Voting with reservations

Go ahead, ask someone if they vote strategically, or if they cast the ballot for their preferred candidate. It’s a question that guarantees fireworks.

I remember in the year 2000, sitting around with some of the pony-tailed waiters at l’Etoile, after the last dish had been plated and served (when they’d—ok, we’d—polish off uncorked bottles that hadn’t quite been drained by the night’s guests), explaining that to me, it was irrelevant that “Nader isn’t the sell-out to capitalist institutions that Gore is”. As to Nader’s Green policies (if he had policies, but that’s a separate issue)? Forget it, I didn’t care. I used the crude and simple slogan “a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Not to gloat, but I was soooo right.

I think these last three years have erased the phrase “they’re all the same” right out of our political discourse and this is a good thing.

Still, there remain the true believers who will only vote with their heart. You cannot sway them. They’re the types who have definitive answers to such questions as “do ends justify means?” or “is truth relative?” You can't reason with ideologues. Just remember, a vote isn’t a marriage proposal. It’s a political choice, rendered with an awareness of the consequences of making that choice. Frank at L’Etoile may hate me for saying this, but I'm convinced, now more than ever: you campaign and root for your hero, but vote for the one who may actually win.

Out to get you, for sure…

In an earlier blog (January 29) I wrote about the trials of mailing a grant proposal to a government agency in D.C. and about my fear of transmittal failure (given a suspected premature, off-schedule pick-up time by Fed Ex). My inbred distrust then of both FedEx and the governmental agency made me, on my own, chase down the last plane for DC at the airport (virtually), just to make sure that the grant proposal reached D.C. in time.

Well well well well, my skepticism about fair treatment by such stalwart institutions as Fed Ex and the US government (a skepticism that produced much laughter and ridicule from well-meaning but misguided people) has been completely vindicated today as CNN reports on the plight of the Fulbright applicants from Berkeley – all 30 of them. These guys failed to get their applications in on time because Fed Ex messed up the pick up and therefore the delivery schedule, getting the apps in a day late as a result. Even though Fed Ex took full responsibility for the mistake, the US governmental agency (the Department of Education in that case) said no, too bad: Berkeley should not have waited til the last minute: the applications were late and so their final destination will be the trash can.

Would the outcome have been different if the sending institution had been West Point? Or Bob Jones U? What makes me think that the top brass in DC probably felt just a touch smug as they were shredding 30 files originating from Berkeley?

Apparently, last year Berkeley managed to have a success rate of 50% in the application process. A student, interviewed on NPR, was asked if he would be happy with the Fed Ex proposal to pick up the costs. “No,” he said. “It’s just not the same. The prestige of a “Fed Ex scholarship” just would not measure up to the stature of the Fulbright grant.”

Poland water in trouble

Arguments over whether Poland spring water is true spring water always makes me think that the debate is misguided. The story in Fortune raises the following question: is Poland spring water from a spring? Call me Poland-obsessed, but whenever I see the bottle with the Poland sticker I think of THAT COUNTRY, not the technical merits of the “spring” issue.

Please, don’t bother reminding me that they mean Poland, Maine. That's deliberately misleading. How many people, when confronted with the words “water from Poland” conjure up an obscure town in New England?

Alright, deep down I understand it really is not water from the Polish Tatra mountains, not even close. Nevertheless, I feel a sense of loyalty to the product, just because of the name. I have been told by close friends (who should know better) that the taste is rather inferior – something about the water is a bit sweet, not appropriate to pure spring water. I grow defensive. I insist on a blind tasting test. I buy ten bottles just to show my allegiance. It’s Poland water, P-O-L-A-N-D, and if you use the name without mention of the country, be prepared for another class-action down the road.

If the shoe squeaks, wear it.

Having a shoe that squeaks gives you a new perspective on things. For example, if you leave a meeting while others remain, the others will watch and listen as you exit. If you pace during teaching, students will stare at your shoe rather than at something undefined, like the law. Squeaking makes you feel old-fashioned (do modern shoes squeak?), oblivious to life's details (can’t you get that thing oiled?), slow (so as to cut down on the noise).

Over all it is a good distraction from the obvious: the meeting was not to your satisfaction, you’re an impatient pacer, with an alarming tendency toward the old-fashioned, the distracted, the slow. Only the last is a point in your favor. The rest: best forgotten, blissfully out of mind because of the squeaky shoe.

Genius is the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way

I was driving in this morning behind a car with a license plate from Iowa (why do I find this relevant?) that had the bumper sticker: “I’d rather be reading Bukowski.” That’s pretty impressive. I’ve seen “I’d rather be dancing” “I’d rather be bird-watching” “I’d rather be surfing” – in fact, it seems people would rather do anything but drive. But reading Bukowski?

I have to think that the person picked up a tome of Bukowski at the writing program at U of Iowa. How else do you get from Des Moines to Bukowski? This is a guy whose books of poetry do not collect dust on your average shelf (including mine), even one with great literary aspirations (not mine). They’re not “pretty” poems, and his life was tough tough tough (apart from being beaten routinely by his dad, he had absolutely the worst case of acne ever seen by the medical profession), nor had he any connection that I know of to academia—that place where self-selected great thinkers determine what is literature and what is not.

But there he is, on a bumper sticker. Bukowski is credited with the statement that “genius is the ability to say profound things in a simple way.” It gives you hope, doesn’t it, that someone out there, every time she is driving her car, would rather be reading Bukowski.