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Am I a Geek? Let's Take a Trip to New Mexico! 2. Are You a Geek? I will define what I mean by "you" in just a minute but we first have some important business to tend to. Nobody will criticize you if you want to be like Nike as opposed to being like Mike. For example, if Nike awards you a multi-million dollar contract to wear its shoes or clothing or emblem to a day care center, you should go for it. Please keep in mind that all the children at the day care center might try and then fail to become professional athletics as a result of your emblem contract. However, a contract is a contract. Michael Jordan has made this point himself. Somebody actually confronted Michael Jordan about his Nike shoe contract and the lousy wages being paid to Asians in Asia as part of this situation. He replied that he had fulfilled his contract obligations and wondered out loud what all the fuss was about. This utterance may have documented one of the greatest deparmentalization or compartmentalization of a life in human history. Mike seems to always do everything in a really big way, including exploitation. I need to get back to the definition of "you." Public television aired a program I viewed recently about gang violence in Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton is known primarily as the home of Senator Joseph McCarthy so the angle somewhat shocked me. The narrator resided in Appleton twenty years ago and remembered the social divisions as hippies versus jocks and also Catholics versus Lutherans. He commented that there are "more distinctions now" and "more violence now." This broadcast made me realize that I must limit the "you" to people I have known personally in my past and also people I have "met" on Oprah. Let's do Oprah first. I asked a pleasant woman at an antique store in New Harmony, Indiana where to go to get a good burger. She replied that the American Legion just down the block is the best choice but that the Yellow Tavern also has excellent burgers. I inquired whether the Yellow Tavern was run by Asians and she replied "yes." I was very pleased because I missed talking to and seeing my many Asian friends in Madison. Well, when I entered the Yellow Tavern, it was a sea of white. The antique clerk had played a trick on the touron (a mixture of a tourist and a moron) and probably did what she did due to the fact that I have a large camera hanging around my neck while touroning. In any event, I ordered my burger and looked up to see Oprah standing there with her guests. The guests did not appear to be celebrities which was good given the fact that I was still recovering from The Yellow Tavern trick. The guests were people who had raised money for Oprah's Angel Network. The top-rated person was a woman who had raised $70,000.00 for the Network. In addition, this Angel had a career of managing day care centers. This woman is not a geek by any possible definition. One of the primary motivations that energized me to write this book was to compare the social contribution of celebrity athletes and movie makers with people who, for instance, provide day care services. I have focused on day care because around the ideological division in this country most rational people are concerned, even worried, about shaping a decent world for our children. Also, Oprah's top-rated Angel is fighting a battle with breast cancer and generated what Oprah calls "positive energy" through her fundraising. Not only is this Angel not a geek, she deserves to be more celebrated than the celebrities who can, for instance, put a ball through a hoop. Am I a Geek? Let's Take a Trip to New Mexico! |