New Directions

I've been writing on various slips of paper for a number of years the following goals:

• Travel, Write and Teach
  
• Run writing retreats in Italy
• Learn Middle Eastern Dance
• Speak Italian
• Travel in Turkey
• Write movies
• Write books
  

All of which seemed normal and doable - and so, I did them. And continue to do them. But there was this other goal...

• Be Peter Bergen... wait, what?
  

Obviously I don't want to really be Peter Bergen - that would be silly, and impossible. What I want is to do what he does, or what I imagine he does based on reading his books and hearing him speak.

To that end I finally applied for and was accepted into a PhD program at the University of New Mexico to study... cultural theory, terrorism - the history, the mindset, the groups, the way they shift and eventually become entities other nations will deal with - and how 'othering' is accomplished through word and image in media, and what are its inevitable results. What I intend to do with this degree is write about, teach, and become an expert on those subjects. (See, there's the tie to Peter Bergen - tenuous as it is. I'll be an expert on terrorism in the Middle East, an expert on othering, and will theoretically be called by CNN or other news orgs to give my two-cents worth. Would love to be interviewed on Foreign Exchange, too, once I actually have something to say.)

I set up this blog spot specifically to have a space for my thoughts on various political and cultural issues as they came to me. I subsequently wrote nothing in it for a year.

I'm back. The PhD program will provide me with not only a place to learn and explore new concepts and ideas, but will generate a ton of new thoughts about the world we live in, the way it's shaping up and breaking down, and how it seems to be moving inevitably toward... well, maybe the only thing that's inevitable is the future. We'll see how it works out.

I'm excited that we'll see the first black American president in three months, and I'm apprehensive and hopeful both about the way the world is moving. Peace talks seem to be replacing bombs in some areas of the Middle East; and on the streets of Afghanistan, women still can't show their faces.

Paradox.
It's at the center where we'll find the truth.

Until next time....