Commonality

In a recent group discussion about forgiveness, the consensus seemed to be that reaching some sense of commonality with the person who offends helps when trying to forgive that person. One member of the discussion spoke of trying to summon forgiveness for a person who had committed atrocities against many human beings. This was a hard case.

The ultimate commonality which we all share with all other beings is our mortality. I have begun to incorporate a more present consciousness of this reality in my daily practice of being. For example, when confronted with an insect in my kitchen, I struggle with the impulse to kill it. I think of the parallel between its life and my own. I question whether my ability to kill it easily is a justification for killing it. I consider that the minor violence of killing the insect brings me closer to committing future violence. If the insect poses a real threat to my own immediate well being, I may kill it. Otherwise, I will attempt to remove it without fatally harming it.

I am not a Jain, but I understand the Janist approach to defeating the impulse to violence in our animal brains. The building of patterns of behavior in daily life leads to the growth of the human condition, individually or societally. By remembering the precious brevity of all life, I find that the impulse to anger and violence is much more easily managed. Getting to the awareness and acceptance that we al die all too soon is a challenge in a world of electronic avatars and fundamentalist religions, which promote an illusion of immortality.

Addiction

I am impressed by the current trend in U.S. society to accept binge drinking and public intoxication. In the urban environment, it is matter of course to see inebriated people in public in the middle of the day. On weekends, drunk young people are commonplace during the afternoons on city streets.

Thirty years ago, this would have been unacceptable public behavior, associated with sociopaths and derelicts. Not so today. What has happened?

Well, the U.S. was led for eight years by an alcoholic, who, despite claims of longterm sobriety, managed the government like an unruly drunkard. President Obama chose to resolve a serious racial incident, involving a cop and a Harvard professor, by having a beer with them. When did drinking alcohol become a panacea?

While I believe it is useless to try to control human behavior, like drinking alcohol, by stern prescriptions of sobriety, I am concerned that all the ills associated with addiction will once again blossom with the inevitable social repercussions. Domestic and random violence are among the worst of these.

Personal and social peace is dependent on the mindfulness of individuals. Alcohol/drug use is antagonistic to mindfulness. Mindfulness requires a useful, alert brain. Managing brain function cognitively is difficult enough in itself without adding external intoxicants.

The occasional medicinal use of alcohol, cannabis or other intoxicants may have some beneficial effects for some people. However, the routine, habitual use of intoxicants has no beneficial effect for any individual or society. Learning this lesson is a necessary first step for many on their path to personal growth.

Equilibrium

I'm rebooting, clocking slowly, monitor blinking. The harsh adrenaline edge of unpacking and repositioning has softened with the gradual return of deep, healing sleep. Another Monday, more like the good old Mondays past, begins with a list of to-do's.

Moving is like running. You have to persist until your pace kicks in sync with your breath. Then it's automatic, less painful. But, when you stop, you must stretch before you can walk comfortably into the rest of your day. So, today I am stretching, reminding myself to breath deeply and proceed with mindful caution.

There is so much to be learned from daily life, if you simply pay attention.

Moved.

The eagle has landed.
Boxes in neat piles.
Muscles sore but mending.

Packing

There is an art to moving. If there were a degree for moving, I'd have a doctorate. In the past forty years I have moved about thirty times, usually by myself, since I have lived alone for most of that time.

My house is now packed neatly into one large room here on the first floor. Fifteen medium boxes of moderate weight/density. Twelve plastic crates, smaller with more compact weight of wrapped dishes, glassware or books. Boxes are stacked for easy access, since they usually go into the truck first. Larger furniture is next. Small items are last. They are tucked securely into holes left by larger items.

More often than not, I hire movers. I have great admiration and empathy for the men and women who lug the weight of the materialism of others for relatively low pay. They represent a vanishing segment of the population of developed countries: Those who labor against gravity and friction for their living. They provide a truly valuable service.

I have known people who enjoy brutalizing paid laborers. These selfish bullies feel that they are entitled to insult the dignity of a person who has to work hard for their money. What could be more cowardly? There may come a day when those who labor at basic services, like moving, will be considered worthy of more respect. I hope that day comes soon.

All in all, while I struggle with my muscles and joints, exerting myself against the weight of my own possessions, I find moving tremendously invigorating. My heart races at the prospect of new habits, new walks, new acquaintances. Many people seek this exhilaration in travel. I learned many years ago that travel does not satisfy my need for shaking out the cobwebs as well as moving to a new neighborhood, where I will live for a year or more.

In The Dhammapada, the translated sayings of Gautama, there are repeated references to moving or movement as a method to diminish attachment and to spread the word of liberation. I must concur. My moving is motivated as much by economics as by philosophy, but the net effect is the same. Weeding out, packing up and lifting your life, box by box, requires having your feet firmly planted on the ground. Breathing deeply with the mind wide open helps a lot.

Courage

if you're always strong

you can do no wrong

if you're always rich

you can feel no hunger

if you're always safe

you can see no threat

life wrongs the many
life starves the poor

life frightens the unsafe

the powerful can defer

the wealthy can provide

the secure can protect

if you're always mindful

you can see true need

if you're always willing

you can find compassion

if you're willing to suffer

you can find true courage

Post-Gay

A recent Boston public radio program hosted a discussion about Boston as a "post-gay" city. As a native of the Boston area, who has lived here most of my life, I found the discussion revealing and somewhat confirming of suspicions I have had about the political views of those who are currently steering the LGBTQ politics here through media and lobbying.

I do not cling to the past by any means. I do feel that the current political leaders of our local LGBTQ community represent the new (downtown) Boston population of marriage-oriented, conservative and high-income professionals. This is a matter of simple economics. The Menino administration's development policies have purged the city of single, low-to-mid-income, young gay men and lesbians, who once made Boston's gay community one of the most vibrant in the U.S..

Many have moved to Providence, where there is a gay street life and night life, similar to the Boston of the past. Others have moved to Dorchester and have developed a new, active gay community there, which is out of sync with the less-unified downtown community. Boston Proper has become the Gay Marriage Capital, a bastion of more conservative LGBTQ values.

While I take a certain pride in my own small contribution to the development of gay rights in the U.S. through my participation in our liberation during the past four decades, I do not acknowledge the current post-gay LGBTQ's as my successors or heirs. I accept their choice to pursue bourgeois, Reaganite bliss. However, our rights were not secured, nor will they necessarily be maintained, by pushing baby carriages and acting just like heterosexuals.

I am not post-gay. I will die as an openly gay man with self-respect for my intrinsic, natural difference from heterosexuals or bisexuals or transsexuals. I have worked hard for that self-respect and for the rights of all homosexual people to live in peace with equal rights. I feel a certain implicit disrespect towards me and others like me coming from those who have the money and propensity to act straight in a socioeconomically privileged Boston. While they may relegate me to "pre-post-gay" history, I assure them that I and many others like me will be absolutely necessary to maintaining their rights into the future.

Corruption

For those who wonder why the immigration system and government in general are broken, I highly recommend this story. Ultimately, a society is only as civilized and lawful as the individuals in it. When those in authority feel immune to the laws they are hired to enforce, then corruption and chaos spill past the boundaries of civilization, comprised by the rule of law. This erodes the safety and equality of every individual in a society.

Schill

What kind of Congressman apologizes to British Petroleum after it has caused massive environmental, economic and psychological damage to a vast area of the U.S.? A corrupt and possibly insane Texan. You remember what one of those is like, right?

Taxes

It has been clearly demonstrated that a substantial state and national fuel taxes could turn our economy around and basically save the planet by waking gas-dependent Americans up in the same way that tobacco taxes weaned the majority of U.S. citizens off smoking. The actual impact on individuals would be negligible. Drivers would be able to compensate by prioritizing their use of vehicles. Those with incomes large enough to travel could afford the increases. Income taxes could be stabilized and perhaps reduced eventually.

There is no free ride back to a viable planet. Supporting politicians who rail against these measures is self-defeating. Those who refuse to pay their share now will pay more dearly later.

Solstice

The Summer Solstice comes this weekend. The longest day of the year. Here in New England, this day of most sunlight has always held significance for me. Our winters are fairly long. January and February are dismal months. So, I often think of this solstice time in those dark days. While revelers are celebrating Christmas and New Year, I am mourning the loss of light. Perhaps I have never lost the genetic memories of my Druid roots.

As I have grown older, I have become more and more sensitive to the seasons and their light. I have developed empathy for the plants in my small front garden. Every morning, I check in with them, as we respond to the weather and light of the day. This has healed my relationship with the planet, I believe. That relationship was horribly narcissistic on my part for many decades. Raised as a selfish human, I had lived as though the planet existed only for me, my comfort, my pleasure.

I know better now. It has taken quite a lot of reality-testing to get my attention. I understand the nearly universal human denial of global climate destruction. However, I also know that this will bring horrors yet unimagined to the human species in the not-too-distant future. I shake my head at those human beings who have procreated and are not rabid environmentalists. This seems to me the height of human ignorance and folly.

I will try to enjoy the long, lavender twilight of another year. The cycle goes on, as it will after I am gone. I am learning to find comfort within my small place on the planet and in The Universe. This deepens my human experience. It does not lessen it.

Parade

(DOUBLE CLICK ON SCREEN ARROW)

Parade

Today Peter and I will be filming the 40th anniversary Gay Pride Parade here in Boston. As one of the few surviving native Bostonians who will be there, I feel somewhat sentimental about it.

The first parade, in which I marched, was such a humble and courageous statement of gay men and lesbians, who risked life and limb to walk self-consciously down the streets of an American city as openly homosexual people. The second and third parades, more widely publicized, were marked by homophobic hecklers and thugs who threw bottles, bricks and trash at us. The Boston Police on duty smirked and looked the other way.

But, we kept coming back, year after year, thanks to the many volunteers who put the march together each June. The city's Irish-Catholic politicians finally understood that GLBTQ people in Boston would not go away. This is truly an American story, one in which I can take some pride. Massachusetts is now the beacon for gay marriage rights in the country.

I will carry the memories of so many of my peers who are not able to attend the Pride Parade today. This is another parade, a parade of those who suffered through disease and isolation with dignity, despite being seen as lepers by straight society and by many whom they had helped to liberate. I carry their banner by standing erect and carrying my aging frame with dignity. While my presence at 60 is seldom acknowledged or appreciated in my community, I know that it is important for the young men and women around me to see that self-respecting GLBTQ life does not end at forty.

My life has been flavored with marches for justice. I marched for peace. I marched for gay rights and other civil rights. It was good practice for the more difficult personal marches for my own survival that came over the years. So much of life is holding your head up high and placing one courageous foot in front of the other.

Downsizing

In this day of hoarding awareness, my natural propensity to live sparsely has flourished. As I pack for my new home, I am tossing and giving things away enthusiastically.

Pots and pans, associated with so many evenings of conversation and good eating, have outlived their purpose in my current life. They are trash now. There are fewer flat walls in my new garret. Paintings and prints are being reviewed and deemed essential or redundant. Later this morning, men from a charity will be toting away two sofas I have had for the last 16 years. I never liked their color, chosen by a former artsy housemate. This is a truly joyful evacuation.

The sheer weight of it all reminds my vintage body that it's best to keep things simple in future. Yesterday, I took apart the guest bedroom. The new place has no guest room. So, I stood and calculated what has to go and stay from that pile of things. As I stripped the guest bed, I realized I could easily count the number of nights it had been used in the past five years. I had to laugh at my own ritual curatorship of a relatively unused room over those years.

Discarding things which once held significance in my life is a reminder of its transitory nature. Perhaps moving many times in my life has aided my practice as a humanist, focused on people instead of possessions. I have been guided for years through my life's changes by a saying given to me by an elderly patient many years ago. "Hey, kid," he said, after he overheard me telling a fellow worker about some minor trauma in my young life, "don't sweat the small stuff!"

The more I understand that life's daily quality is the "big stuff", the less anything else matters. The alchemy of turning treasures into trash, or another's treasure, is a skill which will serve me well as age brings its changes and inevitable economies of scale. Letting go and moving constitute the shared destiny of us all.

Onward

look up to the horizon's promise.
weighted dragging feet will follow.

heart will race and lungs expand.

shadowed mind will be lightened.

look up to the horizon's promise.

nagging history can be shaken off.

centered mind will be awakened.

now is the threshold to tomorrow.

Pride

June is the annual month of Gay Pride celebrations around the world. The concept of Gay Pride grew from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Black Pride as a movement preceded Gay Pride. Black Pride was associated in media with Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, leaders of Black Muslims and Black Panthers, respectively. Ironically, the African-American community in the U.S. is still slow in its acceptance of its GLBTQ brothers and sisters.

Gay Pride began as a movement of defiance in the face of widespread homophobia in American society. Coming out as gay was a political act with serious repercussions in the U.S. during the late 1960s and 1970s. It continues to be an act of courage today for many people who do not live in accepting communities. And, in parts of the world, coming out publicly places gay people in peril of their lives at the hands of repressive governments or Sharia Law.

The annual celebrations of Gay Pride in cities around the world now attract millions of GLBTQ people and their supporters. This annual coming out onto the streets in the light of day can be seen as the root of all current political progress on GLBTQ civil rights and universal human rights around the world.

The advent and decimation of the AIDS epidemic seriously threatened the evolution of gay political life in the U.S. and other nations. However, Gay Pride can be considered a major element in the sense of community which fostered profound grassroots support for victims of the AIDS epidemic, when governments were slow to respond. The mobilization of ACT UP in the U.S. was inspired by gay men, like Larry Kramer in New York, who were involved in the early Gay Pride movement. The NAMES Project, which developed the AIDS Memorial Quilt, was cofounded by Cleve Jones, protege of assassinated gay activist Harvey Milk.

The survival and further development of gay communities through the AIDS epidemic has given current Gay Pride celebrations an aspect of gravitas along with traditional partying, which is emblematic of urban gay life. It's not just a festival. It is a way of making sure GLBTQ people are still alive and participating as an visible segment of the world community.

Things

The tyranny of things. I am packing and trying to decide what to take with me into the next phase of my life. The process annoys me.

I stood in my basement yesterday and stared long and hard at old lamp parts, pieces of wire and odd screws. My pragmatic mind could come up with many uses for each object I found. My better self screamed, "Chuck it and let's move on already!"

My better self is winning. There are four huge plastic trash bags at the curb. I feel lighter. There are more trash bags in my future.

When I worked in hospice care, I was impressed by the similarity between the black body bags used by undertakers and the black trash bags used for household waste. They differ in the thickness of the plastic. The body bag has a zipper. Otherwise, they are similar.

So, I ultimately come to the realization that I am a thing in the end. I am an animated thing, but someday, when the electromagnetic and chemical processes that animate me cease, I too will be redundant. There is liberation in this. The odd piece of wire or mismatched screw, while potentially useful, are not worth the price of my wasted time and effort. That time, while I am still alive, is more precious than any thing I can possess.

Goals

My natural orientation is forward. Some have voiced their opinion that this is very Aquarian. I simply have seldom had a past or present that could compare with my imagination of the potential for the future. Call me an optimist.

Maintaining ongoing concrete goals, some mundane and some more life-encompassing, is a habit I developed in my nursing practice. Assisting patients from total disability to gradual independence is a profound activity. My work over the years has taught me the value of step-wise, persistent goal setting and achievement.

Many people set goals for themselves based on external expectations of parents, bosses or superego. Some become quite successful. Others lead lives stifled by their own sense of frustration and failure.

Knowing and accepting who I am has helped me greatly to set goals which bring me an increasing sense of freedom and competence. I am not always satisfied with my own talents or lack of talent, but I have learned to accept my limitations. Working within my limitations while honing my skills and talents, I am able to make progress with core goals in my life.

All this takes time, reflection and personal honesty. Time is horribly wasted in too many human lives. It is the most precious element of existence. Spending time in reflection or meditation pays off. It is a good investment. Personal honesty comes with routine meditation or reflection. How can you know yourself if you never spend quality time with yourself? Once you get acquainted with yourself, you can use precious time to get on with being and becoming the person you would like to be.

Another crucial element of goal setting and achievement in my life is organization of time. Current computer apps are very helpful for some. However, I wonder if they present too much information and too many options. I still write things down. Lists and a monthly calendar are mainstays on my desk. I have been using running to-do lists since I was in high school. Each morning, I revise and rewrite my list with priorities running top to bottom. Each evening, I review my list and cross out what I've done.

Keeping life simple helps. Many of my daily goals are very mundane. Taking care of the widgets and rubber bands of daily life, like a stocked refrigerator and an an organized, clean house, leads to greater efficiency in the more abstract areas of existence. As Japanese Buddhists maintain: Person and environment are one.

Well, another goal achieved. I have posted this entry in my blog. Now to my list and the other goals of the day and beyond.

Blockades

"So, is she Jewish?" The standard sit-com formula line, which always get a nodding laugh from Jews themselves, speaks volumes about how entrenched struggles remain entrenched. The current violence off the coast of Gaza is another symptom of outmoded mindsets in Israeli and Palestinian politics.

Israel has practiced religious apartheid within its borders. It has done so with the knowledge and permission of its allies in the name of reparations for past atrocities. However, as this past becomes relegated to the stinking trash heap of history, the world must look to the future and to positive change to solve problems that inhibit the assurance of universal human rights globally. That means universal and absolutely equal human rights for Israelis and Palestinians in Israel.

There are factions in Israel and abroad who are not committed to equal human rights for all in Israel. They are committed to an ancient paradigm in which the Jews are the Chosen People. They believe in the genetic superiority of Jews, as transmitted through maternal blood line. When confronted with this outrageous assertion, they resort to stories of The Holocaust and centuries of Jewish oppression. However, they are not willing to consider the chicken-egg nature of historic Jewish separatism and xenophobia. They bristle at the very mention of the concept.

Palestinians, still fighting ancient ethnic rivalries and The Crusades, have refused to accept their Semetic cousins into a shared homeland which was a humane, well-intentioned construct, badly executed by the international community, after the atrocities of The Holocaust. Had the Palestinians been able to summon the political will after World War II, they could have asserted themselves in support of the construction of Israel in exchange for a mutually supported Palestinian state. Israel and Palestine today could have been a dynamic, prosperous alliance in a more stable Middle East. But traditional politicians with little foresight and religious zealotry prevented that from materializing.

This is not a unique story by any means. Ethnic cleansing is not new. Madness over acreage is not new. In fact, the minutia of norms of ethnic separation in many countries baffle the objective observer. Bosnia was a clear example. Kosovo, another. The old American South and West are shameful and bloody examples. The list is quite long. The dynamics of ethnic cleansing require at least two dancers to do the dance of violence and conflict.

It seems to me that the blockade of Gaza represents the Israeli government's and Hamas's blockade of peace at the expense of their own people. It is an international cock fight with other nations observing and cheering the opponents. It is, perhaps, the greatest example of the total ineffectiveness, corruption and obsolescence of The United Nations.

Until the people of the region can be reached, educated and supported by international partners who are willing to call an end to the cock fight, the Middle East will be a boil on the butt of the planet. Eventually, as with all boils on butts, it will have to be lanced. And, I am afraid Jews and Palestinians will suffer horribly for it.

Universal

Universal human rights would be the same civil rights for every human being, no matter how they look or what they believe or whom they love or where they were born. Everyone, everywhere.

This requires a change in human perception. Rather than granting people respect based on their looks or how they sound, it requires granting all people the same respect on first look. This challenges an instinctual human tendency to classify. It is a survival instinct. Is this object safe or dangerous? Life experience shapes the form this instinct takes as people age. Education, ignorance, love or trauma can shape this instinct, for functional good or dysfunction.

For people old enough to have been shaped by life, learning to disregard the tendency to classify people as safe (good) or unsafe (bad), based on very superficial criteria, is nearly impossible. It requires tremendous practice and mindfulness. And, even then, the mind reverts to old habits easily.

Meditation in Buddhism is a tool to overcome the dysfunctional mind, the cluttered mind. As a humanist, I find meditation helpful. However, I find that I have been able to develop my own little instant-replay system. As I go through my day, I evaluate my responses to people and my interactions with them. I try to keep that more objective consciousness running, like a surveillance camera, which I can replay after an interaction or an experience.

I have learned a great deal from this practice. I have been able to use some of what I have learned for the better in my life. I have also learned how deeply judgmental and prejudiced I tend to be towards people. Decades of dyed-in-the-wool habits, which are exhaustively relentless, just under my conscious mind.

Prejudice is simply stupid. Judgment is not in itself a bad thing. As a nurse in an acute psychiatric ward, I was paid for my preformed understanding of certain dysfunctional behaviors. I was also paid to make professional judgments about dealing with these behaviors to avoid violence or unnecessary pain. I want an experience cop around if I am in a dangerous situation. His informed classification of a behavior, based on training and experience, could lead to a judgment which could save my life.

Universal judgments about racial, ethnic or sexual groups are counterproductive and unsafe. They lead to violence, war and social regression. Perhaps the current political correctness of certain social classes and arenas is a good form of behavioral therapy for nonconstructive prejudices and judgments. However, the tendency of the politically correct to condemn all judgment, even when based on experience and knowledge, as bad or wrong is simply stupid, in my opinion.

My practice as a humanist is to promote universal human rights in any way I can. I see this as a process that occurs with one situation or relationship at a time. I think the political advocacy of specific special-interest groups in the American political system is currently an anachronistic method to achieve universal human rights. I feel the process is in itself divisive. I would prefer to see all groups who feel disenfranchised joined in a universal human rights coalition, which could approach government and demand comprehensive legislation on human rights for everyone in society.

Moving

Those who awaken

Never rest in one place.

Like swans, they rise
And leave the lake.

On the air they rise
And fly an invisible course,

Gathering nothing, storing nothing.

Their food is knowledge.

They live upon emptiness.

They have seen how to break free.

---The Dhammapada, Canto VII, The Master,

Shambhala Pocket Classics Edition, 1976

My propensity for moving house frequently is a matter of endless amusement among my friends and family. I have moved about 30 times in the past 40 years. As a single man in an urban setting with a job which paid a moderate salary for most of my career, I often moved out of economic necessity. Rent increases motivated me to look for more affordable digs. Sometimes I moved for environmental reasons: Noise, rough neighbors, homophobia, bad plumbing, sparking electrical systems. These various factors threatened my serenity and/or my person. Since I value both, I moved.

After certain events prompted my early retirement from nursing, I utilized my moving skills and my real estate skills to secure better housing and some financial security simultaneously. Not an avid capitalist, I was not a flipper for the thrill. I turned over property in which I lived to achieve peace with myself as well as some financial independence.

I am now moving again. Having placed my house under agreement, I have taken an apartment in a location that suits my current aspirations and relationships. I have been fortunate that my pursuits have placed me in the hands of a responsible and personable property owner. And, I feel this move has advanced my inner journey to be at one with myself so I may continue to try to become the human being I would like to be through my humanist practice.

A substantial part of the beauty for me of this move lies in the realization that the people who are purchasing my house are experiencing an advancement in their life journeys as well, from what I have been told. To achieve a sense of harmony between commerce and humanism in my life is important to me. While I have always held to a personal code of ethics in business, I have not always felt harmonious in the process of buying and selling. So many who buy and sell are obsessed with winning. And, where there is a winner, there is a loser. I have been in both roles, and I have not found much sustainable happiness in either.

I find now that I am able to see the role of consumer and the role of vendor as potentially cooperative, as opposed to competitive. This is rather antithetic to modern capitalism in the U.S.. I don't care. I relish being an odd ball in most things.

So, I intend to keep moving. My grandfather often said, "Stay where you are; keep moving." I believe he meant internal movement was more important than changing the external or circumstantial. He lived in the same apartment for decades. I am learning to cherish moving in itself, internally and circumstantially. It just seems to agree with me.

Ignorance

The greatest obstacle to human progress is simple human ignorance. Ignorant human beings are more prone to have children for whom they do not provide adequate education. Breaking the cycle of ignorance is extremely difficult, because it inevitably necessitates addressing family planning and reproductive rights in society. The sacred cow of universally encouraged and unquestioned human reproduction, as seen everywhere in media, is counterproductive to alleviating poverty and ignorance in society.

This thought came to me recently on the subway, as I watched an adolescent mother being cruel and abrupt with a toddler, whom she was loudly encouraging to eat an ungodly meal in a box from Burger King. The smell of the box's contents caused me to gag, yet the teen mom was threatening the child with repercussions if he did not immediately gag down a portion of toxic french fries which would have sated a truck driver. When I looked over to the mother to suggest the child may be full, she shot me the kind of violent look I associate with gun-toting gangsters. I decided to be quiet, since the child would most likely bear her anger for anything I might have said. Instead, I focused my benign energy on the child, who smiled and waved at me. That innocent wave shot a pain through my heart. If this had been a rare experience on my subway line, I would not have been as deeply affected.

The issue of family planning is seen as a "women's issue". This is understandable, since the presence of men in the lives of their offspring seems to be dwindling, rather than growing. Single motherhood is a growing trend among the educated. It is vehemently defended by educated and more privileged women. What are the repercussions of these trends for the undereducated, when media promotes these behaviors in the educated? Is it really exclusively a women's issue?

The recent reactionary outrage over expanding health care in the U.S. is stunning in the face of increased fertility services and more enabling of adolescent girls who do become pregnant. And, the fall in public education quality in the face of large immigrant populations with large families does not bode well for the future. The recession of the U.S. economy will only worsen these situations.

As long as it is politically incorrect to frankly discuss the role of reproduction in the cycle of ignorance and poverty, the undermining effects of a growing undereducated population will erode the quality of American life for every citizen of America. The truth is often unpopular. I would strongly encourage women to open the conversation with media, government agencies and other women about these issues. It is as important an environmental issue as the failing oil economy.