In an effort to better manage my time, to better manage my life…I am acknowledging that I have not been able to achieve what I had hoped with this blog.  The number of readers (my measure by which how far my ideas are reaching) and the number of comments (my measure by which how many people reading this have actually been effected, and by which I’m able to also get something out of this) have stangated.  There has been no meaningful growrth!!!

So…what to do?

This page isn’t an experiment in blogging.  I’m not doing it purely for the fun.  I now realize that I have an incredible potential to have my wideranging views about education and life spread on an incredibly wide scale.  And while I don’t hold my beliefs to all be the best, I ultimately believe that my voice belongs in the national consciousness. 

An op-ed in the NY Times today wrote about the coverage of the near invisibility of the media to cover genocide in Darfur.

FUCKIN’ GENOCIDE!!!

We’re talking about the world being ignorant, and as a result, not doing anything in response to innocent people being brutally killed because of their ethnic background.  I’m not an expert on the genocide in Darfur, but the point of the article was that the major news programs gave all of 15-30minutes of coverage to this….in 1 year!!!! 

THE MEDIA CARES MORE ABOUT MICHAEL FUCKIN’ JACKSON THAN GENOCIDE!!!

This is what drives me now.  People are not receiving the ideas they should be.  I have 0 doubts in my mind that Dan Lilienthal (that’s me) has ideas that deserve the attention of many more people than has been limited to this blog so far.  Just so you don’t get the sense that I’m a lone-ranger, crazy cowboy, I’m just one of hundreds of thousands of people that hope to shift people’s attentions to things that could make their own lives better, and can make life better for us all.  I don’t want to spend my life helping people with depression, or having dull conversation, or feeling lonely and isolated…it doesn’t take a PhD to know that people want to live peaceful, fun, meaningful, friendly lives…and this won’t happen unless people like me, and then people like you, begin to connect.

That’s why…I’m looking to begin writing a weekly essay.  I’m not sure how I want to approach it, but I want to write an essay to e-mail to interested readers.  My hope is that people will take an e-mail essay more seriously than a blog post, and will be more likely to write a response to an e-mail, than to comment on a blog.  For me personally, this will allow me to build real and deep relationships than can be build on this community. 

My hope is to grow an audience through this weekly e-mail, which will happen by interested readers forwarding my essays.  Aaron Karo, who was a student at U Penn, began to e-mail his “ruminations” on college life.  Now he’s a stand-up comedian in New York, has written a couple of books, and has an enormous world-wide audience.  He could fart, write about it, and the world would know.

That’s what I hope to achieve.  I want people to know when I fart, and I want people to know when I have something to say about the state of education, and other assorted musings that I have about how to improve the potential of what humans can do with their quickly passing lives.

If you are interested in receiving this e-mail essay from me, please e-mail me at
Dan_Lilienthal@yahoo.com

Please include your xanga name and real name if you’d like, so I have some idea who you are.  In the next week or two I hope to send out my first mass-mailing.

I will continue to blog here, and will figure out what format and content will best fit my needs.  Thanks everyone!

-dan

MAJORS: Philosophy, Business, Sociology, Psychology
COURSE: Money & Society

ASSIGNMENT: People often criticize companies and individuals for being greedy, and for pursuing profits and personal wealth, while those who with less money suffer. What are the benfits and drawbacks of individuals pursuing profits?  How are the fortunes of some individuals and companies related to the wealth or poverty of others?  Feel free to address any of these questions, or come up with questions of your own to answer. 

(to hear me “lecture,” and to participate in this discussion, please view and leave comments)

MAJOR: Communications 101
COURSE: Communicating ideas about society through blogs

ASSIGNMENT: Most people have short attention spans, and little patience.  If they’re not entertained, they go elsewhere.  In that spirit, create blog content that attracts readers, and makes them want to listen to what you have to say. 

I recently received feedback that my blogs are too long, complicated, “preachy.”  So…in order to keep those readers who feel that way, and to continue to provoke thought in those who read every word I write…I offer the following new format.

-Attended an event at the New School last night.  There were 3 major speakers, including Paul Krugman, who is famous for writing op-eds in the New York Times.  The topic was the widening income gap in America.  What was most interesting to me, was the idea that it’s the super-rich, the top 1%, those people who make mega-millions, more than 99% of the country (you and I), who us 99% of America (you and I) need to be concerned with.  It got me thinking, if the Democrats could propose one issue clearly that could potentially improve America greatly, it would be to put a sizable tax on those making multi-millions, which would affect only 1% of Americans, and use that tax money to fund Social Security, grants for higher education, universal health insurance, rebuilding New Orleans, increase teacher pay…
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

-I’ve always been the type of person to take a step back and analyze things from a broader perspective.  This book I’m reading, “American Higher Education: A History,” has brought me back into contact w/ material I haven’t been exposed to since high school or before…I’m talking about Ancient Greek and Roman civilization.  While human knowledge has developed immensely in the last 2500 years in science, technology, the humanities, business, etc., it seems that in many ways the general public has become less interested in critical thought and understanding society, as people in the day of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were concerned with.  In his State of the Union, Pres. Bush made a call to bring more people into teaching science and math.  To me, the fact that our national education initiatives focus on math and science, but ignore a call for building a nation that is literate, conversant, and able to critically examine politics and social issues, reveals that we have failed to build on the human discoveries before us…
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Jeromse Bettis, the running back for the Pittsburgh Stealers, is a native of Detroit, where the Super Bowl is being held.  He was recently given the “key to the city,” by the mayor, to show their appreciation for the local hero.  I’ve been thinking recently about the relative importance of things…for example, concerning ourselves with poverty is “more important” than concerning ourselves with the Super Bowl, however, the Super Bowl is still “important.”  As my friend put it, “one person’s success does not necessarily equal another person’s failure.”  In that light, the fact that thinking about and working to address societal ills is “important,” does not mean that all other things are un-important.  What I’ve also been thinking about, is how if we addressed all societal ills (no more hunger, poverty, war, disease, etc), the only things that would be important would be those things that seem un-important, such as watching the Super Bowl (or travel, leisure, food, friends, etc).  As a society, I think we need to embrace all the important things in life…the deeper important things of making life better for us now and those that will come after us, as well as enjoying those shallow things we also find important.  In order to address the deeper things in life, those societal ills, people need to equate and blend those things (politics, protest, voting, social action, volunteerism) with those shallow things we enjoy (good conversation, time with friends and family, lifelong love of learning, helping people, travel).  A pool with both deep and shallow ends… 
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

-dan

Learning about perseverance by rowing “PERSEVERANCE” down in S. Africa