Sarah Palin & the Dalai Mama: Two very different speakers come to Silicon Valley
25 October 2010By Jane Stillwater
The other day, me and my family all piled into my son
Joe's car and drove down to San Jose to see the Dalai
Lama in person. Not surprisingly, there were
approximately15,000 other people there who had gotten
the same idea as us. The San Jose Convention Center
was jam-packed and sold out.
Have you ever tried to assemble almost your entire
family at one time and in one place? Frazzling. But we
did it -- because all of us really wanted to go see
the Dalai Lama. And driving to San Jose, getting lost
a whole bunch of times and searching for parking
within walking distance was even worse -- especially
with two-year-old Mena on board.
"Quick! Take a picture of the Dalai Lama with your
cell phone," I ordered my daughter Ashley -- who
immediately got busted by an usher for taking
unauthorized photos and almost got her phone
confiscated too. Oops.
"There's Pierce Brosnan," said my son.
Then Mena ran away from us, hunkered down under an
exhibit table in the lobby and had to be dragged out
screaming by a security guard. Then, once inside the
venue, she immediately tore down the main aisle toward
the front, yelling, "Dalai Mama! Dalai Mama!" like she
was some kind of long-lost sacred rinpoche
reincarnation finally about to be reunited with her
mum. And she almost made it too -- but a security team
stopped her at the third row.
And I myself spent a goodly amount of time searching
the venue for elevators and coffee -- I don't do so
good with stairs these days and am probably the last
person in my generation to succumb to the lure of
caffeine addiction.
But finally we were all seated and the Dalai Lama
started to speak -- but I have no idea what he said
because the sound system was lousy. "Humility, peace,
love and compassion," is my closest guess. Who knows.
But by the time he finished speaking, all 15,000 of us
audience members clearly felt like we'd just been
calmed, soothed, mellowed out and given the gift of
great hope. It was a truly awesome moment, well worth
every hassle.
And as we drove out of the parking structure after
this extraordinary and inspiring experience, I spotted
a big poster near the exit that read, "Next Event --
Sarah Palin". And we were all immediately struck by
the contrast in messages between the speaker we had
just heard and the speaker to come. On this singular
afternoon, the "Dalai Mama" had fired us all up with
his universal message of peace, love and hope -- and
yet there, surrounded by the very same air that the
Dalai Lama had just breathed, Sarah Palin would soon
be trying to fire up people with her mean-spirited
messages of violence and hate.
I will NOT be taking young Mena to go see Sarah Palin.
PS: I just read where only 1,200 people showed up at
Sarah Palin's event. Ha!
PPS: I dearly love the Daily Kos but writing there on
the subject of Israel and Palestine can be truly
tricky -- because if you cross a certain invisible
line regarding that subject, Kos readers will really
yell at you (a lot): http://www.dailykos.com/story
/2010/10/20/912179/- Higher-standards:-
What-if-Afghanistan-was- like-Palestine
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