to The Village Square

Recap of our draft lessons on energy

For my friends from The Kiwanis Club (a wee bit late)…

Draft Lessons Dinner 1: The Economics of Power Generation 101
Draft Lessons Dinner 2: Energy Alternatives a la Carte
Draft Lessons Dinner 3: The Nuclear Power Debate Version 2.0

1 comment August 25th, 2008

Heroes and Villians

“Every jackass thinks he knows what war is, especially those that have never been in one. We like things nice and simple…good and evil, heroes and villains. And there’s always plenty of both.

Most of the time they are not who we think they are.”

—First line of Flags of our Fathers

Add comment August 19th, 2008

We think he nailed it… Part 2

“One of the things that I was trying to do is to show that you can disagree without demonizing each other. These guys went an hour each without out ever dissing the opposition. I believe we’ve lost the civility in our civilization. We’ve got to stop being so rude with each other, that we can disagree without being disagreeable.”

— Rick Warren on Larry King Live tonight

Add comment August 18th, 2008

We think he nailed it…

“We believe in the separation of church and state. We do not believe in the separation of faith and & politics because faith is just a worldview and everybody had a worldview and it is important to know what they are…

Now in America, we’ve got to learn to disagree without demonizing each other. We need to restore civility in our civil discourse and that’s the goal of the Saddleback Civil Forum.”

– Rick Warren, Forum on the Presidency from Saddleback Church

1 comment August 17th, 2008

Christiane Amanpour: God’s Warriors

Given this year’s Dinner at the Square topic, this series is required viewing. It’s currently being re-aired on CNN. There’s one hour on God’s Muslim Warriors, one on God’s Jewish Warriors and one on God’s Christian Warriors.

Here’s your tickler:

They say that modern society has lost its way. They say God is the answer. But their battle to save the world has caused anger, division and fear.

Add comment August 10th, 2008

Hilton for President?

Left or right side of the aisle, we’d probably all agree that we’re in trouble the day Paris Hilton makes the most sense on energy, and that day just might have come.

Here’s Ms. Hilton’s opening volley in her 2008 presidential platform:

“OK so here’s my energy policy: Barack wants to focus on new technologies to reduce foreign oil dependency and McCain wants offshore drilling. Well why don’t we do a hybrid of both candidates ideas? They can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars. That way the offshore drill carries us until the new technologies kick in which will then create new jobs and energy independence.

Energy crisis solved!”

What Ms. Hilton gets is that critical Village Square concept, “the power of AND.” Solving our energy problem will require lots of “ANDs”. Of course, there are holes in her platform beyond that, but since she’s such a dark horse, we’ll let them slide.

If you actually look at either candidate’s energy platform, they DO contain many ANDs. It is, instead, the bizarre quality of our public debate that artificially eliminates the ANDs. So… I say, let’s all try to add them back in and, in our own tiny corner of the national debate, not be outdone by Paris Hilton.

Add comment August 6th, 2008

A penny for your thoughts.

“New ideas that would be instantly rejected in a polarized atmosphere can be thoughtfully examined for merit in an atmosphere of dialogue.”
– Public Conversations Project

Add comment August 2nd, 2008