Category Archives: Americana

Obama as a Jedi master: Health Care Edition

Americana, Current Affairs, Obama, Politics

At the end of the day, Saturday, I got home after being at a event honoring women in the military – a post on that to follow – and sat down to check the news. In the New York Times, under the article on the Pope and the latest sex scandals, was an article saying Obama Rallies Democrats in Final Push for Health Care.

The article talked about exactly what the headline said but it didn't, in my opinion, really capture the moment. C-SPAN did with the meeting on video – I guess we can't really say video-tape any more – and it was truly extraordinary. Who ever called the meeting to order, first talked about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and how she was going to do something that no other House Speaker has been able to do.

About that time, Michele came in and said I am hungry. I said I am too, let's go out and get something to eat. But I want to watch this for a minute. We started watching the meeting again, at the beginning, and  and an hour later, we finally went out to dinner. Feeling much better about America. If you have an hour, watch the meeting here, you won't regret it.

To quote Michael Scherer in his article titled Without A Teleprompter, in Time's Swampland:

We knew president Obama would give a speech today to House Democrats.
We didn't know it would be this good of a speech. The video below is
just the last ten minutes of an address that lasted about 30 minutes.

I suggest you start watching at 2 minutes. The president takes his
caucus on the political equivalent of a guided meditation. Assuming the
bill passes, this is political rhetoric for the history books.

Cats and dogs and big cats

Americana, Current Affairs, San Mateo County

When I was a boy, we had a dog named Zola*. Almost everybody I knew, that had a pet, had a dog. Dogs were the heroes in movies like Old Yeller. Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin. The only people that had cats were villains and old ladies. Cats were bad – well, not exactly bad, more couldn't help it evil. Think Silvester.

Now everybody I know who has a pet, has a cat. Even people who have dogs, have cats**. 

When I was that same boy, there were no longer wolves in the Bay Area and coyotes had yet to move in. There were no cougars or mountain lions, either. But, while the wolves seem to be really gone, the cougars are moving back in. And they are being embraced. The cover of our local park district magazine sports a mountain lion on the cover and an article inside promotes their virtues. So, it seems, both General U. S. Grant and mountain lions are making a comeback. Maybe health care will pass after all.

Mtn. Lion Cover 

* for Émile Zola who accused the French Army of antisemitism and obstruction of justice when they convicted a Jewish artillery captain, Alfred Dryfus, of treason. 

** except for the Obamas who only have a dog.

The Blind Side

Americana, Books, Current Affairs, Film, Religion, Sports, What's a man?

Michael Oher and family

I just finished reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis and I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in football, or US social policy, or the human potential, or race relations, or, for that matter, just wants a good read.I just finished writing about David Foster Wallace and how much I have enjoyed his writing and The Blind Side is the polar opposite.

With DFW, I am always aware of, and dazzled by, the writing. In the The Blind Side, the story is everything – more accurately, what is being told is everything. All the words, all the sentences are pushing a narrative forward. And I mean that in the best possible way. 

At this point, I think everybody knows the basic plot – how a poor black kid, Big Mike who become Michael Oher,  is discovered (not quite the right word, maybe found) by a very rich, white, Christian, family and how his life and their lives are changed. That does not do it justice. Michael Oher is a 350 pound, 6'4", freakishly quick, and astonishingly graceful black kid who is invisible.  He goes to school, sort of, but nobody cares if he learns anything – they just pass him on to the next grade where he is invisible again.  He is one of those kids we read about every once in a while that just slipped through the cracks. At 6'4" and 350 pounds!

Except that, when he is starting his junior year in high school, everything changed. Michael is very likable but he is very lucky. As the book says, among other things, Pity the kid inside Hurt Village who was born to play the piano, or manage people, or trade bonds. This book made me realize, again, that we, me and the people who read this blog, were all born on third base, at least, and, even on our best days, think we hit a double.We didn't we are just enormously lucky.