NOTE; From my archives (one of my first posts) August 8, 2006
The National Military Families Association is an old client of mine and today I'm meeting their former CEO for lunch. She and I had hoped to use her site and some of the "women's" content sites to begin to bridge the chasm between military and non-military families. Who if not the women would be capable of that? I had just read Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, a wonderful book about West Point and leadership so was particularly interested in removing the stereotypes and isolation suffered by the military in my formative, actively anti-war youth. We were unable to interest most of the women's sites into doing anything without payment though; it was quite sad.
When I think of 9/11 and of the Iraq War - and remember how my parents used to talk about the "GIs" and their position in the world during World War II, it's particularly unfortunate that we now have a "military class" that is separate from the rest of us in so many ways - and whose parents and children were also likely to be military -- so much so that we're worlds apart. Today Oliver Stone told the Washington Post that he thought combat experience "softens you, if anything. It makes you more aware of human frailty and vulnerability. It doesn't make you a coward, but it does teach you. " Yet, as he noted in this interview, none of our current political leaders has any combat experience at all. I know we need to end this division, but I have two sons and what seems sensible in the abstract is horrifying in the concrete. I have many friends whose kids have gone to live in Israel, for example, and they seem to accept the fact of their sons' military obligation with equinimity but I don't know if I could. And I"m not sure if it's the scars of Vietnam and even more recent futile endeavors or rank selfishness on my part.... More later.
NOTE: From my archives: Today: January 2, 2006
Some radical thoughts about the future from people who actually might know what they're talking about: I have always been fascinated by the smart, smart people who live from the center to the edge of the cyberthinker world. Because I was present in LA for much of the early conference/thinker gatherings when they weren't so exclusive and you could get a press pass if you knew your way around reporter vocabulary, I met many of them -- often humbling but exhilarating experiences.
Over the years one of their most resourceful thinkers, John Brockman, has built a foundation called The Edge, where thinkers gather to "ask each other the questions they are asking themselves." The annual question founder Brockman has asked this community of thinkers (albeit more than 6 times more men than women) is "What Are Your Optimistic About? Why?" It's worth a look. Some of those I know the most about, and respect, whose ideas might intrigue, include Whole Earth Catalogue publisher Stuart Brand, Microsoft pioneers Linda Stone andNathan Myhrvold , Jaron Lanier, the man who named "virtual reality, Howard Gardner, the Harvard professor who has had such an impact on how we see learning differences and help the kids who have them, and one of the earliest Web thinkers, Esther Dyson.
Take a look; you might actually find a route to some optimism yourself! I was surprised by how much "good news" these people deliver. If we can just get some political leadership to follow up on it we'll be better able to leverage these possibilities but either way, it's nice to get some good news once in a while. Happy New Year.
See this? Looks like home, doesn't it? And sometimes it feels like we are the only country struggling with these issues of immigration. But guess what. This poster isn't from Arizona, or Florida, it's part of a sign on a wall on Ermou Street in downtown Athens.
It's not the only one, either. The country is under terrible economic pressure and it's fraying things.
According to our very sweet taxi driver, despite the rumors of wild spending on services, Greece does not provide for the homeless or the poor - at least not enough. And the people coming into Greece want jobs and "a better life" but "they aren't taking any food from me!" He's with the marcher s- but there are plenty on the other side too. We know it's true in France and Germany -- and that Mohamed is one of the most frequent names for new babies in many European countries. But as you can see the sympathy hasn't completely eroded.
In addition to these posters, there are many stencils, borrowed from Paris, look like the one below, also from a wall in our neighborhood here.
For more evidence of how bad things are -- look at this sure coal mine canary: Squeegee men vintage NYC in the 1980's - all over town.
I'll keep you posted as we move through the islands - assuming things will be different there. Would write more but it costs the earth to use the web on this "yacht."
You’re not going to believe it but this was written by
Sheldon Harnick in 1958 and recorded by the Kingston Trio. Does
anything sound familiar? I couldn't find a decent video but it was too good to waste.
They're starving in Spain (whistling)
There's hurricanes in Flo-ri-da (whistling)
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
AND I DON'T LIKE ANYBODY VERY MUCH!!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
AND WE WILL ALL BE BLOWN
AWAY!!?
They're rioting in Africa (whistling)
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't so to us --
Will be done by our fellow "man"
Are you unplugged? It's Friday morning and soon Shabbat will be here. I'll light the candles and we'll go to friends for dinner and tomorrow to services and to lunch (I'm bringing part of it). Later we're going to another home to be part of what they call a "shabbat hangout" where the kids all play and the parents (and their older friends, like us) talk, and study and enjoy the peace of 24 hours of an unplugged, non-electric, non-driving, non-cooking, non-working life.*
We started living this way five years ago, as I've often documented here (I dare you to read this one about observant Judaism and Patti Smith), and now it seems that others -- many of them cool hipster digital types, -- are looking to do the same. Take a look.
Over these years I've struggled with keeping kosher, with the role of women, and with much else. But there are moments of such beauty and meaning that I find myself spinning - knowing why I'm here and wondering at the same time.
I've always been Progressive; worked in the anti-war movement and the McCarthy campaign - and was in Chicago at the 1968 convention, and when I first found observant Judaism and Shabbat, it felt counterintuitive. Too many rules. Sometimes it still does.
But the reason why Unplugged is so great is that when you start, you think Shabbat will be what you hate. No more errands or Saturday manicures or movies. No phone calls or emails or web wandering.
And then you unplug. And even if - as I suspect will be true for many - you don't go the way we went and adopt (almost) the entire package, you find the peace of what Josh Foer, in the video, calls this "ancient" idea, and are grateful for it. And for the people around you -- IRL -- close, and easy and at peace.
*OK I admit it. I'm really glad the health care vote is on Sunday; if it had been on Saturday it would have been a real pain.
I don't spend my time talking about the "olden days" - really I don't. Working on the web has kept me very much in the present. But tonight I watched a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony retrospective and since you have to have given music at least 25 performing years to be inducted most of the performers were closer to my age than to that of my buddies here on the Web. And wow.
I feel the way you feel 2/3 of the way down a fantastic black diamond slope with the wind in your hair and frost on your ear lobes and your heart pounding. Where else is there the power that music brings to us? We go where it takes us -- return to places we'd forgotten we knew, find pride in the memories we cherish and an abashed amusement in those that might have been a bit - um -- less luminous. Our moods, our clothes, the way we're driving, or eating, or doing less discussable things, changes with the music around us. It's bits of soul reflected.
I was blessed to be at a couple of the most amazing inductions; I've written about that before but some of those moments appeared tonight and I could feel again the hair raising thrill of watching Ben E King and The Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan and Billy Joel and Mick Jagger and dozens (literally dozens) of others performing together. Coming as we all do from a generation that did so many things as a tribe, it's particularly moving to watch them trade glances and cues -- such a familiar pattern.
I love my life now and am so grateful to be a part of the explosion of the new connected world, but I am also grateful for the years those musicians gave us. They are brothers and sisters and inspirations and former fantasies and just plain fun. I know how many died of overdoses, I know there are seamy stories and I know that there are wonderful musicians who have followed them and will themselves end up on that stage when enough years have passed but my time was a wonderful time to be young and loving music. And once again tonight I remembered how many moments of my own personal Hall of Fame were accompanied by, or part of, or generated from - the music they gave us all.
![](http://<a href="http://www.betterthanaplaydate.com/2008/05/twos-a-charm.html"><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/mommyblogstoronto/secondisacharm.png"></a>)
