The Middle Edges

A looming stock market bubble, terrorist bombs going off in New York City, race riots in the American Midwest, and the possibility of a woman with a strong need to prove herself and a desire to keep secrets running the nation from the White House—the world has gone mad! Thank goodness we're talking about events that occurred almost 100 years ago. Learn how history overlaps: Woodrow Wilson, Edith Wilson, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Eugene Williams, Chicago Race Riots, Nobel Prize, Psychology Today, Dr. Ryne A. Sherman, Hugh Rodham, Dorothy Rodham, Federal Reserve, Chelsea, D.W. Griffith, African Americans, United Nations, League of Nations, immigrants, immigration, Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, Charlotte, North Carolina, Wall Street. J.P. Morgan, Great Recession.   

Woody Guthrie, a talented singer, songwriter and poet, was fearless in expression of his beliefs and spoke up to authority whenever he felt an injustice being committed. When Guthrie recorded "This Land is Your Land," his lyrics posed an important question: In a land of plenty made for all of us, why are people so hungry?  Guthrie so disliked his New York landlord, Fred Trump (Donald Trump's father), that Guthrie wrote a song about Donald's father, Fred, in the early 1950s because Guthrie thought that Trumps' father was one who stirred racial hate and implicit profits from it.   Guthrie made it a point to include the lyrics about hungry, discounted people in “This Land is Your Land.” Our country, which is still admirable in so many ways, has had a long history of mistreating people in a way that comes across quiet and hidden, and repositioned in a way that makes it seem that we are “helping,” but helping is sometimes not the truth. And historically, this leads to one of our most mistreated groups, on their own continent, Native Americans.   I like to think that when Woody Guthrie wrote his song, he was sensitive to the plight of Americans of all races, and was viewing the future of our nation from the middle edges, where the possibilities for positive change can still be seen though the thickening fog. Learn more at http://woodyguthriecenter.org Martin Luther King, Jr., United Nations Human Rights Council, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Fort Laramie Treaty, Buffalo Bill Cody, Sitting Bull, Christopher Columbus, Gretchen Goetz, Justin William Moyer, Washington Post, The New York Times, Will Kaufman, Thomas Kaplan, Ted Wells

The current addiction crisis involves the terrible connection between the over-prescription opiates by American doctors (things like popular painkillers like OxyContin and morphine) and the connection to the growing use of and dependence on street heroin. But I'm actually talking about a drug addiction crisis that began much earlier and primarily involved middle-class American women, whose only mistake was trusting that drug manufacturers and family physicians had thoroughly vetted the medications they were producing and prescribing. The trust was that your physician cared most for you .. when in fact, a physician can care more about income. Read the AP story online, about the current crisis of this issue: Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis. #PoliticsofPain 

This year, 100 million people in the U.S. did not read a book. There is, believe it or not, a more devious way that “the powers that be” can remove the written word—and the boundless knowledge and inspiration it contains and provides—from the public consciousness without too many of us noticing. The secret to this horrible possibility is part of the backstory of the book-burning, fascist version of America depicted in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. You see, long before the oppressive government in the novel banned all books and sponsored teams of “firemen” to round them up and burn them, people simply chose to stop reading. The past is full of book burnings designed to censor what the people in charge (or who aspired to be in charge) felt was dangerous information. Dark events in history — that got rid of books — started 4500 years ago. Learn more about Syria, Turkey, China, Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, Fascists, Nazis, Hitler, McCarthy, Qin, Franco, Cromwell, Jovian.    

The more individually … and selfishly … motivated our public figures become, the less good they will do for the public at large and the more good they will do for themselves. And with everyone in society moving in the same direction—devoting more and more of our “public selves” to pursuing our own private interests, life will not reward you in the way it should.    French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book, Democracy in America, warned that “the virtues of public life” could be destroyed by American's growing sense of individualism, because “in the long run it attacks and destroys all others and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness.”   Physical attractiveness—slowly but surely—began to trump the virtues of talent. To be truly independent, as we all now see ourselves to be, one must stand above or separate from others in some recognizable way. And what's more easily recognizable than a beautiful face and figure? No one can see your brilliant mind or well-developed character in a photo.   Be honest, be genuine. And be who you really are. Listen and learn. Listen to The Middle Edges.

For most of human history, what constituted marriage was quite different from the way we define that institution in the twenty-first century. The fact is, the tradition of marriage is historically—and hysterically—nontraditional.  Regardless of our own political, philosophical, or religious beliefs, some traditions feel as if they're part of the human bedrock—the ancient foundation that holds us together as one great eternal, and eternally dysfunctional, tribe. However, it's important to realize that tweaking our traditions is a tradition in itself. Just as humanity is constantly evolving, so are our social practices.  

How old is old to you? Imagine what it would be like if the only tool you had for determining a person's “oldness factor” was the vibrancy of his or her personality and passion for life. A survey by the Pew Research Center indicates that most people see old age as beginning around sixty-eight, while those already in their “golden years” believe that a better estimate is seventy-five years. If we're talking about defining “old” as simply the seventy-fifth time a person circles the sun, enjoy the ride. But what if we had no concept of time …  or any physical evidence of the aging process? How about if we don't use wrinkles, age spots, gray hair, no hair, declining memory, and other things as a clue to tell someone's age. 

This change to the American pledge of allegiance sent any opposing nation or U.S.-based faction the message that “we capitalist Americans have God on our side, so nothing you do can defeat us.” It also reminded the “pledgers” that they should view their flag—and thus their homeland— as an extension of the Judeo/Christian deity: This meant that if the U.S. or its business leaders wanted to do something (say bomb an enemy back into the Stone Age, or back a corrupt dictator who enslaves and tortures his own people, or manipulate the global economy for the sake of increased government and corporate profits), it was all part of God's plan. History repeats itself: politics, president, Clinton, Trump, government, religion, corporations, election, voters, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals.

You might have heard about it—an entire village held hostage for eleven months by a madman and his weapon-toting mercenaries. During that time, the villagers stayed locked in their homes, hoping their nation's army would arrive and free them. While they waited to be rescued, they went without adequate food and water; some of them died. Eventually there was no choice but to negotiate surrender with the invading forces. When they did, their conquerors weren't satisfied with just receiving keys to the city. They wanted blood.     Explore Rodin's sculpture, The Burghers of Calais.   And enjoy the new book, Casting Shadows: Auguste Rodin, published by Guardian Stewardship Editions. Available at Amazon.

Few Americans know much about Josephine Baker. Why? It wasn't because she lacked artistic skill or failed to remain relevant during a long career that stretched from the 1920s into the 1970s; it was because she took charge of her life and career at a time when African Americans were not always able to cast a public image of control, intelligence, and bravado that didn't stumble across racial lines.    Produced by Ted Wells Living Simple LLC.  www.TedWells.com

In this week's episode of The Middle Edges, a meteor explodes over a city, the US Postal Service stops service one day a week, and a shamed athlete is stripped of his Olympic medals. Do you think we are talking about 2013? We aren't. We're talking about what happened 100 years ago. Music by Gorka de la Cámara of infiniteloop. www.infiniteloopmusic.net. Used with permission. Copyright 2013 Ted Wells Living Simple LLC. All rights reserved. www.tedwells.com