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Light Rail, Condi Rice

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

1.                 Light Rail – Is it possible that the proposed light rail project for Louisville really is dead?  Let’s hope so!  As compared with bus service, light rail is vastly more expensive, slower, and much more dangerous.  It is also completely inflexible, in that routes cannot be changed to suit the changing needs of the consuming public, whereas bus routes can readily be changed.  The only attraction of light rail is the “free” federal money to build it, which, of course, is not really free.  Given all the practical drawbacks of light rail, its substantial disadvantages compared with the alternatives, and the ongoing maintenance costs that would not be supported by “free federal money”, we should be very thankful this proposed project is dead.  Let’s drive a stake through its heart so it doesn’t ever come back to life!

2.                 Condi Rice – I just finished reading Condi, by Antonia Felix, a book about National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and I learned a few things I’d like to share.  Rice’s unusual first name was derived from an Italian term, “con dolcezza”, which is used in music to instruct the musician to play “with sweetness”.  Rice began playing the piano at age 3 and set out to be a concert pianist, but, although she was very talented and driven, she realized in college that she did not have the extremely rare gift that would be required to be “the best”, so she changed course and found that she was fascinated with the Soviet Union.  Her mentor when she studied for her Ph.D. was Madeline Albright’s father. 

Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights movement.  She knew that the police often cleared her neighborhood and others in order to permit the Ku Klux Klan to firebomb and terrorize the residents, and she saw her father and other neighborhood men patrolling the neighborhood at night with their shotguns in order to defend their families and homes.  Realizing that, if the shotguns had been registered, Bull Conner would have come into her neighborhood and taken them away, Rice said, “I have a sort of pure Second Amendment view of the right to bear arms.” 

Rice’s parents tried to shield her from the racism, for example by not riding public transportation or using public toilets, and they encouraged her to get a good education and taught her that she could be anything she wanted to be.  While she might not be able to eat a hamburger in the local restaurant, she could become President of the United States.  Both Rice’s parents were college educated, and education was highly valued in her family. 

Rice was also an accomplished figure skater, and she loves and is very knowledgeable about football, having been taught by her father from a young age.  One of the many hats her father wore was that of football coach, so she learned from an expert.

Rice’s father tried to register to vote as a Democrat in Alabama, but, although he was well-educated and a respected member of the community, the Democrats did not allow him to register to vote, telling him he had to guess the correct number of beans in a jar if he wanted to register.  Instead, he registered as a Republican, where there were no barriers.  Rice, herself, had been registered and had voted as a Democrat until she saw how Jimmy Carter handled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.   She said, “I thought the Soviets were aggressive and playing us like a violin.  I thought Carter didn’t understand the true nature of the Soviet Union, which was pretty dark.”  While her initial attraction to the Republican party began with its foreign policy, which was her area of interest and expertise, she later became attracted to its ideas concerning the benefits of small government.

I also learned that Rice was at Notre Dame working on her Master’s degree in Soviet Studies while I was there as a Junior (1974-75) studying engineering and Russian language.  Our paths must have crossed many times, since the professor who had attracted her to Notre Dame, Dr. Kertesz, was my advisor, and she was also studying the Russian language in ND’s very small Russian department.  I am disappointed that I never met her.   

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