Of all things, a post about God

To think I almost missed the article (in the Guardian, but not in the form of a major headline – rather, buried in the science/education section, as if it was only marginally important to the majority of its readership) that gave me a scientific formula persuasively stating that indeed, there is a God. Well, perhaps not too persuasively: odds are, according to the scientist who worked this through (read about it here), as ‘high’ as 67% that God exists.

I see the cautious way the newspaper is approaching this finding. After all, 67% isn’t that great. Not enough to be reassuring to “Passion” viewers, for example. Does the Guardian really want to underscore a study that says that there’s a 33% chance that life is all about a meaningless Darwinian pursuit of food, mating, and survival?

I want the blog readers who have some methodological acumen to tell me that I know what I’m talking about when I say the study is odd to begin with. It starts with the premise that there’s a 50-50 chance of there being a deity. Why that high (or that low, depending on your perspective)? And the factors that are then worked into the formula (for example: the existence of miracles) – do they not tilt the outcome somewhat?

Wait. Perhaps the math is credible, but the conclusion is wrong. Maybe the data should indicate that there is only a 67% of a God out there – that he or she isn’t all that we make him/her out to be? In which case we would have a God that is divine, yet as imperfect as the rest of us.

But I don’t think that is the author’s intent. It’s a yes – no type inquiry, reassuring to those who want science to be on their side. And BTW, the author himself is 95% confident about God’s existence. The discrepancy is a little befuddling, though maybe the author’s lack of impartiality helps explain the final outcome – on the side of God.

Bubbles

As I am not even remotely Irish, I have no special privileges on March 17 and moreover, nothing about the world appears green today (fresh snow outside). However, I do have a nephew whose name is Patrick and I know that in Poland, where he lives, name-days are even more important than birthdays and so at least one member of my extended family is certain to be celebrating today, though most likely he will be doing so not by dancing jigs, but by chanting with his Krishna friends (yes, that appears to be his calling—no secret there, he has a website with all details made public).

Still, even in my non-Irish frame of mind, I appreciated a reader’s email with a link to a CNN article on Guinness. Not so much because I am a Guinness Stout fan (predictably, my Eastern European DNA would prefer a pilsner), but because the phenomenon described in the article is baffling and incomprehensible to me. Guinness bubbles go down, not up. Really. I am assured of the correctness of this since it has the seal of approval from a joint team of Stanford U and U of Edinburgh experts who studied the bubbles and came forth with a definitive statement on the matter.

Nothing is certain in life after all, even the trajectory of bubble movement.

A Passion for the Cross

Thanks to the reader who sent me the story (here) about an unfortunate incident in Maine. I hope there wasn’t a suggestion that perhaps this is conduct worthy of me or anyone I know. Most likely the story was forwarded because much has been written lately about movies with crosses in them and this added an interesting new twist to the idea of religious fervor.

It appears that a 23 year-old man attempted to nail himself to a wooden cross in his own living room last week. Why did he do it? He said he had been seeing images of Christ on his computer screen. Having accomplished the act of nailing one hand, he then realized that he could not nail the second one and so he called 911. The article states that it was not clear if he was calling 911 to get medical assistance or to ask for help with the nailing of the other hand.

He committed no crime in his undertaking of this project and so after being treated for wounds, he was released. BTW, he had not (yet) seen “The Passion.” Since he seems highly impressionable, one has to worry what ideas will strike him after watching the film.

Food soliloquy

Who cooks these days? –asks a reader from Poland. Her son had just completed a translation of a cook book from English to Polish and both were a little perplexed at the complexity of the recipes and the number of ingredients used to prepare each dish.

It’s an interesting question. I suppose you could divide the country into foodie types and normal people. Foodie types insist on fresh ingredients, rarely serve leftovers, make a big production of most meals, are passionate cookbook hounds, and have stacks of magazines telling them how to do all this better. I admit to being a foodie type. I would think that most card-holding members of Slow Food are foodie types: it’s our mantra, after all, to cook slowly and eat in ways that promote social discourse.

But being a foodie person and following complicated recipes are not the same thing. Over the years, my own fastidiousness with having the “right ingredients” has gone down, to the point that I can now make a ginger sauce without even procuring the ginger, though maybe it should then be called “ginger-less ginger sauce.” If you’ve ever baked a spice cake, you’ll have had the experience of being on spice ingredient number 239 and wondering if ANYONE on earth would notice if you skipped finely grinding ingredient number 240. By your tenth bake of the cake, you’re down to only 10 spices and still no one comments on the omissions.

For once I can lay it on the French for having complicated out cooking lives. The Italians are quite different in their approach – none of this saucing, fussing with ingredients: simple and fresh suffice. After all, just switching a brand of olive oil with significantly alter the taste of a dish. You needn’t confuse the palate with 30 additional ingredients. But the French—oh, how they can strain your patience, particularly with their sauce obsession. Making the broth base alone requires ten herbs and thirty vegetables – and that is only the beginning. But in all this fuss you learn to respect each product, fall in love with the scent and texture of every item brought to the table. Behind this reverence for food is, of course, a high regard for the work of the person who crafted it with such care and with attention to the land, the climate, the history that conspire to give food its unique, regional character.

Of course, all this growing and preparing is not done in isolation. Working with food should never be a lonely act. And eating it? Even cave people huddled together over their buffalo stew, didn’t they?

So far away… doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?

(Carole King)
Almost the entire day was spent on rectifying a scheduling mistake, of the type you make when you are either over 40 or under 35. (In between you have a window of opportunity to behave in a rational and sane manner, with the benefit of experience, but with the ability still to remain attentive to detail.)

Next month I am to return to Japan to complete my interviews with court personnel in every corner of that sprawling country. I will, as before, go from the northernmost island of Hokkaido to southern Kyushu, hoping to discover some variation in the way that customary law intersects with the civil code, to produce the uniquely Japanese brand of conflict resolution in family disputes.

This project has been difficult from day one. For one thing, I don’t speak Japanese and so an entire dissertation could be written on whether I am entitled to draw conclusions based on interviews that are painstakingly conducted with an interpreter or two at my side. I continue with the project only because I have gotten my hands on such wonderfully telling information that I have not the courage to throw it all away. So, this spring I am about to work through my final round of interviews.

Except that in setting these up, I forgot about the Japanese Golden Week. The Golden Week is something we just don’t associate with the working people of that country. We imagine them to be industrious, after all, putting in an average of 80 hours a week, with overtime for especially demanding tasks (like entertaining foreign visitors). Because we operate with this fixed bias in our heads, we simply do not expect the entire country to look at a calendar and say: “oh! all those national holidays so close together! why don’t we simply close down the nation for ten days and not work at all?” Well, from April 29 until May 9 this year I can expect all government offices to be shut down in observance of this spring holiday period. And where will I be then? Trapped in the middle, waiting for the country to “reopen” again.

I could, I suppose, fly home in between my already scheduled meetings, but something tells me that spending 13 golden hours on the plane each way to escape this golden week of Japanese leisure makes little sense. Thus I will kill time on the islands, waiting for the holidays to be over.

Today I tried to find a spot in Japan where I could hide for ten days and not go nuts in my solitary state of disengagement (in the “Lost in Translation” sense), at the same time that I could experience something breathtakingly beautiful, at a reasonable price, on days when the entire nation will be hell-bent on travel and holiday merrymaking. I have several email messages out to different places where I may hole up for the period, but I am certain they will only produce the typical miscommunication I am famous for with my polite and non-comprehending pals in Japan.

I was discussing all this with a reader and a friend today. I got the distinct impression that she thought that a month of solitary work and travel would be too much for the likes of me – even though I generally am terrific at solo treks and enjoy talking to myself on sightseeing expeditions where the only person within a 100 mile radius that speaks any familiar language is me. She suggested that I turn to my usual list of people who in the past have not minded accompanying me on these ventures, just to see if they’d tag along this time, but I know it’s hopeless. The trip is barely a month away and Japan is expensive.

All I can say is this: be prepared for some odd blogs in April and May as I make my way through many weeks of conversational solitude, trying yet again to understand what the hell people are saying around me. It will be a challenge. Am I looking forward to it? But of course.

Admission

I admit to sitting through a late night showing of Monster last night. In addition to our small group, the theater had 4 other people in it, 2 of whom made odd noises throughout, making me think that perhaps they had randomly picked an empty theater to find a warm spot for their extra-cinematographic activities. If any movie does not lend itself to action of this sort it is Monster.

It was interesting to watch Monster in March, after the Academy buzz has faded and the only speculation that remains is about Charlize’s next acting stint, or about Christina Ricci and whether she is terribly grating because of the role she plays or the acting she brings to it.

And, of course, in this quieter period, one could view the movie and think more about the story line. Or is it that an anatomy of a murderer is no longer riveting because we accept the idea that anyone, if pushed hard enough, can plumet and commit heinous acts, verging on insanity? I doubt that we truly buy this. It’s so much safer to feel one’s moral superiority to the next person.

In high school, our history teacher used to like to get us going on the “what would you do under those circumstances?” spin. Mostly she redescribed for us World War II atrocities and placed us in the middle of them, asking Sophie’s Choice type questions about available courses of action. But we never played this game of mental anguish from a German’s perspective. There was no credible dilemma there for her or for us to reflect on—only the evil nature of the deeds and the deed-doers. [An aside: my history teacher was a bit of a character: a huge, muscled woman, she had a voice that carried. I remember a class period where, after reviewing the carnage wrought by some gruesome European battle, she stood up, pounded the desk and screamed out “I fear death!!” There was complete silence as we processed her words. I mean, what could you say to that? It certainly had the effect of temporarily abating any note-passing and random seat-mate kicking, both highly popular activities in the Polish public school.]

A movie like Monster takes you down that forbidding path where the perpetrator is also human. It’s a sobering experience to watch “Aileen Wuornos” turn her angry eyes on the court as she screams that they are sentencing a rape victim to death. My history teacher would have dismissed this scene and given us a lecture on taking responsibility for our actions. Aileen had done that initially and gotten exactly nowhere. Surely she was not the only one responsible for what happened then.
[photo: Zmichowska High School in Warsaw Poland]

Picking a Vice

A misleading title, to be sure, but the day’s young and needs some punch to get it going.

In the last New Yorker, Hertzberg offered a quick glance back at the democratic primaries and a look ahead at the selection of the Vice Presidential candidate. The process itself couldn’t be simpler: the Presidential candidate points a finger and that’s it. In the interim, the public engages in months of speculation.

The article notes that in the past, the VP’s job was virtually worthless. Hertzberg writes:

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

But times have changed, and there are now reasons to covet the VP position:

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

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

The article falters a bit when it comes time to speculate about Kerry’s running mate. No matter, it’s anybody’s guess at the moment and guessing is all we have for the next several months, to keep ourselves interested in the long long stretch before the election.

Some are born great…

If you can’t do something great, just do something to an excess and you’ll achieve greatness. What else can be said of a person who applied 18,000 layers of paint to a baseball to get into the Guinness Book of Records? And what can you say about the Indiana town that was so proud of him, that they named last Saturday “Ball of Paint Day?”

I wonder how he kept tabs, or whether he withdrew from life to devote himself to the task: “kids, I’ll be out painting layer number 14,236 today.” Or “for my birthday, I would like another can of paint; this time make it fuchsia.” And now that it’s done, does it enter a museum? Perhaps touring, along with select pieces from the Hermitage that I hear are making the rounds?

At the very least, the man and his big green baseball were spotlighted in a story on CNN (here). Millions of people around the world read it and wondered, “why?”

Turning red?

The Washington Post identifies Wisconsin as a Gore state that may well swing toward the Republicans in these presidential elections (article here). Along with the Gore-win states of Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, and New Mexico, Wisconsin seems on the brink of turning a Republican red. Why? The GOP is blitzing the state with ads attempting to move the focus of voters here away from the economy onto cultural issues.

Not being much of a TV watcher, I’m not sure what that means: is the state more culturally aligned with the Republicans these days? What is the source of the alignment? Culture: is it that the Republican-to-his-shrinking-midriff, Tommy Thompson, is at the forefront of the war on obesity (and Wisconsin both has an unreasonable case of Tommy-worship and a problem with obesity)? Is it that Kerry has historically supported gun control, while for many in this state, bliss means draining the contents of one barrel (beer-filled) and filling the contents of another (gun)? [An aside: I have recently learned that there is a town in Texas CALLED Gun Barrel—see site here—how odd is that?]

The Post states that only 18 states seem still in the running: strategists for both sides have all but conceded the remaining to one another. I suppose it is somewhat of an honor to have Wisconsin still in the race, though I was happier when we were heralded as a progressive Edwards-Kerry battle ground. This new image of Wisconsin turning toward the GOP is more disconcerting: haven’t we incorporated enough red already into our Badger state culture?

Evidence of Spring Break, continued

Spring Break is in full swing. Need evidence? Consider the following:

1. Students are blogging more (after all, they have more time), faculty are blogging less (after all, they have more time);
2. The Madison temperature outside is plummeting again to levels generally associated with regions of the Arctic tundra;
3. I could cross University Avenue on a red light without being run over by a steady stream of traffic (crossing on a red light is such a cultural thing. No one in NY would be foolish enough to wait for a green light—why follow rules made for everyone but you? ..whereas in Japan, it may be empty, it may be 2 a.m., it may be raining, sleeting, thundering—no matter, you wait for the little green man and the chirping bird to give you permission to cross);
4. My stack of “to do” lists grows each day, as I spend a considerable amount of time slumped in a reclining position thinking about what else should be added.

Since there is no holiday or event associated with Spring Break (meaning nothing to cook for), the week becomes one long guilt trip, filled with remorse over not doing enough. Can’t wait for classes to resume: the stress of the Break is killing me.

The (lost) art of winning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It ain’t over…

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

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

Hang your shingle

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

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

Too many words, too few ideas

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

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

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

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

The unwelcome reappearance of Simon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt. 2

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

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt.1

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

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

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

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

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

Think: prevention.