OBAMA YAYS AND BOOS

President Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do.

I'm hooting, clapping my hands, shouting YIPPEE, hurray.

What a relief to find an article written by a Harvard Professor, a guy who's written other books, who's lectured about Obama, taught classes, is respected and praised by the New York Times. Professor James T. Kloppenberg has just published "Reading Obama," a book that I'm summarizing right here, right now, because it's factual and affirmative.


Kloppenberg is telling the moaners-who-think-Obama's-a-wimp -- the complainers-who- think-Obama's-a-socialist, the Dems-on-the- left and the Dem-right-wingers -- that President Barack Obama, (whom you elected), told you before you elected him, that he does not share your belief that the Democrats are right and the other guys, the Republicans, and Tea Partiers are wrong.

Kloppenberg has read, studied, and written about what Obama told us in the two books Obama wrote -- one in 1995, "Dreams of My Father," and the other in 2006 -- "The Audacity of Hope."

(I love the titles.)

Obama said in his published books -- he is wary of absolutes -- he doesn't make blanket statements; he doesn't have pat formulas; he doesn't announce his principles -- he's committed to a "Christian tradition and prizes humility, and social service."

He said that he goes for experimentation -- he won't demonize his opponents -- he seeks them out and listens to them, trying to understand how they think and why they see the world as they do.

(The word is EMPATHY -- Obama has said "empathy" was something his mother drilled into him.)

Obama wrote, "Disagreeing is part of our personalities as Americans .... our differences are important, not trivial."

And pay special attention to this, readers -- Obama said his opponents hold principles, ideas as deeply rooted in American history, American tradition, as his own.

In "Audacity of Hope," he wrote, “I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush’s eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That’s what empathy does—it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal … We are all shaken out of our complacency."

Kloppenberg shows, with quotes, that Obama's decisions about health care, financial reform, his opposition to the Iraq war, his support of the Afghanistan war, were based on Obama's ideas and explained by Obama in "Audacity of Hope."

There's much more, many more specifics about Obama in the books which you can buy and read yourself. What delights me is that Kloppenberg's book is getting attention -- he's letting anti-Obama folks know that we are getting from our President exactly what Obama said he planned to do.

In "Reading Obama," author James T. Kloppenberg said that you can be a Republican and completely opposed to Obama, but "We have a man in the White House, a philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history. There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln, and, in the 20th century, just Woodrow Wilson.”

So, readers -- next time you're getting into a fight with one of your former friends, who's convinced the country's been ruined, etc. by Barack Obama, you can say I understand -- I don't agree, but I understand -- and maintain the friend as a friend.

WHAT ABOUT PLAYING AROUND?

Do we, did we ever play around?

Why am I opening this subject? Because I wrote about Tiger Woods playing around. And also, I was uploading a new video for our Airbroadcasting Channel on You Tube -- we've been getting so many compliments from strangers as well as friends, about what a loving couple we are.

Playing around was in vogue when we were "in vogue" -- pictures and articles about us were in Newsweek, in the NY Times; we were mentioned quite often in gossip columns, and seen in the chic places with other "names."

Did we play around? Not really, but ... well, we were a very pretty, good-looking, lovey-dovey couple and ... well ...

Click and read about JC and Em playing around.

CURING CANCER?

<--------- Cyanobacteria. It may be a cure for cancer.

Scientists are saying, more frequently nowadays, that there is hope, a real possibility of being cured, if you have cancer.

The Cancer Treatment Centers advertisements on television, make it sound as if they're the place to go to for support, for help, and possibly a cure. But it's an advertisement -- most treatment centers are profit-making corporations that are selling you hope as well as treatment.

There IS hope -- new medications are already being used. Of course, we know that a cure depends on what you've got, and how long you've had it.

We see "happy" Michael Douglas -- he looks sort of happy and hasn't lost his hair. But he looks worn, and gaunt, almost frail, and it wasn't so long ago that Patrick Swayze was whooping it up, saying he was beating Pancreatic Cancer, and he didn't beat it.

But hope lives in a fighting spirit -- think of Lance Armstrong, professional road racing cyclist, who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer, with a tumor that had metastasized to his brain and lungs.

Cyanobacteria is found in brackish muck in the Indian River Lagoon, on the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

One cyanobacterium called "Symploca" emits a toxin that attacks tumors. The guy who's mining it, collecting, studying it, hoping to get it FDA approved, is Hendrik Luesch, a 40-year-old associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Florida, in Gainesville.

He has sprinkled it on bone, breast, colon cancer, and they have withered before his eyes. He used "largazole" (another cyanobacterium), that doesn't do anything to healthy tissue.

Luesch hopes to have CYANOBACTERIA on the market in 10 years -- that's how long it usually takes to get FDA approval.

What's going on? Scientists have discovered that 60% of drugs are natural products, or mimics of natural products. Advances in technology are making it easier and profitable to hunt for drugs in coral reefs, and deep-sea trenches. And many research teams are experimenting with marine-derived compounds for treating cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, malaria, diabetes, depression, asthma, and other ailments.

There is real hope. Reach for it. Grab it. Hold onto it.

If I've said that before, it's because hope is your fighting spirit and fighting keeps you vigorously alive.

UNEMPLOYED ACTOR (video)

Now that "Scottsboro Boys" is closed, Emily asks John Cullum how it feels to be unemployed.

John jokes about the reality that all actors, understand. The fact is, all acting jobs are "temporary." He describes his discussion with actor, George C. Scott, when they were working at the Circle in the Square, in "Boys in Autumn." Even though Scott was employed in films and theater, more than most actors, he also felt what John feels as a show closes -- that he will never work again.

Emily knows John will miss the "boys" -- they were like a family.

AM I A SISSY?

Bette Davis said, "Aging ain't for sissies." Others have said it too.

I hear Bette, not the million nagging voices that tell you endlessly through the day, every day, that you are old, aging, no longer qualified to take center stage, and be what's important, what people want to pay attention to right now.

Bette Davis let herself look old as she grew older; she played older women. She kept working as an actress until the end of her life. There have been other great stars before her and after her, but no one quite like her What she did as an actress was always interesting, fascinating, amazingly truthful.

All those adjectives -- I'd like them to apply to me, as I work and strive. I am sure there is no one quite like me in my world, but ... gee , like the plant in the hallway that I wrote about the other day -- my bonsai with some of its leaves becoming less glossy, fading, a few falling off -- I'm seeing age happening to myself.

So how do I handle growing older, and older and ... .older ?

Before I pulled my thoughts together, I let my fingers fly and made a list of the aging things I've noticed about ME.

It was realistic.

Well, I am not going to share it. I am not planning to call attention to all those things one can see in the mirror, usually, before anyone else sees it.

Are you a sissy if you don't grow old gracefully, or a bigger sissy if you fight like hell to stay young, look young, act young?

The age things hit you, slowly at first. A cramp, a muscle, the whistles that you used to get and are not getting now, the casual remarks friends make, that suggest that you really shouldn't try to do thus-and-so because ... well ... you might get hurt. And your checkups with your dentist, your doctor, plus the ads for medicines, the references to retiring, to buying insurance and those age categories -- over thirty five -- 40 to fifty -- fifty to retirement -- fifty to seventy. And the fact that age numbers beyond seventy are rarely mentioned -- just huzzahs and news alerts about someone very frail looking who's hanging around in his/her nineties!

Stop, stop, you want to shout, as you change the channel, or turn the page.

But talk of the future keeps echoing, and in the night, when you can't sleep, your night thoughts are not bad dreams -- they are realistic inklings, forebodings of the future.

That's tough to shuck off. It can hang over your day. That is NOT for sissies.

Advice: You can fence it out, block it off or turn negative predictions into wry, humorous exchanges. What is better is -- become the plant on your window sill, or wherever it is. Water the plant, don't over water. flick off the fading leaves, don't let a pile accumulate on top of the earth in and around the urn, in which the plant, (YOU), are growing.

We were brought up to live, and living is doing -- seeing, tasting, feeling, learning. A sissy closes off the air, the light and the outside world. If you're not a sissy, be what I call a "boldy" -- a darter, darting in and out of air, light, and whatever is beyond the surroundings of home -- dart into the mystery of the unknown.

Yes, I'm saying -- go up, not down as you age. Reach up and out, and go beyond.

GO TIGER GO!

"Go, Tigers Go!" was a cheer that I once shouted at a football game.

I recently read a one-page article in Newsweek that Tiger Woods wrote. It's about how he's redefined "victory." I was moved by it, not because of what the article said, but his courage -- Tiger wants people to know what he thinks about what he did.

I feel if the media hadn't grabbed T.W's story, and inspired the girls he slept with to tell their tales, he might have been able to salvage his marriage and family.

I feel that we, the hungry-for-dirt public, made salvaging his marriage impossible. Before you moan oh Em, you are wrong, let me explain.

I think -- despite the body blows and the ugly revelations -- the words, the doings, the pile upon pile of lies, that were rammed, pounded into the head of his wife -- one can recover. It's possible to re-find the essential, powerful connections of family -- the kids the couple made together -- the things they shared that made the love that produced the children. It's possible to recreate a marriage.

Yes, I know, you probably don't agree. I can see the expression on the faces of most people who read this, who cry NEVER! You are certain that if a spouse, man or woman is unfaithful, that's it -- that's the end!

I'm not talking about right and wrong, or religious convictions, or vows. I'm talking about the hand-me-down ideas that burn a pathway, a sequence of thoughts in your mind, and brand the idea that a marriage or a love cannot survive and rise above, in fact, thrive -- truly thrive -- when a spouse plays around (screws around, or whatever you want to call it), -- when one-half of the relationship fails, and seriously wounds, hurts the other.

Faithful/unfaithful, like sin, like screwing around are words. Do away with the words. and deal with the moment of the present. The bruised, aching, shocked person, and the wrong-doer -- how, why, what --what actually did the wrong doer do? What was the compelling element? Was it lust, a sexual need? Or an example set by someone else?

(Remember, the playing of a winning golf game was taught to Tiger by a beloved father married to Tiger's mom, and that taught the young boy what love and marriage were.)

Whatever the reasons, we are heightening everything that has to do with sex drive, one's appetite, what's sexy, sexual techniques. gratification, frequency -- the importance of hot sex, wild sex, spur-of-the-moment sex -- and yet we condemn a person who's hooked on it.

With Tiger Woods we have a winner, with many years ahead of him, where he can inspire us all to do and be the best.

Maybe someone helped Tiger write the article for Newsweek. Maybe he wrote it by himself. Read it, and try to unclench your fist; loosen your convictions that he's a bad man. Cheer him on and it may help you, as well as him.

Here' what he wrote in Newsweek: "How I Have Redefined Victory."

MARRIAGE (video)

Because there's such a hullabaloo about marriage, now that Prince William of England has announced that he and Kate Middleton, his girlfriend of eight years, are getting married, everyone is talking about "marriage."

Some are loudly proclaiming that people aren't marrying -- that marriage isn't necessary any more.

Emily thinks it's because the times have changed, the sense of morality has changed, and the benefits of legal marriage are less.

John wonders what the numbers are -- how many young people get married, how many don't. Emily doesn't want to discuss numbers. She is just glad that John married her, and John says the kind of thing the Cullums often say to each other, letting Emily know that he is very glad he's married to her.