It is perilous indeed to pull out the historical comparisons, and recently I have noted a lot of rumblings – well, more than usual – from conservatives characterizing President Obama’s foreign policy as one of appeasement and toothless sanction – and comparing it to the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain . Most of the time, these comparisons over-simplify issues. Krauthammer’s piece points out the possible and actual consequences of a toothless, one-down interaction with the world. Even if you don’t agree with part or all of what he says, it is worth a read. Link below. MB
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sunday, October 18, 2009
I’m Pretty Sure I Just had an Aneurism!
So very seldom in life do we appreciate how unique are our experiences. We get into a rut, thinking that everything we do, think, eat, read, watch has been done before. Or at least a lot of it. Well, maybe you don’t, but I tend to do so, and I am always glad of it when something unexpected and novel reminds me that I am constantly experiencing the unique, it is just that I forget to pay attention.
Earlier this week, I came across a perfect little reminder of just how unexpected life really is. Before you look closely at the photo below, I am going to make a prediction about you that will be 100% accurate. 100%. If you are honest, you will be forced to admit that without even knowing you, or at least without knowing you well at all, I have been able to tell you something about yourself. Something undeniable. And at the same time, I am going to prove that we will have shared a unique experience, one that every last one of us will be forced to admit was both singular AND unpredictable. How can I make this claim? How can it be true in every case?
Start by examining this photo:
(photo by Alexey Eliseev and caption from Improbable Research)
I know that in looking at the photo, there is something odd that trips a little alarm in the brain, alerting us to possible funny business. Who are these people and what are they doing? To set the scene, allow me to tell you how I came across the photo. On a message board I frequently read and occasionally pollute with my own posts, I was reading a discussion of the Nobel committee’s decision honoring President Obama with the Peace Prize for this year. As was the case in the papers, at water coolers around the country and on the television news programs, opinions were mixed about the committee’s decision. I commented on it in an earlier entry here at the Bully Pulpit (The Bully Pulpit - Obama-wins-Nobel-peace-prize), and at the message board most of the posts expressed either surprise or gratification. One of my favorite members of the board, known there by the handle Seagull, added a very simple post. It contained a link to a website called Improbable Research, and it was there that I first saw the photo shown above. I nearly skipped the caption of the photo and simply moved on to the article, but something in my subconscious caught the oddness of the picture and made me take another look.
Seconds later I was laughing and wiping coffee off of my chin, and being reminded that I don’t care how many of us there are on this planet, there is no way that anyone woke up the morning of October 11, 2009 and thought they would see this, or anything like this. The photo at the top of the website linked by Seagull makes my all-time list of INWHGIWIWU events (I-never-would-have-guessed-it-when-I-woke-up). No, no way someone woke up thinking, ‘uh, I foresee three - no four - Nobel Laureates, several women removing their bras, dividing them in two and...now the women are giving everyone a cup to breathe through.’ Now take another close look at the photo and you will see that at the 2009 Nobel Prize ceremony, Public Health Prize winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention — a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander. She is assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle (left), Orhan Pamuk, and Paul Krugman (right).
Tell the truth, now, there is not a person among us that could possibly have awakened that morning thinking, ‘I bet I see four Nobel Prize winners at this year’s ceremony wearing bra cups on their faces to demonstrate a patent-pending invention meant to equip all (unliberated anyway) women with life-saving emergency equipment as well as life-enhancing comfort and support.’ So you see,our lives are not so very predictable at all.
Insert gratuitous remarks HERE.
Oh, and so what does the title have to do with the rest of this mess? Well, think of it as a sort of Public Service Announcement to warn you not to do what I did. Whether you have a mouthful of coffee or not, when you need to laugh, and laugh hard, DO NOT HOLD IT IN! Nothing good will come of it, with results ranging from ruptured ear drum, to aneurism, to an (hopefully small) unintended deposit in the shorts, to, well…I think you get the idea.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
There has been a lot of surprise, excitement, shock and criticism since the Nobel committee announced the Peace Prize for this year. The chief criticism seems to be that the President has not accomplished enough to win. Since nominations were required on February 11, and he had been in office for just 11 days when he was nominated, I imagine that accomplishment may not have been the message the committee was sending. I tend to agree with the President’s own assessment, that the award is sometimes given in recognition of accomplishment, and sometimes to offer momentum to a movement. When Theodore Roosevelt won, it was for almost literally forcing the Japanese and Russians to sign a peace agreement and end their war (using his prestige as President, not military threat). That was an accomplishment - a result, or outcome. I imagine that the President hopes very much that the award will give some added 'wind to his sails' as he attempts to turn the promise of change into a program that creates the desired results - or, accomplishment.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
A Little Jolt of Perspective from Ms. Baines
According to the Associated Press, Gertrude Baines, the world's oldest known person died Friday at a nursing home. She was 115.
It is hard to grasp just how different was the world into which she was born in 1894 is from the world today. Tsar Nicholas II succeeded his father Alexander III. He would live and rule for another twenty-four years before the Bolshevik Revolution swept him, and the Empire away. Norman Rockwell was born, as was Nikita Khrushchev. Robert Louis Stevenson died. Grover Cleveland was President of the United States. The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued 32 years prior, the Fourteenth Amendment had given African Americans the right to be citizens 26 years prior, and the Fifteenth had given African American men the vote just 24 years before. A case then in court would ultimately require ‘separate but equal’ facilities for people of color and Caucasians just two years later in 1896 (Plessey v. Ferguson). The strife and progress of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s was more than a half century in the future.
When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, there were many African Americans of all ages who expressed the view that they had thought they’d not see a black man elected as President in their lifetimes. Particularly poignant were the faces and stories of the men and women who had fought so hard (and non-violently) in the 1950s to bring genuine equality to America. Many of them were in their sixties and seventies, and it was touching to see their dream realized in their lifetime.
How much more amazing and touching it was to see Ms. Baines comments about the election of the President. Baines celebrated her birthday at the nursing home April 6 with music, two cakes and a letter from President Barack Obama, whom she voted for in November. Local newscasts had shown her when she cast her ballot. Baines, who is black, said she backed him "because he's for the colored." She said she never thought she would live to see a black man become president.
Like so many African Americans on election eve, Ms. Baines had hoped to live to see a black man elected President, but doubted that she would. When she was born, President Cleveland was the 24th President. Barack Obama is the 44th President. Ms. Baines had seen twenty men elected and serve before finally getting her wish. Of course, she saw so many other amazing changes in her time that it is tough to imagine – radio, television, space travel, two wars to end all wars, the nuclear era, mass production, all modern technology…the list is mind boggling. Still, I doubt that there was a more meaningful and powerful change in her lifetime than living long enough to see an African American elected President.
Ms. Baines once joked that she won the genetic lottery to achieve her age. I think she also won the political lottery in living long enough to vote for, and see elected, and African American President.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
A Bad Economy, Complex Problems, Plummeting Polls
President Bush only had high numbers when the nation was rallying after attack. President Obama has managed to get less than six months into his first term before his numbers dropped below fifty percent. I wonder if a President will ever again have high approval for more than a fraction of his term? Why doesn’t anyone care that Congress has ratings far lower than either President? Can anyone govern in the polarized polling environment today? How is anyone supposed to lead when difficult responses to no-win situations are called for? It doesn’t matter all that much what the response is, there will soon be polls showing that most of us don’t like it. I can see why kings and emperors often justified themselves as having only one seal of approval- the Divine approval. Having to lead our society in this time with polls thrice a day and hoards parsing every word to catch one in a faux pas…man, who would WANT to be President now?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Sunshine on Discovery Bay
As always, the photos we use are either my own, or in the public domain. Please let me know if there are any errors and I'll correct them immediately.
Posts
