11/9

3 weeks to go until the 20th anniversary of German Reunification.

Two women ( German Chancellor and US Secretary of State) will be standing side-by-side, imprinting this iconic image on young female audience (how many left who watch network TV) that made the cut for TIME cover, up there with its current issue about WOMEN.

(there are more women enrolled in college today, more women in the work force etc….Post Ms generation).

Finally empathy flows both ways: women are experiencing the stress and strain traditionally endured by men e.g. jet lag, need to be de-compressurized ( FADD as in fathers against drunk driving, since more women are booked on DUI charges ) and need to control the home front (have you been eating honey? have you taken your medicine?)

Men, myself included, have consequently been multi-tasking to balance work and family.

Speaking of family, in the Proposal”, Sandra Bullock plays the “bitch”, roles once reserved for Demi Moore and Sharon Stone). Our sidekick , a ole grandma , believes in Native American magic. She represents traditional values (opposite our other native sidekick who triples up as male erotic dancer-general store clerk-wedding officiate, who seems to be quite liberal). Ms Bullock  once again was at her best, “you all remind me of what I have been missing: people who care about and love you”. When finally being proposed to (this time in reverse and for real),

she even joked that “aren’t you going to kneel down or something” (referring to her first proposal for a green card).

Power and its associated costs.

Traditional society (2.3 kids, one-income family) has been put to a litmus test.

By the time gender equality completes its sweep on the final frontier, let’s say Afghanistan, women of all stripes (veiled and unveiled) will join us men to tackle new challenges, among them, how to restructure our

lives around and with machines (the robot can sweep the house, but who is going to take care of the kids?).

Sarah Palin’s husband was seen holding their baby on stage during her campaign rallies. I am sure those photo ops will soon find their ways to exhibit A of her short memoir; nevertheless, we cannot sweep these practical issues under the rug (one solution has been not to have any baby at all, as in Japan).

Sandra packed up a lot of her New York luggage for a weekend in Alaska.

Sarah went shopping at Bloomingdale on her weekend away from Alaska.

Meanwhile, Mattel doesn’t sell their Barbie dolls very well.

This economy is going to split up a lot of families (as it already took its toll on a dozen via suicide).

(Gold price is so high that thieves are targeting South Asian families in Centreville, VA – knowing that these folks tend to stack gold around the house).

When you don’t have a construction site to go to in the morning, you end up with home improvement.

Then when there is nothing left to repair, no Home Depot trip to take, you might as well turn on each other.

Or just gluing one’s nose to YouTube or Hulu.

At least, on November 9th, men have something to watch. Two women in power will be standing side-by-side in front of a wall that is no longer there. In fact, there aren’t any wall or ceiling above them.  Just those walls which still exist inside, the same psychology which brings freed inmates back inside: the urge for the familiar, addiction to structure.

(I walked into the library and paused to open the door for a female patron; luckily, it’s on automatic, which solves the problem of gender equality).

Freedom is a frightening thing . No wonder there are talks of cessation in Germany ,Texas or BNP in Britain. Turning the clock back to live in selective memory. People complain that a microwave-oven wait is too long. Once you have “anchored” a set of expectations of technology, it’s hard to “swim in the river twice” a la recherche du temp perdu (Proust) unless you had refused to be a part of the grid right from the gecko (Amish).

Can we face the past better than the future?  We are so used to the remote control now, that it’s something we cannot live without, even when we stand next to DVD player. It’s easier to go to the moon, but harder to go across the street to greet a neighbor . Robert Frost said “fence makes good neighbors.” One thing for sure, machine won’t wait 20 or 40 years to grow on you.  In fact, it’s already here, from home networking to cloud computing, netbook to notebook, Kindle to Reader (where is the one-hour photo shop? or video rental store? or soon, neighborhood bookshop?

Walmart is said to join the book battle with Amazon (thus sidelining BN). To compare social change vs tech speed is similar to comparing man’s year vs dog’s year. The later is more compressed (Moore, Melcafe and  Mead law) and waits not for your approval. Physical wall is much easier to eradicate than mental one. Thus, ask not what technology can do for you, but instead, ask what you can do to improve technology e.g. Save-a-Blade, walkie-talkie to monitor young ones (not Helium saucer-shaped balloon).