Once upon a time, a secretive vice president convened a secret government task force that developed secret energy policies and secretly included energy industry executives.

Then, there were secret military tribunals, with secret charges for secret prisoners. There were secret renditions that transferred some of these secret prisoners to secret prisons in secret European countries.

There was the disclosure of the identity of a secret CIA officer. Who told what to whom remains a secret, and the vice president’s chief of staff was indicted for allegedly keeping secrets from federal prosecutors.

There was a secret conversation between a president and prime minister about secretly bombing an Arabic television network. There was another secret discussion about tricking Iraqis into shooting down a U.S. spy plane secretly painted with United Nations colors.

The administration secretly intercepted the communications of UN delegates in New York, and secretly bugged the office of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency.

Members of Congress wanted to see records of secret communications between federal government officials responding to Hurricane Katrina, but these, after all, were secret.

The secret budget for the country’s secretive spy agency turned out to be not-so-secret.

There were meetings between a corrupt lobbyist and the president, but the details continue to be kept secret. A photograph of one such meeting was available online and then pulled, because someone wanted it to remain a secret.

The administration engaged in secret wiretapping of American citizens, bypassing a secret court set up explicitly to monitor such surveillance and keeping their activities a secret from all but a few members of Congress, who were themselves bound to secrecy. But defenders of the administration vowed that those responsible for revealing this secret would be punished.

There were secret photos of secret acts of abuse, torture, and murder at an Iraqi prison. (Ironically, abuse, torture, and murder occurred at this prison under an earlier regime, too, but that was an open secret.)

The vice president was involved in a secret shooting and drank a secret quantity of beer.

This week, we learned that there were secret government documents that were classified as not secret until secret federal agencies decided they should be secret again, which was kept secret from the public — and even apparently from the people in charge of keeping tabs on those secrets.

Many years ago, when this country was fighting another global war, the government engaged in secret wars and gathered secret information about the enemy. That secret intelligence turned out to be misinformed, foolish, even dangerous in its blindness.

Today’s secretive governments may have their secret reasons for keeping secrets, but is all this secrecy worth the trouble?

“Secrecy,” a wise man once said, “is for losers.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Don’t pick a fight with a ’toon — especially a ’toon who is syndicated.

In an outbreak of cartoon (cartoonish?) anger a tad less frightening than the worldwide protests over the prophet Mohammad cartoons, the Rev. Al Sharpton recently attacked cartoonist Aaron McGruder for an episode of his animated series, Cartoon Network’s The Boondocks, in which MLK wakes up from a decades-long coma, protests the Bush administration, and utters the N-word. Over the past week, McGruder has struck back with a series of newspaper cartoons devoted to trashing Sharpton for trashing The Boondocks (see here, here, here, and here).

For another take on the flap, check out this column by USA Today’s DeWayne Wickham.

Interestingly, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius mentioned one of these recent Boondocks cartoons in a column yesterday. Ignatius compared the recent Muslim backlash to the Mohammad cartoons to African Americans’ reactions to the N-word. He held up McGruder’s cartoon as an example of how African Americans today can “deal with their anger in less self-destructive ways.” (Did Ignatius realize that the whole point of McGruder’s cartoon was to slam Sharpton for slamming him?) In turn, Workbench criticized Ignatius for his “jaw-dropping racial generalizations.”

Who ever thought that cartoons would become the most serious news of the day, worthy of endless protests, riots, arsons, and testy editorials?

Speaking of news and the funny pages, Doonesbury seems to be at the top of its game again. Since the Iraq invasion Garry Trudeau has been chronicling the tragic absurdities of the war — both abroad and on the home front — mostly through the eyes of Doonesbury character B.D., a veteran of Vietnam and both Gulf Wars, who lost his leg in Iraq and is now (sort of) seeking counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder. B.D.’s helmet has finally come off; Bush’s Mad Martian-wear is still on, though looking a little worse for wear in these post-“Mission Accomplished” days.…

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

First there was the story of the special bond between two cowboys, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, who began a forbidden and secretive love affair after one fateful night on a Wyoming mountain. Now comes a film about the special friendship between two other men, separated by vast expanses of time and space, and yet drawn together by love: Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

It’s an open secret that American tourists regularly head to Cuba to frolic on the white beaches of our closest communist neighbor, but if you happen to go there to protest American foreign policy, prepare to be indicted …

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

I just watched a PBS Frontline documentary, “Sex Slaves,” which provides a much-needed look at a global trade that snares hundreds of thousands of women around the world. The documentary is incredibly engrossing, centered around the story of a husband searching for his pregnant wife, Katia, a Moldovan woman who was sold into slavery by an acquaintance while traveling in Turkey. Katia and many other women from impoverished countries are duped with offers of legitimate work, kidnapped, and held against their will. They are typically forced to have sex with eight to 15 men a day and beaten regularly. (This kind of sex trade does not just happen in far-off lands: About 20-25,000 of these women have ended up in the United States, says one expert interviewed in the documentary.) Another former sex slave, Tania, from Ukraine, went to Turkey in the hope of getting a nanny job; she was sold to a violent pimp and worked as a prostitute for 10 weeks under the threat of violence until a customer bought her freedom. “Before this, I hadn’t encountered much evil in my life,” Tania says. “But when I got there I couldn’t believe places like that actually exist in this world. I thought I’d find at least one kind person, or that one of those pimps would set me free.” In Turkey, the police officers collude with sex traffickers; some are even customers.

The scariest thing is that Tania chooses to go back to her life as a prostitute. Her family lives in utter poverty in Chernobyl, Ukraine; they cannot afford surgery for Tania’s severely ill younger brother. Shortly after winning her freedom, Tania decides to return to Turkey and sell herself — this time willingly — to raise the money. It may seem like a story taken from a dreary historical novel like Memoirs of a Geisha or Les Misérables, but this is the reality for hundreds of thousands of women, trapped in a modern-day nightmare where poverty and lawlessness meet human lust and cruelty.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a thoughtful post on the violent reaction to cartoons published of the prophet Mohammad. An excerpt:

An open society, a secular society can’t exist if mob violence is the cost of giving offense. And that does seem like what’s on offer here. That’s the crux of this issue — that the response is threatened violence and more practical demands that such outrages must end. It’s back to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses …

The price of blasphemy is death. And among many in the Muslim world it is not sufficient that those rules apply in their countries. They should apply everywhere. Perhaps something so drastic isn’t called for — at least in the calmer moments or settled counsels. But at least European governments are supposed to clamp down on their presses to heal the breach.

In a sense how can such claims respect borders? The media, travel and electronic interconnections of the world make borders close to meaningless.

So liberal mores versus theocratic mores. Where’s the possible compromise? There isn’t any. On the face of it this gets portrayed as an issue of press freedom. But this is much more fundamental. ‘Press freedom’ is just one cog in the machinery of a society that doesn’t believe in or accept the idea of ‘blasphemy.’

I agree that there doesn’t seem to be any possibility of a long-term compromise in this case. In a diverse and increasingly interconnected world, the only hope for peace comes from accepting the right of individuals anywhere to criticize, even mock, anyone else’s beliefs. In the absence of such debate, we will eventually move back to a world of tribal, state-sponsored religions, with scientific inquiry halted or limited (which on some days seems to be the world that the Bush administration prefers).

That said, I’m not sure that all the clucking and finger-waving coming from opponents of Islam is going to get us to any solution either. Traditionalist, reactionary thinking always gains strength when there is meddling by foreigners identified with another faith. There is a tendency to close ranks when one’s people, culture, and fundamental beliefs are threatened.

Such was the case as far back as the early history of Christian Europe. If Muslim armies still had control of Spain in the 16th century, would there have been a Protestant Reformation in Germany and elsewhere? Dissent could take root in part because Europe’s Christians no longer felt as vulnerable to invasion from a foreign, infidel power; now they could simply turn on each other.

Muslims in the Middle East already have to deal with the presence of foreign troops on their soil, and foreign governments in their politics. The latest round of attacks on Islam from Europe and America has given extremist religious leaders all the more credibility among their followers.

With time and without meddling, the Islam that the West fears so much — the Islam that set the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on fire — can surely evolve, in much the same way that other faiths have evolved to blunt, and even expunge, traditions incompatible with liberal, capitalistic democracy. (We may forget, for instance, how far today’s mainstream Christian denominations have come from their traditional, once vehement, opposition to practices like usury and divorce.) After all, contrary to the views of some critics of Islam, not all Muslims think alike. In each of the countries now experiencing riots and upheaval over the Mohammad cartoons, there are growing numbers of highly educated professionals who want to see their societies move toward the protection of Western-style civil liberties. The problem is that these liberties are still seen as too “Western-style.”

If foreigners continue to intrude on domestic affairs in these countries, homegrown reformers will continue to have to counter charges that they are merely flunkies of the foreigners. And their voices of reason and moderation will continue to be drowned out in the strident, unnecessary conflict between East and West.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Minutes after George Bush’s State of the Union address tonight, ABC News dissected the speech and announced — with truly startling mathematical precision — that 60 percent of the paragraphs in the president’s speech could have come from one of Bill Clinton’s State of the Union addresses. (It was so startling that I forget if it was 60 percent or some other number.)

In light of this fascinating statistic, I have put together a quiz to test your knowledge of tonight’s State of the Union. After reading the statements below, please indicate whether the words came from (a) George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union, (b) Bill Clinton’s 1999 State of the Union, or (c) Osama bin Laden’s recent audiotape.

On justice:

1. “We are people who do not stand for injustice.”

2. “We are pressing … to bring those responsible to justice.”

3. “We do not forget the other half … because the demands of justice and the peace of this world require their freedom as well.”

On the nation:

1. “We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat.”

2. “No nation in history has had the opportunity and the responsibility we now have.”

3. “Our nation has only one option.”

On the nation’s resolve:

1. “We are in this fight to win, and we are winning.”

2. “They win a few battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are much better.”

3. “No one anywhere in the world can doubt the enduring resolve and boundless capacity of [our] people.”

On Osama:

1. “We will defend our security wherever we are threatened, as we did … when we struck at Osama bin Laden’s network of terror.”

2. “Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously.”

3. “A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain.”

On Social Security:

1. “So let me say to you tonight, I reach out my hand to all of you in both houses and both parties and ask that we join together in saying to the American people: We will save Social Security now.”

2. “Tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This commission should include members of Congress of both parties, and offer bipartisan answers.”

3. “The best death to us is under the shadows of swords.”

Click here for the answers.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Last month I wrote about Munich and the fusillade of criticism it has received from extremists on either side of the Middle East’s Maginot Line. Tony Kushner, the Angels in America playwright who co-wrote the screenplay for Munich, has penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that takes the film’s critics head-on:

In the last month, the co-creators of “Munich” have been accused of being apologists for the Palestinians, apologists for Israel, defamers of Palestinians and of Israel, softheaded Hollywood liberals, dupes of the radical left, dupes of the radical right, even of being anti-Semitic or self-loathing, for showing Jews talking about receipts and handling money. We’re morally confused, overly complicated, simplistic. We’re cowards who refused to take sides. We took a side but, oops! the wrong side.

Ironic, isn’t it? When you refuse to take sides in any other conflict you’re called an honest arbiter, but when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, everyone needs to have blood on their hands (or lips). In Munich Kushner and the film’s director, Steven Spielberg, have created a film that shows an empathy and understanding that their motley crew of critics lack, and for that they will likely never be forgiven.

For his part, Kushner reaffirms his love for Israel and his staunch belief in its right to exist, and yet he also acknowledges that, like so many Palestinians (and Europeans and Americans and Asians, etc.), he is critical of the Israeli government’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In his op-ed Kushner passionately makes the case that neither side has a monopoly on justice in their battle for a homeland, and that ending terrorism will require not just bullets, but also intelligence:

Contradiction in human affairs, such as the possibility that injustice can drive people to do horrible things, is routinely deplored and dismissed in these troubled times as just another example of the naïveté of the morally weak (a.k.a. liberals and progressives). But there will always be pesky people who, when horrific crimes are committed, insist on asking, “Why did that happen?”

This is a great annoyance to the up-and-at-’em crowd, whose unshakable conviction is that the only sane and effective response to terrorism is savage violence commensurate with the original act. To justify this conviction they offer, as so many of the political critics of “Munich” have done, tautologies on the order of “evil deeds are done by evil people who do evil deeds because that’s what evil people do.” If that’s helpful to you as a tool for understanding terrorism, you won’t like “Munich.”

In the film, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is presented not as a matter of religion versus religion, or sanity versus insanity, or good versus evil or civilization versus barbarism or Judeo-Christian culture versus Muslim culture, but rather as a struggle over territory, over geography, over home.

We’ve followed the lead of many Israeli historians, novelists, filmmakers, poets and politicians who have recognized and described the Israeli-Palestinian struggle this way — as something tragic and human, recognizable. We’ve incurred the wrath of people who reject, with what sounds like panic, an inescapable fact of human life: People do terrible things in the name of a cause they believe is just, even in the name of a cause that actually is just.

”Munich” insists that this characteristic of human behavior is not meaningless in the struggle against terrorism. In other words, we believe that one aspect of the struggle against terrorism is the struggle to comprehend terrorism. If you think understanding the enemy is unimportant, well, maybe there’s a job in Washington for you.

Ouch. Okay, Kushner is certainly a partisan, but he’s one who’s willing to listen before he shouts. And in the bloody pageant of Middle East politics, listening is a revolutionary act.

(Make sure to read Rich’s excellent review of Munich.)

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

A study of college students finds that they have a startlingly low level of literacy when it comes to reading and understanding various types of printed information, including postal instructions, gas bills, survey tables, and — yes — news articles.

Take a look at the study and scroll down to Appendix A, which contains some sample questions. Only 75 percent of four-year college students and 83 percent of two-year college students could properly fill out the name and address portions of a certified mail slip. Only 27 percent and 24 percent, respectively, could read a news article and summarize one of its key points.

What’s more depressing is the even lower scoring of the overall adult population on these same questions. (Remember that only about a quarter of American adults age 25 and over have a college degree.) Only 16 percent of American adults answered correctly when asked about the aforementioned news article.

Thankfully, most of us bloggers use easy-to-understand four-letter words in our commentary, with abundant use of punctuation and emoticons to graphically demonstrate our points. And yet an infinite number of bloggers typing away at an infinite number of keyboards can, theoretically, produce a work of Shakespeare — or at least a humdinger of a post on Boing Boing.

😉

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Yesterday I wrote about Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and its message that human beings could choose their way in life, in spite of any hardships. The philosophy can be summed up in a few words from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that Frankl quotes repeatedly: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” This why can come from various sources, and it does not stay the same over the course of a lifetime; its origin, Frankl says, “differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.”

Frankl discusses three different ways that individuals go about discovering meaning in their lives. The first is by “creating a work or doing a deed.” This is usually what we think about when we hear someone talking about finding “meaning” in their life. Through creative work we lose ourselves in a greater principle or cause.

The second is more passive, a matter of “experiencing something or encountering someone” — in a word, enjoyment. This may mean contemplating the beauty of nature, or savoring the intricacies of culture, or simply loving another human being. In one of his more eloquent passages, Frankl describes love as a way of becoming aware of the “very essence” of another person, of understanding “what he can be and … what he should become,” and by doing so helping the loved one to reach his potential.

A few of us will be able to find meaning in our lives through the utilization of unique and valued talents. Some may find meaning in experiences of love, or encounters with the beauty that surrounds us. But for others there will not be those consolations. For many, even the blessings of achievement and love will be fleeting, forgotten or lost with the passage of years.

But the third path is open to all. It was the one alternative left to many of those trapped, along with Frankl, within the automaton existence of the concentration camp. Some of these prisoners had once been learned, wealthy individuals with power and prestige, others had known the love of partners and children, but in the nakedness and poverty of camp life even these seemingly intangible possessions had been stripped from them — for many, irrevocably so. What remained to these men and women was a choice. Would they give into the humiliation and terror that enveloped them, or would they choose to show courage, dignity, and compassion in spite of their surroundings?

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worth of his sufferings or not.

This ability to conquer suffering should not be confused with masochism, Frankl emphasizes: Avoidable suffering should always be avoided. But especially in today’s more affluent, technologically sophisticated societies, there is a tendency to delude ourselves into thinking that all suffering can be avoided, and that any kind of suffering is meaningless. Frankl’s experience in the concentration camps is testimony to the contrary. “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering,” Frankl observes. “Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

The problem is that we see suffering as destruction, a pathway to that most absolute destruction of all, death. Suffering closes off our possibilities; it degrades our most important possessions of mind and body; it saps away our potential for future life, future achievement. For a similar reason we fear old age, that most gradual form of suffering that all of us must endure. In a society in love with youthfulness, suffering and old age inspire dread not only for the difficulties they present, but also for the shame they burden us with — the shame of no longer being useful, of being contrary to the universal order of happiness.

Yet Frankl reminds us how foolish those fears are. The suffering that awaits us can be ennobling. To bear it with dignity can be our life’s greatest achievement. Why envy the youthful, then? The promises of their future potential are mere shadows, while the joys of a moment well-lived remain with us to our ends. “Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings,” Frankl writes. “Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.”

When the future is lost to us, the meaning of our lives may only then become clear. Frankl tells us the story of a young woman he met in the camps, a woman who knew she would die in the next few days.

… when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. “I am grateful fate has hit me so hard,” she told me. “In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, “This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.” Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. “I often talk to this tree,” she said to me. I was startled and didn’t quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. “Yes.” What did it say to her? She answered, “It said to me, ‘I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.’”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

For a while now I’ve been meaning to mention some books that have been on my mind and on my bookshelves — some newly published, most quite old. The problem is that with any good book, there are a hundred different things to talk about, and I never have the patience to write a comprehensive review. Capsule reviews, on the other hand, don’t give you a chance to say much of interest. So I’m going to limit myself to some random thoughts about random books, with the hope that whatever I say piques your interest enough to read the full work. (It goes without saying that I’ll only mention books worth reading. It’s hard enough for most people to pick up a book, so why waste your time on a mediocre one?)

Today I’ll discuss a book by book by Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, which was first published in 1959. It is perhaps the most accessible book by a psychiatrist you will ever read. The first part tells the story of Frankl’s experiences as a prisoner of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The second part outlines the tenets of logotherapy, an approach to psychotherapy that maintains that what drives human beings is not the search for pleasure or power, but rather meaning — however the individual defines it.

What Frankl does in his relatively short book can only be called ambitious — who else would dare to have subject headings like “The Meaning of Life” and “The Essence of Existence”? Yet, unlike so many self-help gurus and modern-day philosophizers, Frankl manages to rise above caricature. One reason, of course, is the iconic horror of what he and others experienced in Auschwitz, Dachau, and other Nazi-run camps. Frankl’s autobiography is the grim foreground of the book’s first part and the essential background of its second, offering us a rare glimpse of humanity at its worst and best. When Frankl speaks of the meaning of life, we know his words to be credible, the testament of a man who survived life at its cruelest and salvaged meaning from its most nihilistic depths.

But this is not just a Holocaust story. What I found to be most valuable in Frankl’s book is its insistence that the lessons of Auschwitz apply in any situation, in any individual’s life. Fate, in fact, matters little. What matters is how human beings respond to it. Can we find meaning in our suffering, regardless of how arbitrary and maddening it may seem? Do we bear the inevitable misfortunes that befall us — all of us, eventually — with grace and dignity? Indeed, many of us are blessed with liberties and comforts unknown to the camp prisoner, and yet we still show an inability to make use of the most fundamental freedom of all — the freedom “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

This is not to say that all of Frankl’s fellow prisoners (or even Frankl himself, as he suggests in the book) chose virtuously in the concentration camp. The majority did not. There were many, in fact, who allowed the brutality of the conditions there to eviscerate their humanity. These men were selected to be Capos — prisoners with special privileges — and as Nazi stooges they treated their fellow prisoners more cruelly than the guards themselves, Frankl points out. Likewise, among the guards there were many who perversely enjoyed their work of torture and killing, and yet there were also a few who showed unexpected kindness to their prisoners. It seems the same choice was posed even to them, the captors: Would they allow the baseness of their surroundings to destroy them? “It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing,” Frankl writes.

Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s influences, and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards. I remember one day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved me to tears at that time. It was the human “something” which this man also gave to me — the word and look which accompanied the gift.

Frankl here shows a remarkable ability to empathize even with his Nazi captors, and in doing so he demonstrates the fundamental truth of his teaching: the ability of every individual to reject the corruption and the blindness of hate and to see the world as it is, without illusion, without cynicism.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about what meaning Frankl’s book has for a modern culture obsessed with avoiding suffering.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

When people can be honest about their lives and their sexual orientation as just one part of their life, then we can move past the unknown and allow people to just be real. I think that’s what these films have significantly helped America see.

They’re stories about real people. They’re neighbors, they’re co-workers, they’re friends, they’re family members. That does, I think, over time translate into advancement for equality and against the defamation we face.

—Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, commenting on the outcome of Monday night’s Golden Globes, where films with gay and transsexual characters racked up the awards: Brokeback Mountain won four Golden Globes, including best motion picture and best director (Ang Lee); Capote’s Philip Seymour Hoffman won best dramatic actor; and Transamerica’s Felicity Huffman won best dramatic actress. In her acceptance speech, Huffman said, “I would like to salute the men and women who brave ostracism, alienation, and a life lived on the margins to become who they really are.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen