What Would Thoreau Say?

Recently I read that GAP had a tough quarter (I think it's more like a tough decade) because sales are down, same store sales are flat, underwear sales are crusty...can't remember which sales report I read.  It said that they had to open about a gazillion new stores during the holidays to keep up and make sure their shareholders are happy and not revolting.  (Revolting shareholders is for another post...) But I thought as I was reading this when did our economy get so dependent on greed?  Was it always that way?  When I was a kid and we went downtown to shop in Ossining, and the shops were open late one night a week and absolutely closed Sunday, did the merchants suffer?  Did they make it because they were greedy or because they were small business people who did this for a living to feed their families and put a roof over their head? When did we have to start promoting Black Friday starting on the 4th of July?  And when did we begin watching companies figure out just how t

Yes, I disappeared... In my morning 'stop' a few weeks ago, from the Tao te Ching I read # 56: Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt our sharpness... Be like the Tao The End.

Yes it was excruciatingly painful to watch the USA lose yesterday.  But in a sense the game and tournament had far larger implications that were more important.  For here was truly a superb athletic event-the entire World Cup not just this match-that had you glued to the set and watching these wonderful athletes perform.  Here was evidence that women playing sport can be as entertaining as men and maybe more so because of their approach to the game. I have been a woman's sports fan for a very long time.  I take my share of crap from the neandrathal men I hang around with sometimes or sit with at a sports bar.  I have to put up with them providing their 1950's commentary on women playing sports and I have to constantly stand alone in arguing that women's sports are much more pure than men's.  I mean really, I argue, do you think Naismith intended for the game to be played with giants stuffing the ball down each other's throats or setting up behind the arc for a jum

OK, so let me see if I understand here...Roger Clemen's dna is found on the syringes and cotton balls (man, talk about foresight) but some idiot prosecutor submits some evidence-as in the conversation Andy Pettitte had with his wife saying Clemens did it-now that's controversial...and the judge declares a mistrial. My bet is they don't re-try this case and Clemens goes home.  He ain't goin in the Hall of Fame, but I'll bet he goes home (one time Kurt and I were at a Mets game when an opposing pitcher was taken out...some guy yelled "you don't have to go home, but you gotta leave here!"). Then there's that Anthony trial... And OJ... And a million other trials thrown out on a technicality or because a good lawyer convinced a jury that their client didn't do it. There are also stories like the one on the ESPY's the other night about a guy who went to jail for 35 years for something he didn't do.  The film/story--the interminable

[Long time no see....sorry, summer you know?  baseball, women's world cup...gotta lot to do] Derek Jeter Let me start by saying though I hate the Yankees I have always loved Derek Jeter.  Something about class and keeping his mouth shut and playing every day. And something about that time about five years ago when he went 0 for a million and never complained, kept playing and eventually came out of it.  It was that period in his career that made me a fan. So I've been watching and waiting to see when he would do it.  It's well documented what he did so no reason to go into that.  I'd rather talk about the kid that caught the ball. Turns out he's a 23 year old cell phone salesman (who lost his cell phone in the scrum, by the way).  He catches the carom off his old man and holds high the 3000th hit. Immediately people began to wonder about Jeter's legacy in the history of the sport; some talked about his class, his poise...all kinds of things went through

The Cubs --suck, just suck.  Maureen and I were in chicago for a conference last week and I had tickets for two games.  We went Tuesday night and watched Marmol collapse in the 9th.  I was out of the building so fast I turned around and poor Maureen was still in her seat.  Then the next day she had to work (one of us has to) and I went to a day game.  As my son Kurt will tell you, 'ain't nothing like a day game at Wrigley in the sun'...except I always forget what team plays in the building.  Suck, suck suck...got beat again.  Upon my return home Maureen and I watched them give up back to back walk offs to Pujols...suck, suck, suck.  I put everything I owned that had the Cubs logo on it in a box and placed it in front of my house with a sign that said FREE...it's all still there.  Gee, wonder why... LeBron --I actually met LeBron James right after he signed with the Cavaliers and was a shill for Coca-Cola at a press conference we had in NYC that nobody covered.  He was

Somewhere in Arizona, that bastion of 'take my liberties please" someone has suggested a $50 tax on Medicaid patients that are obese or who smoke---meaning, people overweight and people who are pretty stupid considering they do something that everyone knows will kill them should be required to pay this meaningless tax.  The theory is these folks tax the Medicaid system more because they are sick more. Medicaid is the program for poor people right?  I mean, I want to make sure I'm understanding this new idea coming from the state that hates anyone who isn't white and perfect more than anyone else.  Medicaid provides medical services to the poor...gee, what a shock Arizona wants them to pay more. Now one side of me, by the way, agrees.  I actually do believe those that are continuing to do something (smoke) that they don't have to and that costs others more money should be stopped or at least encouraged to quit.  And frankly I think there is something to be said

You know, this has been fun.  I mean I think of something and write about it and millions of followers (three) take it and pass it on and we change the world together.  Only no reason to keep going.  Harold Camping and Family Radio say the world is ending Saturday, or at least it's starting to end Saturday but the show runs five months.  Not sure why it takes god that much time but he says it will. Camping, if you haven't heard, has taken his Bible-that book full of myths, stories, made up stuff written by men (no women allowed remember) and has figured out 1) when Noah's flood was and 2) the exact date 7000 years later that the rapture will start and the just will be elevated to heaven and the rest of us will die horrible deaths.  Never mind that in 7000 years the calendar he's using has changed several times.  Old Harold-and Harold alone!-has figured it out. Have you SEEN Harold Camping?  First of all  he looks like he was here for that flood.  Second he's a f

In an earlier post I suggested you not take your economic prognostications from an old gym teacher.  But here I am making another one. Well, not a prognostication but asking a question.  What would Thoreau Say... Why wouldn't a flat tax work?  Really, what if we said everyone...and I mean everyone-people, companies, nonprofits (yes, nonprofits-more below), churches...everyone paid 10% on everything they brought in.  Everything. If you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and you make $2 billion during the year, you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... If you are BP and you made $15 billion last year (which they did), you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... If you are the church Our Lady of the Paved Driveway and you take in 100k in contributions during a given year you pay 10k in taxes-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... Huh?  Why wouldn't that work?  I bet the treasury would have more money than it knew what

After overwhelming public response to my having not posted in a while (one email), I resume today jotting down some thoughts on the simple life, a life responding to "What would Thoreau Say?" In a talk I'm giving at the National Cathedral next week I am presenting the workshop I call SiSiSa---Simplicity, Silence, Sabbath.  In this workshop we confront a series of questions about our life in an effort to simplify it, find room for silence, and take steps toward defining what sabbath can mean to us in our lives. In the silence section we will explore something I call Two Times a Day for Peace, a simple system for meditation (it has been called meditation light) I developed and use to slow down...I present the contents of TTDP below.  Let me know your thoughts and perhaps respond with how you create peace... TWO TIMES A DAY FOR PEACE Introduction Several ago my son and his girlfriend joined me in a Peace Walk sponsored by Thich Nhat Hahn as part of “peace is every st

The church has created some goofy stuff in its 2000+ years but nothing is goofier than purgatory.  As I remember it from my best friend as a kid, who was scared to death of being sent there after he died, it's that place you go after you buy the farm if you weren't baptized, or you were a bad person or maybe if you masturbated too much (not sure on that one but if this was one of the qualifiers, he was in deep trouble).  In other words this was the place where you waited to go to heaven.  Kind of the Greyhound Terminal for dead people. People could actually pray you out of the place too.  If you had enough people praying for you to get out of purgatory, I guess some score keeper would determine just when you had enough pray-ers and presto you were out!  My friend was always worried not enough of us would pray for him...he was right. If his fate was left to the clowns I hung around with, he was going to be there a long time. Really, heaven is silly enough...but a joint for p

Every other day or so the NY Times lists those killed in the wars we're fighting.  It's always kids, in their 20's, some in their 30's...all of them dead. I read them slowly.  It's the only part of  the paper I really concentrate on.  I try to see them, their faces, their smiles, their eyes.  I can't of course, but I try.  And I pray for them and thank them like I should, though my thank you  isn't for what all the war makers want  me to thank them for-for keeping me safe, because nobody fighting in Iraq, in a war that has taken hundreds of our kids for absolutely no reason at all isn't really making me safer.  In fact as that war goes on it makes more terrorists which can be argued makes me less safe. No I thank them for being willing to say yes to the war makers because it reduced the chances my son would have to go and fight.  Yup, there, I said it.    I thank these kids for their selflessness for sure.  But I also thank them for going instead of

Through my 62 some years I have had many heros.  From Thomas Jefferson to Ron Santo to Jesus, so many people have influenced my life and helped create my approach to the world.  None has had more impact though than Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).  HDT, most famous for the book he wrote about living at Walden Pond in Concord, MA Walden, was in my mind America's most important philosopher who proposed a way of life designed to bring people happiness, which to some extent at least, I have followed.  Simplify, simplify, Thoreau said.  For this alone I am grateful for this has been my mantra for many many years. But he wrote much more than that.  He was a strict critic of 'politics as usual' and the stupidity of wealth dictating influence (uh, Trump anyone?).  Thoreau told us that life was to be lived mindfully, aware of each day and its being a gift. And he taught us that those in public life and culture that work to deprive us of those gifts are to be opposed vehemently an