Quote for a special occasion

In 1783 the Polish and American patriot Thaddeus Kosciuszko, in honor of the success of the American Revolution, wrote: "O! how happy we think our Self when Conscious of our deeds, that were started from principle of rectitude, from conviction of the goodness of the thing itself, from motive of the good that will Come to Human Kind."

Given the historic significance of the recent health care reform bill that President Obama signed, the quote is very applicable. I think somewhere out there General Kosciuszko is tipping his hat to President Obama.

For those of you who never heard of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, he was the architect of West Point and it was his plans that were stolen by Benedict Arnold to sell to the British. Teachers tend to leave that fact out when they teach students about Benedict Arnold's treason. One more thing, you most likely are continuing a tradition started by Kosciuszko: he was assigned the duty of arranging the first fireworks celebration marking the 1st anniversary of American independence in 1783.

The 3 Iranian Sopranos

A friend of mine posted the link to the Three Iranian Sopranos on his Facebook wall and when I visited it and heard their songs, I was completely blown away by the beauty and grace of their virtuosity. All I could say was WOW!! For me listening to a song in Portuguese is an incredibly powerful and emotional feeling. I now have that same feeling listening to Farsi. 

Check out the Three Iranian Sopranos website to learn more about them and to hear their performances. It is well worth it. In this day and age where the US media consistently portrays Iran in a negative light, here is a story that will debunk the false notion that Iran is a backward, culturally bereft country. 

Spread the word. I have been e-mailing some of our congressmen to let them know about the Three Iranian Sopranos. Since most of our congressmen have never traveled in their lives, we must bring international culture to their door and remind them that Iran offers many positive contributions to the world.

Spring by John Clare

As I was looking through some books in the Boston Public Library I stumbled on a collection of poems by the Englishman John Clare (1793-1846). His meditations on nature and its spirituality place him in the same category as Henry Thoreau. Check out this poem titled "Spring."

                                      Spring

Pale sun beams gleam
That nurture a few flowers
Pilewort and daisey and a sprig o'green
On whitethorn bushes
In the leaf-strewn hedge

These harbingers
Tell spring is coming fast
And these the schoolboy marks
And wastes an hour from school
Agen the old pasture-hedge

Cropping the daisey
And the pilewort flowers
Pleased with the Spring and all he looks upon
He ope's his spelling-book
And hides her blossoms there

Shadows fall dark
Like black in the pale Sun
And lye the bleak day long
Like blackstock under hedges
And bare wind-rocked trees

Tis'dull but pleasant
In the hedge-bottom lined
With brown seer leaves the last
Year littered there and left
Mopes the hedge-sparrow

With trembling wings and cheeps
Its welcome to pale sunbeams
Creeping through and further on
Made of green moss
The nest and green-blue eggs are seen

All tokens spring and every day
Green and more green hedges and close
And everywhere appears
Still 'tis but March
But still that March is spring

Why the US Congress doesn't understand the world

I am reading a very good book by Mort Rosenblum titled Escaping Plato's Cave and in it he reveals that during the Iran-Contra hearings in the 1980s he asked lawyer and political investigator Jack Blum, "[w]hy Congress never seemed to understand foreign affairs." Blum responded with, "Some people in Congress are better than others, but if you add up the total of their understanding of the world it would equal the weight of interplanetary dust. Most have, at best, comic-book knowledge of foreign affairs and how other people see things." If you witnessed the pathetic performances of Representatives Kanjorski and Mica during the Toyota testimony before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee last month, then you can see that nothing has changed since Blum made his statement all those years ago. On a side note, in my March 1 posting I wrote that I sent Rep. Kanjorski's office an email asking if he owned a passport or spoke another language. I have yet to receive a response.

Representatives Gone Wild at the OC (Oversight Committee)

I caught some of the hearings on the Toyota recall on February 24th and I particularly focused on the comportment of our representatives on the Oversight Committee. Given that this situation involved much more than a simple testimony (cross-cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural communication among other things), I wanted to see how some people presented themselves. Sadly, yet not surprisingly, I was disappointed in the arrogance and boorishness of our representatives. Check out examples of classless behavior from some of our representative at the Toyota Hearings. Some representatives were civil, such as the chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA), but their diplomatic tones were subdued in comparison with the sharp tones of Representatives Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)(46:30) (whose nationalist rhetoric at one point led him to say, "We should just forgive these companies and let them kill our people." Dan Burton (R-IN) was much more open to conversing, not attacking the CEO of Toyota, but he was followed up by Joh Mica (R-FL), who I found to be extremely rude, uncouth and abrasive. His gestures were confrontational and condescending that would be interpreted by any international person as overtly aggressive. Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) (2:26:50)at least apologized that the Toyota witnesses had to testify in a second language in a situation that was not very comfortable to them (kudos to Mr. Bilbray!). Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) ( 2:15:40)acknowledged that differences in Japanese and American corporate and societal culture might have played a role in the situation.

I wonder who among this group of representatives owns a passport or speaks another language? My guess would be the ones who behaved in a civil fashion with the Japanese. I called Rep. Kanjorski's office to ask if he owned a passport or spoke another language. I was told by his staff assistant to send an e-mail. So far, no one has responded. And therein lies the problem...on so many levels.