On the heels of his second inauguration, President Barack Obama sat down for a 60 Minutes interview with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The two had never conducted a joint interview, which is not to say they’d never been on camera together—who can forget the less-than-cordial Democratic presidential debates of 2007?
Some say social media is making us less social and more isolated from each other; others say the opposite. Both groups can point to data and experience to support their claims. Recently, though, I watched a Dateline NBC program about this very topic, and it got me thinking not so much about the social trends in media, but of a word that seems to be disappearing from our collective consciousness: serendipity.
About a year ago, the Coalition of Communities of Color released a report referencing Portland State under the heading “The Latino Community in Multnomah County: An Unsettling Profile.” The following month there was a follow-up report on the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the same county. Both reports were, as their titles suggested, “unsettling.”
We’re a cynical lot. Students, that is. We take issue with as many people and things as we can—professors who don’t care anymore, close-minded classmates, the injustice of student loans and the politics of being a student in the first place. And that’s just on Monday morning. Then again, nothing good happens on Monday mornings.
In what many considered a lackluster second inauguration of President Barack Obama—with nary a glimpse of the magic that hung in the air four years ago—one bright spot was Beyonce Knowles’ rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Of course, it’s now widely speculated that she lip-synched the whole thing, but, really, who cares? We all know she could sing the alphabet and we’d be gobsmacked.
When I was 8 years old and living in England, I wrote a letter to Jimmy Savile asking if I could be on his TV show. His name may mean nothing to you, but imagine an English Mr. Rogers and you’ll have it just about right.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Thankfully so. Last year ended in one of the most tragic and uncertain ways in recent history. With the shootings at the Clackamas Town Center and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, holiday cheer was replaced with generous helpings of fear, doubt and wondering what our world was coming to.
Growing up outside the U.S., I never fully appreciated the Thanksgiving holiday. So, when I sat at my first traditional turkey feast only a month after I came here, I wondered how I’d managed to survive without this magical day. I was hooked. It became one of my favorite holidays, as much for the food as for the family and friends I knew I’d see.
Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. have one thing in common: They’re all recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
There’s nothing quite like standing and waiting for 45 minutes on cold, wet pavement for a streetcar to come trundling around the corner. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of that.