Recent thoughts

Last week I attended a lecture by former 60s radical Angela Davis. Her lecture was part of a series of events at UNH marking a month of celebrations of Martin Luther King, Jr. I have never seen so many people in Johnson Theater in all the years I have attended concerts, plays, etc. I got there early enough to get a seat in the front row of the back section.

First, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by Ms. Davis. I guess I expected someone way more radical and controversial, and someone more fiery in her delivery. In fact, she was a rambling speaker, apparently scrolling through notes on a laptop on the podium in front of her. After 45 minutes, a buzzer sounded and she said that was her alarm, to let her know when she had reached 45 minutes, so she could end. She proceeded to talk for another half an hour! Her main message: We need to do something about the number of black men in prison.

To my right was a chatty young woman, who was an Oyster River Grad. of 1977. I didn't know her or her family, but she proceeded to fill me in on their entire lives and on the web site created for her class and their reunion. To my left was a man about my age (if you can tell age by hair color) in a dark gray suit. I think he may have been someone in the UNH hierarchy. He held a Blackberry-type device, and though we were asked to turn off all phones, he silenced his device, but checked it obsessively throughout the almost-two hours we sat in the theater. He must have been able to receive email,and he must have been expecting some awfully important messages. Each time he clicked it on, it lit up the whole space around us in the dimly lit theater. I thought he was pretty dimly lit myself.

I'm embarrassed to admit that the minute Angela Davis finished speaking, I joined probably a third of the audience in beating feet out of the stuffy theater, skipping the rather bad music group which had opened the whole event and still had some music to perform at the end. The moment the crowd stepped through the doors to the outside, I was just about the only one who didn't whip out my cellphone and call someone. I walked to the parking lot beside a young man who was arranging a basketball game for 11 o'clock the next night. I marvel at our culture, and the fact that we are so slavishly dependent on our communications devices.

And that brings me to my next random reflection. The changeover to digital t.v. which has just been postponed because millions of Americans might actually be without t.v. for an unspecified amount of time. I wonder about the postponement. Is the government afraid that there might be some kind of revolution if Americans couldn't watch t.v.? Can you imagine outraged citizens marching on Washington? Are they afraid that people might actually start reading if their t.v.s went fuzzy? What would happen if people actuallly started talking to each other in the evenings? Good God! No wonder the government wants to make sure that every last household has the necessary coupon for buying the converter before the switch occurs.

Rise up Americans. Insist on your right to watch t.v. and actually see a picture!!!