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Micheal Bennet, who represented Colorado as a U.S. Senator, told a journalist in 2009 that the possibility of losing his seat  in 2010 should not hold him back from voting for health-care reform even if it were unpopular in Colorado.   Voting in line with the best interests of his fellow citizens would evince a degree of political integrity that I suspect few in the biz have today. However, might a representative be wrong and his or her constituents right about the long term best interest? Is a U.S. senator necessarily smarter or more capable of insight? Lest Bennet be criticized here for failing to have represented his constituents, one might take a look back at Madison’s Notes to the constitutional convention. 

The US Senate was designed or intended to represent the State governments and to serve as a check on the US House, whose members are supposed to vote according to the ephemeral passions of their constituents.  The difference between taking a long term view and voting on the basis of the mood at the moment can be seen by contrasting an election every  six years from one every two. The different lengths of the respective terms in office is no accident, my friends.  So it turns out that if the U.S. senator tells his constitutents that he is voting contrary to what they think is best now, he is acting as the office has been designed.  Those people who are wont to criticize such a senator tacitly presume that they cannot be wrong about what is best for themselves—which is exactly why a check on them and the US House is needed. Of course, where the best interest of the electorate differ from that of the state government, a U.S. senator is in a real pickle, as he or she is charged with representing his or her state as a polity and to resist current pressure from the citizens therein who are his or her electorate.  It is possible that there is an internal inconsistency in the aims of the U.S. Senate, particularly where providing a check on the representative democracy in the U.S. House is at odds with the interests of the state government.  Perhaps the U.S. Senate should be redesigned so as to be oriented to one principal function.  In terms of federalism, this would have to be providing the state governments with a direct involvement in the general government of the union. However, what would then serve as a check on the proclivity in the U.S. House to mirror the momentary passions of the people?

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/22/freshman-dem-passing-health-care-reform-worth-losing-my-seat/

In the month before the Oscars, Turner Classic Movies runs films under the promo, "Thirty One Days of Oscar."  Interestingly, in promoting this series, the network reminds views to watch the Oscars on another network.  Although the strategy could be that if people watch the Oscars, they will be more likely to watch TCM, it could also be that the people who operate TCM really do love movies and they are not bothered at all by viewers going to another network to view the Mecca of cinema: the Oscars. In other words, it could be that a passion for film trumps the incessant drive for more profit that typically occupies the attention of business managers. The culture of cinemateque may eclipse greed.  The implication is that business as usual--the typical rationale for going to work at a given business--can and should be questioned.  All of us can ask ourselves whether we feel the way about our respective industries the way ciinophiles feel about theirs. A way to test whether you are in the right field is if you find yourself saying, "I can't believe someone pays me to do this."  I suspect that few people can marvel at being in such a situation.  Even so, I contend that human nature relishes in it and dies in a sense without it.  That something so vital is so commonly relegated or dismissed in favor of expediency (or greed) is short-sighted, for he who does what he loves is apt to do it better than otherwise. We in the West at least are so used to businesses being constantly attuned to getting the next dollar or euro that it is surprising when the managers of a company put the interests of their passion above their own company's narrow interests. We ought not, in other words, to take business as usual for our default. Rather, we ought to look for creaks of passion particularly where it checks greed, even if just for special events, at the balcony.  If passion spreads such that we put things before ourselves, society would feel much different. I suspect that we have no idea how much, being locked in as though frozen in constant motion.

On curtailing greed, see: http://thewordenreport.blogspot.com/2011/02/godliness-greed-how-effective-is.html