But while I was giving him change, I said: “Hello, how are you?”

What I soon realized, to my sadness and horror, was that no one had asked him that question in a long time. Because, he immediately went into a litany of complaints about being thrown out of a hospital, his ailments, etc. The words came out of him as an avalanche, grateful for a chance to escape after someone finally showed interest enough to ask.

I realized that it’s not enough just to quickly give change to a homeless person and walk away. Equally as important is taking the time to see the homeless as people, as human beings deserving of all the same common courtesies, kindness, consideration, and care we grant everyone else in our daily interactions.

Too often, the homeless are ignored, looked past, as if they don’t even exist. I can’t imagine what that would do to the human psyche.

A lot of people don’t like to give change to the homeless, because they suspect the money wouldn’t go to the right place. I would argue: it’s not up to us to decide what the right use of money is for anyone else. What IS up to us is to treat others with basic human dignity, kindness and courtesy. That includes not only giving money when you have some to give and another person clearly needs it, but also treating everyone – no matter how they look – with respect and consideration.

Every time I see a homeless person, I am reminded that we as a society have a shameful failure to account for. One of the richest countries on Earth should not have homelessness. It shouldn’t happen. While the causes of homeless may be complex and many, the solutions are there if we are willing to invest in them. It’s not rocket science. And it’s not a mystery.

In another recent trip, this one to San Francisco, I walked down a street next to an elderly man struggling to walk with a walker. His clothes were filthy – clearly showing signs that he had been wallowing in his own waste. The man walked with difficulty but with as much dignity as he could muster.

What a tragedy that that man should have been in that state. Where was the outrage?

I suspect one of the reasons we don’t like homeless people is because when we see them, we feel guilt. We are reminded of our great societal failure and our continued failure to do something about it. But the current solution, of blaming the homeless, of trying to get rid of them through harassment and herding them around to different communities, is not a solution at all. It exacerbates the problem and ads to our collective failure.

This is the season when we are supposed to be generous, giving, and think of our fellow man. I hope some of us will embrace that to great enough measure to think of those we would rather ignore – and then do something.

Old sewing machines on display at the Santa Monica Place Mall

I was at the Santa Monica Place Mall over the weekend and I saw an intriguing store window display. It was rows upon rows of old sewing machines stacked up floor to ceiling.

I’m not sure what the store was for. I think it was a clothing store. But the display stopped many shoppers, including myself, dead in our tracks. We were mesmerized by the beautiful designs and painted patterns on the old machines. The metal and wood, with which they were made, seemed to harken back to a simpler era before digital technology and plastics; an era that must have been better somehow.

I realized that we regularly venerate old things such as those sewing machines. New sewing machines can do a million more things, and more efficiently, than those old clunkers. But the new ones don’t have store displays dedicated to them.

Over the same weekend, I also took a trip to historic areas of town such as Placita Olvera, the historic birthplace of Los Angeles. It’s a small cluster of buildings over a city block in downtown L.A. Nothing really that special about it, except that the buildings have a different look to them and also harken back to a different time. People there seemed fascinated by the faded brick buildings.

I was also at the Griffith Park Observatory. It’s a beautiful old building, carefully restored. It comes from an era you’d imagine Batman would step out of. In fact, if you had to pick a structure that you could imagine Batman’s home would most likely look like, Griffith Park Observatory would be it. There were crowds of people there to see the Observatory. Understandably so, since it’s on top of a mountain overlooking much of Los Angeles and Southern California. But you have to wonder if as many people would have been there if the observatory was a modern one, nothing made special by the passing of time.

It must be human nature to look back and see the past with rose-colored glasses. The people who lived during the time of those old sewing machines, or when Olvera street was built, or when the observatory was first put to use, would all probably marvel and embrace modern-day life. They’d probably give up their wood-and-metal machines for fast, efficient, plastic ones. They’d swap their cold, brick buildings for insulated, central-air-conditioned ones. And they’d probably be just as happy, if not more so, in an observatory made of digital screens interpreting from a telescope that could see much more by virtue of orbiting the earth (not just hovering above Los Angeles).

So why do we look at these representations of the past and marvel? Are we looking at how far we’ve come? Are we wishing we had never come that far? Does it give us hope for what may come in the next 80 years?

The answers, I suspect, are: yes.

We keep hearing about how America is broke; that it cannot afford health insurance benefits for the elderly and poor, and social security for retires; that it cannot pay to rebuild its infrastructure, to invest in education and future generations, to encourage better wages and jobs, to innovate in new technologies – and the list goes on.

But is it an irrefutable fact that we are in fact broke and at our knees? I don’t think so. It seems to me we are merely lacking in imagination, not resources.

There are things we need to fix, of course. The housing market is a disaster. Unacceptably, people are still losing their homes when they don’t have to be. Too many people who should be working can’t find any jobs, let alone quality ones that pay enough for a decent middle class life. Wages have not kept up with the cost of middle class lives for decades now. And that has only gotten worse in the last few years.

College education is slipping out of reach for our next generation. And for those who get one, the burden of debt incurred is crushing. It is preventing them from being innovators and risk-takers, which we need for a vibrant competitive economy.

The federal government is borrowing too much money. While its budget deficits are not a problem, yet, they will be in another 10 to 20 years. Interest rates on government debt could rise in another few decades. If the cost of borrowing increases, it could set off a dangerous chain reaction that could threaten the very fabric of the American economy. Something similar is dangerously close to happening in Europe with the economies that use the euro common currency.

But that’s not happening now here in the U.S. It is simply something that could happen in the future. In fact, at the present moment, there is a lot going right in America.

Even with millions of Americans out of work, the vast majority of people still have jobs. They still work, earn a living, spend their earnings. The economy is damaged, but it is still humming along. We have trucks on the roads transporting goods. Corporations are still in business. Everyone is still paying taxes.

Young people are still going to school and learning important new skills. Despite what seems like every attempt to quash the inevitable, new energy technologies are taking hold and new businesses trying to gain a foothold in a Green Energy future.

The car industry in Detroit has recovered well from the brink of disaster. The government’s intervening there was an unquestionable success and saved millions of jobs.

Wall Street and banks have also been doing surprisingly well and making a lot of profit (although there are hints that some firms are now starting to lay people off again in what may be a sign of new trouble).

There is a lot of money being made in this country, a lot of productivity, a lot of tax revenue. We just don’t seem to know what to do with all of this wealth and resources. We seem paralyzed by fear, uncertainty, and the unknown.

But that’s not what this country is about. We are innovators, risk takers, creative thinkers, adapters. We are generous, kind, neighborly, thoughtful. We are fierce when righteous, reflective when chastened.

We are inspiring. And right now, we merely lack inspiration.

It is Thanksgiving. As a collective people, we need a moment of taking stock to figure out what we do have and what we can best do with it. This is a time when we are supposed to be doing just that on a personal scale. But it’s time we think bigger and outside our individual selves.

It is a shame that we have spent so much time and energy talking about what we cannot do. Why in the world should we be unable to fix our roads and bridges, ensure our elderly have medical care, provide affordable colleges for those who want to go, create a fair playing field through sensible regulations that allow our businesses to thrive in a transparent and legitimate free market?

We have done these things and more. There is no reason we cannot do them again.

In a story as horrible and disturbing as the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, it’s surprising that one of the most appalling aspects of the story is the behavior of the university’s students.

After the removal of Coach Joe Paterno, this video is an example of the response from the students. A body, which is supposed to be educated and striving for a higher level of discourse, is rioting in a destructive mob. And why? Because the university is holding accountable the people who did not hold themselves to account in one of the most horrendous examples of institutional coverup of heinous alleged crimes.

In the coverup, it really does not matter whether the allegations against Sandusky prove true or not. What matters is that so many people – at the highest levels of the institution – appeared willing to act above the law, to put aside the welfare of children, and to avoid the responsibility of reporting allegations to authorities and making sure they are investigated and dealt with.

The students should be outraged by the behaviors of those charged, not at those very same people being now, finally held accountable. Instead, they are behaving as if something to which they are entitled – the sanctity of their football program – is being taken away from them.

This may be hard for them to fathom, but some things are indeed more important than football. How will they account for their behavior – which they themselves are so proudly capturing on video – a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now? How will they explain themselves to their children?

The moral bankruptcy with which these students behaved is symptomatic of the apparent depravity that has engulfed Penn State’s social fabric. It is hard to imagine that a coverup of the magnitude now uncovered could have gone on in any other context.

One hopes that Penn State is a rare exception. But in the backs of our minds, we know that it most likely is not. And that’s the more horrible aspect of this story.

Analysts and journalists have been trying to make sense of that lack of voter support with varied reasoning: Romney is Mormon and there’s lots of anti-Mormon bias; Romney is seen as flip-flopping on issues and lacking in core values and beliefs; Romney is boring and doesn’t have the showmanship of Herman Cain.

But I think all of this Romney coverage is wrong and shows how completely out of touch both politicians and journalists are with what is going on in America right now. It is the height of arrogance to pronounce Romney the frontrunner when in polls and actual voting he has either lost or polled about even with one or two other candidates. And it is insulting to voters to suggest they are looking at candidates other than Romney because other candidates have more showmanship, or hold more conservative positions.

Perhaps it’s time for us all to start looking at the facts, and covering the political season as news, not as some kind of horse-race or insider dealing. If people are not showing support for Romney, maybe it is because they simply are not convinced he is the right man during this critical point in American history.

In fact, I would argue that the reason none of the GOP candidates have been able to pull ahead – since the lack of a clear frontrunner is not only a Romney problem but shows a lack of consensus toward any of the GOP candidates – is because GOP primary voters are not really hearing anything new from any of them. And voters are smart enough to realize that right now, in what is the closest we have ever come to a second depression, new ideas and bold leadership is what we need.

If we look at the GOP primary race in that context, is it any wonder then that Herman Cain showed temporary momentum by offering something new and bold with his 9-9-9 plan? Without scrutiny of that plan to help voters understand its ups and downs, voters did the best they could to evaluate it and were genuinely excited by someone who seemed to be offering fresh, bold, game-changing ideas that might actually help our economy.

As it turns out, by analysis from both the left and the right, Herman Cain’s proposal is ill-conceived and would not help. But by the time news coverage started to take him seriously, his 9-9-9 plan had already found resonance among an electorate thirsty for real leadership and fresh ideas.

The candidates – and current elected leaders – are busy bickering about budget cuts versus tax cuts. Meanwhile, the voting public is sending them clear messages that those kinds battles are antiquated and pointless when the country is facing such dire economic difficulties.

The voting public is more united than politicians and the media want to believe. Most voters are frustrated and disgusted, and it is hard to blame them. There is little difference in motivation between a GOP voter and a person marching in Occupy Wall Street protests. In both you will find someone who has lost patience, and who is looking for leadership and meaningful solutions to our many economic problems.

The next election will be a wake-up call for both the GOP and the Democratic Party, unless the parties wake up before then.

At LAX, Los Angeles International, I sailed through with no problems – although I had to go through one of those body scanners. I had a couple of items in my carry-on that were about 5 fl. oz. in size. You’re not allowed anything above 3.4. (The whole 3.4 limit seems strangely specific and arbitrary. But you hope that there’s a very good reason for it.) The security people didn’t say anything about my slightly over-sized items.

But when I went through JFK (New York) security with the exact same carry-on bag, security stopped me and took out the two over-sized items. They were over the limit and they wouldn’t let me keep them, they said.

But I went through LAX without any problems?, I said. Why would it be an issue now?

This is JFK not LAX, was their response.

That seems completely nonsensical. Aren’t they all part of the same Transportation Security Administration? And shouldn’t the standards which the security personnel follow be uniform across all airports?

But the standards aren’t uniform.

While the JFK people were more stringent about the size of my carry-on containers, they were also far more lackadaisical about their jobs. They were laughing and conversing with each other, instead of paying attention to the passengers in the security line. At LAX, the security personnel were far more professional and alert.

And at San Francisco Airport, there were no body scanners to be seen. We all went through typical x-ray detectors. So while you get body scanned at LAX and JFK, you don’t get body scanned at SFO. If the same equipment is not used everywhere, does it matter that it is used anywhere? It’s like a bad light bulb in an old-fashioned Christmas light set. When one bulb goes out, the whole set won’t light, even if the other bulbs are working just fine.

Considering the indignities and inconveniences that we have all resigned ourselves to every time we fly, for the sake of our collective security, I would hope that the TSA agents looking after our safety would be a little more careful about their jobs. If we’re not all going through the same hassles at every airport, it’s harder to justify going through those hassles at any airport.

Because if a 5 fl. oz. jar of hair jell is perfectly fine at LAX security, then why should I be forced to part with it at JFK?

A young man came to this country in 1989 when he was 10 years old. He was brought here by his parents who immigrated from the former Soviet Union. They came as political refugees – granted a visa and permanent residency. During the Cold War, coming to the U.S. as a refugee from a Soviet country fit within the political battles of the era. The U.S. was willing to accept such immigrants.

This young man grew up here, went to school, got good grades, was a model student. He graduated high school near the top of his class, and was accepted to a good university. He went, got his degree, and worked a professional career making a good salary and enjoying career success.

Another 10-year-old kid came to this country at almost the exact same time. It was the Cold War, but he was not from a Soviet country. His parents’ immigration here served no political ends for the U.S., and so he didn’t have an easy way into the country. His parents came here without a visa, without proper documentation, because they had no other economic options in a country that shares a border with the U.S.

His parents brought him here, put him in school. He went, got good grades, was a model student, and graduated at the top of his class. He was accepted at several major, prestigious universities and offered full scholarships. But he didn’t know he was undocumented. When the universities found out, they took away all his scholarship offers. He was left with no future – no educational one, no career one, nothing. The U.S. was the only home he knew, having grown up here. He spoke English better than his parents’ native tongue. But he was relegated to second-class status in the country he thought was his own.

This young man was left hopeless and devastated. He turned to drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. He fell into severe depression that almost spiraled out of control. But he found his way back. He went to community college because it was all he could afford. He took all the classes he could there. He retook some of them, for lack of anything else to do. He started working for unscrupulous small business owners who were willing to take advantage of his undocumented status by treating him poorly, paying him little, and offering him no benefits. They got his brains and labor, he got mistreated. But he kept his mouth shut and hoped for something better.

Eventually, he transferred to a local university (one far below the level of the Ivy League schools that had accepted him some five years earlier). He couldn’t pay the tuition himself, but by then his immediate family was able to help him pay for it. He got his Bachelors degree. As a graduation gift, his parents surprised him with the citizenship documents they had finally been able to get (through a merciful, one-time amnesty program enacted by Ronald Reagan, though it was still a 20-year process). His application for legal residence was now fast-tracked and granted a year afterwards. He went for his Masters and got it.

Ten years after graduating high school, he was finally able to work. But because he had not attended the prestigious schools to which he was originally accepted, his work prospects and earnings prospects have not yet met his potential. He still struggles and strives, but is making a little more than half what the first young man – the one from the Soviet Union – has earned at his early career peak.

These are true stories of two people who exist.

This is a tale of two Americans. Both are Americans, whether we like it or not. They are here and not going anywhere. But one American, because it was politically expedient and for no virtue of his own, was granted all the benefits of being an American. The other, through no fault of his own, was denied those same benefits and was relegated to second-class status. He will likely pay the price for the rest of his life, if in no other form than psychological scars.

This is among the biggest travesties of modern American life. There is nothing fair or right about this. It is un-American. And it must end.

Here is that excerpt:

It begins, as most things begin, with a song

In the beginning, after all, there were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world

They were sung

The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds and the dark

Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone

That’s the power of songs

California teachers are tapping into something interesting: indications that Americans may be willing to put up with higher taxes in these dire economic times, if those taxes are specifically for things they care about, and if rich people (the other guy) are taxed first.

Polls in Nevada, Utah, Wisconsin, and nationwide for that matter, all show healthy margins of support for tax increases of varying amounts (especially increases that go towards worthy purposes such as shoring up Medicare or funding education at the state level).

This trend, if it fully materializes, may be an example the Great Recession rewriting how a several generations of Americans view their relationship with government and civic society. Just as we all know children of the Great Depression who, to this day, inform their actions and habits based on the difficulties of that time, I wonder if we are now forming generations who will be shaped – albeit in more subtle ways – by the current world.

Taxes may be among the most relevant of these changes. For decades, the answer to virtually every climb and drop of the economy has been to cut taxes and reduce the role of government. But especially in these hard times, more Americans are relying on the government for work, unemployment money, healthcare subsidies, and even funds that helped shore up banks. Americans are realizing there are services they expect from their government, and that paying for those services is important to them.

In the meantime, the government’s reduced regulatory role directly impacted the near-collapse of the U.S. and world economy. One has to wonder whether over the next several decades of policy-making, Americans would be more supportive of government oversight and understanding of the collective need to contribute via taxes. Balanced with more conservative viewpoints of limited government, will the U.S. nevertheless drift towards limited but more robust government involvement in civic and economic life?

As for civic life, I am curious to see how the generations most impacted today will reform their relationship with debt – credit cards, car loans, mortgages, etc. When I was in college a decade ago, credit card companies had booths on campus giving away free t-shirts to those who signed up for a credit card. And many students did, often without understanding much about the fine print of what they were signing. Credit cards were easy to get and came with large credit limits. Students were using these cards to charge up fun, as well as pay for education expenses when their student loans didn’t cover everything.

Now, many of my peers are saddled with giant debt burdens that reduce their options and choices in everything from job location, living location, type of work, lifestyle, planning for the future, whether they can afford to create a family, get married, get a car, and the list goes on and on.

These debt burdens, while lucrative for some sectors, must be having an impact on the buying power and consumer decisions of generations of young people. Now with jobs more scarce and money even more tight, I wonder whether we will have generations of people who will look negatively (or at least more cautiously) on credit cards and debt for decades to come. At the least, recent credit card practices of arbitrarily raising interest rates and lowering credit limits just prior to new federal rules taking effect, must have given pause to many of those saddled with large credit card debt. Will they trust credit card companies again? What impact will this have on future consumer willingness to charge up credit cards, get into 30-year mortgages or purchase cars on 6-year loan terms? I wonder if we will be slowly, but fundamentally, reshaping our economy from one based on debt and credit, to one that is based more on access to cash.

And if cash becomes king, will that cause a subsequent readjusting of price structures in the American economy? For example, a decade ago, when I stepped onto a Honda car dealership, I could have purchased a fully-loaded Honda Accord for $23,000. Today, that car costs around $30,000. Not a problem for so many consumers who simply took on bigger loans with longer terms (keeping their monthly payments affordable). But what now? Will car prices, along with home prices and so many other prices, have to come down in order to adjust for a consumer who is no longer willing to be indebted at the same levels as before?

If that happens, and if it is a long-term trend, will price pressures of the next few decades lead to a slow, painful contraction of overall wealth? Afterall, if people pay less, others make less. If they make less, they pay less to others. Could this be a vicious cycle that causes a slow spiral downwards in our overall quality of life and economic prosperity?

While we are focused as a nation right now on some important short-term goals – balancing budgets, reducing national and individual debt, shoring up social safety net programs such as Medicare, Social Security, and programs for the poor, and figuring out how to pay for important things such as education and healthcare – it is important that we also begin to consider the long-term.

We have seen that at least a decade of stagnating and shrinking wages among most of the middle class caused a sharp rise in the consumer’s willingness to take on debt in order to hold onto their standard of living. What will our present realities bring about?

Santa Barbara is a city that operates at a much slower pace than its southern neighbor Los Angeles. In Santa Barbara, people drive 25 miles per hour, or slower, on the narrow streets. Everything is usually located within a five mile – or so – radius.

But within this small, slow city, exist two different worlds. One of the middle class and upper class white residents, who mostly inhabit the western side of the city, and the darker skinned mostly-Hispanic residents of the East.

My host with whom I am staying informed me, to her regret, that it has been this way every since she moved here in the 1960s.

State street, with its upscale shops and theaters, is the purview of the white residents. Milpas street, with taco restaurants and auto shops, is where much of the Hispanic residents are. I witnessed this first hand in frequenting both areas.

But I also found it completely baffling when driving through the State street area, and seeing young Hispanic kids and their parents emerging from a public school and going to the park on the block. At the same time, a young white woman was exiting her car and going to yoga. The two worlds were coinciding. But neither interacted with each other or even acknowledged one another.

Truly a tale of two cities.