“I’m a creation, I’m a gifted improviser”

These are the words spoken by Tom Ripley in the just-released for the DVD market movie, “Ripley’s Game.”

After reading the review of ‘Ripley’s Game’ in the Sunday Times, it was obvious that it woul only be a matter of days before the DVD would find its way to this household. Some phrases from the review especially stood out: “Perhaps the most exquisitely sardonic thriller to go straight to DVD…” Or, about the lead actor’s role: “A supercilious reptile dripping with venom, he materializes, black beret just so, in the splendidly apt form of John Malkovich…(portraying the) screen incarnation of the enigmatic antihero.”

The film’s premiere was at the Venice International Film Festival in 2002 (“to thunderous applause” writes the Times), but subsequently it appeared in the US only three times (in NY, to sell-out audiences). Apparently there was disagreement about the way the film was to be released, resulting, in the end, in no release at all.

You could watch this movie for Malkovich’s depiction of Ripley alone. Or, for the splendid European cinematography. Or as an example of Liliana Cavani’s directing talents. Or you could watch it for its entirety – a superbly balanced story, a character study, an eerie portrayal of a man without a conscience. Yes, yes, there are nit-picky points that can be made – why this, why that, how is that this family is so wealthy, do we really need this subtext, etc. But nit-picking belongs to paid movie reviewers. For those of us seeking a good movie viewing experience, this one is well within that orbit.

Russell Smith (who co-produced the film along with Malkovich) talks about the irony of having a small gem of a movie to release. He tells the Times: “Complex, interesting films have become difficult to market, junk easy to market, and at the end of the year everyone scratches their head and wonders why they cannot come up with a 10-best list.” I’m not sure if he’s suggesting that his film should have –would have—been on that list. No matter, ‘Ripley’s Game’ is indeed a near-perfect thriller, worth every penny of the $4 rental fee.

The news that’s more than fit to print

This year’s Pulitzer Prize winners (announced today) are, as I suppose is typically the case, from a number of better and lesser known papers. I am curious about the stories, in the same way that one becomes curious about movies that win Oscars, so I google a number of them and spend a fascinating half-hour reading articles that are not only well written but have such breadth and vision (on such topics as the medically dismissed condition of aortic aneurysms to the examination of death and injury among American workers) that it makes your daily CNN.com story seem like a first grader’s chapter from a story book. (Though a very useful chapter. For instance, for the Pulitzer Prize story, look here.)

The Pulitzer for political cartoons was awarded to Matt Davies. My googling brought up wonderful examples of Davies work, among them, the above.

A steady dose of Nina

I was nineteen, coming from Poland to work as an au paire in the States, reading the NYT for the first time in my life on a regular basis (one might say I had to: the knife that buttered my bread was the NYT) when I was told of the Ninas in Hirschfeld’s drawings. But it wasn’t until much later that I learned that the number next to the artist’s name at the bottom gave you the Nina count for a given illustration.

Today the Times has a short little story about the Nina phenomenon in Hirschfeld’s work (here).

It’s odd what we sometimes get ourselves into. Hirschfeld had originally placed the name in a picture in recognition of the birth of his daughter. Eventually he wanted to stop the practice (hey, was Nina consulted on this?) but the public was outraged and so he was ‘forced’ to continue.

Is there comfort in this ritualistic search for a Nina? I always looked for the Ninas, but you’d think that I would be the one person who had an excuse to do this on a regular basis. Or, is the act of Nina-searching a dumb-person’s version of doing the NYT’s crossword puzzle? Or is it some mystical associations that we have with the name, the state of the world, art, death and all living things? Oh, but of course.

The greatest asset in your house may very well be your chair

After reading yesterday’s WashPost article on the merits (or lack thereof) of renting movies online, I decided that there is virtually no reason to ever get up and move your feet again. A friend recently discovered the joys of even ordering groceries online. She has good reasons to do this, but in time, others will buy into these services as well, even if they haven’t her movement limitations.

We talk through our computers, we acquire things, we send greetings – basically we do all that a cave person once had to venture out into the world for. We put ourselves right back into our caves, the boulders are rolling down the mountain and closing off entrances and exits, shutting out air and light, and we’re happy as anything with our great sophistication and brilliant mastery of life. To me, sometimes we seem dumber than the (computer-illiterate) apes who came before us.

And now come the divorces…

A WashPost article this morning describes a gay union between two men, entered into back in the 70s, dissolved several years later.

The article is a good reminder of the obvious: that the legal aspects of marriage are most salient at the time of break-up, not during the marriage itself. If you ask someone what legal protections they are seeking in marriage, maybe they’ll mention health insurance and hospital visits. Effectively, for most couples, the law does not permeate daily married life.

But the law is the great regulator of dissolution. It is no surprise that in my Family Law class we spend 25% of the semester on marriage and 75% on dissolution and non-marriage, and even then I think I am too generous toward marriage.

Couples (gay or straight) who break up without the legal protection of divorce proceedings (because they never married) have very real problems, ones that are hardly considered at the time of moving in together. Property, custody of children, pension rights, support benefits – none of these can have the oversight of family court (flawed as that oversight may be) if there isn’t a marriage. In fact, even in Wisconsin – a state whose highest court wrote the law on third party rights to visits with children –it’s very difficult to gain access to your partner’s children unless you can demonstrate (a legal certificate sure would help here) that you were indeed acting in a parent-like relationship toward the child.

Perhaps, then, in this great discussion of gay marriages we should be really concentrating on gay divorces. Maybe I could suggest to GWB that he should amend the proposed constitutional amendment so that it realistically states what it is we are asking the constitution to do: “marriage may only be entered into and dissolved if it is between a man and a woman.” Phrased this way, maybe it would wake opponents to gay marriage up to the absurdity of this kind of legal limitation: the vast majority of couples who are splitting up needs the protection of the law – most can’t get to a fair result without it. The point is so obvious, yet so negelcted (by those on both sides of the issue) in current discussions of the merits of gay legal unions.

Everyone’s gone to the moon

Walking through a Westside neighborhood today I imagined how it might look to a Martian landing on any of the front lawns (now that we know there was once water on Mars it is easier to imagine that there are also little Martians traveling around the universe and beyond in their little oblong space ships). They’d see a street resembling a ghost town. Not a sign of life. Silence from within. If I were that Martian, upon witnessing such silence and emptiness I’d hightail it out of here. Surely some chemical toxins have either wiped out 100% of the population or at the very least forced everyone indoors? For safety’s sake, I’d close the door to my spaceship and flee!.

Of course, there are no toxins, there was no chemical spill, no bombs exploded wiping out the population. It was just a gorgeously bright and sunny Sunday in Spring and everyone was locked indoors, creating an outdoor sense of desolate emptiness and betrayal. What Martian would want to pause and be part of that? Sometimes I just hate the suburbs.


P.S. I do want to exempt one tiny portion of my block from this: where the flamingos once somersaulted in the winter (see February post), there are now plastic chairs, wheelbarrows and toys. The family across the street brings life right onto the front lawn and their magnetic draw attracts others. Our block is thus spared the ghost-town imagery. As I worked clearing the plant beds of winter debris out front today, I felt that a Martian would feel okay on our block.

The Spring anti-update

Realty sets in as I watch the following plants proliferate at an alarming pace: dandelions, violets, and defiant lamium (which took over an entire area prepped for a new flower border and now will not leave).

I feel noble and virtuous with my resistance to chemicals in the yard. I fertilize with organic turkey droppings – how cool is that –and I pull out (no exaggeration here) hundreds of dandelions by hand, one by one, so that they don’t completely control the yard. But lamium has stumped me. Thus I get a deep thrill when I come across a container of Round Up weed killer at Menard’s. I study the toxic ingredients with something verging on lust and I tell myself that there'll be one more year of waging war against the lamium and after that I’ll cave in: late at night, when no one is watching, I’ll point and spray and watch the noxious foam do its dirty work, seeping into the leaves of each and every one of these little bastards.

As for the violets: never has something that looks so pretty in June turned into such a menace for all the months after. I'll cut off the flowers and throw them in salads and basically resign myself to their spreading habit. Taste and beauty sometimes win over orderliness.

So are we down to four now?

The NYT today provides an assessment of the four most likely Kerry running mates: Edwards (+charisma, but he wont even deliver NCarolina), Gebhardt (+everyone likes Gebhardt, but he’s old news), Vilsack (+swing state Midwesterner, but no foreign policy credentials), Richardson (+ swing state and foreign policy on his side, but has never run for office before).

Of course, those who have seen the spiciness of the primaries wither and become an endless dusty road with no sign of anything more titillating than Kerry’s shoulder surgery may still be holding out hope for McCain. So what that he doesn’t want the job, doesn’t want to cross party lines, doesn’t want to be anyone’s running mate? It is said that if he got on board it would be a sure win for Kerry. You’d think that would be tough to pass up if you were as dis-enamored with GWB as McCain is.

Spring Ahead

Had I remembered that clocks leap forward today, I would not have turned off the computer at 1:30 (meaning 2:30) last night, especially since a visitor is stopping by in an hour and so an early wake-up was essential.


All this is rather trivial, but I did want to note that waking up has not been a problem recently because of the unfortunate bird issue. I don’t mean “birds singing” either. Birds have been flying into our windows at an alarming rate this year. There have always been a few confused souls in the past who have done this. Usually the birds fall to the ground in a state of shock and if I am around, I will either keep an eye on them or move them, just to make sure the vicious neighborhood cats don’t get to them before the little guys get over their shock and can fly again.

But there have been so many lately that I wonder if it isn’t like the “frogs stopped singing in the Amazon” phenomenon (i.e. a sign of disastrous environmental changes that have caused a weakened species). So, I’m up, listening for the next thud and wondering whether I should paint temporary orange stripes on the windows, at least until the bird population gets its seasonal strength again.

Walking

Today, the April breezes and skies and trees were so stirring that I took no fewer than TWO long walks, though the first one was better than the second for reasons (among others) of increased wind velocity and decreased interest in the enterprise the second time around. But I did want to note that walking in Madison, especially during three out of the four seasons, is just about the best thing you can do here. I mean, people love the lakes and I admit that if your life is all about sailing and ice-fishing, you’re going to be magnetically drawn to these great bodies of water.

If, on the other hand, your only lake associations are either with 1. the Union Terrace on a late summer afternoon, 2. the view from your office, if you’re lucky, 3. the unfortunate death of Otis Redding, or 4. the very real possibility of increased mosquito activity, then you have to look elsewhere for outdoor diversion. Forgetting about State Street (which has greater commercial and people-watching value than outdoor-amusement ), there are still any number of non-mosquitoed walking places, including bike paths, interesting neighborhoods, and, of course, places like conservation parks, or the Arboretum.

When I am reminded that this month marks the beginning of all these trekking possibilities, I positively soar with energy and joy.

[photo: Owen Woods]

A Blockbuster in hell

I hate being wasteful –spending money on things that prove to be completely worthless, too horribly bad for even the garbage can.

Last month I bought a DVD, thinking it would rest easily on the shelf of “DVDs that are fun to watch when you want to do the ironing or pay the bills and don’t want to exert yourself much but wouldn’t mind a sweet moment with the silver screen or at least a good laugh.” That shelf has a number of movies on it that I consider completely entertaining – Possesion, Chariots of Fire, Tortilla Soup, Moonstruck – all fun stuff, nothing too taxing, a pick-me-up-when-I-am not-too-chipper-kind of shelf. To this I thought I’d add “Intolerable Cruelty.” Why? Because anything with Catherine Zeta-Jones was bound to be easily digestible and not terribly challenging in the cerebral way, and although it only had a “US Weekly” recommendation on the back (“Huge Laughs!” it reads, which I now think has hidden subversive meanings, sort of an inside joke among reviewers: “what a HUGE LAUGH it is that some people will actually spend more than a quarter to see this!”), I though it would be okay.

It was not okay. In fact, I have played it several times just to demonstrate to various people passing through this house how BAD a movie can be, because no one quite believes my blasphemous comments uttered in a not altogether sane manner about it.

So what do I do now that I wasted what suddenly seems like huge sums of money on this worthless piece of trash? I can’t toss it, but I also can’t possibly display it – I can’t stand to even look at it, let alone be reminded that I actually brought it into the house. What now?

There ought to be a special delivery service collecting movies of this nature for rental in hell. This particular film could make life miserable for any number of people who need to be tortured in a systematic and continuous way. Consider it a charitable contribution, just from me.

But does he care about you and me?

A Washington Post poll shows a decline in people’s perceptions about how compassionate GWB really is. Here’s one set of responses:

Bush has frequently described himself as a 'compassionate conservative.' Do you think Bush has -- or has not -- governed in a way that is compassionate?

Has 49% (now) 64% (2/2/2003)
Has not 45% (now) 34% (2/2/2003)
No opinion 5% (now) 2% (2/2/2003)

I’ve never fully understood what the term “compassionate conservative” really means, and what its opposite may be (“spitefully conservative?” “indifferent-to-the-lot-of-others conservative?”) and who would subscribe to that opposite given that it’s bound to then have pejorative meanings or associations.

But it’s interesting to wonder what exactly happened in the last year that would cause the change in public opinion. People sometimes ascribe great meaning to smaller things and not enough meaning to big ticket items, so it remains a mystery why numbers on compassion where as high as they were a year ago (and, conversely, why they dropped).

The most touching story…

…appears in the NYT today (here). It is about an old (perhaps 84 yrs?) Kenyan man who took advantage of the government’s decision to make elementary education free and enrolled in first grade (he had never before gone to school and could not read, write, or count). If you passed over the article, do at least read these snippets for a real feel-good start to the day:

On the first day of school, he put on some gray knee socks and blue trousers that he had cut off above the knee to resemble the short pants worn by schoolchildren all over the country. With his school uniform in place, he limped his way from his mud hut to the office of the headmistress, Jane Obinchu.

She thought Mr. Maruge was joking when he said he was there to enroll in the first grade. But Mr. Maruge was insistent, and Mrs. Obinchu decided to give him a chance - a spot right up front where he could hear her.

The other students, most of them 78 years younger than Mr. Maruge, were amused at first by the old man's presence. But over time they grew used to having a "Mzee," the Swahili honorific given to elders, as a classmate.

After all, Mr. Maruge practiced writing the A B C's just as they did. He worked on basic math problems right alongside them. Slowly, the entire class, Mr. Maruge included, began to learn to read.

Kenyan officials were stunned that Mr. Maruge and others well beyond school age had sought to take advantage of free primary education. "We never knew that such people would come," said S. K. Karaba, senior deputy director in the Department of Education. "They still want to be taught. There is an urge."….

At Kapkenduiywa Primary, Mr. Maruge is now a fixture. He is frequently the first student to arrive in the morning, sometimes an hour early. During the school day, he plays the role of both student and teacher. He feels free to give advice to his classmates, reminding them frequently to study hard and listen to their parents.

When the school day is over, Mr. Maruge walks back to the home he shares with his sister. He tends his small herd of sheep and his goats and chickens. Later, he pulls out his books to study a bit before dinner. He is the only student at the school who asks his teacher for homework.

The story does remind me of my grandmother who, though basically literate (in the way that you would be if you completed only three years of schooling), had never read a book in her life until she was about 70. From then on, she read with a vengeance, going straight to the Polish classics that we’d bring to the village from the Warsaw library. She worked her way slowly, very slowly through the great epics and tragedies belonging to the past. She never talked about what she read, but I used to like to watch her, sitting at the kitchen table, turning the pages slowly, following each line, sometimes mouthing the words. It was so quiet in the village (no paved roads, no traffic, just one store a mile away). During the years that she lived there alone, books must have literally kept her sane against all that quiet.
[photo credits: "Kenyan first grader" is from the NYT, countryside around my grandmother's village is from Ekoland.pl]

No photos or art will accompany this post

Did anyone catch the Cap Times review of the 3-day show opening this week-end at the Barrymore? It’s titled ‘Puppetry,’ and it is about, about… an art form of sorts, depicted with humor and, I should think, great physical skill. Certain body parts of two actors are formed into, among other things, a pelican, a hamburger, the Loch Ness monster and the Eiffel Tower.

How original and apparently exceptionally funny and asexual. Still, tickets are at $35. I’ll wait for reports from others. Write me if you venture out to see it.

How can you keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree..

Ollie, my canine, was well trained (emphasis on ‘was’). I believe I have bragged ad nauseam about his independent quick run in the unfenced yard each day, all on a brief verbal command from me.

Today, Ollie went out as usual as I waited, bored, inside. And waited. And waited. Ollie had obviously flown the coop. Spring had gone to his head, poor guy, and he was off to see the world. For the first time in his four and a half years of life, he experienced FREEDOM! Oh, he was shy enough to come back when I went out on the street, sat down (how odd-seeming was that?) and stretched out my arms (he can never resist the lap and arms). But I’m not fooled. He’s seen bigger oceans and grassier fields now. He’ll fly again. Who wouldn’t?

No, no, no, of course not!

A reader (referring to blog posts below) asked today how is it that I got all my plants to bloom this early in the season. This reader, obviously an urban and urbane fellow, assumed that the photos in my “Spring Update” series depicted flowers that were now in their best form in my yard. He was exceedingly in awe of my horticultural skills since he’d only seen crocuses in other Madison yards.

It is painful to stick a pin in the balloon that stands for one’s over-inflated-worth-in-the-eyes-of-another, but I fear I must: no, my flowers are not yet in bloom. Far from it, no such luck, couldn’t be, no way. April, that most wonderful, revitalizing month, just started YESTERDAY! The plants identified below have all emerged from the ground, but the photos simply portend showy summer weeks ahead. We’re not there yet. As I sit here typing in my wooly socks and big burly oversized sweater I am reminded, brilliant sunshine today notwithstanding, we’re not there yet.

Spring Update

I apologize – these updates are now loading here fast and furious, but my plants are rapidly breaking ground and it is a joyous experience, one that deserves notation. Today, it’s all about daylilies. There are hemerocallis nuts out there – people who study, breed and cultivate the hundreds of varieties of this genus of plant. I’m not quite there, but I am charmed by daylily designs and colors. Plus it remains one of nature’s most prolific flowers—a regular fertile myrtle: a bud opens each morning, is spent by the end of the day, a new one opens the next day, and so on. It is a remarkable thing to observe.

I can’t find all the varieties I have in the front and back of the house, but they include some of the ones pictured here.

Maybe I should reconsider spectator sports

Yesterday, in our discussion of custody and physical placement (in the Family Law class) I gave examples of cases I had worked on that had, in my opinion, an incorrect result despite the fact that a text-book reading of the fact patterns would have lead you to predict a decent outcome. I had wondered if the students could really understand this peculiarity about family law – it can be unpredictable because so many factors can confound and confuse the proceedings. I was gratified, therefore, to get the following email from a reader this morning. She was reflecting on the class discussion and thought of it in this way:

Here's a basketball metaphor I think applies here: anybody can learn to dribble the ball down the court to the basket, and make a stylistically brilliant shot from different points on the perimeter, with enough practice and diligence, if you're playing alone with no other players. However, in the real game, even just a one-on-one, there is another person always covering you, trying to stick their hand into your dribble and get the ball, and block where you can move on the court, block your shot once it leaves your hands, etc., which severely limits what parts of your game you can play depending on the opponent. Like in family or custody law: any book could summarize how the custody decisions are made on paper, or you could read the statute and think that's easy enough, but your real-world explanations today were kind of like the defense checking the ball handler.

I’m impressed. Sports metaphors typically elude me (is that ever obvious – see posts below), but this one hit home. This semester I have a renewed respect for the playing field, and an exponentially growing admiration for the students in my classes.

Suspicious minds

My friends and readers have let me down. One after another, they question the authenticity of blog posts today JUST BECAUSE IT’S APRIL 1st! The last message on this was the final straw. My reader writes:

“Now I'm just trying to figure out if the Smigus Dyngus post is for real, or an April Fools post in itself. The photo, with realistic looking costume, has me being less suspicious, but one never knows... Very mysterious you can be!!”

Now really, would I make up something like that? Check out the site here (scroll down to the bottom for an analysis of Smigus Dyngus). Or, if you aren’t the checker type, let me quote the relevant passage for you:

Smigus-dyngus, czyli pomyślność na mokro: Oblewanie się nawzajem wodą w poniedziałek wielkanocny (nazywany z tej okazji Świętym Lejkiem) to również zwyczaj stary i wywodzący się najprawdopodobniej z obrzędów związanych z wiarą w dobroczynne właściwości wody. Był przy tym i jest doskonalą zabawą dla całej rodziny, a także okazją dla psotników, by płatać figle... w zgodzie z ludową tradycją. Polewano się różnie, na dworach paroma kropelkami wody perfumowanej, na wsiach wiadrami i konewkami. Niejedna panna została nawet wepchnięta do rzeki czy koryta z wodą.

Is says it right there, doesn’t it?

The essence of fox

A reader asks where I am able to procure 100% fox urine (see Spring Update posts below). Well, naturally, I don’t chase down the animals myself with jar in hand. But someone does, and what a job that must be! I suppose I could also find it on the Net, but for me, it’s just as easy to locate it in select stores that sell farming or gardening essentials. And btw, it seems not to “spoil:” if you buy too much to use in one season, let me assure you, the stuff is even more foul smelling the next year.

The fools of April

A reader and a friend sent me the following email message late last night:

“It is now April Fool's day. meaning I refuse to talk to you for the next 22 hours (until the day is over, your time). what will happen this year? I don't know, but I know it will be something, and I know I'll fall for it, whatever it is, so see you April 2.”

That’s harsh! I’ll have you know that this year, I am much more into Smigus Dyngus – a traditional Polish celebration that falls on Easter Monday. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT SMIGUS DYNGUS IS???? Wait ‘til Monday, will you ever be surprised!!

[For those far away, and therefore not within a bucket’s reach that day, let me explain: traditionally, on Smigus Dyngus, boys drenched girls with squirt guns, buckets of water, anything that caused great wetness. The thought was that the more a girl was sprayed with water, the higher were her chances of getting married—though I see some pagan ritual elements here, as in cleansing the body and soul, etc... The holiday is observed especially by young people: boys will literally wait out on the road, near markets, in village squares and as soon as a girl would pass – she’d get the bucket. Older men, on the other hand, sprayed their wives with cologne water, though I’m not sure what the purpose of that was – unless he secretly wanted her to leave and marry someone else, a.s.a.p.!? The revenge comes the next day: the girls dump water on guys on Tuesday. In my time, we were way too impatient and so everyone, male and female, dumped water on each other, all Monday long.]

A lesson from the past: my lack of talent may be a virtue

A guest lecturer from Taiwan came to my class yesterday to address issues of Family Law in the context of changing norms and values. His own view was that Taiwan had rushed to embrace Western standards too fast and without enough discussion of what was sacrificed along the way. Individual rights are all fine and well, but the relinquishment of family-centered values comes at a very personal cost to the many people who once had a rich network of family and now feel themselves to be isolated.

The Taiwanese professor gave two examples of old Chinese proverbs that no longer have the force they once did, and I must say, even though I do not live in Taiwan, I am intrigued by them and think they could have interesting applications even on this side of the ocean. Consider each one:

1. “For a woman to be without talent is a virtue.” Sure, I know that sounds harsh, but think how much pressure would be off our shoulders if this was honored today. Awards would be meted out for mediocrity and lack of accomplishment. Working long hours to perfect something would be pointless and indeed, may cause you to appear virtue-less.

2. “Marry a chicken, follow a chicken, marry a dog, follow a dog.” This one, too, is superb! You want marriage? Great – here it is: you got yourself a dog. Now are you happy?? Much could be learned from these words.

One of the most telling moments, however, came at the beginning of class. As students were trickling into the room, I handed them outlines of the paper to be presented by the visiting scholar. He watched in fascination, then asked: “Do you always hand out papers like that to students?” I hesitated, wondering if I had committed some International Gaffe of Great Magnitude and Consequence. He explained: “You are the respected one here, no? Why don’t you have THEM come and pick up the paper themselves?” It had never even occurred to me that I had just put myself down, meeting the students at their own low-status level rather than asking them for proper respect. No wonder they throw spitballs in class and play spider solitaire on their computers. Resolved: today, they come to ME to pick up the statute that I am now copying for them (wait: why am I even making copies for them??).

Liking the news again

Missing UW student found, minimum wage bill passes in Madison (one of just a handful of cities in the country now with a minimum wage that’s higher than the federal level), can we please just continue with the roll of good news?

Spring Update

The weather leaves much to be desired, BUT the white campanula is really shooting up, and the geranium is forming a thick mat. The veronica leaves are also quite large, and the dianthus is getting ready for the rabbit assault (their favorite).

The scientific revolution

A finding that is worth sitting up for: according to a UC San Diego study (published in Psychological Science), people pick pure-bread dogs that resemble them. I don’t really go for knocking studies that affirm the obvious. I’m surrounded by social scientists and have come to appreciate that there’s a big step from positing an “obvious” conclusion at a cocktail party (do people still go to cocktail parties?) to documenting it and drawing wider implications from it.

Still, this one seems so very basic that it, at the very least, does not deserve to be included in CNN.com’s top stories (here) for the morning.

On the other hand, it made ME click and read, just in case there was something to be learned from my own choice of an American Water Spaniel for a pet. The terribly frustrating thing about the cited study is that it seems not to specify (at least in the CNN synopsis of it) the criteria used for matching owners with their pets. It appears that different judges used different criteria, which, to me, is perhaps the most revealing aspect of the study: that you can use different criteria and arrive at the same place (similarly, when we admit students to law school, we use our own individually crafted set of markers, yet we wind up choosing pretty much the same students).

In dog selection, the conclusions presented are rather basic: Frenchies for trendy people, collies for gregarious folks.

They don’t say anything about American Water Spaniels, and I don’t think it would have application to my “selection process” anyway. I picked this particular dog because I was riding the bus from the Milwaukee airport and noticed this peculiar sight: a gorgeous, rather large animal, making his way up to the lap of its owner. I asked if he was feeling stressed after the plane ride. The owner said no, not especially, he just sort of fancied himself as lap dog – all 45 pounds of him. Ollie, our rather shy animal and offspring of this dog has the same (must therefore be genetic?) habit. If you sit down, he’ll make every effort to get into your lap. Yet his appearance is such that you’d think he’d be the perfect hunting companion to Dick Cheney. An incongruous mixture of traits. Does this say something about my predisposition?

[Btw, the American Water Spaniel also happens to be the state dog of Wisconsin, though absolutely NO ONE living here knows this, so I doubt it would steer a selection process.]

Students are so helpful

A few weeks ago, I wrote here that a concerned, well-meaning student come up after class to tell me that calling something a “slam dunker” violated every athletic principle known to man, woman, or child. Gratefully, I made a note that henceforth it shall be simply a “slam dunk.”

A reader then informed me that he had problems with my blog because I alluded there to being dense about slam dunks due to my limited knowledge of the baseball field. He told me that it is not the habit for athletes to achieve slam dunks in baseball.

Today, the same concerned “slam dunk” student told me that I might expand my sports education even further: rather than mentioning the “hometown” advantage of filing a court petition where you reside, I might try incorporating such terms as “homecourt” or “homefield,” even though he assured me that the athletes in the class would be comfortable if I decided to stay with “hometowning.”

Oh, I think I can spot a set-up here: I’ll bravely throw out “homecourt” next time, and mention playing tennis, even though I should be back in basketball land. And what’s “homefield?” Is that baseball or have we now switched to football? Or maybe it’s hockey? So many mistakes to be made with using this terminology… so many…

Good will and cheer

This is one of those days where I had reason to cross the mile-long State Street that links our campus with the State Capitol (and the court buildings). I was going to attend a law firm baby shower for a former student, an event that brought forth great feelings of nostalgia as no fewer than three of the firm’s six attorneys are former students of mine, and I’ve worked on family law cases in the past with all but one of the partners.
Half way up State Street it struck me that my baby gift would benefit greatly from a little rubber duckie stuck to the outside and so I went into a soap store (the Soap Opera, pictured here) to purchase one. This is the way Madison works: one favor leads to another and before you know it you’re all over-favoring each other until there are no more favors to bestow. I paid $1.50 for my duckie; the sales clerk loved the duckie-on-top-of-box idea and offered to add ribbon for effect (the store has always been keen on elaborate ribbonning of gifts); of course that meant that I had time to browse and pick up a number of astronomically expensive soaps –gift ideas for imminent occasions requiring little things of this nature; it was determined then that I was also deserving of many free samples, including one that I thought would actually best be purchased, in large quantities.

A cynic may comment that I was a sitting duckie myself: a target for salesclerk largess that would inevitably lead me to deplete my bank account in that store. But that cynic would be wrong. True, I left with a beautifully ribbonned-duckie-adorned box plus many other items, with the final bill reaching outrageously high levels if you think of it as a duckie bill, but on the other hand, the bill was not so high if you think of all the stored-up presents, the good will, the exchange of kind words of praise and admiration and promises of life-long friendship.

Division of assets

Pausing in my review of notes for today’s Family Law class, I take a quick look at CNN.com (to make sure the world hasn’t yet destroyed itself; as Friedman of the NYT wrote yesterday, one has such low expectations of news stories these days), where I find an article about another couple’s relationship woes (story here).

Demba and Chaka (Demba’s the female) seem not in the mood for procreation. After five years of inhabiting the same space, they seem hardly to have glanced at each other and Philadelphia zookeepers now believe that they may have never even had a sexual encounter (this in spite of the fact that Chaka is one fertile guy, having fathered many babies in his previous surroundings).

She gets to keep the house (she’ll stay in their ‘home’), but he gets to move in (at another zoo) with a couple of promising females. Her biological clock has ticked away, while he can just keep going and going. Have we really evolved from ape-dom all that much?

[CNN photo is of Chaka--beloved by females, though not by Demba. I'm with Demba on this one]

Star gazing

A friend-reader reminded me that I should be looking at the sky at dusk because it will be many decades before I will be able to see again the line up of five planets without the aid of a telescope. I have only until the end of the month to do this.

Wanting to spread the wealth, let me post the map of planets so that you, too, can tell your children and grandchildren that you were fortunate enough to have read a webblog in 2004 that showed you what to look for:

You are so wrong, pal!

A Polish friend (referencing posts from earlier this month) wrote to ask if indeed Madison’s Odana Road, or for that matter, the Humanities Building on the U of Wisconsin campus can even compare with the pukey-pea-green square of concrete that houses Poland’s Supreme Court, or the Linguistics Department of Warsaw University? The suggestion is that those two structures require more immediate intervention (a date with the bulldozer comes to mind) than do our own urban crown jewels of hideosity.

No, no, you are wrong. Compare, please:


The Polish Supreme Court (Warsaw Uprising Monument stands in front)

U of Warsaw Department of Applied Linguistics

Humanities Building at the U of Wisconsin







No brainer, right? I don't even need to bother with Odana Road. Everyone knows about the singular ugliness of Odana Road.

Spring Update

They say chance of snow by mid-week, but it can hardly matter. The honeysuckle has sprouted big leaves, the bleeding heart bushes are at least 4 inches tall already. The forty million double bloom tulips I have scattered in forgotten places are never going to be as multifarious as their cousins in Holland, but they, too, are up and running (I plant early varieties just to get this early burst of pleasure) and the evening primrose has multiplied beautifully. So far so good…

China’s response to bad driving: shrug your shoulders and look to the gods

Earlier (last month?) I had blogged about the inherent dangers in crossing a street in China (to say nothing of navigating it by car). The seeming lawlessness of drivers, the diverse nature of motorized and pedaled vehicles, the crowds, the trucks and carts tilting with heaped, unbalanced cargo –all this produces a state of anarchy and chaos and a feeling of complete panic for anyone who finds herself in the middle of it.

Perhaps, then, I should not have been surprised that somewhere on a rural road in China a traffic death occurred (read about it here) when a wealthy woman, Su Xiuwen, ran over a peasant woman last October. The Times describes the incident thus: “Mrs. Su was driving her BMW when a farmer transporting his onion cart to market bumped the luxury sedan. Mrs. Su became enraged, hit the farmer, then revved her car and plunged into the crowd. The farmer's wife, Liu Zhongxia, was killed.”

The case sparked great controversy precisely because Mrs. Su was both wealthy and well connected (it’s commonly referred to as the BMW case). When the local judge ruled that the death was a traffic accident based on negligence and gave Mrs. Su a two-year suspended sentence, the public reacted instantly by alleging corruption and bribery. In an unprecedented move to quell these rumors, a special judicial panel was called to review the lower court ruling.

Today the panel came down with a verdict. It upheld the lower court’s finding of no corruption and stated that Mrs. Su did not intend to kill Mrs. Liu: she was simply a bad driver.

It is, possibly, the correct result. After all, this could have been an instance of reverse prejudice: her wealth lead people to think that of course it couldn’t have been JUST an accident (in the same way that people have speculated whether Laura Bush’s youthful driving ‘mishap,’ also resulting in a traffic death, was treated differently because of her family’s prominence in the community).

To me, what was notable in the case was the court’s tolerance for “bad driving,” as it indeed seems to excuse virtually anything that can occur on the road (short of intentional homicide through use of a vehicle). Couldn’t you say that every instance of crazy disregard for road rules is simply “bad driving?” The whole nation suffers from a case of bad driving. Perhaps the reaction of “wadda ya gonna do about it..” is not a good way to get the country to focus on road safety.

Local news

I often complain that our local paper has no inherent value to it. In fact, I don’t only complain, I ACT (I cancelled a subscription to the Wisconsin State Journal some time ago). I think my friends believe that I sometimes overreact to things, because some have been faithfully keeping me informed of what I have been missing.

For instance, tonight, a reader sent me the following clipping from out local paper (it is, bizarrely, about Kenya):

"After 10 years, he gets a bath.

A Kenyan villager who had not bathed in 10 years was stripped and scrubbed clean by neighbors sickened by the stench, local media reported on Saturday.
Four neighbors swooped on the 52-year-old-man in rural western Kenya, tying him up with a rope before washing him in public, the daily Kenya Times said.
It took four hours to clean the man, whose body was also scoured with sand to remove a thick layer of filth.
The man, a bachelor, has promised to wash once a day, and now hopes to find a wife, the newspaper said."

It is quite possible that absolutely no hint was intended with the transmission of the article. On the other hand, I saw the person who sent me this on Saturday, and she may be reacting to our particular encounter, though I don’t think so. Under normal circumstances, I may postpone a shower until after going to the gym (or for a run, or for another form of exercise), but on that particular Saturday, I distinctly remember showering very early in the morning, in anticipation of a very long day with many people-encounters.

How is it possible to eat four entire chickens at one sitting?

Gerard Depardieu the French actor-turned-restaurateur can do it (see photo). In the Times article (here) about his new Paris restaurant, Depardieu is described as a foodie and a gourmand (not the same thing! The former – loves to eat well, paying attention to latest trends in the preparation of food; the latter—loves to explore all aspects of food).

Of course, celebrity-owned eating places are rather suspect. A true foodie would probably want to avoid some of these: Aykroyd’s funky House of Blues on Sunset Strip, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Schazi on Main in Santa Monica, Steven Spielberg’s former place, Dive!, Kevin Costner’s Clubhouse, Peter Fonda’s Thunder Roadhouse, and Jennifer Lopez’s new Madre's in Pasadena. Why? Because none of our film stars get their elbows dirty. I don’t think Scharzenegger or Lopez ever go back into the kitchen to check on the food prepping or plating.

By contrast, the NYT writes about Depardieu thus:

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

Gourmands aren’t in it for the money. They’re in it for the food.

Our president is energetic, caring and community-focused

I am thinking, of course, of the president-elect of the Wisconsin State Bar (interview with her here), Michelle Behnke. A young Madison-based solo-practitioner, Michelle is one of those energetic people you can’t stand having around because they always manage to do more than you. I remember writing her an email once asking questions about a non-profit that I was thinking of setting up. She responded with a long, encouraging outline of some possible steps for me to consider. Free guidance –so rare in our profession.

She has chosen diversity and pro bono work as the two themes for her term in office (Michelle is the first woman of color to be elected president and she fully intends to generate a discussion about race and ethnic issues in the State Bar). Her comments about pro bono work are well taken: people outside the Bar forget that civil cases do not entitle a party to free legal counsel. In my years of working with parents in abuse and neglect cases it was difficult to understand how parents could be forced to go to court for hearings concerning the removal of their children and not have access to legal counsel, yet that is the legal reality in Wisconsin (a legacy of the Tommy Thompson years).

Good leaders can be hard to come by. It’s nice to feel enthusiastic about the presidential office again.

Spring Update

The grass outside is magnificently green and the helleborus orientalis is blooming its big puffy white-pink-green blooms! The rabbits are also proliferating, which is not good. They eat a good part of my crop of perennials each year. For me, the only half-way effective measure is to put cotton balls soaked in 100% fox urine near the plants that I want to protect, but it is a disgusting strategy. Ah well, it’s that or waking up the each morning to a new batch of stems with missing flower heads.

A salty conversation with Blix

The NYTimes Magazine’s interview with the former UN inspector Hans Blix comes at a bad moment for Bush given the current Clarke controversy. I know most of my readers do glance at the Magazine themselves, but if you bypassed this, at least read these snippets:
[context: Blix, once in agreement with the administration about weapons, reversed himself when inspections of the best possible sites revealed nothing; the interviewer commented at the end that Blix’ conversational style was ‘salty’—by which I suppose she meant that Blix seemed spicy rather than bland.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good point.

Madison is a one-movie-kinda-town

(don’t bother with this post if you aren’t interested in Eternal Sunshine)

A number of UW Madison bloggers whose blogs I track (here, here, here and again here) saw Eternal Sunshine this week. Obviously this is a small town and everyone sees only one movie each week and it is the same movie, because, indeed, I saw it as well.

It’s easy to get yourself thinking that this is a story about real emotions, as experienced by you and me. It’s a movie that casts shadows of human traits onto the audience, so that you find yourself embracing the reluctant, shy, introvert Joel, and applauding the tenacity and spunk of the wild and zestful Clementine.

You could say, however, that Joel and Clementine are not at all different: they are both Very Needy People. Sure, the film makes Clementine out to be generous and kind, bestowing her affect on a guy who knows not how to “live.” She is the rescuer, the golden light of dawn for him.

But why do we buy into this characterization? Could it be that Clementine is quite the opposite: a brazen woman who needs attention, picking on men who are likely to be attracted to her display of charisma? And Joel, her male friend: mightn’t he be a drifter, refusing to take emotional responsibility for any of the women (what ever happened to his poor left-behind Naomi)? It’s interesting how this quiet, staid guy has a bit of anger within him. Certainly Clementine does as well. They each have a past, only at these early stages of their relationship (and we are always viewing it as it is just beginning) it remains underground. The cynics wont be leaving the theater thinking “whew, they worked out their problems, what a relief.” They’ll say –“I give them at best 4 months until they split up again since both display the emotional maturity of adolescents.”

It’s a good movie, no doubt about it – the directing and editing alone make it a stunning film: there is a scene where Joel is once again young, but really not, but really yes, young, and Clem is in the kitchen with him: the shift from little boy to grown man to Clem to Joel again is nothing short of brilliant.

As for the “message?” Oh, obvious, is it? Given that it was directed by Gondry, one could run with the idea that perhaps love is so primordial that it will resurrect itself, arising from the chemistry between people: it’s nature, not nurture, it’s a match or its not. What brought you together last year will bring you together again ten years from now, not for sentimental reasons at all, but because there is something between the two of you that causes canons to roar.

NPR Notes

Q: On what grounds might German violinists (from the Beethoven Orchestra—this is a hint of sorts; think: many complicated measures) sue for a pay raise?

A: The action can be based on the claim that they play more notes per concert than their musical colleagues.

Rebuttal: Orchestra officials have responded that “the violinists knew this when they began taking violin lessons -- and if they wanted to play fewer notes, they should have chosen a different instrument.”

the brain: no repetition, constant recreation

I read the NYT article (here) on Dr. Edelman’s work on the brain twice, because I wasn’t sure I was picking up the pieces in a coherent way. I can’t begin to summarize it in the usual 2-sentenced oversimplification that I do here—I’m sure to get it wrong.

But if you are just looking for the punch line (in the way that you would summarize the holding in a legal case for an exam outline) then you can go from title of the article: “The Brain? It’s a Jungle in There,” to the last 2 lines: “But this vision [referring here to the idea that human consciousness is born out of accident and diversity] can also spur discomfort, because it implies that there is no supervising soul or self — nobody is standing behind the curtain. This, for Dr. Edelman, is Darwin's final burden.” That pretty much puts you right into the heart of the matter (forgive the organ-hopping here).

Thus we are stuck without a soul, only new and intricate mappings, one after another, millions of them, setting the course of thought and action. No conductor in there, no inside little guy pushing buttons, selecting, or optimizing. It’s a comfort really – no one to blame for excesses (such as blogging or emailing) – somewhere along the line those patterns became entrenched and there is no one inside to reset the brain and start all over again.

Time

Yesterday I had a chance to spend time with a visiting professor – someone whom I hadn’t seen since graduate school in the 70s. This man had single-handedly saved my plummeting confidence in academia. I eventually did leave academia for a while, but it was then a deliberate rather than desperate move.

The prof is now retired and he splits his time between Paris and SF (not a bad lineup of cities I must admit). That is fitting for a person who in my mind is sort of a poetic hero, infused with the worship one reserves for the leaders in one’s life (he doesn’t know that I feel this way about him).

People who save us from the worst aspects of ourselves are indeed heroes. But over time, they disappear and new heroes come to replace them. What a luxury it was to meet again, 28 years later. I never could quite say thank you in the way that I wanted to. Though as I listened to his little impromptu jazz piano playing later in the evening, I thought it didn’t matter. He probably wouldn’t have understood anyway. People of that type are often so personally modest that they do not have a sense of their own force vis-à-vis others.

[a photo of said prof, playing jazz---->]

Poland at the cusp of something, but what?

Almost my entire political self is focused on my homeland today. With news of the resignation of the Prime Minister, Leszek Miller (I was right! You can’t fall below 0% approval ratings! He slipped from 10% to 5% in two days! The man HAD to step down), I now see this tense month of waiting while the entire nation focuses on the opening of the EU gates on May1st. Yet, I wonder, are these gates of heaven or gates of hell? For most Poles, the benefits of being in the EU are far away (read about it in the NYT today here)—possibly to be realized by the next generation of Poles; it’s a theoretical gift to the children, not to anyone currently living on the edge.

And there is the matter of the United States: it pains me to see this – it’s like a relationship where one person has all the love and the other has all the power. Poland is the most “in love with America” country I have ever seen. The support for military action in Iraq is a good example of this: most Poles are currently opposed to Polish military presence in Iraq (or at least have grave doubts about its wisdom; President Kwasniewski has publicly stated that he feels Poland was mislead about WMD and about the urgency of waging war to combat terrorism). Yet there is no protest (contrast Poland with Spain, where a government was toppled, to some degree because of Iraq). Poles just go along with the inevitability of this, because America has placed this demand for loyalty and they feel themselves obliged to deliver.

In return? The blasted object of affection wont even give them a small gift, one that Poles have been meekly requesting for years: the right to travel to the US without a visa. So many of my friends refuse to come here for a visit because of the INDIGNITY of having to wait in huge lines, filling out countless forms, waiting for the magic “yes” or “no” before they can board the plane. For the many who have relatives in the States, the humiliation has to be put aside. For those who would travel just for the sake of travel, it is not worth it.

My wonderful, brutally hardened yet resilient Poland. How much suffering can one country endure in a period of 200 years?

A threesome

A reader (who obviously cares deeply about my well being, but knows little about how light a sleeper I am) forwarded me an article about a strange occurrence in Oklahoma. A couple woke up yesterday morning to find a burglar sleeping in bed with them (see story here). The man had broken down their door and robbed them of their cell phone and loose cash before snuggling in besides them.

I think my friend is protectively suggesting that I lock my doors carefully each night, but she needn’t worry. This incident could NEVER happen to me. I wake up when the neighbor down the block sneezes. I wake up when the clock passes the hour (I think it’s a tad noisier as the minute hand circumvents the 12). I wake up for any and every reason. Alright, a bit of an exaggeration there, but I would absolutely most certainly wake up if a foul-smelling drunkard pocketed my cell phone and fell asleep next to me.

Continuing on the theme of Spring

Not finding enough happy people around me to exchange spring-related jokes and comments, I googled the words that describe my mood at the moment: “spring madness.”

The predominant listing is for the 1938 movie by that title. Here’s how it is described:

Category: Comedy
Director: S.Sylvan Simon
Cast: Lew Ayre, Burgess Meredith, Maureen O’Sullivan
Running time: 1 hr 20 mins
Summary: A coed’s love for a Harvard editor is threatened when she learns that he and his friends are planning a trip to Russia.

One could really take to task this laconic summary on any number of grounds. I’ll only say this: it recalls the time when it was an anathema for most Americans to call the Soviet Union by its name. Russia, then as now, was only one region. Possibly, the Harvard editor was indeed traveling only to Russia. Few ventured beyond Moscow in those days. But why do I think the choice of the R word was not for reasons of geographical precision, but because the writer and movie itself do not understand the distinction between the SU and R? Or that they did not like that the pre-Revolution Russia became the post-Revolution Soviet Union?

My fears on this are confirmed when I read yet another reviewer’s lovely choice of words (I’m avoiding commenting here on the plot line; this is, after all, a 1938 movie):
This comedy implies that the far-flung plan of a college student to visit Communist Russia has little chance when women conspire to restrain him with the lures of marriage and a good job.

All my childhood days I would hear Americans speak of Russia, the country, as if their souls would turn commie red if they even said the word “Soviet.”

But today, I am unruffled. Spring madness is more than just the movie. BTW, elsewhere on Google, the movie gets a rating of two stars (I can’t say out of how many, but two sounds pretty low under any rating scheme).

I’m not the only one enlivened by the sudden appearance of Spring

A friend who lives in Arizona is equally transfixed. Remarkably, her moment of magic also struck within the last 24 hours. She writes:

“…why do I feel like I want to make a life with more freshness? After all, I have my tender seedlings popping their way into my garden and the flowers are blooming and the quail are kicking up
their feather in anticipation of drawing their mates.”


The imagery is so lovely that I had to look up quail in the hope of envisioning more accurately how their feathers may be kicking up. After sifting through files of photos of quail on a plate, or quail being carried by hunting hounds, I came up with the following far preferable picture.---->

A grass high

It was a night of miracles. The day ends, you expect nothing and suddenly: BLAST! Spring makes a midnight appearance, and the world changes into one big field of green grass. No one should be blogging now. Urgent message to all those living in Madison who can spare even 5 or 10 minutes: GO OUTSIDE AND SMELL THAT AIR!

Ollie is fine, thank you

No fewer than TWO readers wrote this week and signed their message with the following missive; “be nice to your dog, Ollie” (or words to that effect).

Now listen here. I AM nice to the beast. Yesterday I dashed home in between work and book group just to walk him, feed him, and, as it turned out – give him a bath, since he seemed to smell funny. I was late for everything after that. Today – the same: I’m home FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ATTENDING TO HIS ROYAL EVENING NEEDS. I could be sipping an aperitif or a latte on State Street (I have to be downtown this evening), I could be taking a walk by the Union and watching the ebb and flow of water, I could be in an arm chair of the swanky new coffee shop downtown, but NO, I am home dog-tending.

It is interesting that one of the readers explained in her email that she had had a run in with her cat, resulting in “accidental” scratches on her face and some black and blue marks around her eye. When I suggested that she perhaps trade in her cat for a new television set, she leapt to his defense as if I had advocated tying him to a stake with a match underneath to make him squirm and repent.

The idea that I am not an animal fan has to be put to rest. I think pets are cool—especially if they don’t require much care and don’t scratch your face. So, rest assured, Ollie does fine. Basically, he likes to sleep. That is his life. I have absolutely no problem with that.

Fashion trumps religious freedom

Another story from across the ocean –three in a row today (the weblog rests proudly on its title)!

According to the Times, in Italy, a northern town is refusing to hire a Moroccan woman to teach in the school because she has stated that she will wear her scarf on the job. Is it a question of stopping religion “at the school house gate?” In fact, I do believe Italians bring Christian symbols and lessons right into the classroom (at the same time that they are one of the least “practicing” predominantly-Catholic nations in the world), thus objections based on keeping schools free of religious messages would not have any place in this country.

Why the negative reaction to the scarf? A director of the school explained that "if she works with her head scarf on, she risks scaring the children." Well of course! Children there are used to a stunningly elegant dress code. Most likely a school would not hire a person in a t-shirt and cut-offs either. It would be too much of a strain for the children to see this anti-modish display on a regular basis.

I have an idea for Odana Road

Madison has some visually attractive neighborhoods. And then it has Odana Road. All the urban renewal in the world could not improve this stretch of incomprehensibly unattractive strip malls. Is there a solution? The British have the right idea.

The Times states that Britain’s big eyesore, the Tricorn Shopping Center in Portsmouth is scheduled for a date with the wrecking ball. This 1960s architectural nightmare has been eloquently described by Prince Charles as resembling a “mildewed lump of elephant droppings.”

With typical British humor, the city had workers begin demolishing the Center to the strains of the '1812 Overture' –a play on the historic significance of the orchestral piece, as when the Center had been built in 1966, its developers called it “an orchestration in reinforced concrete that is the equivalent of the '1812 Overture.'"

[As an aside – does anyone agree that the Center resembles UW’s Humanities Building? Now there’s an architectural wonder! photo credit: Tricorn Corp.]

Odd Recollections

Today is the birthday of my high-school-and-part-college crush (he is NOT a reader of this blog to my knowledge, though Poland has the markers sometimes of being one small town in terms of gossip). It was an on-again off-again dating situation, though for purposes of crush recollection, it was definitely “on” for me for many years. I have been known to comment that one reason I returned to the States to finish my studies in the 70s was really to get away from the shadow of that crush. One has to Take Charge Of One’s Life sometimes.

Mr. Crush and I tangoed our way through Econometrics at the U of Warsaw, though I eventually landed in Law here and he landed in Gregorian Chant in Warsaw (he chants for a living and apparently is quite successfully at it--my devious sister keeps me informed of his progress; this is a Net photo from one of his recent CDs ---->).

Why does one remember odd things of this nature? For instance, I remember that my best elementary school buddy’s mother’s birthday is on October 24th (some years I was tempted to send her a card, but then thought better of it as it, most likely, would freak her out). Or, that my flight bringing me to the United States on February 12, 1972 was delayed.

My crush and I never celebrated each other’s birthdays. His came first, and once I did get him a cute, meaningful little animal figure (we wont go there), but my birthday follows in the next month and he reciprocated by bringing over a “bouquet” of radishes (it was a joke), and so I called it quits on gifts thereafter.

I remember these details well, I just don’t remember quite why I liked him so much.

If it weren’t for environmental toxins, we’d be apes

A fascinating study is described in the NYT Science Section today (here). Researchers are suggesting that a gene mutation may well be responsible for the evolution of the human brain. The Times reports:

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

Why the mutation? The following speculation is offered:

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

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

So, those whose gene remained unaltered were slated to become extinct, while lucky us, what with environmental toxins and our desire to keep grinding on those nuts and plants (early stages of Nighttime Eating Syndrome, see post yesterday), we get the better brain and a nicer jaw line. I’m going home to remove my lawn sign condemning the use of chemical lawn care products. I don’t want to be remembered as standing in the way of further evolutionary development.

Two comments on paranoia

1. Reading moods

A reader wrote a concerned note about my post of last night where I alluded to intuitively surmising what the mood of the neighborhood was and whether or not I was to be the subject of scorn, ridicule, vengeance or what have you. While sympathetic to the post in general, she suggested that perhaps it exhibits a touch of paranoia. Reassurance: not at all! Perceiving the mood of a place or community can run in positive fields as well. For instance, my neighbor down the block and I were voting in the primaries at the same time and he instantly launched into friendly banter about the Green Party versus the Democrats. He knew and I knew that this was going to be a friendly exchange. No hostilities arose. ON THE OTHER HAND: when I walked down the block and a handful of women suddenly started looking heavenward as I passed, I KNEW they were grumbling and that I was the target of their displeasure. It could be that my little sign, stuck out front by the driveway, saying that ‘healthy children deserve healthy lawns’ (a direct attack at the 75% who still use chemical agents on their lawns in our neighborhood) was being bashed about. Hostility was palpable. No paranoia. Reality.

2. Poland is losing it

Another reader sent me clippings about a different possible paranoia – that which is gripping Poland at the moment. I’ve blogged about Polish fears of a terrorist attack ever since the tragedy in Madrid. Well, the nation is in a state of near panic. There are many reasons for it, some not unjustified, but I think the main source of anxiety rests in the recent switch of leadership in Spain. Poland had felt buoyed by its alliance with Spain – both on the Iraq invasion issue and on the protest to the EU constitution back in December. These two countries were European mavericks at a time when the push was to find common ground for all nations that are and will be part of the EU. With Spain now retreating somewhat (both on the issue of Iraq and on the Constitution), Poland is suddenly appearing awfully alone and vulnerable out there. It can’t feel good. I do think, however, that the Polish government (which enjoyed an 11% popularity rating back in December and now I read that it’s down to 9% --making me wonder if it’s possible to go into negative numbers, because there’s not much more before we’re at 0) needs to make some tough choices both about the Constitution and Iraq. In terms of the first – I understand completely Poland’s objections to the proposed document, but to “Die for Nice” seems ill founded [“Die for Nice’ is the slogan adopted by those that want to retreat to the Nice accords under which Poland enjoyed greater voting parity with the rest of the Western European states than it does under the new proposed Constitution]. A noble death in political parlance is still a death. Poland does NOT need to make enemies at a time when it is economically weak.