Photo by Doug Mills, New York Times

January 20, 2009

Who Would Have Believed?

I am excited, nervous and really not believing that an African-American person might be our president and that the direction of this country, and the world, may change. The New York Times said it exactly in this morning's article The Year of Living on the Edge of Our Seats:

Candidates in many past presidential contests lacked life stories as compelling as those of Mr. Obama, the son of a man from Kenya and a woman from Kansas, and Mr. McCain, who endured years of imprisonment and torture in Vietnam.

But these two weren't the only vivid characters in a campaign that, purely as narrative, proved sensational.

Who would have believed, at its start, that Mike Huckabee was going to outlast Rudy Giuliani? That John Edwards's pledges of support for his seriously ill wife were going to give way to a public apology for infidelity?

That Mr. Obama would choose a running mate who once described him, in terms of plausible aspirants to the White House, as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean"? That Mr. McCain would choose a running mate who could field-dress a moose and would take the state at the Republican convention with a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter in tow? (New York Times, November 2, 2008, section K, page 8).

What we all need to know, whatever the outcome is on Tuesday, is that this election is one in which voting practices were open, honest and fair. I am praying this is so and hope you will join me.

Good voting!
Becky

More Hope . . .

On September 5, NBC, ABC and CBS simultaneously broadcast, during one hour of commercial-free prime time, Stand Up to Cancer. Stand Up to Cancer is an international effort to raise funds to bring
together worldwide teams of scientists to work together to find a cure for cancer. Already, millions of dollars have been raised. Please go to http://su2c.standup2cancer.org/ to learn more about this exciting effort.

The New Politics of Hope

At 3:00 AM this morning, I received the following text message from Barack O'Bama:

Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 PM ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!

Science At the Edge edited by John Brockman

John Brockman, editor and author, founder of Edge, (www.edge.org), has provided a way for scientists and empirical thinkers to gather and share their explorations. At first, in the 1980’s, they met together in various locations, eventually meeting on the Internet at Edge, beginning in 1997. Brockman explains the expanding third culture as a way of thinking and exploration that goes beyond C.P. Snow’s concept of two the two cultures of the literary intellectual and the scientist. In Brockman’s words, “This new culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, have taken the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meaning of our lives, redefining who we are.” (Brockman, Science at the Edge, p.11). This new culture is one in which thinkers and scientists share their work, building and creating on each other’s ideas.

This optimistic and exciting way of exploring our world pushes aside the old dichotomies of God versus science, literature versus science, history versus science, or psychology versus science. There is, instead, exploration of our world and universe through the work of key thinkers like evolutionary biologist Helena Cronin, biogeographer Jared Diamond, technologist Ray Kurzweil, biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham and computer scientist Rodney Brooks, David Gelernter and Jaron Lanier.

Read Science at the Edge for a positive experience in learning about the expanding third culture, the new humanists.

Democracy

Yesterday, I joined a friend and many other members of the Brandywine Peace Community, (see www.brandywinepeace.com), in a vigil for peace at Lockheed Martin, the world's largest weapons corporation, in King of Prussia. The vigil and ceremony to remember those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended with a nonviolent civil disobedience action during which my friend was arrested with 13 others and taken to jail for a brief stay. As the protesters crossed the line to enact a die-in, the police remained calm, patient and gentle, carrying out their duties as required by law while allowing those about to be arrested to carry out their duties as required by conscience. This was truly democracy - giving all the right to act as they must.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Shortly after a terrorist attack, Marcus Yallow is arrested and held by the Department of Homeland Security. Marcus is released and engages in a technological battle with the government to stop the encroachment of civil rights enacted in the name of safety and security. Doctorow uses the story of Marcus and his friends to question just how much freedom should we forgo for protection against terrorists, a debate that is important in maintaining our freedom.