Sticks and Stones

 Indisputably, any citizen of the United States would want politicians that accurately represented them and worked for the benefit of the nation. That said, the qualifications for office are, at best, adequate. Most of the requirements are reasonable standards. Each potential Congress member must be an American citizen for at least nine years and be a resident of the State they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years of age and representatives at least 25. The President must be a natural-born citizen and 35. However these are the only formal qualifications a candidate must have. This is why I suggest the addition of one more requirement: a mandatory IQ test result of at least 120 for every candidate for a governmental office.

At this point you may wonder, why on earth have candidates take IQ tests? Haven’t they proven themselves intelligent and motivated already by running for office? My reasoning is based on the assumption that the majority of the American population is intelligent and capable and therefore would be represented best by intelligent and capable politicians. However the truth of the matter is that quite a few political candidates, past and present, for any office, have substandard intelligence and have slipped through the cracks formed by the scant requirements. Two examples: Former President George H. W. Bush and current President George W. Bush. Daddy Bush has an IQ of 98 and our very own Dubya has an IQ of 91 (Lovenstein Institute Presidential IQ Study). An IQ score of 100 is considered average, with most likely professions being truck drivers, machine operators, farmers and carpenters. Bush Sr. was a Texas representative in 1966 and 1968 before being vice president to Ronald Reagan and then President. Bush Jr. was also a Texas representative, and became Governor of Texas in 1994. Obviously, a mandatory IQ test prior to campaigning would have saved America from the collective bad decision-making of the two Bushes, as neither of them would have made it to Congress at all.

Sure, most political candidates are smart and do their jobs well. Granted, the current requirements are logical and serve the purpose of providing the nation with good lawmakers and civil servants. Nevertheless, the addition of intelligence testing to the existing qualifications would reinforce the standard of politicians and lead to improved decision-making for the people’s benefit. Congress would not be stunted by any stupidity and would work more efficiently. Smarter politicians would also raise the rock-bottom public opinion of the government, and give the multitude of foreign countries that currently hate us, a more realistic impression of the American people. We can only benefit from such an addition, and although intelligence testing may not affect the majority of political candidates, it certainly would minimize the chances of ending up with a president who can’t pronounce the word nuclear.

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This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi - from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring - when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

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Gary Vaynerchuk asked us all to make today Good People Day, which is a wonderful idea. It’s not naive to decide to think about what we appreciate in others, and it isn’t unfair to turn our eyes away from the mainstream media’s flow of death and destruction. Sometimes we should talk about good news, sometimes we should publicly celebrate the people we consider good.

My contribution is to share a story with you - specifically how I got to know the wonderful people at CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast. It was mid-2005, the show was pretty new and a few people were beginning to develop what would become a vibrant community. We were in the hundreds, and at the CNET forums learnt about each other, discussed all sorts of issues, and so on. It was a great community and the hosts dropped in often. The forum was one of the places I had to visit everyday; the conversations there were as important to me as my ‘real-life’ conversations.

Late 2006 turned out to be a tough time in my life and the people I had known, but never met, rallied around to provide moral support. These people strewn across the planet came to share kind words with me and show that I mattered to them. That forum has always meant a lot to me, because I have met some amazing people there, people I later met in real life, and others spread all over the world with whom I have started online projects!

What was equally remarkable about the listeners’ community was how much we interacted with the hosts. They didn’t live one step withdrawn, watching from afar at what we said about their opinions and analysis. They participated, which made the whole atmosphere far more conducive to lively conversations, not just responses. Tom, Molly, and Veronica were always in the forum talking to their listeners. It was never a ploy to suggest they cared about the audience, it was real interest in the listeners. Even as the show has grown to the tens, likely hundreds of thousands of listeners it has today, you’ll still see Tom, Molly, and Jason joining in.

There are several thousands of miles east and west from me, here in London, separating us in the Buzz Out Loud community but I know that through my many years of interactions with the Good People involved with the show, I have gained real friends and am better for having known them.

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Jean Nouvel, the bold French architect known for his innovative works such as the Torre Agbar tower in Barcelona, a precursor to London’s very similar 30 St. Mary’s Axe, has received architecture’s top honour, the Pritzker Prize. Informally known as the ‘Nobel prize for architecture’, a jury chosen by the Hyatt Foundation awarded the $100,000 grant and bronze medallion today. Previous winners include Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid and the first winner in 1979, Philip Johnson.

Critical and commercial success in architecture is increasingly coming from architects who do not have a ‘house-style’ and Jean Nouvel is no exception. Like David Chipperfield, the British architect who won the RIBA Sterling Prize 2007 for his Museum of Modern Literature in Germany, Nouvel believes the surrounding environment essentially dictates the design of a building. “The story, the climate, the culture of the place,” he said. “The references of the buildings around, what the people in the city love. The wind, the colour of the sky, the trees around - the building is not done only to be the most beautiful,” he said. “It’s done to give advantage to the surroundings. It’s a dialogue.” However, he does not design buildings simply to echo their surroundings. “Generally, when you say context, people think you want to copy the buildings around, but often context is contrast,” he said.

Nouvel’s projects are diverse; from designing luxury homes for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to building the Concert Hall Lucerne in Switzerland, his work has challenged the way in which architects approach architecture. He claims anything from the monumental and the civic, to the residential and vernacular can be realised successfully by an architect with an appreciation of the surrounding environment. The jury said of Nouvel’s industrial Guthrie Theater, which has a cantilevered bridge overlooking the Mississippi River, “the theatre both merges and contrasts with its surroundings.” It added, “It is responsive to the city and the nearby Mississippi River, and yet, it is also an expression of theatricality and the magical world of performance.”

I recently visited Madrid and stayed at Hotel Puerta America, a conceptual hotel where each floor is designed by a high profile designer. Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Arota Ishozaki and Jean Nouvel are just a few who have experimented with hotel design as the operators, Silken, claimed the project ‘had no budget’. Nouvel’s floor, the top one, is perhaps the most impressive. It is wildly romantic; stunning Japanese influences and a heady sense of artistic involvement, the design is a world away from the environment, a dusty residential area of a metropolitan Madrid. Forgiving the experimental nature of the project, it seems Nouvel has stuck to the ‘context is contrast’ mantra very strictly. Where other designers who have a ‘house style’ merely put their signature curves and deconstructive lines (in the case of Zaha Hadid) on their floor, architects such as Foster and Chipperfield, who are driven wholly by an environmental and social sensitivity to architecture, and no house style, chose to echo their surroundings. In the case of Foster, the palette of Spanish artist and friend Chilleda was employed; the dusty sienna brown worktops working symbiotically with the yellow ochre leather of the furnishings. It seems both Nouvel and Foster have gained success differently by echoing and contrasting the environment to provide feelings of excitement and familiarity respectively.

This year’s Pritzker Prize winner is yet another example of a successful architect who is very different to his contemporaries. Not restricted by an ‘ism’, not a disciple of a school, just a servant to society and its needs. I feel excited and privileged to be living in a time where architecture really is becoming all about social concern.

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Today was a momentous day for British aviation and the airline industry, as Heathrow’s long awaited, and desperately needed Terminal 5 opened for commercial flights.

Whilst the day is a great accolade for the Terminal’s sole occupant, British Airways, it is a triumph for airport owner BAA. The project was delivered on time and on budget. Further more, all the UK taxpayers out there will be glad to know that it was funded entirely out of private money. Compare that to the Millenium Domes and Wembley Stadiums that used other people’s money to deliver something over-budged and late. Of course 2012 will be the real Doomsday for UK tax-payers when the Olympics, a purely prestige project for Ken Livingtone’s (and his others cronies) ego takes place.

So from today, millions of Brisith travellers, and international visitors to Britain will be able to enjoy their holiday or their business trip just a little bit more thanks to the new terminal. Even those not using it directly will benefit from the increased capacity in the other Heathrow terminals as airlines move around. (Though the teething problems associated with this move may be problematic).

All that remains now is for approval for Heathrow’s third terminal to be given, so that the UK economy will see a viable future, with a key part of its infrastructures expanding to meet demand.

UPDATE 18:31 GMT - I mentioned that teething problems may be problematic, but did not envisage this sort of trouble. The BA Operations Director has just announced that fligts out of T5 today will be hand-baggage only. He apologises (as he should) but does not say who is to blame.  Given the supposed extensive testing of the new terminal, with images of thousands of bags circulating the T5 system being shown on the news only weeks ago, one has to wonder how successful these tests were. A way to have avoided all this fuss if BAA and BA weren’t too keen on extensive testing would have been to make all outgoing flights from T5 today free, so that no-one has a major ground to complain if they are public volunteers. The cost of that may have been in the region of £10m, but given the £4.6bn terminal, it seems a small price to pay.

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