The (lost) art of winning

An interesting take on the movie “the Miracle” appears in the New Yorker this week.

Most people would say that I am the last person to ever blog about sports. That may be true, but I am a great fan of the Olympics – especially the Winter Games. Maybe it’s because I was raised with skis and skates strapped to my feet. For a brief spell, my mother believed that ruddy cheeks were a sign of healthy upbringing (her theories on this bought my sister and I noses and cheeks that look like we’re perpetually nipping at the flask: frost bite never goes away) and so we were out skidding on icy surfaces (you could hardly call that skating) and on hills where you had to CLIMB back up after each crazed run, frequently each winter. My passion for this nutso winter physical stuff continued into my adulthood, though over the years I adopted the label of “fair weather skier” – meaning I’d only do it if the snow was perfect, the sun was out, and the temps were decent. But I still love watching the stuff every four years on TV.

No surprise, then, that I was glued to the set for the 1980s hockey match between the Soviets and the US team. It was a shocking victory, and I remember feeling pleased in the way that one always is pleased when the underdog wins. Still, to me, it seemed that the Russians were always getting punched at from both sides – they had the tough lives, the corrupt government, and also the disrespect of the West. Beating the Soviets or Poles or Czechs always felt so good for the Americans –in a way that beating the Americans or other Western teams never did for Eastern bloc players, for whom it was always just a game, not a political statement (maybe “beat those damn imperialists!” just isn’t as catchy as “beat those damn commies!”).

Thus, predictably, in the States, the game became over time more than just a game: it became a STATEMENT about how these young, enthusiastic American players could undo the iron fist and the grim strength of the Soviets. That’s how winners from the Eastern bloc were always portrayed here: they were all robotic machines, cheerless, determined, without souls.

In the New Yorker, the author talks to Igor Larionov – now an NFL player, once a Soviet hockey star. Larionov was too young to make the Soviet team in 1980, but he watched back home in disbelief as the game progressed and it became clear that the Soviets would lose.

The irony is that the Russian players were anything but passionless machines. Larionov, for example, has the reputation of loving his Pushkin and his chess as much as the hockey that he plays so well. In the article, he describes how it felt to see the recently released “Miracle” – the movie about the historic hockey match:

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.”

It’s sad that even in our victory, we can not appear gracious to the other side.

It ain’t over…

What Julia Child did to French food in America, Luciano Pavarotti did to Italian Opera worldwide. I’m a sucker for Italian music of any sort – especially the kind that climbs along full blown crescendos and explodes into an orchestral climax. And so it was with shock and sadness that I read the NYT headline today stating “Pavarotti Dies.”

It took only a minute to realize that his death was a stage death. I do remember vaguely his desire to retire from opera and concentrate on his new wife and family. And I’d picked up his lovely CD of Italian pop last year so I know the man’s branching out in other directions. But for a minute I thought we’d lost a great.

Hang your shingle

My sister is a freelance translator. I know a large number of freelance writers and cooks (aka caterers). Add to it the freelance teachers, tutors, even lawyers. People striking out on their own, fighting the institutional/bureaucratic model of service, opting for the personal touch. And don’t forget the freelance embalmer. NPR reports on one of the last in his trade (here).

Hurry up if you want to take advantage of his experience and expertise. He still makes housecalls. But he’s been at it for 41 years (that’s 40,000 bodies), and may retire soon so speed up the carbs and enlist his services now, while he’s still taking new clients.

Too many words, too few ideas

A writers group that I am loosely affiliated with posted this week a list of the most overused expressions in writing. Most of these words could be eliminated from any text without great detriment; the cuts would add crispness to a story or paragraph.

I can’t reprint them all without the writer’s permission, but I’ll post a few – just so you can laugh out loud at how often you’ve found them liberally sprinkled throughout the posts below. I read through posts with my finger poised on the backspace key, but I am not careful. After I’m done, oftentimes, here’s what remains:

actually
all of (replace with "all")
apparently
as it were
as you know
at an early date (replace with "soon")
at the present time or this time or this point in time (replace with "now")
at the same time as (replace with "while")
basically
be in a position to (replace with "can")
completely
despite the fact that (replace with "despite")
due to the fact that (replace with "because")
during the time that (replace with "while")
essentially
extremely
first of all (replace with "first")
for the purpose of (replace with "for")
generally
etc.

I make closet editors happy by feeding their ingrained sense of superiority.

The unwelcome reappearance of Simon

Hardly two months have passed, and he is with us again. On January 11, I posted a testimonial to Simon, the robot who takes care of all lost luggage for every defeated, worn down traveler who has the bad luck of waiting at a United baggage carousel, only to walk away without the one black upright suitcase that bears his or her name.

Well, Simon reentered my world last night, as I picked up yet another visitor to Madison, and returned home with said visitor but not her bags. The bags and the visitor are suffering pangs of separation anxiety and I am on a mission, determined to move toward reunification, asap.

Simon and I are about to have our famous protracted and nonsensical conversation whereby he collects voluminous tomes of information, disappears to think about it all, and comes back to tell me that United is working on my request.

Simon’s not dumb. He knows how to dangle a thread of hope, suggesting that any week, any day, any HOUR now I WILL see the luggage that I grow to covet more than anything else in the world. When months later the luggage does arrive, I am so deliriously overjoyed that I feel great indebtedness to Simon and we part friends.

That was then. These days, I am less sanguine about the matter. And because it is the THIRD time this year alone that bags have not traveled for us to Madison along with the passenger, I was given the PRIVATE NUMBER that is Simon’s “boss.” It may be a humanoid, or it may be a robot of superior intelligence: I am ready to go to this CEO of lost luggage, inc. and file my charges against the placating, ineffective, insufferable Simon. The goal is to penetrate through the thick layer of United indifference, and levy my punch in the Simon gut. Sounds brutal? I can’t help it –he’s made warriors of us all.

And, adversity breeds its own rewards. Because I have resilient entrepreneurial blood running through my communist childhood arteries, I will post the sale of the private United number on ebay. I’m certain it’s good for at least a two week vacation to Europe, traveling first class. After all, the number of otherwise peace-loving, God-fearing people wanting to maim and slaughter Simon and take him to task for his buoyant yet ultimately impotent nature must be substantial.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt.3 Where I come to understand that to not know something is divine
In an article by Farrar (look for it in the “Critical Review”) I read about the necessity of ignorance and I feel good all over. To “not know” is everything! Suddenly, any vestiges of dumbness within me are an asset, not a liability: my empti-headedness furthers science, politics, the quest for human camaraderie; you name it: whatever your quest in life –I am helping you achieve it by staying locked in my un-intelligence.

The author notes (in the essay entitled “In Praise of Ignorance”) that “ignorance is essential to life as we know it [go nc!]. Foreknowledge of the future would preclude choice, responsibility, individuality—even history. Full knowledge is the enemy of both intimate and impersonal relationships…Military strategy and natural science both depend on ignorance, as do law and politics.”

I realize that just because Farrar said it is so, doesn’t mean that it is indeed so. Nonetheless, the assertion does appear in print. Only a fool would not take it seriously.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt. 2 Don’t believe all that is said about Poland
In an article from the Journal of Democracy, I read that perhaps the western press has exaggerated the split between East and West Europe in terms of its support for the American decision to invade Iraq. We know that countries of Western Europe are anything but uniform in their support for the preemptive strike. And countries of the Eastern block? It appears that the deeply pro-American stance doesn’t put blinders on all citizens. The article by Zielonka states the following:

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.

If you read the pro-American statements issued by the Polish government, you’d never guess that the nation had greater skepticism about the move toward full-scale war.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt.1 We talk because we don’t have time to pick nits
I spent the afternoon reacquainting myself with the feel of paper and the smell of ink. It’s been a while since I went through the literary mags at Borders (this is my periodic check-in to reassure myself that the published essays aren’t nearly as brilliant as the ones in my head, waiting to be written—only this time they were and so that was kind of a low point in the afternoon).

One essay was especially appealing (in the same ways as yesterday’s story on European identity in the Times was appealing, see post March 11—I feel myself much aligned with the subject matter and the conclusions). Diane McWhorter (who is no mere essayist – having already walked off with a Pulitzer Prize) wrote a sage piece about the value of “talk” (this is in the American Scholar, which does have a website, but today is paper day for me)—the conversational kind of talk.

I have to cite this one brief paragraph, which actually is a summary of Robin Dunbar’s Darwinian-like thesis on the origins of talk. She describes Dungar’s point thus:

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.

McWhorter, who no longer worries that she is always the last to get up and leave parties, says a friend gave her his blessing for her constant quest for talk. He told her “There’s plenty of time for silence. Talk away.”

I suppose blogging and emailing are the next evolutionary steps (now that shelling peas on porches has gone by the wayside and coffee-house culture isn’t what I remember it to be), though they’re ones that push us even further from the obsessive fur-raking and nit-picking that were the hallmark of bonding. Ah well, one takes what one can get.

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt. 2

So maybe China is not the only place where traffic has had a pernicious influence on daily life. The WashPost has an article on DC week-end driving issues (here). Compare these (China, post below & the DC story) to Madison’s own struggle with traffic problems (here) –obviously a high priority, as evidenced by the following statement (referring to the parkway project that is to ease congestion north of Lake Mendota): "The parkway is expected to be a joint county-state partnership and will be constructed in the next 10 to 20 years. Smaller road improvements are likely to happen sooner."

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt.1

Maybe I’ve not seen my share of road rage in the States, or witnessed traffic patterns in remote corners of the globe, but I am fairly convinced that China must grab the title of the country with the greatest number of insane drivers, deserving of quality jail time for their road behavior. I remember several years ago sitting in a cab in Beijing with two girls in my charge (one was unrelated, making me wonder if her parents could sue me for the psychic trauma she suffered by riding in a taxi there) thinking that every single maneuver done by the driver would have gained him a hefty fine and a suspension of driving privileges in the States. As we shot through red lights, scraping the legs of cyclists and causing pedestrians to bang the trunk of this speeding demon, I wondered if the driver was putting an a show, what with the incongruous tape of Elvis music in the background and his own screaming tirade at every animal and three-wheeled contraption that got in his field of vision. Twenty cab rides later, I decided there was no show in it – they were all maniacs. Only one guy, perhaps 90+ years old, drove with any degree of civility as he slept his way through the traffic of Shanghai. It was rush hour, nothing moved much anyway. I gave him a 300% tip.

I read with great interest the NYT article today that spoke of changes that are around the corner in China: stricter enforcement of traffic regs (as opposed to zero enforcement), enactment of codes protecting pedestrian rights (anyone from the west would have to agree that crossing a street in a Chinese city ranks as the most terrifying experience: it’s you against a million moving objects, each going at a different speed and in a creatively executed direction), more rigorous testing of license applicants.

On this latter point though, I’m not sure they got it right yet. The Times mentions one of the test questions:

“If you come upon an accident and find a motorist lying unconscious on the road, and if that person's internal organs are also lying on the road, should you pick up the organs and put them back inside the person?”

Thankfully, the correct answer is “no.” But maybe the question should be rephrased. How about “If you come across a person on the road, should you maybe avoid hitting her or him so that organs may remain safely intact, protected by a firm skeletal structure, musculature, and a fine layer of undisturbed epidermis?”

Think: prevention.

Silent rage?

If the Finns cannot express anger, does that make them more prone to suicide, alcoholism and depression? What happens when a nation practices stoicism and silence to such an extent that it makes the government and the mental health professionals nervous? Is a STAID nation a happy nation? Or is it a repressed, resentful nation, in need of help and deserving of pity?

Why is anger completely absent from the very limited palate of available emotions in Finland? The IHT offers some possible explanations (here):

"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."

How is life without anger and with minimal emotion? Well, it’s externally calm:

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.

Well, I was willing to go along until that last comment. A quiet meal? To a Pole – how utterly awful.


When I was in my college years, I spent several months working on a farm in Finland, hired to teach the kids there some English. It was impossible: the time was too short, their language base was too limited and varied. But I loved the multigenerational family, all coexisting in a small, meticulously clean house. True, the father in the family was a bit of a drunk, but he was a QUIET drunk. If there was violence, I did not see it. There was, however, one opportunity for a form of family rage to come through, and that was in the sauna. As we piled into the family hot house after a day’s work, the kids would bring out the birch branches, wet them in the water (just to hear that sizzle of hot steam against flesh), and whip away at each other, me included. The practice was then to run across the field and jump into a cold lake (even in June, it was freezing). Emotions, both positive and negative, would somehow be drained out of you, so that all that remained was the isolation (we were close to the Arctic circle), the forest, and the eerie quiet.
[photo source:FinlandPhoto]

Spring break and a hidden past

With the last class over for the week, my spring break has begun. Some students stock up on sun screen, others on printer paper (conversation from yesterday: “Yes, your outlines are due in March, of course they are, what did you think? If you can’t do an outline by the end of March, can you do the full research paper by the end of April? No, don’t answer that, let me live with my illusions that you’ve been making consistent progress throughout the semester.”), I stock up on lists of things to read, write, tidy, pay, mail, post (new one this year!), watch, eat.

A reader suggested that, since I have a lot of New York coming up in my next year, I should pick up a copy of “Work and Other Sins: Life in New York City and Thereabouts” by Leduff. Wanting to learn more about the book, I googled.

The book comes highly recommended. It’s about the forgotten men and women of New York. Writes one reviewer: “It is about laborers, dreamers, hustlers and immigrants from the city’s uncelebrated ranks of working stiffs. There’s the man who replaces light bulbs at the top of the Empire State Building, the last licensed trapper within city limits, the harbor policemen charged with the grisly task of removing dead bodies from the river, the black Santa Claus at Rockefeller Center, and the last civilian lighthouse keeper on Coney Island.”

So far so good, but what about the author? He’s a correspondent for the NYT, okay, cool, and what else?

I come across an article about Leduff in the San Francisco Magazine Online (here). Well now, Leduff appears to have a history of allegations of plagiarism. That’s not good. Are the accusations substantiated? Some are, others are borderline plagiarism (more like “idea theft” rather than text theft). Leduff appears to have a reputation for arrogance and a personality that is “bigger than life.” Suddenly I am wary.

On the one hand, this racy portrayal of the author should make him controversial enough to be, ipso facto, interesting. But suspicion, now running rampant, causes me to wonder about the veracity of some of his stories. So do I read the book, or reject the author and therefore his work? Seems like a harsh result based on a reading of an online magazine. Still, maybe I’ll begin my New York immersion with the other recommended book for now – “Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan” by Lopate. And I wont google the author until after I've read the book.

Get well notes

Thanks to all readers who wrote with deep concern and regret over what happened to the car (post March 7, below). [sample email: “eek!” “I feel terrible about your car’s mugging.” “Madison police are to be feared!”—okay, is there a story behind those words? “next year, park it in my block; nothing ever happens in my block” etc] I am sure if my torso got bashed in and my extremities were ripped out you’d all be equally horrified (wouldn’t you?). It is indeed reassuring that you exercise such deep feelings of empathy for the fate of an older Corolla. You’re not the type to do in an ailing grandmother or a sick dog --I admire you for your compassion.

Health update: unfortunately, the Corolla’s recovery is stalled. She’s turned temperamental ever since her brush with violence. The other day, for instance, she wouldn’t let me open her trunk and I had to undo the backseat and crawl in through there just to retrieve some groceries. I’m thinking it’s post traumatic stress, which should abate with the passage of time.

European identity

As May 1st draws near –the day 10 more countries, including Poland, officially become part of the EU- the number of articles in the press mentioning countries of Eastern Europe grows. Today, the NYT revisits the theme of apprehension about the great merger, evident both among the 15 current EU nations and the 10 still waiting on the side (here).

It’s a “refresher” article, in that it says nothing new, repeating ideas that have been much analyzed in recent months, especially in the European press (with all due respect to its author, because John Darnton is probably the most experienced western correspondent out there writing about Poland). But I liked reading it anyway. And, what’s old hat to me may need restatement for those less focused on that part of the globe.

One little paragraph in the piece hits the “belonging” (v. displacement) issue that I’ve blogged about previously. In describing the importance of a European identity, Darnton writes:

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.

Yes, it is paradoxical that oftentimes you feel most “European” when you visit (live in) the United States. I feel somewhat vindicated, in the way that you feel vindicated when the NYT parrots something you have said again and again. I’ve often been asked what I miss most about Europe. For lack of anything specific to say I’ve answered that it is something about feeing the shadow of history at every corner, and living in a coffee-house culture. Darnton has spies in this house.

My life is my work

There are people who do not think about retirement. They never want to not go to work. As long as the feet move and the mind stays on track 82% of the time – the world of work continues (I’ve noticed that academia, the judiciary and the papacy attract this level of commitment). Sometimes this is a good thing. So many accomplished scientists, writers, academics never lessened their level of commitment to their field until they were well past 90. But this is not the majority. Most people, even the “love my work!” diehards want to give it up at some stage of their lives in favor of fly fishing or bird watching (no insult intended: I would right now love to watch birds; I don’t know the first thing about birds, but it seems like a fine activity, as long as it does not include watching crows, see post March 9).

My father was forced to retire early, prior to when he would have considered himself ready (age: not even 60); my mother began a “career” of sorts when she decided to learn word processing – this was when she was approximately 70. She quit when she felt she couldn’t take one more winter in Wisconsin, forcing a move to warmer places at the age of 78.

Today, the WashPost (here) reported the following: “Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who will turn 80 this year, acknowledges that he is thinking about retirement. But he will not say when that might come.” That’s a hint that it might come soon, isn’t it? The article states further that Justice Rehnquisit is not the oldest member of the Court. Justice Stevens will turn 84 this year.

I am impressed. But also, I am a little nervous about it all. There are the mental alacrity issues to worry about, sure, but there are also the human dimensions. Who should make decisions of this magnitude, the justices (professors, popes) who have passed the point where the issue would have any impact on their lives? Surely at some point the act of stepping down is more admirable than staying put.

Thanks, Madison Police

I take back my friendly notes on your warm and fuzzy approach to helping those in trouble (see post below, March 7). You are MEAN! I have a crippled car. Shattered glass is lodged in the pavement around it’s wounded body. The sole comfort it receives is from the heartening rays of the WARM SPRING SUN. Emphasis should be on SPRING SUN, because there is not a trace of snow on the ground and I want to believe we are seasonally there. Call me an optimist, but the weather is on my side and the daffodil tips are clearly visible underneath the birch tree.

But in the eyes of the Madison police, we are in a chilly frosty cold spell of a “hit you in the gut” way of life, and a calendar that says “nope, no spring yet.”

Okay, have it your way. I will pay the $10 ticket you stuck in the broken-down-in-spirit-and-in-form little Corolla. We didn’t move her to the other side of the street last night. She needed a rest. We thought you’d understand. Obviously not, mean-spirited cops that you are.

Snail news

My Polish friend and reader asks if I knew of the fact that the Slow Food organization now has a Polish chapter. I did not. But my respect for the work of this group is monstrously huge, and I was thrilled that Poles were grouping together to revive an interest in growing, producing and eating foods with attention and respect for tradition, taste and natural ingredients. My friend described some of the intriguing ways of crafting (Polish) quality foods (for example: making sour pickles in barrels dunked in a river). It would be great fun to see this. Next time.

In the meantime, moving back to this side of the ocean, let me quote from a favorite website, SlowFood.com, where I found this note on the Coppola wines:

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.

The Sofia Mini sounds too odd. And it hardly is fitting for a Slow Food temperament: sparkling wine out of a can, with a straw? Thumbs down!

Ter ror ism and birthdays

As you can see from the title, I have reached new levels of google paranoia.

Yesterday I attended a fascinating lecture on Europe’s reaction to nine slash eleven. The speaker contrasted the UK and Germany and attempted to find explanations for the differences in the national alert strategies adopted in these two countries. The UK has implemented a vast array of anti-ter ror measures that extend well beyond what was in place in Northern Ireland at the heyday of its period of violence (I always think that the current political climate in Ireland is a forgotten Clinton legacy). Germany, for perhaps obvious reasons, is treading with greater care, putting civil liberties on the table each time a new measure is proposed.

Having this talk fresh in my mind, I was interested to read a comment in the International Herald Tribune today about some of our own (US), less talked of anti-ter rorist measures. Let me reprint the humorous-in-a-dark-sort-of-way article here (copyright caveat: you can pick up the text on the Net here), because I know that most readers don’t bother following links (I speak from my own experience)—it is written by a retired correspondent living in England:

LONDON: My mother had a birthday coming up, and she loves English cookies. So we boxed up a selection, all under the irreproachable Duchy Originals hallmark of Prince Charles's Prince's Trust, and set out to mail them to Massachusetts.
.
The woman at the Post Office wanted to know if they were home-made cookies. If they were home-made, we could have just sent them. But since they were bought, we would have to go through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It's part of the war on ter rorism, you see. She referred us to a Web site: www.access.fda.gov.
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"FDA industry systems," the site proclaims. Created "in response to the Bioter rorism Act of 2002."
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Can this daunting rubric accommodate Cookies for Mom? I have my doubts. But I'm relieved to find a four-page section, "Sending Food Gifts Through International Mail."
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It quotes the rulebook: You can send foreign food gifts if you warn the Food and Drug Administration in advance and get a Prior Notice Number to put on the package.
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"Who is authorized to submit prior notice?" it asks, rhetorically. "A prior notice for an article of food may be submitted by any person with knowledge of the required information. This person is the submitter."
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Resigned to going through the same rigmarole as someone shipping a freighterload of Duchy Originals, I pull up the five-page "Prior Notice of Imported Foods."
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I get my account number and password, and start applying online for a Prior Notice Number. As I turn in my submitter information, I'm stopped. The system doesn't like something.
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Rejected, I send an e-mail to Help, and two days later a woman apologizes for the problem and asks for my account ID and password so it can be researched. I send those, and I hear back that it's going to their "test environment." Please allow two to three business days.
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Meanwhile I decide to try again on the submitter information. Now I can't even get to where I was before! Can the Food and Drug Administration have learned what I'm thinking of it?
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The Help woman says: "No one else has reported this problem. Try restarting your computer."
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I do that, and again I'm turned away.
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Has anyone got a recipe for home-made shortbread?

Lawyers who write on the side

I met a lawyer today who is a mystery writer on the side. That seems almost mundane and therefore uninteresting, but just to get your attention, I was told that he is the winner of the Poe prize for the best new mystery short story of the year. This not insignificant accomplishment clearly impressed ME and so he gave me his card. I was going to look him up once I got home, but then I noticed that the card was (mistakenly?) actually that of an insurance agent in California. So what now? Track him down to let him know that I have the number of the person he needs to call for his insurance question? I looked up the award winners on google for the past several years and none of them sound like they might have been him.

The thing is, I had a very interesting conversation on the art of short story writing. If I find out that this is not based in reality, because the guy is really a fake, then are some of my thoughts on writing, formed during this talk, suddenly less valid?

Audacious emails, pt. 1

This new feature will give you an idea of the type of people who write to me. I’m not talking about blog reader email and I’m not talking about spam – i.e. email generated by the truckload to anonymous addresses—I’m talking about email sent to ME PERSONALLY. Of course, I will protect the confidentiality of senders. As I said, I do not make things up on the weblog [yes, the “triplets of Bellville” post (March 8) is true—subsequently I decided that this person simply must like the feel of all those “ll” sounds rolling off the tongue]. In posting a message, I wont tamper with grammar or style. I will, however, change names and facts slightly because 1. I’m a nice person and 2. I don’t want to get sued.

Email message (A):

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.

I should have replied thus: So let me get this straight: you’re asking a law prof and students, future illustrious members of the legal profession, to help you figure out a way to “adjust” court records so that their “message” would be fake but look real? And you want me to do this quickly and with little expectation of getting anything for my illegal and immoral acts, with the exception of possibly a criminal charge that’ll land me in jail along with homicidal drunk-drivers and convicted drug felons? If your ex siphoned money from a bank, would you write a prof in the business school asking for help so that you could do the same? I’m not denying that child kidnapping is a tremendous problem among divorced parents. But your devious plot, leading to the “recapture” of your son (possibly a lynching party, to go after your ex later on?) sounds like a BAD IDEA that should be PUT TO REST.
Copied to: Board of Professional Responsibility with a Post-it saying: “please put this in my file as evidence of the fact that I am a morally and legally upright attorney, that I do not take bribes and I turn away potential clients who ask me to do illegal acts. Thanks, NC”

Why do some people do great things?

We ask this about people such as Schindler – who risked his life to save Jews from extermination during World War II. Schindler’s List comes out today on DVD, hence there is a renewed sense of curiosity about the man himself (Schindler died 30 years ago). Why did he do it?

Do we ask this because so many Germans did the opposite? So that his act of goodness stands out like a single flower would in the rubble of war? Maybe we expect too little of ourselves… We marvel at greatness, as if it truly is the unanticipated surprise gift.

The year Schindler’s List won the Academy Awards (seven, including Best Picture and Best Director) was a good year for movies. Could I even find a dissenter who’d argue that the movie was not the most significant film experience of the year? I’m thinking no, and that’s a good thing.

From Blackmun to Black Birds and Blackboards

I’ve come to appreciate that in the suburbs, waking up to the gentle twitter of birds really should be translated as waking up to the screaming noise of black birds (not of the Agelaius phoeniceus sort, but CROWS).

Crows can make life on our block an offensively dirty and miserably loud experience. The birds build their nests in the tall trees that line the street (minus one tree – chopped down, my fault, see post below) and leave their droppings on chosen driveways. They love ours. No good reason, they just do.

They ravage the garbage pails each week. Thanks to them, I know that our left-side neighbors always order meat toppings on their pizza, and everyone up and down the block knows that we went through a summer fad of eating fruit juice pops. There’s actually more that they know, but what the block knows, the blog need not reveal.

This morning, the birds were at it from dawn and it isn’t even garbage day. I heard that one environmentally correct way of dealing with them (apart from brutal murder and I am not there yet) is to fly a plane overhead and make exploding noises. These days that’s just about the worst idea that you could have. So, I am working on developing coping strategies instead.

But mainly I am hurrying to review my lecture for this morning. It is an introduction to the issues surrounding child support. This is the one topic that I cannot do without using numbers and a calculator (an anathema to law students), because you cannot demonstrate the legal fictions and absurdities created by otherwise rational (one supposes) legislators without entering into the math of it. This in turn means that since I am technologically of the “behind” sort, I have to expose my other behindedness – meaning I have to turn my “back” to the class and write things on the blackboard.

I hate doing that—perhaps my loathing of it signifies my not wanting to lose control of the classroom. And in addition, when I turn my back to students, I am imagining that I have gotten myself into some absurdly compromising state, much to everyone’s amusement. This isn’t sheer paranoia. Four years ago, I was walking to my office in the morning and a random student on the sidewalk came up to me and said: “uh, I think you’d want to know, your skirt zipper is undone.” I was so GRATEFUL to her, but ever since then, I feel compelled to check every time I am turning my back to the class. The act of checking itself is probably completely indiscreet and produces gales of guffaws. What can you do.

To days gone by

Remembering today the Les Mis lyrics:

“Drink with me to days gone by,
Can it be you fear to die?
Will the world remember you
When you fall?
Could it be your death
Means nothing at all?”

So much has been said about the newly released papers belonging to Justice Blackmun that I needn’t add yet another blog entry on the topic. But there is one small file of material that, to me, is particularly intriguing. It has to do with the friendship between Blackmun and Burger.

Can you sustain a friendship in light of significant political and professional differences? In an interview some years back, Blackmun admitted that his mother was right to warn him that his lifelong friendship with Burger might be challenged once they were both appointed to the Supreme Court. Blackmun hadn’t believed her initially, but after a few years on the job, he changed his mind.

How can years of shared experiences be undone in this way? Is it because each Justice was convinced that the work product would survive into posterity, lasting far longer than any personal connection ever could? One can only speculate. Still, it is saddening to read about the details of the breakdown. Friendship is circumscribed, defined by each of the participants. Why would it dissipate so late in life? Reading the materials now, one can see the decline in spirit and commitment. For me, it is one of the sadder stories that emerges from the Balckmun papers.

What can be made of this?

[statement of intent: I am going to continue with my determination (see Saturday post) to favor text over visuals in the blog, but this post just would not work without the graphic. A new resolution is thus made: I will stick with text only, unless an OVERWHELMING URGE, or necessity lead me to incorporate visual imagery]

A friend has taken to inserting an odd phrase into the conversation. We will be talking about not anything in particular, and he will say “the Triplets of Belleville.”

[It’ll be like this, for example: “So far, March hasn’t been a very tempestuous month; in fact it has virtually manifested halcyon elements a summer season [nc: ignore the choice of words – this stuff is normal for him] perhaps obfuscated a tad ‘the Triplets of Belleville’ by the intemperate cloud-cover, wouldn’t you say?”]

I really don’t know what to make of this. I’m not even sure he saw this film. Perhaps the figures have made an impression – of the sort that only ten years of psychoanalysis would begin to unravel, in which case I don’t want to question him about it, in the same way that one doesn’t ask someone with 11 fingers why they have been blessed with an extra.

Sometimes I think that winter puts us over the top. We say and do bizarre things, which can only be attributable to our almost uncontrollable desire to pilfer, ravage and destroy anything in sight, just because we have such anger within, all the result of severe light deprivation.


I’m going to give him some time. By next month, either his head will have cleared and we will again converse quite normally, or I’ll rebut with an equally obscure and irrelevant phrase (like ‘ooee, oo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang’ --from Alvin and the Chipmunks maybe? Not terribly sophisticated, but undeniably noticeable) and see if he responds. This may open the door for a reasonable discussion of the problem.

One line

Meet Krtek, hero of Saturday's post (see below), the mild-mannered bandit that stole my calm over the week-end.

Why did I fail to post images? Tonya (of blog fame) stopped by my office and we went over the steps I followed, versus the path she had taken. The difference? One line. I was missing one stinky little line. That's it. Computers are insane in their fastidiousness!

Late night run-in with the Madison police

It’s not what you think. No one called the police on me. I called the police on THEM.

Late the previous night someone took a club to the car that we park on the street, shattering and ripping out side mirrors, antennas, and generally leaving their vampire-tooth gashes up and down the body of the vehicle.

Being reticent to go out on days when March gusts of wind make the outdoors inhospitable, none of us noticed this car-nage until late in the evening, when our visitor decided that she had to get out and see the world [our visitors often feel somewhat isolated in the suburbs, what with the nearest hub of commercial activity consisting of a strip mall with not much in it beyond a Bob’s Copy Shop (an essential to suburban living) and a Hooters Bar (no comment)].

The car is a nifty little Corolla that once belonged to my mother. It got left behind when my mother decided to move to California to become one of those weather-obsessed (“is it as miserable as I remember it in Wisconsin right now?”), radically-leaning (words such as imperialism and socialism can be heard among the clatter of soup spoons in her cafeteria), gray panther types (power to the aging!) of Berkeley. In the typical way of an older driver, my mother had never put many miles on the car. Thus, even though the vehicle is old (not quite as old as she is, but gettin’ there), the odometer would have you think it’s virtually off the showroom floor.

Feeling frugal with this inherited machine that is now mainly driven by visitors, we have never bothered to insure it much – though of course, we insure against the damage to the planet that may be caused by its gentle movement around town.

As soon as we noticed the shattered glass and the twisted metal last night, I called the non-emergency police number and had the following conversation with the officer-on-call:

nc: “I’m calling to report that someone bashed in our car.”
Police: “A real shame. Do you know who did it?”

nc: “I have my suspicions..”
police: “Good. Would you like to give us some names?”

nc: “My suspicions are only suspicions. I know better than to accuse people without evidence of their guilt. However---- now that you ask, I do know that the car has an enemy. Last year a driver ran into its parked little sweet body and we made her pay substantial sums to get it fixed. She may well hold a grudge.”
Police: “What’s her name?”

nc: “No no, you’re not going to make me say it.”
Police: “Well, would you say that there’s more than a $1000 worth of damage now? Because if it’s less, why then we can just mail you some forms and you can self-report!”

nc: “What, no house-calls anymore?? In any case, it’s more than $1000. It costs $5000 these days to repaint a scratch on a fender. Of course it’s more than a $1000! The car has been walloped by a maniac with a clear homicidal impulse.”

Several hours later, a very young, very friendly officer came to our door. I had hoped he would come with great fanfare, lights shining, siren blasting, to scare the bejesus out of the people who did it, should they be watching from behind a shrub. But no, all was quiet, save for our barking Ollie who obviously has not yet learned to be intimidated by a blue uniform.

The officer wrote up the damage and gave me some good advice as to where I can get some salvaged replacement parts (for those who are curious: at the dump). I asked if he’d had any other calls of this nature lately, just to see if our peaceful existence is coming to an end (today: quiet suburb, tomorrow: drug-trafficing, gang-infested mean streets of the south side of Chicago type -- our last place of residence prior to moving to Madison). He answered “well, I typically work the downtown beat. It’s a little less calm down there, you know. Nice little block you got here.. noticed there’s a pretty little house for sale up the street?”

Maybe he’ll be a neighbor one day soon. Good. Our battered little car will feel safer. So far, being surrounded by houses where people’s jobs run from stamp-collecting (that is seriously the income-generating occupation of our immediate neighbor) to film-making (where the flamingos reside, see post in February) hasn’t kept vandalism at bay (mailbox bashing is a neighborhood past time for the young and restless).

Tomorrow, think red carnations

I would have thought that Hallmark would have picked it up in a big way: what other holiday is there that'll sell the cards, between February 14 and March 17? And, if you are not of the shamrock heritage, even March 17 doesn’t work. So why hasn’t March 8th been heralded as the holiday to end all holidays?

In my years in Poland it was perhaps the most important of the winter celebrations: a day for the proverbial red carnation-- International Women’s Day. I have never thought that the day received much attention in the States. Most years, I can hardly remember it’s here. Do I miss the red carnation I would have gotten in Poland from male colleagues, friends too? No. But I miss the significant attention brought on this day to women’s issues. It was an excuse to get the nation to focus, if only for a day, on persistent gender inequality and discrimination, particularly in the home and workplace.

No, I never did much care for the carnation: it was a mummified flower that seemed to withstand days on end without water. It would last the same amount of time whether you left it in plastic cellophane, neglected in the closet, or placed it in a milk bottle on the kitchen table. But March 8th was just a touch early for the tiny violets, the lilies-of-the-valley, or the forget-me-not bouquets that would be sold by old women from full buckets at every major intersection in the city just a month or two later. This was March, and so it had to be the carnation.

Waiting for a call

There is a reason why the phone is not a favorite of mine. I’m always wishing that it would ring, or, more often, wishing that it would not.

This time, while waiting for a friend and reader to call back, I was staring at the closed phone book, and I saw on the cover of the White and Yellow Pages a little pop-up ad announcing: Homeland Security Guide; see “H” for Homeland Security.

Thinking that perhaps there might be some things I could learn about – like what I could be doing even now to protect myself, for example, I flipped through the pages in search of this Guide. First I checked the red business pages: nothing. The listing went from “Homedco” to “Homemade.” Next, yellow pages: nope, straight from “Home Warranty Providers” to “Homeopaths.” Well, of course, I should have checked US Government: no, nothing again. It moves from “Highways” to “Horses” (horses?? Oh, it’s the phone number for “wild horse and burro adoption”).

I knew I had problems adapting to new technology, but this is a phone book, damn it. I should be able to manage a phone book. Good thing there isn’t a real crisis.

Up up and away

A story caption in the NYT caught my eye –“If You’re Thinking of Living in Exile...” it read. I had assumed it was targeting those who will be disenchanted with the results of the November elections (up to 50% of the population after all, or, in the style of 2000, perhaps even more). In fact, the story is about the lives of exiled dictators.

Could the world do no better than offer a home on the Riviera to the “Cannibal Emperor” Jean-Bedel Bokassa (from the Central African Republic), who, in his time, had the reputation of killing then eating his enemies? Or how about Idi Amin Dada, whose milder sin was to rename Lake Victoria the Idi Amin Dada Sea, and whose great atrocity was that he allowed a quarter million of his country men and women to be murdered? Why would the international community leave him to bask in his Saudi Arabian retreat?

The article in the Times reminds us that lest we rush to criticize the French or the Saudis for taking in Bokassa or Amin, we might recall that the US gave Marcos a posh villa to run to on the Hawaiian coastline not too long ago.

Trump trumps Pepin

Did Donald Trump consult chef Jacques Pepin before snaffling the Apprentice title for his show? Pepin wrote the memoir in 2003, so it’s not as if it’s a text from a more distant past. Or, maybe Pepin and Trump are one and the same? I don’t really know the show – I tried watching once, but truly could not stay with it.

How about the publication? This is from the Apprentice, the book: “I was thirteen and a half years old when I quit school…My parents somewhat reluctantly—but wisely—went along with my decision. To be sure, I was an “old” thirteen, hardened by the war. At an age when most kids don’t know how to cook their breakfast, I had already worked in four busy restaurant kitchens.” And later: “I had loved to forage for food in the forests.” And: “my tastes have remained simple. I like straightforward food that is well seasoned and elegantly presented without fuss or deception.” Finally: “On television I wanted to teach viewers essential techniques of cooking… I became convinced that the only requirement for getting my own (TV) show was raising half a million dollars, an undertaking that I knew nothing about.” Okay, that seals it: different men, a world apart.

BTW, in trying to find out more about the Trump show, I came across the site where you can apply to be on the Apprentice in the second season (here; on that same site, you can also read about THE DONALD. The Nina did not do that). Only four days remain, thus you should act quickly. If a friend got on – I’d watch.

A long detour along roads poorly described

From my earliest posts here, I’ve admitted to being a fan of travel writing, consummately working through shelves of essay collections in bookstores, searching out pieces that may offer a touch of whimsy or a more serious reflection, sometimes pointedly witty, sometimes ponderous and brooding.

But over the last few years, reading travel narratives has been a bit of a disappointment. So many books, magazines and publications contain journalistic, snappy texts that are functional and impersonal, with a minimal amount of asides, so that the pieces no longer meander [oh, say, along a buckwheat strip of yellow blossoms in a Slovakian village, where the only wealth is in the mouths of residents whose rotting teeth have been replaced by gold crowns, and where the most coveted piece of clothing is likely to be a tight fitting Frank Zappa t-shirt, worn on Sundays only, of course], but GET YOU THERE RIGHT AWAY, with bold purposefulness.

And I’m not thinking of travel guides (these have improved considerably over the years). I’m thinking of the classic travel essays, on topics as different as Parisian booksellers and the disappearing hutong neighborhoods of Beijing. For me, travel writing should not be hurried or terse. But neither should it distract with an overabundance of history or geography. These forays into factual accounting have cropped up especially in works of traditionalists of the genre–for example, writers for the NYT Sunday Travel Section—who are more likely to immerse you in historic asides these days than to offer a personal statement or an insight on a destination.

So, every quarter, I look forward to the NYT Sophisticated Traveler, and each time I toss it aside with great resignation.

But not today. Messud’s piece on Washington – a city where she once lived and now remembers with the kind of nostalgia that is reserved for places one has left behind—is sentimental but not sweetly so: “Perhaps perversely, I miss Washington’s almost puritanical streak, that it is no place to window-shop, no place for luxuries: all the fancy stores have long been pressed out to the suburbs, leaving the city center for industrious pursuits like the making of laws and money—but leaving room, potentially, too, for thought, rather than stuff.”

Mewshaw’s essay on pre-Olympic Athens hoists you, along with the author, into the cab which he takes from the airport: “the cabdriver smoked, as does apparently every man, woman and child in the country, and he fretted with worry beads as he tuned in bouzouki music on the radio.” The cab hits a gridlock. Mewshaw observes “It’s estimated that Athens has more than 2 million automobiles and 500,000 motorcycles, and at any given moment all of them appear to be stalled in anaconda coils of exhaust. For more than 20 years, motorists have, in theory, driven only on alternate days, according to whether they have odd- or even-numbered license plates. But rather than halve the volume of traffic, this law has prompted many people to buy two cars.”

And finally, there is the Livsey piece on wombats and kangaroos. It begins thus: “As a girl, growing up in Scotland, I knew exactly how to reach Australia. All I had to do was dig deep enough, and eventually I would emerge on the other side of the world, where everyone walked upside down and strange animals would hop to greet me. I was a determined child, but after several attempts yielded holes only a few feet in depth, I admitted defeat.”

Perfect essays. Travels writing took a detour, but now seems to be finding its animus and wit. That’s great news for the addicted reader. The future looks good again.

Ping zap chugga chugga

The house is radiantly energized with one visitor here and one yet to come (next week-end). In the space of a few minutes this obliging visitor cleaned up some of my erroneous wordage, links, and files on the computer. No word yet on the future of photos on this blog (see post below), but in reality, I no longer care. It is enough to have the house filled with live demonstrations of Hey Ya dances and to listen to stories of funny people doing hilarious acts in unusual ways. The pace of life changes. So, too, should the tenor of the posted blogs in the next few weeks: mediocrity cannot be dissipated that quickly, but maybe the internal energy will rise and move things forward. After all, the strenght is not in what we write, it’s in what we want to convey.

Moving up: from picture books to chapter texts

There are so many jokes on the internet about the technologically incompetent, that just running through the pages and pages of humor can make your eyes crust over. For instance, technocursed.com will give you story upon story of idiocies committed by people like ME on their computers. The techno-cursed quizzes multiply exponentially – all are hateful reminders about how STUPID we all are, misusing terminology, misunderstanding instructions, all of it DUMB DUMB DUMB.

Well, it’s back to basics for me. I don’t care that even the Amish people now have computers, I don’t care that everyone beeps their way now through every movie, restaurant, hallway with cells and who knows what else sounding the alarm. I WANTED TO POST A DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS PHOTO OF 2 STORKS, with a semi-funny story to go with it, AND I CAN’T DO IT! I quit.

A reader applauded my initial move into the visual arts (see post below). "Welcome to 2004" was the not-so-veiled message. Well, the only visual art you’re going to get from now on is black script on a white background. Black and white: fashionable colors for those of us who have moved BEYOND the abstract maze of visuals, assaulting at every turn. Just wait and see: after their first brush with color, these experimentalists will implore the black and white trend-setters to take them back into their (our) fold. Ahhh the svelte black and white sophisticates – stark sumptuousness –all in the word, nothing else, just pure, sensual, cerebral, elegant text.

And so become yourself…

A favorite little ballad from my college days – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “teach your children..” These days, you would not be able to keep a straight face and write these lyrics, yet I’ve had others tell me that they, too, find the gentle melody and words quite touching. A fragment to remind us:

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.

A shame that the singer David Crosby has had to struggle with keeping his life in order. Not too long ago, I remember listening to an interview with him; he seemed more balanced then, more focused on his current work. How quickly it all can scramble itself again. Read the story about his most recent arrest in NY here.

Picture this...or not

Not to be outdone by the magnificent visual addendum to Ann’s blog, I have spent the morning tinkering with my html knowledge deficiencies, feeling myself ready to be among the posters with the mostest.

I had chosen Krtek to lead me into this brave new word. Krtek is an animation wonder: 60 years old, he has seen his homeland, the Czech Republic, undergo some pretty heady changes.

Krtek appears in short animated films for children, and he is far more popular in his home country and in Germany and Japan than any Disney character. Why, then, does he lack an American following? It has been said that Krtek is too slow moving for the crazed frenetic action packed cartoon scene in the States. The New York Times describes the Krek movies thus: “Krtek films are, in fact, slow, but also lyrical and so hypnotically distinct that they can feel less like watching movies than climbing into another human's head" A comment by Michael Medved, the film critic: “It's an alternate universe, like all of the best animated stuff is. But it's an alternate universe that feels astonishingly refreshing and kind."

In an interview, Mr. Miler, Krtek’s creator, said: "Pretty much the whole world knows Krtek; America, which is usually first in everything, is last in this...I always look at American history, and it is a very hard one. People came. They conquered a continent. They suffered hardships, and that hardship is reflected in its movies. I look at children there and think what they are watching is a reflection of that hardness. If you look at America, it is epic. Whereas here, it is more poetic. I feel here there is more lyricism."

So, Krtek is my aspirational hero, my symbol for the new era in blogdom.

There's just one problem: according to loyal readers, Krtek isn't for everyone: many get a blank space where his innocent little face should be. The new era has not yet begun. Back to html education.

The church, the state, and the people of Poland

It is nothing short of amazing to read today (in several of the more obscure news sources, of course) that Poland’s governing Social Democrats will introduce a bill easing abortion law in that country. The current law is among the most restrictive in all of Europe (only Portugal, Ireland, and Malta have laws that are equally punitive and harsh): it permits abortion only in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and only if the woman is a victim of rape or incest, or if her health or the health of the fetus is severely endangered. A doctor performing an abortion under other circumstances may be imprisoned for two years.

The Catholic Church has been instrumental in shaping the current, restrictive laws affecting reproductive choice. In a country that is more than 95% Catholic, a widespread acceptance of the Church’s position should be a predictable reality. But the Church, a powerful political force in post-communist Poland, is suddenly losing its connections to the public. I see the new legislation as a real sign of a national disengagement from the Church’s platform. 60% of the people are in favor of loosening restrictions on abortion. That is nothing short of remarkable.

On another note, the person introducing the new law is Jolanta Banach. She is a member of the Social Democratic party, and thought to be Prime Minister Leszek Miller’s strong rival in the elections that are just around the corner. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Poland outpace the United States in electing a woman to a national position of leadership? In less than twenty years, Poland has jumped from having almost no women actively engaged in party politics, to now having a number of them leap frog right to the top. Very impressive!

George Washington type guilt

I look outside at the soon-to-be grassy strip by the curb and I see a tree stump. A few months ago a tall tree lived its full and glorious life there, giving shade and cool summer comfort to the world below its broad canopy of branches. The tree is gone and it is my fault. I asked the city to chop it down. I thought it was dying and I hated to see its yearly decline – each spring, more brittle branches, fewer leaves, less beautifully displayed.

The question is, if I had the tree killed, what will I do to my dog or my neighbor, to say nothing of those closer to me once they show signs of wear and tear? What happened to the idea of sticking by those who have grown old before you, who are there to share their wisdom and counsel and shade?

The city will plant a new tree come spring, but it wont be the same. The old one is gone and it is my fault. Move over in the guilt line, George.

The love/hate relationship with an office

Tonight I grew increasingly concerned that I am perhaps forming too great of a dependence on my office. It is, after all, very late, and after a rollicking Friday evening, here I am in my Bascom Hill den, in the empty Law School building, attempting to get “stuff done.”

I turned to my friend google for a quick consult, and I feel better already. True, google wasn’t precisely on point. The office issues it asked me to address (at the Realtor Magazine site here) aren’t entirely applicable to the academic setting. Moreover, I think the flagged article is attempting to help the poor soul who HATES her office, rather than the one who fears excessive attachment, like I do. Nonetheless, I proceeded with the questions asked of me just to see if there were trouble spots I ought to take note of. In this particular version, I believe the employee is trying to ascertain if the office atmosphere has become TOO dysfunctional. I am told to give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following (in answer to the question “is it true that”):

-- Management sets goals that no one ever reaches, and then berates sales associates for not reaching these goals (true: the exam grading deadlines are hellish, and the pressure to submit grades on time makes suicidal alcoholics of all of us);

-- Sales associates and/or managers use rumors to try and manipulate office policies behind the scenes (well if they are, they’re keeping me out of the loop);

-- When errors occur, the first reaction is to blame someone, not find a way to solve the problem (if the computer doesn’t perform, I blame the computer. What, am I suppose to do, fix it?);

-- Many workers complain of headaches, backaches, sleeplessness, and other physical manifestations of high stress (complain? Yes. Are they for real? Maybe not);

-- Management is overly controlling, insisting that everything be done exactly as it dictates (that would be the provost or the chancellor or the dean? Nahh, never hear from any of them);

-- One or two people are always complaining, writing angry memos to supervisors, and getting into disagreements with other workers (oh, is this about the email exchange of the last few days? It was all in jest, wasn’t it? I certainly didn’t mean a word I said);

-- Company initiatives such as sales contests always seem to be structured so that someone—often the same someone—is the winner, and everyone else is a loser. And then the losers are reminded of the fact (oh no, wrong. We all know who the perceived “winners” are, but we aren’t so mean spirited as to point a vicious finger at the losers);

-- You find yourself going into work later and later, arriving late for appointments, and frequently procrastinating rather than getting work done (doesn’t everyone?).

Like I said, this was overall a relief. No dependency, no need to bail out either. Just a nice week-end night of work at the office. Lovely night at that. Spring-like.

Weather issues

A reader and friend from the NY region wrote that the city is looking good at this time of the year. Trees are budding –that kind of thing. I find it odd that New Yorkers show off their budding trees given that there are so few of them to go around.

By contrast, on the local news, the weatherperson assured us that we need fear only two more major snow storms this year. And, in a couple of weeks or so, the weather should explode.

I’m looking forward to the explosion.

A colleague’s blog (here) has a quiz about countries that truly represent who you are. A survey person (wake up all you survey types) could have a field day with this one because if you do it several times, you are asked different questions. It’s hard, therefore, to control the outcome and the results are sort of bizarre --- I ranked as Canada and Sudan, depending on the questions asked. My colleague asked if I simply changed the answer on the “weather” question (there is such a question under ONE version of the survey). No, I never got the weather question again. It was an impossible question anyway – which is more you, a cool climate or the hot tropics, baby! How about not anything near those two answers?

I have a friend who lives in Singapore. The average temp there is 82 every single day of the year. When I visited, it was 82 on the day I arrived, and it was 82 on the day that I left. It never budged. The sun rose and set at the same time, and it continues to do that year-round. I know I am sounding like the parochial northerner that I am, but this struck me as the most challenging season of all – perpetual sameness. Still, Wisconsin winters are too long, spring is too short and comes far too “late in the season.”

The plight of the Eastern and Central Europeans

I read in the paper (IHT here) today that the EU countries (try: the whole world) are having problems remembering who is who in the political leadership of the 8 soon-to-be member countries of Eastern and Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia).

Of course. But one has to hold the press somewhat responsible here. I scour the international section of the NYT daily for news of Poland or any of the other neighboring states. Once every several months, in the “Europe in Brief” section I read a sentence or two, but that’s it.

It was so much more interesting for Americans to read about the overthrow of communist governments than it is to learn of Poland’s plight as the increasingly disenfranchised yet-to-be member of the Union. Everyone knew who Lech Walesa was, or the Czech, Vaclav Havel – heroes to the west (I’m not sure most Poles continue to idolize Walesa in the same way that Americans do).

The article describes briefly the following: “they [Western Europeans] probably do not know Ivan Miklos, the deputy prime minister of Slovakia who last year introduced one of the most innovative fiscal projects in Europe, a flat tax of 19 percent on income, corporate profits and retail sales; Sandra Kalniete, the Latvian foreign minister who grew up exiled in Siberia and who will soon serve as European commissioner in Brussels; Stanislav Gross, a rising star in Czech politics who began his working life as a railway engineer.”

Such rich histories in these forgotten places! Interesting people doing intriguing, innovative work. When will we learn to look east in the hope of learning something new, rather than always exporting advice and turning a blind eye to what happens next?

Mais oui, c’est normal...

I know, I know, I do not need another excuse to give a nod of admiration toward the French and their eating habits. I wont go on for too long. My paper of choice (when I get around to exercising that choice, which, unfortunately, is not daily), the International Herald Tribune, poses the following question (here) from its comfortable French seat: why do Americans neglect communal eating?

The French love their food, we know that, but what they also love is the company of others during meals. We’ve read in the past that even in the urban climate of frenetic Paris, French people will take on the average at least an hour a day for lunch. The article today points out that the same holds true for evening family meals and the school lunch, which in all schools is an hour, followed by some more social time. In some schools it runs even longer.

Compare this to our own wolfing down of food: only one out of three American families sits down to dinner together, and school lunches have 15 minutes allocated to them, including time spent in the cafeteria line (I guess our experience in this was unique, since I believe the local high school extended the eating period to a hefty 17.5 minutes, or thereabouts).

At least I know now why the offspring from this household skipped happily from one grade to the next and why their parents kept their sanity throughout. The article says the following:

"Yet study after study shows that having meals together as a family is good for both adults and children. A University of Michigan study found that mealtime at home was the single strongest predictor of better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems for children. Mealtime was far more powerful than time spent in school, studying, worshiping, playing sports or arts activities."

There is no doubt in my mind that communal eating has benefits for the soul as well as for the body. It’s worth taking the time for, n’est pas?

Week-end… is there a week-end?

A reader and a friend asked today what I was doing this week-end. Having stated here that I do not treat the blog as a personal declaration of any sort (see post March 2), you would think I would not take this opportunity to address the question in the blog context. Yet I feel I must. The simple answer is that a visitor is flying in tomorrow and so I will be taking another look at Truax and admiring displays in the gift shop in the absence of any other worthwhile airport activity. But the more complicated answer is that perhaps I will initiate a first meeting of bloggers-who-have-lost-all-sense-of-reality-in-their-conversion-of-each-day-into-one-long-blog-run.

Not everyone can belong. My colleagues, for example, are not invited. Ann rarely blogs in the evening, and Tonya has taken a day or two off, presumably to form a comfortable and enduring relationship with TiVo, whomever he may be. Since I am a founding member, I can state the terms: if you care more about posting than you do about calling your own mother (respectfully assuming that you have a mother), you’re in. If you travel to the desert and immediately start inquiring about the location of the nearest internet café (see posts, February 13, 14, 15) –you’re in. If you’re reading the second paragraph of the first page of the novel you started the previous week –you’re in.

Frank Lloyd Wright once remarked: “I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.” A blogger is more likely to follow the dictum of Kingsley Amis, who wrote: “If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”

Spooky spy stuff…

Last night I posted a blog entry questioning Senator Feingold’s recent vote against the extension on the ban on military-style assault weapons (see below). I had my say then and there, after which I retired to a yoga-like position of total political disengagement. I thought it would last at least a week.

Today, though, I came home to a letter from Senator Feingold. On the envelope I read, in big bold letters against a red background, “HOW MUCH DO YOU AND I AGREE?” I don’t want to open it. It’s spooky. How quickly did Senator Feingold muster his support to respond to my critical blog post? Will I be mentioned by name inside the letter, perhaps as a subversive force that is undermining the deeply (albeit, at present, slightly camouflaged) democratic tradition that the Senator wishes to align himself with?

Did anyone else get the same letter? If not, I have to believe that I am being targeted.

Truly, this isn’t excessive worry on my part. I know when these things get politically charged. Remember, please, that I come from a history of tough times for the political outlier. Back in the 60s, one of my NY (elementary school) classmates came up to me and asked “is it true that in Poland armed guards stand outside of each classroom and SHOOT anyone who disagrees?” And, in case that wasn’t enough, in those years, my family was not permitted to drive through many counties in each and every state because of our status as belonging to the Polish (a.k.a. communist) diplomatic corps (Georgia was the only state in the entire Union that did not restrict our movement; Florida, where we liked to drive to on winter break, was so full of prohibitions that it would take us days just to circumvent the counties that forbade our presence). So forgive me for feeling slightly disconcerted: I think I am again being shadowed, for who knows what reason. That, or else Feingold knows he made one big political error.

We forgive thee

What I admire is a nation with a big, forgiving heart. Under Switzerland’s NEW law (and I have to question why it took almost 60 years to enact it, given that mortality rates would act to dwindle the affected population), anyone who was punished for violating Switzerland’s “neutrality” (my quotation marks) during World War II (say for helping in the rescue of Jews), may now receive an official pardon (a very brief paragraph about this here).

In essence, people like Aimée Stauffer-Stitelmann, who had been jailed for several weeks for helping smuggle Jewish children into Switzerland during the War, can be granted a pardon. Of course, those children, now adults, have pardoned Ms. Stauffer-Stitelmann a long time ago, but now we have the Swiss joining in on the forgiveness train. So, is it in the spirit of “forgive and forget?” Like I said, a mark of a country with great humanity and a generous heart.

Again, the Oscars

Columnist Broder from the Washington Post announces his own Oscars for the Democratic Primaries (read it here). He writes the following:

"It's obvious that the John Kerry campaign was the political equivalent of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Just as that epic dominated the Oscars, the Massachusetts senator won battle after battle, starting in Iowa and going right through Super Tuesday."

In addition, Broder wishes to hand out the Best director award to Mary Beth Cahill (who took over managing Kerry’s chaotic campaign back in November); Best Actor: goes to John Edwards (no explanation needed—“awesome performance” writes Broder); for Best Supporting Actress we have:

"A tie between Elizabeth Edwards and Teresa Heinz Kerry, who campaigned vigorously and effectively on their own and managed, when on stage with their husbands, to avoid the adoring gaze that once was expected from the candidate's spouse. Smart, independent women, they did much to signal a welcome change in American society. And a special award to Judith Steinberg Dean, who sent the same message simply by sticking to her medical practice."

Finally, Best Supporting Actor: to Ted Kennedy (for working the crowd before a Kerry appearance); Most Gracious Withdrawal: Joe Lieberman (I don’t have to agree with all the awards, do I?); Most Gracious Endorsement: Wes Clark, “the retired general who went to Wisconsin to endorse former Navy lieutenant Kerry and said to the winner: "Sir, request permission to come aboard;"” and at the tail end, the Worst Supporting Actor Award: “Jerry McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who jumped the gun on most other labor leaders in hopes of being the kingmaker in Howard Dean's campaign and then publicly abandoned Dean a week before Wisconsin. Dean had plenty of faults, but he didn't deserve this. As columnist Mark Shields has written, McEntee's double-cross probably scotches whatever hopes he had to become the next president of the AFL-CIO. Loyalty is supposed to mean something in politics and in life, and he failed the test big-time.”

Can I add a few about others in the run for president? Best Animation, Short Subject: Ralph Nader – truly a cartoon performance, one hopes of a short duration; Best Producer: Republican Fundraisers for putting up such sums of money for GWB, part II. With the exception of the Godfather, isn’t it the case that the sequel is always worse than the original? Oh Lord.

The simple life of the Richies

The perennial question at the time of divorce is, should there be an award of spousal support? If so, how much and for how long? If you read court decisions, you’d come away thinking that spousal support is the norm. Moreover, it is awarded both to recognize the contributions of each spouse (not only the income producing one) during marriage, and to respond to her or his need to maintain a lifestyle proximate to that at the time of marriage. The idea is that divorce should not result in the enrichment of one at the cost of the other – i.e. the spouse that’s economically less well positioned to start a life alone. If you talk to divorce attorneys, however, they will tell you that the reality is less predictable and only approximately 20% of spouses walk away with long term awards.

And so how should the divorcing Richies be treated by the courts? CNN reports that Diane Richie is asking for support as a matter of fairness. She has been accustomed to spending lavishly (her monthly expenses include: $1000 for laser hair removal, $20,000 for a visit top to her son at boarding school, $450 on facials, $250 on nails, etc.). It would be a hardship to change her lifestyle. I would not be surprised if she were granted quite a hefty monthly sum. This is in the LA jurisdiction – her expenses are likely to be regarded as fair and reasonable.

The ballad of Leonardo Balada

Lacking yoga (see post below) to calm my inner turmoil, I decided, instead, to google some of my elementary school teachers to see if they attained any greatness, something more significant than simply shepherding me through 2nd, 3rd, etc grades.

By far the most impressive of the lot is Leonardo Balada, experiencing quite the meteoric rise from elementary and middle school music teacher to renowned composer and professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music. He taught me music during 5th through 7th grades, and I remember thinking him then to be rather odd, what with a string (it was always a string) of blond hair falling over half his face, and a slumped posture of a genius in the making.

He let me sing in the ‘special’ solo at the closing school ceremonies before I left for Poland and so I decided to love him right then and there. But when he shortly after traveled to Poland and called my family home, I pretended that I didn’t exist and hung up on him. That was to be my last contact with the incomparable Mr. Balada (see his site here). Unless… unless… what if I were to send him an email explaining that his googled accomplishments have boosted my spirits on a quiet March evening in Madison? What if I apologized for hanging up on him that day in Warsaw, in the summer of 1966? No, some images are best left alone. If he didn’t remember ever having taught the spunky and not altogether compliant kid in his music and choral works classes, I’d be crushed, and then googling his name would never be a calming force again.

A Democrat in search of New Balance

Tonight I should have by-passed the local press. Not only did I have to lose my evening tranquility by reading a nonsensical story blasting divorce attorneys (see post below), but then a well-intentioned reader directed me to the article, also in the Cap Times, indicating that Senator Feingold, for reasons known only to himself (the stated reasons are not entirely comprehensible), was one of just a handful of democrats voting against the extension of the ban on military-style assault weapons.

I know that Feingold and I share the same birth month/year, I know that I could heretofore trust him on representing the democratic platform in the Senate, and I can’t really say that I am a single-issue voter. However, this is just too disturbing. Can anyone explain what credible reasons Feingold would have for voting in the way that he did?

I will go into a political shut-down mode for a while. Reading the paper is too harsh on the system. I wish I were the type who could do two hours of yoga every time I read something disconcerting in the press. Maybe it’s time I found some distractions. My colleagues (see blogs here and here) are all into TiVo. I don’t even know what TiVo is. Sounds like sneakers you would wear for jogging. Personally, I like the style of New Balance – both as footwear and as a slogan favoring the tranquility I am currently missing.

How many distortions can one story have?

Reading today’s Cap Times (local paper) on the subject of divorce through lawyerless mediation, I felt like canceling my subscription right then and there. In a calmer mode I decided that too many papers were being discontinued by me because of an emotional reaction to a poorly written story; reason prevailed and the paper will continue to grace my doorstep in the late afternoon.

When a newspaper article takes one or two missteps, it is not inappropriate to write a quick note clarifying the inaccuracy. The story on divorce, however, had, when last I counted, twenty one inaccuracies, some of them verging on blatant misstatements of fact.

It is so easy to argue that lawyers milk their clients at the time of divorce; that parents are encouraged to pursue their own interest instead of the child’s best interest in custody disputes; that if you would only take the lawyers out, some other less money-grubbing professional could step in and do a better job. The fact is, most courts have built-in mandatory mediation sessions, many appoint a separate lawyer to represent the child’s best interest, and very very few cases ever go to trial, because the pressure to settle a dispute is enormous. Judges hate divorce and custody battles, and do not look favorably upon lawyers who do not resolve the issues prior to a court appearance.

I always worry that the push toward mediation – so fine-sounding in its simplicity – will undermine the interests of the weaker party, the one that hasn’t the emotional strength to persevere. I admit that I am not a fan of divorce proceedings – I find them flawed in any number of ways. You need only attend my Family Law lectures to hear my concerns on how couples and children are treated at the time of dissolution. I spend almost the entire semester on this. But running this article which praises the services of some company offering a “better way” to a divorce, is grounds for mandating a retraction. It’s just too horribly written to belong in even the local paper.

A true resident

Last week I was spending a long afternoon listening to students appeal their denials of residency status for tuition purposes here at UW (I am on a university committee that hears these). A young woman came in with her husband. They moved here from Colorado because of her studies (in law, of all things). She had appealed once before and had been denied, and now she was back. I asked her what had changed since the last hearing. She responded that she and her husband had received a bill for sidewalk maintenance in front of their home this last December (they bought a small house in Madison when they moved here for her schooling) – a hefty sum of $1000 was owed by them to the city of Madison. Surely, said she, this now makes her a full-fledged member of this community and, therefore, a true resident of Wisconsin.

She was wrong and I spent a while explaining why. But I think the woman has connections high up. Today in the mail I received a white envelope with threatening words on the front of the envelope: OFFICIAL NOTICE it read. Inside was a letter from the City Engineering Division informing me that my sidewalk was going to be inspected imminently, with the strong possibility of major repairs down the pike. A bill for this city service would follow.

Coincidence? I can hardly think so. Our sidewalk was repaired just two years ago, and we paid THAT bill shortly thereafter. There is, to my uninformed eye, nothing wrong with the sidewalk – it is as smooth as an ocean pebble. It is beautifully straight, not a tear nor a dent to be seen along its long, well-tended stretch.

I fear that our non-resident has set the city against us. I can only expect now an annual repaving of the sidewalk. With the huge bill, of course.

Numbing beauty

One of the odder email subscriptions that I receive (on a very irregular basis) is a newsletter on Florence doings. Yes, that would be Florence, Italy. I think it must be targeting expats because it is in English, and it speaks of things that would be of interest to a foreigner spending long periods of time there.

This morning, I read in it the following: “When he visited Florence, the French writer Stendhal, after a few days spent admiring the architectural and artistic wonders he encountered at every step, was stricken by a sort of blackout, a prostration brought on by the sight of such highly-concentrated beauty.”

I read this with a sort of early March longing to be overwhelmed by something so piercingly flawless that it would make me numb. It would be best if this would coincide with Spring Break so that my own prostration would not hinder any teaching effort. It is hard to find that kind of stunning visual perfection in a landscape that always looks dirty during this month, and a town that is more on the pleasant and attractive end of things rather than fetchingly stupefying. It is easier to be a Florentine in March than it is to be a Madisonian.

Uniquely Vermontian

I am sure I could eventually come to understand why the state of Vermont voted overwhelmingly to support Dean today. But this other piece of news (here) – about the town of Killington wanting to secede from Vermont to become a part of New Hampshire (a mere 25 miles away) is a bit much. Though, it would be interesting to give cities and towns the choice of state affiliation. Madison would probably opt for Massachusetts. And where would Berkeley go? No state quite matches its idiosyncratic disposition. A fascinating idea, all the more remarkable since I am sure that the laws of the chosen state (in today’s case, those of NH) were not thoroughly examined to determine if they were compatible with the mood of the town.

Perhaps the one conclusion one can walk away with today is that Vermont can’t quite shake that now fading glory of being in the public eye.

A day of interesting conversations

A reader tells me:

r: your blog is so personal, I could never blog in that way…
nc: personal? I wont even reveal the top movies selected in my name by the “pick-a-DVD service” (see post sometime in January), I write about the most benign events in my life, I say little, if anything, about what I’m REALLY thinking, that’s for email or personal encounters, not for BLOGS…what do you mean by ‘personal’?

r: well, just as an example I would never say where it is that I am traveling..
nc: that is completely impersonal! I write travel stories on the side, that’s how impersonal travel is in my mind. I hosted a travel website for years and wrote constantly about visits to family farms and vineyards in distant places. Writing about travel is not personal, it’s a nudge to look at an issue from the other side of the ocean, with a different focus perhaps…

r: well yes, but you reveal your position in the process of writing.
nc: do I? Are you sure? Maybe sometimes. I suppose. I guess everyone does know whom I voted for. Or, at least it can be assumed. I’ll grant this much: writing a blog is much like going to a dinner with hosts at a foreign university: the same level of detail would go into a conversation there. After a shot of sake, that detail may expand a little, but it will always be a story within the boundaries of that wonderful, yet limited, conversation.

“Drama-starved pundits…”

“Drama-starved pundits"--these are words used in a WPost article today referring to those who will pick up on Cheney’s comments on the gay marriage saga, looking to see if there is enough of a rift between Cheney and Bush for the president to dump Cheney from the ticket anytime soon. Not wishing to be subsumed into this category, I will NOT devote much space to Cheney’s very amusing answer to the question of whether he supported Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage [hint – Cheney made himself out to be a complete non-person, which is perhaps not a surprise, but it is rather funny in an awful sort of way].

Perhaps more disturbing is the reporting of support in this country for the VP: Cheney has an approval rating of 33 percent, disapproval 36, and 31 had no opinion. As to that last number, in the words of the Post, “where have these folks been?”

the happy families of Coaticook

The NYT describes (here) a town in Quebec (Coaticook) where the mayor is providing subsidies so that people would hurry up and multiply. Currently, the number of births averages to about 1.3 per couple. He is hoping that by throwing in a large sum of money for a third child (and fourth, and fifth…), along with subsidies for children’s sports equipment and music lessons, he can keep the families large, culturally and physically fit, and happily married.

Maybe, maybe not. He admits to having no data to support this, though he feels that it can’t but help prod families into making that decision to have even more little rabbits.

The fact is, family-friendly subsidies are not new. Many countries use financial incentives to boost reproduction and to keep young parents in the work force. France is a classic: over 80% of women are employed (ditto Japan) – a fact that reflects the country’s offers of day care subsidies, nanny subsidies, and a number of other benefits for the birthing mother. Last I checked, close to 95% of all French children ages 3 – 5 attended state-funded child care programs (with great food to boot). Far fewer women are in the workforce in Britain and Canada– where the governments are less forthcoming with subsidies.

In Coaticook, Cananda the offer is of piano lessons and hockey sticks and $750 as an incentive to have that extra child. Parents are grateful, I’m sure, with every peanut thrown their way, but oh, is this ever a peanut!

Conversation in the hallway

reader (r): if you could have 5 million people read your blog daily, would you be happy?
nc: No. definitely not. All those anonymous addresses clicking in – never.

r: if you could have 5 thousand people read your blog daily, would you be happy?
nc: no, same reasons.

r: if you could have 500 people read your blog daily, would you be happy?
nc: I think that’s still too much. Unless the readership was composed of people who were no more than one degree of separation removed from me: friends of friends is okay. Friends of friends of friends -- maybe. Complete strangers? It’s not whom I think of when I write a post. I’d have to change my style.

r: if you could have 50 people read your blog daily, would you be happy?
nc: that’s it? I have 50 people in my Family Law class alone. I’m sure this blog hasn’t yet reached all their computerized little fingers, but yes, I would like at least two readers who are not reading to see if they can figure out if I say anything that will help them on their exam.

r: so how many readers would make you happy?
nc: quality, man, it’s all about quality. A reader should like to read the kind of stuff that I like to write about. Style, content, experiences, quirky selection of topics – all that has to please, otherwise it’s a misfire. Lucky thing is, if you’re a reader who logs on only to wince at the mere titles of some of the posts, you of course know that you can find a million other blogs to make you happy. Or, you can start your own little slice of heaven. [And I want to see YOU keep it lively and bold on a daily basis, for months and months!]

What’s wrong with slam dunker?

Class notes from today:

nc: “Why isn’t this case a slam dunker, a no brainer, and easy win for the plaintif?

student: “Professor Camic, it’s not a slam dunker because you can’t say anything is a slam dunker. The word is ‘slam dunk’.” [here student makes a swift and forceful hand motion implying some baseball move that is unrecognizable by me but appears to satisfy the visual requirements of what is a slam dunk]

The edification of the immigrant continues.

Brief comment after ever-so-brief walk with dog

Weather update: the snow has officially melted in the backyard. Completely. Now is the time to draw mighty plans and turn great ambitions into reality: the season of heaving and hoeing is just ahead. Each year I remove the next five to ten square feet of lawn and convert it into planting space. I do it by hand – none of the heavy machinery for me. I’d spent my first years of life and the best part of every childhood summer in a remote village in Poland with my grandparents (electricity arrived only when I was 5, running water and indoor plumbing came much much later). The love of working the soil comes from those years. Now if I could only convert all this suburban rocky clay soil into something that can sustain plantlife, I would be happy.