Horizons

My thoughts are pretty random this Sunday morning. But if I reach for a theme, I think I can find one in the idea that so much in our world is out of balance.

My theme might not be apparent at first in this story. But I was struck by Bill Moyers' closing remarks on his show this week.



If this was anyone but Moyers, I'd be thinking it was someone who looks at the world through the eyes of American exceptionalism. But we all know that's not his take. Perhaps what we are seeing is a world out of balance when it comes to power...people all over the world who's fate is tied to what happens in the US. Of course ours is tied to theirs as well. Its just that too many in this country are unaware of that...hence the lack of balance.

Jackson Browne reminds us that there are lives in the balance.



And next, on this long holiday weekend as we hear stories of people getting trampled to death by shoppers on "Black Friday," I can't help but think of Annie Leonard's wonder…

Every human being has a biological drive for 4 things...air, water, food, and sex. We've pretty much accepted the first two as givens, but ever since Eve took that bite out of an apple, we've struggled with our need for food and sex, coming up with all kinds of rules about who, what, when and how. I, for one, think its highly symbolic that such a powerful myth in our culture involves a woman eating a "forbidden fruit." After all, we know the long fixation we've had with who and when a woman has sex. Is it any surprise that we are also fixated on what she eats?

From Meer Images Photography

But just as with sex, these rules about eating get all tangled up in our psyches and come out a mish-mash of myths that are difficult to sort. And while we on the left have at least a bit more awareness about how seeing sex as a forbidden fruit is damaging, we seem to have bought in lock, stock, and barrel to the myths about eating. Of course, we've been aided in that process …

Back in January, as the Democratic Primary heated up in an epic battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there was a lot of what I would categorize as "silly talk" pitting women's issues against those of African Americans. I can't claim to have been untouched by that strain in our leftward attempts at coalition though. There were charges from both sides that were deeply painful and only occasionally a real discussion about how these systems of hierarchy and oppression are very much alive in our culture.

I remember that during those days, I found solace and guidance in the words of the one group who felt this tension deep in their souls...African American women. I traveled around the nets to find and listen to their voices and wrote an essay that attempted to capture some of it. At the time, these women were busy reacting to an op-ed by Gloria Steinem. But its these words that I remember most.

After reading Steinem's Op-Ed I felt invisible...as if black and…

Throughout this most recent campaign I, like all of you, have been trying to get a handle on just who this man is that we have now elected as our next President. So many of us are projecting our hopes, fears, and cynicism onto who he is and what kind of President he will be, that it often gets confusing.



I continue to have lots of questions that will only be answered in the days to come. But the one thing I feel pretty certain about is that if you look at Obama's history and how he ran his campaign, this is a man who believes in community organizing. The question is, how will that affect how he governs?

My guess right now is that his commitment to organizing is one of the reasons Obama has become such a Rorschach for most of us. To be effective in that kind of work requires a different kind of leadership than what we have grown accustomed to in politics. One of Obama's mentors, Marshall Ganz, describes leadership this way:

Although we associate leaders with certain kinds of attri…

I originally got a "gig" on the front page here at DD because I made an attempt to write a weekly roundup of some of the discussions going on in the diversosphere called Blog Voices. Over the months, I've veered off that course, but I thought that the day after the United States elected the first Black President, it might be time to check in and see what folks are saying. This is definitely not an exhaustive look, but I checked in with some of the folks whose writing has had an impact on me and would like to share those with you.

First of all, Kai over at Zuky wrote an amazing piece before the election that he titled The Palin' Identity that captures the message of this campaign in a very powerful way. I'll give you a taste, but mostly encourage you to go take in the whole thing.

The reason why the McCain-Palin campaign has appeared erratic throughout the election season is that their strategic communications have been conceived and crafted according to the lang…