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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Good work, Jaime! Your geographic distance and
cultural breadth add insights. Much chatter by U.S.
pundits about the speech - but this seems more fresh and
insightful. Helpful perspective on the social process
triangles. Thanks for sharing.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Janice</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=svesjaime@aol.com href="mailto:svesjaime@aol.com">Jaime R Vergara</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=oe@lists.wedgeblade.net
href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, February 14, 2013 3:40
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Oe List ...] Fwd: ST Monday
OpEd: President's Day</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT color=black size=3
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">j'aime la vie
<DIV style="COLOR: black"><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: white"><FONT color=#000080><B>Yesterday,
appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,
Celebrate!</B></FONT></I></DIV></DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: helvetica,arial; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">-----Original
Message-----<BR>From: Jaime R Vergara <<A
href="mailto:jrvergarajr2031@aol.com">jrvergarajr2031@aol.com</A>><BR>To:
jayvee_vallejera <<A
href="mailto:jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com">jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com</A>>;
mark_rabago <<A
href="mailto:mark_rabago@saipantribune.com">mark_rabago@saipantribune.com</A>>;
editor <<A
href="mailto:editor@saipantribune.com">editor@saipantribune.com</A>><BR>Sent:
Fri, Feb 15, 2013 4:36 am<BR>Subject: ST Monday OpEd: President's Day<BR><BR>
<DIV id=AOLMsgPart_1_951bf541-ecf2-45e0-abac-e95bb4286e69><FONT color=black
size=4 face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<DIV class=MsoNormal><B>The humanity of US Presidents</B></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>It is Presidents’ Day. Top ten on a survey list: 1)
Abe Lincoln abolished slavery, 2) FDR got working America back on its heels,
3) George Washington created a citizen president, 4) Thomas Jefferson doubled
US size with Louisiana purchase, 5) common man Andrew Jackson proved humble
beginnings hinders no one, 6) trust buster TR v. corrupt business, also
committed deeply to conservation, 7) Woodrow Wilson led America out of
isolation, 8) Harry Truman made hard decisions including the use of the
A-bomb, 9) James K. Polk acquired CA, NM, OR, as manifest destiny, and 10) Ike
Eisenhower presided over America’s post-WWII economic prosperity.<B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; COLOR: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana"></SPAN></B></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>In the topography of consciousness, we delineate three
sides of the same reality. One is the social process perspective that
engages economic support of human existence, the political organization of
decision-making, the cultural significance and meaning of every human
endeavor, and to balance the process that impacts and determines actions and
deeds.</DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>Science of late has been pushing the second perspective,
a planetary one that zeroes in on ecological state and well being of the
earth, metaphorically rendered as the global brain in Gaia’s journey.
Since the blue orb created the celebrated image of the earthrise, this
perspective has gained common currency. </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>E.g., groups of Christian faithful are engaged this Lent
season in carbon fast, a conscious curtailing of carbon emission by prudent
individual practices. With an Easter resurrection theme, measures like
collaboratively planting trees are undertaken to create natural
carbon-catching processes. In our own thinking, we refer to the
social and planetary part of the trichotomy as eco-democracy.</DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>The third category is the human, a ten thousand year
journey in the backdrop of a 4.5 billion year old evolving planet, where the
sense, feelings, thoughts, and resolve of a unit of consciousness has entered
the discourse of history, sociology, and psychology.</DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>Enuff of the theoretics! Tuesday evening in
America, President Barack Obama delivered SOTU 2013. How human is our
President? He began with a JFK quote: <I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">“the Constitution
makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress… It is my task to
report the state of the union. To improve it is the task of us
all.”</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times"> </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal>The president who spent most of his first term dealing
with a recalcitrant and gridlocked Congress, he continued on a forceful and
consistent “Yes, we can” theme.</DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia"></SPAN></I> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">In a literary cadence,
now familiar to many, he declared: <I>It is our generation’s task, then,
to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth: a rising, thriving
middle class.</I> </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times"></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">It is -- it is our
unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country, the idea
that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no
matter where you come from, no matter what you look like or who you
love.</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times"></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times"></SPAN></I> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">It is our unfinished
task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not
just the few, that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual
initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this
great nation.</SPAN></I></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia"></SPAN></I> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia">Then in a
facilitative as well as prescriptive leadership style that excites many, and
infuriates not a few, he romped with a Fix-it-First program on public works, a
slew of advances on deficit reduction and tax reform, the need for urgent
immigration measures and the revitalization of the middle class , early
learning and technical-vocational education, gun legislation and private
sector collaboration, the paycheck and women’s rights, <I>et al. </I>Coming
from nowhere, he hit a well aimed surprise homerun with an invitation for
Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9 from its current level of
$7.25. (I imagined some tremor from weaker knees in the Marianas
Trench!)</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia"></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia">He touched on a
wide range of issues including extremist groups (al Qaeda) and
counterterrorism, the end of US presence in Afghanistan (though he failed to
mention, in our view, a grave moral contradiction, the use of the drone),
reduction of nuclear arsenals (Russia), inhibiting others from gaining one
(Iran), and preparing for those who threaten to use one (the hermit kingdom of
DPRK).</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia"></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia">The adrenalin flow
of the night was, however, the highlighted presence of many folks mentioned in
the speech, including those affected by violence victimized by gun violence,
not the least of whom was one of the audience’s former member, assassination
incapacitated survivor Gabrielle Gifford of Arizona. Obama did not push
for a particular legislation; only that legislation already in docket deserves
a vote. On the note, the SOTU almost turned into a participative Rock
Festival!</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia"></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">Now’s the time to do
it. Now’s the time to get it done, </SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times">he thundered again and
again. </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: ">The speech is a tour de force,
at once, presidential and impassioned speech, a confident human resolve of
imaginative proportions. We are partisan on record on this one.
But it is not that the President is human. It is that we are invited to
be human in the same vein.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times"></SPAN></DIV><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both"><A
style="FONT: lighter 10px Verdana, Arial; COLOR: #000000"><IMG border=0
align=absMiddle
src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></A> <FONT
color=black size=2 face=arial>j'aime la vie
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I><FONT class=Apple-style-span color=#ff0000><B>Yesterday, appreciate;
tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In
all, </B></FONT></I><I><FONT class=Apple-style-span
color=#ff0000><B>Celebrate!</B></FONT></I></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV><!-- end of AOLMsgPart_1_951bf541-ecf2-45e0-abac-e95bb4286e69 --></DIV></FONT>
<P>
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