Addiction - Choice?

Addiction is everywhere.  While psychological dependencies of the mind are primarily associated with physical dependencies of substances such as drugs and alcohol, they also include uncontrollable behaviors relating to gambling, self-mutilation, overeating, cosmetic surgery, the internet, and just about anything else.  What I want to focus on is addiction as it relates to drugs and alcohol.

A Harvard psychologist, Gene Heyman, has written a book that is causing quite a stir in the world of addiction treatment.  In , “Addiction: A Disorder of Choice”, Heyman argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, addiction is not a disease, but rather a lack of individual self-control, an inability to take a long term perspective.  Not a disease, but a choice.  Wow! If this is true, it should throw a large wrench into the workings of a whole host of treatment programs and health-care policies.

Science appeared to have supported the view that addiction was a disease.  Neuroscience showed that the brains of addicts were uniformly abnormal.  Surely, this was evidence that addicts were just unfortunate souls, victims to the same sort of life lottery that claimed other victims of other diseases.  The uncontrollable behaviors of addicts had to be viewed sympathetically because these behaviors were beyond the influence of rewards, punishments and societal expectations.  But were the poor choices of addicts coming from their brain abnormalities or were the brain abnormalities coming from the poor choices?  For Heyman, the disease model of addiction just wasn’t adding up.  Why were addicts that never entered treatment programs more successful in achieving sobriety than addicts that went through treatment programs?  Why did 70 - 90% of addicts going through standard treatment programs, relapse within the first year of completing treatment?  Why did some treatment programs, such as those for airline pilots, which threatened job termination if the pilots were unsuccessful in their recovery, have success rates of over 80%.  For Heyman, the explanation for the poor success rate of treatment centers, came from research that showed that many of these addicts also suffered from other mental disorders.  As Heyman delved into the case histories of recovered addicts, the common thread for recovery was some cataclysmic event that ultimately led them to make the choice to quit their addiction.  Whether it was a car crash, a DUI charge, or their spouse leaving them, something occurred that made the addict realize they could no longer sacrifice the long term for their short term pleasure.

Heyman’s book reminded me of a Stanford University study involving marshmallows, four-year-olds, and choice.  Walter Mischel,  a Stanford professor of psychology, conducted the experiment on campus at the Bing Nursery School in the late 1960’s.  In a small room with a desk and a chair, the children were taken individually and asked to select a treat from an assortment of goodies.  Most chose the marshmallow.  Then the experimenter told the children they could eat the one marshmallow right away, or they could wait until the experimenter left the room to run a small errand, and when they returned, the child would get not one, but two marshmallows.  If, while attempting to wait for the second marshmallow, the four-year-old decided he or she couldn’t wait any longer, they just had to ring a bell and the researcher would return to the room, allow the child to eat the one marshmallow, but the second marshmallow would be denied.

Video tape of the experiment is quite revealing.  Some children ate the marshmallow right away.  Some agonized over the marshmallow, hiding their eyes, playing with their hair, kicking at the desk, until finally ringing the bell and eating the one marshmallow.  Most of the children lasted 3 minutes before ringing the bell and succumbing to their temptation.  However, 30% of the children held out for the required 15 minutes, and received their second marshmallow.  They delayed their gratification, and it paid off.

Starting in 1981, Mischel went back to locate the 653 children used in his experiment.  The children were now in high school.  He sent questionnaires to their parents and teachers and requested their S.A.T. scores.  There was evidence that children who delayed their gratification, had less behavioral problems at home and in school, dealt with stress better, had better relationships, concentrated better, and had higher S.A.T. scores than those children who could not wait to eat their marshmallow.  A child that waited 15 minutes to eat their marshmallow, on average, had an S.A.T. score 210 points above the child who waited only 30 seconds before eating his marshmallow.

Mischel tracked the subjects into their late 30’s, and found that the four-year-olds with little self-control, grew up to be adults with little self-control.  They had significantly higher body-mass indexes and often had problems with drugs.  Mischel’s research continues, but his findings say something about choice and delaying gratification.

But just what does it say?  Only, that we should be cautioned about making choices for the short term at the expense of the long term.  That, while we seek the freedom to do what we want, the desire for immediate gratifications often makes us irrational about the long term.  Lung cancer doesn’t enter the mind of a smoker as the next cigarette is lit up; addiction seems irrelevant as the next drink is downed by the border-line alcoholic; a troubled marriage is a distant thought as a spouse looks lustfully into the eyes of a stranger.  Our world today offers us more pleasure than ever before in history.  Unfortunately, without a little self-control, these pleasures will become curses.

Bird on a Wire

Like a bird on wire

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free

…. Leonard Cohen

I was fascinated to learn that the songwriter, Kris Kristofferson, wanted to have these lines as his epitaph.  Abandoning all of his own great lyrics, written over a 55 year career, he found more meaning in these 21 words.

Few of us really try to be free in our own way.  The bird on a wire is alone, apart from the world, and yet connected to it.  The drunk in the midnight choir is a symbol of the small rebellions against conformity we attempt.  The bird is not caged but free, the drunk is not reserved but free.

Life is short.  We resign ourselves, unwittingly,  to the expectations of others, to the duty of our responsibilities, and to doing the comfortable.  In Henry David Thoreau’s words, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”.  Our individual liberty is stifled by what goes on between our ears and by government.  I suspect Kristofferson has led an interesting life.  Undoubtedly, he has pissed off some people, shirked some responsibilities, made some colossal mistakes and will take some regrets with him to his grave.  But I also suspect he has inhaled life fully.  In his own way, he has tried to be free.  Words to live by.

Ayn Rand

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:  I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

-   John Galt from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

The givers are never blessed; the more they give, the more is demanded of them; complaints, reproaches and insults are the only response they get for practicing altruism’s virtues

- Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand, to say the least, was a complicated lady.  At her funeral, a 6 ft. floral arrangement stood next to her casket - in the shape of a dollar sign!  Even in death, she knew how to stick it to her critics.  Her philosophy,  objectivism,  while mostly misunderstood, has somehow become much clearer to me.  Since my father’s death five months ago, things have happened that have caused me to question my life’s philosophy, my moral-code, if you will.  In the past, I’ve scoffed at Ayn Rand’s belief that “altruism is immoral”.  Instead, I believed that the unselfish concern for the well-being of others is the measure of a life well-lived.  That, in fact,  a love-filled life can only come through sacrificing for others, and not just for those you love.  We’re not just talking about being kind and helpful to people, but sacrificing the enjoyment of your own life to do good.  Under this code, I have sacrificed career, financial security, and a lot of leisure time.  I have been the altruist that Ayn Rand despised.

Why Care?

My mother has Alzheimer’s Disease. It is a death sentence unlike any other.  Slowly, her memory will fade.  Eventually, she will not recognize her loved ones, her body will shut down, and she will die.  The process may take years.  In just 5 months, I have seen my mother deteriorate.  She now needs help walking and bathing.  She can’t make any of her own meals or do household chores.  She is often confused about time and place and is repetitive in conversation.  Most of the time, however, I still fully see her as the vibrant, loving, and beautiful woman, I have known my entire life.  But this will not last too much longer.  My wife and I are her primary caregivers and she now lives in our home with our three children.

So what is my future?  What is the future of the millions of caregivers like me, who will see their loved ones descend into darkness?  Ayn Rand said we should only sacrifice for things that we value.  But what value can I place on a person that is losing their mind?  On a person that one day will not even know who I am, and whose behavior will only become increasingly more annoying, nonsensical and unsettling.  When the only thing I know for sure, is that no matter how much more help I give, my mother will only get worse, how much of my life should I sacrifice for her?  How much of my health, financial well-being, peace of mind, and enjoyment of family and life, should I give up for my Mom?  In the end, she will not even be able to express a modicum of gratitude.  Life is short, haven’t I already wasted too much time trying to do good?

Ayn Rand warned altruists that they would ultimately be held in contempt.  I know this to be true.  Living your life for others?  What a waste of a life.  Nobody wants to compare their daily routines to that of an altruist.  People with challenging, time-consuming careers, work hard to enjoy the holidays, houses, toys, and fun they deserve.  They don’t want any guilt directed their way, especially from those that don’t have the gumption to rationally focus their energy on creating their own happiness.  On the other hand, I know more than a few altruists that question the divine justice that bestows lives of leisure on the selfish and hardship on the unselfish.  Contempt becomes a two-way street between altruists and the rest of society.

My Mom’s Alzheimer’s Disease has forced me to come face to face with the reality that my altruism may be immoral.  Doesn’t God want us to enjoy his creation?  Why is the sense of duty for the altruist so different from the duty that others are beholden to?  The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, believed that true goodness could only come from doing the right thing with no consideration for satisfying other desires.  That our goodwill should arise not from any good feeling we might get from being of service to others, but rather from fulfilling a duty  out of respect for an ever-reaching moral law.  Kant viewed this moral law as our knowledge of good and evil and that rational people acted in accordance to inner convictions which dictated the good they ought to do.  But altruists believe they are more aware of the moral law.

Altruism has a way of snowballing.  What begins with a few altruistic acts of kindness, can become an all-encompassing lifestyle.  The broader the sense of duty and responsibility an altruist has, the more he is willing to sacrifice.  Eventually the true altruist will take on more and more duties.  Inevitably these duties will end up completely absorbing the life of the altruist, and the altruist will lose the very things he values the most.  All of a person’s values exist on a hierarchy and eventually the hierarchy of the altruist’s values will end in complete shambles.  One only has to look at the burnout of humanitarians and caregivers to see the toll that altruism takes.

In 2007 and 2008, Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, ranked 542 on Amazon’s online bestseller list.  However early this year, it shot up to number 33, surpassing Barack Obama’s, “Audacity of Hope”.  Why the surge in interest in the philosophy of Ayn Rand?  The fallout from the financial crisis is definitely peaking some interest, but isn’t it possible that a generation of altruist are also turning to a belief in “rational self-interest”?

A new report from the American Alzheimer’s Association, predicts that the 5 million Americans currently suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease will rise to 7.7 million by 2030 and 11-16 million by 2050.  The annual cost for caring for a person with Alzheimer’s today is a staggering $33,007.

God help us if the battle for the caregiver’s soul is won by Ayn Rand.

Pugwash Estate

Today, as General Motors dies, one can look to the future by looking at the past.

In the early 1900’s, the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, became friends with a street minister named Dr. Charles Aubrey Eaton.  In addition to his street ministry, Dr. Eaton also served as the pastor of Euclid Avenue Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio.  The church catered to the inhabitants of “millionaire’s row”, a string of luxurious mansions on Euclid Avenue, owned by some of North America’s wealthiest leaders in finance and industry.

Rockefeller lived most of the year in New York City, but in the summers he returned to his country estate, Forest Hill, just outside of Cleveland.  It was here that Dr. Eaton brought his young nephew, Cyrus Eaton, to meet Rockefeller.  Although Cyrus was just a young university student from the small hamlet of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, he somehow managed to impress the wealthy industrialist.  Rockefeller took Cyrus under his wing and Cyrus was to become a successful businessman and investment banker.  Capitalizing on the growth of the automobile industry, Cyrus himself, was to become a steel magnate and philanthropist.  By the late 1950’s, Eaton was looking to use his fortune to save mankind from nuclear destruction.

On July 9th, 1955, the mathematician-philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and Albert Einstein issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.  In it, the two giants of intellectual thought, appealed to humanity to step back from a path of nuclear destruction.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

After reading the manifesto, Cyrus Eaton, sent a letter to Russell offering his estate in Pugwash as a meeting place for scientists to develop plans to resist nuclear warfare.  In 1957, 22 eminent scientists from around the world attended the first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.  Unfortunately, Einstein had died a few days after signing the manifesto and Russell was too ill to attend.  Since then, there have been hundreds of workshops and conferences held at locations all around the world.  The 58th annual main conference is being held this year in The Hague, Netherlands.  In 1995, Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their “efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the long run, to eliminate such arms”.  The Chair of the Executive Committee of the Pugwash Council, John Holdren, accepted the prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conference.

John Holdren

Fast forward to 2009.  John Holdren is now Obama’s Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  Over the last number of years, Holdren has shifted much of his focus from nuclear warfare to climate change, but he sees both as being paramount threats to humanity.  In a 1995 article he co-wrote with Paul Ehrlich, Holdren described the ills that development must address.  In terms of human frailties, Holder listed “greed, selfishness, intolerance, and shortsightedness”.  Surely, these are the same human frailties that are at the heart of the current world financial crisis and our indifference to climate change and the plight of the developing world.  But what role will science ultimately play in overcoming our human frailties?

Obama has initiated a paradigm shift.  We are in the midst of a “violent intellectual revolution”, that will rely on science to set the course for the future.  It is ironical that Cyrus Eaton, the man who built his fortune on supplying the light steel of the American automobile industry, and was instrumental in establishing the Pugwash Conferences around which John Holdren built his reputation, may ultimately be a force in ending the automobile industry as we know it. 

 On May 19th, 2009, in front of executives of 10 of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers, Obama announced his nation-wide plan to increase automobile fuel efficiency and reduce green house gas emissions. 

The new fuel efficiency standards, covering model years 2012-2016, ultimately require an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016. They are projected to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil and reduce 900 million metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said.

“In the past, an agreement such as this would have been considered impossible,” Obama said. “That is why this announcement is so important, for it represents not only a change in policy in Washington, but the harbinger of a change in the way business is done in Washington.”

John Holder, the Pugwashite instrumental in the policy formulation, was in attendance.

Three Questions

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right
time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to
listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what
was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything
he might undertake.

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed
throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one
who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and
who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was
the most important thing to do.

And learned men came to the King, but they all answered his
questions differently.

In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right
time for every action, one must draw up in advance, a table of days,
months and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only
thus, said they, could everything be done at its proper time.
Others declared that it was impossible to decide beforehand the
right time for every action; but that, not letting oneself be
absorbed in idle pastimes, one should always attend to all that was
going on, and then do what was most needful. Others, again, said
that however attentive the King might be to what was going on, it
was impossible for one man to decide correctly the right time for
every action, but that he should have a Council of wise men, who
would help him to fix the proper time for everything.

But then again others said there were some things which could not
wait to be laid before a Council, but about which one had at once to
decide whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide
that, one must know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only
magicians who know that; and, therefore, in order to know the right
time for every action, one must consult magicians.

Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said,
the people the King most needed were his councillors; others, the
priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the
most necessary.

To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation:
some replied that the most important thing in the world was science.
Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was
religious worship.

All the answers being different, the King agreed with none of them,
and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right
answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely
renowned for his wisdom.

The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received
none but common folk. So the King put on simple clothes, and before
reaching the hermit’s cell dismounted from his horse, and, leaving
his body-guard behind, went on alone.

When the King approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front
of his hut. Seeing the King, he greeted him and went on digging.
The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into
the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.

The King went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit,
to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the
right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and
to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest?
And, what affairs are the most important, and need my first attention?”

The hermit listened to the King, but answered nothing. He just spat
on his hand and recommenced digging.

“You are tired,” said the King, “let me take the spade and work
awhile for you.”

“Thanks!” said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the King, he
sat down on the ground.

When he had dug two beds, the King stopped and repeated his
questions. The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out
his hand for the spade, and said:

“Now rest awhile-and let me work a bit.”

But the King did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One
hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees,
and the King at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said:

“I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can
give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.”

“Here comes some one running,” said the hermit, “let us see who it is.”

The King turned round, and saw a bearded man come running out of the
wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood
was flowing from under them. When he reached the King, he fell
fainting on the ground moaning feebly. The King and the hermit
unfastened the man’s clothing. There was a large wound in his
stomach. The King washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with
his handkerchief and with a towel the hermit had. But the blood
would not stop flowing, and the King again and again removed the
bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and rebandaged the wound.
When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for
something to drink. The King brought fresh water and gave it to
him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the
King, with the hermit’s help, carried the wounded man into the hut
and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed the man closed his eyes
and was quiet; but the King was so tired with his walk and with the
work he had done, that he crouched down on the threshold, and also
fell asleep–so soundly that he slept all through the short summer
night. When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could
remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on
the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes.

“Forgive me!” said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw
that the King was awake and was looking at him.

“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the King.

“You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who
swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother
and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the
hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day
passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find
you, and I came upon your bodyguard, and they recognized me, and
wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had
you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved
my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your
most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!”

The King was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily,
and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him,
but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend
him, and promised to restore his property.

Having taken leave of the wounded man, the King went out into the
porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished
once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit
was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been
dug the day before.

The King approached him, and said:

“For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”

“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching
on his thin legs, and looking up at the King, who stood before him.

“How answered? What do you mean?” asked the King.

“Do you not see,” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my
weakness yesterday, and had not dug those beds for me, but had gone
your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have
repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time
was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important
man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards
when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were
attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would
have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most
important man, and what you did for him was your most important
business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important–
Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when
we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are,
for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one
else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for
that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”

Socrates drinks his Hemlock

Philosophy can trip me up at the best of times, but the death of Socrates in 399 B.C. has really puzzled me.  How could Athens, the birthplace of democracy and free speech, condemn a feeble, 70 old man to death, simply for some disrespectful blabbing?

The charges against Socrates were dubious at best.  Corrupting the youth of Athens? Impiety towards its Gods?  Please!  Socrates had been teaching for decades, and playwrights of the day could openly question Athenian involvement in its wars or ridicule its gods.  So why did the government come after Socrates near the end of his life?  And what lessons can we learn from this dark chapter of Western civilization?

Socrates’ students, Plato and Xenophon, gifted history with two decidedly biased cases for the defense, but absent from the record is a fair portrayal of the prosecution’s case.  For that we can turn to the little known father of blogging - I.F. Stone.

I.F. Stone

I.F. Stone was a fascinating, independent journalist, who from 1953 to 1971, self-published I.F. Stone’s Weekly.  At its peak in the 60’s, the four page political publication had a circulation of over 70,000.  Stone dared to go where the main stream media of his day wouldn’t.

I am a wholly independent newspaperman, standing alone, without organizational or party backing, beholden to no one but my good readers. I am even one up on Benjamin Franklin-I do not accept advertising.

Stone sought justice and truth and his exposés were backed up by meticulous research.  He fought against the Vietnam War, government lies, McCarthyism, and racial discrimination.  It is likely that his standing in journalism’s history would be much greater, except for the fact that he leaned a little too far to the left.  Kind of like a Noam Chomsky - if Chomsky was a newspaperman instead of a linguistics professor.  For the blogger, Stone should be an inspiration.  His stories were unique, informative, and groundbreaking. But he didn’t rely on special contacts, access, or insider information.  Instead, Stone delved deep into the public record.  He did his homework better than most of the affiliated journalists - poring over documents, Congressional records and hearings, connecting dots that others couldn’t see, and providing his readers with factual stories that couldn’t be found in any other publication.  Stone succeeded in giving the radical viewpoint.  In 2008, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, initiated the I.F. Stone Medal for journalistic independence.  The first award went to John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.

In the early 70’s, after Stone’s health deteriorated, he gave up his weekly, learned Greek, and focused his boundless energy on studying the classics.  His book, The Trial of Socrates, gives a new perspective on the prosecution’s case against Socrates.  While Plato portrayed the 510 male jurors that condemned Socrates to death as a mobocracy, Stone gives evidence that Socrates was not just a harmless gadfly.  Socrates did not believe in egalitarianism or democracy and his teachings emboldened would-be tyrants.  After bloody, but short-lived,  tyrannical revolutions in 411 and 404 B.C., the citizens of Athens were fed-up with letting Socrates continue his anti-democratic rants.  The reign of the Thirty Tyrants resulting from the 404 B.C. revolution was particularly damaging to Socrates’ position in society.  A former student of Socrates, Critia, was one of the most vicious tyrants, and he led the violence against the democrats.  In less than a year, 1400 Athenians were killed and 5000 or 1/10th  of the city’s population were banished.  Socrates, however, was just fine.  He freely walked the streets, safe from persecution and fully complaisant to the dictatorial forces that rounded up, assaulted, killed, or exiled those around him.  Socrates spoke of virtue, but his actions were less than virtuous.

Imagine the fallout from a similar situation today.  Suppose a university professor set up a camp for radicals in some Washington D.C. neighborhood. Teaching students to loathe the elected government of the day, the teacher preached the virtues of a divine monarchy and inspiring one of his more ambitious students to actually attempt a violent coup d’ état.  After successfully killing off the freely-elected president in the White House, this new dictator then sets about killing off his opposition, and living large, until his tyrannical regime is defeated by democratic forces.  Luckily for the professor, a general amnesty is issued to quickly restore order in the society, so he is saved from prosecution. However, rather than sheepishly withdrawing from public, and counting his lucky stars he wasn’t a target of retribution, the professor proceeded to go right back to riling up a new set of potential revolutionaries.  Is it any wonder that a jury of Athenians would make a political decision to convict Socrates, and possibly spare themselves from a another Socrates-inspired tyrant?

The jury’s decision to convict Socrates was a political one, calculated to protect their democracy from a return of a violent and unfair dictatorship.  The death sentence for Socrates, however, was a reaction against Socrates’ intransigence.  Socrates wanted to turn the tables on his jurors, put Athenian democracy on trial, and prove to history the shortcomings inherent in a democracy.  Socrates goaded the jury into issuing their harsh sentence.  He could have paid a fine or accepted an exile, but he wanted to go out with a bang.

Lesson #1:  A single act of indifference can destroy your future.  At his trial, Socrates, defended himself as a man of virtue,  telling his jurors that he refused an unjust order by the Thirty Tyrants to arrest a wealthy land owner, so that the tyrants could seize his property.  However, Socrates did nothing to warn or help this innocent victim.  This glaring, act of indifference, tainted Socrates in the eyes of his jurors.

Lesson #2:  Get the facts before making a judgment. Plato’s Apology (defense of Socrates) is a beautiful example of how the masterful use of words can obscure the reality of a situation.

Lesson #3:  Be careful who you piss off.

Lesson #4:  Actions speak louder than words. Socrates spoke of virtue, but when it came time to “walk the walk”, he could only “talk the talk”.

Lesson #5:  Be careful what you unleash. It is unlikely that the unjust, tyrannical regime of those that included Critias, was in any way the type of preferred government that Socrates envisioned when he railed against democracy.  However,  he contributed to its possibility.

Lesson #5:  You’re never too old to make a contribution: In the eyes of many, I.F. Stone’s career ended in 1971 when his I.F. Stone Weekly stopped publication, and he retired from political journalism.  However, Stone carried on.  His book, The Trial of Socrates, is an exciting read that stands in sharp contrast to most of the staid, scholarly writings of Socrates’ demise.

Show me the Blood

If you’re not familiar with the TED Conferences and their website, you should be.  Many of humanity’s greatest endeavors are revealed there.  A few weeks ago, Bill Gates gave a talk on malaria.  Malaria needlessly kills 1 million people every year and at any given time 200 million more are suffering from its debilitating effects.  Gates lamented the fact that more money is spent on developing drugs for baldness than for malaria.  He stated that, “there is no reason that only poor people should have the experience” of being exposed to malaria transmitting mosquitoes and to reinforce this, Gates released a number of mosquitoes from a jar into the audience.  The point hit home - we have to be exposed to the reality of malaria (or anything else) before we act.

Today, we have the ability to access truth and reality as never before.   I don’t want a sanitized version of the events of our day, especially when the policies of elected governments are in question.  Show me the blood and guts arising out of military mistakes in Afghanistan; let me see the real suffering of mothers and babies dying of AIDS; lay out the consequences of my indifference when it comes to extreme poverty or injustice.  Why should we let news networks, editors, or government bureacracies, filter the news we receive?  The life and death issues of our time demand that our senses be exposed to their reality - no matter how painful.  Only then will we be compelled to act.

My Dad, Joe

Nestled beside Betty, his beloved wife of 63 years, Joe passed peacefully into the arms of God.  Here is the tribute I gave at his prayer service.

Tribute to Joe/Dad/Grandpa/Great-Grandpa

Hello everyone, my name is René Bol and on behalf of my mom and our entire family, I would like to sincerely thank you for being here tonight.

I’d first like to tell you a little bit about my father’s life. My father grew up poor during the Depression of the 1930’s, and he often entertained us with really funny stories about his childhood. He joked about the many hardships he had to endure, and while we always laughed with him, we couldn’t help but sense the sadness of a boy who was burdened by the realization he wasn’t going to be given much opportunity in life.

In the summers my Dad was sent off to work on the farms of his two uncles in Trochu, Alberta.  During the week, he and the other children would toil long hours working in the fields together, but when Sunday rolled around and the rest of the family packed up and went on their weekly summer picnic, my Dad was left behind to weed the garden, alone. It was pretty harsh treatment, and my Dad was pretty upset. But as my Dad tells the story, he was able to exact a small degree of revenge.  With a wink and a nod, he confessed to us that, “many a perfectly good carrot was also “accidently” yanked up and thrown away along with those miserable weeds.”

One summer, Dad was needed on the farms for a late harvest, so his uncles did not return him to Calgary in time for his schooling.  So for weeks he would have to drive the other children to their school in a horse and wagon, drop them off, go back to work on the farm all day, and then return to pick up the school children in his dirty, grimy, work clothes. You can just imagine the scene of a bunch of poor farm children making fun of their exceedingly more unfortunate, city-boy relative.  When the harshness of the winter set in, Dad’s uncles put him on the back of a flat-deck truck and returned him to Calgary.  Dad got back to the city, frozen, disheveled, and cloaked in dust and snow.   Stepping through his front door, his father took one look at him and then took him by the hand to buy him a brand new winter coat.  A coat both of them knew they couldn’t afford.
Recently, I asked my father how he ended up quitting school, just before his grade 9 exams. In a rare moment of seriousness he told me that his schoolmates had been teasing him, relentlessly, about his tattered shoes and clothes, and that he just couldn’t take it any longer.   So my father went down to Harry’s News and Tobacco to see if he could get a job. They offered him one, but only on the condition that he was able to first get a bicycle by Monday morning.   That wasn’t going to be an easy task.  But my Dad went to his father, who was working long hours, six days a week, struggling to feed a family of 9, and my Dad sheepishly asked for his help.   Instead of encouraging my father to stay in school, like you might expect from most parents, his father simply sighed, and told him that he would do his best to get him a bicycle - on credit.   He did, and my father never went back to school.

Later on when my father returned home from the war, the other veterans had their university educations paid for by the government but my father never qualified for the grant because he didn’t have his high school diploma.

When Dad was just a teenager, his father died young.   The family was understandably desperate, and jobs were scarce, so my father volunteered to go into the army, not so much out of a sense of duty to his country, but because the military promised to send his small monthly paycheck back home to his saintly, widowed mother. The war was to have a profound effect on Dad.  He saw evil, and death, and the worst of humanity up close, but he also saw bravery, and sacrifice and the bond between soldiers that would die for their country and for each other. Dad was to have a connection with the military for the rest of his life and in the last 15 or 20 years my Dad and Mom, and many of us here in the family, attended yearly reunions with his South Alberta Regiment.

I’m giving you a little bit of history about my father, not so much for posterity’s sake, but to give you some insight into what may have shaped my father’s character. He easily could have been an angry, mean-spirited, and selfish man.  But my Dad was the farthest thing possible from this.  He had an innate ability to transcend life’s challenges and injustices. He never dwelt on the bad side of anything and he always looked for something positive in everything.  We might think he had a rough childhood, but he saw it simply, as a fun-filled, testing ground that built independence, self-reliance, confidence and fortitude.  We might think his parents were sometimes neglectful, but he simply adored his mom and dad.   My Dad always had the wisdom to look past his own misfortune and understand the bigger picture.   For him, a brief special moment with his mom or dad would completely wipe out any thoughts of not being as fortunate as the other children. For him, his parents did their best in tough circumstances, and he loved them dearly for it.

My Dad never expected anything from anyone.   No sense of entitlement, no self-pity, no ego, no vanity, no complaining and never for a single moment in his life did he ever think he was better than anyone else.

From my Dad’s greatest struggle, he took his greatest prize.   Regrettably my Dad may have lost a small piece of his soul in the Second World War, but he returned from Europe with a beautiful Scottish war bride who gave him endless streams of happiness until his very last breath.

As I look back upon my father’s life, he appears to have been somewhat of a contradiction.
He had a great intellect but pursued little formal education.
He had a zest for adventure but became somewhat of a homebody.
He had a thirst for knowledge but rarely seemed to utilize this outside of helping his friends and family build or fix things.
He seemed to love the thrill of his own business and yet he settled for a long career, working loyally for someone else’s construction company.
He prospered over poverty and yet placed absolutely no value on material possessions.

My father, in fact, seemed to have the ability to do anything or become anything he wanted, but he let most of his worldly ambitions fade away.
A walking contradiction? Maybe so. But if you look closely enough at these contradictions, they share a common thread.  My Dad traded in the things he suspected would take him away from his loved ones, and he replaced them with things that would buy him more time. More time for building the deep, meaningful relationships he wanted with his wife, his family, his God and his friends.   My Dad understood something that most of us never do until it’s too late.  That we are all allotted only so much time here on earth, and that the time we spend with our loved ones will be our most precious.  My father chose to spend his time with us, and for that we are all eternally grateful.

Each and every one of us, have a uniquely intimate connection with my father and a long list of cherished memories with him. For us, this is our measure of how great of a man he was.  We thank God for his commitment to our lives, for his laughter, for his tenderness, for his generosity and compassion, for the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and for his everlasting love.

Goodbye Dad.  Until we’re all together again.   One sweet day!

My nephew, Henry, also delivered a beautiful tribute for my father.  I’m publishing it without his permission - so sue me Henry!

There is a cottage that overlooks Ganges Harbour on Saltspring Island. The cottage is delicately nestled amongst giant cedar trees. It is a short walk to Ganges beach where, if you know which ones to turn over, you can flip over rocks and watch crabs scuttle for shelter. You would be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful location anywhere in the world. But even two decades ago, the cabin was a little rough around the edges. There were definitely mice, if not, possibly, rats. There was no dishwasher; and the basement had the sickly sweet smell of standing water on wood.

The most pressing problem to me, when we visited the Saltspring cabin when I was six years old, was that there wasn’t a television. But I was not worried about this problem for long. I knew that Grandpa Joe and Grandma Betty were coming out to visit. Grandpa had built model railroads, tree-houses, and toys of all description. Surely, I thought, Grandpa Joe would be able to build a television.

Even twenty years later I maintain that, given the chance and the right tools, Grandpa Joe could have built a television.

The word “hero” is a pretty strong word. It’s the sort of word you don’t use lightly. The Oxford dictionary defines “hero” as:

[A] person…who is admired for their courage or outstanding achievements

A hero could be a young man who enlists in the Canadian Infantry in the 1940s to fight against an army that had easily conquered the great powers of continental Europe. He would find himself sitting in the gunner’s seat of a Sherman tank; a tank that was a Ford-manufactured underdog, fighting Mercedes produced German machines.

Or a hero could be a man who returned to Canada, a veteran injured during combat, armed only with his determination, work ethic, and Betty (also lovingly known as “The War Department”). Grandpa Joe would build his first house from the ground up. And when he finally had to move, he would be able to do it easily; needing only “two trips in a wheelbarrow.”

A hero could also be a man who raised four compassionate, hard working, and good-humored children, all of whom would go on to be exceptional parents in their own right–Which is not to say that they didn’t present Grandpa Joe and Grandma Betty with challenges from time to time while they were growing up.

Of course, anyone who knows Grandpa Joe would know that he would be nothing short of mortally embarrassed if he found out he was being called a “hero”. And I like to think that he’s watching and listening down on us now, so, sorry Grandpa, you have to be embarrassed.

I think that the most heroic thing about Grandpa Joe was his quiet strength. How else can you explain spending hours and hours crafting a model railroad, complete with built from scratch wood structures, plaster mountains, and intricate wiring-and then letting your Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren, play with it.

It’s that quiet strength that made Grandpa’s passing all the more surprising. He seemed like he was just a little too determined in the way he lived his life to let death get a good grip on him.

In the summer of 2000, I remember working with Uncle Greg and Grandpa Joe building a fence and a shed. My dad told me that that I had better “not let Grandpa do too much of the hard work, because if you let him he’ll do it all.” Years later, when Uncle Joe and Uncle Greg were building their own houses, the problem was the same. Grandpa was incorrigible; he just couldn’t help himself, he had to contribute when there was work to be done.

I don’t know very much about hard work, sacrifice, determination, or power tools. But I think that a lot of what I do know about those things, I learned from Grandpa Joe. I feel incredibly lucky to have had him as a Grandfather. Grandpa Joe was a man whose example I attempt to follow in my own life.

And I do not think it is too bold for me to suggest that the world would be a significantly better place if there were more people like Grandpa Joe in it. I think we all know that there would be a lot more laughter, sincerity, kind heartedness, rum and cokes, and moral strength.

Grandpa Joe was one of the most beautiful people I have ever known. And I will remember him when I see great beauty; be it someone volunteering their time and effort for a noble cause, children learning and growing, or watching the sun set over Ganges harbor.

The Starry Night

MoMA’s art exhibit, “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night”, has left New York City for Amsterdam.  The artist died in 1890 at the age of 37,  two days after shooting himself in the chest with a revolver.  His last words - “La tristesse durera toujours” (the sadness will last forever).  His brief life offers up some lessons.

1.  Don’t drink (especially absinthe) and play with guns.

2.  Find your passion. Van Gogh failed at being a missionary, a pastor, and an art dealer before committing himself to becoming an artist.  Although his paintings and sketches were created over a 10 year career, most of his great works came in the last 2 years of his life.

3.  What goes around comes around. In a night of fury on December 23, 1888 Van Gogh attacked his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin with a razor.  Gauguin was not harmed but Van Gogh forever lost the lobe of his left ear and a long time friend.

4.  Write for posterity’s sake.  The popularity of Van Gogh’s work is tied to knowing so much about the life of the artist.  Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters, 600 to his brother Theo alone, and because these survived the artist, we know the details of his life and the world around him.

Dr. Gachet

5.  Be empathetic to the physically and mentally ill. It is now believed Van Gogh suffered from epilepsy and possibly bipolar disorder.  The suffering he endured from his illnesses came as much from the ignorance and meanness of the people around him as the maladies themselves.

6.  Make the best of a bad situation. Arguably Van Gogh’s greatest work, The Starry Night, was painted in the last year of his life as he looked out of the window of a mental institution.  An institution he was confined to.

7.  Nature is a force in our universe and we should connect to it and appreciate its power.

8.  Good deeds will be returned. Joachin Pissaro is one of the curators of the current exhibit.  He is the great-grandson of the painter, Camille Pissaro, who had personally known Van Gogh and had recommended Dr. Paul Gachet to Theo, in an effort to help Vincent.  A portrait painting of the good doctor recently sold at auction for over $82 million dollars.

The Lady of Justice

Is there a link between the record number of suicides in the U.S. Army, Bush war crimes, and the new secret weapon Bob Woodward touts as being at the heart of the military’s success in “the surge” in Iraq?

That it’s like any war. There’s always something - there’s a game-changer, a new development. In the early 20th century, it was the tank or the airplane. World War II, the Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb. These [new] operations and techniques are not something where you’re going to see an explosion like an Atomic Bomb but they are incredibly effective. They are something that - as Pres. Bush said to people that I quote in the book, “We are killing them all. We are killing all of the people who are the leaders.” Now, it’s not literally “all,” but they are killing hundreds and hundreds of key people on the other side in this conflict.

Speculation on the weapon has ranged from a ultramagnetic lightening bolt that zaps targets into baby-sized molten masses to a new CTTL (Continuous Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating) technology.  Given the history of Bush’s violations against detainees, one has to wonder if the new weapon is resulting in “unwarranted civilian deaths” that could also be considered war crimes.

As always, soldiers pay the price for following the orders of their military commanders and civilian leadership.  While the scope of possible war crimes committed by the Bush Administration has been downplayed by the MSM, Eric Holder (Obama’s Attorney General) has to enforce the “rule of law” and let the course of his actions be dictated by the facts.  Justice demands this.  Cheney admitted to authorizing waterboarding, and while the Bush Administration did its best to avoid being prosecuted for offenses against the U.S. War Crimes Act, the evidence against them is overwhelming.  The scale of the crimes should not be underestimated.  While Obama sets forth a plan to close GITMO, there remains 15,000 illegally detained prisoners in Iraq and hundreds of others held in “black site” overseas prisons.  Jonathan Turley, constitutional law professor at George Washington University, is adamant that the Bush Administration should be charged for war crimes in its treatment of prisoners. He argues that to move forward without having the fortitude to bring justice to recent crimes, condemns us to repeat these crimes.

The spectacle of having war crimes charges brought to the likes of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney by their own government would be unsettling to most Americans.  These men, after all, were primarily motivated by the desire to protect Americans at all costs.  So what should be done?

The author of one of the most cited human rights poems may provide the answer.  Pastor Martin Niemöller, wrote these words:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

However, Niemöller himself was guilty of anti-Semitism and of being complaisant during the rise of Nazism in Germany.  He expressed his guilt and remorse by signing The Stuttgard Declaration of Guilt with other Protestant Church leaders in 1945.  By doing this, the Protestant Churches in Germany were able to make a new beginning.

Similarly, evidence of war crimes should be presented against members of the Bush Administration.  Confronted with the real possibility of trials, convictions, and imprisonments, the defendants could be offered a Presidential pardon in return for signing a “Declaration of Guilt”. In this way, the Obama Administration could honor its stated commitment to “the rule of law” and restore America’s credibility in the world.