Politics, politics and more politics: patriotism is all about how you speak

It was disheartening to read the New Yorker story (here) on Kerry and his use of the French language when among French diplomats or journalists. The Washington Bureau Chief for France 2 has remarked that in recent months Kerry has refused to banter on record with the French press corps in their native language. It appears that Kerry’s relatives in France, his attendance at a Swiss boarding school, and his comfort level with foreign journalists in general have earned him such labels as “Monsieur Kerry” and “Jean Cheri” and “Jean Francois Kerry.” Capitalizing on the whiff of negative air directed at the Democratic campaign, the Secretary of Commerce, Donald Evans (perhaps looking after his own le job), told reporters that Kerry even looks French. Mais non!

The French press have had a tough go of it in Washington this year, the article tells us, what with snide references to freedom fries and the Axis of Weasel hanging in the air. But Kerry’s abrupt departure from his previous open-door policy toward foreign journalists has the press corps ‘perplexed.’ The following comment is cited in the New Yorker: “For us (this from the French journalists), to speak any other language and have an open view of the world, for a President, should be a plus.” It appears that this view is not shared by the rest of this nation.

Patriotism has come to have an interesting, singularly American meaning: it appears to require a repudiation of anything not born and bred on American soil. And it requires speaking like an American.

The concept of ‘patriotism’ makes another appearance in the New Yorker: in a letter to the magazine, a reader writes in response to a review of Woody Guthrie’s biography which had suggested that the songwriter was less than patriotic. The reader states: “[M]ore troubling…especially in today’s political climate, is the implication that one becomes patriotic by supporting one’s government. Wasn’t Guthrie being patriotic when he stood up for poor people during the Depression or when he fought for the labor movement? Was he being unpatriotic when he wrote “Pastures of Plenty” and “This Land is Your Land?”"

I suppose if Guthrie had also worn a French beret and occasionally thrown around a bonjour, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. Can you blame him for affecting an American drawl?

How to irritate a government official

Say you’ve just written a mystery-thriller novel. All characters appear to be fictionalized versions of people out there. You’ve inserted the standard language about everyone not really being anyone and about the coincidental likenesses that may have emerged (which is, of course, foolish because your imagination most likely made use of traits scalped straight from your black book of familiar persons), and you are hoping for big sales. Your book even has political undercurrents: it is about a person who seeks revenge after being driven by the government to a state of complete desperation. This main protagonist winds up shooting the Chancellor (I forgot to mention, the book takes place in Germany).

Wouldn’t it be maddening if you were that author and the real Chancellor (Gerhard Schröder) brought a successful injunction to put a stop to the sale of the book, because on the cover there is an illustration that sort of kind of but not really looks like him? The NYTimes writes about this (here), noting that the judge sided with the Chancellor (oh what a surprise) and banned publication until the picture is removed from the cover. Is someone over-sensitive, or could one really make the credible argument that such a likeness (if it is a likeness) might incite someone to acts of great violence?

A word of thanks to the greats

There are four weblogs out there that keep me going each day. There are others, too, but these four are what I start the weblog day with and I am never disappointed. They could not be more different from each other and it is this perhaps that gives me such joy in reading – the diversity of perspectives and the singular personalities that come through (I do happen to know all four authors reasonably well and that is definitely an asset).

I’ve picked one completely non-representative post from each to cite to here. The authors may squirm at my selections, but hey, it is my choice!

I’ll start, alphabetically, with Ann’s. Ann doesn’t always accompany her text with photos, but on the rare occasion that we do get pictures, there’ll often be a gem of a caption. Consider the post here – and be sure to scroll down to the "trees squirming." Look around at her other posts to get a taste of her commentary on art, politics and the American Idol.

Jeremy, yes, well, then there’s Jeremy. In truth, his was the first blog I ever read and so if there is any culprit out there responsible for the blogathon that was born this year, I suppose he must bear the blame. Just today he posted a paragraph about a concert he attended. Read about it here. It is poignantly hilarious. Scroll down further (note photo depicting his sentiments about teaching this semester) and you’ll become a JFW addict.

Mary came onto the blog scene later than the others. Though legally inclined, she brings to her blog her past life as a journalist. Consider her post today on cranberries (here). It makes me so very proud that her blog grew out of our discussions on blogging early in the semester. (You mean I had a wee tiny role in this? Wow!)

Tonya can be irreverent in her blog. I can’t resist linking to her post from today (here) because it shows off her pride in having 'Communist friends' – and perhaps only she would appreciate the joy I get from being singled out as a friend in this way!

Again, there are so many other bloggers who can make my day on any particular morning. But these four – they are always part of my wake-up. This, then, is a quick (and late! oh my is it late!) note of thanks. Your efforts are SO appreciated.

Are you STILL in school?

That is the question I wanted to ask a student who came by to talk about his work plans for the summer. My memory may be off a bit, but I swear that he was first in a class of mine some five or six years back. His visit reminded me of the cartoon below -- a relic from days when it seemed like I would NEVER be done with the proceess of collecting degrees (or not collecting them, as the case may be, unless they have now officially designated an 'ABD' as a recognized academic degree). And isn't there a law that says you have to be out of law school within six years (in Wisconsin) OR ELSE??

Early run in with the law

I was taking a morning sprint through Owen Woods when I came across a police officer and a squad car. Being rather in a fine mood and not wanting to face a dose of blood and gore on this gorgeous day, I went up to him and asked, in my most level (rather than excitement seeking) voice: “Is everything alright, officer?” I mean, I sounded like a role in a movie. I swear he blushed. Or maybe he was just flushed. He said: “I couldn’t help it! I just had to get out of that squad car and take a stroll on this fine day! The weather got to me! So, let’s just say I inspected the trails. They’re safe, you can go right ahead.”

I don’t blame him. I myself should have been preparing notes for lectures that I have to give at the end of the month. Instead, I was counting chikadees in Owen Woods (I don’t know anything about birds; they looked like they should have been chikadees). This day is THAT beautiful.

A momentary retreat into politics: on the error-proof GWB

Watching the GWB press conference today, I noted (as I hope the rest of America noted) that his greatest source of difficulty was with the four differently worded but basically same questions having to do with his mistakes of the past. It was fascinating to watch how uncomfortable he was, to the point of stumbling and ultimately flubbing the direct appeal to give just ONE EXAMPLE of a mistake, a misstep, an error of judgment. He couldn’t do it: he visibly squirmed and in the last go-around, admitted to one thing: that he wasn’t adept at thinking of mistakes extemporaneously.

[BTW, I think the reporter from NPR, the guy with the very last query – QUESTION: But I guess I just wonder if you feel that you have failed in any way. You don't have many of these press conferences where you engage in this kind of exchange. Have you failed in any way to really make the case to the American public?—can just assume that his goose is cooked in the White House; GWB had taken the gamble, feeling perhaps that it’s a do or die situation, and pointed to NPR for that last Q. Mistake. NPR will have lived up to the GOP image of it as a commie-liberal waste-pile –it hammered in the point that GWB regards himself as error-proof. I’m sure even at this moment GWB is scribbling memos that will lead to further cuts in federal funding for All Things Considered.]

And how do you respond to the question of “What were your mistakes, your errors, your moments of poor judgment?” knowing that Democrats are sitting at the edge of their collective chair, pencils poised, tomorrow’s TV ads waiting to be written?

Bush’s speech writers failed him. Any person applying for a job would know that the interviewer may ask for a list of weaknesses, or reflections on things you wish you had done differently. You learn to enumerate faults and errors in ways that make you look strong. To say “shucks, I really can’t imagine what they could be” is an invitation for someone to say “oh yeah? Let me help you come up with a list for future reference.”

Is it really the end of the semester?

(Where inconsequentiality and lightness return to the blog)
Today marked the beginning of the end: I gave out course evaluations in my big Family Law class SO NOW I DON’T HAVE TO BE A GOOD TEACHER ANYMORE (and of course proceeded to have immediately after one of my best classes ever – can we redo the forms?)!

Just a few minutes ago, a student came in to talk about her paper and she told me how thrilled she was that the academic year is nearly over. She was animated and excited about her future work, but completely deflated when she spoke of the next few weeks.

I don’t think there’s a person teaching who doesn’t relish the end of a semester to a degree. But I have to say that to me, there are ulterior sad elements as well. By now, I have a decent sense of the students – I know their style of speaking in class, the slant of their comments, their quirky traits. But unlike in grad school where you see the same faces for many years, in law school you only get to work with them once, at most twice and then they’re gone. And the class dynamic, that irresistible and energizing force of the collectivity – that ends with the end of the semester.

So, at the risk of sounding extremely odd and off-kilter, I do have to admit that part of me is sorry to have just a few more class meetings left –especially now that the evaluations are done and I am free to be AWFUL.

"When you digest your lunch is that you?"

This question is posed by Dr. Crick, who, at 87, is still attempting to determine what creates conscious awareness.
Is there a dividing line that separates mind (consciousness) from matter (the millions of neurons operating in the brain and the nervous system)? The NYT states: “While some philosophers claim that consciousness is a phenomenon outside the purview of material science, Dr. Crick dismisses such arguments with the imperious confidence that is part of his legend.”

If you are as fascinated by the debate over the validity of a neurobiological approach to understanding consciousness, you’ll have read, no doubt, today’s NYT Science article on this subject (here). If you’re not, well YOU SHOULD BE! Today, the weblog is seeking to educate and expand the horizons of the fellowship of blog readers. From Slovakia (below) to the brain: let it not be said that I write about fat cats (below) and Siberian irises (below) alone! [Have I suddenly strayed from my pledge to maintain an incredible lightness of blogging? Nothing could be further from the truth; the post titles alone should reassure the worried reader who does NOT wish to be educated, but simply wants to kill time in between more valuable pursuits, such as reading other, more worthy blogs.]

Dr. Crick is ruthlessly opposed to the idea of a consciousness that “lives” outside the body. In the Times article we read: “In a 1979 editorial in Scientific American, he argued that the time had come for science to take on the previously forbidden subject of consciousness. In his 1994 book "The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul," he went further. "You," he wrote, "your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."”

Does Dr. Crick’s view diverge from mainstream science? The Times states: “While many scientists assume that consciousness is a global property of the brain — "a gestalt phenomenon" — Dr. Koch and Dr. Crick say they believe that only a few neurons are responsible at any given moment. Of the 50 billion or so neurons in the brain, Dr. Crick says that perhaps only tens of thousands, or even a few thousand, give rise to the feeling of conscious awareness. "We believe it is essentially a local phenomenon," he said. That position is certainly contentious. "The idea that there is a special population of neurons that mediate awareness is a minority view," Dr. Kanwisher noted.”

Moreover, Dr. Crick’s work raises questions about when exactly we can speak sensibly of consciousness: “[H]e asks, "How do we know that a newborn baby is conscious?" Perhaps consciousness is something that doesn't begin at birth, he said, but gradually emerges.” Dr. Crick insists that in the next several hundred years the idea of an independent soul will have been discarded with the science of the Dark Ages.

Be proud that you've read this far! This blog will stand out one day as being at the vanguard of modern science -- it will be admired for putting forth revolutionary ideas in the same way that bloggers 500 years ago, had they the time and means to do so, may have been tempted to link to the Copernicus website (we all know that he was Polish, right?), to share with other bloggers all that we now take for granted.

Spring Update

So long as we are on that side of the Atlantic (see post below about Slovakia), I thought I’d sneak in a post about the Siberian Iris – a favorite plant that is coming up in a robust way both in the front and back yards. I’ve not met a person who doesn’t think this flower is a “ten” on the scale of loveliness. My most recent additions (from last year) have the added bonus of rather unique, variegated yellow and green leaves. But the attention is all on the blooms. A sample of what’s coming appears herein.

In my continuing efforts to raise awareness about life in Central Europe:

The IHT reports (here) that Slovakia is about to become the Detroit of Europe. Just this year, the ancient walled town of Trnava has succeeded in attracting the large auto manufacturer Peugeot Citroën to build a plant there (to the great consternation of the 123 people whose homes have to be demolished for the project).

One could say that Slovakia is the poorer cousin of Central Europe and so a plant of this size means welcome economic growth to the region. Tell that to the people who have lived there all their lives and now must relocate. The article suggests that the displaced farmers, some too old to ever reap the benefits of having Peugeot there, are ‘distraught.’

Slovakia has been extremely successful in attracting car manufacturers to its borders. The IHT reports:

Scrappy, hard-working, and relentless in its drive to attract foreign investment, Slovakia has lured two giant car makers, Peugeot Citroën and Kia Motors of South Korea, in the last two years. It beat out Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary for the projects, despite their larger populations, better-developed economies, and expertise in manufacturing cars.

Volkswagen already has a major factory in the capital, Bratislava. When all three plants are running in late 2006, Slovakia, with 5.4 million people, will produce 850,000 cars a year - the most of any Central European nation and the most per capita in the world.

Trnava itself doesn’t look like Detroit (see my quirky photo comparison), though I wouldn’t be surprised if a visit in a few years would make one gawk in amazement (and what makes me think that the changes wont all be for the better).

The Monday after Easter

Comment from friend who got sprinkled by me with water today: “I’m sure glad I knew you in the years prior to your renewed interest in your ethnic heritage. Things were a lot dryer then.”*

*Today is Smigus Dyngus in Poland – the day when it is legitimate, even expected, to douse others with great amounts of water. Smigus Dyngus is also responsible for more google leads to my blog than all other google leads put together. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the world out there has a peculiar fascination with Smigus Dyngus. It’s just water, for pete’s sake: you dump water on others, what’s so curious about that??

Fat cat living

I’m trying to understand the importance of the message forwarded to me by a friend and reader (I mention ‘friend’ because this brings forth the presumption of helpfulness, attempted in this most indirect fashion). The story (here) is about an extremely obese German cat who was put in a shelter for protection. His owner had been feeding him about ten times the amount of food he needed and as a result the cat just blimped out.

I have several theories here:
1. My friend wants to demonstrate that cats have the same problems as we humans do and so I should have greater respect for these feline monsters whose sole purpose in life seems to be the killing of birds in people’s back yards;

2. My friend is worried that I am not good to my own animal (Ollie the dog who is wonderful, beyond reprimand, he would never ever go after a bird) and is hinting that shelters are there to protect pets from people like me, who refuse to basically spend five hours each day tickling the dog tummy and making sweet cooing sounds (which she thinks is standard owner-to-pet behavior, I’m sure);

3. She is indicating that Germany has problems with obesity and it’ll just be days before the epidemic spreads to neighboring countries, like for instance Poland and so I should warn all friends and neighbors there;

4. The most likely explanation: my pal is so cat-obsessed that she would find this story possibly the most important and interesting story to grace the papers today. Notice that I, by blogging about it, am totally humoring her. That’s what friends are for.

Will the joys of technology never end?

I just wanted to go on record as saying that writing anything by hand is no longer an option: I will never pick up the pen again.

Today, for the first time, I lugged my laptop to a faculty presentation. I wanted to type in a file right away (rather than transcribing it from notes later) because FOR ONCE, the presenter was actually talking about something relevant to my work (a rare event) and so I wanted to store the information for later use.

It was brilliantly awesome to have my little baby laptop right there next to me. I was tired and so there was a danger of me drifting off when the analysis got a bit tedious, but with my baby there, GONE were those squiggly illegible letters that I am capable of producing as sleep takes over and the pen falters. It was all beautiful text, neatly organized, saved, filed, stored.

I am throwing away all pens and pads. From now on, it’s me and my little machine.

Obsessed with religion?

There is a very interesting article in the WashPost today (here) describing the Atheist Convention that took place in San Diego this Saturday. There is a definite voyeuristic tone to it, as if the writer is checking to see if these people are really Normal. With great relief then, I read the following:

The godless do not look so different from anyone else. Normal with a capital N. You couldn't pick them out of a police lineup in the hunt for a secular humanist. … [T]he leader of the American Atheists today is Ellen Johnson of Parsippany, N.J., who wears tailored suits and matching pumps. She is blond and trim and as put together as an astronaut's wife at an Apollo launch. … Really, this gathering looks like decaffeinated Unitarians. Or like a real estate investment seminar in Indiana. Slightly more men than women. Older than younger. A few aging hippie ponytails. A T-shirt that reads: "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

The association brings together people who support any number of small and large objectives:

[O]ne of the longtime members … runs an atheist-centric summer camp for kids called Camp Quest (motto: "It's Beyond Belief!") … In the lobby are tables selling books on papal corruption and greeting cards that wish recipients a Happy Solstice. … There are bumper stickers that read "Praying Is Begging." Several attendees show a visiting reporter how they scratch out the words "In God We Trust" from dollar bills. One fellow says he defaces $300 a month.

But grouping atheists together appears to be a challenge:

Organized nonbelief is a bit of an oxymoron, or, as Ellen Johnson likes to put it, getting atheists to cooperate collectively is "like herding cats." … Kenneth Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists, recalls attending his first meeting of the Gotham group. "It was sad," he says. "Ten guys in a room, all arguing with each other." A typical rally would draw a dozen people.

One long term goal for the group is the support of politicians who openly and continuously advocate for the separation of church and state. Thus it seems natural that there should be an action committee established toward that end. The reporter offers the following comment:

We wonder how many candidates are ready to have among their endorsements the overtly godless. … [T]he atheists here understand that most of those people are not aligned, specifically, with the atheist movement. It retains a stigma. It is revealing, the atheists admit, that they have adopted the language of the gay rights movement. "I've only been out of the closet for a year," says Seattle's Bob Seidensticker of his atheism. Like many here, he told family members for years that he was a doubter, an agnostic, that he was "questioning." But he recalls that at one family gathering, he was listening to a relative talk about how Noah's ark had dinosaurs; he finally flipped and declared himself. It was liberating, but tough.

Most members of the association were one-time believers. Their knowledge of the Bible can be impressive. Again, from the article:

[One member] is wearing a "Proud to Be an Atheist" T-shirt. He once was a young Bible quoter par excellence on the Southern Baptist circuit of youthful savants. … But one day, he says, he began to compile these "contradictions" in the Bible. He was just a kid. "I made a list of 200 and stopped," he says. His relatives told him, "You read too much." He says, "Can you imagine?"

Gaither spends hours a week in chat rooms debating the Scriptures. That is another thing about the atheists at this convention. They can be snide. They can bash. Frank Zindler, director of the American Atheist Press, does a whole hour on the podium lecturing on "the parasitic class" of priests and ministers engaged in what he called "the ignorance industry," saying, "These guys can spew out more disinformation and nonsense in 30 minutes than I can refute in 30 years."

Yes, these atheists are absolutely obsessed with religion. The weekend was like antimatter Bible camp.

Why have an annual meeting on Easter week-end? It appears not to be a ‘Statement’ of any sort. Practical concerns set the dates: hotel rates are cheaper during this stay-at-home holiday period.

What’s New for 2003 (tax-wise)?

- the label wouldn’t peel off, and when I stuck it onto the 1040, the paper curled around it in a most unattractive fashion;

- I do not think I could purchase a new TV on the money GWB saved me;

- It took me 16 minutes less to do the forms for 2003, quite likely because I copied all those zeros off of last year’s form without giving them much thought, to save time;

- Because the week-end is so far in advance of April 15th, I completed the forms a full 4 days ahead of schedule, a life-time record of sorts, I’m sure.

Wisconsin forms will have to wait. My mind is spinning after this excessive conscientiousness.

Greetings

To family and friends in Warsaw and Krakow, none of whom got a card from me as I never remember that Easter calls for greetings of this nature, thank you so much for your messages and let me just say:

Wesołych świąt wielkanocnych, smacznego jajka i mokrego dyngusa

Out of kindness to those who think I am making it all up and it is all gibberish, let me inform you that the above is a traditional Polish Easter greeting, translated to mean: (May you have) merry Easter holidays, a delicious egg and a wet Dyngus.*

*On the meaning of Smigus Dyngus, see post of April 1.

Separation of church and gym

An annoying moment happens when you look outside, see that it is close to 32 degrees cold, with an occasional snowflake for emphasis, decide that a walk would be less than inspiring, and so you slip on your gym shorts, pick up a book that you just have to finish by Thursday, and go to the gym. Yes, THAT gym the one for which you have paid great sums of money, only to consistently under-use now that the weather is good, the same gym that promises round-the-clock 24-hour protection against the encroachment of superfluous blubber. So you drive up and you see that the lot is empty, but you drive up anyway in the hope that the patrons are all there, they just WALKED over, hence the empty lot. But no, lo and behold, there is a sign, and the sign says “closed for Easter.”

Now I don’t want to deprive folks of their rightful share of Easter merriment. But for many of us the day allows for plenty of hours for which the gym is a very real and attractive possibility. To say nothing of those for whom the day just doesn’t have the same degree of zesty commitment to the home as, say, Thanksgiving. And so I am filing a protest: places of public gathering should think about keeping to regular business hours today. Besides, NOTHING IN MY CONTRACT SAID ANYTHING ABOUT EASTER! I want my annual membership refunded for 1/366 of its value!

I did take a walk in the end, but it was with hands deeply buried in the winter jacket pockets. And the shorts had to be replaced. So how fun is that on an April morning??

Sociology News (Okay, I start the day on a more serious note. It'll be 'down the light path' henceforth.)

It’s hard for me to pass up any article featuring a prominent sociologist and so, not surprisingly, a VERY LONG interview with Ann Swidler in the WashPost (here) caught my attention this morning. Swidler, a professor at Berkeley, writes on families. Her latest book, written three years ago (“Talk of Love”), takes on the topics of love, marriage and commitment. Is there an overarching theme? The author of the interview says that Swidler’s stance on marriage or family life isn’t easy to pigeon-hole, though you could certainly conclude that Swidler takes the position that “the family in America is in a flux—both imperiled and deeply resilient.”

Having once been a grad student in sociology with an emphasis on comparative families, and now finding myself teaching family law, all this would, of course, be good reading for me. But there are also other memorable little tidbits in the article, having less to do with family studies and more with the art of academic discourse. For instance, the author recognizes an interesting and bifurcated world out there. About Swidler’s research on marriage and the family he writes:

Swidler works quietly, methodically and out of the popular limelight, which makes her an interesting voice -- refreshingly nuanced and unpredictable -- when asked about the wrenching cultural issues of the day. She is a chin-stroker, when it comes to thinking about American family life, rather than an ideologue with a fast-on-the-draw sound bite for every occasion -- which only underscores the huge gulf between sociologists who simply study American life, and sociologists who throw themselves into the partisan fracas.

Of course, it’s easier to abandon sound bites when you are having multiple pages of a prominent paper devoted to your “nuanced voice.” Nonetheless, it is true that these days lecturing or writing about families forces you to make decisions on how you are going to position yourself before an audience (a non-positioning is of course a positioning of sorts) in the current debates that are taking place. Swidler does not use her academic arena to advocate. Is this good? It’s one way to gain respect as a scholar. It’s not the only way, but it is one way.

And they said it was going to snow

Never underestimate the potential for good weather in April. Today, though not brilliant and certainly not warm, had enough of a spring feel that I decided that a camouflaged Spring Update may be in order. How can I not acknowledge willow catkins that are ready to flower? Or the budding birches? Or the presence of bluebirds? Just a brief post, no great words needed. Taking a walk brings out all the very best of this crackerjack month.

The politics of salmon

In a post below I wrote of my determination to step away for the moment from political blogging. I am staying with this decision (and indeed, the response seems to have been one of relief, since several readers indicated that this is a good thing).

However, may I just retreat into a fishery politic for a second to say that everywhere I turn, I am now reading about the horrors of farming salmon and it MAKES ME SO MAD because here we are again, making our foods “cheaper” (translates: more profitable and produced on a larger scale) in the short run and quite deadly in the long run. I truly think that it’s gotten to the point where one just should not buy farmed fish unless the grocery store can tell you exactly what the farming practices have been at the place where the fish was raised (Seafood Watch tracks the safety issues, but most grocers don’t give you this information even if you ask, forcing one to shop in places like Whole Foods because there at least you don’t have to battle the store at every turn if you want to know about these things, and indeed, they can provide assurance that minimal standards of sustainable fish farming have been adhered to).


A good synopsis of the debate over “wild” versus “farmed” can be found in this month’s Wine Enthusiast (of all things). The recommendation couldn’t be clearer – unless a restaurant or a store can tell you about how the fish was raised and whether sustainable farming practices were followed, if it's farmed rather than wild, don't order it. Farmed salmon, raised in the “modern way” (SO MAD!) has up to 40 times more PCBs than wild salmon, to say nothing of having hormone levels that probably sprout facial hair on the poor fish and an antibiotic overdose, just to counter the filth in farm holding pens (analogy of chicken coops comes to mind). The FDA (which regulates farmed fish; the EPA sets only wild fish standards) refuses ('is lax') to update its standards for fish safety in spite of the surfacing reports about the dangers posed by eating conventionally farmed fish. REALLY MADDENING!

[cartoon credit: wildsalmon.org]

Update on calves and cottonwoods

My reader from Montana clarified things a bit for me. Two days ago I posted a picture of calves, thinking this would be a good depiction of what life in Montana would be like now (she had written about caring for young calves and planting cottonwoods this week).

Not accurate, writes my pal. In her words:

"I like your pictures - only you need to change the calf picture. This morning it's snowing [we've had several inches in the last hour] and the calf that was just born is wet [from both the snow and life in the uterus] and slimey. I left it so its mother would lick it off but soon will check to see if it needs a warmer place to be."

Okay, maybe I should focus on spring updates closer to home. I seem to know nothing about young calves and weather conditions in April in Montana.

As for cottonwoods – my reader explains:

"Cottonwoods are large, deciduous trees that are native to this area - they are related to poplars. They are also the tree you see in Utah's canyon country along dry riverbeds."

I am all for accuracy in the blog! I’m not sure what you see here is a Montana cottonwood, but at least it’ll strike the image of a futon store* from our minds.

[*Cottonwood is, I believe, the name of the local futon merchant]

What my mother told me

Today’s Cap Times (Madison’s local paper) invites readers (here) to submit sayings and wisdoms that their mothers have passed on to them. The idea is that on Mother’s Day we will have a paper filled with important words implanted by mothers to their daughters. Yes, to daughters. For some odd reason the paper invites only daughters to participate in this enterprise.

The newspaper offers clues as to the type of sayings that might be appropriate:

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

"Don't imagine you can change a man, unless he is in diapers."

Or, what has to be a first for the Cap Times:

"Keep your dress down and your panties up."

I thought about this project some and deliberated whether my mother (who now lives in Berkeley) would enjoy seeing this public display of her infamous words of wisdom. I decided not. But forget the Cap Times, what is the blog for if not to relive those years where virtually all conversations ended with the following pronouncement on her part:

“Life is not a bowl of cherries.”

Deep? Well, yes, if you think about it. There are anti-Pollyanna overtones to the message, to be sure, but a friend with whom I shared this recently said that it also speaks profoundly to certain cultural differences between Poles and Americans. He speculated that perhaps cherries had inherent value to a Pole (after all, in the past I’d described cherry vodka, the popularity of sour cherries, even my sister’s week-end-long-nothing-but-cherries fast). Surely depriving a Pole of cherries would be a harsh punishment. Life, then, according to the saying, could never measure up to that dish of all dishes: plain old unadulterated cherries.

He has a point. But perhaps there is a silver lining? I have contemplated upon occasion how good it is that life is not a bowl of cherries. I don’t think that is what my mother intended, but certainly the words have had this other effect. Sometimes I even hope that it’s all about blueberries or raspberries. Others may wish for cherries, but for me, there are those other fruits to consider. And in the end, as I have been know to say so often lately, you take what you can get, right?

P.S. My mother’s other important missive was that “you have to sacrifice for the children.” That doesn’t quite have the punch of the first, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Though perhaps it isn’t so much a directive as a statement about where she sees herself on the sacrifice continuum?

To days gone by...

The New Yorker this week reports on the phone company’s sudden and unexplained cancellation of New York’s longtime informational numbers –including the longstanding weather information source at 976-1212. I remember that number as well as I remember the birth date of Jacquie Graupner’s mother (Jacquie was my grade school girl-friend – see post somewhere below). But as of March 24th, the weather person behind that number is gone. Gone, too, is “at the tone, the time will be one twenty five, and thirty seconds, beeeeep!” which had lasted for many many decades at 976-1616.

There appears to have been no citizen’s revolt, no great protest or outcry. The author of the article speculates that people are inundated these days with informational sources. Weather forecasts appear everywhere from newspapers to elevators and computers. All true, but in fact, when you wake up in the morning and you wonder how many sweaters you’ll need to survive the April-in-Wisconsin kind of morning, it shouldn’t be that you have to turn on your computer to find out. Turning on the computer leads immediately to ten other computer-related activities (I should check my email; I should check the headlines; I should check a few blog updates…) and then you’re just lost. Calling an anonymous voice to get the weather was like a gift to yourself – you could avoid the world encroaching on your space that much longer. You could not pick up the paper, turn on a radio or TV or computer, you could just BE.

As a side note, the reporter for the New Yorker attempted to find out why Verizon had decided to scrap the info numbers. The article states: “A call to Verizon didn’t reveal much, either. The company spokesman seemed to be preoccupied with a recent catastrophe involving a technician who had mistakenly routed two hours of 911 calls to a bank in Brooklyn.” Next time I am down on myself for some inept act that I will have committed (so many come to mind, even as I write…--you, email recipient of the wrong message as of fifteen minutes ago, know exactly what I am talking about!), I will remind myself that at least I did not do that: at least I did not cause people to reach a bank when they desperately needed a doctor or a police officer.

Where have all the politics gone?

I have noticed recently that I have absolutely no inclination to blog about things of a political nature. Stories that caused me to contemplate a post today ranged from an article about cat remains found in an ancient burial site (NYT here) to a piece about a woman who decided to use her down-time at the airport to give free advice (IHT here). (Both are great stories, btw!) I had no interest in blogging about anything more serious than that. [I know, I know, my devoted-to-cats reader will immediately respond that an article on the origins of cat-as-pet scores a ten on the seriousness scale, but for the rest, I would regard it as a curiosity rather than a shattering event; and it certainly lacks any political overtones.]

It could be that I am bucking the trend. Every day I come across a new weblog with posts about politics. Some of these commentaries are interesting, thoughtful, original, but most, to me, are not. Many appear arrogant (no cites, I don’t want blogger-enemies), anything but reasoned, in fact –quite off-putting.

On the other hand, abandoning politics here seems entirely wrong too, since the very title of this blog suggests a contemplation of matters that are of concern to those living here and in more distant places (eg Poland – and I have a handful of loyalists who continue to check the blog there!). If ‘politics’ stands for the art of government, then surely an internationally-inclined blog should at least make references to things of a political nature.

Call it a crisis of blog identity. I am giving more ‘serious’ thought to the ‘lightness’ factor that has seeped into virtually every post. Perhaps it is a sign of the times: I look for frivolity because the daily news stories that I wake up to have almost none of it, or at least it is overshadowed by the doom and gloom of a never-ending political drama that is both threatening and unnerving.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. If none are forthcoming, then I will organize a focus group very soon and I will gauge public sentiment from this select audience. The scientific method for selecting members of the focus group? I’ll use the legal standard of ‘arbitrary and capricious.’

A week-end of 1040 fun

It’s not holiday time. It’s tax time! Last year I asked one of the professors who teaches Tax here, which computer program he uses to file his returns. He said “the simple one called ‘pencil and eraser.’” Me too.

But I’m still a week away and the temptation each day is to push this odious chore to another moment.
Today, for instance, I could not possibly work on taxes. I am distracted by the following email received from a reader:

Greetings from Montana.
Although my head is full of keeping calves alive and planting cottonwoods right now, I will be back in Madison next week.

What is more interesting than gathering the requisite papers for tax work? The above. I wish I were keeping calves alive and planting cottonwoods this week-end (btw, what are cottonwoods*? Futons?).

*name of store in High Point Plaza

It’s Easter week-end, isn’t it?

My family never did anything about Easter as I was growing up. There was no reason to make a holiday of it: in Poland, Easter was a supremely religious celebration (my family was not Catholic). I don’t remember there being bunnies or chicks or Easter bonnets – just crowds pouring out of church, and then, in the late post-dinner afternoon, crowds in parks, as families went for the weekly ‘promenade.’

But the painting of Easter eggs for Easter transcended the holiday itself. We learned early on how to get the egg out of the shell and preserve the shell itself. And we learned to love the designs that we repeatedly saw reproduced on eggs sold in craft shops.

I'm including a few photos here, perhaps to remind myself of their loveliness.

It’s final: a pyramid over a crate

I didn’t read this week’s NYT science article (here) until today. I once fancied myself as being mathematically-inclined (it seems, in retrospect, that I have fancied myself inclined in very many ways over the years…hmmmm..) and so I read the article with greater care than I normally would read a piece from under the “science” rubric.

It appears that one of the oldest problems of math has been conclusively solved (as demonstrated by the acceptance of the proof by a leading mathematics journal). No, don’t stop reading! You may want to know, even if you have no interest in math. The problem is all about the most efficient ways to pack oranges (originally stated as a problem of stacking cannonballs): the pyramid holds more than the crate. Why? The Times gives this simple layperson’s explanation: “(the pyramid) allows each layer of oranges to sit lower, in the hollows of the layer below, and take up less space than if the oranges sat directly on top of each other.”

The article explains how the computer-assisted proof initially raised eyebrows (checking issues arose). It is a fascinating story of how mathematics can no longer rely on the human brain to solve its remaining puzzles (but neither can it simply feed the problems to the computer, for understandable reasons). But I am still stuck on this very basic truth: pyramid over crate. So easy, so logical, but I would have never guessed.

Confession of a weary gardener

It’s not all fun and games out there in the mud. Nor is it all smiles in the blogger community in reaction to my Spring Updates. Two comments from yesterday are especially telling:

Reader number one wrote the following:

“I'm glad to see that you are not blogging about Spring and gardening today. Though I enjoy the pictures of the flowers, you were making me feel guilty because I have no interest whatsoever in doing yard work or getting my hands dirty.”

Conclusion number one: Spring Updates inspire guilt rather than pleasure.

Reader number two commented:

”Call me old fashioned, but I like to see grass as the dominant plant-life of a lawn. It seems that if you sprinkle turkey droppings and only turkey droppings to sustain it, you’re likely to have weeds, weeds and more weeds. In fact I distinctly remember seeing weeds last year in your front yard.”

I remember an exchange that I had with someone about lawns a few years back. When I recounted to this person that I had just spent a morning picking out the particularly noxious spreading weeds, she had said “in my yard, if it’s green it stays.”

Conclusion number two: people feel strongly about lawn care (or lack thereof).

I am all for balance, so I promise, Spring Updates will appear at intervals so great that you wont even remember when you last saw one. As for weeds – I will continue to dig by hand. For those used to greener pastures – I’m sorry, but I can’t even stand to take walks through the neighborhood when the Chemlawn truck has passed through and left its dirty trail. The stench takes all the pleasure out of walking. In my mind, this is one of the most avoidable chemical addictions that suburbanites continue to support. I can understand smoking better than I can understand spraying your yard repeatedly so that it will look like Astroturf.

To buy or not to buy?

Suppose your income was $200 a month and you had a family to support (including aging grandparents and parents who had no where else to go). Suppose life was tough, entertainment options were few, winter nights were long. Suppose you were used to buying things “under the counter” as it were, and you lived in a country where the word “copyright law” has not been in existence for the past 70 years.

Alright, supposing all the above, would a legitimately produced CD, priced at $10, or DVD priced at $20 cause you to turn away from the market of pirated copies, selling at $4 each? Showing titles that are more recent than what you can legitimately have access to? And appearing with ready translations into the language of your choice? You would do that? ARE YOU SURE??

The Times reports (here) that the American Film Industry is now trying to fight piracy in Russia by lowering prices of DVDs (cutting them back to $10 -$15). Still, it seems futile. I cannot imagine a person who earns that little spending so much just to feed the American Film Industry its rightful share of profit. I’m not saying that this is right, I am simply dubious that the Film Industry will make even an infinitesimal dent in piracy with this move.

Perennial quest to understand life around me

Early on in the blogger game, I puzzled over an intriguing bumper sticker (on Bukowski). That speculation proved to be the single most provocative thing I ever wrote here – it inspired pronouncements of anger, admiration, boredom, impatience, and confusion from all corners of the world. It was riveting to be in the midst of such controversy.

This time my walk through a parking lot made me spot yet another bumper sticker that I found puzzling. I do NOT anticipate a slew of emails over this one, though I must say, I am at wit’s end as to the meaning or purpose of the following sign:

“Visualize whirled peas”

I have two hints:
1. the person is not announcing anything of a politically conservative tenor since all other bumper stickers on this car were rather left-leaning.
2. a search on the Net produced the picture I've included here. But does this really help us any? I'm confused.

UPDATE: A reader unscrambled this one within seconds: World peace. Whirled Peas. Ah. It had nothing to do with sustainable agriculture after all.

Trying to make the best of "life in the suburbs," part 2

In a February post, I rhapsodized about the household across the street and their creative genius in bringing out (on a drab winter day) a stockpile of pink flamingos, to be arranged haphazardly in the snow by the children who live there.

Yesterday the entire family was hanging out in the front yard (I love this about them; only two households on the entire long block of some 30 houses, actually use their front yard for hanging out purposes) and so I finally quit being the voyeur and went over to introduce myself (they are fairly new arrivals to our neighborhood).

After this first encounter, I am convinced that they are indeed great people, creative, fun, terrific in all respects. But the flamingos? Alack, alas, these are not their birds. They do not have a single pink flamingo. Some service brought them around for a week, to celebrate the birthday of the woman living there.

Still, I was cheered to see buckets of colorful chalk by the garage. Maybe now that we’ve officially met, I can help paint dragons and monsters and butterflies on the street with them. At the very least, I can again watch the color unforld.

Accounted for

Today, Agence France-Presse announced that a plane wreck has been discovered off the coast of France. The plane has been identified as belonging to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This is certainly not a recent crash: Saint-Exupéry disappeared 60 years ago and although it was speculated that the plane he flew went down, the accident was never confirmed.

‘The Little Prince,’ written by Saint-Exupéry, was first published in 1943. The Times reports that it has since been translated into more than 100 languages and is third on the all-time-anywhere best seller list, after the Bible and Marx’s Das Kapital.

Das Kapital is second on the list of best sellers? Can you list ten people you know who have read Das Kapital? (I can be included on your list as it was required reading for me at the U of Warsaw; but then, I was an econometrics major and this was Poland in the 60-70s!) I would think that if you were going to be Marx obsessed you’d pick up the Communist Manifesto, not Das Kapital.

As for ‘The Little Prince’ – well, for me, too, it was a truly magical little book, but I don’t know why it uniformly inspires such feelings of rapture. It is quite a simple story. One might say that it is sort of the opposite of Das Kapital in that way. Are the same people reading both??? After the eyestrain of paging through Marx, ‘The Little Prince’ may well offer the perfect antidote.

‘The Little Prince’ is one of those books that makes you think that surely there is a subtext, a Great Meaning of some sort. It’s not hard to imagine a Great Meaning hidden in simple statements about our planet –as seen from the eyes of an interstellar traveler. Now that I’m remembering it, I can see how easy it is to get lost in the imagination of that storyteller. And the illustrations – well, after reading the Bible and Das Kapital, one would be so GRATEFUL for a book with illustrations. Gentle words, soothing pictures, nice text, possibly with Great Meaning, but probably not. Yeah, a nice relaxing moment, lyrical, calming to your senses, allowing you to forget about the deeply troubled world described in the “top two” best selling texts.

Wake up! It doesn’t get much loftier than this!

If this wasn’t a day that topped all spring days, I don’t know what could possibly qualify: partly (mostly) sunny, temperatures in the upper sixties, no chilly undertow, truly great walking weather!

It was also a perfect day to revisit the UW Arboretum. When I am there, I think I should devote my life to collecting seed samples and to the creation of this place of great natural beauty. It evokes a feeling of community and partnership. True, in some places you can hear the Beltline traffic and the noises of nearby construction. But in some spots it's just the echo of your walking shoes among the pines and birches. And, on the hill of orchard trees, you could just run and run and test your endurance and no one will care or even notice. Next time.

News doesn’t just hit you in the face

..you have to go out and look for it. This week’s Newsweek tells of a writer who went right out into NY’s alleys in the interest of searching out stories about rats.

Robert Sullivan observed rats for a year and then wrote a book about it (see comment on it here). Not bad material, I should think. There are enough rat stories out there to keep us intrigued for a while. I do side with the Newsweek interviewer who asks “why do people hate rats and not squirrels?” Why indeed? Each is a rodent, yet we teach our children how to feed the latter and fear the former.

The author of the rat book was also asked to comment on how rats and people may be similar. Sullivan replies:

"I observe these rats, and they come out of their hole, they go to the same place each day to feed and then they go back to their hole for bed. Then I turn around and look at Wall Street, and I see all of these people coming out of holes in the ground, going to breakfast, going into their buildings and then going home. Same thing."

No kidding.

[sketch: from On-line Pravda]

Spring Update

A kind reader, wishing to feed my blogger-vanity, asks for a Spring Update. I think he must simply like to start off the work day with a transfixed gaze at something colorful and benign. This fits the bill.


In fact, I do like writing about my plants. To me, plant-care is a very “other-centered” activity. I spend far more time working with my borders out front (even though the light is less consistent, the planting space is on a slope, and the roots of nearby trees make digging deep trenches virtually impossible), than on the ones out back, which sort of thrive on sheer neglect.

Today I am happy to see the beginnings of what I call my “woodland spring garden.” This is a bit of a misnomer because the woodiness consists of only one very large birch tree. But it provides ample spring light now when the branches are leafless, morphing into dappled light when the birch leaves emerge, and eventually emerging as almost complete summer shade for the dry ground below. In the spring, the light is perfectly in place to grow the yellow and blue flowers that are a Monet-like statement about the loveliness of this color combination.

And so, of course, there are the daffodils. Scattered between ground cover are forget-me-nots, golden yellow globe flowers and the tiny blue bells of the hyacinth. In odd spots I have the very gentle green beginnings of ferns (they’ll grow monstrously big by July and then collapse for want of moisture by August –the birch roots take too much of the water to sustain this garden for long), and toward the end of spring, the lily-of-the-valley and the candle wildflower will signal the end of pale yellow and blue, and the beginning of a summer infusion of stronger greens and contrasting whites.

A reminder, nothing is blooming yet, but I think here, in this garden, we’re talking about just a week, not more, before we begin to see a display of color.

“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.