[Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Tuesday August 14

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

Thank you, Jaime. Excellent.
 
Blessings,
Jann McGuire
 
 
In a message dated 8/13/2012 4:22:43 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
svesjaime at aol.com writes:

The  following are both in the Saipan Tribune.  London Olympics hacked in  
haste to beat deadline.  Sharing it with the listserv.  (I thank  George H. 
for the JWM quote in the second article.)    


If curious, you are welcome; not, see you at the  bend.

j'aime la vie


 
 
 
 



Memorable Music  and Metaphors of Madness at Marshgate
 
The evening was  billed as a Symphony of British Music, bringing together 
the best  musical stars of the last 50 years, characterizing the tenor of the 
closing  ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  The Olympic 
stadium is  on Marshgate Lane in Stratford, London, and madness was a theme early 
on in  the varied performances.  We could not resist the alliteration in 
the  title.
 
Britain of Winston  Churchill, complete with a speechifying PM, along with 
images of tabloid  journalism, the Cardiff cliffs, street sweepers, the 
London Eye of the famed  Millennium Park Ferris wheel, and cars, cars, cars, set 
the tone for the  evening, beginning at mid-evening summertime in London.  
Simulcast in the  web but delayed on CCTV by a couple of hours for the 
morning audience, we  missed much with the anchor's Zhongwen bantering and the 
sporadic English  subtitles, especially of the performers. 
 
The Empire that  first employed oil to power its naval fleet, and became 
preeminent world power  in the 19th century, was authentic in displaying what 
the world have wanted  from its factory lines ever since.  Who hasn't 
drooled over the majesty  of the Rolls Royce, the chic leopardine sleekness of the 
Austin Martin, and  the durability of the workhorse Land Rover?
 
Yup, the oil  guzzlers were up on stage without apology.  Very elegantly 
and arrogantly  British!
 
Impressive was the  parade of the international colors, followed by the 
march of medalists, and  joined by the assembly of athletes to the side of the 
mid-field ramps that  served as routes to the stage, and later, the Olympic 
flames, seen from above  to be shaped like the Union Jack.  Fitting for the 
occasion was the medal  award ceremony for the marathon, with first finisher 
from Uganda, the sole  medalist from the land of the much-maligned Idi Amin.
 
Recognition of the  without-which-there-would-not-be-a-smooth-Olympics, the 
Volunteers, was  poignant to us as we remember our Olympic hosting adviser 
from Sydney of Pinoy  descent and pediatric training, who made the trip to 
London earlier to share  her wisdom, undertaking such challenges while living 
with the scourge of  cancer.
 
Volunteers were much  heralded in the running of the Beijing Olympics and 
the Shanghai Expo that  their tribe henceforth shall be a mainstay in every 
international sport  gathering.
 
Employed on stage  were former British Empire Commonwealths such as Indian 
drums and colorful  Sikhs, along with memorable performances of the band 
Queen, joined by Jessie J  in the vocals for We will, we will Rock You!  A 
noticeable style  of singing in the field started with monotone chanting, 
reaching a screeching  height of screaming.  I suppose, we are showing our age re 
electric metal  rock!
 
Comedian Eric Idle  of the Monty Python fame tore the stadium down when he 
emerged from the bowels  of the earth after a feigned failed cannonball shot 
into the rafters, pranced,  and sang on stage ("always look at the bright 
side of life") with the Spice  Girls, nuns and the dancing Sihks, et al.
 
The Who took a big chunk of the blood pudding, with hit songs like  "Baba 
O'Riley," "My Generation", and their signature song from their musical  
Tommy, "See me, feel me/Listening to you."  Earlier, Kaiser Chiefs  rendered 
their classic "Pinball Wizard". 
The night  extravaganza went beyond its three hour schedule, but we stood 
when the Greek  colors went up with the anthem to honor the Games' country of 
origin, and to  remember how the euro that affects as all is critical in 
the economy of that  land.
 
The singing of the  Olympic anthem is lofty and dignified if one is a 
church-going person, but  perhaps, for the seculars of our likeness, it is time 
to jazz it  up.
 
Passing of the  Olympic interlocking Penta Rings from London back to IOC 
President and on to  the Mayor of Rio de Janiero stood us up for the perky 
national anthem of  Brazil.  Aerial view of the stadium with the Union Jack in 
the middle  surrounded by lit Brazilian colors in circles was phenomenol 
visual  assault.  
 
A street  sweeper-attired performer (looks like one of the athletes but I 
could not  decipher the Zhongwen commentary) left on stage with an English 
security  officer trying to point out that the performances was over, was a 
foil to get  the next site Rio in Brazil, its Carnival dancers, a float, 
lively EuroAfrican  beats and samba steps, Amazon motiffs, native costumes, and 
Pele!, on  stage.
 
London Olympics  coordinator Stephen Coe said in his farewell address: "we 
lit up the flame,  and we light up the world."  He added, "we saw what 
tenacity, ambition,  and imagination can do."  Wondered what that would do were 
we to refocus  efforts on such daily human issues as poverty and war.  
Haunting in this  regard were the children's voices that sang John Lennon song 
Imagine  during the ceremony, followed by a projected image of the Beatle 
member  himself singing his song in a somber moment.
 
Snuffing of the  Olympic flame surrounded by a lit up stadium, and a last 
burst of fireworks,  the fires were passed on to the emerging Brazilian bird 
in the  background.
 
"In our time Britain  got it right", said Coe.  British version of madness 
is usually  mayhem.  This one went just fine.  "You and me, we can light up 
the  sky," went an ending song.  And in a characteristic British fashion, 
"We  can rule the world!"  Nah.
 
Jacques Rogge, IOC  President, bid his grateful adieu.  The Who's "See me, 
feel me, touch me"  from Tommy anticipated Copacobana of Rio.  So, all 
right, Rio,  top this one.  Here we come, Copa!  Got your thongs ready?

Jaime R Vergara  


All of yesterday,  thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it  be!





America’s got talent
 
We have two singing presidentiables competing for our  attention.  Obama 
did Al Green's Let Us Stay Together, while  Romney belted out the beloved hymn 
of America the Beautiful.  That  each camp found cause to point out 
deficiencies in the renditions is simply an  unavoidable political hazard.
 
Singing, of course, is the language of the heart.  The phrase 'Singing 
Revolution' refers to Estonia, Latvia, and  Lithuania’s response to the Nazis in 
WWII, and the Russians during the Cold  War.  They were forbidden to sing 
in public any of their rousing national  songs.  The Baltic folks just kept 
singing, and a recent PBS docu has the  Lithuanian defying their Soviet lords 
until the Berlin Wall came down, and the  flowering of their voices bloomed 
and is now digitized for the world.
 
The first act of a baby when transitioning from  water-based existence to 
air-based breathing is to sing.  Well, not  exactly to the tune of Beethoven’
s Fifth but the waaah wailed when  heard has been known to keep a father’s 
heart to skip a beat, and a mothers  throat to utter a deep sigh of relief.
 
We taught Peace Corps Volunteers in the early 80s  employing the immersion 
method.  One went to class with nothing but the  language being learned.  
This has pedagogical merit.  A baby's way  of learning a first tongue is to 
hear it spoken, and then to mimic what one  hears.  Thus, we learn language by 
first hearing, then repeating, before  we are confident enough to speak on 
our own.
 
Schooling adds reading and writing.  We learn to  read, utilizing sounds 
symbolized by the alphabet.  After third grade in  the PSS curriculum, a 
student reads to learn.  We get familiar with  syntax (grammar) and expand word 
meaning (vocabulary).  We are taught to  recognize ratio and afix them with 
numbers.  We objectify patterns that  evolve into what is logical and/or 
reasonable.  Cognition is  birthed.
 
Intelligence is measured in terms of its facility with  words and numbers, 
and it expresses sense experience, emotional state, mental  discipline, and 
willed decision.  Hearing words delivered through  familiar music is one of 
the natural methods of getting fluent in a  language.
 
Singing has become a lost art in our schools since we  treated music as an 
academic course.  Somehow, we managed to kill the  spirit of singing with 
either irrelevance (too much reliance on classical  forms), or justifiable 
boredom (the inanity of the mathematical scale).   We let pros sing our 
national anthems at public events, promoting their  trademark vocal styles rather 
than lead a crowd in communal singing. 
 
One of the remarkable features of the Olympics is the  playing of one's 
national anthem when receiving the gold.  Almost  invariably, a member of Team 
China in the medal platform visibly sings  Qilai, Qilai (Arise, arise!), 
when the national anthem is played.   

Team America was once a meaningful term.  Our 1992  Basketball Team was 
dubbed the Dream Team.  The Dallas Cowboys  called themselves America's Team.  
Somewhere along the line, tearmwork  got sidelined as stardom shined in the 
skies.  We hope the current team  of superstars retrieves the reputation.
 
Christianity evolved first as Team Ecclesia (the  Household of God) in the 
manner of the expected one, Messiah in Hebrew, and  Κριστοσ in Greek, 
before it  became idolatrous and began singing the glories of Jesus Christ  
Superstar!  So this dichotomy is not new.
 
China's French Open champion Li Na bolted out of the Team  and went solo on 
claims that economic gains favored the team's interest too  much.  She is 
not very popular, and her lackluster performance in London,  losing her first 
game, did not receive much sympathy.
 
Liu Xiang of the 110m-hurdle capped the gold in the 2004  Athens Olympics, 
was hounded by all kinds of ailments, got healed and was  poised to reclaim 
a medal in London.  He walked around tagged by a lion's  share of favorable 
media.  He stumbled on the first hurdle of his heat,  and went through 
tendon surgery.  The papparazzi are still on his  tail.
 
His expressed sentiment is: "winning a medal is not what  matters; 
participation does," according to his coach.  He shares his  means liberally (e.g., 
Sichuan earthquake) and remains one of Team China's  staunch members.
 
Talent in current American parlance is a stardom  category, with 
competition understood as one besting another.   America's Got Talent on TV mirrors 
our politics.  Wisconsin's Paul  Ryan notwithstanding, Republican 
conservatives still shun Romney, and Obama  tries to prove he is mainstream and centrist 
to the Democrats.  I would  rather that he be liberal and progressive.
 
Obama leads the polls and has an edge on 9 of the 10  swing States in the 
coming election.  The contest, however, is doomed to  be another lose-lose 
affair, as once more, governance get stuck in grid lock,  and the American 
people will wail their whine unto the heavens!  Team  "Yes, we can" got 
sidelined by BHO the reluctant superstar!
 
An old guru once wrote: Hope appeareth, but it is not  your Hope—you do not 
have anything to do with it.  It just  appeareth.  It comes as a stranger, 
as an alien—it  just appeareth!  You do not even know why you hope.  How  in 
the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to  justify any 
hope?
 
The presidentiables are singing.  That's  hopeful!
 

Jaime R Vergara  


All of yesterday,  thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it  be!













_______________________________________________
OE  mailing  list
OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20120813/78dd009b/attachment.html>