Marsha Hansen's Blog: Dear Mr. President

You probably do not recognize the name Michelle Cohen Corasanti, but you will. She is the author of a consequential book that will force us to look at the tragic Palestinian Israeli conflict in much the same way that Solzshenitzyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich compelled us to examine the harsh realities of Soviet labor camps. Just as Sholshenitzyn’s writing changed us, Corasanti’s The Almond Tree will have purchase on our moral imaginations equal to that experienced through reading To Kill A Mockingbird or watching Schindler’s List. Throughout The Almond Tree’s pages we absorb the suffering and wasted possibilities and hopes of the people whose lives have been distorted or destroyed through years of devastating violence and unrelenting oppression.
The Almond Tree is not an easy read. It is not something one can enjoy, unless one enjoys having one's heart shredded by painful truths.Or unless one is comfortable with prods to the conscience that demand personal and perhaps costly moral action. The Almond Tree skillfully cobbles together a mosaic of the Palestinian condition from the mid-twentieth century to the present time with stark candor. Yet, for all of its brutal revelations, its unrelieved depictions of minefield deaths and abusive political prisons, of extreme marginalization and demeaning discrimination, of hunger, poverty and want, of toxic environments, of hatred and despair, The Almond Tree also offers hope. Its main characters provide points of view that enable balanced comprehension of both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and these fictional characters do so without compromising the humanity or cultural traditions or great potential of either side. However, like any great work of literature, The Almond Tree is honest. It places real blame, not gratuitous blame, where it belongs. It does not hide behind political complexities nor shift responsibility for some truly abhorrent practices of Israel toward the Palestinian people. Neither does it condone retaliatory violence. The Almond Tree is instead the literary equivalent of Guernica, exposing the real costs of violent conflict - extinguished human dreams, families torn asunder, opportunities lost, and the tragic waste of brilliant and creative human minds. Like Picasso’s painting Guernica, Corasanti’s book has the power to command the world’s collective attention, and if we pause together long enough, her book assists us in challenging the lie that the expedients of inhumane policies and treatment are justified to secure a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and the restoration of human rights to the ordinary Palestinians who simply want to live with dignity and freedom.
There is an apocryphal anecdote about Abraham Lincoln greeting Harriet Beecher Stowe as “the woman who started this great war,” in reference to her abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin and its role in fanning the passions that began the Civil War. My hope is that one day heads of state from around the globe will actually say to Michelle Cohen Corasanti, “You are the woman who, when you made us look through the eyes of Ichmad Hamid, Menachem Sharon and Abbas Hamid, of Nora,Justice and Zoher, of Baba and Yasmine, of Amal and Sara, effectively argued for peace.”

Andrew Yang wrote a book called Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America. Mr. President, this book should be required reading for every policy maker, and in the advising center of every college and university, and in the toolbox of every high school career counselor.

Andrew Yang is the founder of Venture for America. As stated on the Venture for America website, his planned strategy is to:

Funnel a generation of our top young people toward American start-ups in areas of need
Socialize talented college grads and train them to become action-oriented, enterprising and innovative
Provide structure and a community to cohorts of future entrepreneurs
Redirect talent to help renew our economy and our culture
Firmly establish entrepreneurship as a professional aspiration for our best and brightest
Create Venture Fellows, past and present, to become job creators and entrepreneurs in communities throughout the country
Over time, present a new set of role models for students to emulate


Venture for America is one of those enterprises that make me jump up and shout, "YES!!! Somebody gets it!" This is the kind of effort and vision that actively models how to truly bring about the positive and lasting change in our culture and economy that will once again put America on a trajectory to achievement and prosperity. Every frustrated young professional and any American city or community that is currently foundering and experiencing decline can benefit from the practical application of the ideas in this book.

Here is a link to Venture for America. http://ventureforamerica.org/about/
Spread the word and fuel the change.

Let's do our part to get more people in on this conversation.

There will be no tea today because yesterday was not just another news day. The graphic image in this AP photo http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014... is not just another picture to be viewed and then overtaken by the next tragic story. This is a photo of the state of humanity in the 21st Century writ large. We must pause before this photo because this is us. This is who we are. Until the whole of humanity faces the facts that these are “our” boys lined up to be shot and “our” boys standing there holding guns ready and willing to execute fellow human beings because of toxic sectarianism, we will remain mired in the violent backwardness that has brought the world to this present moment.
How can I make this outrageous and by some estimations, naïve and heretical claim? I make it because I looked at this picture of these men forced to march to their deaths, and I imagined myself among them, imagined the name of each one, imagined the families left in grief and fear, and imagined the futures of these men lost. For what? What on earth has demanded and still demands that Sunnis and Shiites, or for that matter, Protestants and Catholics, or Hutus and Tutsis or any religious or tribal groups in history behave in such a fatally toxic way?
While I do not share late Christopher Hitchens’ world-view as expressed in God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, I readily acknowledge the damage that religion too often causes. Were he alive, Hitchens might be flummoxed to learn of my agreement that a majority of the charges he lays at the door of the world’s religions are charges that are earned. But religion is not one thing and religion is certainly not God. Religion is more often a fragmented disputatious mechanism for control and hegemony than it is a vehicle for knowing and encountering God and living in harmony with other humans while together stewarding and sustaining the resources of the planet. Religion is too often something that can be hi-jacked and manipulated by imperialists, and other “ists” of many persuasions. But still, one is compelled to ask, “Is religion the root of the problem, the tragic condition we are faced with in this AP photo? “ And honesty requires one to admit, if religion is not the root, it is a contributing factor.
Unlike Hitchens, I believe in God, but I contend that God is no more the cultural or traditional captive of any one group of people than any of the known forces of nature can be. One cannot put a dress and lipstick on gravity, for instance, then form some clerical hierarchy and make up a set of arbitrary rules and ceremonies that everyone else must follow or face excommunication or death. The similarly archaic ideas about God and religion prevalent today are the poisonous ones that have culminated in the world we see depicted in the AP photograph. These are archaic ideas that say it is OK to gun down one’s fellow humans in cold blood, to oppress women, to police the thoughts of others, to curtail inquiry, to subjugate and enslave human beings, to reduce and truncate the life-chances of others, to effectively stone others and willingly darken the minds of adherents.
Of course, I will have offended a great many people with these claims, but I adjure others who know or believe in the reality of God to peer deeply into this well and see if there isn’t some truth to Hitchens’ claims about the toxicity of some religious ideas and religious practices as they are currently conceived and have been conceived too often in the past. The response isn’t to get rid of religion but to rid religions of this toxic and archaic unwillingness to change into something that reflects a 21st century world of possibilities and knowledge. We do not need to honor any primitive practices and traditions of man, religious or otherwise, which fuel and allow perpetuation of the slaughter and oppression of other human beings.
Now, if I am indicted for my words, let it be known that I lay claim to be a follower of Jesus, a follower who celebrates the gift of reason. I am and will continue to be a follower of Jesus −the Jesus who taught that truth is freeing, the Jesus unafraid of scientific inquiry, indeed Jesus the teacher who encourages inquiry and calls me to this recognition of a common humanity. I believe in the Jesus who is as welcoming and tolerant of a Christopher Hitchens’ type of inquiry as my own. Unlike Hitchens, I believe in the answers Jesus supplied...reverence for life and love for the neighbor and love for the God who sees us as neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.
Mr. President, you have written a book on the audacity of hope. I have an audacious hope myself. I hope that some of those among the world’s political and cultural leaders will have the courage to say, “Enough!” I audaciously and fervently hope for leaders who have the courage to convene the religious and secular leaders of the day and begin the fearful journey, with bravery and resolve, of confronting the toxic aspects of religion that spill over into public and political life.I pray for a gathering of leaders who realize that accommodating and arming zealots with 21st century weapons serves no one. Religious tolerance cannot so broad a concept that it devolves into licenses to behave in obscene ways. Any practice that is at odds with fundamental human decency deserves to be challenged.
Lest the militant atheists in the Richard Dawkins camp begin to cheer that I have joined their ranks, I have two things to say. The first is that like Frederick Douglass, I will join anyone to do what is right, and no one to do what is wrong. I am not an atheist. I believe in God − an accessible God who has trusted humanity with a terrible and wonderful freedom that can only be enjoyed when we have committed to practice ethical harmony among ourselves. The second is that I believe it is most likely science, rather than traditional religion, that will finally make God truly accessible to humanity. I believe that the noisome divide between science and religion is completely artificial and harmful and slows down progress toward understanding ourselves as a community of beings.
I have hope that the brilliant insights offered to the world through geneticist Francis Collins and his colleagues and the new advances in physics being pursued by Roger Penrose and others will continue to result in understanding our connections to nature, to God, and to one another as human beings. Today science is on the brink of revolutionary breakthroughs regarding the quantum nature of consciousness. I am not attempting to make any statements about Roger Penrose’s beliefs about God, but I am expressing a hope that toxic sectarian religious practices and beliefs, crystallized in the AP photograph which accompanies this piece, will give way to a more advanced and truly reverent understanding of what it means to be an ever advancing community of human beings created for good purposes. The Old Testament seer, Jeremiah, prophesied that there would come a day when all men would know the reality of God. May that day bring with it the true freedom that allows for the expression of humanity's best endeavors in a peaceful world.

The national conversation about college costs, student debt, and a new college ranking/rating system is critical if real solutions for these issues are to emerge. In his article, Obama's College Rating Plan is Just More of the Same, Andrew P. Kelly makes two points which the President may want to discuss over tea. First, Kelly writes that "the plan continues the Obama administration’s focus on trying to fix higher education by regulating existing colleges and ignores the sector’s fundamental supply-side problem. The number of seats at the country’s best colleges is limited, and they have every incentive to keep it that way. The business model of selective four-year colleges is built on scarcity and rationing, such that the more students schools reject, the more students want to go there. Keeping students out actually helps institutions climb in rankings like U.S. News and World Report's." Unfortunately, much of what Kelly writes is true.
A second assertion in the article is that "Our nation’s leaders must also look beyond today’s colleges in their efforts to create opportunity.” This, too, may be true, but our nation's leaders owe it to today's colleges and universities to look for genuine success stories where access, excellence and affordability are already realities for our growing 21st century student demographic.
Washington Monthly magazine recently ranked The University of Texas at El Paso for the second year in a row as #1 in the nation in the social mobility category and #7 overall among all U.S. public research universities, between #6 Stanford and # 8 Harvard. What needs to garner attention on the national stage for more reasons than just this current conversation is that UTEP's student body is 78% Hispanic. Half the students come from families whose income is under $20,000 annually and most of these students are the first in their family to go to college. There may not have been a rush to enroll these students at schools in more affluent settings, but the exponential impact of nurturing student success in a rigorous research-oriented environment such as UTEP's benefits society in multiple ways. The number of engineering, math, science, liberal arts, and technology professionals equipped with high quality educational and practical experiences who enter the workforce as UTEP graduates has already profoundly impacted all economic sectors of our country. Graduates include the Dallas Morning News Mexico Bureau Chief Alfredo Corchado, astronaut Danny Olivas, Microsoft employee #7 Robert O'Rear, and a constellation of other highly recognizable people whose contributions to society are spectacular and on-going. UTEP’s researchers are making tremendous strides in cancer research, biomedical technology, innovative business solutions, high-performance computing and other areas that are significant for quality of life and global competitiveness.
There is even more to be mined from this success story. Not only does UTEP serve the public of the El Paso region, but the 100.000 Strong in the Americas initiative to increase higher education exchanges among the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean to 100,000 each year in each direction is vigorously supported at UTEP. The robust exchange program is healthy and highly effective in terms of meeting the goals of the initiative.
While I can appreciate Andrew Kelly's concerns about efforts to create opportunity, I strongly advocate that UTEP and other institutions of higher learning who are achieving great success with academic and research excellence become a focus of national conversations. It is important to study what is working now. There are other universities whose stories aren't hype and who aren't trying to climb up in traditional national rankings by maintaining the status quo. We owe it to these institutions to take a long hard look at their successes. Washington Monthly deserves kudos for beginning this trend.
Now, Mr. President, you and I hang with some of the same people, so I know that whether you come to tea or not, you'll be as impressed and encouraged by these facts as I am. While you can still come by any time for butter cookies, this food for thought is much more substantial. I am very optimistic about the future of American higher education and I am convinced that with models of success, unsung but already thriving, we can tame the cost-beast and broaden opportunities for more people eager to reap the benefits of earning degrees that reflect genuine quality and preparedness.

Following are links to Andrew Kelly’s article and Alfredo Corchado’s latest book, Midnight in Mexico:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/article...

http://res.dallasnews.com/resrsc/pdf/...

It's not really a stretch to imagine what the link may be that connects Bill Clinton, Keith Richards, and Haiti. People work together to make the world a better place through many means...through music, government, philanthropy, education, a long list of great pursuits that lift us all. How the effort all comes together can, however, make for wonderful narrative.

In 2011, Bill Clinton presented Keith Richards with the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Biography for Keef's book, Life. In his remarks, former President Clinton mentioned Martin Scorsese's film - Shine a Light - about the Stones' Bigger Bang tour.
Clinton tells a sweetly reminiscent story to illustrate how much of a Keith Richards' fan his mother-in-law, Dorothy, had been. Almost as an aside, to give a back story on Dorothy, President Clinton mentioned that he had been given some seats at the Scorsese's film's screening to raise money for the Clinton Foundation. In fact, just watch the speech here, because it's worth it: http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=NkPpLLD...

What I find quite wonderful is the reality behind the small mention of support for the Clinton Foundation, which among other fine pursuits, has provided more than $34 million dollars to rebuild and renew Haiti and bring hope to the people who are no longer in the spotlight after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Typically, my heroes are people who work to make life better for others, who characteristically exhibit concern for others, who aren't susceptible to compassion fatigue, who are joyful themselves and stay tuned in to what life really means. That's Keith.

Keith's book Life is astonishingly honest and, for goodness sakes, sounds just like him...but the book doesn't adequately reveal the impact of all he has done and continues to do...from supporting causes that help Haitians and others in need throughout the world ....to the real and essential difference his music and ideals had on changing the face of equal rights for people of color in the U.S.
Maybe the book did not need to reveal all of that, but I have a need to say these things, because they matter to more than just me.

When we've gone to Rolling Stones concerts, I've received those plastic All Access badges and I have mine from the Bigger Bang tour....and I want to be like Paul Harvey for a minute...and tell the rest of the story. The Bigger Bang Keith Richards represents is more than being Rock's perceived bad boy and creative genius with some intense stories to tell. His BANG is in the compassionate,mature, and reasoned (yep) outlook on life that enables statesmen like Bill Clinton and diehard fans like Dorothy to count on him in amplifying efforts recognize ALL the gifts that people from different walks of life contribute to the betterment of our human community.

Hope for Haiti is tied to the efforts of us all and I'm happy that "us" includes Keef and Bill.

Since it is highly unlikely that President Obama will drop by my house for tea any time soon, I shall have to rely on the theoretical six degrees of separation to communicate my armchair musings. If the President did come over, I'd serve him substantial fare and Lipton tea and then tell him how desperate I am for change in our inner cities and poorest neighborhoods. I'd tell him of the hope I have - real hope - that amplifying the successes of committed leaders like Geoffrey Canada (Author) can lift countless families out of despair and generational cycles of poverty. I'd ask him to lead the effort - and to not let up - in changing the narrative about poverty in our country. I'd ask him to continually empower societal reformers whose values reflect the American dream.
In our global community we recognize the names - and faces - of iconic leaders like Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. who worked long years and countless hours, with countless helpers, to create opportunities for justice and peaceful relationships among people. Many reading this today will recognize the name Geoffrey Canada, the man who has brought hope to Harlem and the nation, through the success of the Harlem's Children Zone programs that attack the roots of poverty. He has emphasized a cradle to college model of education where negative influences are overwhelmed by positive examples,ideas and actions. I already know that he is a hero to both President and Mrs. Obama, and despite the inevitable detractors and naysayers, he has been rightly lauded in the media.
Mr. Canada is soon retiring from HCZ, but I hope he will not retire his influence and example. Here's why. The four pillars upon which HCZ relies are pillars that have the power to change the future for neighborhoods throughout the country. It CAN be done. Success and hard work CAN become normative. Negative elements - drugs, crime, hopelessness, poor educational opportunities, negative stereotypes - CAN be driven out of American cities. We CAN change the narrative. We already have the resources, we simply must exercise the WILL.
Poverty robs people, robs children, of life-chances. Hope and dreams deferred truly evoke pitiable broken winged birds. We cannot afford to defer hope and dreams. Change starts on the neighborhood block. If we offer real support to those already working for positive and specific change, change will come.If poverty is overcome, its handmaidens - predatory drug culture promotion and racism - will fade away as well.
So, Mr. President, can we not magnify the work and philosophy of Geoffrey Canada and other visionary leaders in the country who are already delivering on the promises of access to and excellence in education?
Our iconic leaders manage to distill the core message of our hopes down to the most essential elements. Geoffrey Canada's organization has done this in Harlem and Mr. Canada himself is a national treasure and a beacon of hope.
I hope that one day soon, children throughout the nation, as they are loving school and aspiring to great things, might think of Geoffrey Canada as someone who helped light the path, and changed their neighborhoods from places of blight and stark desperation to thriving oases of safety and prosperity. Let us all do everything possible to empower such leaders even more.

To read about the Harlem Children's Zone visit: http://hcz.org/