I read about and followed with much interest the Penn State game this past weekend.
Where is Joe? First he was absent on the side line, where his rolled up pants were a fixture more than signature.
Then he went up on the booth. This past Saturday, he wasn’t there either, nor was his statue. Ohio won, but not as easy.
The Nittany Lions put up a fight “push them back, way back”. Still, a lot went unsaid there. Just moving on. Motion forward.
Aren’t we all!
Labor Day, Memorial Day. First rest a bit, then Rest in Peace.
Moving on.
Self-deception.
Who are we trying to fool, except ourselves?
I read about the original cell which stays on for billions of years. I am glad we could die (rather cancer war than casualty of war). As far as biology is concerned, we were meant to be immortal, Greek or geek.
But then, with all the abuses and accidents, we have pretty much done it to ourselves (global sales of weapon, pornography and drugs together curtail population explosion).
So we give the workers a symbolic rest, Labor Day. But actually, we meant for factories to have their machines deep-spayed and well-oiled.
Farmers don’t rest on Labor Day. IT supports don’t rest either in colo centers.
Labor Day belongs to the Industrial Revolution, the 2nd wave, with coal as the main source of energy.
I read that in an interview before his death, an out-spoken Cardinal talked about the Vatican being behind two centuries.
He must be referring to the image of Sheep May Safely Graze while parishioners “flocking” to the only village church.
I think it’s Marshall McLuhan who coins the phrase “global village”. Even then, he meant the mass brought together by mass media (Tower of Babel analogy) in a one-to-many broadcast. Little did he know, we now have many-to-many conversation, originated and uploaded from the ground level. As of now, everyone got their 15-minute of fame on Facebook (Famebook?) and 140 characters on Twitter (modern-day AP) – as in United Breaks My Guitar. Perhaps even we, at one time or another, think, maybe the world can use a few personal computers, as Watson used to think back in 1943.
Institutions and individuals, both are behind the times. I caught myself a few months ago in a moment of prejudice. I heard a ringtone rap music. Not from urban blacks. But with Central Vietnamese accent. The combination shocked me, then it delighted me the second time around. But my knee-jerked reaction was “you must be kidding?” One would expect to hear Northern Vietnamese accent in songs, not Central, and when it comes to rap music, it’s the American quintessential, not Vietnamese. If this long Depression does us any good, it’s a wake-up call. It humbles us . Yes, it’s the “end of men” as titled in an upcoming book, but by the time the “end of women” comes about, it’s the beginning of the machine age.
The point is, early adopters will keep on adopting (space tourism, echo tourism, edu- tourism, medi-tourism )
And the richest among them, will keep moving beyond Beverly Hills and Betty Ford clinics to “the Island” to do some serious make-over (spare body parts replacement and rejuvenation). Versailles-style ($17,000 leather boots).
Go ahead and protest. Show some guts and show some skin. By the time we do, they no longer find some use for fur coats to cover their once wrinkled bodies. They already got new ones put in. Talking about moving on. Just make sure we don’t become the Pharaohs of the 21st century, embalming ourselves to no avail. Where is Joe Pa? Ohio won again. Shuck!
Thang Nguyen 555 