Wow!

I went to the computer this morning all set to post about books and NPR. Then I took a look at The Washington Post, read that President Obama had won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Reading the article, I learned that the Nobel committee had said this about Mr. Obama: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Mikhail Gorbachev, a previous Nobel Peace laureate had this to say: "I am happy. What Obama did during his presidency is a big signal, he gave hope. In these hard times people who are capable of taking responsibility, who have a vision, commitment and political will should be supported."

Suddenly blogging about anything else seemed ridiculous.

I, personally, live in the Shenandoah Valley, one of the most peaceful places in the world. People here are rarely rude, let alone war-like. Yet I am still perceived by the rest of the world as an American, and so judged by the attitude and actions and manners of my president. And I guess I had not realized how profoundly the rest of the world welcomes the change in American tone and attitude that Mr. Obama has wrought.

As Rob Gifford is saying on Morning Edition as I type, the last administration was perceived as bullying its way around the world, "throwing its weight around," its approach "unilateral." Seen in that context, the awarding of this prize to Mr. Obama begins to seem like a huge, international sigh of relief; the international community welcoming its prodigal power back to the table.

I recognize that actually posting a response on a blog does not come naturally to a lot of you who read this blog. But I am really, really, really interested to know your reaction to this news. So please, pluck up your e-courage and post a response. Or, if your prefer, e-mail me, and I'll do the posting for you.

"Nothing more American than. . ."

Last night on All Things Considered, Melissa Block interviewed attorney Norm Kent, who represented 12-year-old Jennifer Valdivia in her lawsuit against the Philadelphia Phillies. He sued, Mr. Kent said, to get Miss Valdivia back the Ryan Howard home run ball she'd caught and then given back to the Phillies in exchange for another ball and some cotton candy.  It  had been Mr. Howard's 200th homer, making him the youngest man ever to hit that many.  The lawsuit would have been for "in excess of $15,000."

If you want to know more about the story itself, here's an article about it from  the Philadelphia Inquirer. But right now, I want to get back to Melissa Block's interview.  When asked why Ryan Howard should not get the ball back, attorney Norm Kent replied that "...historically, there's nothing more American than a fan who captures a baseball in the stands keeping it."

I was immediately outraged. How dare he! I thought. How dare anyone ever use the phrase "nothing more American than . . ."

And then I was immediately curious about why I'd become so outraged

It took a while and a movie to figure it out. The movie was Motorcycle Diaries, the fine film about Che Guevara's 1951 trip traversing South America on a motorcycle with friend Alberto Granado. It was this journey that opened the eyes of a young, privileged medical student to the crushing poverty of most South Americans. To me, it was the story of someone learning that he can never learn enough about the complexities of his own people.

What had angered  me about Mr. Kent's presuming to judge what's more or less "American" was that he'd deliberately oversimplified the true wealth of this country which, in my opinion, is its diversity. Each of us carries in our heart an attachment to America that is based on our unique history, heritage and experiences, and no one's basis of attachment is more valid than another's.

Real Americans, schmeel Americans, say I!

All too often we hear politicians speaking for what "real Americans" want, or believe, or need. That, dear reader, to this reporter, is jargon, speak, bottom-feeding and pandering of the lowest order. Beware the politician who claims to speak for those of us who are more American than others.

By the time I went to bed last night I wanted to suggest to Mr. Kent that he spend a year on a motorcycle riding the blue highways of his country. Then see if he was still comfortable sitting in judgment of what's American and what's not!

FYI: the health care debate. As an educational  resource, I'd highly recommend this in today's N.Y. Times

Audio blogging on health care

I'm posting Wednesday's blog post on Tuesday night, because I have to be on the road tomorrow morning by 6:45 AM in order to drive to Lexington in time to teach a 9:00 class on writing personal essays at Washington & Lee. And I just don't have the willpower to yank myself out of bed in time to post before I leave.

This will also be my first audio post. Please do let me know what you think about audio posts in general, or this one in particular.

So here's the post. . .

Speaking of Washington and Lee, Law School professor and health care expert, Timothy Jost, was on Virginia Insight this Monday. In one 3:10 segment, he first called the media to task and summarized all pending health care bills. In my opinion, listening to those three minutes is as profitable a 3-minute investment  of time as one could make in one's current events education. 

If you have an hour to invest, and missed Monday's show, here's a link to Virginia Insight so you can listen now.

Where was Peter Kohn when I needed him in high school trigonometry class?

I saw Peter Kohn at the gym yesterday. Peter is a J.M.U. math professor and a funny guy.

I made some lame mention of the Nobel Prize for Mathematics, forgetting--I hope for just the moment--that there isn't one. Peter pointed this out and then passed on a great piece of historical gossip: Alfred Nobel didn't fund a mathematics prize because a mathematician had run off with his wife and thus left him mad at all mathematicians in perpetuity. Peter said this probably wasn't a true (it appears he is right), but it was, nevertheless, a good story.

Peter was responsible for a great leap in my own personal understanding. My husband, Charlie, and I recently got sucked in by a PBS program on fractals. We were mesmerized  by Benoit Mandelbrot's 1975 identification (discovery?) of these "rough or fragmented geometric shapes[s] that can be split into part[s], each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole."

Beautiful, yes. Pleasing, certainly. But why should we care? What is the point? Charlie and I spent much time over the next few evenings puzzling over fractals. And then we asked Peter to lunch.

Over lunch, Peter first explained fractals so clearly and simply that we (I think) really got them. But I still didn't get the point of fractals. Like the lilies of the field, they didn't seem to reap or sow. They just sat there--whether in visual or in mathematical form.

The point, Peter said, is that they are fun. Mathematicians have fun with numbers in the same way you have fun with words.

Peter's statement was a real ah-ha moment for me. Why hadn't someone said that in my high school trigonometry class, when I was constantly worrying about the deeper meaning, the practical ramifications of all those numbers and squiggles? What was I missing? What was I failing to grasp?

It seems to me that if my teacher had given me permission to have fun with numbers, I could have just relaxed and gotten on with things.

There's a great deal to be said for talking with people who know different things than you do. We never, ever outgrow the joy of ah-ha moments, do we?

The Supremes, back at it . . .

The front page of today's The New York Times sports an article slugged, "New Court Term Hints at Views on Regulating Business." In it, Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who is now director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, is quoted as saying,

“Every time in American history when you see a consequential administration,you see a heightened tension between it and the court.”

The article goes on to point out that by the time the court goes on its summer break, 25 or the 45 cases they will have heard will concern business issues. Last year 16 of 42 revolved around business.

What's at stake in these cases is government's ability to rein in the Reagan-esque deregulation of business practices that's played out over the last three decades. Since the deregulated ways of Big Business are now largely credited with bringing on our current Great Recession, the basic question the Court has to consider is what can the Federal Government do in the way of re-instituting oversight.

If you breathed a sigh of relief when the helicopter bearing the just-retired George W. Bush lifted off from Washington last January 20th, perhaps it's time to un-sigh, for his administration will remain a potent force in this country as long as we have the conservative Roberts Court.

If you are in despair over our current administration's and Democratic Congress' attempts to "meddle" in free enterprise, the thought of the Roberts Court should make you take heart.

Does Big Business know what's best for the rest of us? Think what you will, it's all up to how those 9 people in black robes think the Constitution answers that question. Back to Mr. McConnell's remark, the tension between the Judicial Branch and the rest of the Federal Government is likely to run pretty durn high. Nina Totenberg get ready!

Any thoughts about all of this?

Unrelated Saturday snippets . . .

1.  ATC  Host Terry Ward's sneakers have gone national on NPR. They are number 11 in the NPR Sneaker Slide Show. And, in my opinion, by far the coolest!
   
2. Gettysburg lasted 3 days. Thank you, Poli-Sci professor Steve Bragaw, an old friend from my Sweet Briar College days, for contributing that nugget of information to the WMRA Fall Fundraising Effort (see yesterday's blog post, if this mystifies.) And if anyone else comes up with any personal, historical, scientific, mythical, athletic, etc. three-day event that wrought major change, please post it to this blog or else e-mail me directly.
3. On a completely personal  note, I do love my office mates, for a variety of reasons. We generally work very hard, we're generally helpful and supportive of each other's efforts, and we're generally tolerant of each other's quirks and shortcomings. We also find each other funny--which is life-saving, sometimes, when the stress level rises. I mean, just because we work in public radio doesn't mean we're serious all the time. For example, General Manager Tom DuVal and I were firing one-liner e-mails back and forth at each other about something ridiculous on Friday afternoon. When he stopped by my office on an unrelated issue, Tom pointed out we should be Twittering. Using up e-mail space to deliver one-liners, he said, was overload, like going after a pigeon with a cannon. It had been a long, productive week. I was feeling really tired and brain dead, and then this guy made me laugh out loud over nothing. What more could one want from one's Big Boss Man.
4. Finally, Morning Edition Host Bob Leweke and Tracey Brown are marrying today. Here's their picture (dark, but still so romantic). May blasts of good will and good wishes come their way from all of us.
   

We really do get by with a little help from our friends. . . .

It is our theory here at WMRA that, among our community of listeners, everything is known. So, wise ones, here's what we need to know:

What great changes have occurred in three days--in history, in your own life, in the laboratory, in legends; in fact, in anything?

The WMRA staff of Giant Brains has come up with five, one of them pictured above. So obviously we need more. Please.

As to why we're doing this--we're looking for ways to have fun talking about our Fall Fundraiser (please note that all WMRA Fundraisers will warrant capital letters in this blog). The F.F. begins Tuesday, October 20th during Morning Edition and will end, Friday, October 23th, after Morning Edition, lasting 3 days and 3 hours; hence, it's name, "The 3 & 3 Fall Fundraiser!" And we figure that the more different and varied ways we have to point out that really, really great things can be accomplished in only 3 days, the more entertaining and successful our joint 3-day fund-raising effort will be.

Okay, WMRA Fundraisers are something we go through together so as to keep public radio a part of our community conversation (gee, haven't I said that at least 823 times on the air during Fundraisers? But, you know, saying something over and over and over makes it no less true--we are in this public radio bid'ness together.) Still, there's no law that says the experience has to be dreary or boring. I, for one, view Fundraisers as a kind of community barn-raising-ish event, where we all get together to a) accomplish something and b) enjoy ourselves doing it.

So, please help! Support WMRA with your knowledge of 3 days that made a difference! You can either post your ideas or e-mail them to me directly.