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06/10/2004: "Al Gore's Speech at NYU"
Former Vice President Al Gore spoke at NYU recently, and his speech is well worth reading.
It's a shame that 99.995% of us Americans have such miniscule attention spans that we'd avoid reading the full text of Gore's speech. I wonder if that's how we got into this mess in the first place... because we're so attracted to this microwave oven, instant gratification lifestyle that we're willing to listen and evaluate based on sound bites ("Iraq bad, must kill") instead of an intelligent, well-reasoned, thought-provoking approach to things.
While reading it, I was reminded of several comments from Sarah Vowell, from her book "The Partly Cloudy Patriot." (A worthy read, in and of itself.) In it, she notes that Gore is intelligent, well-read, and truly knowledgeable. This speech makes me agree with her, almost completely.
My friend Jom summarized things well... "You know the place is going to hell when people like me end up noticing and get involved." I feel a lot of personal conviction to become more civically responsible.
It looks like we, as a nation, made a big mistake four years ago. Let's not do it again.
