j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031@aol.com> To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago@saipantribune.com>; editor <editor@saipantribune.com> Sent: Fri, Feb 15, 2013 4:36 am Subject: ST Monday OpEd: President's Day The humanity of USPresidents It is Presidents’ Day. Top ten on a survey list: 1) Abe Lincoln abolished slavery, 2) FDR gotworking America back on its heels, 3) George Washington created a citizenpresident, 4) Thomas Jefferson doubled US size with Louisiana purchase, 5)common man Andrew Jackson proved humble beginnings hinders no one, 6) trustbuster TR v. corrupt business, also committed deeply to conservation, 7)Woodrow Wilson led America out of isolation, 8) Harry Truman made harddecisions 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’spost-WWII economic prosperity. In the topography of consciousness, we delineate three sidesof the same reality. One is the socialprocess perspective that engages economic support of human existence, thepolitical organization of decision-making, the cultural significance andmeaning of every human endeavor, and to balance the process that impacts anddetermines actions and deeds. Science of late has been pushing the second perspective, aplanetary 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 celebratedimage of the earthrise, this perspective has gained common currency. E.g., groups of Christian faithful are engaged this Lentseason in carbon fast, a conscious curtailing of carbon emission by prudentindividual practices. With an Easterresurrection theme, measures like collaboratively planting trees are undertakento create natural carbon-catching processes. In our own thinking, we refer to the social and planetary part of thetrichotomy as eco-democracy. The third category is the human, a ten thousand year journeyin 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 thediscourse of history, sociology, and psychology. Enuff of the theoretics! Tuesday evening in America, President Barack Obama delivered SOTU2013. How human is our President? He began with a JFK quote: “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners forprogress… It is my task to report the state of the union. To improve it is thetask of us all.” The president who spent most of his first term dealing witha recalcitrant and gridlocked Congress, he continued on a forceful andconsistent “Yes, we can” theme. Ina literary cadence, now familiar to many, he declared: It isour generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economicgrowth: a rising, thriving middle class. It is -- it is ourunfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country, the ideathat if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, nomatter where you come from, no matter what you look like or who you love. It is our unfinished taskto make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just thefew, that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, andopens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation. Then in a facilitative as well as prescriptive leadership style thatexcites many, and infuriates not a few, he romped with a Fix-it-First program onpublic works, a slew of advances on deficit reduction and tax reform, the needfor urgent immigration measures and the revitalization of the middle class ,early learning and technical-vocational education, gun legislation and privatesector collaboration, the paycheck and women’s rights, et al. Coming from nowhere, he hit a well aimed surprise homerunwith an invitation for Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9 from itscurrent level of $7.25. (I imagined sometremor from weaker knees in the Marianas Trench!) He touched on a wide range of issues including extremist groups (alQaeda) and counterterrorism, the end of US presence in Afghanistan (though hefailed to mention, in our view, a grave moral contradiction, the use of thedrone), reduction of nuclear arsenals (Russia), inhibiting others from gainingone (Iran), and preparing for those who threaten to use one (the hermit kingdomof DPRK). The adrenalin flow of the night was, however, the highlighted presenceof many folks mentioned in the speech, including those affected by violencevictimized by gun violence, not the least of whom was one of the audience’sformer member, assassination incapacitated survivor Gabrielle Gifford ofArizona. Obama did not push for aparticular legislation; only that legislation already in docket deserves avote. On the note, the SOTU almostturned into a participative Rock Festival! Now’s the time to do it. Now’s the time to get it done, he thundered again andagain. The speech is a tour de force, at once, presidentialand impassioned speech, a confident human resolve ofimaginative proportions. We are partisan onrecord on this one. But it is not thatthe President is human. It is that weare invited to be human in the same vein. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!