"I have a dream....."

Yesterday as President Obama was inaugurated and the country observed the national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, I received an e-mail message from a man I have known, respected and loved for more than 50 years. These are excerpts from that moving e-mail.

English: Dr. Martin Luther King giving his "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“As I do every year on MLK day I listen to his "I have a dream speech."  The words were spoken in 1963, but they still resonate today.  In 2010 I had flown back from Afghanistan on a government aircraft arriving at dawn to a cold day at Dulles airport.  As we were being loaded into the bus to go from the tarmac to the terminal, dawn was breaking and as luck would have it the radio was playing Dr. King's speech.  Having just returned from one of the most unequal and miserable places on the earth, Afghanistan, I was deeply moved at hearing his words.  They remain to me a guiding vision.

“When (redacted) and I got married she asked me what I wanted as a wedding gift.  I told her a set of the recordings of MLK's speeches.  She ordered them from a record store in Arlington and got a few odd looks.  She mentioned that she was getting them as a wedding present for her husband to be.  That got a few more strange looks.  After we were married, we went in to pick them up.  I don't know what the record store folks thought her husband would look like, but it was clearly not the short haired, white guy wearing a USMC tee shirt and a Clemson ball cap.”

Ted Stern has passed

My good friend and mentor, Ted Stern, has passed away. He was 100 last month on Christmas Day. We will miss his friendly demeanor and consummate skills. Our condolences to his family. (See an earlier blog below dated: November 13, 2012.)

Zero Dark Thirty

The film Zero Dark Thirty is opening country-wide this week,amid some controversy about alleged CIA torture and one woman's obsession about finding Osama bin Laden. Although considered a good film and possible favorite at the Oscar's, the film misses the point that finding OBL was a ten-year search by thousands of CIA case officers, analysts, and other key personnel. The torture scenes are Hollywood make believe. Enhanced interrogation ended in 2003 and no one was ever treated by CIA as depicted in the film. The character Maya is a composite of thousands through whom the story is told. She is a good choice because many women in the Counterterrorism Center "deserve a disproportionately large share of the credit for tracking" OBL. It is worth seeing, I am told, and intend to see it for myself. In the meantime it is worthwhile to pay attention to the views of some of the men who were there, e.g. Jose Rodriguez, a 31-year CIA veteran, who headed the Counterterrorism Center and National Clandestine Service. He wrote a comprehensive review of the movie published in The Washington Post on January 3. See the movie with an open mind. 
(Other blog entries here.)
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Charter Memberships available

New Club to be Formed

It has been decided to form a new Club. This decision was made by me and some others (I forget who they are). Membership will someday be open to people from all walks of life throughout the Western Hemisphere, regardless of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.  For now, only charter memberships are currently available and candidates will be carefully considered. Any signs of susceptibility to playing golf or tennis, or swimming, or to taking long walks on the beach, or to organize field trips, lunches, dinners, or, heaven help us, line up a speaker will be grounds for rejection. In this Club there will be no officers, no committees, no dues, no regular meetings, no minutes, no causes supported, no books to read, no painting classes to attend, no knitting , in short, no nothing. The name of the Club will be The Do-Nothing Club. There is no need to formalize any purpose of the Club since the name itself is thought to accurately describe the Club. Anyone who wishes to be considered for charter membership should speak to me or to the others whom I will identify when I can remember their names. I may be contacted in person while doing nothing or by e-mail, snail mail or notes slipped under the door or through the transom (when and if a transom is added to my entrance doorway.) In the meantime, practice and live your life to be an outstanding and valuable member of The Do-Nothing Club.

(For complete blog, click here.)

(To stop these e-mails, send e-mail: arch@archibald99.com)