Fun Depression Facts

Are you fearing a 1930s-type depression? Good news: you are not crazy or paranoid, according to a new study by policy center Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University.

While the tide was rising between 2000 and 2006, surprisingly most of the middle class had either leaky boats or very short anchor lines.

Fun Fact #1: For every dollar in median assets that middle-class families held in 2000, they held just 78 cents in 2006. (At least it appears from the article they didn't adjust for inflation.)

Fun Fact #2: Monthly housing expenses for the middle class rose by 9 percent. As a result, the percentage of middle-class families who match the Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of "housing burdened" rose from 31 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2006. (Good thing Bush sent out those rebate checks to help offset this trend.)

Fun Fact #3: The number of middle-class families in which at least one member lacks health insurance grew from 18 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2006. (This one isn't so fun, because AIG probably lost so much money due to people not renewing their insurance, it may have caused the recent colapse of the financial markets.)

If it is a consolation, these above figures do not include wealth associated with home ownership.

Also, here is a photo of some rich people losing thier boat. "See how they run like pigs from a gun? I'm crying."

Signs of the Times

Incoming!!!!
-- Sergeant Schultz



I hope the FBI, NSA, and CIA (plus all those Canadian chicken geeks) get out there tout suite. Gotta make sure everything is still consistent with the story line. All these rewrites are getting expensive.

The End of Democracy?

The latest projections by our best and brightest have just been published in Global Trends 2025, a vision of the future by the National Intelligence Council. While it doesn't tell us what the "in" crowd will be wearing or what film will likely win the Oscar, they do know enough to predict Russia being overrun by organized crime (as compared to Bush & Cheney?). Other interesting tidbits include the projections that global warming will help us get more oil from northern Canada and Russia and will lengthen growing seasons in the northern latitudes.

Interesting (KidSafe) Science Fact: Did you know that pumpkins grown in Alaska can weigh over half a ton?

So now we have been promised a mafia-run enemy state, more oil, and bigger food, Team America is doing pretty good, right? Plus, they argue that if Indonesia, Iran and Turkey can figure out how to make their countries safe for American Democracy(TM), they will be allowed into Spring Training with a legitimate shot at getting a seat on the Board.

See, as the population keeps growing, these smart prophets foresee that "the world's population will compete for declining and shifting food, water and energy resources." (Could that be a coded signal for their team members to buy Monsanto, Vivendi, and Halliburton?)

What else do these seers of rationality and policy objectives see as our future plateau in 2025? The probable need to limit democratic control over policies concerning health, environment, education, commerce, and possibly security. Democracy will still be important in selecting national and local leaders, and as a means to express frustration over an increasingly complicated tax code. And we can use the public spaces to debate whether our children is learning or not. But they implicitly recommend that we prepare now, mentally, to accept further controls on direct, two-way participation in policy. This is actually a good thing because with 1.5 billion more people on the planet, competition for paychecks will become, well, more time consuming and stressful -- and we will all be too tired at the end of the day to effectivly choose between democracy and liesure. (Although it is isn't stated in the report, the quality of antidepressants should improve to the point we can call the daily pills "uppers". Hopefully they can fix the side effects of reduced sexual desire.)

Well, I for one am damn glad that we have such smart people preparing such a hopeful, laissez-faire document that can be used by a whole bunch of government agencies, both domestic and foreign, as a backstop for hedging policies. Because when people have faith in the words, the words become flesh. And gosh darn it America, this is a future I want to live in! Don't you???!!




BTW, I love science and academia. But my only criticism of these studies are that are projections based upon models of economic, political, and demographic trends projected with a methodology of a rational belief that people will do the same as they have always done (on average anyway). In the spirit of Leibniz, these models are Panglossian at best. This is how far we have come: we have to return to a period of neo-enlightenment, where Voltaire's dictum "We Must Cultivate Our Garden" has the same influence on our generation as it did on Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin's.

Angel of Death

I don't know what to say besides "Happy Thanksgiving"!!! Well, to everyone except the turkeys. If you want to see how turkey sausage is made, watch the background of the video. I think three or four are forced to endure the own personal Armageddon in the steel funnels on the table. Makes you shudder.

You Say You Want A (Green) Revolution...

You say you want a (green) revolution,
Well, you know,
We all want to keep our kids from frying under a magnifying glass like ants,
You tell me that we need a solution,
Well, you know,
We all want to live sustainably.
But when you talk about reducing my consumption,
Don't you know that you can count all those other people out.
Do you know it's going to be all right?
all right? all right?

With apologies to Sir James Paul McCartney, KBE (Knight Commander of the British Empire)

According to David Eisenberg of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, if every man, woman and child alive today consumed at the average resource footprint level of Americans, we would need eight (8, VIII, 0001000) replicant planet earths to be sustainable. If, on the other hand, we take our current 7 or 8 billion brothers and sisters and try to establish sustainability goals for this blue-green ball called Earth, something’s gotta give. Population? Consumption? Equality? Biology? Rationality? While we may be Free to Choose, is it ethical to choose?

Quaker Ben told me once that he thought the world would evolve into either East Germany of the 1980s or Rio de Janeiro of today.

Is that really our choice? Total information awareness democratic fascism, or libertine laissiez-faire corporate colonialism where street urchins are hunted for sport?

Personally, I think it comes down to two choices: Arbeit Macht Frei versus The Truth Shall Set You Free.

You say you'll change a constitution
Well, you know
We'd all love to change your head.
You tell me it's the institution,
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.

My advice is to start to "Practice Sustainable Sex".

This is Your Picasso on Drugs

We are trying to warn you. We are getting better.

I haven't figured out how to get that beep from the Emergency Broadcasting System to blast all the way across blogspot yet. If you know how, teach me.

Eye of the Soul

Fun 4 Kids: Try this at Home!!

Do you want a personal relationship with Pablo Picasso?






Look at the photos of Lion sculpture (or go downtown Chicago and see the real thing). Notice the eyes. Look as deep as you can. Picasso believed that eyes were windows to the soul. Did he suggest that being a cyclops involved the third eye? I don't think so. I think Picasso was fascinated by reality. But is seeing someones soul possible in "reality"? I believe Picasso tried. And if you want to study something, you get as close to it as you can. Any scientist will tell you that.

So next time you are around a human being, look into their eyes. From as close as you can get. Touch noses. You will see that your opposite has one eye with to irises and two pupils. And ONLY ONE EYEBALL.

So what other dimensions do you see in the sculpture? Angel wings? The voice of god? The mama matrix? A place for children to play?


I think Picasso believed that if you could see everyone as having one eyeball, he would never have had to paint Gurnica.

What Color Is Your Parachute?

I regularly talk with my colleagues in a rational manner about what happens if the bailouts fail, where I want to be homeless. Then I point out all the people who are on the front line of our current wave of the melt down.

One wacky friend of mine has made the conscious decision to live out of his car.

Another friend has a University of Chicago MBA who owns his own small business and employs 15 people. He is diligently trying to rescue his business. Mail order sales of plants are off by 90%, but he can't draw on his good credit and he doesn't qualify for a bailout. So some of those families who depend on him will probably end up moving in with relatives or be forced to brainstorm.

As for me, I work in the glass towers of Los Angeles. And it is happening here too. My son’s friend’s father just lost his fancy job at a national law firm because the work is slowing. He is safe until December when he loses his alimony from the guild -- at which point he, his wife, and three kids have to scramble to land a $150,000+ per year job. It is getting harder even for the well educated to get jobs, at least jobs that pay enough to cover the mortgage, insurance, car, and food. With the slowdown, the experts say those good jobs will come back, but it may take three or four years. There is, of course, the chance unless they might be outsourced altogether, in which case they are never coming back. But my son's friend's parents and siblings will be okay, they have family back east.

An artist friend is designing very beautiful, colorful signs saying "Will Work 4 Food". She is betting that people will want to distinguish themselves from the increased competition. I really liked her art-nouveau one. They are really cool. I bought it to give as a christmas present to my friend who is sleeping in his car, but I have reconsidered and will probably just keep it myself. I mean it is really cool.

My company is filled with professional financial analysts and professional economists. No one is talking about the meltdown beyond the superficial, so either they don’t think it is a big thing, or it is too big for them to get their heads around.

The best person I have to talk about this with is my 8-year-old daughter. She has a Kit Kittridge American Girl Doll from 1934. My daughter loved the movie. She has seen a Hollywood-version of a Hoover Camp. She sees the homeless people around, and she can see them as real people because of that movie. She understands that if this magic thing called society contracts, we may be forced to think outside the box and eat in communal soup kitchens. I mean in a worst-case scenario. I don't think she thinks it could ever happen, and I hope she is right.

Nevertheless, I think we should downshift for a depression, grow our own gardens, car pool, eat less and more healthily (saves on doctors visits) — but at the same time work like hell to take democratic control of our shareholder responsibilities in society. I mean, if we are really good, maybe Halliburton will come solve this mess for us. Not in my American Dream. I’m going to have to do it, hopefully with you.


Strange story: a business that is struggling and has not done anything wrong can't get help, but the greedy trip over themselves to get a handout. Today in the WSJ, I see that insurance companies are buying banks so they can get bailed out. I didn't realize how much more surreal it could get than George W Bush, war president.)

Update: The Fed has announced that the recession will only last 14 months. I sure hope these guys are better than the CIA was in predicting the fall of communism. Or September 11th.

We don't need political parties anymore!!!

Saint Barack the Obama will lead us to the promised land if we are only willing to follow him.

As soon as Obama begins using free market principles to reduce the number of abortions by more than the republicans were able to do (even though they controlled all of the guns and butter) the Hallellujah Chorus wing of the Republican Party will defect to Obama. That will leave John McCain, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld in complete control of the Halliburton Party of Death.

Fighting the Beast

Bruce Schoenfeld wrote a little-noted book on bull fighting in the early 1990s. Bruce argues that there is a trick to killing a bull one on one.

Basically, you have to wear the bull down both physically and mentally before plunging the steel sabre between the shoulder blades with a Luke Skywalker precision. But the duality of the bull's life forces need to be kept in a balance during a successful fight. If the mental breaks down before the physical, a matador has to fight a physical torrent of insanity. If the physical breaks down too early, the consequences are equally grave. If they both break down, all bets are off.

The best matadors know that to get close enough to the bull to perform the sacrificial act, several things have to occur. The bull has to realize that the red cape is just a shiny object of distraction and the real source of His frustration is the wizard behind the curtain. This has to be magially revealed just as the bull is on the verge of physical and psychological collapse. At this point, the bull is drained. It has one shot. Get the wizard before the wizard gets you.

In a fair fight, the matador also knows that he or she has only one chance too.

In the old days, a community might depend on that one chance being successful. Today, we have guns and tranquilizers to correct our blunders. Back then a good fight was fair.

Barack Obama is not THE Messiah!!!

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my rural friend Appraiser Jim about politics. He is a conservative religious voter and I wondered whether any one of his niched faith was venturing toward Obama.

His response was quick and caught me off guard: "I bet you are voting Obama -- going for the new Messiah."

I could see how people could make that claim; Obama does seem too good to be true. But, I wasn't used to someone throwing that term about so comfortably. My takeaway was simply that the religious right had thoroughly investigated Obama and rejected him as a false prophet. Go Team McCain.

But then soon after, Jon Stewart presented a modified Lion King video depicting Obama as the Chosen One. This meme was deeper and more widespread than I had realized. This is when I started paying close attention to Obama's rhetoric. This guy was good. But Messiah - fat chance. It might be possible that he is so skillful at statecraft he is planning to implement a Christian-values agenda without ever using the word Jesus. So is this what scares many fundamentalists? That someone would undertake what is essentially a religious mission without branding it Jesus-style from head to toe? Religious plagiarism has always been a capital offense.

Some might argue that to usurp a role and perform it well, you become that person. By that standard, if Obama were to step into the ring as the Messiah he is sure to fail. Even Gandhi couldn't do that. But I think Obama would be comfortable with a title closer to that held by John the Baptist, you know, a forerunner. In the best case, he is just preparing the world for goodness before it is totally destroyed by the beast. Or in the worst case, Obama is a narcissistic charlatan using the most-unassuming teachings of Jesus Christ to do good works as an act of self-aggrandizement. And would it be horrible if he succeeded at that? Oh spare me the pain.

During the fog of the recent campaign, Obama said a few things that really stood out to me. One was "This is not for me but for you." Another came during the primary when Obama said "We are the ones we have been waiting for." Here is the audaciousness of Obama. He claims that he is going to take guidance from such radicals as Lincoln, Gandhi, King. And we probably can add Jesus to that list. What a group of losers. Each one failed to usher in the day when the lamb and the lion would lay down together. In fact everyone of those radicals ended up dead. Change is tough work.

So who is the Messiah? I mean, if I were a true-believing Christian -- which I might be becoming -- would I want the Messiah to show up in a world that I had had stewardship over a screwed up so royally without so much of an explanation as "Uh, I was waiting for you?!!" Where does that get you? I am sure the Messiah would be really impressed.

Here I am going to go out on a limb. And please be forgiving if I offend your sensibilities. It is not my intent. But what if, and I mean just it is in the realm of unlikeliest possibilities, Jesus meant that we are the Messiah. Each and everyone of us -- both individually and collectively.

I mean what if Jesus really meant that the Resurrection was that of the Body of Christ -- you know, those followers who by eating bread and drinking wine each week together -- what if they collectively become the resurrected body of Christ (acting with one mind and one heart to literally save the world from physical death by apathetic suicide at a genetic level). Kind of like one of those mythological beasts in a Japanese Anime that can dissemble and reassemble into a virtual corporal entity.

And therein lies our biggest fear: the Japanese. We don't want Japan of 1941. We don't want Godzilla. And we don't want fascism, Jonestown or Heaven's Gate. This is the ever-present counterbalance to hope: an honest appraisal of group think.

Yes, working together seems to work in the "Horton Hears a Who" or in "Its a Wonderful Life" model of collective action. But in the real world with boots on the ground -- even Jesus failed. So we are supposed to sit around waiting for him and his soldiers of celestial fortune to come back an kill us all to show us how pissed he is. Basically this implies you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. And that really doesn't make sense to me.

But if we are collectively "the Messiah", trying to make King's, Gandhi's, Lincoln's, Mohammad's, Jesus', and Moshe's words flesh, how do we keep from falling into group think?

I think this is the problem the Founding Fathers wrestled with between 1776 and 1789. Jefferson, Madison, Franklin et al borrowed democratic principles in establishing the American Union from the Iroquois Confederacy. At that time, the Iroquois advised that the American system of weakened checks and balances would likely fail eventually. Seven generations later, we can see they had a point.

This is where I keep coming back to Jesus. His words are already out there -- if not in people's homes, that at least in the neighborhood library or on the net. Jesus can readily be leveraged in today's world as a force for good. Yes, and the true meaning of a lot of things Jesus may or may not have said have been lost in translations. But think of this: The Velvet Revolution brought down a totalitarian state in eastern Europe by citizens figuring out sudoku style how the United States could create enough freedom for Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker to do something that had never been done before.

And Jesus had a plan to do something that had never been done before.

It sounds trite to say love, peace, and happiness, doesn't it? Yet that is what Jesus said you had to have to reach nirvana. They killed him before he could implement his plan, the beast always wins if it catches on too soon. But he left some clues on how it could be done. If you go through the new testament and take all the things he is attributed to saying, some fall into the category of "if you follow this plan, you will be meek, merciful peacemakers." Other parts advise you to have intergenerational appreciation as well as respect the Tao or lifeforce of the universe.

But the only keys he gives for success are that you need to do it as a group, you have to suffer the children (and all that entails), and you have to be absolutely honest -- whatever that means. The only absolute we can really have blind faith in is his admonition to seek after truth. And doesn't that mean some truths. He didn't add a qualifier. So to follow Jesus, you have to explore for and know the truths -- no matter where they lie. And we think these guys were radicals.

Jesus essentially claimed that if you honestly looked for truth always and everywhere, relative and absolute, you will be free from the beast. And that is about as close as you can get to peace, love and happiness.

For that, even I would be willing to be a messiah.

Obama's Audacity of Hope

Obama has been making a good showing since he was elected. As the financial world melts around me, as I see it spilling into the lives of people I know, I feel hopeful. Everything about this photo defies probability. Yet it is true.

I have copied the following interview from BeliefNet. I think it gives context to the photo.

At 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, 2004, when I was the religion reporter (I am now its religion columnist) at the Chicago Sun-Times, I met then-State Sen. Barack Obama at Café Baci, a small coffee joint at 330 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago, to interview him exclusively about his spirituality. Our conversation took place a few days after he'd clinched the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that he eventually won. We spoke for more than an hour. He came alone. He answered everything I asked without notes or hesitation. The profile of Obama that grew from the interview at Cafe Baci became the first in a series in the Sun-Times called "The God Factor," that eventually became my first book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People (FSG, March 2006.) Because of the staggering interest in now President-Elect Obama's faith and spiritual predilections, I thought it might be helpful to share that interivew, uncut and in its entirety, here.--Cathleen Falsani

Interview with State Sen. Barack Obama3:30 p.m., Saturday March 27Café Baci, 330 S. Michigan Avenue

Me: decaf
He: alone, on time, grabs a Naked juice protein shake



FALSANI:What do you believe?

OBAMA:I am a Christian.
So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.
On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences.
I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10.
My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim.
And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith.
(A patron stops and says, "Congratulations," shakes his hand. "Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.")
So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.
And so, part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe - I'm 42 now - and it's not that I had it all completely worked out, but I'm spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values.

FALSANI:Have you always been a Christian?

OBAMA:I was raised more by my mother and my mother was Christian.

FALSANI:Any particular flavor?

OBAMA:No.
My grandparents who were from small towns in Kansas. My grandmother was Methodist. My grandfather was Baptist. This was at a time when I think the Methodists felt slightly superior to the Baptists. And by the time I was born, they were, I think, my grandparents had joined a Universalist church.
So, my mother, who I think had as much influence on my values as anybody, was not someone who wore her religion on her sleeve. We'd go to church for Easter. She wasn't a church lady.
As I said, we moved to Indonesia. She remarried an Indonesian who wasn't particularly, he wasn't a practicing Muslim. I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country. So I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and at night you'd hear the prayer call.
So I don't think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education. But my mother was deeply spiritual person, and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions, and talk to me about them. And I think always, her view always was that underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good.
And, so that, I think, was what I carried with me through college. I probably didn't get started getting active in church activities until I moved to Chicago.
The way I came to Chicago in 1985 was that I was interested in community organizing and I was inspired by the Civil Rights movement. And the idea that ordinary people could do extraordinary things. And there was a group of churches out on the South Side of Chicago that had come together to form an organization to try to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed. And didn't have much money, but felt that if they formed an organization and hired somebody to organize them to work on issues that affected their community, that it would strengthen the church and also strengthen the community.
So they hired me, for $13,000 a year. The princely sum. And I drove out here and I didn't know anybody and started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job training programs, or afterschool programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to underserved communites.
This would be in Roseland, West Pullman, Altgeld Gardens, far South Side working class and lower income communities.
And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened because I'd be spending an enormous amount of time with church ladies, sort of surrogate mothers and fathers and everybody I was working with was 50 or 55 or 60, and here I was a 23-year-old kid running around.
I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and it's importance in the community.
And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply.
So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.

FALSANI:Did you actually go up for an altar call?

OBAMA:Yes. Absolutely.
It was a daytime service, during a daytime service. And it was a powerful moment. Because, it was powerful for me because it not only confirmed my faith, it not only gave shape to my faith, but I think, also, allowed me to connect the work I had been pursuing with my faith.

FALSANI:How long ago?

OBAMA:16, 17 years ago. 1987 or 88

FALSANI:So you got yourself born again?

OBAMA:Yeah, although I don't, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.
I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.
I think that, particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

FALSANIDo you still attend Trinity?

OBAMA:Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service.
Ever been there? Good service.
I actually wrote a book called Dreams from My Father, it's kind of a meditation on race. There's a whole chapter on the church in that, and my first visits to Trinity.

FALSANI:Do you pray often?

OBAMA:Uh, yeah, I guess I do.
Its' not formal, me getting on my knees. I think I have an ongoing conversation with God. I think throughout the day, I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why am I doing it.
One of the interesting things about being in public life is there are constantly these pressures being placed on you from different sides. To be effective, you have to be able to listen to a variety of points of view, synthesize viewpoints. You also have to know when to be just a strong advocate, and push back against certain people or views that you think aren't right or don't serve your constituents.
And so, the biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass. Those are the conversations I'm having internally. I'm measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me at least is audible, is active, it tells me where I think I'm on track and where I think I'm off track.
It's interesting particularly now after this election, comes with it a lot of celebrity. And I always think of politics as having two sides. There's a vanity aspect to politics, and then there's a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it's easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It's important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it's advantageous to me politically, or because I think it's the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it's necessary to accomplish my motives.

FALSANI:Checking for altruism?

OBAMA:Yeah. I mean, something like it.
Looking for, ... It's interesting, the most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever.

FALSANI:What's that power? Is it the holy spirit? God?

OBAMA:Well, I think it's the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience.
That's something you learn watching ministers, quite a bit. What they call the Holy Spirit. They want the Holy Spirit to come down before they're preaching, right? Not to try to intellectualize it but what I see is there are moments that happen within a sermon where the minister gets out of his ego and is speaking from a deeper source. And it's powerful.
There are also times when you can see the ego getting in the way. Where the minister is performing and clearly straining for applause or an Amen. And those are distinct moments. I think those former moments are sacred.

FALSANI:Who's Jesus to you?
(He laughs nervously)

OBAMA:Right.
Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he's also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.
And he's also a wonderful teacher. I think it's important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.

FALSANI:Is Jesus someone who you feel you have a regular connection with now, a personal connection with in your life?

OBAMA:Yeah. Yes. I think some of the things I talked about earlier are addressed through, are channeled through my Christian faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

FALSANI:Have you read the bible?

OBAMA:Absolutely.
I read it not as regularly as I would like. These days I don't have much time for reading or reflection, period.

FALSANI:Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation prayer reading?

OBAMA:I'll be honest with you, I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don't. And I probably need to and would like to, but that's where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days.
It's much more sort of as I'm going through the day trying to take stock and take a moment here and a moment there to take stock, why am I here, how does this connect with a larger sense of purpose.

FALSANI:Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?

OBAMA:Well, my pastor [Jeremiah Wright] is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.
I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

FALSANI:Those two will keep you on your toes.

OBAMA:And theyr'e good friends. Because both of them are in the public eye, there are ways we can all reflect on what's happening to each of us in ways that are useful.
I think they can help me, they can appreciate certain specific challenges that I go through as a public figure.

FALSANI:Jack Ryan [Obama's Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race at the time] said talking about your faith is frought with peril for a public figure.

OBAMA:Which is why you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it on the stump.
Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.
As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.
Now, that's different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values tha tinform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.
A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we're all connected. That if there's a child on the South Side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life even if it's not my own child. If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent. And if there's an Arab American family that's being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.

FALSANI:Do you think it's wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader's spirituality?

OBAMA:I don't' think it's wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that.
I think that I am disturbed by, let me put it this way: I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate.
I think there is this tendency that I don't think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.

FALSANI:The conversation stopper, when you say you're a Christian and leave it at that.

OBAMA:Where do you move forward with that?
This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.

FALSANI:You don't believe that?

OBAMA:I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.
I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.
That's just not part of my religious makeup.
Part of the reason I think it's always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that's by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest commong denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.

FALSANI:Do you ever have people who know you're a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue, how can you be a Christian and ...

OBAMA:Like the right to choose.
I haven't been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I'm always stuck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch FoxNews or listen to talk radio. That's dangerous sometimes. But generally, Americans are tolerant and I think recognize that faith is a personal thing, and they may feel very strongly about an issue like abortion or gay marriage, but if they discuss it with me as an elected official they will discuss it with me in those terms and not, say, as 'you call yourself a Christian.' I cannot recall that ever happening.

FALSANI:Do you get questions about your faith?

OBAMA:Obviously as an African American politician rooted in the African American community, I spend a lot of time in the black church. I have no qualms in those settings in participating fully in those services and celebrating my God in that wonderful community that is the black church.
(he pauses)But I also try to be . . . Rarely in those settings do people come up to me and say, what are your beliefs. They are going to presume, and rightly so. Although they may presume a set of doctrines that I subscribe to that I don't necessarily subscribe to.
But I don't think that's unique to me. I think that each of us when we walk into our church or mosque or synagogue are interpreting that experience in different ways, are reading scriptures in different ways and are arriving at our own understanding at different ways and in different phases.
I don't know a healthy congregation or an effective minister who doesn't recognize that.
If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn't have to keep coming to church, would they.

FALSANI:Do you believe in heaven?

OBAMA:Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?

FALSANI:A place spiritually you go to after you die?

OBAMA:What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.
When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I've been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they're kind people and that they're honest people, and they're curious people, that's a little piece of heaven.

FALSANI:Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:Yes.

FALSANI:What is sin?

OBAMA:Being out of alignment with my values.

FALSANI:What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA:I think it's the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I'm true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I'm not true to it, it's its own punishment.

FALSANI:Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?

OBAMA:There are so many.
Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it's pretty hard not to be move and be transported.
I can be transported by watching a good performance of Hamlet, or reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, or listening to Miles Davis.

FALSANI:Is there something that you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place ...

OBAMA:As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. It's a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. Because it's a moment in which a collective faith transforms everything. So when I read Gandhi or I read King or I read certain passages of Abraham Lincoln and I think about those times where people's values are tested, I think those inspire me.

FALSANI:What are you doing when you feel the most centered, the most aligned spiritually?

OBAMA:I think I already described it. It's when I'm being true to myself. And that can happen in me making a speech or it can happen in me playing with my kids, or it can happen in a small interaction with a security guard in a building when I'm recognizing them and exchanging a good word.

FALSANI:Is there someone you would look to as an example of how not to do it?

OBAMA:Bin Laden.
(grins broadly)

FALSANI:... An example of a role model, who combined everything you said you want to do in your life, and your faith?

OBAMA:I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who acted and risked everything on behalf of those values but never slipped into intolerance or dogma. He seemed to always maintain an air of doubt about him.
I think Dr. King, and Lincoln. Those three are good examples for me of people who applied their faith to a larger canvas without allowing that faith to metasticize into something that is hurtful.

FALSANI:Can we go back to that morning service in 1987 or 88 -- when you have a moment that you can go back to that as an epiphany...

OBAMA:It wasn't an epiphany.
It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them. For me it was probably because there is a certain self-consciousness that I possess as somebody with probably too much book learning, and also a very polyglot background.

FALSANI:It wasn't like a moment where you finally got it? It was a symbol of that decision?

OBAMA:Exactly. I think it was just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me.

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