School Paper: Assessing Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

The following is a short paper I wrote recently for a humanities class. The topic was about defining happiness and the theme of “the American Dream”. Had to wait until it was graded so the plagiarism checkers wouldn’t think I was stealing from myself. :-)

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Assessing “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”

Figure 1 - From the Declaration of Independence (Wikipedia)

The Declaration of Independence, the cornerstone founding document of the United States of America, contains the oft-quoted phrase:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Jefferson 1776, ¶2)

More than two centuries have passed since those eloquent words were penned, but modern immigrant Americans continue to embody the spirit and power behind these words. As an American by birth, I love my country and having spent many years living abroad, I recognize the advantages, and, in some ways, the superiority, of it compared to other systems. Yet I don’t know what it means to have chosen this country. The immigrants who continue to come to the US by the millions have chosen this country to be their own. Sometimes that means they are only here to work and take advantage of the economic climate and upward mobility. Even in troubled economic times, there are no limitations on the ability of a person to work their way from one “class” to another within our system. This stands in stark contrast to some other cultures. For example, the formal caste system of India holds down millions from reaching their potential without regard to how capable they may be. Truly, this genuine opportunity, reflected by the numbers of people who continue to “vote with their feet,” is one of the enduring achievements of the American experiment.

Examining the visible artifacts of the pursuit of happiness of the modern immigrant population, one finds that, in a 1996 analysis by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (Peters 1996) immigrants were the sole inventor or a collaborator on more than 26% of the patents issued between 1988 and 1994. This is all the more impressive when one considers that first generation immigrants represent less than 9% of the US population in this period. Among the inventions identified in this study are:

· A simple process for diagnosis of kidney disease invented by an Italian immigrant.

· In-home vital sign monitoring equipment invented by a Polish immigrant.

· An electrical generator cooling system invented by an Indian immigrant.

· Aeronautical controls for the space shuttle invented by a Norwegian immigrant.

These more recent contributions in science and engineering join the long list of contributions by immigrants through the history of the United States and crossing the spectrum of fields of endeavor. To name just a few, Albert Einstein - physics, John Muir – environmental awareness, Joseph Pulitzer - publishing, Charles Simonyi - software and Madeline Albright - politics (Immigration Update).

The enduring contributions of American immigrants, both recent and historic, are clearly manifest and yet too numerous to count.

There is, rightfully, much debate about legal versus illegal immigration. It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into that debate on one side or the other. Regardless of the legal status of a particular immigrant, it stands to reason quite clearly that every immigrant coming to the United States is making the de facto assertion that this country best meets at least their immediate needs in enabling their own pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That may mean they are seeking economic opportunity that social, economic, or political structures in their homeland would deny them. This can be the case even in ostensibly “free” countries – as was the case for Ian Crawford. Mr. Crawford was a native of Scotland by was “dissatisfied with the opportunities” there (Peters 1996). In other cases, their priority may be to escape oppression, such was the case for Mitchell Budniak (Peters 1996), a native Pole whose parents were escaping forced servitude in Nazi Germany during World War II. Today, you see the same familiar echoes among new immigrants arriving from China, Central America, and tumultuous African nations. They risk all for a chance to come to America, work unbelievably hard and sometimes in virtual slavery to human smugglers. And still they come just for the chance to someday control their own destiny and provide a better life for their children and their children’s children. Indeed, the American dream lives on and with it the ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It is perhaps worthy of note that the Declaration calls out life and liberty as rights, but not happiness. It is as if the founders are telling us that while a free republic can guarantee life and liberty, the best it can do for happiness is to guarantee our freedom to pursue it; to chase that which we each define as endowing our own lives with joy.

References

Immigration Update (n.d.). Famous American immigrants. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://immigrationupdate.wordpress.com/famous-american-immigrants/

Jefferson, T. (1776 June). Declaration of Independence. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Peters, P. (1996 March 6). Invented in the USA: Immigrants, Patents, and Jobs. Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://www.adti.net/imm/immpat.html

Wikipedia (2009 September 24). Thumbnail excerpt from The Declaration of Independence. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_men_are_created_equal.JPG

Levi Johnston…your 15 minutes are up!

I saw a headline on MSN.com where Levi Johnson, Bristol Palin’s baby-daddy, said in his Playgirl interview that Sarah Palin is “full of it.”

Levi Johnston: Proof you can
pile crap more than 6 feet high! 

Sorry, but is it such a slow news day that the continued ranting of a two-bit loser from the frozen north are used to defame or at least detract from a grown-up? Let’s lay aside for a moment that Sarah Palin has been elected to numerous state and local political offices and is basically the only reason anyone at all voted for John McCain in 2008. And let’s lay aside the fact that high-school drop-out Mr. Johnston’s sole claim to fame is that he managed to slip one past the goalie when he wasn’t actually playing hockey.

So a proven A*%@&~ whose strongpoint is clearly thinking only of himself and for whom disrespecting women seems to be a hobby, resorts to his only possible career path – posing nude – which should probably be viewed as yet more abuse of women, with a criminal defense attorney acting as his agent. Well, that’s his second career, of course. His first was knocking up the governor’s daughter and then splitting – not sure if you need a special tag for that in Alaska or if just anyone can do it from a helicopter.

My daughter just mentioned that she saw that Levi was on the same talk show as Jon Gosselen where they were asked which did they think was the better father.
My mom says, “People judge you by the company you keep.”  
She’s pretty smart. Jon Gosselen should stay away from Levi so people won’t think ill of him…Jon that is.

This just in…Jon says Barak Obama is “full of it!” There. Hey MSN, when do I get my headline?

…13…14…15 <DING>
Time’s Up, Levi. Back to the tundra for you!

P.S. Weight loss update: I’m at 185. That’s a loss of 65 pounds since May 28th.

Return to Zen

In my previous post, I talked about the untimely death of my Creative Zen Micro and my plans to replace it. I’d forgotten at the time about EBay!

I’m pleased to report that only one lost auction later, I was the proud owner of a Creative Zen in the exact same color scheme as my old one.

It included everything from the original package plus a new extra battery. So now I have four 12 hour batteries. I can Zen my butt off now for 48 hours straight! And for a fraction of the price of a new player.
It even included the earphones, which I promptly threw in the trash.
As an added bonus, the player was loaded with a very eclectic music collection. Like some kind of digital audio voyeurs, my wife and I actually took the player on our date last Friday and listened to all the weird music in the car and tried to figure out what it told us about the guy who sold it to me.

When I went to plug it into Windows 7, I was bummed that it wouldn’t work. After some searching, I realized that I needed to update the firmware to the version released in 2005 that didn’t need special drivers anymore.
You can only do this process on Windows XP, but the amazing (!!!!) XP Compatibility Mode in Windows 7 came to my rescue and that all worked perfectly.
Apparently I did this before with my old one, but you’ll have to forgive my forgetting, since I did it FOUR YEARS AGO!!!

My new old Zen is now happily dispensing karma in my car and I’m again able to secretly listen to music from Evita and Les Mis – which doesn’t necessarily make me gay – but, I admit, it doesn’t help.

My moment of Zen…or not

You may recall that back in January, I posted on my very durable music player, a Creative Zen Micro. Sadly, after years of devoted service, it is no more.

After my recent trips to Portland, I’d lost track of it for a couple days and finally found it in one of the gazillion pockets on my laptop bag. Unfortunately, when I turned it on, I was greeted with a mysterious failure screen that looked something like I was booting Linux on my Zen. It suggested I reformat the hard drive, which I did. I let it run for my whole commute home, about 40 minutes. Once I got it into the quiet of the house, I could hear the tell-tale death rattle tick-tick of the hard drive.
Poor little guy…it didn’t have a chance.

So, after exhaustive moments of grief, I did what every red-blooded man would do with something broken…I took it apart. I discovered that the defunct hard drive is just a little Hitachi Compact Flash drive. Of course, it is dead, so fat lotta good that does me. And replacing it would not have been worthwhile anyway. Just for the heck of it, I did stick it in my PC and listened to its hopeless ticking sounds for a few moments.
Although, I do want to point out that even in this dismantled state, if I put the battery in and turn it on, it does start to boot – which is pretty impressive. He just keeps giving.

So now what? Keeping in mind my genuine distaste for a media player that won’t work with Windows Media Player, iPods and Zunes are off the table.
I want something that has at least 8GB of space. 16 gig would be nice, but I’ve gotten along with 6GB all this time and am a notorious cheapskate, so 8GB looks like the place for me.
I couldn’t care less about video on my music player.
I don’t want a converged device. I don’t want an MP3 player on my camera or a phone on my MP3 player. I just want something with great battery life that I can leave in my car.
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of me and the digital music player market has outright collapsed compared to a few years ago.

Having been so happy with my Zen Micro, I naturally went out to see what Creative had these days. Leaving aside the big glass screened video playing devices, it looks like the uniquely butt ugly Zen Mozaic would be their contender. I just don’t think I can do this to myself.
According to the review I read, the screen sucks but it has a 30 hour battery life. Sadly, no more removable batteries.

So what else is out there?

My wife has a 6GB Sandisk Sansa (below left) that is pretty nice. Unfortunately, they don’t make this one any more. The new Sandisk offering is the Sansa  Fuze (below right). It’s OK, but I don’t like the little square look they’ve got going.

A possibility, but it just doesn’t turn me on.

So that leaves us with the Sony Walkman E-series. Yes, I know, Sony screwed up on their first attempt at digital music players with their own goofy format, etc. But they’ve repented and these new units work great with Windows Media Player and PlaysForSure music.

This little guy has a 30 hour battery life and weighs under two ounces. And it is pretty cheap.
I think this is the one that will go on my Christmas list.

It's official...

I awoke this morning to the bizarre news that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for......."hope". Yes, that's right. So while you can't return an item for "spite", you can now receive awards for "hope".

That's right, not for anything he's done, but for the hope of what he could do. And keep in mind that the nominations closed in February, right after he was inaugurated.

In other, and arguably related news, Chicago is expecting record breaking snowfall this weekend.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, hell seems to have frozen over.

So I guess he really did stop global warming after all.

My Brother...continued

Here it is the night before my brother's funeral.
Preparations are relatively in-hand. In as much as they ever could be.
My oldest brother and I had the difficult privilege of dressing Bill for his funeral today. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this is considered to be a final act of service and honor for the deceased. While it is not a doctrinal point, it is certainly the normal practice and tradition for family members or close associates in the church to perform this duty rather than leaving it to the professionals.
We were accompanied in this by Bill's wonderful bishop and two close friends from his local ward.
I'd never done this before and was very nervous about being go through with it. I'm not a wilting violet and I've been around, but this was, after all, my dear brother.
I was most impressed with the sense of calm and the feeling that it truly was a charitable act that pervaded the experience. I consider this truly a blessing.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into details, but I am glad to have been able to do this part of the preparation. We've been so focused on serving Bill's family, which is certainly appropriate, that it was nice to do one last thing for him amidst all else going on.
He was a super guy and I already miss him greatly.

Finally, if I could just give a plug for preparation. Please consider doing the following, none of them cost anything:

• Round up your important papers. If you are a veteran, PLEASE dig out your original DD214. This is the key for your family to access veteran's benefits. Some of these, such as burial at a national cemetary, wouldn't be able to wait the 4-6 weeks it would take for your family to order a copy from the archives.
• Write down information about your bank, brokerage, and other accounts. Include passwords for web sites. Keep this in a safe place, of course, but do it.
• Think about your desires for your funeral services. Do you have particular hymns or music you like? Who would you like to give your eulogy? Any preferences for location, flower types, charities, etc.? Talk to your loved ones and then write this down. It is too hard to remember clearly when the time comes.
• If you have benefits from your work, like life insurance, how will your family access that? What is the point of contact? What's the process? Find out and write this stuff down too. As it turns out, this is pretty hard for your family to figure out.
• Create a checklist to see your loved ones through the final steps after you are gone.
• If you are able, set aside some amount of money to provide for needs until the life insurance finalizes. Something like $5000-$10,000 that your survivors can access quickly and easily.

I mentioned to my wife that, while I'm certainly a proud veteran, I wouldn't feel worthy of including military honors in my funeral. I think many veterans would probably agree.
Well, the diva of the castle doesn't and says she will do what she thinks is right - and that includes the honor guard and flag. So not much I can do in the face of that kind of determination. :-)

But I do try to write down as much of this other stuff as I can, and I've learned that there is more to do. Yes, the ultimate in pre-planning is to have your funeral paid for in advance and your casket purchased, etc., but there is much that can be done for free.

One of my brothers passed away

Very unexpectedly got word tonight that one of my older brothers passed away tonight. He collapsed from a massive heart attack at home and never regained consciousness despite the efforts of the paramedics.

He was a good man and leaves behind a wife and four children. Since they live in the Portland, OR area, we’ve always spent more time with them than my other brother, who lives in California. Whenever we’ve lived in Washington, we’ve always gone down to their house the day after Christmas to celebrate Christmas and his wife’s birthday.

I count myself lucky enough to have just spoken to him on the phone tonight for about 45 minutes. We were planning to have them up for Thanksgiving and he was just going to send an email to his boss to make sure he got it off. (He was a maintenance guy for luggage scanners at the Portland airport.)

He was always interested in talking about the Gospel and was a Sunday School teacher in his ward. He has touched the lives of many and will be sorely missed. Just tonight we were talking about some gospel matters related to the Fall and Redemption. Even now he probably has learned (or remembered) the answers to many of the questions we were talking about.

Some things you might not know about Bill:

• He could cook amazingly good Japanese food. Usually while spouting wise or clever Japanese idioms – in Japanese.
• He was in a Beach Boys cover band when he was in high school and used to play a killer saxophone.
• He made a pet out of a very mean feral house cat – named “Cat” of course.
• When I was little, like 12-ish, he took me to the movies a lot. Seems like every time a war movie comes on TV, I say, “Hey, Bill took me to see this when I was little.” A Bridge Too Far, The Eagle Has Landed, and more. He also took me to that awful first Star Trek movie.
• He liked to play Risk.
• He had our dad’s gift of being agreeable with just about everyone – even people he knew were complete idiots. :-)
• He was known to sometimes <ahem> “go commando” in his younger years.
• Right before he left on his mission he bought a red Trans-Am.
• He used to be a welder, a sod carrier, a builder of mobile homes, an auto mechanic, a soldier, a silicon fab worker, and an electronics technician. Some of those jobs he liked, some he hated, but he always knew how to provide for himself and his family.
• He was the keeper of the family history – both the genealogy and the stories.
• Every time the family was together he’d find a way to work in the story of how my mom was driving him around on a paper route when he was a kid and (allegedly) laughed when a dog chased him. (Note that my mom does NOT deny this.<g>)
• When he was going to be married, he drove me from Utah, where we lived, to California where his wife-to-be lived so I could stay at my other brother’s house until our parents came for the wedding. When we stopped at a gas station in Sacramento after driving all night, he got out his toothbrushing stuff. I wanted to get mine and he said, “Hey, you aren’t going to be kissing anybody, just wait in the car.”

Thanks, Bill. You were are always a good brother. See ya later.