There's a really beautiful thing about internet radio: you hear stuff that's popular elsewhere that, for whatever reason, has not/will not invade your own local airwaves. So, unless I'm tuning in to NPR or the local talk station from Greensboro, FM 101.1, or 96 Rock (which I can't listen to at work as it can be a bit 'hard core' for a medical setting) during the work hours I find myself more and more scouring the internet radio stations. I truly have become that displeased with all other local radio market options. Thank God for Surfmusic is all I can say, otherwise my existence in a no-window, one-door, poorly-ventilated workroom would indeed make me batty.
If it's early in the day here, I can listen to the Aussie stations as they're still in a late evening/overnight mode and generally play a lot of music...but as the morning dawns there and their morning talk crews come on, I need to switch gears sometimes. (While I clearly love words, I've never been a big fan of having a lot of talk on my music stations. Talk is for talk radio, music is for music.) While looking around one day on the lunch break, I recently found a good Top 40 station over in Glasgow, Scotland, Clyde 1, 102.5 FM. I'm not sure if it's the special pleasure to hear my family's ancient (almost 'singsongy') accent or the chuckles I get about how seriously they take their weather and traffic reports, but I've taken to this station quite nicely...and I generally don't listen to Top 40 music anymore. And unlike so many American radio stations nowadays, they seem to be fairly involved in the community and in promoting a good community image to boot.
(Dear God, I do wish we had something even somewhat akin to Clyde over here...instead, we've been overrun by the Borg-like Clear Channel offspring or 'classic rock' stations that believe classic rock only compromises the same 50 songs, and all from 1968 or newer, and all of them from American or British performers. On a sad note and further reminder of how we're trying to invade their culture, Clear Channel now has 11 radio stations throughout Australia. We should have stopped them here, when we still had a chance to do so...but we didn't, and now greed and cookie-cutter radio for the masses has gone global. To see such a proudly individual country as Oz (and others, too, unfortunately) being steadily 'colonized' by the American 'me-too' media...TV, radio, movies...is a shameful sight.)
And it was on Clyde that I heard (and now cannot escape from) this wonderful little song: "Sweet About Me". The singer is this charming sweetheart named Gabriella Cilmi(NOTE: link launches music snippet, adjust your speakers), who hails from Melbourne (Australia) originally but now lives in the UK. She's far more appealing to me than Amy Winehouse is, and aside from the 'watch...the train wreck's a comin' allure, what is the appeal of Winehouse anymore, anyway?? Winehouse, sadly, is a great talent that is slipping away to drugs and countless other vices right before our eyes. But back to the positive, back to Cilmi: I love the sound, love the vibe, and love the fact that this budding talent is only 16 years old. Can't wait to see what else she can do with those honey-drenched tones.
Gabriella Cilmi in "Sweet About Me". The video's a bit iffy to this child of 1980s MTV, but the song sure stays with you. Video from YouTube, as usual.
Okay, early Saturday morning post and all that...and I'm already up and being productive. However, I've been humming some songs from last night ever since I woke (and I swear maybe even in my dreams). Yes, last night I re-watched the cult film classic "Velvet Goldmine". And...damn...that movie (and its soundtrack) stays with you. If you have not seen this movie yet, and you love some excellent acting and music, this is simply a must-see.
(As a FYI, some of the following links go to sites with Flash and music, so you might need to adjust speaker levels, depending from where you're reading. Other links also go back to some YouTube videos.)
For those unfamiliar with this film, (which has become a cult classic only after a few years as it never really found its audience on its original release), it's a fictionalized story of the early 1970s glam rock scene, and features characters largely lifted from the lives David Bowie, Angie Bowie, and Iggy Pop (among many others). It's a fabulous movie, completely enveloped with some stunning performances: star-making turns from the very gifted Jonathan Rhys Meyers (lately from Showtime®'s "The Tudors") as the Bowie-esque Brian Slade; the artfully restrained Christian Bale as the teenage fan/reporter Arthur Stuart (Bale's best work so far is the highly recommended, but very violent, "American Psycho"); and Ewan McGregor as the careening, out-of-control, and troubled singer Curt Wild (as Iggy Pop). The always simply brilliant Toni Collette serves as the Angie Bowie-like American wife, proving once again she is (one of) the best actor(s) to ever come out from Australia. The dynamic, underappreciated, and scene-stealing Eddie Izzard also appears in a secondary role as Slade's calculating manager. But the music...oh, that glorious 'devil may care' music woven in these scenes...deserves lead mention, too.
Once again (and this happens every time I see this film), I cannot get "Baby's On Fire" (the song nor the scene) out of my head. Just put some laundry in the wash and was tapping out the bass rhythm on the machine as I loaded it...what a way to start the day's chores LOL.
"Velvet Goldmine" documents one of those times where the Brit and American music scenes were on different tracks...and to some degree, still continues to be somewhat today...where Brit music can and does include all the elements of theatricality, both on and offstage. The clothes, the makeup, the acceptance of bi- or homo-sexuality with its entertainers compared to those here...all indicative of a much grander plan than just being a singer or being in a band. Our cousins the Brits have always understood that an 'image' to sell was almost as important as the music itself, especially at times when it can be tough to distinguish one act from another. It wasn't just a gig or even a tour, it was a show. The primary goal is quickly distinguished between being a 'star' versus a 'musician', if you will. That's the crux between our two music worlds: while we Yanks appreciate Bowie and the whole scene that followed on his coattails, it was a scene that had to fully germinate elsewhere before coming to America. The dialogue, the 'characters', the makeup, the clothes, and especially the sexuality issues...would not have survived, let alone flourished, in our White Bread Suburban World.
Now, I will admit I missed all of that scene (being just a baby when all of this was happening), but luckily I found the music later on in junior high and high school. In my case, the guides were Brian Eno, Roxy Music, and the wonderful T. Rex...acts which I found by chance after reading some of the then-current faves of the 1980s (before I went metal, I did go through a New Romantic stage) constantly refer to these trendsetters. The David Bowie I knew of then, unfortunately, was way past his Ziggy Stardust character and had moved on to fifth (sixth?) incarnation as a performer and doing songs like "Let's Dance". And, unfortunately, I was slow to learn more about artists from this time: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls, and others (not a lot of their material existed in the very rural Midwest in the late 1980s). However, I had found some T. Rex and was already a goner for them: to this day, T-Rex's versions of "20th Century Boy", "Children of the Revolution", and "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" are all-time faves (kudos to the Power Station's cover of the latter, though). And while this may strike me down among you Bowie lovers, I'm not as fond of Bowie's music as I once was...it doesn't seem to hold up as well when you take the 'performing identity' out of the equation. For those of us who never got the chance to see the characters at their height of popularity, it's a bit like realising you've missed a really great party with only the lingering gossip to tease you. The sentimental impact of 'remember when?' is missing. "Velvet Goldmine", no matter how literal it is to Bowie et al or not, gives a wonderful glimpse of that world to those of us who never experienced all the fun.
It's the kind of movie that makes me admit being just a tad bit jealous about missing it all...the spectacle of being someone (or something) completely outlandish and unknown, the swagger of challenging norms of society and getting away with it, the unbridled abandon of just being consumed by a sound and image regardless of what others think of you (Bale's character while dancing is a perfect embodiment of this last one). It's the kind of movie that makes me have faith in imaginative film making...not everything has to be a mindless 'blockbuster'...and in thoughtful, well researched dialogue. It's a definite juggernaut for Rhys Meyers, and is arguably one of the best roles done by McGregor...there was a clear passion, up and down the line, of the cast to get the mannerisms, the egos, the insecurities, the over-indulgences, 'right' (they even did some of their own singing). And it's the kind of movie that leaves me loving the music as much as the film...with songs I cannot get out of my head and will be dancing around to for many days long after.
I missed the televised memorial service of Tim Russert yesterday on MSNBC®, and was so exhausted from work and painting around the house that I then missed the rebroadcast of it when it re-aired late last night. However...and thank heavens for the age we live in...video highlights of the ceremony can be found here (link goes to The Huffington Post, and you can choose which speakers you choose to watch, although all are excellent and unique in their own way).
However, Keith Olbermann (who did not give an eulogy at the Kennedy Center but who worked extensively with Russert recently during political coverage and who clearly had great respect for the 'Boy from Buffalo') also did a lovely tribute to him last night on "Countdown". Whereas Olbermann can be a blustering, sarcastic and riled-up 'junior' at times, Russert was the time-tested, all-knowing and rational 'senior' anchor...and they made a tremendous ying and yang duo of political coverage. For the last two nights at least, Olbermann has been fighting back tears when talking about the late, great Tim Russert...almost adrift at times, even. Tonight's final tribute is no exception...but the end of this tape is about as heartfelt a goodbye as it gets.
The entire NBC® news team, Olbermann included, clearly has been in a state of public shock ever since last Friday's tragic announcement. In a more genteel time, there would be allowed a respectable time for mourning...but this is the world of 24/7 news, where the ratings are king and you're only as good as your last Nielsen ratings score. No matter the opinion if whether this outpouring of grief is good/acceptable television or not, my heart aches for such a visibly pained and tortured group of professionals. In a way, they are stuck in a looping cycle of sorrow...a cycle they are desperate to leave, yet in a loop that regurgitates this agony for them until some 'bigger' story comes along. Broadcast journalism has never been for the faint of nerves, but these past few days it's also renewed itself as a field not for the faint of heart. The entire NBC® news family will regain their heading and steady the wheel soon enough, for no reason more than those who watched Russert all of these years know he would demand it no other way (and Russert was involved in many different capacities across many of the NBC® networks). But for now, please allow them enough time to let them (and us) respect the loss we all must now accept. The loss to that organization is a very large one, indeed.
Then, as Mr. Russert's wonderful (and charmingly lookalike) son, Luke, says in the taped eulogy above, "let us all go get'em." Life is short, people: live it while, and as best, you can. A private prayer and note to Mr. Russert: Those call center reps, like myself, who got lucky enough to answer your reservation phone calls ...(my last one was in 2002, I think...I remember asking you what happened to the dry erase board from Election 2000; and you said it had been donated to one of the Smithsonians)...always thought you were a really nice, down-to-earth, and super patient, man. Still chuckle a bit about how you made the plans yourself, and not have an assistant do it instead. You were a joy to have as a customer, absolutely no attitude or outrageous demands at all. I know it meant a lot that you respected us enough to thank us by name whenever the call was concluded. Clearly what we heard on the other end of the line was the way you were all the time, and what a nice way to be, what a wonderful way to live. For all that and more, Mr. Russert, I thank you and know you're now resting in peace.
(Yes, we are still in a dense smoke/code red air quality alert for this morning at least, a situation that really showed up in Chapel Hill late yesterday afternoon. I went out for lunch at 2:45pm and it was still a hazy Chapel Hill; I came back close to 4pm and I could have sworn I was in a burb in Los Angeles...that thick, that enveloping, that heavy in your lungs. I'm 3 hours+ away from the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge Park where this massive wildfire is actually raging, yet you'd think it was just a few miles away by the haze and smoke quality here. I can't even fathom how much worse it must be east, and especially northeast, towards the Virginia state line.) A friendly reminder from our good friend, and Friend Of Blog (FOB), the wonderful guitarist Dave Cauthorn:
Just a reminder. HM will be @ Tir Na Nog this Friday the 13th, playing as a quartet:
* Chris King: vocal, whistle, bhodran * Dave Cauthorn: guitar * Lisa Wolff: fiddle * Mike Baranski: banjo
Honestly, I'm a law-abiding citizen (well, if you ignore that whole speeding thing back on the interstate as I am known to be a bit of a lead foot)...really, I am. And while I grew up 'country', I like to try and convince myself that I'm beyond that whole 'eye for a eye, tooth for a tooth', 'the man rules the house', 'the women don't speak out' mentality that sometimes permeates rural culture. That whole 'gun rack with loaded guns in the back window of someone's truck just in case one needs it' kind of thing. Sometimes, though, I will hear a song that just takes me right back to the days of my youth and that whole scene...and reminds me of people who survived (and eventually got away from) horrible conditions in the best ways they knew how, and how some unfortunately choose to stay in those horrible conditions even today.
That said, I have to admit I'm a sucker for the whole 'country girl done wrong and gonna get even' genre that seems to be so red-hot within country music right now. The songs generally are on the rockier side for me which is good, even if I didn't know people who have struggled through some of the same issues. Country has always had a large female following, but this 'not being a victim' theme has really got some legs now. (And credit for its popularity should be given to Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats", Martina McBride's "Independence Day", and even the much-ballyhooed and semi-controversial airing of the video for (at the time, anyway) "The Thunder Rolls" by Garth Brooks, among so many others.) Make no mistake: these are not the songs of 'the little women' so popular in country music in 1960s, 1970s, and even somewhat in the 1980s; instead, today's female country singers are empowered and non-repentant about any potential fallout. A sign of the bigger culture, perhaps.
This latest contribution to Country Girl Power, a little rocker from Miranda Lambert, is called "Gunpowder and Lead", and has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now. And while I never believe in settling anything with violence, I know I'm one of many, many women who have known abused women and friends who were just itching for a day of payback. This is surely the theme song for some of them.
Miranda Lambert performing "Gunpowder and Lead" on CBS' "Early Show", 2008. Sorry, folks, there's a bit of lead-in from the show until the 2:00 mark. Video from YouTube.
In my true sports-loving, beer-swilling, cards-playing 'tomgirl' style, I am addicted to this show over on TBS. The lead character in this series, "PJ", as portrayed by the darling Jordana Spiro, is a sportswriter living and working in beautiful Chicago. And, God help her, just like me and legendary political columnist George Will, the lead is a bit of Chicago Cubs fan!! (In about the only comparison I will ever have with Mr. Will...I, too, am just a frustrated sports writer.) Spiro is surrounded by a simply wonderful ensemble cast...comedians Jim Gaffigan and Jamie Kaler were the ones I was familiar with before this show...and all are guided by some excellent (albeit at times a bit quirky) scripts.
As we 'tomgirls' from real life can attest, most of our dearest friends are real guys...guys who don't mind we know as much (if not more) about sports as they do, guys who don't mind (perhaps even like) having us sit in with them for a game of poker, guys who are respectful that we have strong opinions and pay attention when we speak them, guys who don't mind us not always having 'perfect' makeup on while we're drinking our beer and eating our hot dogs. I've said this several ways here on the blog and countless times in real life, and although I get bashed for it occasionally, it is so true for me: it is an accepted universal 'tomgirl' code of law that men are the more dependable, more loyal, and more understandable friends to have (as compared to women). We 'tomgirls' all have about one good girlfriend who we can turn to in a pinch, but mostly we hang out with the fellas and love it. Clearly, 'tomgirls' are not the intended audience for "Cosmo" magazine (nor for the now-infamous drink of the same name, for that matter). Men aren't the enemy, men aren't prey to be hunted down, slept with, married, and mortgaged. Instead, men are our best friends.
I know I'm sentimentally drawn to the "PJ" character because her dreams run so much to my own, but I can't help recommending this show to practically everyone I meet. Lightweight and breezy, yet nothing is canned and features some universal truths/myths about the differences between women and men. This show truly is a guilty pleasure of mine...one of the few for television I still have. My only complaints: TBS needs to expand this show to an hour-long format, and give this team a longer viewing season in which to shine.
I am thankful for moving to a semi-basement apartment that is partially built into a hillside, and that move has greatly reduced my energy costs as a result.
I am thankful that a neighbour here on the farm has a pool which I can visit and enjoy for a mere $2 a day, should I feel so inclined.
I am thankful that I have budgeted my expenses as such this year so as to not need to go out for entertainment or solitude, but rather can have both from my living room.
I am thankful that, with the exception of one batch so far, my (and the Wise Ricky's) attempts at home brewing beer have been successful and I have several I can sample from, even now. And they are really good cold, even.
I am thankful that I love bubble baths and choose to do that (while reading) as a relaxation method.
And, as always, I'm thankful I woke up again this morning, am in good health and in good spirits, and you're giving me another chance to go out and try life again today.
However, on days such as today and for the immediate ones to come...
...I ask you to help me keep the little truck running well enough until I can finally have someone repair its air conditioning. Or fix its right side window to roll down further, whichever comes first and costs less to repair.
Good morning, ladies and gents. We have both good news and bad news to report this fine morn. The good news: we finally have presumptive nominees for President from both major parties (Barack Obama for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans) and perhaps now we can focus on the issues of November's general election. The bad news: Hillary Clinton is in severe denial she's not one of those candidates, and seems very unwilling to give up her ego-driven dreams of yielding power at any cost.
In other words...Senator Clinton seems quite determined to stay on the campaign road and may (stress the word may) drag this electoral nonsense out even further. There was no concession speech last night from her, nor was there even an acknowledgement that Senator Obama had finally garnered enough delegates to win the nomination. Instead, what came about was a calculated piece of political machinery: she stole the attention from Obama and now has everyone wondering what exactly are her terms of surrender? Finally, I suppose, now everyone can understand why the Hillary Clinton Nutcrackers are such an apropos novelty item: it fits the candidate's strong-arm (er, leg) behaviours. LBJ would be proud.
In the South, we have a generations-old saying that goes something like this: "A lady always knows when to leave." Clearly, all of the years and miles Senator Clinton has traveled across the South, either on her own or on behalf of her husband's pursuits, have done little to pick up and apply that wise advice.
He thought a little thing like winning would stop her?
Oh, Bambi.
Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons.
If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn’t going to have acceptance.
“It’s never going to end,” sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary. “We’re just moving to a new phase.”
Somewhere, I can hear the final scene of Margaret Mitchell's great novel, "Gone With the Wind", being used as a battle-cry within the Clinton camp: "After all, tomorrow is another day!” And, unfortunately for the rest of us who would desperately like the electoral process to move forward for a change, it is.
On this historic night of having the first Black (or mixed race, however you want to see it, if you want to see it even) man nominated as a candidate for the President of the United States, I found myself thinking of a speech I remember seeing some time ago, a speech that has resonated with me ever since first seeing it. A speech given by an idealistic, forward-thinking, and passionate young Democratic man to an appreciative and impressed crowd. And I'm not speaking of the newly presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama.
Instead, I speak of a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy. In 1966.
(And, no, I will not resort to giving any further comment to the totally horrible, and frankly horrific, 'lapse of judgment'...at best...statements by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton about the late Senator Kennedy. The Huffington Post has an extensive commentary section about her 'WTF'-generating statement, and several of those reader comments are quite enlightening and provoking. My loss in confidence in Senator Clinton is only now overwhelmed more by my wonder of what she will not say or will not do to secure a place in Ultimate Power of this fine country. Senator Clinton's actions in the late stage of her campaign, which we can only hope she will finally stop tonight, have forever etched themselves in my memory...and not in a good way at all. And, honestly, that unbridled determination...at apparently any cost... is ethically and morally frightening. Not only did 'Hil' become her own worst enemy in her campaign...in the end, she unfortunately became the candidate we all feared she could be, too.)
On June 5, 2008, this country will mark the 40th anniversary of Senator Robert Kennedy's untimely death. However, given the events of tonight, I cannot feel sadness and dread at that remembrance...but instead some hope that the dreams, ideas, and visions the late Senator put forth so long ago may indeed be back. Perhaps the players and the words change, perhaps the maps are redrawn and shifts of power occur. Perhaps it takes the world to repeat its mistakes a few times before it finally sees the error of its ways. Perhaps forgotten visions are just that...forgotten...until someone comes forward and re-examines them and decides to bring them into the light of reality once more. Perhaps we have moved 40 years on, but maybe we have yet to move 40 years ahead. I don't know any of these for certain, of course, but I can hope. Further, I even want to hope.
So on this historic night and on the doorstep of another to come, I re-introduce you to Robert F. Kennedy's speech in South Africa, given on June 6, 1966. It is widely known as the "Day of Affirmation" speech...and perhaps it will give us pause to see that we in America, 42 years later, desperately need another such speech, such idealism, such vision for our time.
Rather amazing that no matter how many things change, how many things stay the same, eh?...
Robert F. Kennedy's "Day of Affirmation" speech.
Cape Town, South Africa, June 6, 1966.
I came here because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once imported slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America.
But I am glad to come here to South Africa. I am already enjoying my visit. I am making an effort to meet and exchange views with people from all walks of life, and all segments of South African opinion, including those who represent the views of the government. Today I am glad to meet with the National Union of South African Students. For a decade, NUSAS has stood and worked for the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-principles which embody the collective hopes of men of good will all around the world.
Your work, at home and in international student affairs, has brought great credit to yourselves and to your country. I know the National Student Association in the United States feels a particularly close relationship to NUSAS. And I wish to thank especially Mr. Ian Robertson, who first extended this invitation on behalf of NUSAS, for his kindness to me. It's too bad he can't be with us today.
This is a Day of Affirmation, a celebration of liberty. We stand here in the name of freedom.At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any Western society.
The first element of this individual liberty is the freedom of speech: the right to express and communicate ideas, to set oneself apart from the dumb beasts of field and forest; to recall governments to their duties and obligations; above all, the right to affirm one's membership and allegiance to the body politic-to society-to the men with whom we share our land, our heritage, and our children's future.
Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives. Everything that makes man's life worthwhile-family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head -all this depends on decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people. Therefore, the essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer-not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, or a particular race, but to all its people.
And even government by the consent of the governed, as in our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act against its people; so that there may be no interference with the right to worship, or with the security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties by officials high or low; no restrictions on the freedom of men to seek education or work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may become all he is capable of becoming.
These are the sacred rights of Western society. These were the essential differences between us and Nazi Germany, as they were between Athens and Persia.
They are the essence of our differences with communism today. I am unalterably opposed to communism because it exalts the state over the individual and the family, and because of the lack of freedom of speech, of protest, of religion, and of the press, which is the characteristic of totalitarian states. The way of opposition to communism is not to imitate its dictatorship, but to enlarge individual freedom, in our own countries and all over the globe. There are those in every land who would label as Communist every threat to their privilege. But as I have seen on my travels in all sections of the world, reform is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in whatever name, only strengthens the very communism it claims to oppose.
Many nations have set forth their own definitions and declarations of these principles. And there have often been wide and tragic gaps between promise and performance, ideal and reality. Yet the great ideals have constantly recalled us to our duties. And-with painful slowness-we have extended and enlarged the meaning and the practice of freedom for all our people.
For two centuries, my own country has struggled to overcome the self-imposed handicap of prejudice and discrimination based on nationality, social class, or race-discrimination profoundly repugnant to the theory and command of our Constitution. Even as my father grew up in Boston, signs told him that No Irish Need Apply. Two generations later President Kennedy became the first Catholic to head the nation; but how many men of ability had, before 1961, been denied the opportunity to contribute to the nation's progress because they were Catholic, or of Irish extraction? How many sons of Italian or Jewish or Polish parents slumbered in slums-untaught, unlearned, their potential lost forever to the nation and human race? Even today, what price will we pay before we have assured full opportunity to millions of Negro Americans?
In the last five years we have done more to assure equality to our Negro citizens, and to help the deprived both white and black, than in the hundred years before. But much more remains to be done.
For there are millions of Negroes untrained for the simplest of jobs, and thousands every day denied their full equal rights under the law; and the violence of the disinherited, the insulted and injured, looms over the streets of Harlem and Watts and South Side Chicago.
But a Negro American trains as an astronaut, one of mankind's first explorers into outer space; another is the chief barrister of the United States government, and dozens sit on the benches of court; and another, Dr. Martin Luther King, is the second man of African descent to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent efforts for social justice between races.
We have passed laws prohibiting discrimination in education, in employment, in housing, but these laws alone cannot overcome the heritage of centuries-of broken families and stunted children, and poverty and degradation and pain.
So the road toward equality of freedom is not easy, and great cost and danger march alongside us. We are committed to peaceful and nonviolent change, and that is important for all to understand though all change is unsettling. Still, even in the turbulence of protest and struggle is greater hope for the future, as men learn to claim and achieve for themselves the rights formerly petitioned from others.
And most important of all, all the panoply of government power has been committed to the goal of equality before the law, as we are now committing ourselves to the achievement of equal opportunity in fact.
We must recognize the full human equality of all of our people before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous, although it is; not because of the laws of God command it, although they do; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.
We recognize that there are problems and obstacles before the fulfillment of these ideals in the United States, as we recognize that other nations, in Latin America and Asia and Africa, have their own political, economic, and social problems, their unique barriers to the elimination of injustices.
In some, there is concern that change will submerge the rights of a minority, particularly where the minority is of a different race from the majority. We in the United States believe in the protection of minorities; we recognize the contributions they can make and the leadership they can provide; and we do not believe that any people -whether minority, majority, or individual human beings-are "expendable" in the cause of theory or policy. We recognize also that justice between men and nations is imperfect, and that humanity sometimes progresses slowly.
All do not develop in the same manner, or at the same pace. Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others. What is important is that all nations must march toward increasing freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society strong and flexible enough to meet the demands of all its own people, and a world of immense and dizzying change.
In a few hours, the plane that brought me to this country crossed over oceans and countries which have been a crucible of human history. In minutes we traced the migration of men over thousands of years; seconds, the briefest glimpse, and we passed battlefields on which millions of men once struggled and died. We could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people; only nature and the works of man-homes and factories and farms-everywhere reflecting man's common effort to enrich his life. Everywhere new technology and communications bring men and nations closer together, the concerns of one inevitably becoming the concerns of all. And our new closeness is stripping away the false masks, the illusion of difference which is at the root of injustice and hate and war. Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning superstition that his world is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe ended at river shore, his common humanity enclosed in the tight circle of those who share his town and views and the color of his skin.It is your job, the task of the young people of this world, to strip the last remnants of that ancient, cruel belief from the civilization of man.
Each nation has different obstacles and different goals, shaped by the vagaries of history and of experience. Yet as I talk to young people around the world I am impressed not by the diversity but by the closeness of their goals, their desires and their concerns and their hope for the future. There is discrimination in New York, the racial inequality of apartheid in South Africa, and serfdom in the mountains of Peru. People starve in the streets of India, a former Prime Minister is summarily executed in the Congo,intellectuals go to jail in Russia, and thousands are slaughtered in Indonesia; wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere in the world. These are differing evils; but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfections of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, the defectiveness of our sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows; they mark the limit of our ability to use knowledge for the well-being of our fellow human beings throughout the world. And therefore they call upon common qualities of conscience and indignation, a shared determination to wipe away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings at home and around the world.
It is these qualities which make of youth today the only true international community. More than this I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. It would be a world of independent nations, moving toward international community, each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress-not material welfare as an end in itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would be proud to have built.
Just to the north of here are lands of challenge and opportunity-rich in natural resources, land and minerals and people. Yet they are also lands confronted by the greatest odds-overwhelming ignorance, internal tensions and strife, and great obstacles of climate and geography. Many of these nations, as colonies, were oppressed and exploited. Yet they have not estranged themselves from the broad traditions of the West; they are hoping and gambling their progress and stability on the chance that we will meet our responsibilities to help them overcome their poverty.
In the world we would like to build, South Africa could play an outstanding role in that effort. This is without question a preeminent repository of the wealth and knowledge and skill of the continent. Here are the greater part of Africa's research scientists and steel production, most of its reservoirs of coal and electric power. Many South Africans have made major contributions to African technical development and world science; the names of some are known wherever men seek to eliminate the ravages of tropical diseases and pestilence. In your faculties and councils, here in this very audience, are hundreds and thousands of men who could transform the lives of millions for all time to come.
But the help and the leadership of South Africa or the United States cannot be accepted if we-within our own countries or in our relations with others-deny individual integrity, human dignity, and the common humanity of man. If we would lead outside our borders, if we would help those who need our assistance, if we would meet our responsibilities to mankind, we must first, all of us, demolish the borders which history has erected between men within our own nations-barriers of race and religion, social class and ignorance.
Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress.
This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia, in Europe and in the United States, it is young people who must take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots everywhere, have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
"There is," said an Italian philosopher, "nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation, and the road is strewn with many dangers.
First, is the danger of futility: the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills-against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's greatest movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.
"Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in isolated villages and city slums in dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
"If Athens shall appear great to you," said Pericles, "consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty." That is the source of all greatness in all societies, and it is the key to progress in our time.
The second danger is that of expediency; of those who say that hopes and beliefs must bend before immediate necessities. Of course, if we would act effectively we must deal with the world as it is. We must get things done. But if there was one thing President Kennedy stood for that touched the most profound feelings of young people around the world, it was the belief that idealism, high aspirations, and deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical and efficient of programs-that there is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities, no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems. It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgment, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief-forces ultimately more powerful than all of the calculations of our economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.
It is this new idealism which is also, I believe, the common heritage of a generation which has learned that while efficiency can lead to the camps at Auschwitz, or the streets of Budapest, only the ideals of humanity and love can climb the hills of the Acropolis.
A third danger is timidity. Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change. Aristotle tells us that "At the Olympic games it is not the finest and the strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists...
So too in the life of the honorable and the good it is they who act rightly who win the prize. I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world.
For the fortunate among us, the fourth danger is comfort, the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged-will ultimately judge himself-on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
So we part, I to my country and you to remain. We are-if a man of forty can claim that privilege-fellow members of the world's largest younger generation. Each of us have our own work to do. I know at times you must feel very alone with your problems and difficulties. But I want to say how impressed I am with what you stand for and the effort you are making; and I say this not just for myself, but for men and women everywhere. And I hope you will often take heart from the knowledge that you are joined with fellow young people in every land, they struggling with their problems and you with yours, but all joined in a common purpose; that, like the young people of my own country and of every country I have visited, you are all in many ways more closely united to the brothers of your time than to the older generations of any of these nations; and that you are determined to build a better future. President Kennedy was speaking to the young people of America, but beyond them to young people everywhere, when he said that "the energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it-and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."
And he added, "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
Text as above and also audio of this speech can be found here.
