GAY MARRIAGE UP THE YIN-YANG

As Republican candidates focus a lot their attention on such longtime highly resolved issues (at least for a majority of Americans) as contraception and gay marriage, I almost expect their next subject used to avoid coming up with any real solutions for the economy will be a heated discussion of whether the Earth is flat rather than round. After all, this "roundness theory" can be coming from the same pseudo-scientists who claim global warming and evolution really exist.

As far as I am concerned, here in California, Mitt Romney shouldn't even be eligible as a candidate, thanks to his church's major financial support of the bigoted Prop. 8, just overturned by a federal court in this state. A lot of thinking Mormons reject this official church position on gay marriage, but Mitt not only supports it, but is a leader in the church itself. And just as I would question the ability to truly separate church and state of a Catholic priest, Jewish rabbi, Muslim Imam, I don't think the highest secular office in the land belongs in the hands of a Mormon bishop, even someone no longer holding that title. The main problem the Mormons seem to have with gay marriage is that it impinges on their fairy tale scenario about a man and women being united for all eternity in "celestial marriage" on their own planet.

My own concerns about gay marriage revolved around the Taoist concept of Yin-Yang, the way in which male and female energies interact, which are important underpinnings in the Eastern view of medicine and sexuality. I wondered if gay couples were sacrificing the benefits of harmony and health provided by balancing the yin and the yang. However, on further study, I realized this was an oversimplified Western view of yin yang, that it wasn't necessarily about actual men and women coming together, but about the polar opposite energies, which are often just as much a part of gay relationships as heterosexual ones.

In regard to this, I like what poet/philosopher Alan Watts had to say about the yin-yang ideogram we are all so familiar with:

They indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill, and they are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth... (Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way, Pantheon Books, 1975, p. 21).

So it is more about being opposite but complementary than it is about gender, and just as many man-woman relationships have unbalanced yin yang, gay relationships can have balanced ones. ("Whew, now I can relax," he said ironically when he discovered all this).

More irony ensues when the same political types who rail against government having too much of a say in our lives, insist on having too much of a say in our relationships and bedroom behavior.

Thank goodness (or God, if you prefer) we still have men and women of good will and good sense. Otherwise we might see Jews and Muslims mount a campaign against the Jack in the Box commercial showing a young man marrying bacon. Though I do wonder how they got away with the closing line of the wedding ceremony in that ad, "You may now eat the bride."

Jerry

Another one of my multiple personalities writes a completely different blog on prosperity. http://MoneyloveBlog.com

THE ROMANTIC ELECTION GAME

In a post on my other blog, I just created a new election campaign game to have some fun and profit with the overwhelming political information bombardment we will be receiving over the next months.

http://moneyloveblog.com/the-presidential-election-prosperity-game/

Now, to celebrate Valentine's Day, I want to offer a variation I call the Romantic Election Game. This version involves watching or listening to or reading about political goings on with a loved one. Since it will be hard to completely avoid all the political rhetoric, attack ads, and over-opinionated partisan punditry, we may as well make the most of it.

The rules are simple, and feel free to make up your own rewards and modify my suggestions to your liking.

1, Every time a candidate is critical of another candidate, the first one to notice it claims and collects one kiss and one hug from the other.

2. Every time a candidate exaggerates something or tells an outright lie, the first to notice it collects an intimate caress from the other.

3. Every time a candidate says something really stupid or crazy and irrational, the one to notice it first gets 15 minutes of total loving pleasure at the hands of the other.

And one extra step in this version:

4. Every time a candidate says something optimistic, hopeful, uplifting, or inspiring, both of you grab each other and create an romantic alternative to politics, with a 24 hour moratorium on reading, watching, or listening to anything about Campaign 2012.

You'll know if you're doing it right if you have a strong urge in coming months to shout out, "Thank you Barack, Mitt, Rick, Ron, Newt!"

Jerry

ME AND MY KINDLE

Let me start out by saying that I am not suggesting that the Amazon Kindle is the only or even the best choice out there--but it does happen to be the one I bought since I already was buying most of my books from Amazon, and the new basic unit at $79 with free shipping was pretty irresistable. It is also, so far as I know, the lightest model at just 6 ounces.

I have resisted getting an e-reader as I am a longtime lover of books, paperback and hardcover books, books you can hold and look at gathered on your shelves. I derive a tremendous sense of comfort being surrounded by books--and so far, nothing like that happens with my Kindle. I suspect, however, because of advantages both forms and formats have, that hard copy books and electronic reading devices will co-exist for many years to come.

As I have chosen to focus on writing and producing my future books and blogs and Moneylove Club audio series rather than on marketing and making money, I have been on a limited budget since my release from 12 years of incarceration in 2008. Despite this, my book budget was averaging about $50 a month. In the ninety days since I bought my Kindle, I have spent exactly $1. for an e-book, as that was one out of a selection of 100 which new Kindle owners were allowed to choose from Amazon. Ironically, it is the only book I have not finished on Kindle, as it just wasn't very well written.

Not only are most books in the public domain, like those by Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, and Arthur Conan Doyle, available free, but Amazon also has at least 100 mysteries that are free to download immediately to the Kindle. I now have 180 books stored, nowhere near the 1400 book capacity of my model.

I am a mystery novel buff. In prison, I read almost exactly 1000 books in my 12 years. Now, with all that I do on my computer, I mostly read mysteries for recreation while riding the BART train back and forth between my home in San Bruno and San Francisco. Many of the mysteries Amazon features free are the first in multiple book series. The company obviously figures that once hooked on an author, customers will then be willing to buy future volumes at up to $9.99, but with so many books to choose from and now only reading about one mystery per week, I am not tempted to play their game.

In addition, you can borrow e-books from your local library. I do this with my library cards from both San Bruno and San Francisco. The county library lets you keep the book for two weeks, when it magically disappears--while San Francisco has a three week limit.

With so many choices, I don't know how some new restrictions may apply, but if you are considering an e-reader, you should probably be aware that Penguin and other major publishers are starting to cut back on their sales of e-books to libraries, fearing this eats into their retail sales (in my case, they are right).

On several occasions in my life, I have had the emotionally jarring experience of losing a large collection of books. Most recently, this was several thousand volumes when I went to prison--including at least 100 books signed by the authors, many of these quoting me or endorsing Moneylove. Thanks to the Internet, many of these are replaceable, but there is an added measure of security knowing that I can put a large portion of my personal library in my pocket now. I don't have to worry about packing up many cartons when I move. In a device smaller than a paperback book, that easily fits in my pants or jacket pocket, I can travel with hundreds of books, all right at my fingertips.

With the new electronic ink technology, the Kindle reading experience almost exactly duplicates the paper version. In prison, books are at a premium. Sadistic guards often confiscate them, and each inmate is only allowed ten at a time (a rule I consistently broke). What a difference a Kindle would have made, though I'm sure it won't be allowed for the foreseeable future, as video games and computers are also banned.

The main reason I bought my Kindle is that I'm exploring publishing several of my early books in this format, including Moneylove. I plan to have the prison memoir I am now writing come out as a actual book, though probably with a Kindle edition available. I expected to have a better sense of what this new phenomenon was all about as an owner. I did not know I would fall in love with my Kindle, and all the freedom it offers. And as long as it is viewed as a bonus rather than a threat, I can't imagine any true book lover not forming a similar attachment.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at http://MoneyloveBlog.com

MANNING THE CLASS WARFARE BARRICADES

When you have billionaires like Donald Trump, the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and almost billionaires like Mitt Romney complaining about Barack Obama's "class warfare" approach to politics, it is indicative of a new cultural and sociological transformation in American society. Though there has always been conflict and confrontation between the very wealthy and the very poor, for the first time we are seeing the ignoble image of the nobility whining: "Poor me, they want to take a small part of my self-made or inherited fortune and redistribute it to people who don't deserve it."

Some extremely wealthy Americans, a small proportion of the total we can hope, are obviously feeling threatened by the increasing public awareness that the government and business establishment is stacked against the average human being pursuing the American Dream. Sheldon Adelson, for all I know, is an honorable and decent hard-working entrepreneur who loves his family and is generous to his employees. But there is something discomforting and, dare I say it, UnAmerican, about one rich man being in a position to possibly buy the presidency by being the sole funder of Newt Gingrich's campaign Super Pac--the man who had more than Newt to do with his big South Carolina victory.

Even Republicans are decrying the Citizens United decision that allowed for the Super Pacs of today, perhaps the ultimate bombardment in whatever class warfare is happening. Not only are billionaires under fire, but the growing wealth disparity in the U.S. has led to their having a much larger and visible say in our affairs. Even the normally unassuming Warren Buffet is now the main poster boy for a fairer tax policy--at least the Democratic version. Did we really need to wait for Buffet to point out to us how unfair the system is?

There is nothing more essential to the American spirit than its entrepreneurial "can do" nature. The main theme of my Moneylove philosophy over the past thirty years has been that every one of us can be a lot richer than we think, that this is a land of unlimited possibility and unfettered human endeavor. But limits and fetters have increased. The definition of "fetter" is a chain or shackle for the feet, and our economy is sort of stumbling along as if its feet were chained and cuffed. Some politicians and business leaders claim we are being fettered by oppressive regulations, like the ones designed to protect the environment. "Let us loose of these chains," they proclaim, "and we will create more jobs and be more responsible citizens without government intervention for the first time in our long history." The problem is, most of us don't trust them to keep their word, as we likewise don't trust government.

Mitt Romney, who could become the next president, though I'd be willing to bet against him, says it's all about envy. The Americans audacious enough to want to tax the rich at a slightly higher rate, still way below the level under Ronald Reagan, begrudge Romney his 250 million dollars, multiple mansions, private jets, and opulent lifestyle, according to his view of things. I don't believe that's true. I think most of us still admire innovators and dreamers who become very rich as aspirational role models. This is certainly true of the late Steve Jobs. But the difference between Jobs and Romney is that Jobs was driven by his passion to change the world by giving us devices that would change our lives. The money was really insignificant for him, and so it came as a surprise to most of us that he was indeed a billionaire. For Romney, however, that's his whole point, his business and financial success. He moved lots of money around at Bain and made many pretty rich people very much richer, including himself. We would be hard-pressed to name one thing he did to improve the human experience, except perhaps Romneycare in Massachusetts, which is he hiding from.

You're probably familiar with the term "empty suit" to describe someone inflated with self importance but who really hasn't had much impact on the world or affected other people in any vital or profound way. This describes most of the very rich who are shouting "Class Warfare!" They are very expensive empty suits. Romney is trying to become an occupied suit by winning the highest office in the world. And he somehow thinks his path will be made easier by accusing everyone else of envying him his wealth. I actually think he is a more worthwhile human being than his campaign slogans and appearances and debates would have us believe--but we also have to judge people by what they tell us is most important to them.

I pick on Romney because he is as good a representative as any of what is wrong with our capitalistic society in this still new 21st Century. The Robber Barons are back, but this time they are not even creating the steel mills and railroads and telegraph systems and ships and automobiles that made America stronger and better for everyone. The legacy of too many of today's billionaires will be failed political candidacies they supported, rather than the lasting impact of those who really made a difference in the past, who left noble thumbprints on the world. Andrew Carnegie with his gifts of hundreds of libraries that changed millions of lives, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford, who despite some despicable early behavior, redeemed themselves with their foundations, and have a lasting impact. The hit TV show, 30 Rock, wouldn't be possible without the iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center, home of NBC. I worked there for a year and remember how nice it felt to be going to work every day at NBC Radio in the imposing 1930s Art Deco building.

When teachers pay a higher tax rate than billionaires, something is wrong. When the voices of the lower economic classes are being heard, something is right. I don't envy Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson, and Mitt Romney their almost unlimited millions. There is nothing I want to model from their roles in society, there is nothing positive I have gotten from any of them, and there is nothing I think will change for the better in voting for them or the candidates they endorse. Now, if Steve Jobs were alive and running.....

Jerry

I also have another blog, focused on prosperity consciousness, but certainly not only about the money. Check it out at: http://MoneyloveBlog.com, and also check out the information about The Moneylove Club by clicking on the link at the top of that home page.

LAMESTREAM MEDIA--IT REALLY FITS

Let me start off this rant by saying I don't particularly like agreeing with Newt Gingrich and my few right wing friends. But even though I think they blame too much on the mainstream media, and are over the top in their conspiracy theories about the media, I do think the clever, sarcastic phrase, "lamestream media" fits what has happened to what was once a respectable voice for freedom in the world.

When I was a radio journalist over thirty years ago, there were standards in place that have been completely thrown out the window since. I know the 24/7 nature of cable news has caused some of this, but I don't think that can excuse the total loss of objectivity and authenticity. Back in my day, every major news organization had a fact-checking or research department. When I was doing an investigative report, say for NBC Radio or KYW or WINS, the all-news stations I worked for in Philadelphia and New York, I couldn't just put something on the air without having it checked out by several sources. Then I had to run it by an editor whose responsibility was to see whether it was true, really new, and important for the public to know.

Budget cuts have eliminated most fact-checking and research departments today. A big contributing factor is the rush to get things on the air, as well as the rush to judgement. Over and over again, we see media repeating outright lies from public figures, or ignoring truths that are very easily obtainable. To me, the most amazing thing today's news organizations do is report something that can easily be contradicted by information available in their own archives. They are just too lazy to look. Many of today's political candidates are guilty of the same lapse, making statements that are proven to be lies when you go into the files and play back their own words captured on video for all to see and hear. It's as if they are totally ignorant of the permanence of anything they've said publicly in the past. Or maybe they are just depending on the stupidity and laziness of the media preventing anyone from looking it up or checking it out.

For years now, I have winced watching network news reports (which I no longer watch) where there is no sense that the anchor or reporter involved has any background knowledge of the subject he or she is reporting on. Huge historical inaccuracies occur almost on a daily basis. Of course, with Google and other online search engines available today, it is easy to catch media types and political types in their blunders. I don't think it's a conspiracy at all, but rather a failure of respect for the truth and refusal to dig up the full story before any part of it is delivered to an audience.

Just as egregious is the failure to follow up on important stories, especially in the political arena. When I was covering the Virginia Governor's news conferences as a newsman for WRVA in Richmond, it was my job to pick out the sentence or paragraph that was most newsworthy and most revealing. This, along with going through reams of AP newspaper wire reports, helped develop the skill of editorial discernment--figuring out what was worth following up on, checking out, and reporting on the air. Today, I catch some astonishing bits of news that never seem to be caught by anyone else. For instance, while I am not a fan and rarely listen to the Laura Ingraham conservative radio show, she had an exchange on her show this past Friday that had a major contender for the Republican presidential nomination admit to a lie that has been repeated often and loudly--that the economy has gotten worse under President Obama. Newt Gingrich repeated it several times today on Sunday news shows in his victory lap after winning the South Carolina primary. She was talking to Mitt Romney, and here is the exchange, which I just listened to again to make sure I was accurately transcribing it:

Laura Ingraham: Isn't it a hard argument to make if you're saying, "Okay, he inherited this recession, and he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now we're seeing some more jobs, but vote against him anyway?" Isn't that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?.

Mitt Romney: Have you got a better one, Laura? (nervous laughter) It just happens to be the truth!

As might be expected, Rachel Maddow caught this and reported it on her show on MSNBC, but none of the so-called mainstream media seems to have even noticed what could be a major game-changer, and certainly could be the foundation for an Obama campaign ad.

I rest my case.

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at http://MoneyloveBlog.com

CLOWN CAR POLITICS

I think Thursday, January 19, 2012 will go down in history in American politics. About as officially as anything can happen, the Republican primary battle changed from a race to a farce, with even top conservative voices starting to use the funny-but-deadly analogy that has up to now been the province of comedians and Democrats: "Clown Car."

Perhaps conservative Republican pundit, and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Special Assistant, Peggy Noonan, said it best in today's Wall Street Journal:

"We all know politics ain't beanbag, but it's not supposed to be a clown-car Indy 500 with cars hitting the wall and guys in wigs littering the track."

And in a Washington Post op-ed column today, titled THE GOP'S SUICIDE MARCH, conservative icon Charles Krauthammer wrote:

"The President is a very smart man. But if he wins in November, that won't be the reason. It will be luck. He could not have chosen more self-destructive adversaries."

On MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning, former conservative Republican congressman, Joe Scarborough, pointed out a pretty uncomfortable fact, in a campaign punctuated by more fantasy than fact. He noted that the deficit went up by a trillion dollars in 2011, the first full year in which Republicans controlled Congress and the purse strings, and a higher debt increase than in 2010. And their main campaign focus against Obama is that he is a big spending, big government president.

I won't even go into last night's ABC interview with Newt Gingrich's 2nd wife, in which she said he asked her to consider an open marriage as he had another woman in his life. He denied the story when CNN foolishly gave him an opening to get a standing ovation by putting that "he said, she said" question to him as the opener to the final South Carolina debate. And if it's true, I may upset some folks, especially some sanctimonious folks, by suggesting this is more loving and honest than just tossing his wife aside with no options.

If this weren't such a silly season, far more attention and contemplation would be focused on the question posed by leading evangelical spokesman James Dobson, when he asked whether America was ready for a first lady who was a mistress for eight years.

It is no accident that comedian Stephen Colbert's mock Republican run is gaining so much traction. He has a higher favorability rating than any of the current GOP candidates. I admire President Obama's restraint in not going on national television and doing a funky victory dance.

A couple of my furthest far right friends think I am, as they have put it, "an Obama lover." Not true. While I think he has been a far better president and done more to turn the economy around than John McCain and Sarah Palin would have, I also think he has stumbled a lot, not taken charge of his message, not made his mission clear to the American people, and certainly not taken full advantage of the obstructionist Republican House's blatant disregard for the public welfare in favor of stopping him at any costs.

The current disarray of Republican candidates is a direct result of the oafish Anyone But Obama campaign, which spawned the "birther" idiocy, and the fiasco over the debt ceiling and, more recently, the payroll tax debate. I know it's a contrarian view, but I believe that more rational Republicans like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, and Tim Pawlenty have opted out of running against Obama because they realize, in their wisdom, that once the dust settles and the truth comes out, Obama will be unbeatable. And they'd like to start clean with a run for the White House in 2016.

My personal preference? I would love to see http://AmericansElect.org be successful in their efforts to have the first direct presidential election online. This is a nonpartisan, visionary experiment in democracy. The organizers want the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to come from different political parties, and they already have more than half the signatures they need to get their effort on the ballot in all fifty states. It would be nice to have a grown-up campaign. Obama will be on the ballot, but I think we all will be better off is he is having an intelligent discussion with a credible opponent rather than acting as ringmaster for that Indy 500 clown-car race.

TO KINDLE OR NOT TO KINDLE

Okay, it was a hard decision. As an author and voracious reader, I have been resisting buying an electronic ebook reader for some time. I like the feel of a book in my hand, and through the years I have collected and saved thousands of books. In recent years, partly because of twelve years of incarceration, I lost most of my book collection. And while in prison, every book I had sent in by a friend, or managed to borrow or barter from fellow inmates was a precious gift to be savored and valued. But then, in recent months, several people have suggested I approach Amazon.com about re-issuing the original Moneylove in an e-edition for Kindle. So, I wanted to at least get a sense of what reading a book on a Kindle would be like.

Just before the end of 2011, as a gift for myself, I took advantage of the new lowest price model offered at $79. I was especially drawn to it after reading several reviews that said it was the best model out there because it only weighed six ounces. It doesn't have a touch screen like the new Fire and other higher-priced Kindles have, but I don't even use the touchpad on my MacPro, so that was no concern. I don't really know how it compares with other e-readers like the Nook, but have had many dealings with Amazon and have always been satisfied with their service, including their rapid no-questions-asked return policy.

It's been a month now and I find that reading a book on my new machine is as easy, probably easier, than reading a paperback book, and less cumbersome by far than a hardcover. Before it even arrived, I got a library card and checked out borrowing Kindle editions from the library. You can do it in seconds online, and keep them for two to three weeks, at the end of which they just are automatically removed from your Kindle, with no effort at all. As part of the ads and offers that appear when my Kindle is in the sleep mode (otherwise it would cost $100--and these ads only appear when the machine is not used to read books and is turned on) I got an offer to buy one book from a list of 100 for $1. So far, this is my only expenditure other than the original $79 (with free shipping) cost. Meanwhile, I now have 150 books stored in my Kindle, with room for a total of 1400 volumes. This includes a couple of library books, including John Grisham's newest, The Litigators, and a number of the free selections Amazon offers every day.

I like mysteries, and they have at least 100 mysteries that are free on any given day. This is smart marketing, in that they often offer the first book in a mystery series free, and if you fall in love with the author and series, additional volumes are about $9.99 each. However, with so many to choose from free and on loan from the two library systems I belong to, I doubt I'll be buying many books.

Amazon also offers hundreds of books in the public domain free for Kindle. I am catching up on classics I may have missed, including Mark Twain and Jane Austin and Charles Dickens, plus some of the early mystery and thriller writers I've meant to explore, like Edgar Wallace, G.K. Chesterton, and John Buchan of The 39 Steps fame. I've been pretty selective about building my library so far, but have added books by Aristotle, Plato, William James, Andrew Carnegie, Thoreau and Emerson. I still intend to buy and read books, but very, very carefully. I don't have a lot of storage room, and want to stay mobile as my travel plans are uncertain over the next few years. I'm not even sure where I'll be living in a year or two, so it will be nice not to have to lug boxes of books with me, just a device I can easily fit in my pocket.

With such authors as Timothy Ferriss choosing Amazon and the Kindle format as their primary publishing outlet, this is obviously going to revolutionize the book business. I'm not sure whether this will be good or bad, and certainly publishing has been changing before this latest technical development. Whatever impact it has on my own writing career, it already has been a delightful personal experience. How many cultural breakthroughs come along that make life a lot easier and less expensive while offering a major expansion of choices?

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at www.MoneyloveBlog.com