Blog Archive » 2006 » July

Many members of the Trinity community know that our student Marisa Dabney has been in Lebanon during the last two weeks as the war between Israel and the Hezbollah has broken wide open. A story in her hometown paper Honolulu Star-Bulletin and one last week in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald relate some of the story. I'm sure that she will have more to say when she returns to Trinity. She is still awaiting the final flight home, but all reports are that she is well and learning a great deal from this experience.

Marisa is one of a group of Trinity students who are this year's Intelligence Scholars, and all have spent a portion of the summer studying abroad. The Intelligence Scholars Program, funded with a grant from the Intelligence Community, prepares students for careers as analysts and other professionals in the intelligence fields. Like Trinity Women across the ages, these students learn through rigorous classroom instruction and study, and field experiences that place them at the heart of the action in Washington and around the world.

Being in the "eye of the storm" is one of the hallmarks of our graduates. Another Trinity Woman, Congresswoman and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi '62, was forceful last week in insisting that the U.S. government waive the requirement for U.S. citizens to pay to be evacuated from Lebanon; in fact, soon after Mrs. Pelosi's statement, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice waived that requirement.

Marisa Dabney went to Lebanon to learn Arabic; she will come back with a remarkable education in the forces shaping the Middle East, a unique perspective from being present to this historic moment. We are grateful to all of the people who helped her along the way, particularly Dr. Mimi Jeha of the Lebanon American University, and here at Trinity, our Director of International Student Services Ms. Deepa Peppin who has been tireless in pursuing options for Marisa's return home. Thanks to all!

The most remarkable video clip to emerge from the recent G8 Summit of world leaders was not the one revealing that the President of the United States knows how to use the "s" word. That clip was hardly worth the thirty seconds it took to watch it. No, the real shocker is a 5-second clip showing President Bush walking up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel from behind and surprising her with an impromptu — and obviously unwelcome — back rub.

This is not about politics, but rather, professional conduct. Just about any CEO, manager, supervisor or human being who has been in the workplace for the last 30 years knows that you do not touch other people unless you are saving them from falling down steps, giving them CPR, or pushing them away from a speeding train. When the other person is of the opposite sex, additional care is necessary to be sure that there really is a speeding train coming, lest the question of impending harm wind up being a point of argument for the closing arguments in court. Even sympathetic hugs are going the way of back rubs at work.

One of the facts of life that this incident reveals, however, is that prominent status and achievement of high office does not necessarily mean that a woman is immune from the kinds of sexist slights and put-downs that used to be commonplace, and that still obviously occur too often. As a woman university president, I know the traps that still exist even at this level; the higher women go at work, the closer we get to the glass ceiling where we can see what's really going on across that great divide. There are still guys over there who resent our presence at the table, who find overt and insidious ways to communicate their lack of respect, the subtle power plays that tell women to stay in their place. Even at high status levels, women still encounter actions, words, policies and attitudes that are as sexist as the discrimination faced by women at other levels in the workplace.

Chancellor Merkel is the first woman ever elected to Germany's highest office, and yet, the videotape shows her being treated like somebody's Gal Friday from the middle of the 20th century. The ambush back rub signals that she is easy prey, not really a leader on equal terms with the others at the table.

I realize that some people might argue that President Bush's presumption of familiarity with Chancellor Merkel sends a different message, perhaps one of welcome into the fraternity where such gestures are meant as friendly. But women's entrance into the old boys' clubs does not mean that women should have to adapt to the boys' rituals. Rather, true equality demands an entirely new vocabulary of language and gesture, including great care and respect with personal space. Public leaders need to be exemplary role models for the appropriate modes of communication and relationship among women and men in the workplace.

See Merkel, Women Leaders,

Several young women are in my thoughts right now as events grow more ominous from Brookland to Beruit to Bombay.

One young woman is in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) where she is running an AIDS prevention project. She wrote to me last week that she is safe after the terrorist train bombings there, but she works in the largest hospital in the city where many of the injured arrived last week, "so it has been a bit chaotic" she observes with customary understatement. But she likes her work there and hopes to continue, though her family here worries about her all the time. But she's a graduate of a women's college (not Trinity, alas) so I suspect she'll remain committed to doing whatever it takes to change the world wherever she's needed. I just hope she remembers to send emails once in a while.

Another young woman is in Beruit, taking the summer to learn Arabic. She insists that she's fine, that the events there will not deter her from finishing the program. Thanks to modern technology, we can have continuous communication even amid so much chaos and uncertainty. She's an eager student and will have much to report when she returns to the U.S.

I've been reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat and the events of the last ten days have certainly underscored his theory. While he writes about the flattening of the world's economy due to the rapid adoption of technologies that have changed the nature of work, in fact, our experience of world events has also become flatter as I can watch headlines about the crises along with photos and videos in real-time on my computer or television even as I write this text. Instantly, we all know much the same thing, whether it's a bomb in Beruit or Mumbai, or the latest crime up the street in Brookland.

But I have this uneasy feeling that the flattening of the world has only served thus far to encourage the voyeuristic, rather than contributing much to finding permanent solutions to the violence and oppression in so many places. Last night I was in Penn Station in New York trying to catch a train home after giving a speech at NYU about adult education. The train was late, so I stopped in a station cafe to pass the time. This particular place had walls lined with television screens — CNN, ESPN, FOX, NBC, ETC — one screen showed smoke rising from bombs in Haifa, another screen flashed people trying to leave on the roads in Lebanon, another screen had Barry Bonds at home plate, still another screen had something that looked like American Idol reruns. I could not hear anything above the usual din of the train station and crowds, but the surreal scenes flashing across the walls would have given George Orwell pause. We're seeing so much, absorbing so little, distracted by the trivial because the tragic is incomprehensible.

In the midst of great tragedies around the world this minute, this afternoon's headlines are about the president of the United States using a minor profanity in an unguarded moment. How can any news organization put this silly headline up there next to the emerging war between Israel and the Hezbollah, or the latest outrage in Baghdad, or the investigation into the Mumbai bombings? The media provide what the people desire. Technology has flattened our world in a way that makes it all seem like one giant movie screen, and we are viewers, not actors, passive observers rather than passionate advocates for peace.

Not all of us. The two young women in my thoughts these days, and countless others like them, are out there trying to live up to their sense of responsibility in their small corners of our chaotic world. Good for them! We pray for their safety and cheer for their courage. And we let their presence in these difficult places remind us that we can't simply watch and turn away from the screen. We are called to action to stand with them, for justice and peace, in solidarity with the people of the world who have known precious little of either.

See Mumbai, Beruit, Thomas Friedman, Peace, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel

Forever Wild. That's the shorthand phrase for the century-old public policy in New York that safeguards the remarkable Adirondack wilderness. In 1894, at the apex of the first stage of the Industrial Revolution, conservationists expressed increasingly strong concerns about the chronic clear-cutting of the great northern forests by logging, mining and other commercial interests (and summit-stripping forest fires caused in part by sparks from trains making inroads into the wilderness). Inspired at least partially by fear for the contamination and deterioration of the water supply for New York City (the mighty Hudson River watershed arises high in the Adirondacks on Mt. Marcy), the New York State Legislature amended the state constitution to add Section XIV that states, "The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired,constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed."

The "Forever Wild" law remains as one of the boldest, most far-reaching environmental conservation measures in the nation. Today, nearly half of the Adirondacks' six million acres are in the Forest Preserve, a wilderness where there are no roads, no vehicles, no development of any sort. Humans can go deep into this forest in much the same way as other wildlife: on foot or on water. While the other half of the Adirondack Park does include private property and commercial businesses, all are tightly regulated and every so often the state and a private landowner are able to conclude a deal to add thousands of acres to the Forest Preserve.

I have had a first-hand opportunity to observe what "forever wild" means in terms of the regeneration of the forest. In 1995, I was there when a derecho, a violent windstorm, blew through at 5 am one hot July morning. The destruction of the forest was breathtaking. Hundreds of thousands of acres lost millions and millions of trees. On a stretch of Rte. 30 near Long Lake, where the great Whitney landholdings stretch for miles on either side of the road, the trees were down, bent over entirely to the ground, as if crushed under a giant steamroller. There was talk at that time of waiving the "forever wild" clause so that logging companies could go into the forest to salvage the downed trees. But "forever wild" means just that, and the trees remained down where the wind pushed them over. This year, driving past the Whitney tract, I marveled at the new forest that is clearly rising above the rubble, the seeds of these new trees sown from the acorns and pinecones of the downed giants. A visitor not knowing of the derecho a decade ago would have little idea that this new young forest was just recently a scene of devastation.

Witnessing the forest regenerate itself is a marvelous lesson in the importance of good environmental stewardhip — and, as well, respect for the timetable of nature which is significantly longer than the human attention span. Destroying a forest takes minutes; regeneration takes generations.

I'm back at the office now, two weeks of blissful communing with nature gone in a blink. But I always bring a bit of the "Forever Wild" spirit with me to go through the year. At times when the press of appointments and meetings and phone calls and emails seems too much, I think of that wonderful new forest growing patiently, giving shelter and food to the wildlife on the ground and high perches with long views to the lakes for the hawks and osprey and eagles. I imagine the place where I go in my kayak called Big Brook, a stream that feeds the Raquette River at Long Lake, where I can sit for hours among the reeds just watching the loons and heron and occasional deer feeding along the banks of the lake.

"Forever Wild" is not just for the wilderness creatures — preservation of the trees and green canopy contributes the most basic ingredients of human life: clean air, fresh water, sustaining ecosystems of animals and plants. Concern for environmental stewardship is not a political issue, but a moral imperative. In fact, Catholic Social Justice Teachings include care for the environment because it is God's Creation. "Forever Wild" ensures the health and vitality of human civilization even as it preserves the wilderness.

The road between Long Lake and Tupper Lake (Rte. 30) runs through 22 miles of beautiful wilderness. This sinuous stretch of two-lane blacktop crosses marshes and cuts through small mountains, exposing the ancient bedrock. Deep forest shrouds both sides. The Raquette River brackets each end of this road, forming the broad expanse of Long Lake to the east and feeding into and through massive Tupper Lake, also the reservoir of the Bog River and numerous other streams. With so much wilderness crowding this thin artery, it's not unusual to see the true inhabitants of this region frequently: abundant deer, wild turkey, pheasants, hawks, even an occasional black bear.

Driving east on Rte. 30 yesterday, about half a mile ahead I observed vehicles swerving all over the road. I approached cautiously, thinking there must be a piece of debris on the ground. But lo and behold, when I got closer, I saw the cause of all the commotion: a turtle about the size of a dinner plate ambling across the street from one marsh to another.

Now, growing up in Philadelphia, our vacations took us to South Jersey along the Black Horse Pike. We used to see a lot of turtles crossing the road along the way — or the remnants thereof. It's where I first heard the term "roadkill." You got points for hitting, fingers raised for swerving to save a turtle life.

Up here in the Adirondacks, I don't see much roadkill. Instead, there's a distinctive effort to preserve wildlife, including the turtle crawling across Rte. 30. Those swerving cars weren't citified environmental lawyers in their Navigators. No, they were lumberjacks and fishermen in 4×4's. Everyone understands the rules of the wilderness. Humans and wild things living side-by-side, warily respecting each other's space. Nobody got hurt in all that swerving. No fingers waved out of car windows. Even the turtle made it home for dinner safely.

Later that evening, as dusk deepened, I was on a back road near Rte. 30 when I came upon a baby bear calmly foraging along the side of the road. Very cute. I raised my camera but the light was too low. As I moved past, the bear kept looking at me. I thought better of getting out of the car, mindful that Mama Bear was probably just a few feet away in the forest. I didn't want to invite myself for dinner!

A different kind of wildlife this morning on Rte. 30, as I was approaching Tupper Lake which is the only place I can find an Internet connection (thanks to the local public library): I came upon traffic backed up at a roadblock right where there's a scenic overlook for the lake. Strange, I thought, the 4th of July was yesterday, why are they doing DUI checks at 10 am? Moving closer, I saw the reason: the roadblock was for the Border Patrol.

The Canadian border is about 60 miles away. This seemed a strange place for the Border Patrol to set up shop, and yet, Rte. 30 is the only road through this part of the Adirondacks. The agents were looking closely into each car and asking, "Are you a U.S. citizen?" My backseat was crammed with my paddles and life vest and other assorted vacation stuff, with the kayak strapped on top of the car. The agent smiled and waved me on, once I agreed that I was, yes, a U.S. citizen. But across the way, on the eastern lane, the agents were grilling some guy in an old beat-up car. He had wild hair, a red baseball cap, and companions. "Where are you going? Who are you seeing?" I could hear them asking.

Yesterday was Independence Day. Today, the Border Patrol peers into our cars in the middle of this wilderness road, where yesterday we swerved to avoid hitting a turtle. A cold breeze is blowing through the Adirondacks this morning.