takes to protect this nation” – and he’s not only speaking of national security.

6:55 PDT
Time to try something new! Invest in the people. “Common sense.” Doubts about how [well] Washington works.
(I wonder who booed banning lobbyists from being on committees, and why they booed)
Obama bashes the Supreme Court a bit for Citizens United.
He calls on Congress to publish all donations, etc., online.
Essence of democracy; debate between parties. But ‘hostage-taking’ not acceptable.

6:49 PDT
Massive fiscal hole. Government spending. In 2000, we had surplus of $200 billion. In 2008, we had deficit of trillion a year, eight trillion projected for deficit.
Took office during crisis. Added one trillion to deficit – says this is right thing to do.
Federal government to cut spending.
To pay for trillion, freeze government spending starting in 2011. Social security, national security, healthcare, will not be affected.
Tax cuts, but none for those with over $250,000 a year.
Return to surpluses in 1990’s.

6:43 PDT
Segue to the housing market. Including health insurance reform, because this means people would be able to keep or by houses.
And jokes about politics. Good. Politicians need to laugh too.
And a really interesting transition to childhood obesity. His kids probably don’t need to worry about that :).
OK, healthcare:
Ability to keep plan. Do you have one? 😮
According to the OMB, healthcare could reduce deficit by one trillion dollars over two decades.
Considered an improvement over the status quo (by doctors, nurses)

6:38 PDT
Education! Yay! Actually, I like an attempt to improve education. Like all things that are not adequate at the status quo, an attempt to improve is a great start.
Community programs.
College and affordability. $10,000 tax credit for four years of college. And reducing the debt that students owe for years.
“No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”

6:33 PDT
Protecting the economy. I’m glad he’s a combination of a pragmatist and an optimist.
And reform. And innovation – research funding.
Nuclear power plants? Interesting segue.
Offshore oil considerations?
“Clean coal.”?
Clean energy. That, at least, is an interesting idea.
I don’t want to disparage him exactly, but these are ways to deal with current issues, not future ones. I mean, these issues are already here.
Export economy. Double our exports over the next five years. Back to a production economy?

6:28 PDT
High speed railroad, and a focus on domestic, not-outsourced jobs. This is what the jobs bill is about.
Obama says we need a new foundation for economy. Not an unsurprising statement. But good to hear. We should not complain that action is slow, as long as he believes their should be progress.
“How long should we wait? How long should we put our future on hold?”
“I do not accept second place for the United States of America.”

6:24 PDT
Success stories, and other stories. Jobs are the number one focus this year, with a new jobs bill. Not surprising, given all the hype this last week. But nice, very nice. Entrepreneurs and business success.
Banks are lending to bigger companies, not smaller, new, ones.
Money flowing straight to community banks. Your dream, HuffPo!
Tax reduction for all new businesses. Much more important than it sounds.

6:20 PDT
Review of tax cuts created over last year. I don’t pretend to understand all the tax cuts, such as mortgages, and that’s why we have a government – it is their job to figure out how to improve life for as many of us as possible (etc.).

6:15 PDT
Americans deserve that we work through our differences. Aspirationalism, taken slightly out of context. And audacity. An American spirit to want to succeed. Hope! “It’s time that the American people get a government that matches their decency, that embodies their strengh”.
He wants to move on to how to govern, and says so.
Not just proper, but necessary. Nice constitutional reference. We’ve recovered most of the money we spent on banks.
He proposes fee on banks! They can afford to pay back the taxpayers. That would be nice (unsdertatement + sarcasm)

6:11 PDT
Destiny of America. Tempting to view progress as inevitable. “We chose to move forward as one nation, as one people,” after market crash in 2008. He begins with economy. He is such a professor. Not that that’s bad. Beginning with history, what we already know. “These struggles are the reason I ran for president.” “Change has not come fast enough.”

6:07 PDT
Chris Matthews is blabbering about anger and filling the air with noise, because silence is BAD. Democrats v. Republicans?
Matthews, Olbermann, Maddow, having a three-way (dialogue) about Republican (lack-of) policy.
6:10 PDT
KICKOFF by Pelosi! Just kidding, I hate sports-politics analogies.

6:02PM PDT
Biden and Pelosi. She’s not clapping like a seal yet. (Then again, Obama isn’t onstage yet.)
Hey Mr. President, don’t make us wait for you any longer….
Pres. Obama enters at 6:06. Good luck everyone.

6:00PM PDT
Watching MSNBC
Orszag and all the other advisors enter, STAGE CENTER
Health reform, health reform, health reform, say Maddow and Olbermann.
And look for a conservative speech.

Andrew Sullivan provoked a passionate response in his ongoing blog-discussion (blog-scussion?) about a few things, including drugs. His topics – especially in this post/thread – hit the point I often pursue: that of universality. The belief that when I write “I did this, I did that, it’s all about me, la la la,” that I am not just writing about me. I am writing about the human condition. I write assuming that it’s not only important to me, whatever my topic is. Some topics may interest you less than others; I’m less interested to read about some things than others. But something will grab your attention. Something that is part of your reality, too.
Andrew Sullivan is gay – homosexual – pick your word, the point’s the same. I have no problem writing that, and I do not mean to disparage him. He’s written that himself, proudly, many times. Somewhere in the last few weeks Andrew’s blog has traversed a course from Christianism to meth to drugs in general, and now to drugs as a form of escape or coping. That’s the very shorthand history of the discussion. We, his readers, have followed along on this path, guided it, and it has ended up in places it did not begin.
Part of the passionate response I referred to can be excerpted in this way:

I’m a 25 yr. old who graduated from the Ivy League a few years ago with great ambitions/hopes/dreams, and who lays awake this rain-soaked morning because I’m haunted….[by a description of] a suburban-bred, sexually adventuresome young man rushing headlong into life, [and when I read this] I heard my story.
[I] recently tried ecstasy for the second time to experience, amidst a euphoric chemical cloud, something incredibly resilient, fulfilling, and whole. It was as though my whole body was flooded with a sense of purpose, and the confidence! To feel that again after so many months of loneliness; indescribably sweet.

and the point, the denouement:

What I cannot shake, though, is the gut feeling that confidence, purpose and identity are all in the same pot–and that without some kind of chemical breakthrough, my brain and sense of self have been fried by the last several years.
I hear your reader’s voice and fear my place in this world is slipping through my fingers–wasted destiny. It’s not the drugs that worry me, save the extent to which they adjust my brain chemistry. But thinking this way, it seems life affords only so many free passes; and when hard realities (a parent’s disapproval, the Christian right, the grid) necessitate hard choices, with identity/confidence in the balance, I worry my brain isn’t up for the task. What if my character is too weak, my courage failing; after all, the headstrong passion I once though of as strength of will is, itself, only a hollow projection of force.

You may have surmised that the person writing to Andrew is gay as well. As to that experience, I cannot attest. I am straight. Perhaps I’m a touch asexual. I don’t think it matters. The question here is a question of will. That is something all humans have (or have a deficiency of). How do we build willpower? That takes a lifetime, I would guess. How do you react to things? Is your reaction to making it through another week to get drunk, so as to forget the week? Or do you face down even your most regretted moments in a sober state of mind, contemplative, hoping to produce a different outcome should the same situation face you again?
Is it fine to take drugs to escape from the reality that confronts us? I’m hardly an expert on the matter. I don’t use drugs. As I once wrote

If I had no scruples–oh, how I wish I had none!–I would down a bottle, numb the pain, and overdose for a while. Instead I must sit here and rail at myself, rail at my imperfection….

My general feeling though, is that drugs can be, are, and should be, an escape. It is much easier to stand at a distance and say, “that is fine,” than it is to want to be near a person doing drugs. It is hard to accept, for instance, that people we know have anything to escape from; we don’t want them to do drugs. But, I hear your story, and I say drugs are fine. Not as a permanent solution. Never as a permanent solution. But they are fine to use once, to experience a different self. Perhaps people should do drugs. Since one can never do drugs and not do drugs at the same time, it is impossible to know which is the correct course, and at which time.
Andrew says the solution is love. Frankly, he sounds a bit like Dumbledore, and he’s got the beard for it too. Love, I think, doesn’t have a great impact on developing willpower, which is what the unnamed-reader fears he may not have. Love may not diminish willpower, but I don’t know that it increases it. And an Ivy-league education, commendable though it is, does not teach you willpower.
The power of will to do something (or, as may be so important to this case, to not do something), is, like I said, a lifetime of work. It involves constantly evaluating what is important to us, what the outcome may be (if we try a drug, etc), what the impact may be, and whether the experience is worth it.

I just added several external links to this site.  They include things like The Nation, Andrew Sullivan (@The Atlantic), John Scalzi, Think Progress, Ezra Klein (@Washington Post), and Podcars.  I’ll leave that last one for you to figure out, and there are several other links.  These comprise the bulk of my online reading, but not all of it.

Now, for all of those of you who wonder, “where does he get his information,” I always link to it, and now I’ve provided several of the links.  But I’ll keep commenting on the things I find.  I’ll keep commenting on the social madness, the social mores, and the social decay (or whatever is the opposite of decay).

Now there are links, when there used to be none.  Sometimes there will be comments; sometimes there will be none.  What  fun!

From Alan Jacobs

One of Nick’s commenters suggests that his point is misleading because we’re not paying all that much per bit of data. That’s probably true, but it may not make the point the commenter wants it to make. Consider an analogy to restaurant dining: Americans in the past twenty years have spent far, far more on eating out than any of their ancestors did, and that’s a significant development even if you point out that huge portions of fat-laden food mean that they’re not paying all that much per calorie. In fact, that analogy may work on more than one level: are we unhealthily addicted to information (of any kind, and regardless of quality) in the same way that we’re addicted to fatty foods?

Are we addicted to information? Shel Silverstein wrote in Ations

If we stop and talk awhile,
That’s a conversation.

If you ask someone how they’re doing, you get information, whether they respond or not. If you post on facebook, “today I had chips for lunch,” you get a response (information) whether ten people reply or no one replies. Are we addicted to information?
You’ve got to be kidding me.  It’s not a bad question to mutter to ones-self, but the obvious answer is yes.
Now, more to the point, is addiction to information unhealthy? Often, I’d rather not know the things I know. I’d rather not know about the quants, I’d rather not know about Abdulmutallab (admittedly, that was hard information to avoid), I’d rather not know about a lot of things I know. Then again, I’m glad I know these things – I’ll get back to that point in a moment.  There is also information I’m glad I know.  I’m glad I have the option to trawl facebook “keeping in touch” with friends, because that’s a lot easier than 460 email addresses, I’m glad I was just able to look up whether the correct word was ‘trawl’ or ‘troll,’ I’m glad futility closet is there to amuse me.
Let me answer the question. I’m of a bit of a split mind whether information is healthy or unhealthy (and I recognize one answer is that it could be both). Perhaps this is part of the point Alan Jacobs wanted to make, and didn’t write: more education often leads to more doubt; more doubt means that ‘educated people’ (people with education) doubt whether what they suggest is ‘right’ because they can see that there is more than one ‘right’ answer. We who are addicted to information question our own addiction, as well we should. Why should it matter to us what information we acquire beyond the few-hundred mile radius of people we know? I’ll leave you to figure that out; why does it matter?…
Why does it matter to me whether I have information (let’s just call it ‘extraneous information’ – information that doesn’t have a whole lot of direct impact on me, like the psychological history of Abdulmutallab (even if what he did will have some impact on me, his personal history doesn’t matter in the least))? To answer, I just went looking for a quote, and I couldn’t find it. But the quote is something like “one of the great things about a courtroom is that you are expected to listen to other points of view, see their point, and change your own view,” and this quote came from the Prop 8 trial about a week and a half ago (first week of trial). I expect that this ‘extraneous information’ will change me, will make me think, and develops my weltanschauung (my world view). I expect to be addicted to information, to want to know things I don’t already know, and I expect my view to change. And, in a way, I expect that addiction to be bad. I also consider to be good. (Is that Marxist enough for you?)