by Diane Tate

Hometown legacies – part 3 –



Eureka! There IS more than failed mortgage payments and fugitive financiers to speak of when Detroit comes to mind!

DETROIT — Kwame M. Kilpatrick, the charismatic mayor of Detroit who has been embroiled in legal problems stemming from a sex scandal since the beginning of the year, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and resigned his office Thursday morning as part of a deal with prosecutors.

He agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice and to plead no contest to a felony count of assault on a police officer; to pay restitution to the city of $1 million; to surrender his law license, forfeit his state pension to the city and be barred from elective office for five years; and to serve 120 days in the Wayne County jail, followed by five years’ probation….

….Later, referring to his guilty plea, he said, “I lied under oath.”

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by Diane Tate

oh please oh please




In ascending order of gravity:

1) Let the legacy of my very own hometown of Farmington Hills, MI be more than Bill & Sue Nebe’s struggles to make their mortgage payments per John McCain’s speech tonite. Viva Farmington Hills!

2) Let Roberta McCain’s gene pool live on in John! All 96 years of her actually bolted out of her chair on cue tonite (and I couldn’t see an audio aid could you?); and

3) Let the character demonstrated by McCain so many years ago – truly the Hemingway protagonist ‘grace under pressure’ definition of character in line with Gretchen’s definition in the post immediately below – prove true …..should he need to have it…..

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by Diane Tate

Like a dog & a bone


The latest development in my tenacious quest to define character: interestingly, Gretchen, our creative arts director, just elaborated on this in her Labor Day sermon (check out the 8/31/08 one once it’s posted here).

I’ve taken Gretchen’s classes on “Story” (adapted from the infamous Robert McKee classic…so beautifully mocked in “Adaptation“…but I digress…) – all that to say she gets storytelling and used this to elaborate on what CHARACTER is. Specifically as distinct from “characterization”:

– Characterization is what we can glean about people from their observable traits: mannerisms, looks, habits, words, voice, outward appearance.

..however…

– Character is ONLY revealed by the choices a person makes when under pressure.

It all leads us to a great reflection question: “What do our choices reveal about our character?”

Gretchen drove home the point by referencing another film hero, Steven Spielberg, who apparently screens movies by leaving out the SOUND. This filters out the ‘noise’ (literally and figuratively) to enable him to get at the core of the characters …as revealed by what they DO vs. what they say (or perhaps for us, what they write, text, etc. as well….).

So if someone were watching our life as if it were a silent movie, what would they say about us? In essence, who ARE we (as distinct from what we may say or think we are)?

The Hebrew mindset is dead-on here. It’s all about ACTIONS. Jesus the Israeli said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

Words words words. Maybe I should blog less.

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