For Starters

In terms of the most significant events of my life, without writing an autobiography, I can at least provide perspective to the reader through the use of the following table:

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that made all the difference.

Going Forward

On a going-forward basis, I will add journal entries intermittently, as significant events occur or as I think of things I want to jot down and hear back from others about. If anything you read here, or anywhere else on this web site stirs interest, please respond by e-mail. Just return to the home page by using the button marked "Home" in the top right-hand corner of this page, and then click on the e-mail link in the top left hand corner of the Home page. It should open up an e-mail window that you can use to reply. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Selected Photos From My Work in Iraq - Dec 2006 - Nov 2007

                                                                               http://www.defenselink.mil/tfbso/news/feature.html

Gross National Happiness

Excerpted from Trends On-line eMagazine published June 2008

Research shows that there is a direct relationship between income and happiness in the lowest income brackets. However, once people reach the level of middle-class income, they no longer become happier as their incomes go up.
Edward Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, concludes that lacking money causes unhappiness, but having more money does not cause more happiness. Millionaires are no happier than people of average income. As a group, the old are happier than the young.
A 2002 study showed that the percentage of Americans who said they were "very happy" was no greater than it was in the 1950s, even though the average American�s real income went up by more that 200 percent from 1957 to 2002.

According to Robert Putnam, professor of public policy at Harvard University, 50 years of research shows that the happiest people are those who have the best relationships. Moreover, having solid relationships seems to help people stay in good health and live longer.
Brian Knutson, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Stanford University, tracks changes in the brain to measure happiness. Knutson found that the anticipation of a reward often causes greater feelings of happiness than actually receiving it. In one study, Knutson asked test subjects to play a video game. He found that people were actually happier, as measured by oxygen flow in the brain, when they anticipated winning money than when they actually won the money.

Now, an important new addition has been made to the newly emerging science of happiness research. Arthur C. Brooks, professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University, has published a book titled Gross National Happiness1 that distills nearly five decades of research into what makes people happy. The well-supported conclusions are valuable for individuals, managers, and policy makers. Consider just seven of the most important findings:

First, happiness increases as we acquire material rewards up to a level of about $10,000 per capita per year. Above that level, having more, in and of itself, does not seem to make much of a difference.
Second, above the cut-off just mentioned, it is increased relative wealth that makes people happier. Research shows that people use money to keep score and making more money gives them validation that they are adding value.
Third, marriage improves happiness. Controlling for factors such as race, income, and age, married people, as a group, are consistently happier than those who are single, widowed, or divorced.
Fourth, people are happier when they believe they have earned what they get and are in control of their circumstances. This is one reason that people who receive public assistance are notoriously unhappy. They have been deprived of both of these happiness drivers.
Fifth, people who are religious are happier than those who are secular. Why is this? For one thing, religion makes life more manageable by clearly delineating a set of decision-making rules for one�s life. It also provides access to a community of supportive, like-minded people.
Sixth, those who give generously are much happier than those who don't. Apparently, humans are hardwired to be charitable. Research shows that helping others actually has a positive physiological impact on our brains.
Seventh, people who have strongly-held political beliefs are happier than those who are ambivalent. While conservative extremists and liberal extremists tend to make moderates uneasy, research clearly shows that people in either extreme group are happier than people in the middle.

Let�s take a closer look at that last finding: People with strongly held political beliefs are happier than those who are ambivalent. Brooks studied survey results from The National Opinion Research Center, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, and Gallup. He found that while extremists on both ends were happier than moderates, people who described themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative" were nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy as people who described themselves as "liberal" or "very liberal." That correlates with a 2007 survey, in which 58 percent of Republicans said their mental health was excellent, compared to only 38 percent of Democrats. What explains this disparity? Brooks points out that, beyond their political differences, conservatives and liberals take different approaches to religion and marriage, which are, as we just discussed, two of the most prominent drivers of happiness.

Religious affiliation is positively correlated to happiness, according to the General Social Surveys (GSS). In 2004, 43 percent of people who considered themselves religious called themselves very happy. This is nearly twice the 23 percent of secularists who say they are very happy.
In fact, according to the GSS, if two people are identical in every way including income, age, education, gender, family status, and race but one is religious and the other is not, the religious person is 13 percent more likely to be very happy than the secular person.
Since conservatives tend to be more religious than liberals, this largely explains their greater levels of happiness. Specifically, conservatives are more than twice as likely as liberals to attend religious services every week, while liberals are twice as likely as conservatives to worship rarely or never.
Moreover, the disparity is increasing: Between 1974 and 2004, church attendance among liberals plunged from 27 percent to 16 percent. During that same 30-year span, church attendance among conservatives increased from 38 percent to 46 percent.

People who are religious also tend to give more of their money and time to charity, which is yet another driver of happiness. They are 38 percent more likely to give money than are people who are not religious, and 52 percent more likely to volunteer.
Now let�s look at the impact of marriage on happiness. Married people of all political affiliations are twice as likely as unmarried people to rate themselves as very happy. Forty-two percent of people who are married are very happy, compared to 23 percent of people who have never married, 20 percent of people who are widowed, and 17 percent of divorced people.
In fact, if two people are identical in every way but their marital status, the married person will be 18 percent more likely to be very happy than the person who isn't married.

Just as conservatives are more likely than liberals to be religious, they are also more likely to be married. Two-thirds of conservatives are married, compared to just one-third of liberals. The differences in happiness are even greater when we contrast married conservatives with single liberals: Married conservatives are three times more likely to be very happy than single liberals.

Children and friendships are also important to personal happiness. According to the GSS, 52 percent of conservatives who are religious and married with children are very happy, compared to just 14 percent of single, nonreligious liberals without children. Friends also play a key role in happiness. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey found that a person with more than 10 close friends is twice as likely to be very happy as someone who doesn't have any close friends.

All of this research suggests that Americans can increase their level of happiness by leading a stable family life that includes marriage and children, worshipping regularly, and socializing with friends. Unfortunately, not every country gives its citizens the same freedoms that Americans enjoy. What impact does that make on individuals' happiness? Brooks cites the 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, which was developed by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation.  On a scale of 0 to 100, in which 100 equals maximum freedom, the top countries are the U.S., Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand, which all score above 80. The countries of Western Europe score between 65 and 75, followed by countries that were once communist and other developing nations. At the bottom is North Korea, with a score of 3.

After analyzing the 35 nations in the index, Brooks concluded every 1 percent increase in economic freedom (defined as the freedom to start a business, invest, own property, and so on) leads to a 2 percent increase in the percentage of the country's population that is very happy.
There's one other reason, besides freedom, that explains why people in the U.S. are generally happier than those who live in other countries. Americans are genetically predisposed toward happiness. How could this be? Consider that the genetic bias toward risk-taking is extremely rare. So, over the past 250 years, very few people in Europe, relatively speaking, were optimistic enough to trade the safety of the world they knew for a new, uncertain life in America.

However, because America was settled by exactly that type of people, we are a nation of people who are literally born with a bias for taking bold risks in the quest for big payoffs. That explains why the U.S. is widely recognized as the world leader in innovation and entrepreneurialism. Such traits positively correlate with earning and achieving, two key drivers of happiness mentioned earlier.

A Contrarian View of the Arizona Shootings - January 2011

Everyone knows that objects look bigger when you are standing right next to them.  The same is true of events.  Usually the events of day-to-day life, when examined after some time has passed, turn out to be somewhat less meaningful or at least less dramatic.  The shootings in Arizona earlier this week were tragic; no question about it.  I don't know a single person who doesn't wish they could have intervened somehow to prevent the tragic loss of life.  While all of the deaths and injuries are abhorrent, I think most of us are especially impacted by the death of an innocent 9 year old girl whose only offense was standing close to the congresswoman targeted by the deranged assailant.  Nothing will ever diminish the terrible impact of that event, and grieving for the losses of the families involved is not only appropriate, it is a natural and required part of the healing process.

So in light of the terrible tragedy that is the Arizona shootings, here is another avenue of thought related to the context of this event: How many Americans have been lost to murderous insurgents in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict there?  Without googling it, can you estimate that number within – say – 1,000?  Any idea how many civilians have been killed?  Again, you don't have to be exact here; can you estimate within 1,000 people?  According to a front-page story in USA Today January 12, 2011, “Insurgents in Iraq killed more than 21,000 civilians and wounded another 68,000 people with homemade bombs over the past five years, according to newly released data from the Pentagon.  The highest number of casualties came in 2007, coinciding with the worst sectarian violence and the surge in U.S. Military forces to quell it.  In that year, 7,295 people died – nearly 20 a day – from improvised explosive devices, says the Pentagon.  Another 21,970 Iraqis were wounded.”  Later in the article, a U.S. Official is quoted when he said: “The enemy put civilians purposely at great risk by its tactics and actions.”  I can vouch for that.  I flew into Iraq for the first time in December of 2006, and stayed through most of 2007.  The violence was everywhere, and it was indiscriminate.  It seemed to me that I could at least hear a car bomb going off about every 45 minutes, and many shook the ground.  Small arms fire was everywhere, and in the early days of 2007, it was almost continuous.  No amount of time passing me by will ever blunt the stark terror of those rides in Hummers through Baghdad, waiting for an IED to blow my legs off - or worse. And at 2AM, when rockets and mortars came in and literally sprayed my little office with dirt and shrapnel, it became extremely clear to me that being the only structure around with lights still showing through the windows just wasn't worth getting a little more work done that night.

It has been interesting for me to follow the flowing river of written and verbal rhetoric running through the internet, the airwaves, and the news wires this week.  The debate around gun ownership has split open again, and it took only a few hours for opportunists on the liberal side of the aisle to launch attacks on conservative figureheads like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh for contributing to the environment that spawned this horrific attack.  The President is personally leading moments of silence, traveling to Arizona to deliver speeches, and paying his respects to the grief-stricken families in most public possible venues.  One article by Richard Wolf in the January 12 Wall Street Journal that was especially interesting to me entitled: “Amid Troubles, Presidents Inspire and heal” laid out the words and actions of FDR following Pearl Harbor, LBJ following the Kennedy assassination, Ronald Reagan following the Challenger explosion, Bill Clinton following the Oklahoma City bombing, and George W. Bush following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, any loss of innocent human life is totally unacceptable, and we need to do everything we can to prevent it and appropriately respond to it when it occurs.  But looking at this event – terrible tragedy though it is – in the cold, gray light of dawn, it is interesting to try to achieve some perspective.  Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack that killed hundreds – primarily military, but some civilians as well.  The 9/11 terrorist attack was an attack on civilians and cost the lives of about 3,000 Americans.  Adolph Hitler's inconceivable reign of terror killed 6 million Jews.  The vast majority were innocent men, women, and children.  The world has seen unbelievable atrocity and murder on genocidal scales.  Even now, in the course of a single month at just one U.S. Marine installation in Afghanistan, we have “Ramp Ceremonies” (also called “Dignified Transfers”) for more true American heroes than we lost in Arizona this week. 

So as we experience the real and undeniable grief and heartache of the friends and families of these eight victims in the Arizona shooting spree, I am hoping that observers will remember that for years now, every single week families and friends receive the shattering news that they will never see their son, daughter, father, mother, or close friend alive again on this earth.  Because we don't know them, and we don't have their faces and their personal stories  broadcast into our homes all day and all night for days afterward, and because they are usually not respected court judges, congressional representatives, or beautiful little girls, somehow we don't feel those losses so deeply.  We aren't moved by them to set our flags at half mast or hold an official moment of silence at the White House, or even mention many of their names  on a national news broadcast.  And while the men and women whose lives are sacrificed in the line of duty – whether that duty is on the battlefield in Afghanistan or on a police patrol in some major U.S. city – are people you don't know through a media blitz, they are every bit as important.  Every bit as deserving of our pity, our grief, and our prayers.  The same is true of the murder victims in Detroit and East St. Louis and Watts.  The victims of traffic accidents, airplane crashes, and natural disasters like Katrina.  There  is no outpouring of national grief and mourning when the victim is a homeless man, or that most helpless and innocent of victims, an unborn child.  Scores of murders and tragic accidents occur around us every day.  The scope and grandeur of the public outcry around this one terrible event does cause me to wonder how much of what I am seeing is theatrics, how much is opportunistic politics, and how much is genuine sorrow – especially on the part of our political leaders and our mainstream media.