quote to tickle thought: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure (Marianne Williamson, erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela)
in the news on 2010 Valentine’s Day: Cheney attacks Obama on national security; games changer: luger’s death casts pall over opening ceremony (of 2010 Olympics in Canada); luger officials alter track while asserting it was safe; Wall Street helped to mask debts shaking Europe; same-sex couple stir fears in Malawi of a “gay agenda” promoted by the west; what your heart and brain are doing when you’re in love
in perspective: Former vice-president Dick Cheney chose Valentine’s Day to go on the Sunday airwaves to promote his “Chicken Little” message of the doom worse than 9/11 awaiting America at any moment. In the same interview on ABC’s This Week, the father of a lesbian daughter said society had changed enough to allow repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” relating to gays in the American military.
A New York Times article that same day reported on African countries where homosexuality was so little understood that it was punishable by imprisonment and even death. At the same time, the paper reported on the role of Wall Street in the financial crisis afflicting Greece to the point where the European Union contemplated expelling the country from the relatively recent organization formed to address the needs of member states in a global world to maximize national strengths on behalf of regional interests.
Meanwhile, the media focus at the 2010 winter Olympics in Canada showcased the national pride of the world’s 200 countries at the personal level, regardless of how small a showing there was at present on the part of developing and emerging southern countries in those western elite sports. A review of previous defeats and triumph fueled audience enthusiasm for individual athletes, as did a focus on attending family members who had made athletic excellence possible in an individual through recognition of a gift in one person.
Numerous studies accessible through search engines attest to an obvious fact. Positive experience releases hormones and triggers physiological processes more constructive for problem-solving and attainment of goals than negative ones.
Ignorance, poverty and bigotry are not about to disappear overnight in any corner of a global world. But the two possible responses are the same in every corner.
One response is to act on fear and continue to send outmoded alarms. The other approach is to broaden thinking and direct the energies of personal interests into the wider global world.
Whether at the level of economics, sports or in any area of human rights from those of gays to those of refugees or children, the generosity of America’s privileged attention cannot be a waste of effort. In fact, it could lead to a renewal of America’s faith in its own strengths, which in turn could lead to global revolutions as well as economic betterment both in America and beyond it to areas worldwide.
A focus on gay rights in antipathic societies, for example, could lead American gays to make strides at home. An opening of opportunity for athletes into sports arenas not in their native conception at present, as another example, just could lead to the discovery of a skating star in an African or Caribbean country who had previously eyed only track events. And the successful tackling of such new frontiers could just lead to greater successes in taming old social, political and personal hostilities.
In a nutshell on Valentine’s Day 2010, hostilities continued to erupt in India and Pakistan while athletes competed in the 2010 Olympics in Canada. A comparison of the two situations proved the classic Beatles rock group right in a round-about way.
All you really do need is love. The trick is to keep that message in the forefront against the doomsday retrogressives.
