By: Arnold Bornstein
I like the response of Nebraska’s Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, 60, a decorated Vietnam veteran, to Time magazine’s question: "Is it important that the next president be a veteran?"
He said: "[Combat experience] puts you in a position not to think of war as an abstraction but as a very real event of significant suffering. If you don’t personally have that experience, then putting people around you who have that experience is important. In the Bush Administration’s case, there was only one person who had anything close to that experience, and that was Colin Powell, the one person they listened to least."
The aging process particularly today as people live longer and generally seem to take better care of themselves is a factor that should have several messages for those of all ages, particularly the young.
If keeping fit, eating healthy, and trying to pursue a happy, satisfying lifestyle can help lead you to additional and gratifying years, why not commit yourself to attempting it? While you can’t control genes, bad breaks and accidents, you can focus on what is within your control. Your family and friends, as well as you, will appreciate it.
When you happen to see a really good film, you may think of it as merely getting out of the house, going on a date, or taking a break from just watching television not as an art form. I think there is another perspective to it.
Art often was commissioned by royalty. The traditional art forms including painting, literature, classical music and opera originally belonged in the lifestyles of the affluent and educated upper classes of history, rather than the masses of common people.
Movies, on the other hand, which include writing, acting and artistic and technical creativity, have become an art form of the masses.
While films like "The Departed" and a Shakespearean play shouldn’t be compared, bear in mind that a movie will be seen by millions all over the world. One of Shakespeare’s plays staged at the Globe Theater in England while The Bard was still alive more than 400 years ago had an extremely limited and different kind of audience.
In regard to television, other than the news and sports, the creative emphasis appears to be on series such as "24," "CSI" or "Prison Break," as well as entertainment-based shows like "American Idol" or reality series. Once in a while, you’ll see a made-for-TV movie that you consider exceptional. I think the real cinematic art form remains in movies made for theaters, but there are lots of duds, or escapism movies, just as there are in the books that you may read.
In Europe and other parts of the world, fights and incidents among ardent soccer sports fans have sometimes resulted in fatalities. In the United States, professional soccer has not become popular, at least not yet.
However, the passion for sports in America particularly for pro and college teams in football, baseball and basketball seems to reflect a connection between childhood and adulthood, between dreams and reality. Fans root for their team and certain athletes as if driven by a personal connection.
Besides the obvious entertainment link, there also is the link to those who accomplish what you perhaps dreamed of as a child. And then there’s the connection of becoming absorbed in the winning and losing of a goal that may temporarily make you escape from the disappointment of something less than victory in an aspect of your own life.
The Ides of March now comes in April for the IRS.
Daylight Saving Time will begin a little earlier this year: Sunday, March 11.
The popular board game Monopoly game was invented on March 7, 1933. I was again reminded of this childhood favorite while driving in Atlantic City last week, since the game uses many of the the city’s street names.
Albert Einstein, who lived in Princeton for a while, was born on March 14.
Here’s what many of us have been waiting for: Wednesday, March 21 will mark the first day of spring.
And as my wife reminds me, the most important date in the month is March 12, our anniversary.
We often encounter the relentless refrain of words and concepts in our everyday conversations words like morality, values, suffering, war, peace, love and hope.
To paraphrase Hamlet, what are we reading or hearing? "Words, words, words."
Now, perhaps more so than at any other time in recorded history, we read and hear words like nuclear war, terrorism, genocide, World War III and global warming.
These words pertain to our planet and its inhabitants, but also there are the words hope, peace, humanity, the future and we all know that action speaks louder than those words.
Arnold Bornstein is a resident of Greenbriar at Whittingham in Monroe.

