Something new came in the mail today. Amid the offer from my AT & T Universal Card, a promotion from Continental Airlines, the few dozen catalogs with "cutesy" or "homey" names [Plow and Hearth; Shovel and Plunger; Bullet and Gun; Horse and Checkbook] something new appeared: a form letter from Cambridge Who's Who. Naturally, when one sees "Cambridge", thoughts turn to the illustrious English university, or the city in which Harvard is located. In this case, the return address was Uniondale, NY, a nondescript town on Long Island. Having your headquarters in Uniondale is not a good sign. Trust me on this one (note that it's not Uniondale Who's Who).
As I rushed to open it, my heart pounded (time for more nitroglycerin). The letter said that I was being considered for inclusion [read: we got your name from a mailing list, so return the form, buy the overpriced book, and you're in, moron] into the 2007/2008 Cambridge Who's Who Among Exceutives and Professionals "Honors Edition" of the Registry. It continued: "Inclusion is considered by many [many what? illiterati?] as the single highest mark of achievement" [read: even more so than obtaining a GED]. Still more: "Upon final confirmation [read: when your credit card clears] you will be listed among thousands of accomplished [read: they can walk and chew gum simultaneously] in the Cambridge Who's Who Registry." Seriously, the solicitation did say there would be no cost to be included, and that they were "proudly not associated or affliliated with any other Who's Who Publication or Organization".
My curiosity was piqued so I looked up www.cambridgewhoswho.com. The WWW site actually allowed you to look up "featured members" [big mistake!], so I did. Their areas of expertise were given, so I decided to list some (I am not making these up):
Continence care (like I could give a ****); assisting with chopping, cleaning, and cooking (say what?); visualizing golf clothing for fashion and comfort; managing postal inspector's office and mail classification; massage diploma program certification; sox (??) documentation; continence online education (there we go again).
You get the picture. The "featured members" were not la creme de la creme. Neither did there seem to be very many "featured members". I did not investigate further to discover what it meant to be a "featured member". In any case, I cannot hope to compete with someone whose expertise is "continence care" (although I will eventually need someone with those skills) so I am passing on the membership offer.
And now for something completely different - Tiger Woods. Just a thought: I have never heard Tiger Woods referred to as an Asian-American or even an African-Asian-American (wow, a double-hyphenated American!). His mother is Thai, his father was African-American. When people do comment on his ethnicity, it's "African-American". Seems like the Asian side of his heritage is getting short shrift.
But what do I know? I turned down Cambridge Who's Who!
"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard." -- Steven Wright
In the United States, one drop of Black/African American blood in either parent makes the baby an/a African American/Black American. I know that we hear a lot of talk about the "other" ethnic group in Tiger Woods' background but this old United State's rule trumps all other cards.
L. Wayne
Posted by: l.Wayne Stewart | Wednesday, 08 July 2009 at 02:21 PM