allanhunter.net Blog

Christine Harrington and others alerted me to the dismal fact that emails sent to me via this site weren’t arriving, because they were bouncing back. Thank you, Christine. I’d wondered why things had been so quiet for a while, although a number of determined souls had gone to the link to www.therapeuticwriting.com and used that, amongst other methods.

So I’ve got Yahoo working on it, as of yesterday. The good news is that they are working at this glitch. The bad news is that they couldn’t figure it out and had to refer to a higher (technical) power.

Funnily enough that very day I had a questionnaire from Yahoo asking me how well their product was doing. I had to give some very low scores for actual achievement, and some very high scores for the lovely people who attempted to put things right. I guess that averages out as in the mid range. Unfortunately I do not want a cozy and friendly relationship with the telephone help line people, delightful as I am sure they are outside their work. I want a web site that works and can receive mail, which is what I pay for and people expect.

Well, that aside, I enjoy questionnaires because they so frequently include forced answers and questions that cannot make sense. This is why I distrust completely and absolutely those ‘polls’ we hear on the TV news. So, getting back to Yahoo, they asked me if I wanted a fax system (yes, really, they asked me that) placed on my site. I said no. The next question was how much I’d be willing to pay for such an item. I typed in $0 - logical, I thought. Oh no. I had to type in a sum (and not in cents) or I could not continue. I forwent the temptation to type in 10 million and entered $1 instead. The point remains, though, that I am now on record as being willing to pay for something I don’t want and won’t use, rather than the record showing that for me at least a fax set up is inane.

These folks are obviously highly intelligent. How come they didn’t catch that slip? And if they didn’t then how about those political polls that say that 32% of the US thinks Bush is doing a ‘good job’ (whatever that phrase means)? I refuse to believe that nearly one third of this great country actually can be so stupid as to think that Bush has any idea what the job is, let alone that he’s doing it well. But let that pass…..

So now I must apologize to my correspondents for an error that is not mine, an error that has caused you frustration and made me look useless, and which the questionnaire will show as me being 32% happy with how Yahoo is doing its job (you see the connection, here?) when the reality is that I’m disappointed in their job efficiency and don’t seem to have a way to communicate it or alter the existing set up (ring any bells, there?).

Funny old world, isn’t it?

I was lucky enough to catch Leonard in Montreal last week where he gave the last of three days of sold-out shows before heading off to England. This meant that he missed his own tribute party the following day, which took over the whole town. But then Leonard has always been one jump ahead of most of us.

Probably we recall Leonard as a force during the seventies, when his low bass voice rumbled songs of disappointment. That was where he made his first impact. Now, at 72, one might expect him to be just as gloomy as the caricature of him would suggest.

But you would be wrong.

The Leonard Cohen who stood before us that night had a voice that is so unaccountably rich, full, and pitched so very low that it shakes the floorboards under your feet and makes your hair stir of its own accord. Musically he has never been more impressive.

Yet it is the words that have truly come into their own at last. Seen for many years as songs of gloom, the words have, today, a renewed depth. The depth was always there, but we just couldn’t quite feel it, I suspect. For when a song that said true things 30 years ago is sung today and feels truer than ever it has to be because the singer himself has found the new depths. He knew what he wrote as a young man was true, but it’s not until now that he could express the fullness of that vision. He brings before us not just sadness (which is a rather adolescent response) but instead he gives us a sense that although sadness exists and will always exist it is the extraordinary beauty of human joy that keeps breaking through. And that is what is worth commemorating.

The audience was in tune with this, too. I can’t recall having seen so many tear-filled eyes outside a funeral. They were filled with tears of real emotion for the beauties that are in everything, even the most confused aspects of our lives, and for the majesty of being alive in a scrambled world.

Ring the bells that still will ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
- That’s how the light gets in.

Shakespeare knew that, too. It’s when the smooth flow of words gets interrupted, when Romeo catches at words for feelings he’s never had before, THEN, that’s when life slips in; and life is always messy, always extraordinary. The poetry is not the polished phrase but it lurks in the hesitations between the phrases. We labor to create perfect offerings, but it’s the very imperfections of our works that make them holy.

That night we saw a singer who was not insisting on anything, but just showing what he felt. In that setting the Magician appeared. And we wept for joy.

The Globe recently printed a column by Jeff Jacoby in which he stated that there was no problem with an over populated world since children are our best resource and will be our best problem solvers.

Try telling that to the starving babies of Sudan.

I will not waste time pointing out in detail the errors of Jacoby’s ways.

I’m an old campaigner against Jacoby. He gets the column inches; I write letters to the Globe pointing out his logical idiocies. It’s an unfair struggle, since he gets first word, some 1000 of them, actually, and I get, if I’m lucky, about 100 in which to refute his claims. You may recall that Jacoby was one of the last to support the Global Warming doubters, and he’s also argued that more guns make us safer. Yes, I have the page cuttings. I use them in my classes when we talk about logic - and what is not logic. My students are appalled at his writing.

Well, now he claims we have no population problem.

In response today’s Globe had several thoughtful, intelligent letters from people who really do know what is what, shredding Jacoby’s words neatly. Good.

But… what sort of newspaper continues to print the words of someone as selective in his facts, as dubious in his sources, and as uneven in his logic as Jacoby? Where is the sense of accurate reporting and fact checking?

I’m sure the Globe likes Jacoby because he generates letters of complaint. They print these as proof that the Globe is a paper that is read by educated citizens.

This is a bit like fire-bombing your own home so you can get advice from architects on how to remodel it.

Fundamentally the Globe’s tactic is dishonest, however. Some poor benighted souls actually believe that Jacoby is correct in all he says, and that is both sad and dangerous (especially the article about more guns equalling more safety).

So when is the Globe going to face its moral problem? Here we have a journalist who is arguing untruths, and the Globe gives him lots of space, three times a week, every week, and pays him.

Is that not immoral?

I often tune into BBC America, just as I often read the UK Guardian on-line, in order to remind myself of what reporting can be, and is not - at least not as often as one might wish.

Tonight, Thursday, presenter Matt Frei questioned an Iraqi minister who was at the UN in New York to discuss what the US presence in Iraq might be when the current agreement with the US forces runs out.  How many bases would there be, and how many troops?  The minister was obviously well practiced at avoiding making statements of any kind that could be even remotely definitive.  Mr Frei was not to be put off. He had no hesitation in interrupting, in asking for his question to be addressed, in insisting that clarification was needed, even saying at one point that the minister’s statements were ‘as clear as mud’.

I’m not advocating bellicose tactics as a way forward.  But I was impressed that Mr Frei did not play the polite little reporter and hum and ha deferentially, or attempt to make the minister’s life easy by completing the man’s ideas and phrases.  The result achieved was exactly what we, as viewers, needed - - we gained the unmistakable impression that there is no plan, that no one knows what will or will not be needed, that there is no real leadership, and that those Iraqis who are getting rich would rather the US stayed for as long as possible and take all the risks, thank you very much.

And when was the last time anyone in the media in the US ‘news industry’ dared to ask difficult questions that might rock a boat or two, and did so in this direct way, posing the questions to the person himself, face to face?

If you know of any examples I’d like to hear of them.  My memory can’t dredge up any cases.

Bush travels to Europe and no one really cares much. Koreans mass in the streets of Seoul to protest that US beef may soon be imported - they’re afraid of Mad Cow Disease and even more afraid that the US will dump its tainted beef on them at low prices. The Korean government almost to a man, offers to reign. Iran reacts with scorn to threatened US sanctions, and even seems to welcome the opportunity to say nasty things about ‘the Great Satan’ (That’s us. In case you’d forgotten.)
In fact the US seems to be a waning power for many people around the globe. The Iranians can always turn to China for all the help they need, and Europe has for some time found it unnecessary to rely on the US. There is very little that we manufacture that they need, and as the US becomes less popular and fewer people want to emulate us, there is less that they want. The US has not joined the treaties on restricting greenhouse emissions; neither has it remained a signatory of the Geneva Convention regarding such things as torture; and it hasn’t supported the Millenium Goals to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest countries. It currently gives a large amount of money to NATO and the UN but not, alas, it’s actual fair share of GNP.

Our last general election was hardly up to the standards we routinely insist upon for other countries. And those other countries have a way to remembering that.
These things do not make us more popular globally, and the USA that post World War Two was perceived as the best place on earth to live is now regarded with a less benign gaze.

We remain enormously rich and therefore we still wield some serious clout, but increasingly I sense that the US is regarded as a wealthy, capricious, aging aunt would be regarded by Bertie Wooster, as an eccentric force one flatters at times but probably does not pay a lot of real attention to.

It does not have to be this way. We can change things. If the will is present we can make a difference, soon.

If you’re new to this blog you may want to skip back to my site to try and work out what archetypes may be.  If you’re one of the dear faithful people who reads here fairly regularly, then you’ll have no problem following any of this.

As we face our presidential campaigns (and whether we like them or not we will have to face them…) it may seem at times to be very hard to assess the candidates in a meaningful way.  So often it comes down to indefinable preference or sometimes to ingrained prejudices - and I don’t exempt myself from prejudices.  But there may be another way.  Ask yourself which archetypal stage each candidate seems to be living. A candidate can be charismatic, charming, convincing, magnetic - and still turn out to be a dangerous egomaniac.  Often it’s a good idea to look past the mannerisms and assess what a candidate might be trying to get us to feel.  Bush, as president, was constantly trying to get us all to feel afraid, and he did a really good job of it. We did feel afraid and some of us still do so, and we handed over many things to him so he could protect us.

We became Orphans, putty in his hands.

Perhaps we should look for a candidate who makes us feel we have some say in things, that our voices really do matter, that our president can’t refuse to obey the laws of the nation merely by producing ridiculous ’signing statements’. Listen to all the candidates and ask yourself - does this one ask me to think, to be better than I presently am?  Or does this candidate want me to respond to stock stimuli about how wicked certain nations are?

The Monarchs of this world ask, nay, demand that we take our part in running our country. Monarchs want dialogue, and seek to work with others including other nations. The Orphans tend to ask us to pay for an army so others can ‘defend’ our country and we can ‘honor’ them when they get blown to pieces by the ‘enemy’, and that it’s all happening this way because of what ‘others’ do to ‘us’. In fact it’s not our fault at all that others want to hurt us.
How will you choose?

I’ve just finished my two Saturday classes about writing using the power of the archetypes within you.  Each day was 9 to 4, so it was a long stretch of time to be workshoping, and yet it think it had to be that way (with the intervening week in which to write) in order to chip through to what was important for each person. There are some things which, when diluted, just don’t work that well.

Fortunately I could not have asked for a better crowd of motivated and dedicated participants, all of whom seized the information and applied it to their lives.  Again and again I was moved by how much courage and compassion there was in the room.  Several people had to speak and write about events that were painful, and we had our fair share of tears.  Yet what struck me each time was that these tears were not about self-pity or despair.  They were tears of recognition as each person became fully aware of the sadness of what had been the case in the past - and that now no longer needed to be that way.

I run these workshops because I see people change in healthful ways.  And that’s a huge privilege.  But I also do it because, when a group of people is truly engaged in real exploration, and extends insight and compassion to others, then something astonishing can happen.  Wisdom flourishes.

The ancient Greeks had a delightful poetic way to describe it.  They said that when one was devoted to a task like this, after a while, if one was lucky, humble, and loving, the appropriate Goddess would appear.

I think it’s safe to say we in the presence of the Divine yesterday.

Today I had the deep pleasure of sitting in a damp and drizzly Harvard Yard (thanks to the supreme kindness of Mary Lou Shields) and listening to J. K. Rowling address the graduating classes.  The place was packed.  Five thousand, perhaps?  More? I have no idea. All I can say was that there was one dear lady of just a few days shy of 100 years old over on one side of the aisle, and a small gaggle of kids near me, all clutching their Harry Potter volumes, some of whom can’t have been more than about eight.  There were plenty more of their fellow youthful enthusiasts to be seen throughout the crowd.

Ms - I beg your pardon - Doctor Rowling gave a speech that was in many ways an absolute masterpiece of gently understated wisdom.  She spoke from the heart, about herself, and yet managed to make what she said about far more than just herself.  Of course, many of us were there because we specifically wanted to know something personal about the publishing phenomenon of the century.  we wanted to know what she was like. She knew that, gave us what we wanted, and then gave us just a little bit more.

She presented two main themes.  The first was that there are virtues in experiencing failure, since it takes us down to the bedrock of who we are so we can build anew.  That’s good advice.  And yet — how many people would dare to stand before a crowd of brand new Harvard Grads and even mention the word failure? This is the cream of the successful youth of our world, after all.  Yet she acknowledged that we will all meet some failures, and each one is a learning point - if we choose to be alert to it.

She also talked about imagination.  The imagination can cause us to write novels, invent new gadgets, invent new lives for ourselves, and see things differently.  It can also be used to mobilize compassion.  What she said - again it was a courageous thing to say - is that we cannot afford to put ourselves in a place of denial.  We cannot pretend that the poor do not need help unless we refuse to let our imaginations act.  Our imaginations, which on this festive day would be most likely focusing on future glories, also have to be used to feel compassion for others so that we can work meaningfully with them to help solve the problems that are so prevalent in our world.  It wasn’t just a call to be of service.  It was a reminder that we can fail to be of service only if we actually deny a vital part of ourselves. In other words, service to others is not voluntary. It’s part of being fully human.
What anyone can say in a Commencement speech is limited.  The listeners one is supposedly addressing are usually tired from partying or just relieved that the studying is over for a while. Most people forget what the speaker says, and often who he or she was, within a surprisingly short span.  So one has to keep the points clean, clear, and yet needling enough to be recalled later.

Dr Rowling, I feel, got it just right.