To the US Athletes competing in the 2008 Olympics, we love you.  Make us proud.  Unfortunately, your organizing committee is making us ashamed.

Recently, one of my favorite local wineries, Olympic Cellars, a jewel of the Olympics (the mountain range, that is) was harrassed by the United States Olympic Committee, citing a violation of the 1998 Ted Stevens Act.

According to the act, 36 U.S.C. Sec. 220501, businesses located in the Olympics (again the mountain range) may use the term “Olympic” in their business names, but must do business locally.  So, when Olympic Cellars takes to the Internet to sell their wine, they are in volation of the Ted Stevens Act.

Yeah, that Ted Stevens.  They guy who never met a bribe he didn’t like and author of the “personal Internet“.

The 1998 Ted Stevens act is a revision of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, and establishes a monopoly for the US Olympic Committee.  This act simply needs to be repealed or amended in such a way that limits the monopoly to sports and/or sports references.  Think about it.  If Olympic Cellars was touting themselves as “official wine of the Olympics” that would be a problem.  But they are not.  They are marketing their “Working Girl Wine.”  Leave them alone.  And respect our mountains.

The USOC needs a swift kick in the rear.  They need to stop pestering small businesses and start doing useful work, like, say, keeping the US Basketball team from blowing up again.  Bring it back to the athletics.  That’s what the Olympics are about.  Sure, sell the sponsorships and licensing arrangements that allow our athletes to train in the best facilities.  And protect your image from being damaged or cheapened by imitators.

Speaking of which, does anybody want to wager how much counterfeit Olympics merchandise will be sold just outside of Olympic Village in Bejing???  Or on the Internet from counterfeit merchandisers?  What are you going to do about that, USOC?

I came across this article about Elisabeth Hasselbeck breaking down on The View when talking about Jesse Jackson’s use of the ‘n’ word.

Whoopi Goldberg had been ripping into Elisabeth, with fire support from the Barbara Walters, which is not too unfamiliar a situation.  Whoopi explained that “we don’t live in the same world” and contends that we have no idea what it is like to struggle.  I have to agree - there are latent bits of racism still in our great nation, and even though we have come a long way, there is still a long way to go. I’ve had plenty of privilege in my life, so I can’t relate. But I can empathise. And I can love. And that’s more than can be said for Whoopi Goldberg.

So get this - Whoopi Goldberg, sipping her water and feeling free to publicly lambaste anybody who disagrees with her, pulls out the fact that her mother couldn’t vote when Whoopi was a little girl.  Please, Whoopi, can you look in the mirror and see where you are?  With your millions of dollars, A-list status, status on The View, you feel entitled to hate because your mom couldn’t vote?!

Please, be serious.  Yes, our history of oppression of minorities is awful, and a huge black mark on what is otherwise a great nation (and let’s remember oppression of all minorities here, including Native Americans during westward expansion and Japanese oppression during World War II).  But really, there is just no excuse for the hatred and pain the Whoopi brings on.

It just makes me sad.  I genuinely wish there was something we could do to make hatred and racism go away completely.  I wish that everybody could judge each other “based on the content of our character” and treat everybody with equal respect, while also respecting our varied family histories.  But I don’t have a magic wand.  So it has to begin with me.  And with you.  And anybody else who is truly willing to make a commitment to stand for real love and real equality.

So, Whoopi, say it with me:

• I will love everybody equally.
• I will give respect to all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, political views, IQ or anything else.
• I will respect myself enough not to utter words of hate, or even words that are perceived to be hateful.
• Still, I will speak the truth, even when it is painful.  This is part of loving and respecting others.
• I will not let my own experience or family history keep me from doing these things.  That is the coward’s way out.
• I will be honest with myself, and when I struggle to love and respect, I will acknowledge it and do everything I can to overcome it.

I was fortunate to be allowed to conduct training in Hong Kong and Tokyo last week. I departed Seattle on Friday, December 14 and returned Saturday, December 22.

Photos from the trip are here.

It was a very interesting trip. The training went well, and everybody was very friendly. Hong Kong was easier to navigate because more people spoke English. But Tokyo was very interesting, and the people were extremely friendly. One person in Tokyo even walked me a couple of blocks to a restaurant that I was trying to find!

All in all, it was a good trip. I wasn’t able to do much sightseeing because of the schedule, but was able to see enough to get a taste of what life is like in each country. Both Hong Kong and Tokyo have a Disneyland (but I didn’t have time to visit either)!

My favorite band, Skillet, is coming out with their new album, Comatose, on October 3. I pre-ordered the album, and just finished listening to the album, thanks to the one-time audio stream that you get when you pre-order (I also ordered the signature edition CD and T-Shirt).

This album is awesome. A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Spirit-filled - from quality lyrics to just plain great music. I mean, this is great music. Terrific chords, memorable choruses and melodies, incredible instrumentation, all wrapped around Skillet’s true-faith-in-the-real-world message.

So now my 1-time stream is done and I’m already going through withdrawals. I guess I’ll have to wait until I get the CD on the 3rd. God speed the shipping!

I’ll see if I can find an MP3 of Rebirthing that I can share here, otherwise, go to Skillet’s MySpace Page (http://www.myspace.com/skilletmusic) to listen to it. Even if you’ve never heard Skillet before - even if you’re not into rock at all - it’s worth listening to.

It’s been a full and fun summer, with lots of good things for the family and me.

Some quick highlights:

• Started work at a new job
• Went camping three times - twice at Mt. Rainier, once near Cle Elum
• Took Emy on her first camping and hiking trips - Emy loves the outdoors, more about this later!
• Watched Emy learn to crawl, say “mama” and “dada”, and begin to pull herself up on the furniture

And now fall is fast approaching.  We’ll probably go camping once or twice more before the weather turns to Seattle gray, but we’re already looking forward to the change of season and a return to the typical routines.

Thank you to everybody who prayed for my career direction and who gave Colleen and I words of encouragement.

I’m happy to report that I accepted a job offer from an Internet company to be an Online Operations Manager, trafficking advertisements for the company’s clients and monitoring the web site’s traffic.

I am very excited to be starting the new job on Monday, and I hope to be a great asset to the team. During the interview process, I gained a strong liking and respect for the people on the team, and an enthusiasm for the company and its business model. This seems to be the kind of place where I can grow while contributing to the success of the company and my co-workers.

It will certainly be different than running our own business, but it is a lifestyle change that I am very much looking forward to.

Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement!

In my last post, I promised to follow Red Skelton’s lead and write a post for each word or phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I. Me. A committee of one”

Our nation has always been a champion of liberty and individual rights. Yes, sometimes in the past we’ve gotten some things wrong in action; but liberty and the individual have always been valued in principle. That’s why we have been able to straighten our path when we have wavered from valuing the individual.

That our nation values liberty is nothing new. In fact, I have heard the complaint that our emphasis on liberty and individual rights has gone so far as to infringe on society at large. In many cases, I believe this to be true. But the problem is not our value of liberty.

Rather, I think that these cases emerge when we forget that we have certain responsibilities along with our certain rights. Here are a couple of these responsibilities.

The Harm Principle

The most basic of these responsibilities is to limit one’s action to that which does not adversely impact others. John Stuart Mill developed this idea, called the Harm Principle, in On Liberty:

“The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.” (On Liberty, chapter one)

Perhaps a better way of describing the harm principle is the old cliche, “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.”

Either way, the most basic need of civil society is to be free from being harmed by others. In liberty-valuing societies, this responsibility is primarily put upon the individual, and laws reinforce that responsibility. In societies the do not value liberty, government enforces that responsibility through strict rule.

In America, it is my responsibility to keep my actions from harming others. This presents the interesting case of offensive speech and behaviors in public areas (i.e. smoking, political speech, religious practice) - I will save this topic for a future post.

Duty to contribute to society

While John Stuart Mill speaks of the obligation of not harming others, I add another responsibility to the individual participating in society:

Every man or woman has the duty to contribute their talents to society at large, no matter what the skill nor degree.

Every person on this planet has been endowed with a unique set of skills and talents. We all have the duty to hone our skills and put them to good, constructive use in the service of others. This may sound very utilitarian at first, but I define “service of others” very broadly.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Harold Whitman

My duty to my community is to come alive with my skills and talents. When I am fully alive, my community will benefit as a result of it.
It doesn’t matter what your gift is, or how many people are impacted by it. It doesn’t matter what job you have, or what you do in a volunteer capacity. What matters is that you come alive and share that life with whoever you feel you should share it with. If you do this, you will be a happier, stronger person, and you will be helping build a happier, stronger community.

Our great nation values liberty and gives us freedom like few other nations on Earth. Out of gratitude for this liberty, and to preserve and build upon it, we have the responsibilities not to harm others, and to contribute by coming alive.

Today we celebrate a lesser-known, but very important holiday: Flag Day. On June 14 of every year, we celebrate the symbol of our nation: the American Flag, Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes.

I’m a bit embarrased to admit that I forgot about it until I heard a radio commentator talking about it this evening while I was driving home from a meeting. The radio host played an old Red Skelton clip talking about the Pledge of Allegiance. I think it’s worth sharing.

[audio:redskelton_pledge.mp3]

It’s been suggested that I write about politics at fossumfamily.org, and I’ve resisted it because I feel that our political climate has become so toxic that I’ve wanted to stay away from it. But starting now I’m breaking that silence. I will write about politics.

But I’m going to do it differently than one might typically write about politics. You see, it’s easy and popular to write about the topics of the day, what you see in the news, about the specific policies and debates going on in Congress and in society. Often this type of writing is divisive rather than uniting.

I think that we have, as a society, largely forgotten about the principles that we believe in. So I’m going to write about principles, not policies. Maybe later I’ll write about policy, but for now I’m going to stick with principles.

You see, I think that it’s important that we remember our principles when we think about or discuss politics. It is important to remember the principles to bring us together - such as the ideal that America is a place where we can agree to disagree. It is also important to remember the principles that we believe in that are different from other Americans. It is most important that we contribute our thoughts and opinions in a constructive way that enhances the Marketplace of Ideas that makes our nation great.

It’s not just our differences that make us great, it is our ability to come together to discuss and appreciate diverse points of view - not just with a postmodern, morally relative “I’m fine, you’re fine” attitude, but with the intent to become better informed and to seek Truth. In some cases our discourse is inconclusive, and we may agree to disagree. In other cases, we may arrive at an agreement. What makes us great as a society is the discernment to know when to agree and when to disagree. When we lose our ability to discuss and debate in a civil manner, we lose that which makes us great.

So, for my next few posts, I’ll follow Red Skelton’s lead and comment on each word or phrase in our Pledge of Allegiance. My hope is that readers at fossumfamily.org will be encouraged to come together with each other, no matter what your political persuasion or spiritual faith, to build a better community with a spirit of cooperation, tolerance and love of our neighbors.

You’ll undoubtedly learn more about my own political persuasions and spiritual faith. I hope that as I write that you’ll remember that I am only one person, imperfect in my understanding, but with a solid commitment to making my small corner of the world a better place by speaking the truth as I understand it and with the humility to listen to and consider both affirming and opposing views.

Indeed, I live in a great community, in a great state, in a great nation!

I guess I’m chatty tonight, but I had to say something when I read that the Mariners swept the Angels this weekend. This prompted me to look at MLB standings, which I normally don’t even pay attention to until about three quarters through the season, and certainly not with just under 65 games played.

But what I discovered shocked me to my toes. Maybe I should be following MLB more closely, but it seems to me that these things could be precursors to Armageddon:

• Mariners pull ahead of the Angels in the AL West after sweeping them at home. This puts them in third place in the division, with the Angels in last.
• The best record in baseball belongs to the Detroit Tigers, followed closely by the NY Mets
• Neither the Braves, nor the Twins, nor the Indians are playing .500 ball…
• … but the Blue Jays and almost everybody in the NL West are.
• The Royals aren’t just playing bad ball, they’re playing historically bad ball. If this were lowball poker, I’d be rooting for them in a big way.
• And Seattle has a Super Bowl contender in the Seahawks! (Colleen astutely points out that this has nothing to do with baseball, but read on…)

Just about the only thing keeping me from digging a fallout shelter in the backyard is the memory of Super Bowl XL. As disturbing as it was to have the officials rob us of a title, it is reassuring to know that all is truly well, and Seattle sports ain’t gettin’ no respect…

Either way, maybe this baseball season is worth watching! And for Marcy and Brandon, “Go Cards!”

At the end of April 2006, I went to a weekend Men’s Advance at Wildhorse Canyon (a Young Life camp). We call it an “advance” because we’re advancing instead of retreating. It was kind of a fresh way of looking at things.
I haven’t written about it until now because, a) fossumfamily.org hadn’t been re-launched yet, and b) I’m still processing stuff that I learned over the weekend. For now, I’ll just say that it was a life changing (or maybe better, a life affirming) experience.

I’ll get deeper into it over the coming days and weeks, but one of the fun highlights of the weekend was the chance to go on the zip line. Rather than try to describe it, here’s a video of me going down it. Thanks to Steve for the videography using his digital camera. I’m the one screaming like a train. You can’t see much at first, but look for “splashdown” about halfway through it (it’s a 26 second clip).

Aaron rides the zip line

To give some perspective, here’s a couple of guys going down the zip line as seen from the top (also a 26 second clip). Again, look for splashdown about halfway through the clip.

Zip line from the top

You can learn more about Boot Camp NW at www.bootcampnw.com