Thank you, President Obama

Already critics accuse the US president of blinking in a game of chicken with the Middle East's latest tyrant in Syria. Nevertheless, Obama's announcement today, August 31, 2013, demonstrates that he has chosen an unexpected card to slap down in the political arena: the Congress card!

Who knew he kept this card up the always-too-short sleeves of a tall basketball player? Historical scholars will be taking close notes because suddenly this question emerges: What if previous presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt had played the Congress card instead of the Zap card?

Military commanders may jump into the fray over timing, of course, but what if President Obama's predecessors in office had played the Congress card before—not after—rushing to attack? Then, the only card left in their hands was the Go-First-and-Get-Approval-If-You-Can-Later from Congress.

Analysts may also talk strategy as much as they please—and God knows they will—but the US president's strategy in this encounter must account for moves by not only Syria, but also China, Russia, the US Congress, and the American people. Obama didn't miss his Napoleon lesson, did he?

Obama has also proven that he understands the business world this time around. Participants in any deal must "buy into" a bargain, or they can and will complain bitterly if results do not meet expectations. This time, who can complain that they went anywhere without full disclosure?

There will be no warranties, of course, the Middle East being the closest thing that Americans know to a scorpions' nest. Still, the American people have heard those magic words at last: We go together, or we don't go! You get your say, and so do I. Don't complain--ever--that I didn't warn you.

Those words are worth pure gold because partisanship has been killing this democracy. At last, Congress must speak as one. Americans must also remember they are one people, too. The Constitution planned this battle on the home front: The Constitutional lawyer did his homework.  

Pecan Pie Pleasures: 10 Reasons to Serve Pecan Pie

1. It's the sweetest dish that comes with its own excuse to forget about sugar because it's too sweet to believe, but 
   photo by Margaret Curtis
   
   
2. It contains nuts, a valuable source of protein and recommended source of energy, and
   
   
3. It may contain brown sugar, which creates the most delicious pudding from molasses;
   
   
4. It's a Southern delicacy, so consumption counts for cultural diversity for Northern diners;
   
   
5. It also comes in bourbon and chocolate, preventing arguments over discrimination, but
   
   
6. It also comes in so many rich varieties that chefs may remember pralines and caramels,
   
   
7. Those delights perfect for decorating the surface of that scrumptious nut-crazy dessert, but
   
   
8. Pecan pie may be so tempting that guests at Labor Day parties will want to take slices home as favors
   
   
9. To savor at breakfast, brunch, or leftover parties of their own, so make extra always because
   
   
10. There can never be enough pecan pie to keep the holiday nuts everyone knows 100% happy.

Be sure to consult the Food Network at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipe-collections/pecan-pie/index.html for 72 recipes of delicious, delightful, dementing perfect pecan pie pleasures. 

Time for Country Mice to Get Happy

Time for Country Mice to Get Happy

by Meg Curtis, PhD

As perfume drifts in from the fields, the trees clump with red fruit, and the vines swirl with purple drapes. Dionysus prepares the urns for wine. Harvest will soon be upon us with its heady offerings.

Farmers continue to be the lucky ones among laborers who may never see the fruit of their dedication. Agricultural workers see that fruit, smell it, touch it with reverant hands.

Cherry and berry pickers return from their climbs and forays covered with red juice, not human blood. They wrestle with branches and wind tossing gaunt arms, not bullets. They radiate sun.

They live with water as refreshment for plants and animals alike. They pour it, whisper it, at just the moment of need, knowing thirst is a universal challenge. They feed animals first, themselves last.

Animals understand farmers' compassion. Their eyes turn to those who work with them every day. This is team work of the first order, preserving the earth so it may rise again, watching it sleep.

Do not ask a farmer if bumblebees matter. Do not ask him or her if land is a commodity or home. Just ask: How did you do this? And s/he will answer: God knows. The rain came in time.

If the rain does not come on a reliable schedule, then farmers will have risked their all for nothing. Just look at the sky as they do: It rumbles with power. It breathes with freedom to make a living.

All marvels do not come from machines. Yes, the combines will be busy, and the pitchforks will send bales flying. But in the great schemes of Nature, who are we but mice who nibble gratefully?

Brad Thor's Athena Project: Jane Bonds Aplenty!

Brad Thor's Athena Project: Jane Bonds Aplenty!

By Meg Curtis, PhD

With The Athena Project, Brad Thor tears open a new niche in the thriller business: He scoffs at every cliche that males may assume about females. Sensitive? No! Weak? No again! Thor stakes this novel on his faith that readers enjoy seeing females behave exactly like James Bond.

Along the way, he considers nazi technological ambitions, American competition for nazi scientists, and international competition for human fax machines. Formally known as quantum teleportation, this phenomenon repeatedly hits the media with sudden announcements of progress. To keep up with experiments, just search for "quantum teleportation latest," to find unnerving surprises.

Thor's genius lies in combining remarkable characters with science so mysterious that readers will find themselves requiring their friends to dive into physics. According to scientists' expectations, quantum teleportation promises to offer new prospects for encryption, as well as transportation of information so fast that the next internet will make the present version look like the Gutenburg bible.

Thor's plot takes his characters deep into Paraguay. His exploration of human motivation wrestles with the CIA and security questions so frightening that readers may have trouble napping. Just turn the page, though, and those space age women may save the Republic yet. His faith in human intelligence conducts a space race all of its own, to discover if the urge to survive triumphs.

Throughout international conflicts, Thor's writing style remains deceptively straightforward and direct. He never leaves the reader behind, no matter his choice of topic. His wit unleashes laughter, even as his females launch parachutes from buildings, and make readers gasp how chic chicks will land without finding the enemies' hands fast on them. No spoilers here. Go with the girls for thrillers every time! 

The US Flat Earth Society vs. A New Political Reality

The US Flat Earth Society vs. A New Political Reality

by Meg Curtis, PhD

When President Obama complains about the Flat Earth Society in America, he needs to check his rear view mirror. His speeches address race and sex. He refers to Edward Snowden as a "hacker." Obama is the creation of the 1960s. His most famous words yearn for "Dreams from My Father." Newsflash: This is the twenty-first century, and Obama's strategies have not even begun to acknowledge the real change in America's workforce.

First, with every development of technology, communications workers have upped their power ante. This group constitutes the "Communications Workers of America (CWA) ... the largest communications and media labor union in the United States," according to Wikipedia. The CWA, in turn, is "affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress, and Union Network International...and the worldwide membership of the AFL-CIO total[ed] 11,000,000, as of 2008." The CWA has its own connections, and those are not limited to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC.

Second, while Obama agonizes over race and sex, the following developments have occurred:

"In October 2003, 77 million persons used a computer at work, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported ....These workers accounted for 55.5 percent of total employment. About 2 of every 5 employed individuals connected to the Internet or used e-mail while on the job."

These statistics cut across racial and gender lines. They practically define "labor" now while the US President harps about the birds, the bees, and skin.

Third, we come to that elite group of high tech workers who, just like Snowden and Obama—we hope—have security clearances. Even in 2011, the Washington Post's research revealed that enough security clearances had been issued to cover nearly the entire population of Washington, DC. That report, described in "Checkpoint Washington," admitted: "The official count is so much greater than previous estimates that it caught security experts off-guard."

Across the board, this fall-out of the computer revolution seems to have occurred without America's leaders recognizing its consequences. Computer users should also now define the largest voting block in this country, and they are ripe for some smart politicians' plucking. Can America ever stop fighting the last war, and get onto current challenges? Technology unites, threatens, and characterizes our everyday life. The high tech wars have started, and America is right in the middle of them. Where oh where is Obama?

For further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Workers_of_America

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ciuaw.nr0.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/how-many-security-clearances-has-the-government-issued-nearly-enough-for-everyone-in-the-washington-area/2011/09/20/gIQAMW3OiK_blog.html

Teachers and Terror Part 3

Teachers and Terror Part 3

by Meg Curtis, PhD

Fast forward that initial experience with German to the next year, when I studied Italian. Then, once again, I was lost without my GPS unit, which hadn't even been invented yet. Once again, my Italian professor outdid my linguistic knowledge, which is exactly the way it is supposed to be for students. He smiled because he knew his class was terrified to open their mouths and expose their ignorance.

This time around, my experience was more devastating to my ego, if such a calamity is possible—and it is. Now, with five years of Latin to my credit, I kept speaking Italian with a Latin accent, as if I were singing in a church choir, instead of ordering an elegant meal in Rome, where he took Italian majors, to test their mastery of the spoken language. The Italian majors smiled; I wanted to cry.

Of course, with a year of German under my achievement belt, my ego thought it was prepared to be decimated, as I struggled to announce my name, and utter, "Ciao!"--as if six years of foreign language study rendered me a veteran of the language wars. Instead, German had entered my subconscious with its reverse word order. I thought in Latin, reversed in German, and stuttered in Italian!

Somehow, the music of Italian entranced me, nevertheless. I began to take pride in developing the accent of Roman Italian. If I couldn't say much, I could say it right nonetheless! I began to dream of visiting the Sistine Chapel, of understanding what Michelangelo meant when he said: "Those who love do not sleep." I researched his art, and discovered that he wrote poetry, too!

By the end of that second year of modern foreign language study, I had not gotten German out of my head, but I had developed enough courage to risk saying, "Buongiorno!" I had even begun to imagine that my mind could indeed master more than one or even two code systems. What I had not even begun to guess was that I had laid the foundation for research across literature from Dante back to Beowulf.

I could even sit in an Italian opera without keeping my eyes glued to the translation screens. I could enter into the drama of the music, and experience the glory of Italian tenors, as if they were singing right to me! When I saw Placido Domingo in person years later at the Metropolitan Opera, I wanted to race right up to him and declare: "Buona sera!" Where had my terror gone?

My terror was gone with my assumption that the human mind is shackled to one language like a woolly mammoth frozen in ice. My mind had begun to dance! If my feet could cha-cha, rumba, and mambo, so my brain could follow any routine that a language system laid out. It was true, as one English professor said: "Newborns can speak all the languages in the world!" And there I was with every dictionary before me.

Teachers and Terror Part 2

Teachers and Terror Part 2

by Meg Curtis, PhD

No one in that German class was more confused than I was. After five years of Latin, I thought in Latin. I translated English into Latin and Latin into English with a confidence born of daily assignments and weekly memorization of passages from Virgil, starting with 12 lines and working up to 24 lines. I was a linguistic ace; I knew my Latin backwards and forwards, but I didn't know German worth spit.

When the semester started, I was so lost that I couldn't have found my ego with a GPS unit or the help of the NSA. I whined my way from my dormitory to that German class, and started talking to myself. Finally, I heard myself whining, and it actually sounded funny. There I was at a first-rate college, and all I could do was complain. Suddenly it dawned on me: Every language is a new code system.

Every language required me to realize that I was a beginner, no matter how smart or accomplished I was. Once my brain accepted that fact, I got down to business. Out came my 3" by 5" cards, every single one decorated with a word on the front, and a definition on the back. Those cards went with me wherever I went: to the dining hall, the shower, even into phone booths. German became my constant companion.

After a single year of German, I knew that I wasn't an ace yet, but I had absorbed the most important lesson I would ever learn as a student: The pursuit of knowledge turns all of us into beginners. The pursuit of truth is even more challenging. My German professor displayed rare wit when she evaluated my German essay: "You grasp literature, but your grammar is metaphysical," she said with a smile.

Truer words were never spoken. I had tortured and twisted German grammar to convey the meanings in a work of German literature which I could discern but barely explain. That professor not only read my German essay; she even read my mind. She knew I was a poet. She even probably knew that I would write this tribute to the German lioness who revealed to me the German base of the English language.