He's A Man, He's Just A Man...

Remember these lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar?

"...I've been changed, yes really changed.
In these past few days, when I've seen myself,
I seem like someone else.
I don't know how to take this.
I don't see why he moves me.
He's a man. He's just a man.
And I've had so many men before,
In very many ways,
He's just one more".

We'd best keep that sentiment in mind. The euphoria still runs high over the ascension of Barack Obama to the Presidency. He ran a nearly flawless campaign and the transition is exceeding expectations. However, as with all "highs", they end.

Even the Republicans are giving Obama good marks. To date he appears to be everything we who supported him had hoped. We must remember, however, he is not yet in office. That will be the true test beyond the window dressing we are now witnessing.

He himself reminded us in his acceptance speech, solving the problems that face the country won't be easy nor immediate. There will be false starts and bad decisions.

As much as we want a knight in shining armor to whisk us away to utopia, the sooner we settle down from this high the better. The Ingrahams and Hannitys and Limbaughs haven't let up nor will they. The most minute gaffe will be seized upon and beaten to a pulp. Sarah Palin should take a lesson from what's coming. If she thinks she was roughed up during the campaign, she hasn't seen anything until she actually assumes a highly visible office.

I have no doubt Obama is well aware of what's coming as he assumes office and ownership of the trials and errors that are inevitable. Those of us who feel he has emancipated us need a good dose of reality too. If we are as zealous in his defense for those inevitable missteps as we are in celebration of his election, everyone will take sides and we'll end up right back where we started. Bickering, bitter partisans.

Obama deserves better. We owe him better. We can begin by remembering he is a man, a very capable one, but never-the-less, he's just a man.

Who The Heck IS Henry Alford?

When I received an e-mail from Henry Alford telling me he had named Dogwalk as one of his ten favorite blogs by or about seniors as requested by Blogs.com I was, of course, delighted.

As he requested, I made mention of it on my blog. The fact that he introduced himself as a contributor to the New York Times and Vanity Fair did not escape me. When I went to his web site to investigate further I was taken by his youth. Why would such a young man have a blog about seniors?

The answer was readily apparent. He has a book due to be released in January 2009. The title made me laugh. How to Live: A Search for Wisdom From Old People (While They Are Still on this Earth). Well, he is a humorist!

In it he interviews everyone from celebrities to the eccentric to the accomplished anonymous. He speaks of tremendously personal moments in dealings with his own family, pathos and hilarity. A story about everyman and everywoman. Us. Because we are "old". (I told him how much I dislike the term elder though I had no other to offer in return!)

I have read books on aging by professionals who "study" us and those of us undergoing the experience. I am looking forward to reading one by an outsider looking in. I am a huge advocate of cross generational communication. It helps keep me on my toes and hopefully those I talk with also take away something of value.

It would seem this very thing was part of Henry's motivation. When asked about the inspiration for the book by Ron Hogan of Publisher's Weekly, he had this to say, "I'm fascinated with the idea that humans are one of the few species whose average lifespan exceeds the age at which they procreate. Why? What's the evolutionary reason? I think it's because old people are living libraries...and we as a culture really overlook that."

It's encouraging to me that a man like Henry Alford has come to this realization. Of course we "elders" have been trying to tell the world this truth for some time now. As I've talked about on several occasions, blogging is giving us our voice.

Here is a man, and I hope there are more like him waiting in the wings, who can tell our story. Not the stuff we dwell on, the aches and pains and frustrations of dealing with an inattentive medical community or which new malady has popped up just this morning. We do that well enough among ourselves. But the story of who we are because of who we were. The living library part. In doing so maybe he can put his finger on just why we as a culture really overlook that.

Thanks Henry.

Tunnel Vision And Sexism

A columnist for the Coeur d'Alene Press authored a bitter and scathing column on Sunday entitled Sexism is alive and well in America . I couldn't disagree with her more. Two political candidates, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, lost their bids for the highest and second highest office in the land. One had insurmountable baggage, some of her own making, some of her husband's. The other was ill prepared for the position she willingly entered into.

It's easy to say race triumphed over gender and to blame the media but neither is true. Hillary may well have persevered had she had not had that baggage and had she had control of her campaign. Sarah Palin too could have persevered had she known her geography, known what periodicals she supposedly read and hadn't tried to be too cute by half. Listen to the interviews where she was overly familiar especially with "Charlie" Gibson and "Joe" Biden in the debate. Not to mention the lack of substance in all her interviews.

Yes the press picked up on every bit of news it could find about her. That it called into question her parenting skills or talked of her once being a beauty queen or that the campaign spent a small fortune to dress her is all true. It was part of letting the voters know what a total stranger who sought to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency was all about. That she was ridiculed on comedy shows? No one made her appear on "Saturday Night Live". If she hadn't anticipated the "heat" it is no one's fault but her own.

I'm not saying she is not a capable young woman. She obviously has potential, but for the moment that's what it is - potential.

To use those two incidents, however, to assert that sexism is alive and well is an insult to all the women who are high level achievers outside the realm of politics. Take the women written about in yesterday's Wall Street Journal article entitled The 50 Women to Watch - 2008 . Excluding women from other countries, here are a few of our own. Irene Rosenfeld, Chief Executive, Kraft foods; Sheila Bair, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; Indra Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive, Pepsico; Ellen J. Kullman, President and designated Chief Executive, Dupont; Anne M. Mulcahy, Chairman and Chief Executive, Xerox; Ursula M. Burns, President, Xerox; Patricia Woertz, Chief Executive Officer, Archer-Midland Daniels...and so many more.

Sorry, but Hillary's "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pantsuit" is alive and well. The glass ceiling has been shattered again and again by hard work, tenacity, and ability. The revolution continues. Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House. How many women serve in Congress and as Governors?

Sexism or the lack of it should not be judged by the failure of the overly ambitious but rather by the accomplishments of the many truly capable.

Henry Alford, Thanks!

This popped up in my e-mail a few minutes ago. I keep telling you guys this blogging business can be fun!

I'm a contributor to the New York Times and Vanity Fair who was asked by Blogs.com to list my favorite ten blogs by or about senior citizens, and I picked you. You can see the list here:

Blogs.com

If you want to be a good egg and humanitarian, maybe mention the article on your blog? (And I can be found at henryalford.com where I blog about seniors.)

Congratulations, and thanks!

Henry Alford

Brave New World: The Book Versus The Reality

Once again Coeur d'Alene, touted as a great place to live in a myriad of publications, has made dubious regional headlines. Two out of four school board members voted to ban Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" yet are giving consideration for a police request to bring high powered rifles into the schools "just in case". The book issue will be readdressed at the next meeting when a fifth member will be present. Whew!

One of the dissenters put it this way, "I find, from my own level, it is extremely repetitious and it drives in the sexuality issues and other civilization's issues to almost ad nauseam and I find it's balance is extremely lacking." This sentence, if you can call it such, delivered by a member of the school board. It's even more frightening then the rifles.

The attempt to ban books in this community is nothing new. The people making the determination is indicative of the mind set of decision makers throughout the community. Informed? Open? Not nearly often enough.

It made me realize there are a great many parallels between the world of Huxley's future and our present. If I had more respect for the intellect of the person who made the above statement, I'd fear that he too sees the parallels and wants the book banned to prevent students from "catching on". However, I do not.

"Brave New World" depicts a world society controlled by a powerful few. All have been created in a lab according to a strictly predetermined caste system. Existence revolves around material comfort and drug enhanced recreational sex.

As in any good story there are the heros and heroines. Those whose test tube formulas didn't work exactly as planned. As a result they grew into the malcontents with ambitions far exceeding allowable limits.

The characters lives get intertwined and the story more complex than I want to get into here, but in essence, a foray into the "other place" brings about an awakening. Each in their own way, the heros ultimately face judgement from the head honcho who acknowledges the flaws of the world he rules but decrees that the loss of freedom and individuality are a small price to pay for stability. Some suffered exile while the last ultimately committed suicide. Don't rock the boat! Don't question! Accept. Smoke something funny, sit back and enjoy.

On a less futuristic scale it reminds me of how our city and county government are run. The Alphas. Those who cater to their every whim be it right or wrong. No discussion. The Betas. If one tries to engage in discussion one is demonized. The malcontents searching for honest answers. They themselves sometimes get fuzzy, bogging down on process rather than reason.

When the President of North Idaho College writes that there is no evacuation plan for her school which sits akin to a waste water treatment facility where chlorine is stored, that they depend on city and county officials to effect such in case of emergency, I wonder.

Where these very same public safety officials have neither the manpower nor the equipment required to evacuate the high rises they insist on building, I wonder.

Where the prosecutor's office was under investigation for pornographic e-mail circulation, I wonder.

Huxley wrote this book after a visit to America back in the thirties. He was disturbed by what he saw; what is now the "me" generation. An obsession with materialism and promiscuity of mind and spirit. Back in the 1930s!

"Brave New World Revisited" was written by Huxley almost thirty years after "Brave New World" as non-fiction. In it he considered whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision. He concluded that the world was becoming much more like "Brave New World" much faster than he anticipated. Not a comforting thought. Not to worry though. If you can't read it you'll have nothing to ponder.

However, if your curiosity has been aroused you might like to read both. Then you can determine if life imitates art or just the opposite. I'm sure the library has copies. And the book stores.