Vladimir Kagan's Blog

OUR DYSFUNCTIONAL CONGRESS

Vladimir Kagan copyright 2010

Do you remember my tirade about our Congress “This Time, I Am Really Stepping On Thin Ice”, posted back in January?

It looks like I hit the right nerve! Newspaper and magazine editorials have expanded on this subject (not due to my little posting!)…. Just a few days ago I received this succinct letter in my Email. I am posting it to all of my readers, because we can collectively do something about it. I am not certain if it is a disguised Tea Party missile or a Liberal outburst…Regardless. It fits today's dilemma.



Really important! Hope you all do it! 
This will take less than thirty seconds to read.  
If you agree, please pass it on. 

An idea whose time has come!

For far too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress.  Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn't pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws.  The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered...in all of its forms.  Somehow, that doesn't seem logical.  We do not have an elite that is above the law.  I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever.  
The self-serving must stop.  This is a good way to do that.  It is an idea whose time has come. 
  
Have each person contact a minimum of Twenty people on their Address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise. 
          
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.  This is one proposal that really should be passed around. 


       Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution 
        
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States." 

OUT OF WINTER HIBERNATION

Vladimir Kagan Copyright 2010

This is not a momentous moment!…. But we have managed to stay cocooned in Palm Beach all winter, conducting our worldly affairs via cyberspace. Even Milan and the High Point Markets could not pry us loose…. Still, these past months in the doldrums have not been entirely idle. Here is the by-product:

Thursday, April 22nd, 5:30 PM, I am giving a lecture at Yale University Art Gallery. A Life in Design: A Conversation with Vladimir Kagan
(Having had ample time to prep, I assembled, what I hope, is an interesting mix of photos to illustrate my work and that of architects and designers whose work has influenced or interested me.) John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts will grill me, which should to a lively repartee. If you can attend, contact: Yale University Art Gallery
111 Chapel Street, New Haven CT Tel: 203-432-0600

Saturday, April 24th, Erica and I will dash to Nantucket, partaking in the Annual Daffodil Day Antique Auto Rally. It will be my 20th participation with my 1922 Model T. If you are in the neighborhood, it is a funky rite of spring.

Thursday, April 29th, 7 - 8:30 PM, I will venture into the depth of Brooklyn at The Brooklyn Museum, to join in a panel discussion: “Collecting Currently”, a conversational evening for both savvy and curious collectors. Art collectors and design aficionados alike will gain insight into the collecting of design ranging from industrial to contemporary The evening will be lightened-up with a glass of wine and moderated by Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum. The panel consist of Stephen Burks, an industrial designer and director of the design studio: Readymade Projects, Suzanne Slesin, a former art critic for the New York Times (and coincidentally the publisher of my book, The Complete Kagan) and myself, for what ever I can contribute in this erudite discussion. The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. For information call 718-638-5000

Tuesday, May 4th, we are invited to dinner as a member of the honorary committee for the Circle of Excellence award by IDFA, at New York's Union Club. I Googled the acronym and found IDFA could be: International Dairy Food Association, International Documentary Film Association, or Institute for Divorce Financial Association or finally the International Furnishings and Design Association. No matter who the sponsor might be, I couldn't turn down a free meal.


May 15 - 16, at ICFF, at the annual hoopla of modernism, I will finally introduce a revival of my 1950s Capricorn a collection of outdoor furniture for Oasiq and will be in their booth from 2 to 4 on Saturday and Sunday to schmooze with old and new friends...(To keep the creative juices flowing, I spent part of the winter adding new designs to Capricorn to meet the needs of a 21st Century clientele. I also found time to fine-tune a new, and what I hope will be a hip, collection of aluminum indoor/outdoor furniture for introduction in 2011.)

Monday, May 17, to coincide with ICFF, a group of 24 designers, including Karim Rashid, Marc Thorp and myself, have agreed to decorate a 20” tall MUNNY Doll…(I had never heard of a Munny, but my 10 year old granddaughter did). These will be exhibited in a space yet to be determined, with a rowdy party from 9 PM to 3 AM and a silent auction to benefit an unspecified charity. Sounds spacey, but this is how the young Turks apparently function.

Wednesday, June 2nd there will be a private press party at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York, to introduce a project called Modern Views. I was invited to participate in this dialogue about modern architecture to benefit the Philip Johnson's Glass House and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House. Modern Views is sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Center for Modernism. …This project provides the opportunity not only to preserve two important twentieth century modern houses, but to revisit the dynamic exchange between these buildings and their architects. It us a dialogue about vision and precedent, influence and inspiration, theory and practice, intellect and passion…. All works and statements will be published in an illustrated book by Assouline accompanied by an exhibited in Chicago then New York and culminating in a live auction at Sotheby's New York. While I can't divulge my contribution, I depicted a fantasy meeting with Philip Johnson, back in the fifties.

In June I am scheduled to do a two-day interview for the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Artist series…knowing me, I will stick my foot into my mouth as I blather away!

So much for the awakening of the sleeping bear.

NOT A PEACE AT ANY PRICE

Copyright Vladimir Kagan 2010

The Coudert Institute came up with yet another winner. It sponsored a round table discussion “A Conversation on Peace - The Challenges to Create and Maintain that Peace.” It was no bleeding heart get together! It was a tough reality show with a generally pessimistic outlook.

(This article is being posted without proof-reading by the participants. They were sent copies but had not responded. Therefore there may some quotations attributed to the wrong presenter…but the gist of the discussion is herein recorded.)

Alfred Stepan, a specialist in comparative government and an expert on nuclear proliferation has worked with the U.N. and U.S. State Department. Rita Hauser served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. Andrew J. Pierre is an expert on global arms issues and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He is the Distinguished Professor in the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. Dr. Roech Wagner is the executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center and an authority on Indian history and women's right's issues. Elisabeth Morse, the moderator, is a founding board of director member of International Bridges to Justice and is a Federal Court mediator.…. All heavy hitters… Articulate and incisive. 

I took over twenty pages of notes and if I can decipher them, will give you my overview of the day's event. 

The breakfast started with a tribute to the Dali Lama, whose credentials for peace are undisputed except by the Chinese, who consider him a rabble-rouser. (In my opinion, both assessments are true.) His food for thought statement: “Without spiritual inner peace, there can be no real peace.”

Rita Hauser introduced us to the staggering reality that since the end of the Cold War, things really started to get out of hand. That event unleashed a plethora of emerging mini-states that have caused grief ever since.

Statistically, there are 194 member states in the United Nations…. many barely qualify as nations. They were created out of postcolonial manipulation with total disregard to tribal or natural borders. Most of these troubled spots are in Africa, but Afghanistan and Iraq are no exceptions. Unresolved conflicts have lasted for years. Angola 20 years, Congo 30 years, Darfur over 20, Cyprus 50 years, after four missions to Haiti the country was still totally destabilized…. and now the Earthquake. Egypt and the Israel border for over 50 years (though in this instance the troops are having a ball, scuba diving in the red sea as that conflict has long ago simmered down and legally been resolved. However, failed states as Somalia and Yemen add to the world's tinderbox hot spots. Tribal conflicts, revolutions, genocide, mineral rights, oil…all are left to the United Nations to resolve. Did you know that there are over 100 peacekeeping U.N. Missions scattered through the world? Financing them is a real nightmare. Who supplies the troops? It is a colossal intertwined tangle. The United States, when not directly immersed as in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bosnia, mostly supplies the heavy transport tasks: Helicopters, Planes, trucks: Europe supplies the money and the third world delivers the ground troops. Nice member states like Scandinavia, Holland, Canada have provided the human fodder…For a lot of Third World counties; sending troops is a bonanza. While a soldier in his or her own army may earn $10 a month, the U.N. pays $100! These troops are often under trained, under qualified and at times responsible for the atrocities they were sent into to repulse. The U.N. is running out of volunteer nations. Holland is pulling out, others are pulling back. 

Neither was the Cold War a piece of cake. The Arms Race escalated exponential in the twenty years after World War 2. The United States and Russia now have over 1000 nuclear warheads, still pointed at each other that can be activated within fifteen minutes!.... (So much for the prospect of Peace!)

This was just for openers…There was more to come! Alfred Stepan stepped up to the plate and gave us a head full of statistics about the threat of Nuclear proliferation where we had originally five nations: the United States, Russia, China, England and France…(you notice who controls the U.N. with five permanent seats? A strange corollary!) There are today at least ninenations with that capability….and not all of them are stable! It is predicted that over the next twenty years there will be many more. Not a nice place to live! Some of these new nuclear nations are a potential menace. However, the number one threat is Terrorists. Bin Laden has made no bones about wanting an Atom Bomb. Nuclear know-how and materials have been on the open market for years. The chances of some of these falling into the wrong hands are very real. It is predicted by some experts that the risk of a rogue nation or terrorist attack on U.S. soil is more than 50/50 over the next five years, (How's that for a peaceful night's sleep!)

Dr. Andrew Pierre brought up some amazing statistics. His work thrives on polls, and while Gallop is satisfied with 1200 test opinions, his organization evaluates 27,000 samplings to ferret out the facts. Much of his fact-finding has been in Muslim countries and the statistics were eye openers. There are very few democracies in the Islamic World with the exception of the largest populated county: Indonesia. Their country has a thriving democracy and an amazing tolerance of other's religion. Impoverished Senegal, is 40% Catholic, and India, with a population of 161 million Muslims living in peace within its borders. There were a few startling facts bandied about: In a survey of religion's influence on democracy, the more religious segments also were the staunchest supporters for democracy. Other segments, less religious were ambivalent and felt it didn't matter. (Bear in mind that these statistics were taken from large surveys not tiny samplings.) While the U.S. has the smallest number of religious holidays, they are all Judeo-Christian based…not one Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist. Respect for religion in Indonesia celebrates 83 paid holidays across the spectrum of religious believes. The Head of State is visibly there to celebrate each one! The survey further established that 70% of Indonesians strongly support their democracy while Fundamentalist had a very small following. Dr. Pierre dissected the Iranian issue: Yes they are feverishly developing their Nuclear capability, however, they are not so dumb as not to realize that Israel could wipe the off the map, if they overstepped. Their nuclear development is a source of national pride and not limited to extremists. The Ayatollahs no longer rule Iran …Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while a bellicose politician is under the control of the ruthless Revolutionary Guard. There is one glimmer of hope: Iran's traditional military establishment is very unhappy with the situation and may one day step into the fray. So far, this has not happened, as witnessed by the failed student green rebellions of last year. 

He finally touched on the exposed nerve of Israel vs. The Palestinians. He had just recently returned from one of his visits there. The startling conclusion was that the “Two State” concept will not work! All panelists in the room agreed. Meeting with top Israeli officials, he floated the one State notion as an alternative. Naturally, that did not sit well. The conflict, the hatred is too deep. So what is the solution? The truth is, there is no solution. (If that isn't ever depressing.)…. A long-term overview was that for anything to go forward, the Wall must come down. It is huge, it is divisive, it is depressing and yes it has curtailed suicide bombers. No peace can happen with it in place. The building in the West Bank must stop. An interesting aside was that most settlements in the occupied territories are within five miles of the Israeli border. A long range, far-fetched solution…one that could work if all sides were to agree, is the legal acquisition of this 5-mile strip through vast exchanges of money and land. This would resolve the vexing issue of the settlements, nullify the problem of building more residences and create a workable separation of the two feuding sides. The problem remains that an ultra conservative constituency won't budge. They deeply feel all Palestine is historically Jewish territory. All agreed that the Palestinian Authority is a bankrupt and corrupt organization and is unable to rule. There was concurrence that there is unfortunately a pervasive attitude of Apartheid amongst all segments of the Israeli population. Successful minorities of citizens, many of European decent, constitute the enlightened intelligencea:  successful entrepreneurs, and businessmen. They live in Tel Aviv and have little to do with the struggle over Jerusalem. When they want entertainment and vacations, they get on a plane and head for Paris! All past and present American attempts to mediate this problem have proved futile as they are based on the “Two State Now” philosophy. The best we can do is to persuade the sponsors of Hamas and Hezbollah to layoff. This conflict is a long way from being resolved. The morning ended on a slight upbeat note that Israel's Knesset passes laws and policy on a pure majority basis…51% clinches the deal. While there is nothing on the table at present to vote on, (nor the leadership on either side of the squabble to move it to fruitful discussions), this one feature might one day help foster a solution when both sides are ready to talk. 

After such heady information, we broke for lunch. Our last speaker was a refreshing educator, Sally Roech Wagner, who brought some hope for peace into our reality. Unfortunately, it was based on historical facts and little help in the present situation. She told us of the astonishing fact that the American Indian Nation of the Iroquois was a democracy over 600 hundred year ago. Their leaders brought peace among the Eastern American tribes, which has prevailed for centuries. Their philosophy of respect for each other and the fascinating role women played in their culture stands in sharp contrast to our modern day society. An interesting aside was that L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz had written 14 other books about Oz! That all the books were banned under the McCarthy era as being subversive…and finally that as a good citizen of the territory of South Dakota, he wrote a devastating article in a local news paper against the Sioux Indians that helped to spur the Indian massacre at Wounded Knee and the assassination of Chief Sitting Bull, (who refused to sell their ancestral territory to the white man). The U.S. Army awarded more Medals of Honor for action at Wounded Knee than for any other engagement in the history of the US Army. Sally broached the suggestion that the Indian wars of the 1800s were genocide against the entire Native Americans population.

Being a devotee of women's rights, Sally surprised us with the fact that the first woman candidate for President was not Hillary Clinton, but a wonderfully motivated woman by the name of Belva Ann Lockwood, who graduated from law school in Washington, D.C. and became one of the first female lawyers in the United States. Lockwood ran for president in 1884 and 1888 on the ticket of the National Equal Rights Party and was the first woman to appear on official ballots. Her platform: “War is barbarism of the past and all wars could be abolished by 1900! (What a lovely sentiment!)

Recommended reading: Mending the World: Social Healing Interventions by Gestalt Practitioners Worldwide - A Gestalt International Study Center Publication