ssssshhh....Do something!

Which presidential candidate did this expat American support on his 2008 absentee ballot?

What Obama Stands For

"Sometimes we need both cultural transformation and government action--a change in values and a change in policy--to promote the kind of society we want. The state of our inner-city schools is a case in point. All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification. But when we as a society pretend that poor children will fulfill their potential in dilapidated, unsafe schools with outdated equipment and teachers who aren't trained in the subjects they teach, we are perpetrating a lie on these children, and on ourselves. We are betraying our values.

"That is one of the things that makes me a Democrat, I suppose--this idea that our communal values, our sense of mutual responsibility and social solidarity, should express themselves not just in the church or the mosque or the synagogue; not just on the blocks where we live, in the places where we work, or within our own families; but also through our government. Like many conservatives, I believe in the power of culture to determine both individual success and social cohesion, and I believe we ignore cultural factors at our own peril. But I also believe that our government can play a role in shaping that culture for the better--or for the worse."

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

What Palin Means

Usually I prefer paraphrases. But in this case, a direct quote is not just fitting, it's poetic justice:

"So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in.

Here's what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat fucking pig who pins 'Country First' buttons on his man titties and chants 'U-S-A! U-S-A!' at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas.

The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are..."

--Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone

Why do we compete?





Why do we push ourselves so hard?




To challenge ourselves?






Or to promote ourselves?






For the thrill of victory...







while risking the agony of defeat?







Why do we compete?

Whether as amateurs or professionals, whether as future medalists or worthy opponents, what inspires our goal-setting, our concentration and dedication, our hard work? What makes all the difference?

And how might these questions relate to a discussion of communication?

The Mother Ship



If life on Earth becomes a bit tedious at times, then dream of greater heights, new horizons. Dream big! That's what Richard Branson did. He says that his inspiration for financing space tourism was his experience as a child following NASA. When he realized that he would never fly with NASA, and when he became rich enough, he created his own means of reaching space.





BRANSON'S SPACE TRAVEL DREAM
Take us along for a ride, pretty please!

Citizen of the World

In response to Barack Obama's recent speech in Berlin, John McCain and his spokespeople offered striking criticism. They said Mr. Obama should be speaking not to Europeans but to Americans (at least until he becomes president). They also derided his calling himself a "citizen of the world."

Here is my question: How can any person profess to be, as many Americans see in their president, “the leader of the ‘free world’” and not be at the same time a citizen of that world?

Mr. Obama articulated in his Berlin speech values that should simply be considered basic for leadership by any conscientious citizen concerned with the affairs of our time. And it seems he has proven himself intellectually able, at the very least, to imagine the scope of the challenges that he faces as a world leader in the 21st century. McCain, even in his most recent public statements, has shown again and again that he is a man imprisoned by the values of a different time, one whose narrow dimensions cloud his vision and make his judgments questionable.

Let’s hope that there are enough citizens of the world living in America to recognize the difference between the two men (and that the election this November can be a fair one).

Read Barack Obama's speech in Berlin here:

Citizen of the World

Location location location: Place and the appropriateness of nonverbal behavior

A young American is living in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon and is working as a trainer/teacher at General Motors and a local university. His good friends include many young and hip urban professionals (a dentist, a manager from a multinational corporation, a university administrator, and a PhD candidate), not the sort of folks you'd expect to lead him down the primrose path. One day he accompanies two of these friends, a couple with their two young sons, to Costa da Caparica, a 10-mile stretch of fine beach just south of Lisbon.


They head for a specific beach, Praia do Meco, a nudist beach. Being an American from the conservative Midwest, he is a bit skeptical about being butt-naked in public, even at a beach. His friends convince him that it's perfectly acceptable and that he has nothing to fear. When they arrive at the parking lot of the beach, which is set in a pine grove with a sandy floor, he wonders if he can really get nude with strangers. In fact, as they all walk to the beach with bathing suits and baggy T-shirts still on, he decides he won't completely undress. But when the group walks over a sand dune and onto the main Meco beach, and he sees at least 100 unclad male and female bodies before him, many of them laid casually across towels, others swimming in the sea, and others frolicking in the waves, he loses his fear.

His hosts take off their T-shirts, then their bathing suits, and join the nude crowd. The American, still clothed, sits quickly on a towel, and only after some time, decides to wiggle out of his suit. He doesn't want to be considered uncool or unadventurous, but he is cautious. What he eventually notices though is that everyone on the beach that day is nonchalant about their nudity. Noone is showing off. They are acting normal---just without clothing. The American starts to understand the point: it is liberating to be on a beach sunning oneself, swimming and sunning oneself again without clothes. He even develops the feeling that it is healthy, almost spiritual.

And so begins this American's adaptation to a very particular cultural norm, nude bathing, one that is much more prevalent amongst the young and hip in Europe than amongst their peers in most of the rest of the world. An exception to that is in Japan, where nude bathing in onsens, or spas, is firmly traditional, familial and common among all social classes.

For the young American, this trip to Praia do Meco is the first of many. He returns with the same family he has started the adventure with, and he goes with other friends. One day he visits with a Brazilian male friend. They go through the usual routine of wearing bathing suits to the beach, then stripping, then laying on their towels sunning themselves, then swimming, then sunning themselves again. It has all become rather commonplace.

At some point in the afternoon, the Brazilian friend points out a cabana that stands at the end of a nearby path that ascends the clay rise just behind the beach. It's a makeshift snack bar, with soft drinks and beer for sale. The two friends decide to visit, then mull over whether or not they should put their suits back on for the trip up the hill. The Brazilian dresses in his jean shorts; the young American decides to walk up the nearby slope in the nude. After all, it's a hot afternoon.

When they arrive in the cabana, it's empty, except for the dozen or so small wooden tables and benches in neat rows. There's one middle-aged woman, fully clothed, behind a big table where coolers and cases of drinks of various sorts are piled high. She doesn't flinch at the two customers, though one is naked. The guys buy drinks and take seats on a bench in the back of the place. Within the next 20 minutes or so, as the two beach goers sit and chat, others arrive from down the hill to escape the sun and to buy drinks: a young couple, a group of three, another couple with a child, and another small group. Soon the Brazilian and the young American notice that the place has filled up. Nearly every table is taken, with the cabana now holding 25 or 30 refreshment seekers. Aside from that, there is one more glaring fact: everyone except the young American is wearing some sort of beach wear (even though some are only sporting spartan bathing suits).

Suddenly, being nude has become an oddity again. In this shop so near to the nudist beach, the norms have changed. The young American becomes worried, wondering how to escape unseen. But it seems there's no way out. At last, he garners the courage to get up and leave, yet he does so while covering his private parts with his hands, something he didn't have to do down on the beach.

Searching for the Spirit of Patriotism

Recently, sometime during the first weekend of July, when Americans were celebrating the holiday Independence Day, I read Bush used phony patriotism to start war, a newly released article by Father Andrew Greeley, the American priest/writer, scholar and social critic. In the article Greeley questioned the use of patriotism by George Bush to incite uninformed Americans to support his administration's invasion of Iraq. The main thrust of the article was that after the attacks of 9/11, most Americans were so incensed that they wanted revenge and could be easily manipulated. Under those circumstances, a leader who could connect dots between the hijackings of airliners and any whiff of anti-American feelings in the Middle East was bound to captivate an audience, and that was exactly what Bush did.

Greeley demonstrates convincingly what most concerned, informed and thinking individuals on earth today see as a fact: Bush wanted to punish Saddam and he wanted oil, and he believed that by connecting the dots and making war (even when Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11), he could have both of those AND he could reshape the politics of the Middle East to his and his neo-con buddies' liking. By using the patriotism card, i.e., by calling anyone who questioned him a traitor, Bush was able to conjure up all the support he needed and he got his war.

Patriotism is an important value for many people. But just how can we recognize it in the flesh? Some would have you believe that it is unquestioning support of a country's leaders and those leaders' whims. In Malaysia for many years that meant supporting Prime Minister Mahathir and his administration's views wholeheartedly. It meant turning a blind eye to any corruption in government, to any inequity in society, to any contested government policy or action and saying "If you're a patriot, you support the government. Period."

In America in the 1960s, patriotism meant supporting the Vietnam War, 100%. There was a bumper sticker that I remember from that time that read: AMERICA, RIGHT OR WRONG.

When Bush and his cronies started to try to sell an invasion of Iraq by saying that Saddam was researching a nuclear weapon that he would then surely turn over to "the terrorists," many people questioned that specific assertion and the general logic. Even Scott Ritter, a man who had been the lead UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, had questioned it. Bush, Cheney and their dearest supporters nationwide were very quick to label Ritter and anyone else who had questions as crazy, or worse, as people who were supporting the enemies.

Sadly, these accusations have not disappeared. After reading the Greeley article, I read comments that had been posted beneath it. I was shocked at the number who not only questioned Greeley's patriotism but who also said he would "burn in hell." After checking the websites of a few of these commentators I discovered an even more serious problem. Some of these guys aren't just out for Greeley's head, they want an entire religious war. For them it's not just America:Right or Wrong, it's a bigger fight, a clash of civilizations. They believe that they alone on earth are amongst the chosen few; that they alone on earth know God and know good from bad, right from wrong. They are the American Taliban.

It's for these people that I would like to propose a course in the ideas of one of America's founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson. Of course, the likelihood that members of the American Taliban would read anything by Jefferson is the same as them taking a trip to Singapore and visiting one of my classes. Zero.

For the rest of us, it might be good at this time of year to pay a visit to Jeff's former mountaintop home, Monticello, or to simply visit the White House website and read this wonderful quote: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Back from Big Ohio


"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us."
John Winthrop, 1630

Once you have been away from "home" as long as I have, the very image of that place might take on nearly mythical proportions, both positively and negatively. Here in Singapore, many expatriate Americans like myself tend to see America in exaggerated terms, like headlines, and we forget the nuances: The Bush White House. The Iraq War. The Falling Dollar. Bulging Oil Prices. Global Warming. The Celtics as NBA champions.

When I'm in America, a horizon of other, finer details makes itself known, rekindling my emotional connection (and in some cases disconnection) to the place and people. In the airport in Chicago, I'm suddenly struck by all the white people and how once again I'm not a minority. (It's an odd feeling for me, actually.) In the airport in Columbus, Ohio, I note all the stores selling clothes, bags and other items with the name Ohio State University emblazoned on them, and I think about how university branding more so than intellectual development and often connected with college sports teams is so "huge." As I drive 30 miles east down I-70 (Interstate Highway) from the airport in Columbus to my hometown of Thornville, waves of other impressions and emotions greet me. In June the landscape is verdant, the trees and fields myriad hues of green, but there is so much less humidity here in central Ohio than there is in the tropics. On the road I'm also shocked yet again by the size of the cars, the number of SUVs, the speed of the semis (big trucks), and the wide median strips.



18 days in Ohio gives me one remembrance and discovery after another. The size of people is one of those. In Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and elsewhere in Asia, one rarely sees people who are "overweight." In teaching at NUS for one year, I have only had two or three students who seemed even slightly "weight challenged." In America, the large number of obese people becomes apparent the minute you walk through an airport. I remember entering a store, a "supermarket," and noting immediately that virtually *everyone*, every shopper and every check out girl, was heavier than they should be. Some ladies I saw were as wide as their shopping carts, which were invariably overflowing with meats, bread, giant bags of chip snacks and cartons of diet drinks! In fact, Ohio has been ranked as the 17th most obese American state by the Trust for America's Health, with 27% of its population being obese.

How does this happen? Why are so many Americans notoriously big? Well, a visit with my own family tells the story. I've seen family members bake a pan of brownies, then finish them all off within a couple days. I'm generously offered cookies, pie, cake and "soft" drinks at every turn. Dessert, like rice in much of Asia, is the staple, and ice cream a daily pleasure. Maybe what surprises me most though is how little water people drink and how, instead, it's Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Coors Light and Busch Light, and other "light" drinks. At some point though I stop noticing body size and see mainly the wide smiles. I start to feel like a coherent part of the scenery again.



Of course, I do get shocked back to reality: I'm especially struck by how overtly patriotic people are. We all have heard politicians, no matter where they are from, praise their own country as "great." Citizens of most countries can sing their national anthem, recite the names of past leaders and list great accomplishments, and they feel strong affection for their homeland. But in America it takes on a religious fervency. In my mother's neighborhood, a "subdivision" of Thornville called Foster Manor, many homes have flagpoles with the Stars and Stripes held high aloft. On one of my last days in America I even saw a motorcyclist, a guy on a big Harley, cruising nonchalantly down a street with a beach-towel-size flag fluttering above his muffler. On American TV talk shows, pundits routinely extol the "greatness" of America and discuss how that is being threatened by today's oil prices. Such patriotism is not just about celebrating America's history and tradition though, but about deeply believing in its exclusivity. It is also about economic privilege, and some may say "dominance." The age-old myth of America as the shining "city on a hill" for all of humanity to envy and emulate is still alive and well (though this may be mostly in the minds of Americans these days).

When I'm in Ohio, in fact, many people ask me if I'm going to stay away "over there" forever, as if no one really wants to live on a small island with small people. That's a funny question for me, because while I enjoy living in Singapore (and generally out of the USA), while I do view excess quite negatively, I continue to feel rooted in the "American experience."

A social psychologist might say that I have become the person I am because of the opportunities afforded by my social (more so than national) background and by the "big" allowances made in upbringing. And it is true that as a kid I was given a tremendous amount of leeway, or space, to spread my wings. I was encouraged to be independent, self reliant, and exploratory. I was pointed toward the big horizon, and through a childhood appetite for travel books, TV programs and films (Moby Dick, Gulliver's Travels, Call of the Wild, Around the World in 80 Days, Star Trek, Easy Rider) that described other places and other ways of life , I developed a desire to venture to the end of the highway, to dream "big," to think beyond my backyard. Those influences also became a motivation for me to give up the creature comforts and travel. I have no doubt that kids in other places in the world have been given the same sort of support and were instilled with the same values. In my case, it just happens to be an American background.



Of course, there is much to gain from America, too. A person only needs to consider American "contributions" to see that really a sort of "greatness" abounds there, in scientific discoveries, technological advances, scholarship. There have been Olympian achievements in nearly every field. Yes, there are opportunities that life in America can afford to many of its citizens (and many visitors!). Think university education!

There is also that material availability. One also only needs to look at the availability of consumer goods and take note of the relatively low cost of food, books, computers and other appliances, cars, land and houses (especially now!). In America, a working class couple, like a mailman married to a store clerk, can own their own house, have a couple cars in the garage and computers for their kids and they can spend at least one day every weekend boating, horseback riding or cruising on their Harley.

There's also quite a bit individual freedom (some might argue too much). The freedom to vote, voice political opinion (well...), the freedom to worship as you wish. The freedom to act "crazy." Look at the Youtube videos "Amish Paradise" and "White and Nerdy" by parody singer/ songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic, and see what a wide berth the "freedom of speech" principle of America is given, and think about how such freedom is often pushed to the limit in song lyrics or TV scripts. (I guess you can see that in many Hollywood films and in the wide availability of written social criticism as well.) In a positive sense, look at how many Americans "largely" do their own thing.

Big isn't always better though, not even for Americans. Witness how now they are complaining about gas that costs 4 dollars a gallon. (That's because they remember that recently it was half that price. My mom remembers it being 25 cents a gallon!) Big is also bad when we think of military spending, health care costs, and national debt.

So I guess big is not just a physical form, and Ohio is not only a place but also the mental image that I've come to discover!

Mowing: On An American Odyssey


I'm lying in a reclining chair on the deck of my mom's house. My eyes are closed. But my senses are being bombarded, by the hot sun and the feeling of being home. How comfortable it seems. Crystal blue sky, perfect temperature. When I look up I see the tops of maples planted by my father 40 years earlier. The air is fresh. All is well with the world. Then I hear it, a low humming motorized rumble. Like the buzz of a 300-pound gas-guzzling mosquito. It's the power mower. My mom's seen fit to cut the yard's grass again. There she goes, riding high and tight on the soft cushion seat of the yellow and white machine. Her bonding with backyard nature is outlined in a fit of starts and stops, then a drop of the rotary blades.

And now my meditation has been broken by the kiss of those blades bearing down on the inch-high grass cover.



Just three days earlier, I had my own turn with the mower. Mom had been mowing then as well. Before I knew it, daughter Billie was on the beast, a Cub Cadet, lifting her foot off the clutch, moving forward, easing into reverse and across my camera shots. Then I climbed aboard and helped out by mowing a large swath of the yard myself. It brought back memories of cutting the same grass when I was a teenager, the only difference being that my brothers and I didn't ride then; we pushed the mower, and it would take hours to do our weekly yard chore.

Not anymore. My mom can whack the whole quarter-acre yard, neatly circumnavigating the house and a wide range of furs, maples and bushes, and Dad's old pigeon house, in a matter of ninety minutes or so.

But the act of cutting the grass three days after it was last cut now strikes me as a huge waste of energy, and time. I look down at the neighbor's place, the broad yard of another happy gardner. Yep, his grass is golf-course-green cut, looking like the fairway! How had I missed that happening?

I look up at the other neighbor's, the Micks' yard. It's longer, perfectly fine at an inch-an-a-half in height. Then I note the rumble of the mower again, smile at the wide brim of my mom's straw hat and her fixed look of concentration. Or is that accomplishment?

America is said to have 4% of the world's population, but it uses 25% of the Earth's resources. 5 days at my mom's place in suburban Thornvile, Ohio, shows me how that is possible. Every house in the neighborhood has at least 2,500 square feet of floor space, and each is now fully engaging its whole-home air conditioning unit. Each broad driveway has a fuel-inefficient pick up truck in it, in addition to two or three other vehicles, one of which is probably an SUV.

Mom cruises by the edge of the deck, the mower's audio force splitting my solice. She looks quite stately as she turns the Cadet's steering wheel with calm know-how.

If she wasn't doing this, I guess, she'd be watching Oprah or driving us to the mall again. (God love her!) Yep, most likely we'd all be back down in Lancaster, or back up in Newark, perusing the bargains that seem inescapable in America today: from jeans for seven bucks and a pair of BBQ sandwiches for five dollars to half-price luxury rental cars and mansions for 30% off.

The mower roars past my head again, Mom on yet another sonic round, and I feel like I know why, many years ago, I began questioning some of the values of small town Ohio in the first place. (God bless this home!)

Quite a few Americans, people who have grown up in hometowns like mine, don't "question" mowing, or the way many things are done; many of them don't consider conservation of resources so important, unless it's good for their wallet. That's just not part of their grammar. What they do know and value is the "good life," which means, basically, material well being: i.e., achieving as much as they can achieve, obtaining the things that represent the good life ---and more. Finish school. Jump on a career path. Make money. Buy a car, a house, whatever. (At a family reunion this week a cousin praised her stepson, aged 23, for just putting down the money for his first house.) The bigger the better. To be in the real in group, landscape a BIG YARD. Even if it means cutting the grass 2, or 3 times a week: so be it.

Of course, America is not the only country where people value financial security. It is a place, however, where the value of ownership, or being a proprietor, is very strong. Just look at the yards, and the mowers!

Oops! My mother has lifted her blades and looks in my direction to ask whether or not I want to give a hand!

On Vietnam: Reflection and Rejuvenation

What is Vietnam? The word still means "war" for those who, like many Americans, see it through the prism of military defeat. For others, like some of my generally well informed friends in academe back in America, it is a third world police state, thanks to it's one-party system and alleged suppression of the opposition. For millions of others though, like the 80 plus million Vietnamese and many of of those in its diaspora, it is family, friends, culture, nation and a society undergoing radical change.

What is Vietnam for me? Why do I care?

I grew up in Ohio in the 1960s and 70s, but also always with an "image" of Vietnam. That image was constructed by nightly news reports on what the Vietnamese now call the "American War." I saw "Vietnam" with amazing regularity on the family TV at dinner time, from the other side of the ocean. But it was Vietnam by numbers: the number of North Vietnamese Army regulars killed, the number of Viet Cong killed, the number of South Vietnamese soldiers killed, and lastly, the number of Americans who had died. I remember Walter Cronkite making this announcement solemnly, but almost as if it were a daily sports score.

I learned that the Vietnamese had also fought against other "good guys," the French (or so we were told). The French had lost Vietnam in a battle called Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and since that time, the story went, America had stepped in and was there to stop the spread of communism. America had to help countries like the Soviet Union throw off the "yoke of communism" and we had to help Vietnam from embracing it (or so we were told).



Communism. That was the key word. That was why we American kids in the 1960s had to hide in the basement of our school during nuclear bomb drills. Since the start of the so-called "Cold War," after the end of real fighting in World War II, it had become America's duty-- or so we young Americans learned in school, from TV, from our families -- to fight the "Evil Red Empire" led by China and the Soviet Union. Vietnam was just one more "domino" on the board in that struggle, it was a place for America to contain communism's global expansion (or so we were told).

I learned to see that situation differently though, starting sometime between 1965 and 1966. I was in third grade (primary three). The girl in my class who I fancied the most -- I can't remember her name -- was sweet, cute, and smart. But what I remember most about her now, 40 years into the future, is how our lady teacher entered class one morning and announced that this classmate's daddy, a pilot, had been shot down over North Vietnam. Now he was dead. But, of course, he was also a hero (or so we were told).



I guess some boys would have found cause in that story to dream of being a pilot themselves, or of being a president who could one day say "bring 'em on" and help to kill "all them bad guys." But not me. I was at a loss. My friend's daddy was DEAD. Gone forever. Killed in Vietnam. And yet he was a hero.

So? I asked myself. What was the point in having a daddy who was a hero if he was dead, never to be seen again? ( Yes, war really is hell, heroically fought or not.)

Well, the rest is history. I grew up to hate war, question my country's leaders' motives and develop an opinion about who the real bad guys in Vietnam were. I came to see Vietnam as not just a war but as a place where real people lived, and where, between the time that America got involved in the conflict there and then left in 1975, some 50,000 American daddies, sons, and brothers got killed, and over 3,000,000 Vietnamese died. (How did General Curtis Le May put it? We should bomb them back into the Stone Age.)

All because of that "ugly" word, communism. Or thanks to the American leadership's misinterpretation of it!

Last night, I was in Vietnam. In fact, at about this same time, I was riding in a bus back to Saigon from Can Tho, the main city in the Mekong Delta. (Together with colleagues from my university program, I had just spent a wonderful afternoon meeting and conversing with 30 fellow teachers from Can Tho University in a colloquium on issues in English language teaching.) We visitors left enthused by the welcome we had received, then we watched the sun set from the ferry dock beside the Mekong, then we'd been on the road a couple hours when we finally stopped at a large outdoor roadside restaurant for a break.

A group of us wandered back to the toilet we'd used on the four-hour morning ride down to Can Tho only to discover that it was closed. So in dire need, I walked into an unused back section of the eatery, which was just next to a dark canal. There I stood, alone, in the dark, on concrete steps overlooking the canal, staring at the jungled river bank opposite the restaurant. Then and there it hit me. Mekong Delta? Wouldn't this very place, this spot have been a potential venue for a scene from Apocalypse Now, just 40 years earlier? Might not this canal have been in the war zone? And now look at it. Look at Vietnam today.



Sure, there were pictures, or paintings, or photographs of long gone Uncle Ho in almost every classroom of the five universities we visited this past week, from Hanoi to Saigon to Can Tho. But there is also a vibrancy in Vietnam that defies anyone with thoughts of the "yoke of communism" today, that even defies the country's recent description as one of the new "tigers" of Asia. You can see it in the tour buses and taxis lined up outside Ho Chi Minh City's sparkling new airport, in the entrepreneurial skills of the tour guides, bellboys, waitresses, shop clerks and roadside hawkers; you can see it in the countless shops selling limitless consumer goods; you can see it in the luxury hotels with fully stocked buffets, health salons and roof top bars over million dollar views; you can see it in all the new building projects, including massive bridges, widening highways and shiny new housing estates; you can hear it in the buzz of the 4.5 million motorcycles of Ho Chi Minh City and in the showroom of one of that same city's many auto dealerships, Luxury Motors; you can also sense it every time you see an amazingly professional research presentation made by young academics who articulate in flawless English first rate practical methods based on sound theory --- and you can be humbled by how well they have succeeded, after doing their graduate degrees locally or abroad with fellowships from their own government or from others (some from the repentant Ford & Fulbright Foundations). You can also stand equally impressed by the country's latest educational policy goal: 10,000 PhDs!





...............................................................................................
Communism? Well, there may be a central command for the country's development, I guess, and the ministries and party cadres probably do play an important part in shaping policy direction. But state control of every aspect of Vietnamese life? I don't think so. That wouldn't make economic sense. And Vietnam, now a member of ASEAN, the WTO, and other formidable organizations, seems to want more than anything to be taken seriously as a major economic player in Asia today. Its social and philosophical "doctrines" notwithstanding.

Over an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch, I asked a vice dean from one of the prestigious universities that we visited if he had to be a member of the Communist Party to secure his position. With a smile he gave me an emphatic "no," and then he explained in excellent Aussie-inflected English that he had never been a party member and maybe never would be. As for the "American War," he confided that what was past was past, and that the Vietnamese are a very forgiving people. He added to that saying,"We Vietnamese are looking to the future."

What an understatement -- and like many of Vietnam's current success stories, he was full of charm, intelligence and enthusiasm, all of which are more prevalent in Vietnam today than even the pictures of Ho Chi Minh I'd come to admire.

My first circle of communication

My great grandparents -- Ira & Rachel Cooperider -- my mother, Martha Elder Blackstone -- my father, Wayne Blackstone -- and my grandmother, Carrie Elizabeth Cooperider Blackstone (My grandfather Jerry Blackstone took the photo.)


My grandfather Jerry and my father Wayne


My mother, father, my younger brother Brent and I

The View from the Moon

" When you see the Earth from the moon, you realize how fragile it is and just how limited the resources are. We're all astronauts on this spaceship Earth -- about six or seven billion of us -- and we have to live and work together."

--Captain James Lovell (NASA astronaut)

The Meaning of Life

When I was a young child, I was told many things. I heard that my name was Brad Blackstone, that in my hometown my family was a good family, well respected and important. I also heard that I was an American, that the "American way" was very special, and that Americans on the world stage were well respected and important. I also attended church, learned that I was a Christian, and heard that Christians were good people, well respected and important among the religious people on the earth.

As I grew older into my teenage years, I wondered about what I had learned, and I tried to discern between the facts and opinions. I looked at the world around me, observed people and images on TV, in movies, amongst my schoolmates, teachers, relatives and my neighbors. I listened closely to the leaders of my country and to other leaders in the world. I read news, analysis, history and literature, and I began to wonder how I could measure the truth of what I had learned in the light of what I had observed. I passed my teenage years during the height of America's conflict with Vietnam (a real war) and the Soviet Union (the so-called Cold War), I witnessed the loss of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedy brothers, and I grew restless during the youth movement of the 1960s. I became inspired by the march for "civil rights" and by the advance of both the environmental and anti-war movements.

It was at that juncture, sometime during my mid to late teens, that I became interested in seeing the world for myself. I wanted to test my developing hypotheses, political, social, economic and cultural, with my own senses.I was no longer content to just follow my elders. I wanted to seize the day.

Since that time, I have covered lots of territory. Since leaving the comfort of my small hometown in Ohio, I have studied in a big American metropolis (Columbus, Ohio) and in the capital of the Soviet Union (Moscow). I have lived and worked in America, Portugal, Malaysia, Japan, and now Singapore. I have met many new friends, loved and been loved, raised my own family and suffered the loss of loved ones. Many people have taught me many things, both good and bad, wondrous and ugly. I have, in a sense, learned the ways of the world. So what then gives this life meaning for me?

Among other important people, you do. Our paths now run side by side. For this moment in time, we are sharing air.

Every positive encounter that we have, every bright person we meet, every new dream that we hear, each breathes life into our lungs and light into our souls. We can be as enthralled by a fruitful, personal exchange as we are by the sunrise and sunset of each day. Of course, we must lament the tragedies of this life, the inequity, the degradation, the crushed hopes. But with enlightened purpose, you and I can act in balance, counteract the negative, and bring more good to the world.

In this context, I "teach" so as to "learn," but also so as to help others explore the horizons that I have seen, to facilitate their observations, to assist someone like you in unraveling his or her own truths. In that way, as our common understanding evolves, as our "being" is enriched, our humanity --- our spirit --- can go beyond skin.

That's all. And maybe that's enough.

What to believe?

"All the world is my country and all mankind are my brethren, and to
do good is my religion." ~ Thomas Paine

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Drivin' Down the Berm

miles of road strewn with shoes
not daring to be worn
night upon night sirens flood
for the children never born
and the light upon the moon
a reflection, that's all
of the embers as they burn
in the furnace of your mind
encirclin' these thoughts
you go drivin' down the berm

rear view mirrors double vision
it's all the same to me
day by day landmarks fall
every way that you can see
and the dance of the sun
a reflection, that's all
of the embers as they burn
on the pavement of your heart
swirlin' now like ash
you go drivin' down the berm

(chorus)
head upon the highway
distant rollin' thunder
old songs how they simmer
heels to be awanderin'
like an old tambourine
day breaks on a dime
everyone's up and gone
suitcases packed with time
and here I stand alone
_____

some words will set you free
hope's a rig breath an engine
but page after page after page
each fades in locomotion
and the light upon the moon
a reflection, that's all
of the ride that we once shared
on the edge of a dream
encircling these thoughts
you go drivin' down the berm

==repeat chorus==

Angel of Darkness (in the circus of light)

woe cried the muse,
my tears started at the sound,
woe cried the muse,
grief perched upon my brow
and thought embraced her

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

woe cried the muse,
when summer spread her plumes,
woe cried the muse,
she turned her notes around me,
joy fanned its wings
and golden pleasures beamed
about my head

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

til mute attention struck my ear,
it spoke as if to bid farewell,
the winds their sad complainings bore
and love, in infant bud,
vanished

is this the heart of hearts
all disappeared?

woe cried the muse,
then struck her deepest string,
woe cried the muse,
with sympathy up my nerves,
trembling,
every face of doubt burst out
to sing
round the darkening sky

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

woe cried the muse,
then a rude thunder closed my eyes,
woe cried the muse,
laid the lilied beauties at my green,
the dance was broke,
a flower plucked, but not far blown

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

til mute attention struck my ear,
it spoke as if to bid farewell,
the winds their sad complainings bore
and love in infant bud, vanished

is this the heart of hearts
all disappeared?

ever from my sight
an angel of darkness
in the circus of light