I can still see her youthful face as if it were yesterday. Only it was many yesterdays ago. Right here at the corner of State & Randolph streets in downtown Chicago where VJ Day was wildly celebrated the night of August 15, 1945.
Her's was a radiant face, full of youth and gratitude and hope. I never met her, for she was out there on the other side of the surging throngs that were roaring and rippling down State Street's broad bricked way. But I have never forgotten her. About 20 years old with bobbed auburn hair and a kissable pug nose, my mystery lady seemed to personify everything that was good and promising to that end-of-war ovation.
I often wonder. Whatever happened to her. And if she ever noticed and wondered about me. For all I really know, she may be dead or she may be Hillary Clinton! You just can't be sure about things that many yards and years away. Oh, but I can be sure of this. She represented the exhaled rapture following four years of fear. Of dying. Of almost global annihilation.
And yet ....
Those were also years of national pride. Of collective action. Of home front side by side with war front, dedicated to a cause and a mission. America -- and Americans -- really believed back then. With a kind of belief we have not known since. My lovely mystery mistress was cheering as were we all, for she knew what I knew. Everyone had been shoulder to shoulder those four years, rarely toe to toe as we are today some 65 years later.
Sure, the memories of old age can play tricks on you. We tend to remember what we wish to remember. But she and I -- and all those thousands of Chicagoans that special night -- were part of a whole that was astoundingly greater than the sum of our parts.
Does it have to take a war to do that? Does it have to take a war to quilt a population behind a leader? Does it have to take a war to find what's good and best within yourself? I'll be damned if I know, but history seems to tell us: Yes. It would seem only the brutality and bloodshed of war can do all this.
If true, humanity should be ashamed. And soon....!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
MORALITY OF OLD EGE OR IS IT JUST TOO LATE TO CARE?
There's this guy in Colorado who's been banned from the local Safeway stores for a whole year. They say he offended a buxom female employee while ordering chicken breasts thusly: "I like the large ones." The issue here is to which breasts was he pointing!
But maybe there's an even larger issue at stake. The fella was in his 60s, and I'm thinking he's thinking like I've been thinking ever since I stumbled into my 70s: Now's the time! The time to stop repressing everything inside your Puritanical code of social ethics. Have a little innocent fun bantering with people you meet. OK, perhaps the Colorado dude was out of line. However, I ask myself: Am I out of line when I banter around my community...? Or am I simply feeling free at last to kibitz with strangers...? Or are my caring daughters correct when they advise old Dad to think twice before speaking...? Or is my psychiatrist son right in just shrugging with clinical indulgence...?
For instance.
Whenever I see off-duty cops having meal together, I can't help going up to them and telling them how glad folks are for their protection. Of course there are times when they start reaching for their weapon as I approach, but I take that to simply be their surprise at a cop compliment.
Whenever I see a beautiful, well-dressed woman shopping in the supermarket, I can't help but tell them what a pleasure it is to share the aisles with them. So far, not one has snarled or tried to slap me. I take that to mean either they like what they heard or they can see how totally harmless I am.
Whenever I notice a baby in some mother's arms, I can't help but smile and wave at them. The baby, not the mother. And while the infants are sometimes startled, I take the parent's nod as a pleased thank you.
Whenever I see a gaggle of teens texting somewhere in town, I can't help but make some remark about their generation's dazzling but distracting technology. Guy teens often stare back quizzically, but gal teens tend to giggle. I take that to mean they've just found a senior who's willing to communicate rather than grouse.
Well, as you can see, my sympathies lie with the old fella in Colorado who I take to have been just another friendly banterer like me. But then, I'm not entirely sure about this. Especially when my daughters start whispering to my son about the symptoms of rapid-onset silliness!
But maybe there's an even larger issue at stake. The fella was in his 60s, and I'm thinking he's thinking like I've been thinking ever since I stumbled into my 70s: Now's the time! The time to stop repressing everything inside your Puritanical code of social ethics. Have a little innocent fun bantering with people you meet. OK, perhaps the Colorado dude was out of line. However, I ask myself: Am I out of line when I banter around my community...? Or am I simply feeling free at last to kibitz with strangers...? Or are my caring daughters correct when they advise old Dad to think twice before speaking...? Or is my psychiatrist son right in just shrugging with clinical indulgence...?
For instance.
Whenever I see off-duty cops having meal together, I can't help going up to them and telling them how glad folks are for their protection. Of course there are times when they start reaching for their weapon as I approach, but I take that to simply be their surprise at a cop compliment.
Whenever I see a beautiful, well-dressed woman shopping in the supermarket, I can't help but tell them what a pleasure it is to share the aisles with them. So far, not one has snarled or tried to slap me. I take that to mean either they like what they heard or they can see how totally harmless I am.
Whenever I notice a baby in some mother's arms, I can't help but smile and wave at them. The baby, not the mother. And while the infants are sometimes startled, I take the parent's nod as a pleased thank you.
Whenever I see a gaggle of teens texting somewhere in town, I can't help but make some remark about their generation's dazzling but distracting technology. Guy teens often stare back quizzically, but gal teens tend to giggle. I take that to mean they've just found a senior who's willing to communicate rather than grouse.
Well, as you can see, my sympathies lie with the old fella in Colorado who I take to have been just another friendly banterer like me. But then, I'm not entirely sure about this. Especially when my daughters start whispering to my son about the symptoms of rapid-onset silliness!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
CAN YOU FEEL IT? OH, IT GOES DEEPER THAN THE HIGHEST IQ
I started thinking about this the other day as I watched this neatly dressed woman dutifully following her Golden Retriever with a pooper-scooper. With each neat scoop, dog looked at owner quizzically. As if to say: "Fine with me, altho I just can't believe you're still doing this!"
It reflects the thousands of years over which anthropologists tell us wild dogs gradually chose to be domesticated. Yes, chose is the correct word even though humans assume we did the choosing. Dogs -- like cats, horses, and birds -- evolved to a point when it just seemed a helleva lot easier to cater to humans who would then cater to you for the rest of your wonderfully domesticated life.
This was a tectonic shift in human culture. There are all kinds of such shifts going on all the time. Only, living through them, we may hardly notice them. Take for instance our own 21st C. Too early to tell, but this one may be one of the big ones written about a couple centuries from now. We may be too busy living these shifts to notice them, but lets consider some possibilities [possibilities more empirical minds often miss, for they are so gosh-darned busy look for hard evidence they miss the everyday subtle hints].
While the empirical mind may fixate on the hard GNP statistics contrasting China and the US, more subtle economic shifts are afoot. You can hear them everyday in barbershops and beauty salons where discouraged Americans are lately beginning to shrug, "Well, I suppose now it's their turn...!"
While the empirical mind may study the theological twists and turns in the Vatican. you can hear disgruntled Catholics leaving Sunday Masses reflecting on the chant from the disenchanted Bostonian faithful: "Keep the faith, change the church...!"
While the empirical mind may draft endless new Pentagon papers, the terrorists are re-reading Mao's strategies for asymmetrical warfare in which small mobile forces can beat large lumbering forces once you get them on your own turf.
While empirical minds re-churn the same playbooks about re-structuring our big-city schools, the good teachers still hanging in these neighborhoods remember what both the cities and the unions have forgotten. Without recruiting and rewarding gifted teachers, the glitziest restructured campuses will keep yielding only marginal human results.
Sometimes the experienced residents can sense the tectonic plates shifting far beneath them. Animals too, often even before the empirical vulcanologists. So while some are always looking for the Big One, little ones are probably with us everyday. You just gotta know where and how to look. Then, when and how to respond...
It reflects the thousands of years over which anthropologists tell us wild dogs gradually chose to be domesticated. Yes, chose is the correct word even though humans assume we did the choosing. Dogs -- like cats, horses, and birds -- evolved to a point when it just seemed a helleva lot easier to cater to humans who would then cater to you for the rest of your wonderfully domesticated life.
This was a tectonic shift in human culture. There are all kinds of such shifts going on all the time. Only, living through them, we may hardly notice them. Take for instance our own 21st C. Too early to tell, but this one may be one of the big ones written about a couple centuries from now. We may be too busy living these shifts to notice them, but lets consider some possibilities [possibilities more empirical minds often miss, for they are so gosh-darned busy look for hard evidence they miss the everyday subtle hints].
While the empirical mind may fixate on the hard GNP statistics contrasting China and the US, more subtle economic shifts are afoot. You can hear them everyday in barbershops and beauty salons where discouraged Americans are lately beginning to shrug, "Well, I suppose now it's their turn...!"
While the empirical mind may study the theological twists and turns in the Vatican. you can hear disgruntled Catholics leaving Sunday Masses reflecting on the chant from the disenchanted Bostonian faithful: "Keep the faith, change the church...!"
While the empirical mind may draft endless new Pentagon papers, the terrorists are re-reading Mao's strategies for asymmetrical warfare in which small mobile forces can beat large lumbering forces once you get them on your own turf.
While empirical minds re-churn the same playbooks about re-structuring our big-city schools, the good teachers still hanging in these neighborhoods remember what both the cities and the unions have forgotten. Without recruiting and rewarding gifted teachers, the glitziest restructured campuses will keep yielding only marginal human results.
Sometimes the experienced residents can sense the tectonic plates shifting far beneath them. Animals too, often even before the empirical vulcanologists. So while some are always looking for the Big One, little ones are probably with us everyday. You just gotta know where and how to look. Then, when and how to respond...
Saturday, September 11, 2010
ANY MYTHS FOR SALE AT NOTRE DAME?
We live in a somewhat cold, barren world these days. Not that we lack material splendor. Here in the West we are gifted with astonishing splendors. Homes, cars, gadgets and entertainments of all kinds. But we are often deprived of what our ancient ancestors held so dear. Great myths...!
A quick edit here. Great myths need not be simply great lies. Myths, in their fullest sense, are legendary narratives explaining particular beliefs and events. They can thereby take on the reality of truths, visions, and missions that motivate an entire society. Great myths like the Easter Resurrection...America as a land of the free & home of the brave...the Wild West as an endless frontier of new opportunity. Or terrible myths like Medieval witchcraft...Nazi racial supremacy.... today's viler conspiracy theories.
A few days ago, Notre Dame QB great Joe Montana splashed cold water on a warm myth. The 2005 movie story "Ruddy." Ruddy -- like the celebrated Gipper -- was an uplifting plot line about a kid coming out of nowhere and becoming a great moment in Note Dame's honored football mythology. Now to assert -- in keeping with today's scientific fixation on cold hard facts -- that pint-sized Ruddy didn't really make the team, and that the fabled Gipper wasn't actually all that Ronald Reagan's 1941 film portrayal imagined, seems like needlessly slaying giant teddy bears. Teddies, like Santa, who can not only be hugged, but used in the pursuit of great missions!
Oh, this myth-slaying has become quite rampant in these empirical days
Legends of great prophets, great kings, great sea partings, great soldiers of fortune, great pioneers of progress -- suddenly they have all been scooped into the same kind of vacuum cleaner celebrity magazines love to shred their subjects. Now if these tawdry little publications wish to devour the concocted myths about Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Britney Spears, John Edwards, and Mel Gibson -- nothing much lost.
On the other hand, if historians and anthropologists wish to antiseptically pick up apart the towering legends and myths that have helped civilization reach where it has -- much is lost. Perhaps more than a beleaguered society can bear. Or should be asked to bear, when it seriously needs heroes and heroics to cheer it on across the next finish line.
A quick edit here. Great myths need not be simply great lies. Myths, in their fullest sense, are legendary narratives explaining particular beliefs and events. They can thereby take on the reality of truths, visions, and missions that motivate an entire society. Great myths like the Easter Resurrection...America as a land of the free & home of the brave...the Wild West as an endless frontier of new opportunity. Or terrible myths like Medieval witchcraft...Nazi racial supremacy.... today's viler conspiracy theories.
A few days ago, Notre Dame QB great Joe Montana splashed cold water on a warm myth. The 2005 movie story "Ruddy." Ruddy -- like the celebrated Gipper -- was an uplifting plot line about a kid coming out of nowhere and becoming a great moment in Note Dame's honored football mythology. Now to assert -- in keeping with today's scientific fixation on cold hard facts -- that pint-sized Ruddy didn't really make the team, and that the fabled Gipper wasn't actually all that Ronald Reagan's 1941 film portrayal imagined, seems like needlessly slaying giant teddy bears. Teddies, like Santa, who can not only be hugged, but used in the pursuit of great missions!
Oh, this myth-slaying has become quite rampant in these empirical days
Legends of great prophets, great kings, great sea partings, great soldiers of fortune, great pioneers of progress -- suddenly they have all been scooped into the same kind of vacuum cleaner celebrity magazines love to shred their subjects. Now if these tawdry little publications wish to devour the concocted myths about Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Britney Spears, John Edwards, and Mel Gibson -- nothing much lost.
On the other hand, if historians and anthropologists wish to antiseptically pick up apart the towering legends and myths that have helped civilization reach where it has -- much is lost. Perhaps more than a beleaguered society can bear. Or should be asked to bear, when it seriously needs heroes and heroics to cheer it on across the next finish line.
Friday, September 10, 2010
STOP THE PRESSES? OH NO!
I hated to hear it...! The publisher of the New York Times said they will eventually stop printing...!
Yes, yes, I know all about on-line progress. And about the temporary dislocation and price society must pay for technological advancement. Fine. But at this age I must be allowed my memories. Memories, as we eventually learn, have a life of their own, for they are are totally independent of our will. Even of our better judgment.
And so, reading my hard copy of today's Times, a froth of satisfying breakfast-table memories bubble up. I hesitate at the prospects of someday being left only with those hard copy publications which have already surrendered responsible reporting to hustled headlining. When and if my Times stops delivering to my front door the aromatic fragrance of ink-on-paper, I fear I will have to work harder to ferret out what really counts in my society, no matter how spectacular my iPads will soon look!
Consider.
Glitzy celebrity photo-journalism will persist more than ever in sophomorically spotlighting abs, bosoms and bar fights. Which will mean even less space for what once actually earned celebrity. Talent! Already talent and training have become the fascination of only the few, while the many flock more to the tough and tacky.
Sports too tends to be covered more and more for its fights on the playing fields and feuds in the locker rooms. What the ancient Greeks once elevated to statuarys of athleticism, is now the journalistic play dough of reporters concocting the next scandal. Scores, sure they'll still be listed day to day; ahh but scandals,they live forever.
Music and movies? Well, yes, other publications will continue to deal with them. But mostly measuring them in box office receipts rather than aesthetic rewards. True, the public is hooked by flashy marquee grabbers, but once inside the concert halls and the theatres, even the public need something more than PR to fill the next 120 minutes. Who will be left to so advise them?
Education too is a perennial news item, but there is so much more to this indispensable institution than the usual gaggle of re-churned stories about metal detectors, aging campuses, teacher pensions, and the latest shoot-from-the-hip reform sensation. If publishers have the temerity to talk about better teaching, they better get past the standard copy that gets used every September. But they won't.
Finally, gangs and mayhem are always the stuff that sells. If-it-bleeds-it-leads is still the newsroom mantra. Here, though, is the whole problem of skin-deep journalism in one hard-to-crack nutshell. Send in the cameras and reporters to catch the cadence of crime. Then quick put it out there. Now on to the next headline. No time for the back stories about where, why and how gangs will continue to fester if the public remains simply angry.
Picturing this brand of jungle journalism rushing to fill the print vacuum left by the Times is a picture worth more than a thousand words. But one will suffice: "Retreat!"
Mr Publisher -- tell me it ain't so....
Yes, yes, I know all about on-line progress. And about the temporary dislocation and price society must pay for technological advancement. Fine. But at this age I must be allowed my memories. Memories, as we eventually learn, have a life of their own, for they are are totally independent of our will. Even of our better judgment.
And so, reading my hard copy of today's Times, a froth of satisfying breakfast-table memories bubble up. I hesitate at the prospects of someday being left only with those hard copy publications which have already surrendered responsible reporting to hustled headlining. When and if my Times stops delivering to my front door the aromatic fragrance of ink-on-paper, I fear I will have to work harder to ferret out what really counts in my society, no matter how spectacular my iPads will soon look!
Consider.
Glitzy celebrity photo-journalism will persist more than ever in sophomorically spotlighting abs, bosoms and bar fights. Which will mean even less space for what once actually earned celebrity. Talent! Already talent and training have become the fascination of only the few, while the many flock more to the tough and tacky.
Sports too tends to be covered more and more for its fights on the playing fields and feuds in the locker rooms. What the ancient Greeks once elevated to statuarys of athleticism, is now the journalistic play dough of reporters concocting the next scandal. Scores, sure they'll still be listed day to day; ahh but scandals,they live forever.
Music and movies? Well, yes, other publications will continue to deal with them. But mostly measuring them in box office receipts rather than aesthetic rewards. True, the public is hooked by flashy marquee grabbers, but once inside the concert halls and the theatres, even the public need something more than PR to fill the next 120 minutes. Who will be left to so advise them?
Education too is a perennial news item, but there is so much more to this indispensable institution than the usual gaggle of re-churned stories about metal detectors, aging campuses, teacher pensions, and the latest shoot-from-the-hip reform sensation. If publishers have the temerity to talk about better teaching, they better get past the standard copy that gets used every September. But they won't.
Finally, gangs and mayhem are always the stuff that sells. If-it-bleeds-it-leads is still the newsroom mantra. Here, though, is the whole problem of skin-deep journalism in one hard-to-crack nutshell. Send in the cameras and reporters to catch the cadence of crime. Then quick put it out there. Now on to the next headline. No time for the back stories about where, why and how gangs will continue to fester if the public remains simply angry.
Picturing this brand of jungle journalism rushing to fill the print vacuum left by the Times is a picture worth more than a thousand words. But one will suffice: "Retreat!"
Mr Publisher -- tell me it ain't so....
Thursday, September 9, 2010
GETTING LOST IS ONE WAY OF FINDING YOURSELF
Ever get lost...? No, not looking for a street address in the city. Out in the countryside where there are no addresses. Out where, as they say, "God lost His shoes."
About 30 miles north of Chicago -- on my way to Wisconsin -- I took a wrong turn and ended up on a gravel side road which in turn ended up at the wet sandy edges of a small weedy lake. Well, why not? I parked and started to stroll the shoreline, for it was a perfect September morning in the American Midwest. It had all the triumphant footprints of a God who so loved the world, He gave us spectacular Autumn.
The thick oaks and elms were just starting their ceremonial transfiguration from rich greens to startling ambers and reds. The air cracked with the snap of a bracing chill, while the white waves lapped gently at the shoreline as if inviting you in. As for the sky and the sun overhead, well it's never like this back in the city where towering glass and steel foolishly try to compete.
This small secret cocoon was well worth getting lost in. One of those unscripted moments when nature takes its proper place in the hierarchy of your busy little life. When whoever (or whatever, if you prefer) gave it life whispers to you: "You are so very small, and you have so very little time."
It was just then that I saw it...!
About 100 yards down the beach a rickety dock nervously poking its head out a few feet into the lake. Suddenly, amazingly, I recognized that old pile of weathered wood. Hurry now to be sure. Ah yes, I'm right. Oh my God -- some 70 years later I re-discover where our family's Depression era cottage once stood. Not an especially impressive cottage, and yet the extended family's modest adventure during the summers of those terrible 30s.
Here's where nature and memories and God and I fall into one another's arms. The dock, though no longer used, is the same....the site, though no longer occupied by any building, is the same....the adjoining landscapes, though overgrown, are the same. The only thing changed is me.
However, for one shimmering moment, I am seven years old again. Blond, thin, scruffy, uncoordinated, one of a large loud family of aunts and uncles and cousins. Yet right here right now, I once more stand in the light of my young parents' love for their firstborn son. (Unknown to me, Richard was already stirring in our Mother's summertime dresses).
So I am standing and staring and weeping all at the very same impossible moment. I had to get lost on this September morning to find a precious piece of myself that once lived and breathed right here. Richard is still a member of this moment. But not Mom. Not Dad. Long gone back to the very same God who gifted me with this moment. One I shall treasure all the remaining moments of my life.
About 30 miles north of Chicago -- on my way to Wisconsin -- I took a wrong turn and ended up on a gravel side road which in turn ended up at the wet sandy edges of a small weedy lake. Well, why not? I parked and started to stroll the shoreline, for it was a perfect September morning in the American Midwest. It had all the triumphant footprints of a God who so loved the world, He gave us spectacular Autumn.
The thick oaks and elms were just starting their ceremonial transfiguration from rich greens to startling ambers and reds. The air cracked with the snap of a bracing chill, while the white waves lapped gently at the shoreline as if inviting you in. As for the sky and the sun overhead, well it's never like this back in the city where towering glass and steel foolishly try to compete.
This small secret cocoon was well worth getting lost in. One of those unscripted moments when nature takes its proper place in the hierarchy of your busy little life. When whoever (or whatever, if you prefer) gave it life whispers to you: "You are so very small, and you have so very little time."
It was just then that I saw it...!
About 100 yards down the beach a rickety dock nervously poking its head out a few feet into the lake. Suddenly, amazingly, I recognized that old pile of weathered wood. Hurry now to be sure. Ah yes, I'm right. Oh my God -- some 70 years later I re-discover where our family's Depression era cottage once stood. Not an especially impressive cottage, and yet the extended family's modest adventure during the summers of those terrible 30s.
Here's where nature and memories and God and I fall into one another's arms. The dock, though no longer used, is the same....the site, though no longer occupied by any building, is the same....the adjoining landscapes, though overgrown, are the same. The only thing changed is me.
However, for one shimmering moment, I am seven years old again. Blond, thin, scruffy, uncoordinated, one of a large loud family of aunts and uncles and cousins. Yet right here right now, I once more stand in the light of my young parents' love for their firstborn son. (Unknown to me, Richard was already stirring in our Mother's summertime dresses).
So I am standing and staring and weeping all at the very same impossible moment. I had to get lost on this September morning to find a precious piece of myself that once lived and breathed right here. Richard is still a member of this moment. But not Mom. Not Dad. Long gone back to the very same God who gifted me with this moment. One I shall treasure all the remaining moments of my life.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
JOHN LENNON AND BEING MIA
M.I.A. is always a terrifying report. To be missing-in-action conjures up the worst of combat possibilities. And yet, MIA is not isolated to wars. There are countless cases in peacetime as well. Consider America here in 2010 where we find "missing" such desirables as: balanced budgets, full employment, fair taxes, and world peace.
When John Lennon wrote "Imagine" he had such felicities in mind, especially world peace. But now reverse the order, and imagine what our lives would be like if there were even more MIAs today.....
Imagine an America without on-line dating services. Surprising as it may seem to the elder generations, nearly 30% of all new couples in the US find one another via the Internet's growing social media.
Imagine an America without casinos. More and more cash-strapped states are granting casino permits to tap into needed tax receipts. In the northwest alone, there are 41 casinos with 20 more planned. Oh, and Illinois's 10th gambling palace is being erected as this is being written -- just 1.7 miles from my soon-to-be-boarded-up front door.
Imagine an America without strong and attractive women. Take Hale Berry and Sandra Bullock. Each betrayed by a skank of a husband which Cornell University studies show are disgustingly symptomatic of most 18-28 year old men who feel threatened by marrying successful beauties who overshadow their fragile male egos
Imagine an America in which the hot new TV series "Mad Men" were not available. In one of those peculiarly unpredictable flashes, its 1960s plot about hard-drinking ad men and busty broads has inflamed the imaginations of a whole new generation. Having myself been there in the late 1950s, I have documentable doubts about this portrayal; but who cares about doubts when you're busy dreaming.
Now imagine an America without children. Unthinkable? And yet with the start of another school year, our streets are empty each day from morning to afternoon. Walk them sometime and drink in the silence. Not only instructive, but impoverishing.
Finally, imagine an America without the Internet. For all it questionable effects on everything from brain circuits to moral values, it has achieved something of Lennon's dream. Most of the world's 6 billion inhabitants are now in instant 24/7 touch with one another's facts, feelings, and fortunes. No party, no government, no army can completely stifle this planet-wide exchange. And that -- fellow imagineers -- could be the beginning of something bigger than even John Lennon imagined...
When John Lennon wrote "Imagine" he had such felicities in mind, especially world peace. But now reverse the order, and imagine what our lives would be like if there were even more MIAs today.....
Imagine an America without on-line dating services. Surprising as it may seem to the elder generations, nearly 30% of all new couples in the US find one another via the Internet's growing social media.
Imagine an America without casinos. More and more cash-strapped states are granting casino permits to tap into needed tax receipts. In the northwest alone, there are 41 casinos with 20 more planned. Oh, and Illinois's 10th gambling palace is being erected as this is being written -- just 1.7 miles from my soon-to-be-boarded-up front door.
Imagine an America without strong and attractive women. Take Hale Berry and Sandra Bullock. Each betrayed by a skank of a husband which Cornell University studies show are disgustingly symptomatic of most 18-28 year old men who feel threatened by marrying successful beauties who overshadow their fragile male egos
Imagine an America in which the hot new TV series "Mad Men" were not available. In one of those peculiarly unpredictable flashes, its 1960s plot about hard-drinking ad men and busty broads has inflamed the imaginations of a whole new generation. Having myself been there in the late 1950s, I have documentable doubts about this portrayal; but who cares about doubts when you're busy dreaming.
Now imagine an America without children. Unthinkable? And yet with the start of another school year, our streets are empty each day from morning to afternoon. Walk them sometime and drink in the silence. Not only instructive, but impoverishing.
Finally, imagine an America without the Internet. For all it questionable effects on everything from brain circuits to moral values, it has achieved something of Lennon's dream. Most of the world's 6 billion inhabitants are now in instant 24/7 touch with one another's facts, feelings, and fortunes. No party, no government, no army can completely stifle this planet-wide exchange. And that -- fellow imagineers -- could be the beginning of something bigger than even John Lennon imagined...
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