Governor Douglas's dictate that the duly elected Windsor State's Attorney be condemned and ignored in the interest of political grandstanding is creating some attention from legislators in the area – most notably from Senator John Campbell, who is considering challenging the Governor in '08.

If you missed the story, Jack discusses it here last week. This is how it was reported by Ross Sneyd at VPR:

Martha Davis was accused of cultivating marijuana. Game wardens say they seized 2½ pounds of pot and found 32 plants.

But the Windsor County state's attorney, Robert Sand, decided not to pursue a felony case. Instead, he referred Davis to court diversion.

So, Davis will have to go through substance abuse counseling, pay some fees and possibly perform community service.

Once those requirements are fulfilled, Davis will be free of the criminal justice system – and will have no criminal record.

First off, this is all legal. Nobody with a firm grip on reality is arguing that Sand overstepped his statutory authority, merely that they don't approve of his decision. A brave and common sensical one, frankly. But the implications of Douglas directing the State Police to bypass Sand and refer drug cases directly to the state Attorney General is an extraordinary example of executive meddling in the judicial process to score political points.

Once again, It's Douglas playing by the Bush playbook, this time concerning seperation of powers.

Windsor County legislators are kicking back with a letter to the Governor (which he'll probably use to scrape mud off his shoes), but also one to Attorney General Sorrell, urging him to…

 

 …exercise your office's discretion to ignore Governor Douglas' directive… We suggest this out of concern for electoral integrity, seperation of powers, prosecutorial discretion, the nonpolitical integrity of our judicial system, and the value of the Court Diversion program.
 

…while reminding Sorrell and the Governor that Sand is a popular elected official who receives strong support from the electorate. The letter stops short of calling the directive a stunt, but it's implied in the criticism of Douglas's:

 

…apparent lack of a sense of proportion. Vermont has recently experienced its worst week of violent crime in our history…. it is preposterous that the Governor would choose to focus, not on these problems, but on the routine decision to send a non-violent first time offender to Court Diversion.

No doubt you'll be shocked to hear that not a single Windsor County Republican legislator signed the letter (they would be Representatives Richard Hube, John Clerkin, David Ainsworth, Dennis Devereux – and most notably, House GOP Leader Steve Adams). What's more interesting is the absence of two Democratic names from the letter: Rep. Harry Chen and Sen. Alice Nitka. Chen is a tough one to pigeonhole, but Nitka does historically get very concerned about what Republican voters think of her. Perhaps a little polite encouragement to support the effort of their colleagues is in order (Sen Nitka's email here (see comment below) and Rep. Chen's email here).

I’ve been playing guitar for more than two decades now.  I had classical training at a conservatory and used to play some fairly complicated classical guitar pieces. I also played jazz and blues.  My style is difficult to describe: eclectic and bizarre, but it’s often joyful and intriguing:

In previous entries in this series I’ve discussed a wide variety of topics, focusing most recently on creativity.  I’d like to continue with that concept of creativity, focusing more on music and how I use music to change and challenge perspectives.
 

But first, a quick note about the video.  I used a low-end digital camera (hence the poor sound quality) to record the video clip shown.  It’s a simple project: clamp a tripod to the guitar’s head and point it down the neck and then improvise something.  Then, use the magic of youTube and there you have it.  I get lots of compliments over this from people but I want to make it clear that this was ridiculously easy to do.  Most contemporary digital cameras can pull this sort of thing off and clap tripods are cheap.  I only mention this as one of hundreds of ways you can do something different and/or unusual that catches attention.

So let me tell you a story:

Way back in the last century (ok, 1999) I was diagnosed with diabetes.  This comes with many side effects; some are benign and some are fairly unpleasant.  One of the more benign side effects is that my fingernails are not nearly as strong as they used to be.  If you know anything about classical guitar, you know that fingernails are an absolute requirement.  You can’t be a classical guitar player without having fingernails.  I’ve tried fake fingernails or other types of extenders and the net effect of those is that they damage what’s left of my fingernails even further.

In short: diabetes killed my capacity for classical guitar.  I can still do some fingerstyle work, but not to nearly the capacity I used to do and without any serious ability to project, at least not on guitar; banjo is an entirely different story.  I still play that extremely well and don’t need fingernails to project.  But traditional classical guitar?  Done.  Finis.

If you’ve been reading my diaries you’ve probably figured out that I’m not someone who gives up easily.  It took me some time to sort this out, but I did have experience with flatpicking prior to the diabetes and even though my primary guitar technique involved fingerpicking, I knew how to flatpick fairly well.

So I went whole hog into using the pick.

But I took it a step further, with a step that was inspired by an amazing performer by the name of Pamela Means.  I got to see Pamela perform in Greenfield, MA, in a fairly small room, from a table very near the show.  I realized that she was using capos, but they were partial capos.

Be warned– I’m going to get geeky for a moment.

Hmm.  Never mind.  That seems unwise.  If you want to see the geeky explanation, I have a web site devoted to capo architecture.

Suffice it to say that Pamela’s unusual technique was something I’d never seen before and never considered.  She used capos in ways that allowed for variations in tunings and phrasings that were a revelation to me.

And I had to learn more.

So I did some thinking and actually figured out how to create a partial capo of my own and started experimenting with it.

Now, let me explain something: in the ten years prior to this event, I had been playing guitar, and playing it quite well, but had not grown as a musician.  I’d been practicing, definitely and I learned new pieces during this period, but I didn’t find my style, my technique, etc. changing.  It was certainly improved upon over those ten years.  I was a little faster.  My playing was more fluid.  My hands were a little stronger.  But I was still doing the same sort of thing I’d been doing for the previous decade.

So when I say that the addition of the partial capo changed things for me, I do not mean it made things a little different.  I mean it completely and utterly transformed my approach to the instrument.  This guitar, this six-stringed wonder that had been so familiar and routine for me suddenly exploded in sounds I didn’t realize it could make.  I was composing like crazy; seriously, new ideas were coming to me faster than I could take them all in.  In that first year, I created about three hours worth of music that I could draw from in performances.  I don’t mean three hours worth of similar or redundant material.  I mean three hours of music, with each piece differing dramatically from the other.  Simple pieces, complex pieces.  Jazz; blues; folk; contemporary; classical.  It was like the instrument was all new to me again.

I was using phrasings and configurations I’d never even considered before and the music came out in great waves of inspiration.

I’m going to stop for a moment to explain something: in music, there are only so many notes and only so many ways you can combine them.  And no matter how inventive or creative you are, you eventually run out of things you can, as a musician, can create that’s truly new.

But sometimes it only takes one new thing: the Dave Brubeck quartet performing “Take Five.”  U2 Performing “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”  Django performing “Minor Swing.”  Beethoven using the bass as a melodic instrument.

And for me, this isn’t about becoming known as a musician or famous, etc., or even making money from it.  It’s just the joy of the dance.  Once I learned to separate the income and recognition from the music, my music got a lot better.  Now, for me, it’s just a lot of FUN.

But what’s truly important for me is that I can go to pretty much any open mike I’ve ever been to, walk up there and not explain a damned thing about what I’m about to do and just do it and have people hear it and say “wow.”

This is not a path Pamela Means intended to take me on.  Indeed, she probably does not know who I am.  We met briefly after one of her shows and I told her how much I loved the partial capo technique and how I’d created some of my own and thanked her for the inspiration, but that’s it.  She wouldn’t know just how much it meant to me, nor would I expect her to.  And I don’t know how many other people I inspire.  It could be one.  It could be twenty.  It could be zero.  But I put out good works and do my best with them and hope.  And sometimes the best I can hope for is to have a lot of fun doing it all.

And as much as I enjoy photography and writing, there is absolutely nothing that compares to going into a noisy bar, playing something completely unexpected and halfway through the piece realizing that all these people who were talking loudly had just stopped their conversation to listen to whatever crazy thing you’re doing up there.

I speak in public as part of my trade.  When in front of an audience, people are expected to listen and at least pretend to pay attention.  They’re generally there when they’ve paid to be so (when I teach) or when they need something from me (when I do tech training).  When I’m in a bar, no one’s got any obligation at all.  When they choose to turn attention to me as a musician, it’s their own intent to do so and done through desire and not necessity.  As Joshua Bell recently discovered, this isn’t an easy thing:

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he’s really bad? What if he’s really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn’t you? What’s the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

(When you’re done reading this diary,  go read the whole piece.  You will not be sorry.)

I want to explain this in no uncertain terms: to be able to get up in front of a group of people to inspire them isn’t just fun.  To say it’s a “gift” is a massive understatement.  It’s one of the things that gives my life meaning.

So how do I tie that all into activism?

It’s easier than you might think.

A friend of mine does a radio show called “Sometimes Live.”  It’s a simple show.  Two hours, once a week, including a discussion with local musicians and live performances. 

And the thing is, she’s very good at this.  She’s a vocalist, so she knows enough about music to have good conversations with musicians, but she also has a knack for interviewing people and her shows are a treat to listen to.  Her skills aren’t technical.  She’s just good at this.  So she does it.  For free.  Without expecting to ever get paid for it.

It’s not easy to produce a radio show, but it’s something she’s dedicated to doing because it promotes local artists and supports their work.  And, I suspect, it’s probably a lot of fun for her to do.

Think about how many lives are enriched through such a simple thing: taking one night a week to have a conversation and have people play good music.  It benefits the musicians.  We get free publicity.  It enriches the audience: they get to hear people they don’t normally hear.  It benefits the community:  it generates attention for local radio.

And it’s very straightforward.

How many of you live someplace with a community-based radio station?  How many of you live someplace with public access television?  These are tremendous resources.  You can use their equipment to film something inventive, produce it, with no cost to you other than your time, and just DO it.

Then you can put it on youTube and share it with all of us.

Never let anyone tell you that creativity can’t transform the world.  When you engage in creative pursuits, you change the world by changing you.

Back to the diabetes.

The diabetes was personally devastating.  It didn’t just affect my music.  It affected a great many other aspects of my life.  But it also transformed me and how it transformed my music was profound.  I don’t know that I ever would have been pushed to the creative explosion I experienced without having my ability to play challenged in the first place.  I don’t know that I would have become such an advocate for universal health care without the diabetes being a continual backdrop to my experience.

So I take this experience, this tragedy, and find ways to change it into something uplifting and profound.

And when I perform, I sometimes tell this story: about change, about transition, about transformation.  I don’t tell people “and this is why you need to fight for universal health care” because that shuts them out of the discussion.  I just tell them my story and give them the opportunity to draw the right connections.

So here I am, ostensibly someone with no power whatsoever: a short, fat, queer, diabetic who is easily ignored.  So I use what talents I have: music, photography, an innate stubbornness and a belief in myself as being awesome enough to have something relevant to say.  So I just do it. 

I’m not courageous.  If I thought this would cost me my job, I wouldn’t do it.  If I thought it would endanger me to talk about health issues or same-sex marriage or anything else, I’d probably back away or, at the very least, discuss everything using a pseudonym.  But I’m incredibly lucky: I support myself through contract work and that contract work isn’t going to go away based on my politics.  Not everyone can say that.

So I just do what I know and understand and love and enjoy and hope it makes a dent in things.  And I don’t know that it will.  For all I know, it probably won’t.  But art’s important to me and understanding that art benefits a community is important for me.  And because I’m one of the lucky ones, I can arrange performances without worrying about the money or the ticket sales, etc.  I just do what seems to be right and go with it.

And maybe I’m changing the world.  And maybe I’m not.

But I know I’m changing me.

And I’m doing my best to bring the rest of the world with me, whether you all know it or not.  And I’m doing it through something really simple:

I’m having fun and I’m doing it in public.

(NOTE: What follows is a 2 AM philosophical, semi-cathartic ramble. If you know what's good for you, you'll avoid it utterly and move on to another diary)

So, we're at about 36 hours past the Welch Trial meeting. From the blogs, the emails, the radio callers and the general hubbub, the reaction from what organizers chose to make an attempt at a public tarring and feathering (instead of going the dialogue route) has taken a pretty definite shape: people of all political persuasions are expressing dismay (and even disgust) at how Welch was treated, and are reflexing defending him in the face of what Freyne called “macho bullying.” As Julie said, Welch has, for the moment, been largely innoculated from criticism in the eyes of most of the public who follow these things (even though he does deserve criticism for many of his votes recently). Nice job guys.

Raise your hand if you saw that coming. 

It sounds like many participants are questioning the wisdom of the ambush-style format, but its organizers aren't having any of it. In fact, if you look at Colby's website, the new defensive bunker-spin is that they single handedly brought up the issue of the war which had fallen off everyone's radar (say what??) and are preemptively taking credit for Welch's likely upcoming vote against any war funding without a timetable (which he already signed a letter months back promising he would do).

Raise your hand if you saw that coming as well. It's all enough to make a behavioralist out of anyone. 

Between this display and the debate over whether or nor Anthony Pollina should run for governor, and whether he should run under the Democratic Party label, observers are getting an unusual, often uncomfortable display of the breadth and contradictory quality of the left in Vermont. It's not a pretty site. 

We all know the range of creatures inhabiting the leftist ecosystem. On the shallow end are the weeniecrats moderates. The folks who would've been comfortable in NBC's The West Wing, where inhabitants prove their no-nonsense smarts by being anti-union, anti-welfare, foreign policy uber-hawks who really think somebody should do something about global warming.

Then you get into the land of economic liberalism, where you find a bit more thematic consistency, but a potpourri of stand-alone issues and degrees of ideological commitment. Some are strongly pro-union, some can't decide whether to allow themselves to support labor or whether it makes them sound dated to do so. Some make serious lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon footprint, some just give money to others to do it on their behalf. Some smoke, some think smoking is the bane of the Earth. Some own guns, most would rather see them all pulverized. Some consider themselves Democrats, some Progressives and some Independents. Many on the far end of conventional in this group borrow from completely differing radical traditions, and as such have virtually nothing in common.

As far as the more radical set goes, Marxists and anarchists aren't beating the hell out of each other anymore, but they still agree on very little – and the cafeteria radical set that fills in the gaps (the folks who don't have any ideology besides being really, really pissed off – usually at people that really aren't like them) just pull bits and pieces from either tradition like many of us might try on new shoes.

All told, the full range of folks in the ecosystem agree on virtually nothing – except a distaste for the right. 

All of this is hardly anything new, which begs the question; is this the way it always must be? Is this ecosystem set in stone, and the rules around it – the same rules that made the Welch situation and its aftermath so tragically predictable – immutable? Are we all really just slaves to social behavioralism?

Maybe, maybe not. But if not, the deviation has to come not at the macro level, but the micro. A new quantum mechanics of political interaction.

Quantum mechanics describe the interaction of matter at the level of the individual particle, rather at the macro level of the humanly tangible. At the quantum level, different forces are at play and the rules of nature change.

A quantum politics would keep things at the personal level, rather than the institutional or group level (that's not to suggest there's anything wrong with groups or institutions, just that there's more to politics than what Party or social club you belong to). It would increase the urgency of ending the war by keeping the discussion in terms of real people, real casualties, rather than political calculus and conventional wisdoms. It would also demand that citizens deal with their elected officials as real human beings, rather than pretending they are dehumanized corporate automatons not deserving of fundamental respect and dignity. In a state like Vermont, there may well be few enough of us to sustain a quantum politics.

The quantum is inherently fuzzy, and doesn't mesh well with absolute, immutable rules and expectations. This quantum, personal politics may be the  only meaningful antidote to the political behavioralism our society so often seems enslaved to.

But you have to want it to work, as there are too many forces at play that drive us apart.

Rage, for one. . As John Lydon said, anger is an energy – and he was right. It's an important energy, but its a dangerous one. Unchecked, rage leads to hatred, and hatred destroys the interpersonal bonds of a quantum politics. And nobody is immune to rage. Rage fueled the most embarrassing elements on display at the Welch meeting, and by metastasizing into hatred, it made dialogue impossible.

For my part, I felt it in the post-event discussion. My own rage at being targeted by event organizer Michael Colby with a months-long campaign of intimidation, insults and lies, designed to drive me off the internet by targeting, not only me, but my employer and my family (both through his Snarky Boy website and behind the scenes) was easily tapped into on hearing reports from the event. It's a hard thing to look in the face, and even harder to control. Political behavioralism would suggest I can't.

Quantum politics demands that I do. 

Rage can't be denied, but it can be appropriately channeled. The problem is, it doesn't want to be. It wants to explode. Channeling it is hard work, and people create lots of easy ways to avoid having to do the hard work of controlling their impulses. Rage has it's own special way:

It's called zealotry. 

In a previous thread, I commented that the difference between an advocate/activist and a zealot is that an advocate/activist tends to see themselves as the smartest and most moral person in the room. The zealot, on the other hand, see him or herself as the ONLY smart or moral person in the room.

And if you're the only smart one, the only moral one – what is the point of making a personal connection? Those around you are lesser beings, fully deserving of all your righteous fury and everything it's capable of.

And the rage perpetuates itself by being a force for isolation. As an increase in heat equates to a breakdown of bonds at the atomic level, so does it's political counterpart break down the bonds at the social-political level. Soon the world becomes us and them, with the population of “them” growing in direct proportion to the level of zealotry. Everybody who's against you is in it together. Anyone not as pure as you is as guilty as the worst perpetrator. And the cycle goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

In this way, even the most intelligent people can spin wildly off into an intellectual neverland, all because their zealotry and rage prevent them from turning their intellect towards themselves. Prevent them from engaging in the most fundamental of intellectual exercises: an analysis of cause and effect, of action and reaction – of the simple social equations necessary to define goals and actually attain them.

If there's one word that gets abused badly, it's the word democracy. It's also that word the gets the most abuse from the zealot (on the left or the right). Democracy, in a nutshell, is the law of “you win some, you lose some.”

To the zealot, democracy is a holy word that only means the elevation of themselves and their agenda.  Democracy means only one thing: victory. If a democratic process leads to defeat, it couldn't have been true democracy. It must mean somebody cheated.

In this way, the zealot completely misses the most fundamental element of democracy; the element of persuasion. Of working to win hearts and minds. To the zealot, the hearts and minds that matter are already with him, and the others are part of the grand conspiracy (and should be silenced or ignored).

These people are depriving themselves of participating in the most extraordinary aspect of true democracy; its transformative nature.

I don't know whether or not we can break out of the three-steps-forward-two-steps-back politics of behavioralist psychology and move to something better. I'd like to think we can.

But what I'd really like to think is that we could at least give it a good try.