"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

What I've Learned: Esther J. Cepeda

In honor of my birthday this Sunday – which I’ll celebrate with a carnival of activities not limited to a viewing of the new Disney flick Beverly Hills Chihuahua – I’m shamelessly ripping off a favorite feature from my very favorite magazine, Esquire, which has accompanied me on many a weary night.

What I’ve Learned: Esther J. Cepeda

Spirit, 34, Chicago

Instead of fretting about every little thing, I live as though every experience I’ve had was in preparation for this very moment (because it was).

People ask me: "How do you find time to do so much stuff?" I like to quote Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’." Besides, what else am I gonna do? Watch TV all night? Ain’t nuthin’ on.

No matter who dies, after awhile you do the unthinkable – outta nowhere you laugh. You laugh so hard it feels like your heart is going to burst. You laugh so hard you cry. Then all of a sudden everything feels like it can be ok again.

Eat! I had a culinary awakening in 2004 – I was at the grocery store minding my own business when saw a disposable pepper mill with fresh peppercorns in it. I bought it and my life has never been the same. Who would have thought a two-dollar pepper mill could transform a life from ho-hum to va-va-voom?

Sure it takes a lot of guts, grit, and determination to run a half-marathon but that’s the easy part. The hard part is getting up at 5am when the mercury shows it’s actually below freezing outside, and logging in the training miles with no peppy water station attendants or family members calling out your name at mile five. Then you say that to someone who’s run a full marathon and they chuckle quietly thinking: "loser!"

You might think being a teacher is an easy gig but it’s the hardest damn thirteen bucks an hour anyone will ever earn. On a daily basis you fear for the future of our country, laugh your ass off at a stray witty remark, and get humbled by acts of kindness. Ok, the acts of kindness thing not that often, but still.

Pro-life or pro-choice? When it’s you on the exam table with an eight inch needle sticking out of your pregnant belly and the moment of extended dead silence occurs and you get quickly escorted to the small room with the nice lady with the three boxes of tissues and you get the terrible news … even when you choose life, it’s still nice to know you have a choice.

The secret to my success is I shut my mouth and listen. People adore that, and they never forget it.

I never liked the "stranded on a desert island" question because even if I were stranded on a desert island and even if Lon Chaney Sr. and Ben Franklin were there with me, and even if we did have a chess board and an unlimited supply of pizza, I still have to say…if I were stranded on a desert island I’d want a motor boat and enough gas to get home.

Yes, Lon Chaney, Sr. – NOT Junior Wolf dude! I’m talkin’ ‘bout The Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame, the "Man of a Thousand Faces." It’s the hands, it’s all about the hands.

Oh and…cheese and sausage, of course.

Chihuahuas are complex creatures: crabby, indignant, manipulative, resourceful, simultaneously cute and hideous. Sort of like cats, but willing to whore themselves by parceling out affection in order to further their own sinister agenda.

Learning to play the guitar takes a lot of time and it’s hard on the fingers but after all that work, when you can finally sit on your front porch on a warm summer night and accompany yourself on the Stones’ "Wild Horses," it’s sweet. Very sweet.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Two white guys “At the Movies”

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

First off, let me put this out there… I love white people. Half my family (the half that isn’t, by the numbers, even more Filipino than it is Hispanic) is white.

I’m also not the type to go around being all bitter that "da man" is trying to keep me down. But sometimes it sorta, kinda feels like maybe…

Here’s what gets me: Roger Ebert and Rich Roeper walked away from At the Movies and were replaced by...drumroll please… two pasty white guys.

Fine, upstanding, imminently qualified guys, perhaps funny and – to some tastes – attractive guys. But… well… white guys!

It’s 2008 and some black dude is running for president, but the movie review show based in Chicago – which has one of the largest black and Latino populations in America – couldn’t find one single movie writer, reviewer, or blogger "of color" as the kids like to say, to fill one of the seats? Give me a break!

Back when the world was young and movies were no longer the sort of place you got dressed up to go to, Roger Ebert invented the newspaper beat of "Movie critic." And God bless him for doing so, he took what could have been a meritless, fluffy opinion column and created serious scholarly discourse on an important American art form.

In 1982, Rog, along with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune brought movie criticism into the mainstream with their inimitable TV show Sneak Previews which went onto become At the Movies. About a year after Gene died in 1999, Roger’s fellow Sun-Times columnist became his new balcony-mate. I was thrilled!

Never mind that Rich was totally cool, an awesome writer on many things including –

but not limited to – movies, he had great chemistry. But not only that, Roeper was the final pick after a long slew of many male, female, and diverse "guest hosts" auditioned for over a year. He was the best, no problem – merit-based success is really the only kind that should exist.

I’ll take a side-note here to say I’m sure the show’s producers had a really hard time finding such a diverse array of talent to fill that guest slot. There are very, very few popular minority media people, much less those with cushy entertainment beats…editors generally send black reporters to the South Side and the Latino ones to the local factories to investigate immigration raids. (Yes, that is a true statement.) Let’s face it, people who aren’t white have had a tough time cracking into such elite white-collar positions as "movie critic."

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just crushing sour grapes here, it’s not like I sent an audition tape, but last week when I read about Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons’ new gigs in Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder’s piece ABC 7 ready to raise curtain on new 'At the Movies' , what could I do but just shake my weary head?

I’ve got nothing against Ben and Ben. Feder called them "both scions of famed show-biz families; Mankiewicz was a host for Turner Classic Movies and Sirius Satellite Radio, and Lyons reported for E! Entertainment," so clearly they’re qualified. But c’mon, only white people get to give their take on talkies?

What about George Singleton? What about some talented blogger? Hey, how’s this: how about a woman – any color’s fine.

Yep, it’s 2008 and women and blacks are not only allowed to vote but they get to do so for someone who looks like them. Good times, in perspective.

But though I don’t think there’s some anti-minority media bias, sadly, there seems to be a terrible confluence of managerial blind spots and lack of imagination and – even worse – a lack of opportunity for writers who aren’t white.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

The Adler Planetarium’s star: Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Take a moon-entranced kid who grew up scarfing down Isaac Asimov and tinkering with music and video, give him the boundless resources of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium then add the creative spark that only Chicago’s funkiest band of violins, cellos, flutes, and tubas can bring, and what do you get?

The kind of sensual, visually-arresting cosmic journey usually reserved for Grateful Dead concerts – in the form of sumptuous interstellar images pas de deux-ing with the Chicago Sinfonietta’s elegant wall of sound under a summery dusk.

The kid in question is Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado, an Adler Planetarium Astronomer and Science Visualizer who is quickly making a name for himself around our humble globe as a choreographer of – not to – the stars. His video journeys through the galaxy visit such notable hangouts as the Eagle Nebula and the surface of Mars, and have been such a hit that they’re making their way to stargazers in Spain and Paris.

You don’t have to travel that far, though. After a series of incredible collaborations with the Chicago Sinfonietta – aka America’s most diverse orchestra aka the Joffrey Ballet’s pit crew – the gang is presenting a free encore presentation of Gustav Holst’s "The Planets" on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage at Millenium Park Friday August 22nd.

"In 2005 the Sinfonietta came to the Adler looking for a visual backdrop for ‘The Planets’ performances and basically [the Adler] asked me because of all my interests in art, classical music, and graphic arts," Jose told me this week. "I’d been looking for the perfect project and this was it."

I had the pleasure of experiencing his visual choreography during the Chicago Sinfonietta’s May production of Astronomical Pictures at an Exhibition, where Jose choreographed real space pictures and computer generated images from astronomical data to Modest Mussorgsky’s "Pictures."

"The visualizations themselves looked like works of art," Jose said, adding that he gets only the best pictures from his peeps at NASA, the European Space Agency. Some he creates himself with raw data from Adler’s databases. "[Leading the viewer] through the promenade passages, walking through the "gallery," was the perfect way of showing cutting edge images and visualizations. ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ took about four months, ‘The Planets’ took about six."

If you’re the type who regards the constellations as greatly-jeweled chandeliers that sail through our night sky, a mysterious scattering of eternally circumnavigating planets, their many moons and countless stars continually scanned for their secrets, you’re not alone. For others, the very mention of the term "solar system" causes a reflexive yawn.

"‘The Planets’ is about planting the seed, about inspiring people to learn more about the solar system in general and hopefully grab a book, got to the planetarium or next time they’re switching channels and see a documentary to stop and watch it," said the guy who got interested in astronomy as a third-grade boy when he happened upon a book about the first moon landing his dad owned in their native Puerto Rico.

"Astronomy uses cutting-edge technology and data for scientific purposes but for education and outreach also, it’s a great way to engage audiences who are not science attendant," he said. "My interests are not only in science but in technology, graphic arts, photography – I even compose [music] a bit – I use it all to engage people."

And he does it in two languages! Ever so humble, Jose doesn’t go on and on about how few Latinos there are in the sciences, he just works to change it. As the Adler Planetarium's webmaster, he’s got a web page devoted to Spanish-language astronomy resources and is working to create educational resources, such as a planetarium show in English and Spanish, for nationwide distribution.

"’The Planets’ is a good synthesis of the things we have achieved in solar system exploration. It doesn’t cover absolutely everything but it’s a very, very good summary," he said. "What’s interesting is that many people will come out of the concert learning so much just from looking at the visualizations."

"It’s so exciting, to see the conductor synching the music to the visuals," Jose said, "and to see people coming out of the hall and saying ‘Wow I didn’t know that Jupiter had so many moons!’ It’s so very rewarding."

(full disclosure: I am a Director on the Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta, and as such I personally invite you to join us for this FREE concert, under the actual stars, in Millennium Park on Friday August 22nd. I hope you can make it!)

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Say it with me: Chee-wah-wah

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Some stereotypes are true: I’m Hispanic and I own two Chihuahuas.

It is also true that: "Yo Quiero Taco Bell!"

Back in the late 90’s, before point and click tags were created, I taught myself how to write HTML code by setting up a website in which my two darlings masqueraded as Daisy, the Taco Bell Chihuahua. They answered fan mail via a "question of the day" and I got a lot of foot traffic to the site by including several photo galleries of "wet, naked Chihuahuas."

And so it is with great, great pleasure that I welcome you to countdown with me the seventy-three days left until what will surely be the highlight of my month. Three words: Beverly. Hills. Chihuahua.

Oh, yes – I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that.

Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua "50% Warrior. 50% Lover. 100% Chihuahua" (they totally lifted that off of my bio!) comes out September 26. This is a, ahem, tale of an oxymoronically spoiled Chihuahua named Chloe whose ancestors, according to the trailer, "went into battle alongside Aztec warriors, today move within the inner circles of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet" gets lost on a trip to Mexico.

The creamy-white Chloe, inimitably lisped by Drew Barrymore, then must rely on the kindness of a colorful cast of strangers to get back to Beverly Hills and along with the romantic lead – a luxuriously tan Chihuahua named Papi voiced by George Lopez – runs into dogs voiced by a line-up of Hollywood’s Hispanic elite: Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Paul Rodriguez, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, and Placido Domingo.

If you’re going to email me about the victimization of Latinos because of the Mexican stereotypes in this movie, just click away now and leave me and my Speedy Gonzalez lunchbox alone.

Alternately if you’re going to complain about "the man" casting one of the whitest white girls in Hollywood, Drew Barrymore, rather than Salma Hayek or Jennifer Lopez in the lead role, thereby creating an all-Latino affair, then I say to you: It’s called "crossover appeal," get some.

If you’re looking for a politically correct movie, look much further. Heck its historical correctness is a little sketchy; the movie trailer has already been criticized for setting up a story based on the Aztec warriors of Mexico in Machu Picchu, an Inca city located in Peru.

But I’ll not let anyone deny me or my two lovely’s moment in the sun, and I can’t spend any more time writing today, I only have seventy-three days in which to craft two wildly-colored, beaded, feathery headdresses for the big night. And where did I leave those copper lip plugs…

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Leave the accuracy-meter at home, this is merely a flat-out fiesta for a Chihuahua-lovin’ nation! We’re talkin’ a cast of thousands of feathery head-dressed boogeying Chihuahuas punctuated by a cadre of well-choreographed, blinged-out rapping Chihuahuas bustin’ rhymes such as "we’re tiny, we’re mighty, we’re number one, we’re the real ‘hot dog’ yo- hold da bun!" Priceless.

Alas, not everyone is anticipating this flick by setting their atomic clocks to the opening of what will surely be an Academy Award-winning film in the category of "Best Supporting Mexican Dog."

I’m envisioning certain types decrying it for glorifying the illegal passage of unlicensed Chihuahuas from Mexico to the United States. Others are already reacting by posting videos of themselves and their non-Chihuahua canine friends cringing while viewing a trailer of the movie, as reported in Tuesday’s New York Times article

"Chihuahuas in headdresses? I cringe, YouCringe."

The Tao of Jack Black

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

He's fat. He's jiggly. He can belt out a tune and makes me laugh. He is my sage.

Jack Black, in his cinematic tromp through the wisdom of the ages, has done it once more. He is, again, the protagonist in a film whose undercurrent is the power of positive belief in your grandest dreams.

This time he scatters Lao Tzu and Taoism's "10,000 things" of inner love and outer peace across the silver screen in Kung Fu Panda, where he "stars" as "Po," the fat panda who emerges as the unlikely Dragon Warrior who will save the animal populace of the Chinese Valley of Peace from the evil Tai Lung who himself is bent on snatching the powerful Dragon Scroll from the temple of wisdom.

This is not the first time the jelly-bellied comic actor has contorted himself within a story-line featuring a sweet underdog who sees beyond the practicalities of those who tell him it can't be – when he knows it can – then makes it so.

From his debut in one of my favorite movies, Bob Roberts, as a true-believing devotee of the eponymous questionable senatorial candidate (Tim Robbins) to the bumbling and Shallow Hal who falls in love with a big, fat blonde but only sees her true inner beauty, Black has mostly picked projects with undeniably uplifting themes.

Who can forget Black's turn in School of Rock as Dewey Finn who literally manifests a rock band out of a pack of spoiled rich kids? Or Nacho Libre where the once-orphaned brother Nacho realizes his dream of becoming the greatest Lucha Libre "luchador" in the world? Long before he triumphs in a dusty Mexican ring against such prize-fighters as "Silencio" and "Ramses," he tells himself: "I am the gatekeeper of my own destiny, and I will have my glory days." He sure does.

Kung Fu Panda pushes major tenets of Taoism to a mainstream audience in a way that that Mike Myers' new film The Love Guru, replete with penis jokes and other entendres, couldn't, though I think it half-heartedly wanted to.

Take Oogway: "There are no accidents." And "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

Also: "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." And my very favorite: "There is no good news, there is no bad news, there is only news."

Shifu, the kung fu teacher, tells us: "I ask you to trust in your master as I have come to trust in mine." Beautiful.

Po, in his opening dream – before he begins to fulfill his destiny as the true Dragon Warrior – says of his kung fu prowess: "It is said that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness!" (That's so "hard core!") If that isn't the power of positive thinking to manifest your own destiny, then I'm Deepak Chopra.

Obviously, I'm not Deepak, and Jack Black is no Lao Tzu. But sitting in a darkened room with popcorn and JB's jiggling inspiration, I call him "teacher."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Men are from Mars, Women are from Shoe-piter

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

The most recent pop-culture phenomenon uninteresting to anyone possessing what Shakespeare referred to as a "bauble" in Romeo and Juliet (read between the loins!) is the chick flick Sex and the City – aka an extended advertisement for shoes.

Frankly, I can't conceive of any shoe that would make S&tC worth sitting through, but it does bring up the question: "what is it with women and shoes?!"

It seems inexplicable – I don’t know any men who give a rat’s ass about what a woman has on her feet. The way I hear it, the male glance usually doesn’t get that far in the few moments he has to adequately check a woman out.

Sit and learn, grasshoppas, I shall clue you in to the truth behind the shoe fetish: women don’t wear nice shoes to impress men, or convey their sexuality or personality to men- they do it to convey all those things to other women. "I’m sexy, I have it all together, I’m professional, I have impeccable taste, I may be older but I’m still flirty," or as the Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts used to say: "Hotter Than Your Girlfriend."

It's the wrath of the garden-variety amateur fashionista that instills fear into women dressing for the office, a club, and even grocery shopping. As little girls this same lot might have gone for the jugular with: "You look funny. I don’t like your clothes. You’re ugly!" The grown-up equivalent of these daggers to the heart is quietly whispered to a female co-conspirator, intoned perfectly so that the comment will be sure to be heard by its intended victim: "Oh my God, will you look at her shoes?!"

On the flip side, the ultimate compliment women give each other is comprised of four little words: "I love your shoes."

But there's more! The varying degree of admiration is all in the delivery. Train your ears for these:

"I love your shoes" conveys a conspiratorial, rushing-to-the-defense-of-a-sister benevolence.

"I love your shoes" is a breathless testament to the coolness of the wearer, or could be more a statement that the wearer has met certain standards of taste where others usually fail.

"I love your shoes" is the natural reciprocation of female adulation and in some circles is considered a requirement before any conversation is allowed to continue. Lack of reciprocation in such situations could be grounds for at least a minor blow up.

‘I love your shoes" puts the focus on the shoes themselves and suggests that they, and not the wearer, deserve the credit for delivering themselves to said wearer thereby elevating her appearance for the day to a higher level. This is not the warmest incarnation.

Let us not forget the show stopper: delivered at ear-busting decibels, designed to shock your target and turn every head within a 12 foot radius. This visceral, primal scream of adoration for both wearer and shoes is articulated very slowly "I-LOVE-YOUR-SHOES!"

There’s your money shot, that’s the one you deliver at the second job interview, the one that goes out to your future mother-in-law, the one you give a cranky manager when every other attempt to cut ahead in line has failed and your crying baby won’t shut up.

Sometimes the show stopper can be truly honest and come as a complete surprise to both wearer and witnesser. Even I'll admit to spotting shoes so sumptuous, so beautiful, and so desirable that I've exploded with the simultaneous emotions of pure aesthetic delight, deep longing for a pair just like it, and stinging green envy that the wearer has them, you don’t and now it’ll be really lame to go out and buy the same exact pair. Drat!

The "great knowledge/great responsibility" part: Ladies, use this wisdom for good, not evil.

And gentlemen: observe and take note. But unless you want the female in question to suspect strongly you are gay – by the way, this will be the de facto assumption if you're at a screening of S&tC without having been dragged kicking and screaming by your girlfriend – limit the sharing of these secrets to your buddies.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Scary South Americans!

Pregunta del Dia by Esther J. Cepeda

Bum bah dum-dum, bum ba-dee! Bum bah dum-dum, bum ba-dee-Dee-DEE!!

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s comes from a loyal, albeit bitter, Westchester, IL reader who preferred to remain nameless:

Q. Did you see that Indiana Jones movie, just about a buncha white men looting our culture?

A. Whoa, Nelly! (No, not really "Nelly," though that is a popular name in Latin America.) Take a chill pill, will ya – not everything is about "da man" trying to keep us down.

Monday morning I sat in an audience of predominantly white movie-goers practically vibrating with glee that the long-awaited summer blockbuster chose to highlight my beautiful ancestral South America.

There were jungles, maps of Peru (darned close to Ecuador), mentions of Quechua – a native tongue my own father has referenced many times in passing conversation about his youth in Quito – and gorgeous pyramids, waterfalls, and indigenous women in their traditional multi-colored ponchos and felt bowler hats.

Ok, so the only people of color in the movie where those baddish, scary-exotic loin-clothed Indians oddly reminiscent of Jack Black’s toothy sidekick "Esqueleto" in Nacho Libre. But aside from a drop-dead-gorgeous Cate Blanchett the real star of the movie is its location.

Ok, ok, so the Peruvian town was actually a backlot in California and the jungle was in reality in Hawaii, details – mere quibbles! I felt the director’s and producer’s love, and in this time where anyone brown is either looked at with suspicion because they might throw an election or scam someone out of their social security debt – ahem, I mean, benefits – we need all the Latin American lovin’ we can get.

As for the tall tale of the crystal skull, the official Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull web site has a nice, long explanation of its’ origins and whether there might be any truth to it. Better still, read Benjamin Radford’s column on livescience.com, there he describes the real-life quartz Skull of Doom "supposedly found in the 1920s at a lost Mayan ruin in Central America by an explorer named F. A. Mitchell-Hedges…rumored to have the power to kill." His florid description ends with a less-than-mystical forgery theory, but hey, where’s your benefit of the doubt?

I won’t take any mind-altering substances and peer into the misty corridors of "my people’s" collective knowledge for the truth – you can do that yourself – but I don’t need to. Not only do "I want to believe," but what I know for a fact is that South America truly is lush, gorgeous, and full of nice monkeys. There really are glittering water falls, ancient mysteries, and is to this day home to women who wear the colorful ponchos and bowlers everyday. And I’m eternally grateful to Doctor Jones for pointing it out.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

John Lennon was no William Shatner

by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s is a rumination from myself (I can do that y’know)

Q. Is Star Trek "God" and is William Shatner "Jesus?"

A. Yes you read that correctly, and no, I did not mean is Captain James T. Kirk "Jesus."

Allow me to set the dots and then I’ll connect them for you.

No, I’m not a heretic, it’s just that coincidences (events that coincide i.e., correspond exactly) this week have led me to wonder.

Not only did William Shatner, hereby referred to only as SHATNER, appear to me in the form of a direct mail piece sprung on me late at night in a tired stupor and as a four-color animatron as I purchased on-line, but so did "Star Trek"(which I hated, hated, hated as a child because it was boring to me and seemed to be always on TV on my lonely Saturday afternoons). This flowed from the mouths of two people I admire greatly within 24-hours of each other.

Thursday morning – at the top of the world – on the 66th floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, John W. Rowe, 62, chairman and chief executive officer of Exelon Corporation at a meeting of the Executives Club of Chicago, talked about reducing carbon emissions by 2020 and invoked a Star Trek episode in which some-thing-or-other tried to eradicate the carbon-based life forms.

Friday morning Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, wrote about ex-Gov. George Ryan mis-quoting Lincoln by actually quoting someone who was playing Abraham Lincoln in an episode of…you guessed it.

The other obvious contender for such mythical status is "Star Wars" and its’ "force," (another pop-culture phenomenon I know nothing about) which is openly practiced as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural religion in some corners of the world, but: 1) Darth Vader doesn’t actually walk among us (James Earl Jones isn’t nearly that tall or intimidating) like SHATNER. And 2) SHATNER is, well…SHATNER!

How a show that accurately predicted the future -- today's realities -- and how Shatner can become one man-character-god, infused into my life in a billion different ways (my freshman AP biology teacher made our final "A nature example of the Prime Directive." I had no idea whatsoever what that even meant. I can’t believe I slid out with a "C.") is beyond comprehension. John Lennon once got himself in hot water for comparing his fame to Jesus. SHATNER has legions doing it for him (Oh yeah, just Google it).

I surrender. I have no answer to whether SHATNER is "the savior" but I’m going to paint him as the Virgin Guadalupe on black velvet just in case.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com