I hate it when I disagree with myself.
After all, I'm an editor, a writer, a speaker, a mini-pundit. I'm supposed to know what I think.
And then along comes the finding of the Justice Department on the conduct of Jay Bybee and John Yoo whose legal opinions in the Bush years provided legal grounds for torturing prisoners held by the United States. The ethics lawyers in the Office of Professional Responsibility had found that the two men were guilty of "professional misconduct."
That finding was rejected by David Margolis, who issued the final report. He said the two men, while "flawed" did not represent professional misconduct, because, he said, they were working in a time after the attack of 9/11 when the entire context of the law was based on a sense of national urgency and fraught with the passions of the moment.
In effect, he said, while their work may have been done poorly, and may even have been wrong, you have to cut them some slake: it was a difficult time in America.
Now here's where I start to argue with myself.
I have a rule that addresses this very subject: Rule #32. Rule #32 says, "Content isn't king. Context is king."
I am a great believer in context. Context provides the meaning that elevates general information, random observation, facts--but only facts--to the level of significance. Context is how we make sense of the world.
So I agree with Mr. Margolis.
On the other hand, if I buy Mr. Margolis's argument, he's basically saying that it's ok to screw up on things like torture, basic matters of human rights, as long as the times are so urgent that you feel compelled to do it. The problem here, of course, is that the only time these kinds of legal opinions matter is when times are urgent, when civil liberties are on the line. So I disagree with Mr. Margolis: context matters, but in this case the context that matters is that urgent times demand--no require--absolutely scrupulous application of justice. Not convenient legal opinions that cater to the mood of the moment, but virtuous legal opinions that may, in fact, buck the mood of the moment in the larger interest of justice.
So which interpretation of context is the right one?
Does context permit faulty work in the name of urgency?
Or does context require an even higher standard of justice, precisely because so much is at stake?
Now that I think about it, I know what I think; what do you think? You be the judge.

Here's what I'm concluding about change in America.
It's all going on under the surface--and there's a lot of it happening.
If you put down the daily newspapers, stop surfing the web, step away from cable TV news, give talk radio a rest, and just go out into your own community--and I mean any community in any city in any country any where in the world--you will be thrilled, delighted, amazed, and profoundly moved at the kinds of changes going on all around us.
Below the surface, like icebergs and ducks, out of sight of the traditional media and traditional politics, there is a movement gaining force.
It is micro-change. It is entrepreneurial and vibrant. The projects are often small. Think of them as Petri-dish size experiments.
They involve small groups of like-minded individuals who want to make a difference, have some impact.
I'm not talking about angry shouters. I'm talking about do-something-abouters.

I heard about Alan Webber via Seth Godin this morning, though I sgould have remembered him from the early days of Fast Company. Looks like there will be good ideas here.

★ What is this site about?

I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

I've used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It's a daily brain dump. Over time, I've found that it's also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.

750 Words is the online, future-ified, fun-ified translation of this exercise. Here's how it works:

★ All Online

In the past, looking for a spare notebook was probably easier than looking for a computer. Not anymore. I don't know if my hands even work anymore with pen and paper for any task that takes longer than signing a check or credit card reciept.

Heard about this on Lifehacker and am thinking it's awfully tempting...I wonder if there's a site that offers an incentive for daily reading, too. Anyone?