TWEAK: Citizen's Brigade

"Tweak" is going to be a series of articles where I archive my ideas. These can be original or augmentations of existing things. This tweak was instigated by the Haitian earthquake; the idea I have is called "The Citizen's Brigade."

Our Day Will Come: The Citizen’s Brigade

A vision for how unemployed Americans can do great things

One of the greatest tragedies of our species is the untapped energy of human potential. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus cites this when he speaks glowingly about the effects of microfinance, how it unleashes the entrepreneurial spirit, the energy that was ALWAYS there but never before had a vehicle to express itself.

To drive this point home, and in the words of the late, great Stephen Jay Gould:

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

Right now, we have millions of Americans out of work while so-called "stimulus packages" are winding their supposed ways through "the system." And so, we tap our collective feet and wait….

But what if there were a way for ordinary citizens to pick up and go, get some training in specific skills, then deploy to Haiti and directly pitch in and help? Everyone I know that is out of work has said upon hearing this idea that they'd go without hesitation.

Look at the enormous costs expended to train, transport and house troops for our current two wars. What if we could take a fraction of that and deploy our unemployed in Haiti for a good cause?

Why is it that we can have a similar structure - the National Guard - when it comes to militaristic/martial operations, but not in the service of helping our fellow brothers and sisters? Why is it this way?

Think of the benefits a Citizens Brigade could bring:

1. Discouraged, unemployed citizens could gain valuable skills, earn a wage, travel, and most importantly, help.

2. Enormous good will would be spread.

3. Ordinary Americans would be exposed to "the bigger picture" firsthand, and their "war stories" for their children will not involve killing but helping.

4. Citizens Brigade members become much more valuable citizens in the event an emergency happens at home.

5. People in other countries will learn about America in an entirely different manner than before.

6. New bridges will be built not based upon politics and economics, but human need and help.

7. Specific but not restricted to Haiti, CLEAN WATER is paramount, even before food! Citizens Brigade members can be trained in how to dig wells, how to purify water and basic plumbing. There must be thousands of out of work carpenters - think about what a valuable skill that is at a time like this for Haiti. General laborers to do set up and then clean up. Food service members to prepare and serve food. First aid workers! In fact, all CB members will have basic first aid training.

8. Jobs are created domestically; plumbers, carpenters, medics... all can find work helping train up CB members. That's stimulus money I'd like to see spent.

9. More contracts are given to transportation, housing/barracks, communications, oversight, evaluation....

These are only some of the benefits that will come as we unleash our human potential, but it requires a vehicle. For all of our talk about “innovation,” let’s just stop that now, because innovation is standing right in front of us.

And besides, Haiti isn’t interested in our talk.

Nunna daul Isunyi, or, Gould is God

Nova, the long-running PBS series, is running Judgement Day, a fantastic doc on the controversial Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case. Not only is the doc well-produced, but I think it clearly illustrates the war of ideas at work in my country and how that penetrates to the very bedrock.

Let's be dead honest about it folks, "my" country is, after all, founded upon the principles of greed, genocide and theft.

Outside of superior technology (and the will to use it), Christianity was a pillar in the preamble to slaughter and re-construction via indoctrination. Easy enough to see.

With that bit of a preamble of itself out of the way, it's weird to think that we're coming up on the two year anniversary of this case. It drives home my point about how this fundamental war is indicative of tectonic shifts now, hundreds of years after the establishment of the colonies.

On a personal note, I've raised my daughter to be analytical about everything, from the schools she attends to the kind of music she consumes. To do any less is, methinks, a crime, because to not be so is to be lazy. It also makes one a doormat. And I'll be damned if my daughter's gonna drink the Kool Aid of American-easy-living-through-not-worrying. Or, like crazy liberals, worrying about the wrong things, or even the right things, but doing stupid crap in the name of good causes. Fuck that.

I say this in light of encouraging discussions we've been having about the church. Renee's a teen now, and she's coming of age.

[written to X; particularly, Johnny Hit and Run Pauline, White Girl, Universal Corner, Adult Books, The Once Over Twice, and one of my all time fave X tunes, The Unheard Music]

Reading: Freakonomics, iWoz & The Blindside

Read three books this month: Steven Levitt's (with Stephen Dubner) "Freakonomics," "iWoz," the eponymous autobio by Apple legend Steve Wozniak, and Michael Lewis', "The Blindside: Evolution of a Game."

"Freakonomics" comes much ballyhoo-ed for its thesis of connecting disparate phenomena, such as Roe v. Wade having a major impact upon the drop in crime during the 90's. Now, I have to admit in full disclosure when I first got pitched "Freakonomics" my initial reaction was to just stay away, cuz frankly, it's not an original thesis by a long shot.

What Levitt is really getting at is contingency. In science evolutionary biology has been talking about this for forever, most notably and popularly, the great Stephen Jay Gould. But it's not an original thesis in art by a longshot either. Everyone from Breton and the Dadaists/Surrealists, most notably Bunuel, to Tom Twyker's, RUN LOLA RUN.

In psychology there's Freudian free association and the many Surrealist games, such as "medium," (where Robert Desnos and Rene Crevel excelled at going into "trances" and speaking or writing disparate "nonsense"), or "cadavre exquis," based upon the children's game of taking a sentence, committing it to paper, folding it over, having another person write the next sentence below it, folding it over, and repeating. It's really fun to play with kids and can even be done with pictures.

What, I suppose, attracted the many readers of "Freakonomics" was the "explanation" of events. Thus, Roe v. Wade prevented many babies being born into economically challenged environments in the 70's. Babies, furthermore, that would have been adolescent age in the 90's and statistically much more prone to violent crime.

Now, that on the face of it makes for sorta interesting reading, but after reading the many examples Levitt provides - "What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?", or, "How is the Ku Klux Klan like a Group of Real Estate Agents?" - I was reminded of something very wise that Jerry Farber said about how academics are always studying the pathologies of the "criminal" like gang activity, drug pushing, pimping, etc., but will never commit time and money to studying the political assumptions of the top 10% of the economically empowered and their effects upon society.

Perhaps a more sober - and tragic - example of contingency exists in the mass media reporting of the 32 murdered at Virginia Tech this week - randomness in bloody effect. These murders dominated and overwhelmed the mass media here in the states.

OF COURSE those murders were a tragic example of our crazy society, but meanwhile, on Wednesday alone, at the height of the media frenzy over the VT shootings, Iraq suffered one of the deadliest weeks ever - 5 car bombs alone killing over six times as many killed at VT, maiming who knows how many others. And bringing a country already crippled on its knees belly down on the ground, with insurgents, terrorists and even loyal Baathists all joining in the melee. It is beyond civil war, because there is nothing but hopelessness and chaos with no end in sight except misery.

And then there's this back at home; big insurance companies are now re-examining claims put forth by some of the Katrina victims.

I don't condone it, but I certainly understand why, with a media structure such as ours, certain things are brought to light, and others remain in the background. So to you readers who observe us from afar, know that what's being perpetrated here is a form of mind-control unprecedented in history - far beyond Goebbels.

I rant because if ever there was a case of contingency, the one between mass media reporting and American ignorance and hubris deserves examination. Actually, Chomsky and Herman have already done it. But while Bill Safire gets placed in the NY Times, Chomsky is relegated to the intellectual ghetto.

At any rate, I got tired of "Freakonomics" and its "novel" approach.

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"iWoz" was fun. Many complain of Woz's propensity for chest thumping. It can get a bit much, I admit, but for me, what was more annoying was his terminal cheeriness. His self-described "floating head" that's always happy. Quite frankly I look at his childhood in suburbia withe the white collar engineering dad and the June Cleaver stay at home mom, and shudder. In fact, it was that exact conformity that the flower children were at least in part rebelling against.

I've never been an Apple user, but I respect the hell out of the two Steves. And while "Hackers" is still the gold standard re-telling of the tech revolution, if you've an interest in computers you'll grin reading this.

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Last but most is Michael Lewis's brilliant "The Blindside: Evolution of a Game."

At once the story of Michael Oher, who at age 16 was 6'5", 350+ lbs., posted 4.6 in the 40, and was the left (offensive) tackle prodigy - and thus the book's title - and arguably the most coveted high school recruit to big time college football in the nation at his time. But "The Blindside" is much, much more than the telling of a sports prodigy.

For starters, Michael Oher lived largely on the streets, and had been doing so for some 5 years. Childrens Services finally just gave up trying to locate him. And of course he wasn't going to school and was illiterate.

So, it delves into some sociology, the institutional aspects of black poverty and governmental inability and refusal to address the deep rooted pathologies of inner city urban settings and, moreover, our nation's blind eye toward them.

But then it weaves in detailed recountings of football strategy, how for right-handed quarterbacks, the blindside (left) was becoming a gamble that teams couldn't afford to take anymore - they had to address it. The reason? The player who single-handedly changed the game - and the economics of the game - of modern pro football; "LT."

Simply, Lawrence Taylor changed the way football was played. He was so big and strong he was hard at best to contend with, but it was his speed that changed everything. What Bo Jackson did for big strong and fast running backs, LT did for linebackers.

As a consequence, head coaches and offensive coordinators throughout the NFL were losing sleep over LT nightmares. I recall ultra vividly the sight of Joe Theismann's leg bending as a result of LT's fury; it was rubber-like, and a real sickening feeling accompanied that visual.

That all would eventually give rise to Bill Walsh's rebuttal, the so-called "West Coast Offense" (actually originating with Larry "Air" Coryell's San Diego Chargers) and the ascendancy of the left tackle to protect a team's most valuable investment, the quarterback. Specifically, the qb's blindside...

For those who like HBO's "Real Sports" this book is a dream. On top of that, Lewis is such a great writer... it's a tough combo to beat. His "Liar's Poker" was also excellent.

There's SO much going on in this book but it's written so well and thought out so deftly that it's deceptive. If you don't like sports, particularly American football, then nothing here will convince you.

Honestly, this is one of the best books I've read in the past 2 or 3 years, bar none.