Closed Langauage / Open Language

BBCのこんなサイトがあります。

英語の歴史。

なかなか面白いです。

ミュージカル・映画の「My Fair Lady」（といいますか、バーナード・ショーの戯曲「ピグマリオン」）でヒギンズ教授が言うように、英語と言う言葉は誰かがそれをしゃべれば、他の誰かがその人を憎むというように、あまりに多くの人たちによって、あまりにいろいろな話され方をしています。

こうした汎用性が現在の英語の世界言語としての地位を確固たるものにしている所以でしょう。いうなればOSソフトウェアのオープンソースみたいなもんですな。

かたや日本語は．．．難しいよね。

日本人じゃない人がいくら流暢に日本語しゃべっても、それは外国人の日本語に聞こえてしまう。

いわば英語が「開かれた言語」であるのに比べ、日本語は「閉じた言語」であるような気がします。

妻に言わせると広東語も「閉じた言語」なのだそうだ。

以前は世界中どこの中華街にいってもしゃべられている言葉は広東語だったが今ではそれが普通話に取って代わられている。

広東語がしゃべられていた理由は、世界に広がった華人ネットワークの主流が香港経由の広東人だったからでしょう。

また香港の経済力を背景にして、台湾人のテレサ・テンも北京出身のフェイ・ウォンも広東語の歌で香港デビューしていたわけだ。

しかし、妻によると広東語には独特の言い回しや、感嘆詞の使い方があり、そうした細部からネイティブ広東人なのか、ヨソモノなのかが簡単にわかってしまうらしい。

そうした意味では広東語も日本語同様、排他的な言語なのかもしれない。

もちろんいまでは広東語の本丸、香港でさえ普通話がはばを利かせています。

接客業はもちろんのこと、ヤムチャしに茶楼にいっても給仕のおばちゃんまで当たり前のように普通話を話しますし、仕事の採用で目を通す香港人の候補者（ホワイトカラー）の履歴書にも「普通話可」が当然です。

これにはもちろん中国の経済力の躍進が背景にあるのですが、それと同時に普通話が「開かれた言語」であることもその理由のようです。

中国各地に無数とある方言・中国語の亜種をしゃべる人たちにとって、普通話とはみんなが等しく「学んだ言葉」であり、そこには出身地による排他性などが比較的に介在しないらしいのです。（もちろん北京なまりの普通話だとか、上海なまりの普通話、四川なまりの普通話という違いはあるらしいですが。）

オレも早くしゃべれるようになりたい．．．。

My Sporting Jinx

My son has become a Yankees fan. He does not understand anything about baseball but cheers "Hip, Hip... Jorge!" and "Let's Go Yankees!" every time he sees that "NY" sign.

Amazing...

Steinbrenner and Cashman can be proud of the work they have done in my household.

As for myself, about a month ago I realised that Seattle Mariners had climbed to the top of the AL Wild Card race and I decided to support that team. After all, I might as well support Ichiro's team.

Since then, the Mariners hit the brake pedal in a big way, losing most of their games, including a 9-game losing streak. To top it all, I had to witness their meltdown against the Yankees on TV whilst my son went about the flat cheering "Let's Go Yankees!"

Call me crazy, but I think I have a knack for jinxing whichever sports team that I support.

And now, the rugby world cup has started in France.

And I am supporting Japan.

It was with a heavy heart that I made my way to Baker Street Pub here in New York on Saturday morning to see Japan play Australia in their first pool game. I couldn't stay sober and downed 3 pints of Guinness in the morning as my fellow countrymen (and several naturalised Pacific Islanders) went down 91 to 3. The fourth pint was on the house, thanks to a lovely Irish girl behind the bar.

As I walked back from the pub, my Guinness soaked brain was slowly being cooked by the bright daylight of New York's late-summer sunshine and the poem I had learned whilst I was in England started to swirl around in my ears...

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --

Ten to make and the match to win --

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, --

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --

The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year

While in her place the School is set

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind --

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

(Vitai Lampada by Sir Henry Newbolt, just in case you are interested...)

You can tell that Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton but the myth was buried in the trenches of France and the era of professional sports has finally put a stake through its heart.

Declining Empire Is The Best Place To Live

Just the other day, I was talking with a stranger in a bar about living in China and weighing the pros and cons about working and doing business there.

Needless to say, China is THE place now, arguably the most exciting country to do business in with a bucketful of opportunities (not to mention their corresponding risks).

It also goes without saying that living conditions there are atrocious, what is with air pollution, congestion, food safety and so on and so forth.

Let's just say that it ain't a place to raise your family, if you can avoid it.

Then it occurs to me...

A declining empire is the best place to live.

I mean who would want to live in Rome during its empire building era? You are subject to arduous military service as civic duty, dispatched off to some heathen land for more than a decade in the service of some megalomaniac aristocratic brats. I mean I am so glad that I can deal with the likes of Pompey or Caesar at the safe distance of 2000 odd years. At the end of it all, if you are lucky enough to survive the ordeal, you will be given a piece of land to labour on as a not-so-gentleman farmer. And all of this is the case provided you are fortunate enough to have been born as a Roman citizen. Heaven help you if you are a slave. "I am Spartacus!", indeed (my previous entry about the film here).

On the other hand, if you are living in Rome during its "decline" (as opposed to its "fall"), you have hit a jackpot. It's circus almost every other day at Colosseum and relaxing bath at the Caracalla's afterwards. Even if you are a bottom-feeding slave, the wealth and prosperity of the empire would trickle down to you in such a way that you may be able to hope for a funny thing happening on your way to the forum. In short, unless you are a fun-hating, life-denying Christian zealot about to be fed to a lion for entertainment at Colosseum, you can have a pretty good life.

On the same note, who would want to live in London in the 1850's. You would be having a cracking imperial adventure like Flashman, offering your precious life to vain imbeciles like Lord Cardigan or reckless empire builders like James Brooke. In London, you would be living through the Great Stink next to an open sewer called Thames River and in fear of cholera. You would be much better off in the early 20th century, living the life of Bertie Wooster (avoiding two world wars, of course).

Similarly, one should avoid living in America during such times as you need to circle your wagons to protect yourself from the native hostiles or die amongst thousands in order to settle some difference of opinion as to the federal government's constitutional powers to defend the union of states (not to mention an inconvenient issue regarding slavery).

The best time to live in America is, clearly and definitively, NOW.

Nowhere else on earth you would be provided day in day out with the top notch entertainment in the shapes of various professional sports, films and mindless TV shows and hordes of media channels to supply them through to you directly in your living room. Food is plenty (and also directly delivered to you at home) and your personal needs are attended to by every imaginable service provider (who would have thought that you need a personal shopping assistant). Fact, your material desire has been satisfied to saturation, you need a personal storage room on the edge of town to hold your possessions for you. Having more than you need is not luxury anymore. It is the norm.

A great thing about the empires is that they take time to be replaced by their successors. They do not die a sudden death, because by the time an empire becomes well established, the wealth of all the world around it is linked to the continuing prosperity of such empire.

Empires must decline first, and then fall.

I suppose the knack is in realising when the decline gets so steep that it becomes a fall.

I wonder if I live long enough to see the fall of America. As I do not want to be hit by such a fall in my old age, I must prepare myself well for it. And that probably means doing business with, but not in (if one can avoid it), China.

As for Japan, well, it has never been an empire but it sure has a long way to fall, if you ask me.

Mystery, Thy Name Is My Son

Having had some mixed time for a week at the Dance Summer Camp, being the only boy and surrounded by genteel girls of Upper East Side, my son then moved on to a boy-only outdoor summer camp.

He seemed to have had a great time there. He looked content from physical exhaustion at the end of each day and wolfed down a slice of pizza and usual portion of dinner every evening.

Still, whenever I asked him about the new friends he had made at the camp and their names, he replied:

"Err... I don't know. I don't remember..."

I wondered, despite his otherwise cheerful demeanour, if he was doing OK at the camp after all, if he had some difficulties socializing with other kids, if he was making any friends...

Then at the end of the week and the camp last Friday, he came back home with a certificate stating that my son had been awarded "The Most Friendly Award".

"Hey... tell me... did everyone get this award?"

"Err... I don't know. I don't remember..."

He still cannot remember any of his friends' names from the camp.

Genius Quote From My Son

Seeing a street preacher:-

"Why is he shouting so loud? Is he lost?"

"Beautiful Girls" and My Son's Questionable Taste In Music

Lately, my son has been running around our flat, shouting,

"♪Beaaaautifuuul Girrrrls~♪"

His sudden outburst of lust has puzzled me for some time but I have finally found out the source of it.

Here it goes. Y'all, give it up for Sean Kingston!



I mean... Sean who? And that baseline is a shameless copy of Ben E. King's immortal "Stand By Me" for crying out loud!

I must say it's a bit spooky to see my 5-year-old son running around the house singing

"suicidal, suicidal..."

And why does this sort of reggae-ish groove appeal to him? I might blame this on that Jamaican midwife who made it doubly sure that he had two testicles when he was only 5 minutes into this world.

Of course, a far easier answer to the conundrum is that he got it from one of the summer camps he has been attending.

I have ceased to have any strong feelings about these musical copycats. There are too many of them to be upset about, starting from Mozart recycling some of the melodies from his operatic arias in his piano concertos, Billy Joel using a theme from Beethoven's piano sonata and Strawberry Switchblade using Sibelius' symphony. Some do it well, with style. Some make pathetic excuses, like Vanilla Ice on sampling Queen/David Bowie's "Under Pressure".

Still, I cannot help feeling a little sad about those young "talents" wasting their 15-minute fame on cheap repackages like this, only to be forgotten by the next year and briefly resurfacing circa 2020 in Vh1's "I Love 2000's" (if MTV is still interested in music then, that is).

Those boys and girls have been reduced to be mere lubricant for the increasingly creaking music industry machine. The industry nowadays seems to be only interested in creating revenue on cheap replaceable commodities like Mr. Kingston, Ms. Spears, High School Musical and so on and so forth.

I think there are two interesting developments out of the present malaise in music industry.

One is the increased emphasis by the artists on and renewed appreciation by the fans of artists' ability to carry live performances.

Prince gave away free CDs of his latest album, turning his back of record companies and encouraging his fans to appreciate his phenomenal talents at live concerts. True music fans are also beginning to realise that nothing beats live performance for truly unique musical experience. (Can Christina Aguilera be included in this group, too, although my eyes would be as busy as, if not busier than, my ears at her concert?)

The other interesting development is the shifting moral hazard of copying.

It is somehow reminiscent of the current "sub-prime scandal".

Securitizaiton of mortgage loans has replaced the traditional direct relationship between borrowers and lenders with indirect relationship between borrowers and fund investors, who ultimately underwrite the risk.

The mass-production of music on the back of copycat-repackaging by the industry has replaced the hitherto direct relationship between the copying artist and the copied artist. It is now the record companies and their producers who are encouraging so-called "artists" to perform the copied materials for instant hits.

This seems to me that the music industry is by themselves undermining the value of intellectual property rights that they proclaim to protect against the encroaching Internet industry.

I have no idea how these trends will play out in the next, say, 10 years. In any event, it may be a good idea to take my son out to BB King Blues Club and Grill and expose him to some live music whilst we are in New York.

And finally... some examples of dubious sampling, Japanese style...

This is Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl".




This is 「愛は勝つ(Ai wa Katsu)」 by Kan.

What do you think?

Chick Flick

In 1992, formidable acting talents of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey were brought together to bring David Mamet's masterpiece stage play to screen.

The film was "Glengarry Glen Ross".

It was an instant classic and superb freeze-shot of working life in post-Reagan America.

In 2007, formidable acting talents of Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Natasha Richardson, Clare Danes and Toni Collette were brought together for this film.

The film's title is "Evening".

It apparently deals with Vanessa Redgrave's dying character wondering what her life would have been like had she chosen another man when she was so young that she was Clare Danes.

Now, I may not be sufficiently in touch with my feminine side but does this sound interesting to you? Is this such an alluring story material that it justifies so many brilliant actresses wanting to sign on? Is this a kind of universal question that all the women in the world can empathise with?

Make no mistake. I am not bigoted. I did like "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood" (2002). It was a lovely story of mother-daughter relationship, its central characters beautifully acted by Ellen Burnstyn, Ashley Judd and Sandra Bullock, with some strong performance in supporting roles from Maggie Smith, James Garner et al.

I suppose I do not have the same luxury as Vanessa Redgrave's character in this film. There is nothing equivocal about my love life. Basically, they all said "No", except for the lady who is now my wife. I do not think I have left many stones unturned.

In exchange for the truckload of excruciating experiences and embarrassing memories from my romantic misadventures, I am secure in the knowledge that I have made the best choice... by default.

On the other hand, my wife may be asking herself the question...

I may have to watch this film after all. The impressive list of actresses seem to suggest that there is more to it than what has given rise to my initial sarcasm.

Nobody Does It Better (Nobody Has It So Good, For That Matter)

A couple of blocks down the Avenue of the Americas from my office building is Rockefeller Center. At a corner of Rockefeller Center stands the building that houses the headquarters of Simon & Schuster, the venerable publishing house, one of the Big Four (the others are Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins).

Simon & Schuster was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster.

Richard Simon married Andrea Louise Heinemann, half black half Jewish singer and civil rights activist. Their third daughter also became a singer and went on to win two Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe and Oscar.

Her name is Carly Simon.

Sometimes, the god does give away excessive amount of blessings. I mean, she does have a prominent mouth, but she is not bad looking, either. Then I realise that she is only a year younger than my parents. Wow...

I am not a big fan of her music but some of her songs do stick to my musical memories.

Like this timeless ditty... about Warren Beaty, allegedly...



Then there is this song about me... in my dreams...



Some scary reflections of a broody woman... as used in the movie "Heartburn" (1986).



And the Oscar winner. The Best Music, Original Song winner for 1989 Academy Awards from "Working Girl".



You have had it so good, baby. I bet you think this song is about you...

Lullaby of Birdland

I have been to Birdland last night.

Yes... the legendary Jazz club. The very one.

Of course, the current one stands at the different location from the original where Charlie "Bird" Parker (a.k.a. Forest Whitaker in my memory) graced the stage. Still, it was a spine chilling sensation to be there.

But, last night, I was after more than just a Jazz legend.

I was at Cast Party, an "open mic" cabaret hosted by Jim Caruso on Mondays at Birdland.

Just to reassure some of my friends who are familiar with my sing-along antics, no, I did not inflict myself on the audience.

It's a very good value entertainment.

Some performers are good.

Some not so good.

Some are just downright horrible. (Strangely, the worse the performance is, the more the performers seem to be enjoying themselves.)

In any event, the host, Jim Caruso, keeps the audience entertained with his acid sense of humour and his own phenomenal performing talents. The back-up musicians are great, too.

Music tends to be jazzy, with some Broadway stage numbers.

Highly recommended.

I must admit that I am a bit of musical geek. It must have something to do with my childhood encounter with Julie Andrews in "Sound of Music" and a decade of learning English through many other musical films and their songs.

It is definitely uncool in the current music climate but, hey, I am old enough not to care. Apparently, pop music industry's target consumer's average age is 14. One of my favourite recently-discovered comedians, Rob Paravonian, explains that that is why Fergie has gone solo from Black Eyed Peas. The musicians were holding her back from becoming a pop hit.

Leonard Bernstein said that musical is the reflection of the way American people speak. I suppose the Americans are speaking Hip-Hop now.

Anyways...

If you are a musical geek like myself, another place you might find fun (and alarming) is Marie's Crisis. It's just a basement bar with a piano. But the piano is played by some Broadway stage rehearsal pianists (I think) and they play musical tunes with full audience participation. Yes. I mean "full". Everybody sings along at this bar.

It is one thing to have the self-awareness as a musical geek. It is entirely another thing to be surrounded by like-minded people and having your inhibitions stripped away in public.

I must admit that it is slightly worrying that these two venues make up most of my notable after work activities so far in NY after 5 months. Maybe I am far more uncool than I thought I was at first.

America the Careless

On my last trip, I realized too late that I had my Victorinox Money Clip in my pocket.

As I lined up at the security check-point at JFK airport, I was resigned to giving it up to the security guard.

Somehow, the guards were enthusiastic about making us all take off our shoes but failed to see my money clip and its concealed knife, although it was being x-ray-ed with my carry-on bag.

Later I realized that I was also carrying a scissors in my pen case in the bag, too.

Doh!

America the Thoughtless

As I wrote previously, we went to Reno last month as part of our family's tour of west to see rodeo there.

As part of its opening ceremony, they made a dedication to the US service men and women in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe.

Regardless of my political conviction, it touched me deeply. This was the community whose members are making real sacrifices for what they believed to be the righteous cause.

Then they rounded the whole ceremony off with the flypast of chopper and... Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." blaring out at max from speakers.

Then and there, I just wanted to shout it out.

"YOU MORONS!"

"Born In The USA" is a protest song. Haven't they paid attention to the lyrics?

Born down in a dead man's town

The first kick I took was when I hit the ground

You end up like a dog that's been beat too much

Till you spend half your life just covering up, now

Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A. now

Got in a little hometown jam

So they put a riffle in my hands

Sent me off to a foreign land,

to go and kill the yellow man

Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery

Hiring man said "Son if it was up to me"

Went down to see my V.A. man,

He said "Son don't you understand now"

I had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet cong

They're still there, he's all gone

He had a woman who lived in Saigon,

I got a picture of him in her arms, uhh

Down in the shadow of the peni-tentiary

Out by the - gas fires of the - refinery

I'm - ten years burning - down the road

Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A.

I was Born in the U.S.A. now

Born in the U.S.A.

I'm a long gone daddy in the U.S.A. now

Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

I'm a cool rockin' daddy, I'm a U.S.A., now

... isn't it clear enough? Playing this song in praise of men and women in uniform is like playing "We Shall Overcome" at KKK jamboree.

I suppose the world is ultimately trusting of the Americans. After all it is a democratic society built on the basis of freedom and justice. At least, that is their aspiration and, as a result, we are more comfortable with their hegemony than, say, that of some autocratic one-party dictatorship of certain superpower-in-waiting.

Still, their blatant thoughtlessness and ignorance displayed that night really made me feel scared and worried.

After all, someone may think that I am the yellow man in the song.

And some of them, I am sure, keep rifles at home.

First Gentleman

I first saw David Niven in "Death on the Nile", a 1978 film in which he played alongside Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot. I later learned that Ustinov was Niven's batman during WWII.

I think I read this anecdote about David Niven some time ago. Still it never fails to fill me up with enormous respect for the man every time I read it:-

After Great Britain declared war in 1939, he was one of the first actors to go back and join the army. Although Niven had a reputation for telling good old stories over and over again, he was totally silent about his war experience. He said once: "I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war."

Further Words of Encouragement (Because, even at my age, I still have so many questions about life)

Success or otherwise of one's career is ultimately based on the long-term results.

Therefore, one should emphasize his attitude towards the career and life-style which supports it, which are sustainable and consistent over a long term, rather than short-term achievements and results based on personal sacrifices or trade-offs, which are not sustainable over a long period.

Catalystic Quotes

"What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens."

- Robert McKee

Cheer Up, Vitter

In relation to the news of "DC Madam":-

"I believe that sex is the most beautiful, natural and wholesome thing that money can buy."

- Steve Martin

All come to look for America

Simon and Garfunkel, anyone...?

So I took a week off, packed the luggage, corralled my family and boarded the plane at JFK for Oakland, CA.

To cut a long story short, we did the following in a week and a bit:-

NYC - Oakland, CA - Sacramento - Lake Tahoe - Reno, NV - Virginia City - Las Vegas - Sedona, AZ - Ludlow, CA (I expired in the middle of night on Interstate 40 crossing Mojave Desert and stopped at a tracker's motel in the middle of nowhere) - Carmel - Napa Valley (Napa - Calistoga - Yountville) - San Francisco - Oakland, CA - NYC

I can do without going on driving for some time now.

Upon our return to Oakland Airport, a lady at Hertz checked the car's mileage and pronounced our trusty Ford Taurus to be retired, to be sold on second-hand market at discount.

Some observations from the trip:-

1. NYC is the friendliest city in America.

People are forced to live in close proximity of each other in NYC. As a result, people communicate with each other with much more ease than Americans from any other places that we have visited (although, for New Yorkers, it may be for the sole purpose of staking their claim to their respective personal spaces).

We went to see rodeo in Reno and managed to spend the entire evening without speaking to strangers. (Perhaps I should have gone to Gay Rodeo, as a colleague suggested.)

I guess they are shy.

And they do not realise that they are being rude when they say

"I don't understand your accent."

Whatcha talkin' 'bout, yer lard-ass hillbillies!

2. Obesity is a big problem in America. It is a bigger problem out there in the Wide Wide West.

I have decided not to show a photo in support of this observation for fear of litigation.

3. Generally speaking, people in casinos rarely look happy.

4. Purpose-built resort establishments, like the one we stayed in Sedona, put too much stress on you to relax and enjoy, ultimately defeating the original purpose.

There is nothing else to do and hotels do not make money unless their guests move from one organised activity to another. Soon, one feels as if he has checked into an institution (which it is, a kind of).

We have come to a conclusion that we do not much care for this kind of resort. We would rather sit by a river, on beach, in forest etc. doing nothing without paying "resort fees".

5. People do not sweat in Arizona.

The strength of sunshine is such that sweat evaporates immediately upon surfacing, leaving salt mark on one's skin.

Whilst on the topic of Arizona climate, it is a mystery that Doc Holliday managed to die of TB wearing wool clothing in Arizona all year round. It may be that he was sleeping in sweat-soaked clothes at cold desert nights.

6. You do not find Starbucks in the places where people do not appreciate and see the point of paying extra dollars for coffee with foreign-sounding names (like "Frappucino" or "Arabica" beans... so foreign... possibly related to terrorists... I mean the name contains the word "Arab"...)

On the other hand, you can find Chinese restaurants/take-aways in the most remote areas.

We had a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant, "House of Chan", near Kingman, AZ, Interstate 40/US 93 junction. We were served by a mainland Chinese girl who apologised for the poor quality of food due to certain ingredients being unavailable in the neighbourhood. True to her words, my hot and sour soup had been made with western style vinegar and was horrible. Still, local sheriff was enjoying the buffet lunch on offer there.

7. Only tourists swim at beach at Carmel. Local residents are far too old to engage in such dangerous activities.

8. In Napa Valley, watch out for drink driving. Not just your own but others' , too.

I had a couple of hairy moments.

9. San Francisco's China Town is a tourist trap.

Chinese people got rich and moved to the suburbs.

My wife stopped an elderly Chinese couple on the street and asked for a good restaurants in the area. They replied "We eat at home."

We missed Hong Kong there and then.

10. America is huge.

Like, I didn't know. But I definitely felt it driving across only three of 50 states.

I want to see more. But I would appreciate somebody else driving next time.

Future teamster!

More Words of Encouragement (Because, at my age, it is somewhat embarrasing to admit that I am still learning new things about life)

You are never lost as long as you enjoy being where you are and look forward to the way you are heading.

Enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the journey.

(Photo: 10 June 2007 at Meredith, Delaware County, NY)

Words of Encouragement (Because, at my age, those cheering for me are getting fewer and far between)

True leadership does not come from having men under you. It comes from rising above your peers. Consequently, it comes in many shapes and forms, other than positions and titles.

Being different from the others is not leadership in itself, but it is a step (although one cannot be sure if it is in the right direction).

Long Tall Sally

Massa Tom allegedly had 6 children (2 died in infancy) with his slave, Sally Hemmings.

Six!

And I am struggling with just one son!

Impregnating his slave 6 times does not seem to me to be momentary lapses of one's moral rectitude. It is a full blown commitment thang.

It has also been brought to my attention that Sally came to the Jefferson household with Tom's wife, Martha, and it may be that Sally was a half-sister to Martha, thanks to the randy father-in-law, John Wayles.

I think the Americans should be kind, understanding and ultimately forgiving to Tom's hypocrisy (it was the moral of the time) and rejoice in the fact that at least this founding father had a clear head and foresight in matters of state, thanks to his Suga Mamma at home.

Of course, it is a sad piece of history that Sally and her children have never been, and still are not, fully recognised as Tom's family or their decedents. Tom's hypocricy is one thing, but it is sad to realise that the people still subscribe to the same kind of hypocricy now.

Rush To The Center

As I watched TV with my son, this new programme from Cartoon Network hit my eyes.

"Class of 3000"

Executive produced by and starring Andre Benjamin...

Andre...? 3000...? You mean Andre 3000 from Outkast? Like, that man in "Hey Ya!"?

Yes, sir. The very one.

The man is shrewed.

As I have said to some of my friends before, I think there is a huge void in the middle of mainstream American black culture left behind by Cosby Show.

During the years under Bill Clinton, the "Blackest President Ever", allegedly, the Black culture seemed to have gone to extremes to find the cutting edge. There followed the height of gangsta culture with all its excesses, bottles of 'gnac and "bootylicious" girls, leaving the middle ground to a little white trash like Eminem.

Now, rather belatedly, the brothas and sistas seem to have realised that they have neglected a huge section of their own audience.

I think the hit of the film "Dream Girls" heralds the American black culture's return to the center.

Tyler Perry may be jockeying for the pole position in this race. He consciously targets, even limits, his audience to the mainstream black American.

Will Smith and Jamie Foxx may be regarded "not black enough", but are big contenders.

Obviously, I am totally a wrong kind of guy to be exploiting this, but, as John Ridley says, there is the ascent of modern Black America that should open up huge opportunities at home for the Americans.