Ashton Kutcher Paving the Way for Celebrity in the 21st Century

It's not very often I post anything about celebrities as I find the glitter and sparkle of Hollywood the most boring thing in the world. I'd rather stare into space, bored out of my mind, than open up People Magazine. However, every once in a while, a celebrity intrigues me because he's not like all the rest.

The first time I ever saw Ashton Kutcher, he was in his underwear, hosting Saturday Night Live. I then saw a couple episodes of Punk'd and concluded, rather unfairly - I've yet to see one of his movies - that although entertaining, he was just another empty-headed, pretty boy from Hollywood.

Upon hearing of his relationship with his current wife, Demi Moore, as chauvinistic as this will sound, it intrigued me... somewhat. Although, Demi Moore is gorgeous, could pass for 30-years old, and men of all ages find her extremely attractive, I wondered why a man in his twenties, who could have any "girl" he wants, would go for someone so much older. Of course, if Demi were the male and Ashton, the female, I wouldn't have thought twice.

Fast forward to post election, and one day, while I was busy doing something else, I had Real Time with Bill Maher on in the background. I heard Kutcher articulate something I was thinking earlier, and as enamored as I am with my own thoughts (as this blog proves), I immediately tuned in and was impressed with what he had to say.

Some of Ashton Kutcher's quotes from that show:

Regarding whether churches should have to pay taxes:

"I think it should depend on the philanthropic nature of the organization. If they can show that what it is they do is a philanthropic act, then I think they should be exempt, and if they can't, then they shouldn't have to pay the taxes."

Couldn't agree more. For example, the Catholic Church...yes, with all its gold, is also the biggest form of universal health care in the world. Not to mention, all of the other altruistic projects the Church gets involved in that would otherwise be ignored by the rest of world.

Regarding what the U.S. could potentially cut:

"Let's stop sending things to Mars...There are thousands of children sold into the sex slave trade every single day..."

Regarding the "big three" bailout:

"You know who should bail them out, the oil companies...the only reason they're in decline is their allegiance to oil companies, and there are some folks on (I think he said Wall Street) that could pitch in as well"

Best idea ever!

Then, a few months later, I discovered him on Twitter and qik, where he basically lets the world get a glimpse of his reality, on a pretty regular basis. He also uses Twitter to collaborate with his followers, as he does when he asks for ideas, and occasionally, he will post what he's reading as he did in this tweet:

# latest winner i've read is a book called Natural Capitalism by paul hawken, amory lovins, l. hunter lovins. recommend per econ. recovery 8:54 PM Feb 3rd from web

# gonna start a new book tonight. the end of poverty by jeffrey sachs. very excited 8:50 PM Feb 3rd from web

These simple tweets prompted some to accuse him of claiming he's an expert on economics. What? All he did was recommend a book for consideration in order to recover the economy...two very good books, I might add.

It's not that Ashton Kutcher has transformed himself into a Gandhi like figure. He's still the same guy who likes to have fun. Sometimes, as on Punk'd, his fun is at the expense of someone else, but never in a mean-spirited way. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for others. In particular, Perez Hilton, who takes pleasure in delivering his blows way below the belt - no, not those kind of blows - attacking people who have not willingly entered the world of celebrity.

In response to Hilton's invective against his stepdaughter, which I won't repeat, Kutcher could have stooped to his level with an equally cruel attack, but he did not. Rather, he asked Hilton to leave his stepdaughter alone. Despite his more than reasonable approach, Kutcher, not Hilton, as far as I know, was criticized.

I fully realize that Ashton Kutcher does not need me or anyone else to take up his "cause"and that unfair assessment is par for the course of celebrity. Nevertheless, when someone who seems to be trying to take advantage of his position in life to better humanity, rather than remain in a self-absorbed cocoon, preoccupied only with what's best for them - like I would do if I were a celebrity - treated unfairly by the press, I think it's wrong no matter how much money and fame the person has.

The bottom line is there is more to that pretty face than meets the eye. Ashton Kutcher is actually very insightful and a very intelligent guy. Moreover, he seems to care about issues that will affect all of our lives, and he doesn't take himself all that seriously. While it's true there are many celebrities like him in that respect, the thing that differentiates him is his willingness to cross the great divide that places celebrity on a pedestal for others to worship from afar.

So, just as Craig Newmark is one of the few examples of a corporate leadership who is paving the way for 21st Century America, Ashton Kutcher is one of the few celebrities willing to sacrifice some of the allure - which can translate to power - that makes a star, a star, in order to collaborate and share his own humanity with his fans while trying to make the world a better place.

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The Last Three Decades of Swag Flag.

In The Sopranos episode, "Luxury Lounge" the morally obscene world of mobsters juxtaposes the meaningless existence of Hollywood swag, when Christopher goes to Hollywood to make a movie. While there, actor Ben Kingsley introduces him to the "goody bags" celebrities receive just for showing up, and he is overcome with envy and mugs Lauren Bacall for her $35,000 swag bag.

In a nutshell, the juxtaposition and intertwining of these two worlds, in this episode, is what America has become in the last three decades. The celebrity "swag bag" — the most prestigious of "bags" can total $100,000 — epitomizes our paradoxical system that rewards greed and punishes need. Showering thousands of dollars of products on people who can afford to buy the items 100 times over makes little sense when over 45 million, mostly working Americans, go without or must ration the essentials, yet this is the way our system is designed to operate.

"Picking through $35,000 gift baskets is disgusting and shameful. My suggestion was to have the Academy commit to [charitable] contributions in the name of the winners." - Edward Norton

The "swag bag" is symbolic of what occurs everywhere in our culture. People who truly need basic necessities - food, shelter and health care - must navigate through an incredibly punitive system just to obtain, what amounts to crumbs, while those of us in society who need the least - working mostly in white-collar environments - have access to free food and stuff on an ongoing basis. Most meetings, seminars, receptions, training, etc. that take place fairly consistently in a white collar atmosphere, usually include at the very least, free food, and the higher up the ladder the more of those type of events one attends, and the better the food and freebies.

On the other hand, lower income areas, many times do not even have access to grocery stores, hence little if no access to fresh produce and healthy food. Not only that, if they do need assistance, they must conquer countless bureaucratic stumbling blocks, making their way through a maze of paperwork and red tape.

While it's true that American hunger - food insecure more accurately describes hunger in America as it refers to the inability of people to obtain sufficient food for their household, and recurring food insecurity and involuntary lack of access to food can lead to malnutrition - is not on the scale of third world countries, many Americans often times must choose between food and rent; food and health care, etc. If healthy food is available, and that's a big if in some areas, it's more costly, forcing many to purchase highly fattening food with very little nutrition, if any, hence the obesity problem so prevalent in lower income areas. Of the 36.4 million Americans, including 12.4 million children, only 10% of that total are on welfare.

As actions speak louder than words, we believe Paris Hilton deserves the 30 swag bags of bling she supposedly took from Sundance more than children deserve to eat healthy food. Why? Because she's entitled, as are so many undeserving Americans who are either born into the right family, or are ruthless enough to climb to the top, or just plain lucky. Obviously, there are many talented and deserving Americans who have "made it" to the top, who understand that they did not get there all by themselves, as well.

Overall, our society punishes the truly needy, as if they deserve their plight, and until deep structual change takes place, the rich will keep getting richer and the poor, poorer because our system is designed to make it happen that way.

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Stimulus, Stabalizer, Spineless or Strategy?

While many conservatives complain President Obama's stimulus package is far too costly, many liberals complain Obama's stimulus package does not go far enough. At the insistence of Republicans, President Obama, in the spirt of bipartisanship and unity, has pared it down even more.

Although the stimulus package sounds like a huge sum of money, relatively speaking, it "only" amounts to approximately 2% of of America's $15 trillion GDP. Economist Paul Krugman says, "Obama’s economic policy should be bolder, not more cautious than FDR’s economic policy" and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs calls the stimulus package a "fiscal pinata" in his article, The Stimulus is a Fiscal Straitjacket.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, said, Roosevelt was "too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted," and that if anything, Roosevelt didn't go far enough.

Others have said the following regarding the potential of the stimulus package :

"The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq. And one of the things, if we're going to talk about spending, I have a problem with is when we leave out that extraordinarily expensive, damaging war in Iraq, which has caused much more harm than good, in my judgment.

And I don't understand why, from some of my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping somebody get health care, that's -- that's wasteful spending, but that war in Iraq, which is going to cost us over $1 trillion before we're through -- yes, I wish we hadn't have done that. We'd have been in a lot better shape fiscally. -- Barney Frank

"But when I look at it in its entirety, I fear that we may soon look back and say that we missed a huge chance to go bigger and bolder. After all, there were three flaws with the old economy that has crashed:

1. It favored consumption over production
2. Debt over smart savings;
3. Environmental damage over environmental renewal.

Some parts of the stimulus package seem to be more of the same -- trying to prop up the old, failed economy. That strategy simply won't work -- but we could waste a lot of money and time trying. Instead, we need a new direction for our economy. You can't jump halfway across a chasm -- you just end up falling into the abyss." -- Van Jones, author of The Green Economy

"First of all, there's a question of magnitude. The overall stimulus is about 6 percent of GDP. We did not exit the Great Depression without a stimulus that amounted to about 25 percent of GDP -- we called that World War II... The second problem is with the mix... Only $335 billion worth goes to job creation -- that's about 3.5 million jobs, about $100,000 a job. Three-and-a-half million jobs is only two percentage points on the unemployment rate. That's not enough. I would get rid of the tax cuts and use the entire package for job creation... There are lots of great public works projects that would be well worth supporting. And, in the near term, what about CCC-type activities that put people to work right away, cleaning up public parks, weather-stripping homes, offices, schools, government buildings?" -- Rick Levin, Economics professor and President of Yale

"I am not suggesting that the United States start a world war in order to solve the world's economic problem. But I am suggesting a strategy that could be called the fiscal equivalent of war.

It would consist not merely of updating or repairing the nation's infrastructure, but in undertaking massive new investments that would expand the scope of American industry, and address other urgent problems in the process: global warming, over-reliance on petroleum, and the need to revive America's domestic manufacturing capabilities—not just to provide jobs, but also to provide tradeable goods that can reduce the country's current account deficit." -- John Judis article, Not Doing Enough from the New Republic

With so much at stake, it's natural to criticize and speculate that President Obama might be wasting a crisis or, a ripe opportunity to act; or that he is failing to take advantage of the leverage he currently has; or that politics should not enter into his economic decisions; or that we should stampede rather than tiptoe, etc. However, to be fair, we should also consider the possibility that President Obama might be one step ahead of all of us.

Abraham Lincoln, who President Obama more than admires, was a man who connected the dots, as Joe Biden once said was so important. Rather than a quick study, Lincoln was a deep study, as he considered every side of the question. James M. McPherson author of Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief said, as a lawyer, Lincoln's strategy was to focus on the main point, conceding minor points to his opponent, therefore lulling them into a false sense of complacency. Lincoln reserved the main point, on which the entire case turned, to pounce.

In addition, according to McPherson, President Lincoln forced the hand of the Confederacy, rather than start the war himself. This gave him the upper hand by providing him with a united North, due to his reasonable actions.

In the same way, isn't it possible that President Obama might be taking a page out of President Lincoln's book, so to speak? At first he tries to resolve the issue at hand - the economy - in a reasonable and cooperative manner, in hopes that his opponents will respond in the same way. Fully realizing his opposition may snap the extended "olive branch" in half, his initial peace offering should be enough to unite the people behind him, thus giving him the fresh impetus required to tackle the structural changes that must take place for our economy to function in the 21st century.

After all, look at Obama's choice for White House chief of staff: Rahm Emanuel, the pitbull politician...the killer strategist.

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Like Fighting Off a Hungry Tiger With Two Sticks.

As funding falters, shelters and soup kitchens across the nation are reporting as much as a 50% increase in applications for their services since 2007. Demand is sharply up at soup kitchens, and people are seeking emergency shelter and sadly, more are being turned away.

In a report published in December, 330 school districts identified the same number or more homeless students in the first few months of the school year than they identified in the entire previous year.

Joel Berg, calculated, in his book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America what would happen if we doubled the charitable food donations in America - 200% . The number of hungry Americans would decrease from 36 million to 32 million. In addition, Berg says a 10% increase is much more realistic and even that is considered too high.

In other words, relying on the private sector, charitable funds, foundations, or institutions to fight off America's growing "hunger" is like...well, it's like fighting off a hungry tiger with two sticks.

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Will the Arrest of One Curtail the Diabolical Attacks In Eastern Congo?

Back in December of 2008 I blogged about how parents would pay to have their children shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, just to spare them the trauma they would endure at the hands of bloodthirsty murderers everywhere.

From the Christmas Congo massacre.

Marguerite Animbwefwo managed to escape the onslaught by Ugandan rebels with her 7-year-old son. But she is wracked with guilt, despairing that she couldn't save her 13-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, killed in a Christmas Day rampage on her northeastern Congo village of Nawangu.

"They killed everyone else in the village. We are the only ones living," she said Monday.

Among victims at Dorouma hospital is a 3-year-old girl whom rebels tried to kill by twisting off her head. She is paralyzed from the neck down and both her parents were killed in the attacks.

A little over one month later, Congolese Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, "the general of a rebel group in eastern Congo, who has threatened to take over the country, and whose fighters recently brought central Africa to its most turbulent moment in years" has been caught.

As we have seen throughout history, the personal charisma of one man can "move mountains". Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Jack Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, etc. have all used their abundance of charisma to change the course of history for the greater good or the purely evil. Nkunda, it appears, is one of those men who is dangerously blessed with this "divine gift, or gift of grace", as his rebel army seemed to crumble the day after he was arrested.

He had built one of the best-organized, best-trained bush armies in Africa. His soldiers always carried their rifles pointing down and kept their uniforms incongruously spotless, even though they marched through a world of mud.

But all that acclaimed discipline, which had helped the rebels to rout the Congolese government troops just about every time they faced off, seems to have vanished as fast as its leader.

Obviously charisma - like genius - alone, is not enough. Not only does the person have to take full advantage of his or her gift, the right circumstances and followers must also come together in order to transform charisma into what can become the most powerful lethal weapon or omnipotent saving grace.

Nkunda's arrest, more than likely, will not be enough to settle Eastern Congo, however, Nkunda's absence has already brought more "peace" to this area, than seen in quite some time. However, considering the level of unimaginable brutality in Eastern Congo, peace is a relative word. Nkunda's powerful persona, and his connection to the Rwandan Army and top Rwandan officials, especially Rwandan President Paul Kagame, could jeopardize what appears to be a step in the right direction.

Excellent articles:

Peace in Congo? by Josh Ruxin

Calm in Kigali. Horror in Congo by Josh Ruxin.

Crisis in Congo. by Nicholas Kristof

The Three Worst Places to Live by Nicholas Kristof

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How the Entire US and World Economy Almost Collapsed 9/18/08.

On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

We are no better off today than we were 3 months ago because we have a decrease in the equity positions of banks because other assets are going sour by the moment.

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Sponsor An Executive and Bail out a CEO

I want some TARP:

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The Bailout Car for the Bailout Executive

In addition to capping top executives' salaries and eliminating extravagant severance packages for all corporate welfare queens, past, present and future, President Obama should make it mandatory that each and every one of them drive a carbon reducing, extraordinarily compact, automobiles demonstrated in the video below.

It's only right that they start to give back. Reducing their carbon footprints is a good start to begin the process of redemption...that is, if they can manage to drive alongside, rather than underneath buses, Hummers, tractor trailers, etc.

The inclusion of a set of Rosary Beads might be a nice gesture.

Memo: Include Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, the greediest CEOs and parasitic Wall Streeters to the list.

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Will a Superficial Recovery Seal Our Fate?

Approximately a decade ago, my body was invaded by pathogenic microorganisms that continued to multiply to the point where they almost killed me. Partly my fault and partly the doctor's, I ended up treating only the symptoms with pain killers and topical medicine. As the symptoms worsened, the doctor gradually increased the dosage of the meds that masked the warning signs that something was very wrong, until the infection got so bad that it broke through the prescribed drugs spiking my temp to 106 degrees. The doctor proceeded to slice me open with very little anesthesia- yep, I woke up - and removed the source of the infection and contaminated tissue which had turned gangrenous. It was touch and go for weeks but I pulled through.

I'm sure, if anyone reads this blog, right about now, they're thinking, "that's great, what's your point"?

Well, just as treating only my symptoms resulted in me almost losing my life, just treating the current financial crisis may result in America losing its "life" as "numero uno". In order to avoid this potential catastrophe, it's imperative that people understand that the financial crisis is only a symptom of something much deeper: an outdated, rotting to the core, economic infrastructure, and a culture that promotes narcissism, complacency, greed and a disdain for the poor and suffering.

It is easy to cut interest rates, print money, and go shopping. It's a little harder to create "shovel ready" projects and dig ditches just to fill them up again. It's almost an insurmountable task to create a new economic framework that will respond effectively and coherently to contemporary conditions and restore economic health for the long run.

Nevertheless, in order to continue as the "beacon on the hill", as our globe continues to shrink, and as technology advances in exponential increments, further leveling the playing field, we must incorporate a social conscience into a new economic model, including other purposes for businesses besides maximizing profit for shareholders. Of course profit will still factor into the equation, however it should not be the ONLY factor.

But, what happens if our economy reacts to the stimulus (mostly tax cuts and spending) President Obama hopes will take place in February, and the market temporarily recovers? Will removing the financial crisis (symptoms), tempt us to take the easy way out and get back on the same track that got us into this mess? Or will we surmount the insurmountable and put the American economy on a healthier more sustainable path?

Hopefully, we will not need to experience a crisis like the Great Depression to create the impetus for change...that this financial crisis will be enough to ditch the old tracks and create brand new ones.

“Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, - one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause: it is the Gospel of Despair!” –Thomas Carlyle

“It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.” –John Steinbeck

Cost estimate for Senate version of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

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What Makes Craig Newmark Stand Out Above the Rest?

In a world where the problem of scarcity has been solved, and there is more than enough to go around for everyone, why is it okay that one-fifth of humanity prosper at the expense of the other four-fifths of humanity who continue to live in poverty?
Moreover, why is it okay, that as wealthy as our country is, that so many of our own citizens live in squalor? At the same time, what did an individual hedge fund manager do to "earn" the equivalent of the budget of a nation? These questions and many more just like them require our attention in order for us to emerge from this crisis as the United States of America.

The realities that exist today will not tolerate greedy, power hungry, elitist leaders whose only incentive is the acquisition of wealth. We the people must make our and economic leaders understand that the market is nothing more than a mechanism that is not immoral or moral, but amoral. The market doesn't care, therefore it is up to us to create and maintain its "social conscious".

Approximately one week ago I blogged about Internet entrepreneur Craig Newmark's - The Wave of the Future: Reluctant Capitalism and Nerd Values? - people-centered philosophy, which promotes the idea that all of us, should have an opportunity to contribute our views, ideas, experience and knowledge in what he calls a "culture of participation".

What makes Craig Newmark stand out is his willingness to walk the walk and truly live by the Google rule, 'don't be evil'...something the Google leaders haven't always lived up to. Newmark has been able to resist the allure of power and greed that has overcome the best of intentions many times over. The strength to stand up to the seduction of power will be the true test of leadership as we head into the future, because by its very nature, power for the sake of power strips the person of his ability to collaborate and share his humanity.

In the article, Jeff Jarvis Asks: Is Google an Evil Empire? Dave Kansas interviewed Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? (WWGD). Jarvis credits Newmark with his third rule regarding WWGD:

"Get out of the way. This is actually Craig Newmark's law. As Google built the most powerful tool imaginable—the entire world of digital knowledge revealed behind a simple search box—so did Craig build a simple tool that changed society (and newspapers and real estate and more) without prescribing how we should use it. They create platforms to enable us to do what we want to do and then, instead of giving us rules about their use, then they stand back and put us in charge."

By combining knowledge with a certain level of humility, Craig Newmark harnessed the power of the Internet and transformed society. He did so without succumbing to self-worship and self-promotion all the while challenging the fundamental assumption that is wholeheartedly accepted by most business leaders and that is Milton Friedman's belief, that their only "social responsibility is to make as much money for their stockholders as possible".

The way power is currently distributed, the workplaces are factories of authoritarianism and you can’t go to work everyday, 8 hours, turn off your brain, take orders, have no voice in decisions that affect your life and then go home and become an engaged citizen in the big issues of public life. -- Elaine Bernard

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