Sleeping Patterns of Successful People

That's what this piece from NPR's web site purports to show us. I'm not sure what their definition of "success" is exactly, but the report on sleep habits of the 21 people they select as owning that descriptor satisfies curiosity about "how the other half sleeps."

The group's average sleep times vary significantly. The late Winston Churchill got about five hours of sleep each night. President Obama sleeps from 1am to 7am each day, six hours. Virgin chief Richard Branson gets 5 to 6 hours of sleep every night. A few NPR looks at get the usually recommended eight hours of sleep at night.

From the article:

The average amount of sleep per night from these successful people is 6.6 hours.
How does that compare to those of us who are not world leaders or titans of industry?

Turns out, the difference is pretty negligible — the "successful" people get 12 minutes less than the average American. According to this 2013 Gallup poll, the average American gets 6.8 hours of sleep every night.

So it appears hard to link "success" to any particular sleep pattern. Both the successful people and the average Joes are getting less sleep on average than what experts typically recommend, which is seven to nine hours for adults...

I've always been a guilty night owl. I love getting up really early and being productive. But I also love to stay up late and seem to do so even when I've only gotten a small amount of sleep the night before. So, when push comes to shove, I more often stay up late than get up early, which I've never really liked about myself. It appears to be how I'm wired though, as is true with most of my siblings, though one goes to bed very early each night.

The article contains a few other interesting tidbits about all Americans' sleeping habits. Read the whole thing.

This Cracked Me Up

Well played, Mr. President.

'Robin Hood Obama?'

One day after the revelation of a videotape in which Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that the 47% of US taxpayers who did not pay income tax were dependent people who would not vote for him, an audiotape of President Barack Obama applauding "redistribution...at least at a certain level," has surfaced.

The tape is from an event that took place at Loyola University nearly fourteen years ago. Obama, careful in his phrasing, doesn't advocate a wholesale confiscatory redistribution of tax dollars. Nor is it clear that he's even talking about federal monies, as the other references are to local government agencies, which have separate taxing authority.

But the suspicions of many are bound to be aroused by any talk of redistribution of wealth, conjuring up images of Robin Hood taking from the rich to give to the poor.

And while that conversation will happen as a result of this audio's disclosure, I'm more interested in the underlying assumption behind most talk of redistribution.

While I've often addressed the dangers of materialism and consumerism (sinfully caught up in them as I may be as an American). But there is a school of thought that says that continuing economic growth, even if it allows more of the have-nots to enter the ranks of the haves, is both negative and unrealistic: Negative, because growth inevitably leads to environmental degradation, this school of thought says, and unrealistic, because the pie is only so big.

It's on this latter point that most talks of use of the tax code for resource redistribution often hinges: The belief that growth is inherently limited and that consequently, the job of government is to redistribute wealth.

In an article in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, Danish scholar Bjorn Lomborg shows that assumptions of the finitude of potential economic growth, first posited some forty years ago, are inaccurate. Human beings are very creative in expanding the overall economic pie, with new technologies, some of them both economically and environmentally friendly

Does Barack Obama believe in wealth redistribution through the tax code? What does he mean by that, if he does? And on what economic assumptions does he build if he does think the federal government should play Robin Hood?

These are all questions raised by the audio.

'The Bridge': Good Reading on Bridges, Roads, Highways, and Cul de Sacs

Early in our relationsip, my wife Ann and I, now married thirty-five years, made several important discoveries:

1. She likes to drive. I can take or leave driving.

2. I can read in the car. She can't do that without getting car sick.

Folks, for two people who love to read and go places together, that's perfect complementarity.

So, for years, we've had the same M.O. whenever we take trips, be they vacations or short jaunts: Ann slips in behind the wheel and I pop open a book to read to her. I couldn't even begin to calculate how many books we've read together this way through the years. But we've had lots of interesting conversations while learning together.

Just last week, we started out latest "car" book, one I picked up just last week at Costco: David Remnick's fascinating account of the life and rise to the presidency of Barack Obama, The Bridge. Remnick has done his homework, first tracing the life stories of the 44th president's parents: the cosmopolitan girl from Kansas and the promising scholar from Kenya who met and married while both were students at the University of Hawaii. We've read about the birth and the early, somewhat tempestuous years that Barack Obama, Jr. endured in Hawaii, Indonesia, and back in Hawaii again. We've read about the fall of Barack Obama, Sr. after his devastatingly disappointing return to Kenya.

Remnick's basic thesis is that Barack Obama audaciously claimed himself to be the generational heir and political expression of the hopes of the Civil Rights generation, one whose position was so secured by Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Andrew Young, and others, that he didn't need to be a black politician, but a politician who happens to be black. Obama claimed in a speech in Selma shortly after he announced his candidacy that he was a member of the Joshua generation, following the Moses generation of King, Lewis, Jackson, Young, and others into full citizenship in the United States.

Remembering his own courageous and bloody experience on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he was beaten for peacefully demonstrating on behalf of voting rights for all Americans, John Lewis has said that Barack Obama is what you get on the other side of the bridge. That's where the title comes from.

Remnick is an excellent and perceptive writer. I highly recommend this one!

[Click on 1 below, to find this book.]

Right or Wrong, This is to Be Admired About Policy Obama Announces Tonight

In the epilogue to his book, Presidential Courage, Michael Beschloss recalls that five years before being elected President, John Kennedy lamented that US politics had become "so expensive, so mechanized and so dominated by professional politicians and public relations men...[And further, because of] the tremendous power of mass communications, any unpopular or unorthodox course [aroused] a storm of protest." These conditions, Kennedy suggested, put a higher price on political courage than at any time in our country's history, with the prospects of political annihilation for those who showed a willingness to stake out different points of view becoming almost prohibitively high.

Some would argue that Kennedy may have believed more in political courage than he practiced it, especially when it came to civil rights, a cause about which he was either indifferent or tepid through most of his political career. But the forces Kennedy saw diminishing a political actor's willingness to chart a course irrespective of what opinion polls, focus groups, radio call-in audiences, special interests, or political operatives may tell them have not diminished in power or influence in the past fifty-four years. (The Internet and cable news, among other things were not part of the stew identified by Kennedy. But they have made his insight even more acute.)

Truth be told, the US electorate has a schizophrenic attitude about political courage. We want, so we say, for our political leaders to have backbone and to not make decisions based on the latest public opinion surveys, but on what's "right." These are the kinds of things ordinary voters say all the time.

Yet we also seem to want our leaders to be milquetoasts or automatons who mechanistically reflect our opinions, well-informed and otherwise.

This leads to 1984-style characterizations of popular pols as courageous, although their actions rarely buck popular opinion, and of politicians who dare to do what they think right as being weak, vacillating, or indecisive. You can supply your own examples for each category and if you're fair, I think you'll concede that examples of both inaccurate assessments run the political gamut. Our schizophrenia is reliably non-partisan.

No wonder political courage is so rare. And its rarity is part of what makes President Barack Obama's speech on Afghanistan tonight so important.

Whatever one's take on the strategy he will unveil this evening--I offer no opinion on that, he is displaying remarkable political courage.


That may not ring true to some at first. After all, the strategy the President will unveil tonight is consistent with what he said he would do during last year's presidential campaign, a campaign he won resoundingly. Obama said he would wind things down in Iraq. The real fight against al-Qaeda, he also said, was on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the fight would need to be ramped up. With those pledges as part of his platform, Obama was given the presidency.

But in the intervening time, a core constituency of the President's own party, liberal Democrats, have become disenchanted with any US presence in Afghanistan. And the American people have grown more restless to leave the Afghans (and the Pakistanis) to fend for themselves.

Some Republicans have claimed that Obama has been "dithering" on Afghan policy and some in the opposition party have said that Obama should not cut down on General Stanley McCrystal's troop level request.

Tonight, Barack Obama is going to tell a nation weary of war that we must undertake an increased burden in a nation where US personnel have been fighting and dying for eight years.

Give the President his due. This isn't just a hard speech to make; it was preceded by a tough decision made in spite of a clear understanding that, because nothing is a given in this life, the war could turn out badly. And, less significantly, it could make Obama a one-term president. The policy Obama announces tonight could scuttle all his lofty aims.

Yet, in the face of the opposition and the odds, Barack Obama, based on his discussions with military and civilian advisers, is forging ahead with his proposed escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

Whether Obama's decision turns out to be right or wrong, a success or a failure, he is exhibiting political courage.

How history will remember Obama's courage depends on how things turn out. The second line in Beschloss' book hints at that:

...throughout our history, at times of crisis and urgent national need, it has been important for Presidents to summon the courage to dismiss what is merely popular--and the wisdom to do that for causes that later Americans will come to admire.

The only political courage subsequent generations will admire, Beschloss seems to say, is that which results in what is perceived as success. No points are given for being courageously wrong. I want to disagree with that; courage should be counted as courage irrespective of outcomes.

Yet this is the high stakes game which Barack Obama is knowingly playing. The politician submits her or his life not only to the judgment of contemporary electorates, but of history. My personal experience is that most politicians like--sometimes love, sometime crave--being liked, affirmed, appreciated, cheered.

Courage for politicians happens when they risk losing votes and the adulation of history to do what they think is right.*

The President has little to gain and much to lose from the policy he announces tonight. Right or wrong, that takes courage.

*Actually, this is true for any leader. After twenty-five years as a pastor, I can tell you that it takes more courage to take a stand you know some will repudiate than to do anything that gains universal applause. But I also can say that, for all the turmoil taking a stand may cause, there is more inner peace and clarity of action when you go the courageous route. I have to also say that, for me, courage is something I draw from God and not any intestinal fortitude I may (or may not) possess.

The Psalm 109:8 Controversy

I'm a bit late on this, having just read about a religiously-themed slogan appearing these days on T-shirts, web sites, and bumper stickers. The slogan? "Pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8."


To those who don't dig any deeper, the words and Bible citation may be anything from laudable to innocuous.

But people taking the time to look up the passage are registering differing views, ranging from laughter to outrage.

Psalm 109:8, not among the Bible's most well-known passages, reads, "May his days be few; may another seize his position."

Seen in isolation, the encouragement to pray for the president linked with the verse citation, could be a clever call to pray for Mr. Obama to be a one-term president, the rough equivalent of a conservative talk show's host saying that he hoped Mr. Obama would fail. Taken this way, the slogan is nothing more than the exercise of free speech by opponents of the President.

But is something more sinister intended? After all, the election of Mr. Obama has seen a threefold increase in presidential death threats and the next verse of the psalm says:

May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow.

Of course, no one can peer into the souls of those who came up with the slogan. They may be innocent of the sentiments some see in their handiwork.

But those not familiar with the Bible might wonder what sentiments like those appearing in both verses are doing in a book which, at least in my Christian tradition, is seen as God's Word and is often called, "God's love letter to the human race."

The book of Psalms in the Old Testament is the ancient hymn book of God's people, the Jews. Many of its 150 worship songs are attributed to King David, as is this one. According to German Biblical scholar Artur Weiser, Psalm 109 is:

...an individual lament, prayed by a man who, if we understand the psalm aright, is accused of being guilty of the death of a poor man (v.6), presumably by means of magically effective curses (vv.17ff.). It can be assumed that the accusation brought by his adversaries at the trial...was one of sorcery, which was forbidden [by God] and liable to punishment...

The psalm then, presents the plea to God of a man, presumably King David, someone the Bible describes as a man after God's own heart, who believes himself guiltless of the crime of which he's accused, including his recitation of the false words spoken against him by his enemies.

The adversaries, David tells God, have called for "a wicked man" to be his accuser. Those same adversaries then call, in verse 8, for the man's removal from office and then, in verse 9, for his death.

As far as I'm concerned, even if the creators of the Psalm 109:8 slogan intended only to be funny in expressing their opposition to the President, they appear to be ignorant of the context, background, and actual meaning of the passage.

The sentiments, quoted by David, aren't those of commendable people of faith, but of people who oppose the will, Word, and justice of God. Psalm 109:8 represents the Biblically-condemned "prayers" or wishes of people who want to manipulate the justice system to condemn an innocent man.

Does any praying person really want to be in opposition to God in this way?*

Besides, there is sound Biblical reason for Christians to actually pray for their political leaders, even those they may see as opponents to Christians and the Church.

In the apostle Peter's first letter to the first-century churches of Asia Minor, a letter which is now part of the Bible's New Testament, he encourages believers to "honor the emperor." Unlike the sloganeers, Peter's exhortation comes without tongue in cheek, despite the fact that his letter deals with how Christians should respond to suffering and also persecution, some it no doubt at the hands of the governing authorities of the Roman Empire under which the early Christians lived.

If the sloganeers are aligning their prayers with the sentiments of those who, in Old Testament times, opposed God and King David, they're Biblically ignorant. More seriously, from my perspective as a Christian, they may be guilty of making light of God and of the gift of prayer in order to make a political statement.

If the slogan-makers really are maliciously and "subliminally" calling for prayers for the death of our President, they're worse than ignorant or impious.

I suspect that they're simply ignorant. In any case, I don't want the T-shirt.

*In Acts, the New Testament's history of the Church, starting from Jesus' ascension through about 65AD, Peter cites Psalm 109:8 in reference to Judas, whose betrayal of Jesus resulted in Jesus being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. When Peter does so, Judas is dead, by his own hand and, according to Peter, as a member of the inner circle among Jesus' disciples, a group of twelve known as apostles, needs to be replaced.

[TY to Policy in Practice for linking to the Monitor article.]

Good for Obama

Here.

Varied opinions in Europe...

on President Obama's decision against a land-based missile defense shield there. Western Europe finds the decision "reasoned." Eastern Europe deems it "naive."

"Can Obama's Big Speech Really Turn Public Opinion Around?"

That's the topic of historian George C. Edwards III's blog post over at History News Network.

Looking at presidents noted for their persuasive powers and legislative achievements, Edwards concludes that "the power to persuade" may be a bit overstated. I think that he's right.

Presidents (and other political actors) can persuade only as much as the moment allows. They can exploit and they can nudge, but they can't create consensus out of whole cloth. Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter, for example, both learned this.

Abraham Lincoln admitted to having been controlled by events. But, in spite of the seeming fatalism of that admission, Lincoln is remembered, rightly, as a great and decisive president. The point is that he understood his moment.

Even without achieving their most cherished of personal goals--as was the case with Ronald Reagan, presidents can achieve great things if they have the vision not to see ahead, but to see their worlds as they are during their times in office.

The bottom line for me is this: President Obama's health care speech tomorrow night may clarify some things; but it will have little to do with what I expect will be the ultimate outcome, congressional passage of a new health care plan. Passage will happen because, the polling suggests, Americans are ready for some of the individual components of the plan. It's a ripe historical moment and Obama seems to understand that.

A Great Message from the President of the United States to Our Young People

For all the drama that has preceded the speech that President Obama is scheduled to give to the students of our country tomorrow, the address itself turns out to be an entirely unexceptionable call to education, studiousness, responsibility, and love of country.

Under the Constitution, presidents aren't just political heads of government, they're also chiefs of state, meaning that they represent all of us, the sovereignty and interests of the entire country. It's in this capacity that presidents throw out pitches to open baseball seasons and recognize heroes.

It's also in this role that past presidents, like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, have spoken to children during their school days.

Thanks, President Obama, for a great message for our children. If just one kid hears it and takes its message to heart, it will have made a huge difference.

Here's the speech, care of Justin Gardner:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Five Leadership Lessons from Obama's Second Month in Office

I don't know whether Shaun Reins approves or disapproves of President Obama's performance as a leader during the the president's second month in office.

That isn't the point of this article from Forbes. In it, he analyzes Obama's second thirty day period as president for lessons, some positive and some negative, that other leaders, particularly in the business world, can use.

It's interesting, similar to the unbiased analysis of presidents-as-leaders I try to do here and at The Moderate Voice, not from a business perspective, but from the vantage point of a student of history and my own experiences with leadership.

I Want Obama to Be Successful

I just finished taking a course, Classics 401, at the Lancaster branch campus of Ohio University. The topic, daily life in ancient Rome, is one that I knew little about, quite honestly, and because Christ's life, death, and resurrection happened while his Judean homeland was a province of the Roman Empire, will help me in my preaching and teaching.

The final week's readings dealt with the role played by religion and philosophy in Rome, from the monarchy through the empire. As I reviewed for the exam, I ran across a piece written by a Christian who lived in the late-second through early-third century, Tertullian. He wrote in response to official persecution instigated by the Roman emperors:

On behalf of the safety of the emperors, we invoke the eternal God...We Christians are continually praying for all the emperors...We pray for the emperors a long life, a secure reign, strong armies, a faithful Senate, honest subjects, and a world at peace...God has said clearly and explicitly, "Pray for kings and princes and worldly powers so that your lives may be tranquil." For when the Empire is shaken, and all the other members of it are shaken, we, too, of course, although we are considered aliens by the crowds, find ourselves sharing some part of the disaster...[Tertillian, Apology, appearing in As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History]

A few weeks ago, with me hip-deep in parish work and other things going on in my life, I didn't comment when one prominent radio host said that he hoped that Barack Obama would fail as president.

I can understand why a person who disagrees with proposals from a president wanting those proposals to fail.

But from a Christian perspective, to want an entire presidency to fail is not only, as Tertullian wrote in the early third-century AD, contrary to simple self-interest, but also contrary to the will of God.

Governments, the Bible teaches, are instituted for the common good, necessities in an imperfect world. It's in the interest of all people that governments are successful in promoting the common good.

Whether it's ideologically correct or not, it's clear that Christians are called to hope...and pray...for the success of whoever happens to be president.

And so, I hope and pray that President Obama will be successful, just as I've hoped and prayed, since I became a Christian, that every president would be successful, as well as wise, judicious, courageous, and safe.

Mr. President: Less is More

A bit of unsolicited advice for President Obama: Reduce your number of public appearances.

Even before his turn on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, when he committed the first gaffe I remember coming from his mouth since he became a national figure in 2004, the President was at risk of being overexposed to the point of becoming background noise.

Mr. Obama is personally popular and the entire country has a stake in his success. But since the Thursday after he was elected last November, we have been hip deep in All-Obama-All-the-Time. No president in my memory has been so visible during the transition from election day to the White House.

And while it may be argued that the then-President-elect needed to assure a troubled nation facing a unique set of economic problems, Obama chose an entirely different path from that of another Democratic President-elect, Franklin Roosevelt, during a much lengthier transition, one that came at the height of the Great Depression, from his election in November, 1932 to his inauguration in March, 1933.

Roosevelt, in fact, refused overtures from the Hoover Administration to be more visible and publicly engaged, to present something of a united front on mutually agreeable measures for dealing with the economic crisis. Roosevelt, in essence, said what Obama said several times prior to his January inauguration, “We only have one president at a time.”

FDR’s ploy was surely marked by a degree of cynicism. But it also spared him the one thing any leader dreads having: responsibility without authority. The leader who is given responsibility without authority is far likelier to be blamed than to be praised. The moment a leader is perceived to take responsibility, the expectation develops that he or she will begin to exercise authority, even if they don’t have it. During his transition, Obama became the de facto leader of the nation without any presidential power. This underscores the significance of perception when it comes to being an effective leader.

All leaders—even those duly inaugurated—have only the power that others think they have. There are formal powers and informal powers that we give to our presidents. Formal powers are what the Constitution has given to every president, whether it was George Washington or Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln or Calvin Coolidge. But presidents are limited in what they can achieve, even in exercising their formal powers, by the informal power given to them. Informal power is rooted in a president’s relationships with the voters, Congress, the media, and so on.

Those relationships aren’t always enhanced by constant public appearances, which is something I’m not sure this president or his staff fully appreciates. The day before the President taped his appearance with Jay Leno, he spent a little time with what was called “Baracketology” on ESPN, making his picks for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Sandwiched between those two TV gigs were a couple ot town hall meetings in California.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of those activities. The President is the head of government and he’s helped in doing that by meeting with voters, whether in person or through the media. The President is also the head of state, like kings and queens and ceremonial presidents elsewhere, the living embodiment of the country. Getting out of Washington among the people is a gesture that helps unify us. George Washington himself was the first president to recognize this: He took a tour of all thirteen original states at the conclusion of the first session of Congress, about halfway through his first term.

But Obama might well heed the example of Roosevelt, In her book, No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin points out that over the course of his presidency, FDR averaged just two of his famed “fireside chats” per year. He opted for such a sparing use of the media on the theory, Goodwin says, that less was more. It still is.

Admittedly, the world of 1933 to 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt was president, was very different from the one of 2009. We live in a hypermediated world of instant communication. The reputations of public figures and their beliefs, even of private figures who someone decides to display on Youtube, can be marred and dismantled in a matter of hours.

So, the President and his handlers are well-advised to stay out front, in establishing and maintaining his image and promoting his agenda. The White House does well to help us see our president for ourselves, and to decide for ourselves what he’s like and whether he can be trusted, unencumbered by the uncomplimentary slants provided by character assassins acting as pundits, policy analysts, partisan political strategists, and late night comedians.

But successful presidents must strike a balance between presence and distance. There’s nothing inherently wrong with an appearance on Leno or with giving Jay Katz your NCAA picks. But the constancy with which President Obama appears on TV, risks turning him from a formidable political figure, which he clearly is, into a Leno, or a Stewart. There’s nothing wrong with those guys. But we didn’t elect the President to entertain us. We elected him to lead us.

Roosevelt struck the balance between presence and distance. His fireside chats were like homey conversations with a caring father, a person you loved but also respected, not very different from the “Father Abraham” image cultivated by Lincoln. Neither FDR nor Lincoln were much older than Mr. Obama is today when they first effected these images. Roosevelt was 51 when he became president. Lincoln was 52. So, Mr. Obama’s age need not be an impediment to enhancing his reputation as our national father figure.

Mr. Obama has an historic opportunity to be a president who does great things. But to get there, I think that he needs to learn the lesson of less is more. There will be times for public addresses, Oval Office speeches, and the occasional appearance on an unexpected television venue. But the impact of each such appearance and address will be enhanced by the President doling them out more sparingly.

"Welcoming" the New Administration

Certainly instability born of the disconnect between the Afghan government and its people to which President Obama alluded in his news conference several days ago is at play in a suicide attack on the Ministry of Justice in Kabul.

But there's another factor as well. The Taliban and their allies obviously also are welcoming the new administration in Washington, testing the new president's mettle, and sending a message that they haven't given up fighting.

The attack comes just before Obama's representative, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is scheduled to arrive in Kabul.

Just before that, a secular Pakistani legislator was killed by a bomb in the same city that Holbrooke was visiting at that very moment.

Of course, the attacks aren't meant not only to send a message to the new administration, which appears prepared to undertake the war in Afghanistan and the war on Taliban and al-Qaeda enclaves in Pakistan with new urgency, more troops, and greater firepower. The attacks are also meant to be a warning to Pakistanis and Afghans against collaboration with the United States in the fight against radical Islamist terror groups.

This all would seem to underscore the need for the US to pursue a policy akin to that used in Iraq during the recent surge. It was accompanied by efforts to pacify enemies and would-be enemies, often through the payment of what can fairly be described as protection money to local war lords. The pacification program also included frequent foot patrols and interaction with local populations, fostering trust and quelling enmity.

During the recent presidential campaign, now Vice President Joe Biden famously predicted that early on, his boss would be tested by international troublemakers. Biden didn't need to be a seer to say that. It always happens to new presidents.

But in consideration of this test, Obama may be inclined to look up from days filled with multiple crises and tell the Taliban, "Take a number." Unfortunately, he won't have that luxury.

Two Links

Charlie Lehardy talks about Barack Obama's inauguration.

Ivy shares a hymn written by a Lutheran pastor in commemoration of the new president's start.

Clarification: About Rick Warren

When it was announced that Rick Warren had been chosen to give the invocation at Barack Obama's presidential inauguration ceremonies on January 20, my first reaction was disappointment. My first pick was a colleague, admittedly a fantasy choice, but one based on the fact that he had prayed at a major Obama event before.

But I mentioned in that post that I liked Rick Warren.

In the intervening days, it's become clear that a lot of people don't like Rick Warren and for many different reasons.

I disagree with Warren on some things.

But for the past twenty years, I've been able to be a fan of Warren without being a fan of everything he says or does. Why?

1. He's a shrewd, insightful analyst of culture and human nature. Back in the early 90s, I listened to many of his sermons on tape. Theologically, there are often things I wish weren't missing in Warren's preaching; but there's also a lot of substance.

2. He's a brilliant communicator. Like the best communicators, Warren has an enviable capacity for distilling big ideas and truths in memorable phrases.

3. He's a fabulous leader. Warren understands the art and science of leadership.

Part of that can be attributed, probably, to the example he had in a father who was a pastor. Because pastors can't coerce those they lead, they, along with other not-for-profit sector leaders, are called upon to exercise leadership in its purest form. They must lead through persuasion and influence, hopefully undergirded by guidance sought from God through prayer. Pastors who try to coerce never amount to much as leaders. On the other hand, pastors who refuse to lead end up in the same boat. Warren no doubt observed both good and bad examples of leadership in his dad.

On top of that, Warren has been a student of leadership. One of his tutors, for example, was the leadership guru, the late Peter Drucker.

I've learned a lot about leadership from Warren. His monthly "Leadership Lifters" audiotapes back in the 90s, brought greater clarity to my thinking as a leader. Leaders in all fields would benefit from what Warren shared in them.

4. He understands the function, the purpose, of the Church. As the body of Jesus Christ in the world, the Church, especially the individual congregation, is commissioned to "make disciples" for Christ. The word disciple means student or follower. Belief in Christ isn't meant to be a stagnant, dusty idea stowed away in our brains, like a poem memorized for an elementary school play. The follower of Christ is meant to be a lifelong student of the Christ-way of life, following Christ to discover new ways to love God, love neighbor, share Christ with others, serve others in Jesus' Name, and to personally continue growing in our relationship with the God.

Warren explains this as well as anyone and has done so most memorably in two major books: The Purpose Driven Church (1995), in which he outlined a strategy by which churches can help people in the process of growing as disciples, and The Purpose Driven Life (2002), where he helps people answer, from a Christian perspective, what our purpose for living is.

As a Lutheran Christian, I have problems with some of what Warren has to say in these books. I don't think that we're driven, for one thing. I believe that we're called by a God Who, through the Holy Spirit, woos us, persuades us. This same God also frees us from the monkeys on our backs that often drive us. The Christian is liberated from the demands of sinful world in order to live as truly human beings.

I also, not surprisingly, disagree with Warren when it comes to his understanding of baptism. He sees it as a rite in which persons who have reached "the age of accountability" make a public commitment to follow Christ. Such commitments are great, of course; we Lutherans do the same thing in the Affirmation of Baptism (Confirmation, which usually happens around age 14) and in our weekly invitations to worshipers to confess their faith in such formulas as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. But, I believe, these are only our responses to what Christ has already done for us, first from cross and empty tomb and secondly, in Baptism, which is God's act of claiming us as children of God. That's why we Lutherans--and most Christians in the world--present infants for Baptism. It isn't that children can't turn away from God or the covenant of Baptism. They do and God gives that freedom to the baptized. But God will never renege on the claim He made on us in the waters of Baptism.

Yet, I find more that I agree with in Warren's writings on discipleship than I find disagreeable. That's why in my former parish, we became involved in reading and digging into The Purpose Driven Life as a congregation.

5. Warren has done much good to combat poverty and AIDs around the world. His work in Africa shames those who like to talk about combating injustice and promoting peace. Warren has been engaged in those tough, demanding pursuits.

There are also other areas in which I disagree with Warren. I won't go into those here.

I think that President-elect Obama was right when, in defending his decision to invite Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration:

"We're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common."

Those who portray Warren as a demon for his positions on homosexuality or a sellout for praying for the new president in January aren't paying attention to the whole person. His positions--theological and political--aren't driven by hatred. Nor, in being part of the Obama inauguration, is he endorsing abortion as a form of birth control.

His critics could learn a little tolerance.

I was actually pulling for my buddy, Glen VanderKloot...

But Rick Warren will give the Invocation at Barack Obama's presidential inauguration. VanderKloot, the inspiring, humble, intelligent pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois, whose daily emailed inspirations I often share with readers of my blog, gave the invocation at the big rally with Obama and his then-newly announced running mate, Joe Biden, held at the old Illinois State House on the Saturday before the Democratic National Convention. I had hoped that Mr. Obama would ask Pastor VanderKloot to perform the same duties on January 20. But I like Warren, too.

Obama as Person of the Year: Predictable and appropriate...

as noted here and here on November 26.

Is There Any Chance That Obama Won't Be TIME's 'Person of the Year'?

There must be some years when being part of the editorial crowd charged with selecting the "person of the year" at TIME magazine live in happy confusion: a lack of clarity created by a swirl of candidates for being named the person (or planet, or group of people, or machine) which "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

In some years, TIME's editors have used the choice to highlight trends that weren't led or catalyzed by a single individual. That was true in 1950, when undoubtedly unimpressed with the commander-in-chief, TIME's "man" of the year was The American Fighting Man. Also selected through the years have been: Hungarian Freedom Fighter (1956), US Scientists (1960), The Generation Twenty-Five and Under (1966), The Middle Americans, to whom then-President Richard Nixon pitched his "Silent Majority" appeals (1969), American Women (1975), The Computer (1982), The Endangered Earth (1988), The Whistleblowers (2002), The American Soldier (2003), and The Good Samaritans (2005).

Interestingly, only named people received the honor from 1927, its inaugural year, to 1955. The fact that groups of people, a planet, and a machine have been named so frequently in the past fifty-one years is probably, in part, the journalistic reflection of a recent trend in the teaching, writing, and presentation of History: a move away from the once-prevalent "great man" (or great person) theory that held that all history is really told in the biographies of great leaders toward a greater interest in the lives of ordinary people throughout history. Yet, it's undeniable that some people both lead and reflect their times and really do come close to approximating that person who, for better or worse, has most influenced events in a given year.

It's that "or worse" part that has often brought TIME criticism. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin (twice), Nikita Krushchev, Deng Xiaoping (also twice), Ayatollah Khomeini, and Yuri Andropov, each despots, have received the recognition. But TIME has never claimed that all of their selectees were good people, just significant people.

Winning presidential candidates have often been selected by TIME. That makes sense and never more so than this year. President-elect Barack Obama seemed to capture imaginations with his call for "change" and his status as the country's first African-American president signifies that the sin of racial prejudice is being, at long last and still slowly, exorcised from our country.

So, is there any chance that Barack Obama won't be TIME's Person of the Year?

Only if TIME is anxious to prove that the media isn't "in the tank" with Obama, an allegation which even ardent Obama supporters among my acquaintance believes is true.

Still, who else has as clear a claim to the recognition than Obama?

Had she been part of a winning ticket, Sarah Palin would have been hailed as the savior of neoconservatism. But she and John McCain lost. She wasn't a big influence on events.

Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson played huge roles in securing the $700-billion bailout package from Congress, but its effects are as yet unknown. Who knows what influence their leadership in the face of the financial crisis will provide?

What about the big mortgage lenders, some of whom went down the tubes in 2008? Well, an argument can be made that they have had the biggest influence (for the worst) on events this past year. (Along with a federal government that, for years, refused to regulate subprime loans or the bundling of same for share-sales on Wall Street.)

You could also make a case for last year's winner, Vladimir Putin. He got his handpicked successor elected as president of Russia and installed himself as prime minister. He's still leading his country in fact, if not in title, pushed a war in Georgia, and has signaled his desire to cause continued mischief in the coming year.

But, unless they're feeling curmudgeonly, TIME's editors will pick Obama as Person of the Year.

Come January 20, Obama may not think too highly of the honor, though. He's apt to feel like the man in one of Lincoln's stories. "You have heard the story, haven't you," Lincoln asked, "about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk."

(See here and here.)

Scowcroft, Obama, and Foreign Policy Realism

Brent Scowcroft, National Security advisor to George H.W. Bush, has always been an advocate of foreign policy realism as opposed to the younger Bush's impositionalism. Now, we learn, Scowcroft has not only mentored several of President-elect Obama's counselors, but has also been counseling the incoming president directly. See here.

For background, see my essay from three years ago, Foreign Policy Over Burritos and Tacos.