by Roxanne -

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

This year, as most years, we are headed up to northern Minnesota and Lake Superior for a week of vacation. I will post a few pictures each day and you can see how our week unfolds.

We don’t normally make a plan, or if we do we change the plan as the day progresses. We tend to be pretty opportunistic and veer off the beaten path if something interesting presents itself. Come along with us.

We’ve arrived and here’s the view of Lake Superior from the cabin we’re renting for these next few days – right on the water.

This evening the sunset was dreamy –

by Roxanne -

The Healing

If you liked the story The Help, you’ll enjoy The Healing. It’s a great novel for summer reading from Jonathan Odell, a Minnesota author. Beautifully written, the reader is instantly transported into a plantation in the Deep South.

Rich in mood and atmosphere, The Healing is a warmhearted novel about the unbreakable bonds between three generations of female healers and their power to restore the body, the spirit, and the soul.

In Antebellum Mississippi, Granada Satterfield has the mixed fortune to be born on the same day that her plantation mistress’s daughter, Becky, dies of cholera. Believing that the newborn possesses some of her daughter’s spirit, the Mistress Amanda adopts Granada, dolling her up in Becky’s dresses and giving her a special place in the family despite her husband’s protests. But when The Master brings a woman named Polly Shine to help quell the debilitating plague that is sweeping through the slave quarters, Granada’s life changes. For Polly sees something in the young girl, a spark of “The Healing,” and a domestic battle of wills begins, one that will bring the two closer but that will ultimately lead to a great tragedy. And seventy-five years later, Granada, still living on the abandoned plantation long after slavery ended, must revive the buried memories before history repeats itself.

Inspirational and suspenseful, The Healing is the kind of historical fiction readers can’t put down—and can’t wait to recommend once they’ve finished.

“A remarkable rite-of-passage novel with an unforgettable character. . . . The Healing transcends any clichés of the genre with its captivating, at times almost lyrical, prose; its firm grasp of history; vivid scenes; and vital, fully realized people, particularly the slaves with their many shades of color and modes of survival.” The Associated Press

But in the end, one of the characters, wasn’t able to envision freedom. Caught in the culture (in the story it was a culture of the plantation life) creates blinders that prevent us from accepting the invitation for a new life when it is offered.

This story alerts us to the fact that merely changing the laws on slavery doesn’t create free people. In the same way enacting a law requiring affirmative action doesn’t eliminate descriminatory behavior – it just takes on more subtle forms.

Like the characters in the story, in our own lives we are often caught in the same way. We are invited, either by a new situation or by someone we know to embark on something new, to leave what we know. Because we can imagine something worse, but not something better, we refuse. We are too caught up in our own story – which we believe is true. It is our failure to imagine something better that holds us back – a failure of imagination. God exists, however, in our imagination – or God doesn’t exist at all. Our imagination is the only place God can exist because we can’t see, hear, feel or touch God.

God is not safe. Through our imagination, God is constantly inviting us to stretch, to become uncomfortable, to step out of our comfort zones. But we want so much to be comfortable, to have health insurance, to stay in a space that no longer serves our needs or our life. We are complacent and we want to stay that way. However, this is not living, this is not a life.

Next time you are asked to stretch – say “yes” to life, “yes” to God.

by Roxanne -

Luck or Privilege?

In our culture we view the world through the eyes of privilege – actually over privilege or unearned privilege. We often attribute our unearned privileges to “blessings from God” or to “luck.” Even scientists in our culture fail to see the effects of unearned privileges and attribute these benefits to luck. But it isn’t luck at all.

An article in Science Daily entitled Reward the Second Best, Ignore the Best is a great example of these blinders of privilege at work. The article reports that those who are most successful often are successful because of a combination of both luck and skill. It states,

Implications of this research

The lucky few should understand and appreciate the role that luck played in their extreme success, and with that understanding comes an obligation to those that have not. The lucky few may be more skilful than others eventually, but the way they gain their superior skill can be due to strong rich-get-richer dynamics combined with the good fortune of being successful initially.

This was interesting because the author used Bill Gates’ extreme success as an example of this phenomenon.

Yes, Bill Gates may be very talented, but his extreme success perhaps tells us more about how circumstances beyond his control created such an outlier. Stated differently, what is more exceptional in this case may not be Gates’s talent, but the circumstances he happens to be in.

For example, Gates’s upper class background enabled him to gain extra programming experience when less than 0.01% of his generation then had access to computers; his mother’s social connection with IBM’s chairman enabled him to gain a contract from the then leading PC company, generating a lock-in effect that was crucial for establishing the software empire. Of course, Gates’s talent and effort play important roles in the extreme success of Microsoft. But that’s not enough for creating such an outlier. Talent and effort are likely less important than the circumstances (e.g., network externalities generated by customers’ demand for software compatibility boosted Gates’s initial fortune enabled by his social background) in the sense that he could not have been so successful without the latter.

And yet, the author clearly demonstrates it was not, what the author described as, “lucky circumstances” that aided success. In the case of Bill Gates, the author explains that it was actually “Gates’s upper class background [that] enabled him to gain extra programming experience when less than 0.01% of his generation then had access to computers; his mother’s social connection with IBM’s chairman [that] enabled him to gain a contract from the then leading PC company, generating a lock-in effect that was crucial for establishing the software empire.” So inherited, unearned benefits and privileges of class created the circumstances contributing to Gates’ initial success – so not luck at all — but the unearned benefits of the privileged.

Our social and economic systems are specifically designed to benefit some at the expense of others. What would have been unusual is if Bill Gates hadn’t benefited from his inherited, unearned, upper class privileges.

While the premise of the article is worth noting – that we should consider more carefully the success of those rated “second best” – it should have noted that unearned privileges of class, not luck, gives a big leg up to those at the top.

As Americans we like to believe that we live in a classless society or that everyone has an equal opportunity for success. The reality is that we live in a highly stratified society of social class with an income disparity of countries like Uganda and the Ivory Coast.

We may pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, however our bootstraps came from somewhere. We didn’t create them, but they weren’t “luck” either. And our social and economic systems are designed so that some of us don’t get any bootstraps at all.

Our task in this world is to provide similar bootstraps to those with none so that everyone has a chance to use their gifts and live a fully human life. This requires learning how social and economic systems really work so we can make intelligent changes. We are all connected. We will not all be whole and healed until all are whole and healed.

by Roxanne -

Why the Movie “I Am” Isn’t

I AM is the 2011 creation of film maker Tom Shadyac, “one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.”” Shadyac uses the film to explore two questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better?

In the film a series of experts explains that everything in reality is connected and when we don’t honor that truth, things go awry.

Shadyac should stick to comedy. These questions require digging below the surface and thinking at a deeper level. The movie fails at both.

This was truly a disappointing film. I would never show this in my classroom for the following reasons:

1. The film consistently uses non-gender inclusive language. For example “mankind” vs. humankind, “men”  instead of men and women or human beings, etc. What was he thinking? Was he thinking?

2. The scientific “experts” in the film are predominantly white males with the exception of one woman and one person of color, Archbishop Desmond TuTu.

3. Positive actions are portrayed by whites. Not so for persons of color. The first clip of a person of color is someone making a negative gesture in traffic, followed by another person of color aggressively picking a fight with someone in the car ahead. Wow, just wow.

4. Systemic aspects of the issues of patriarchy, racism, sexism, or nationalism are never even mentioned, much less addressed. In fact they are subtly promoted. This is done by using white males as “experts,” Obama’s presidency as evidence that the race issue is resolved – it isn’t, or the tragedy of 9/11 as moving the dial in an experiment – but what about the more than 5,000+ women who die every year in the U.S. due to rape, abuse, violence? Why don’t their deaths move the dial?

Basically this is a “warm, fuzzy, feel good” film that stays only on the surface. The economic, educational, taxation and legal systems that continue to transfer wealth to the rich, and rich countries, and keep the poor poor – by design are never discussed or even alluded to.

“I Am” is to systemic injustice what the movie “Crash” was to racism. Individualism is subtly promoted. It is a personal, feel-good message only; if we all just love each other the world will be healed. No. It. Won’t. Systems of injustice need to be dismantled. Laws must be changed.

The viewer is never challenged to think critically about the underlying causes. Perhaps this is because the director himself, a beneficiary of patriarchy and a very privileged background, experiences unearned benefits everyday due to his sex and skin color, to say nothing of his famous father. Who would want to question that?

As you can guess – I don’t recommend this film.

Instead I recommend the film: The Human Experience. You can read why in my write up of it here.

by Roxanne -

Economy Heads Downward – Again

In the U.S.A. the housing market drives the economy. A home is by far the largest purchase most people ever make. After the home purchase is made people typically buy additional furnishings, appliances, decor, etc. All of these puchases drive the retailing industry – one of the biggest sectors in our economy. So when the housing market declines – the retailing industry goes with it, taking along with rest of the economy.

A recent article at “The Big Picture” by Barry Ritholz details two facts that indicate underlying systemic reasons why the housing market will continue to decline driving our economy further south yet again..

First he notes, “2.8 million Americans are 12 months behind or more on their mortgages.” This means almost 3 million homes will be coming onto the market from foreclosure. This will add to the current glut of homes for sale along with those waiting to go on the market (the shadow supply). Because these are foreclosed home, it also means that these same homeowners will not be able to purchase another home. No longer homeowners or buyers – they will be entering the rental market.

Second he writes, “Since 2007, 19% of all borrowers (~9 million borrowers) have gone more than 90 days delinquent on their mortgages, or have had their mortgage liquidated.” This group will not be qualified to apply for another mortgage for many years. This means that nearly one in five borrowers (since 2007) no longer qualifies for a mortgage. The pool of homebuyers has declined dramatically. Further shrinking this pool of buyers are aging baby boomers. As baby boomers age and retire, they too are no longer buyers of large, pricey homes or homes in general.

Lack of buyers will make it even more difficult for existing homeowners to sell for possible employment opportunities elsewhere – further dampening employment. The American dream of homeownership has become, for many, an experience similar to driving with your emergency brake on – grinding down the engine & tires of family assets and guzzling resources.

So a rapidly inflating housing inventory combined with a rapidly shrinking pool of buyers will force home prices to new lows – putting more home owners underwater. I can hear the brakes of the non-existent homes sales screetching as the economy teeters on the edge of yet another cliff.

Who’s most vulnerable in all of this? Those without access to government safety nets – mainly women and children.