The Other Side of the Ocean

He is a formidable cook who will whip up a whole roast pig for a casual lunch. He is a respected vintner who owns more than a dozen vineyards around the world and personally oversees the harvest and production at several. He wanders through foreign markets discovering local specialties, many of which he smuggles into France. He meanders freely into restaurant kitchens, eats whatever is stewing on the stove and peppers the chefs with questions: why are they cooking so-and-so, where does it come from and why are they making it that way?

Q: You never met [Saddam Hussein]?
A: He considered it far below his dignity to meet any sort of lowly creatures like international inspectors.

Q: Can one say the same of certain leaders in democratic countries? Wasn’t Vice President Cheney equally dismissive of you?
A: The Pentagon and Cheney have been very negative toward inspections. Cheney said inspections are useless at best.

Q: …you met with the president in the Oval Office?
A: It didn’t look very oval to me at the time, but I didn’t pay much attention. It was Colin Powell, Cheney and Bush and others—and a note taker! [He had earlier stated that no note takers were offered to the inspectors] They had one on their side and we had none on ours!

Q: Couldn’t you just have jotted down a few notes on the pad?
A: It’s not the decorum when you meet the president. You have to concentrate on the conversation.

Q: What was Bush like?
A: He was agile, moving, moving in the chair, especially compared to Cheney.

Q: Who, I suppose, seems more wooden.
A: Yes, the rumors that Cheney is alive are somewhat exaggerated. It’s Mark Twain in reverse.
[referring to Twain’s comment that the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated.]
…..
Q: What do you think of John Kerry?
A: I welcome his attitude toward multilateral cooperation. I think he is trying to get back to the traditional US attitudes.

Q: What do you make of the presidential race?
A: I think maybe we foreigners should have the right to vote in your next election, since we are so dependent on you.

2.4 million years ago, a muscle gene underwent a disabling alteration. … This could have made all the difference, leading to the enlarged brains of the lineage that evolved into modern humans. Researchers who made the discovery said this might be the first recognized functional genetic difference between humans and the apes that can be correlated with anatomical changes in the fossil record. As they said, the gene mutation may represent the beginning of the ancestral triumph of brain over brawn.
At the least, scientists said, the small mutated gene probably accounts for the more graceful human jaw, in contrast to the protruding ape jaw and facial ridges.

The cause of the mutation was unknown and probably unknowable: damage from cosmic rays perhaps, ingested toxins or other environmental exposures. Other contemporary hominid species could have been exposed to the same conditions, but for some reason, escaped with their myosin gene unaltered — and their jaws as formidable as ever. These robust but small-brain species continued to live in Africa until their line became extinct about one million years ago.

Dr. Minugh-Purvis said it was unclear how the mutation could have become fixed in the species, considering its potentially deleterious effects on survival. Perhaps other agents of change were already at work, like the transition to a richer protein diet of meat. The heavier jaws were required for grinding the mainstays, nuts and plants, in their diets.

Despite the fact that the new Adlon was the scene of Michael Jackson’s baby-dangling escapade from the balcony of the $7,000-a-night presidential suite in late 2002, The resurrected Adlon remains one of the great hotels of Europe. But what struck me most about the hotel on the afternoon I dropped in for a look was that the lobby was crowded with well-dressed women, most of whom appeared to be business travelers, sipping tea or coffee, either alone or in groups of two or three. ‘‘Women with class always know where the best place is to have coffee,’’ Reto Wittwer, the chief executive officer of Kempinski Hotels and Resorts, which numbers the Adlon among its properties, said on the telephone from the Adlon. …

Ask any executive in the hotel industry about the effect of this phenomenon, and you will hear this loud and clear: Far more than businessmen, businesswomen take careful measure of a hotel's amenities, design and service - and they compare notes with colleagues. More so than men, women clearly articulate their tastes and personal preferences in accommodations - and hotels respond. We can thank women travelers for the fact that at most good hotels, the beds are now more comfortable and better appointed than most at-home beds; the bathrooms have become spacious and luxurious; room service has been whipped into shape, and everything from towels to snacks in the minibar has improved.

My sister once told me transcendental meditation would change my life, so I went ahead and did it: paid $125 for a mantra. It may not sound like a lot of money, but (a) this was 1976 and my annual salary as a budding botanist was $8,000, and (b) no money ever bought less.

A bear is hibernating in a bald eagle nest at the top of a tree … while several of the birds look on.
``You can imagine they're thinking, 'Now what?' `` said Ron Eckstein, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist.

France's armed intervention was deeply resented. Some nativist reactions were relatively benign: romantic poetry celebrating the native soul, or a taste for folkloric roots.
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But in other cases the native soul, especially in Germany, turned sour and became antiliberal and anti-Semitic. (…)

As soon as Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, the liberal laws he instituted in Prussia were annulled. And a century later, the resentments planted by Napoleon's armed liberation sprouted their most bitter fruits in Nazi Germany.
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Arab and Muslim extremism may never become as lethal or powerful as the 20th-century German strain, but it has already taken a terrible toll. Once again a nation with a universalist mission to liberate the world is creating dangerous enemies.(...)
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This is not necessarily because the Islamic world hates democracy, but because the use of armed force - combined with the hypocrisy of going after one dictator while coddling others, the arrogant zealotry of some American ideologues and the failures of a ham-handed occupation - are giving America's democratic mission a bad name.

(…) There seems to be little doubt that most Iraqis were more than happy to see Saddam go. Most would have remained grateful to the United States and Britain, if only the coalition forces could have somehow gone home quickly, leaving Iraq with a functioning administration, electricity, running water and safe streets.
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This, of course, would not have been possible even if Britain and America had done everything right. The fact that the coalition got so much spectacularly wrong has made things far worse.

“My country,” complained its first occupant, John Adams, “has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” A century or so later, Woodrow Wilson chimed in, “The chief embarrassment in describing it is that in saying how little there is to be said about it one has evidently said all that there is to say.”

The Vice-Presidency is a much, much better job than it was in the old days. Back then, you drowsed through endless sessions of the Senate, lived in a flyspecked boarding house on a muddy street, and nursed your resentments. Now you get a mansion, a staff, and a plane worthy of a Saudi arms merchant. And, if you like undisclosed locations, no longer have detectable Presidential ambitions of your own, and serve a callow President so in thrall to you that when you headed his Vice-Presidential search committee you felt free to find yourself, you can end up achieving total world domination.

The biggest reason people want to be Vice-President, though, is that it has become the royal road to the Presidency, even if one’s boss remains in perfect health…. Four out of the last eight Presidents were ex-Veeps, only one of whom ascended on account of his predecessor’s death.

At the multiplex, Larionov said, he had sat quietly, admiring the approach, as it was depicted in “Miracle,” of the American coach, Herb Brooks. He heard Brooks use the old Russian expression “The legs feed the wolf” and saw his compatriots depicted, as usual, as talented but humorless automatons. He was caught up in the movie, riding the emotion. He liked the story.
“At the end of the movie, there was a standing ovation in the theatre,” Larionov said. “I just left. To be honest, I felt like I’d lost. My friends played there—Krutov, Makarov, Fetisov, Kasatonov. I wish the guys in Hollywood had spent more time, maybe even just five minutes, to show the Russian side of the story. They should have showed a little bit of what happened inside the Soviet camp. But I know American movies are always like that.”

In the Czech Republic, for instance, opinion against (emphasis added) invading Iraq without a second UN Security Council resolution reached 70%. In Poland, which is considered pro-American and now has troops serving in Iraq, 62% said in February 2003 that Warsaw should decline to support Washington in the Iraq matter.

Language was the evolutionary continuation of the grooming behaviors of our primate ancestors. The social cohesions essential for their survival flowed from the emotional bonds established by the obsessive intimacy of nit-picking and fur-raking. As the size of animal groupings grew, however, social management became trickier, and the amount of grooming time needed to grease the system (up to 50% of a primate day) began to interfere with the basic survival activities of gathering food and defending against predators. So humans evolved in such a way as to vocalize those rituals of emotional maintenance, which freed them to attend to other business simultaneously. And voila! –multitasking. Thus, through talk, are we h. sapiens able to massage the body politic while shelling peas on the porch.

"Self-control is very important in Finland," said Liisa Keltikangas-Jarvinen, a prominent professor of psychology at the University of Helsinki. "You cannot show anger; it means you can't cope. If a person is very temperamental and alive, expresses emotions like anger and happiness, the person is seen as infantile."

Here, experts say, a car accident triggers, not blame and insults, but a polite exchange of information. A bus breakdown causes no complaints; rather, the Finns on the bus will file off and try to push it to the next stop. …It is not unusual to walk into a restaurant and spot most people eating dinner in silence, content to chew and not chatter. Silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners, not boredom.

For others it becomes an effort to define what it means to be a European. Quickly, such conversations turn to intangibles, to talk of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and definitions offered centuries earlier by Dante and Voltaire. Some talk of a feeling of belonging that overcomes them in a Central European coffeehouse or of alienation when they visit the United States.

Sofia Coppola toasted her Best Screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation with the trendy new wine in Hollywood, Sofia Blanc de Blancs. This sparkling wine had its official debut on February 29 at the Oscar parties. It is composed of 70% pinot blanc, 20% sauvignon blanc and 10% muscat canelli and is made by Frances Ford Coppola’s winery, Niebaum-Coppola Winery in Napa Valley. A bottle costs $19, but the wine also comes packaged in single serving magenta pink cans with a straw attached, called the Sofia Mini, sold for $20 per box of four.

My ex wife kidnapped my son 4 yrs ago. She fled to Austria with him. My son is now 10yrs old. Last year was the first time she allowed me visitation with him (in Austria). She has sole custody of him in Austria. I have custody of him in the U.S. She said if I change the court papers here stating she has custody of him in the US she would allow him to come for a visit here in a few months. Is there an easy and inexpensive way I can change the court documents so they would be vague but state that she has custody and I have visitation rights? When my son arrives here I would of course want to wipe it out so it’s back to my having sole custody. Please if you could help me I would deeply appreciate it. Or if you know of one of your students that could help me out with the paper work....or what ever you could do. I am very desperate and don't have much time to take care of this.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye

Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by

Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you will cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you

And you, of tender years
Don't know the fears that your elders grew by
And so please help them with your youth
They seek the truth before they can die
Etc.

Why does Sen. John Kerry talk incessantly about Vietnam?
Obviously, it has given him a great political advantage in past campaigns and he hopes it will do the same in his race for the White House. But there might be another reason. Perhaps more than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, Kerry seems to be living in another time, playing a movie of Vietnam over and over in his mind . . .
Is Kerry's the only campaign to play Jimi Hendrix -- specifically, 'Fire' from the 1967 album Are You Experienced? -- at rallies? Other candidates -- like John Edwards, with his theme song, John Mellencamp's 'Small Town' -- aren't exactly cutting edge, but they have chosen somewhat newer stuff.
And what about the music on Kerry's bus? Before the Iowa caucuses, Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly described the candidate hanging out on the bus with Peter Yarrow, his old friend from Peter, Paul, and Mary. 'Pedro, sing us a song,' Kerry ordered one day. Yarrow picked up a guitar and began to play and sing -- and later waxed nostalgic about the antiwar rallies he attended way back when with Kerry and Eugene McCarthy.
Earlier, Connolly wrote, when Yarrow sang 'Puff the Magic Dragon' at an event in a private home in Ames, Iowa, 'Kerry lifted his fingers to his mouth for a quick toke on an imaginary joint. You can almost see his thick mane of silver hair returning to the shaggy brown do of those days.'
This man is living in a time warp. No wonder Kerry sees any conflict -- Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II --as a potential Vietnam. In Kerry's world, Vietnam is running on a continuous loop on that big screen TV -- with Jimi, Kris, and Peter, Paul, and Mary singing in the background.

Garvin Newsome seems to have it all—a successful business centered around wine, restaurants and resorts; good looks, charm and sophistication; a wife who is a former model turned city prosecutor; a politically connected father [later on we find out that his dad is a retired state appeals court judge]; and a billionaire family friend and financial backer [that would be Billy Getty, son of billionaire philanthropist, Gordon Getty]. Now, at age 36, he is also the new mayor of SF and a rising star in the Democratic Party. Newsome…says he always tries to set ‘big, hairy [??], audacious goals’ for his business and for himself. ‘I don’t want to have a modest goal and then reach for it,’ says the entrepreneur, whose innovative businesses include a fine dining restaurant that sells wine at retail prices [this is unheard of: our trio of top-of-the line restaurants in Madison marks up at 2 -3 times the retail price, which always makes me ill] and a winery that puts screw caps on a $100 plus cabernet [way to go! Cork spoilage is the single biggest reason why nice bottles of wine sometimes taste like bird bath water; even when the wine survives an imperfect cork, it may still be in some way affected by it. A good way to satisfy yourself that this is true is to blind-taste wine from many bottles coming from the same case, same cellar, same barrel—they wont all taste the same; how can that be? Obviously cork impact].