Living in a world of change can be painful.

On a recent favorite talk show of mine, it was lovely to see ladies hashing out a discussion about what racial terms mean in different contexts; it led to a very moving moment between two women of different races and ages, one young, white, and with athletic appeal; the other, black, older, heavier, and worked all her life to get to where she is now as a famous actress.

What could look like a divide between one generation and another, one race and another, is truly a mark of the transition we are in as a country and as people of the earth when these folks get together around a table and talk (or argue). In this case, the younger one melted when confronted about the "different world" she lives in compared with that of the older one.

Words are like vehicles, imbued with the style and meaning of the driver. If it's road rage or resentment that is being felt or expressed, make no mistake that it was actually meant as a term of endearment.Then there is the case of say one thing, but really do another, turning the meaning into an unconscious statement. For instance, my friends and I say we aren't prejudice, but how many of us have companions or friends of different color? Everywhere I've lived, except New York of course, it's been a hard fact of waking up and realizing that I could count the number of black people I saw that day on my hand.

There's no doubt the world needs the idealism of the younger woman, as a dose of hope for the future. On the other hand, as the older one pointed out, one needs to acknowledge the past and the present, make it conscious, so we can better understand each other now and know what it is we are trying to forgive.

Post-hype blues

I’m still recovering from the expected, anticlimactic ending of the presidential nominee race on June 4th, when America witnessed the final appearance of a trail blazer, Hillary Clinton. Even if she runs again in 2012, she’ll be recovering paths already found. It’ll just be a matter of breaking a previous record and making it to a redrawn finish line.

It’s interesting that the historical significance of what has happened until now in the American election process has descended into a pile of fire fueled by like and dislike. For me, that has nothing to do with what matters in the long run. At best, she was a victim of circumstance, being part of the old and part of the new (a position I know all too well, being someone who made personal choices considered liberal against old standards, but not respectable enough to put me in any leadership-type roles). Indeed, Hillary Clinton’s duel positions about experience and change were mutually exclusive.

Should Obama make it into the White House, his character dictates that he will likely surround himself with people he has chemistry with. This is also part of the new. Even so, keeping Clinton within arm’s reach (as a White House advisor, perhaps?) could be an efficient and effective use of her experience, filtering out her less effective aspects.

And if these next 8 years don’t clean Hillary Clinton’s slate well enough, someone else—possibly another ambitious woman politician—will no doubt be grooming herself in the wings, preparing herself mentally, emotionally, and physically, to slip into those shoes. Let’s hope whoever it is at least brings common sense, if not some experience at dealing with people here and abroad, a good memory, and running shoes.

How much of a risk-taker are you?

Whoopi Goldberg just told a wonderful story about feeling like a risk-taker by nature, until she knows what the risks are. She was walking in the woods in Africa, thinking of it as a safe risk ("Hey, I'm from New York!"), when her guide told her about a skinny snake that drops from trees and bites you in the ear to deliver the poison. "What!" she said, "What the hell are we doing walking out here, for!"

I've got my own tale as well. I thought well enough of snakes when living in the Northeast, as mostly my encounters were with the small, 5" garden variety. Then, moving to Tennessee, my encounters started stretching to 2-foot long, 2"-diameter black and blackish red snakes appearing curled up on window sills of abandoned property, in the middle of roads, or stretched across our garden paths. "They don't bother me. I don't bother them," I thought, a carry-over from my New York City days.

We recently discovered two living in our meadow when one got caught in the blades of the lawn mower tractor. The other one soon emerged and ended with a similar fate. Did I feel guilty? No--even though it's actually against the law to keep snakes as pets or deliberately kill them--not until I told the story at a recent graduation party, where all the locals sided with the snakes and their virtues. I definitely lost points on getting in with the locals that day.

Maybe they do eat mosquitos and rid your property of vermin, but I still feel less the risk-taker--especially when my two cats drag them into the house for play. So, I don't deliberately aim a vacuum cleaner at them, but I have a creative move with my barbecue tools and husband's spare wood. My aim is improving each time I get to fling them across into the neighbor's garden.

Spades with Spades

During a conversation with a friend, who so happens to self-publish her books, I mentioned the idea below, about writing a book on the evolution of technology applications. In essence, it seems that this giddy fascination of mine is to be shared with the few (yet another "esoteric" subject that occupies me in the hours of the night). So, e-book it will be and in my spare time.

On the other hand, she was enthusiastic about another topic that we all share in common. Truly, no one escapes this other story. Care to guess what it might be about?

The Technology Wave -- 2

Having had a chance to sleep on the idea, it's appealing more and more to me, this trace of technology history, like a wave, since the birth of the personal computer. How about "E-Merging Technologies: The Waves of the Future"--in the spirit of Alvin Toffler's Second and Third Wave works, and be a play on words with the E-bit?

Any thoughts?

I still don't believe there's an advantage to fully developing the idea within a blog, however. That would be like handing over a book proposal to the public. That said, there are areas and positions ("premise" for the literary minded) that may be useful to "debate" here, however. So, let's give that a whirl.

My thoughts are the following. In the 1980s...
>Videotex, electronic bulletin boards, and Apple's hypertext blended into what became a precursor for the Internet
>AT&Ts videophone was the precursor to Skype
>Car phones and other types of modular phones were precursors to cell phones

Do you have to be a techie to appreciate this? It is about the human interface, after all.

E-merging Technology book concept

Prelude
======
The notion for a book about the history of technology since the birth of the PC (personal computer) was hatched somewhere between the end of the educational panel at the Knoxville Writers Guild's April 26th gala last Saturday, and the first of many glasses of wine that evening.

The air was full of juice and electricity about the latest technological advancements and local applications of web site capabilities, blogging, and print on demand before an audience of seasoned writers. Suggestion to do it as an e-book as part of making the point about the significance of the medium being the message.

So, here we are. Hatching the egg electronically, or is it the chicken?

Luckily, my stints in traditional publishing have been enough to persuade me on these basic points. No matter what, you still need:
>a good story,
>someone else to look over your work and put some editing muscle into it,
>ways to get the work out in front of people


The Story Begins
--------------------------
Sunday, April 27, 2008
This one is beginning inside my calendar of Outlook, so I don't lose the inspiration of the moment, sans spell checker, sans formatting. If I follow the directions prescribed to me yesterday, this now needs to move out to a blog that I then list with the News-Sentinal and the radio station, so it can receive critiques. Against all odds, my heart in my mouth with years of copyright fears digested, I'm going to do this, then see what happens. I now challenge what everyone told me yesterday to see if it's true.

Some ideas to include in this book about
the history of technology since the 1980s
--------------------------------------------------
After the printing press, technology is the next major revolution is publishing.
How technology took the human race by storm
Will the human race be better for it?

Laundry list of stuff (add list later, but includes European videotex, IBM PC, Apple Mac and hypertext, fiber optics, CDI, first viruses [Jerusalem?], frame creation machines and scanners, SIGs, games, copying software, CompuServe, Atari/Commodore 64s, electronic bulletin boards, videophones, audio/videoconferencing, freeze frames)

What obstacles need to be overcome?
Is technology a challenge by the future upon the past?
The medium is the message, but content is everything.
In communities, not groups, is how we see ourselves.
The community of folks involved in any work can help to make the art better, and no matter how good the product.
All content needs integrity
After serendipidity and dating services, the Internet has become the next major way
for people meet each other
Will the human race fight wars through technology (from pac man to "war games")?

How does "The Technology Wave" work as a working title? Or better, "E-merging Technology: The History of Technology since 1980"?

Central Park on a summer's day

What's on My Front

Tennessee, 9/11/07. What's the latest?

News from my front....
*Just finished the Harry Potter book and I think the best part is when Mrs. Weasley finishes off a DeathEater for having wacked her daughter Ginny during the battle of Hogwarts. The saddest part is what happens to the house gobblin (I cried shamefully). The funniest is when Potter is trying to slip into the school unnoticed and the whole Dumbledore army appears.
* I'm days away from an adventure to Greece where I will explore the reality of reattributing a family apartment in Thessaloniki.
* Just started Nineteen minutes by Jodi Picoult. The first 19 minutes of reading were great. Now I need to finish the book.


Now for the truly embarrassing, and facing, moment: For the first time in six years (why six?), I'm just recognizing September 11 for what it is, a day on the calendar. In stead of waking up to that painful rememberance, it is now a day like any other, and it should be.

The events that took place on September 11, 2001 are unique and should be remembered in full for what happened, not as the day they took place on. Too often I see people refer only to the World Trade Center, when in fact lives were also lost in Washington, DC and over a field in Pennsylvania. The fact that war in Iraq is nearly a weekly reminder of similar ilke, may be why those events are now taking their rightful place in the annals of the war against terrorism. Much blood and sweat has flowed under the bridge in six years. It's truly a sad condition, this world we find ourselves in.

And together, we can do something to change the world....

Forgiveness: A Means for Survival

Thurs., July 26, 2007, New York. Yesterday, French television interviewed the 6 prisoners (5 Bulgarian nurses and 1 Lebanese physician) who were just released from Libya, after being held captive for accidently infecting over 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus 8 years ago.
During one of the interviews, an intriguing feature emerged: Forgiveness is not only a samarital act, but a tool of self-survival.

The eldest of the 5 nurses, who is in her early 50s, was asked about being periodically tortured, a subject that was difficult for all of the ex-prisoners to broach. When asked how she felt, she replied that she held no feelings of revenge and that she had already forgiven her captors.

"I would not be here now if I had not forgiven them," she said, implying she would not have had the strength to survive had she spent what little energy she had left in bitterness or revenge.

What Women Can Do

7/25/07, New York. Cécilia Sarkozy, the wife of the recently elected French president Nicolas, played an essential part in the negotiations with Colonial Kaddafi for the release of 6 prisoners from Libya. In his interview with the press, President Sarkozy acknowledged that perhaps the role of the First Lady can be different as a modern woman.

She needed no titles, no political party, no entourage to accomplish what 8 years of conventional diplomacy failed to do. The 5 Bulgarian nurses and 1 Lebanese physician had been on death row 3 times for infecting over 400 children with the AIDS virus. We will soon find out what she did to accomplish her mission. She was part of a team, some presumably more expert than her at foreign affairs, also representing the European Union.

What qualities did she bring to the negotiation table that hitherto had been lacking?

Is this any indication of what women can do?

Photo: Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France. Dragon created with recycled materials. Dec. 2006.