We have a new president.

Barack Obama is the President of the United States.  America has taken a step toward maturity by electing the right candidate no matter what race.  Finally, a dream has been realized.  Many people are very happy and there is a sense of hope all over the world.  I join in that pride and re-post Dr, King’s dream as it comes true with the first African American President being sworn into office.  The world is watching this momentous occasion and I am so excited to be able to witness it.

President Barack Obama

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream Speech

Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to a cause he felt was worth fighting, yet he never believed in violence. He was one of the greatest orators, but he was reluctant and could be shy. People oppressed saw in him the possibility. He gave them hope, for he was brave and determined. He led a march on Washington that changed the world, although he may not have seen it that way at the time. He is the voice of many today as he was the day he uttered the words “I have a dream.” And did he ever? His words are inspiring, poetic and proud. These passages are my personal favorites from that historic day.  Many resonate so much today.

• I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
• I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” (Today that dream has become reality)
  
• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
• This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
• And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
• And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

That dream has come true Dr. King, and you must be very proud. Congratulations to the Obama family on this historical achievement!!

 

Electing the American President

Today November 4, 2008 we are all a part of the most important event in political history.  Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate might possibly become the first black president of the United States.  Watching the two years of endless campaigning has been daunting, annoying, and often shocking.   Republican nominee John McCain, a Vietnam veteran and POW opposes the historical Democratic nominee.

Barack Obama

John McCain

While I am writing I am seeing voter turn out in the tri-state area at an all time high rate with lines outside the door in some locations.

The candidates

Whatever your thoughts are on the campaign, the candidates or issues one thing can not be denied and that is the importance of this unprecedented election.

What has been a campaign fraught with many unpleasant, ignorant and even funny moments, now comes down to voting.  Nothing would surprise me today or tonight.  I just hope that tomorrow morning there is a new president elect.  May the best man win.

 

Tennis and Poetry: “If” recited by Federer and Nadal

Combining some of my favorite things i.e.  poetry, tennis, and tennis players.  This Wimbledon promo is simply a fortunate find.  Without further ado, I present Roger and Rafa reciting Rudyard Kipling’s “IF” which adorns the entrance to center court at Wimbledon. 

 

 

IF
by Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 

 

A Little Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer by Walt Whitman

 

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

Just wanted to share some genius with you today.  Those old poets really knew how to make a point.  I had a really tough English teacher two years in a row.  A.P. English was perhaps the most difficult class I ever took.  But Mrs. H pushed my lazy ass and I wrote.  I also got grounded if my grade was below a B and in Mrs. H’s class a C was normal.  I got grounded a few times but usually I intercepted the PINK SLIP she would write to alert my mother of my shameful grade.   I remember reading this and totally understanding it, I had the best discussion with Mrs. H about this poem.  I got an A.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is America’s world poet — a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. In his Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised and expanded for the rest of his life, he celebrated democracy, nature, love, and friendship. This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and reassurance even in death.

 

In Memorium : JFK jr.

In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, died when their single-engine plane, piloted by Kennedy, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

I remember hearing the first words of the missing plane and who was on it and knowing it was over.  I knew the circumstances, watched it unfold as did everyone because John John was royalty.  He was also this guy who was always downtown in Soho, on his bike, or roller blades. at bars and always a big flirt. 

One summer night in 1998, out with friends celebrating   Max ’s having passed the BAR exam.  We were down on West Broadway at Lucky Strike and Box a very Euro bar with great drinks.  JFK jr. came in, and went to the bar.   Notoriously he had not passed the BAR in his first attempt, and had real difficulty passing it later.  I always saw him  but I would never approach him, there was no reason to and he was always surrounded by women anyway.  So the joke/idea was that we should ask him to join us for a toast to Max for his achievement,  passing the BAR on his first try.   It was teasing and mean and I don’t do mean.  There was no way I would go through with it even though the bar was rather quiet that night and the fact was John John had looked over a few times and smiled his famous smile in our direction.  My friends kept telling me to go over, he was looking and I was being ridiculous, but I had no intention. 

As he was leaving, he veered toward our table and said  ”Hope you are having a good night,”  looking and locking eyes with me and then smiled the killer smile and walked out.  Well my “cool” friends all burst out into nervous laughter as I turned crimson red.   I was so happy they never went through with their childish dig. 

A year later he was married and missing and everyone I knew was crushed ,shocked and in disbelief.  How could it be in real life, that this could happen to him?  I mean why?  The Kennedy curse just would not relent.  I remember my first thought  was, thank G-d Jackie O. had passed, and about Caroline and her utter despair over her baby brother.  The Bessette family losing two daughters in a national tragedy.  The search went on for over three days but I grieved knowing there was no surprise ending. 

It was like Princess Diana all over again.  It devastated the country and the world.

 

 

I am a sentimental person so I shared that silly story.  Rest in peace, John, Carolyn and Lauren you are not forgotten.