Look Who's Talking

On Friday morning, October 17, 2008, Jeannette Walls, author of THE GLASS CASTLE, spoke at the Tulsa Town Hall 74th Season 2008-2009 Lecture Series, and received a standing ovation. The Tulsa audience is a conservative bunch, and they absolutely adored her. The attraction to someone who has overcome adversity and gone on to be a winner is irresistable to this part of the country.

Then on Friday morning, December 5, 2008, Tina Brown, author of THE DIANA CHRONICLES, spoke on the topic of "The Culture of Celebrity in the Tabloid Era," in regard to the paparazzi and the death of Princess Diana. Ms. Brown knew Princess Diana personally, and gave a first class lecture (speaking the King's English, I might add) regarding the events of Diana's life, from childhood, when her mother left the family, to the time of Diana's death in the infamous car wreck in Paris, while being pursued by the paparazzi. Tina Brown received a long round of applause, and it was evident that this audience truly loved Princess Diana and will always remember her and her work, as well as the work of Tina Brown herself, who has a new web site at www.thedaily beast.com, keeping up with current events on the national and international scene today.

The next lecture in the series will be on March 13, 2009, with Rick Steves speaking about "Europe Through the Back Door." I have been intrigued by the Europeans as a teenager, so will attend this event also. Then on May 15, 2009, the speaker David Lampton will give a presentation on "Chinese Power and What It Means to America." With the economy in disarray at this time, it behooves us to discover how other countries are continuing to manage during this global economic crisis.

There was a minister years ago, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong from Pasadena, California, who had mentioned that there would someday be a global economic and financial collapse that would be worldwide. I believe we are entering that phase at this time. Let me just quote an article in the Tulsa World newspaper on page E4 of the Thursday, December 4, 2008 issue: "Deep Economic Downturns Just Natural Cycle."

According to this article, "there have been 9 depressions spaced about 60 years apart, since the 16th century. The waves in the United States have been 57, 54, and 53 years apart with the depression of 1836-43, 1893-97, and 1929-42, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal."

It goes on to state, "So here we are 66 years later with the predictable economic crisis." Here is what I have learned when working in the commercial real estate business as a secretary before going into the Medical Transcriptionist field. A lady business executive who was my boss, Donna, once advised me that "there are booms and there are busts." When it is a boom time, you have to get prepared for the time when there is going to be a bust. What goes up will eventually come down, and a balanced person will be prepared for both the ups and down of the economy.

Now why have our younger generations not been taught that information, in order to be more prepared for the economic times ahead? Nevertheless, it is still necessary to keep things rolling, and to continue to work and persevere. The entire world is facing this crisis, not just the United States, and we will see which countries pull out of it and excel, and which ones will stagnate if unable to rise back up out of the mire of the collapse that is obviously in the future for the entire globe. Let us continue to move forward as we face this challenge in our futures, but let us also look much further ahead so that we can be prepared to be more competitive on the international world scene. It is urgent that we look at the big picture now, rather than our own little small-town views of what we think the world is all about.