There's a song from my youth that says "Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future..." Hard to argue with that.
This morning was so full of productivity. I thought I had the world on a downhill pull. Funny how quickly the day (and the caffeine fueling one) can slip away... Now as I look at the clock, I realize that I have perhaps spent more time than originally intended on some other blog sites. What's more, this, too, is extruding personal bellybutton fuzz from the ends of my erstwhile fingertips. Ah well...
So... starting up with writing again, even with CNN droning endlessly in the background, doesn't seem to be generating any interesting thoughts for me...
Sure, it's a great tragedy that the Air France FLT #447 went down en route from Brazil to Paris; and yes, it's both interesting and disturbing that images and soundbites of Obama in Buchenwald are being juxtaposed with images and soundbites of Hitler addressing his followers prior to the eruption of the Third Reich on Europe in particular and the world in general, especially in the wake of Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday... and yes, I do still think that Rick Sanchez lacks substance, proud as he is of being the first to conduct a "national conversation", just because he agreed to try out the incorporation of some new technological toys that caught the eye of one of his bosses (was it only last summer?) - he's still way too defensive of perceived slights from other media personalities... Much less riveting to me are the peculiar circumstances under which the corpse of David Carradine was recently discovered hanging in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand... Sure, I was just slightly older than the target audience that raptly watched the tv series, Kung Fu, but regardless of age, the appropriation of Bruce Lee's brilliant idea by a haole, and such a disrespectful and talent-free one at that, has always and will forever offend me. Ah well...
So where is the deep end of the pool into which I wish to jump?
Perhaps the most engaging ideas I have encountered today come from Lois McMaster Bujold's MySpace page, wherein she has been reviewing her nonfiction readings. Clearly these are the sorts of things that have been informing her own mental meanderings and underlie her ruminations within the novels I so greatly enjoy reading and rereading. I am in need of mental refreshing, and I need new wells into which to plunge my musty muzzle. Perhaps these suggestions will help. :-)
Friday, June 05, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Sotomayor, et al
In the air there is much ado these days regarding the upward mobility of the educated products of the previously impoverished generations. Rick Sanchez of CNN presents himself as a success story similar to the first Latina candidate to the Supreme Court, and indeed, he is.
What, after all, do those born to privilege expect several generations after the initial egalitarian movements in education? Was there no expectation that the brightest and best of those provided equal opportunity would in the fullness of time rise, like all cream, to "the top"?
Foremost, of course, is the recently elected president of the United States, Barack Obama. Here is a man born of a Kenyan exchange student whose American education began in Hawaii and culminated at Harvard; and a daughter of itinerant entrepreneurs originally from Kansas but whose travels took them to the Northwest and on to Hawaii, the daughter going on to Indonesia before returning to Hawaii. Is it any wonder that their son should continue the family tradition of widely traveling, from Hawaii to the White House and on around the world in search of world peace and national economic prosperity?
Not one to rest on his laurels and gloat over those still on the rise, Obama has reached out to others of the formerly and currently underrepresented to join him in leading our nation. A quick canvass of his Cabinet nominees and administrative appointees provides ample proof of this. Sotomayor is just a very high profile example of this ongoing policy.
Not to be left behind and representative of parallel success stories, Rick Sanchez is now pointing out his own ethnic background and personal professional achievements. Good for him. He is representative of the changing landscape of American leadership.
I do find it fascinating that CNN seems to have been stepping up its advancement and featuring of nonwhite reporters in key anchor positions ever since Obama's increasingly successful campaign, culminating in his election. CNN promotions seem to have coincided with his inauguration. One mustn't be too cynical in the face of warranted success. The doors have opened; may they never reclose.
What, after all, do those born to privilege expect several generations after the initial egalitarian movements in education? Was there no expectation that the brightest and best of those provided equal opportunity would in the fullness of time rise, like all cream, to "the top"?
Foremost, of course, is the recently elected president of the United States, Barack Obama. Here is a man born of a Kenyan exchange student whose American education began in Hawaii and culminated at Harvard; and a daughter of itinerant entrepreneurs originally from Kansas but whose travels took them to the Northwest and on to Hawaii, the daughter going on to Indonesia before returning to Hawaii. Is it any wonder that their son should continue the family tradition of widely traveling, from Hawaii to the White House and on around the world in search of world peace and national economic prosperity?
Not one to rest on his laurels and gloat over those still on the rise, Obama has reached out to others of the formerly and currently underrepresented to join him in leading our nation. A quick canvass of his Cabinet nominees and administrative appointees provides ample proof of this. Sotomayor is just a very high profile example of this ongoing policy.
Not to be left behind and representative of parallel success stories, Rick Sanchez is now pointing out his own ethnic background and personal professional achievements. Good for him. He is representative of the changing landscape of American leadership.
I do find it fascinating that CNN seems to have been stepping up its advancement and featuring of nonwhite reporters in key anchor positions ever since Obama's increasingly successful campaign, culminating in his election. CNN promotions seem to have coincided with his inauguration. One mustn't be too cynical in the face of warranted success. The doors have opened; may they never reclose.
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