The Oscar’s broadcast was a fun burst of fantasy-celebrity. A roomful of beautiful, well-dressed people, intelligent, creative and in many cases wealthy. It’s like they’re a tribe apart. It’s good to know that humans are capable of that.

It’s good to see, too, that we Americans still know how to create culture worth exporting. Of the three things we’re known for, it seems like it’s the only one left. As a military superpower we’re in the middle of being reminded of our limitations. As the global economic leader, the dollar is sagging and the trade gap is ballooning as our jobs flow overseas. But the world still gets excited by that fantastical elixir called American culture. It’s magic.

Ellen Degeneres was great as a presenter (I just finished reading her book And The Funny Thing Is…, which is funny and very well written). Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth inarguably deserved its Oscar – I saw it twice and it made me just as verklempt the second time; to think, an American leader who’s smart, visionary and compassionate. Now that’s magic.