Thinking it would be a nice change of scenery from the late autumn gloom and leaflessness of late October in Vermont, I signed up for a tour of Vietnam. Indeed it was a change of scenery, sure enough. I might go so far as to suggest culture shock.
We arrived in Hanoi 12 days ago, and I can't actually explain why I thought it would be pleasantly cool and bugless, especially after I groped around Google and found some weather information which all agreed that Very Hot would be the norm for October, but there we were after 30 hours of air travel, groggy and stumbling, with our glasses fogged over in the 100% humidity of the middle of the night, being met by our tour guide and dragged off to our beds in a barely living condition.
As it happens, Hanoi has embraced air conditioning with a convert's fervor and our room was refrigerated to Arctic. Which was just as well, since the beds were equipped with down comforters suitable for use in polar conditions. This trend continued as we made our way from Hanoi south through Danang and points south, hitting, along the way, all the temples and ruins and sites of war and mayhem from the tenth century to the present. All of these are discussed in considerable detail in great numbers of guidebooks, so I will skip over all that and just mention the things that they don't tell you in the guidebooks.
The first thing to overwhelm the unsuspecting tourist is the numbers of motor scooters everywhere, countrywide. In Hanoi they go everywhere, sidewalks, alleys, in any direction on the roadways. They emerge from peoples' houses and shops and interstices between street vendors. Most houses have a ramp out to the sidewalk so that the family scooter can be brought in at night and parked in the livingroom.
They are used for all forms of transport – cargo, family outings, commuting. Occasionally a mobile haystack may appear on the highway with driver barely visible under the load. Other cargo might be many sacks of grain, or stacks of boxes, or lumber or crated chickens. Anything you can get a bungee cord around. In terms of family outings, the largest number of people I saw on a single scooter was Mom, Dad and the 3 kids. Typically riders sit side-saddle and are perfectly relaxed, chatting on their phones or buffing their nails. At rush hour the rippling flow of scooters is like the mighty Mekong in flood.
Many of the riders, especially the girls, wear masks that cover, at a bare minimum, their faces from their eyes down. Some cover their foreheads and necks as well, and very often a cotton jacket with a neck up to the earlobes and specially constructed sleeves that extend to cover their hands. This is to prevent the sun from getting at them and sullying the perfect whiteness of their tender young flesh in a similar stab at maidenly beauty as those sleek young coeds who poach themselves on the beach so they can dazzle the viewing public with their golden tan.
The second thing to catch the eye, after the scooter swarms, is the overhead wires. In certain areas of the city, any city, but especially Hanoi, wires are strung in swags from pole to pole, and on certain poles there are one to many coils of spare wire so that it would be possible to add to one swag or another. It was never made clear what the nature of these wires was, whether telephone, electric, or merely bizarre ornamentation, but I would guess that if ever Vietnam ran into an embarrassing shortage of copper, they could easily harvest a year or two's worth from the streets of Hanoi alone.
Then there are the vendors who are everywhere selling anything from scooter tires to chicken parts, but those of us who are clearly tourists most commonly attract those offering Buddha statues, jewelry made in China, clever little carved pigs, fans, post cards, straw hats, flyblown fruit, faux-silk scarfs, spoons made from buffalo horns, chop sticks made from bamboo, and in very upscale areas bags of coffee made from weasel manure.
There are several popular vending techniques: First, as soon as you spot a creature that looks like it might be American, you snatch up the first object that comes to hand and thrust it in the face of the mark, shouting “Madame! Madame!” When the mark moves on politely shaking their head and murmuring “No thank you,” you repeat the attempt, perhaps with the same item in a different color. Continue this until the mark has moved off into the territory of the next vendor.
Technique No. 2 cuts in when the the hook is set and the victim has actually bought something, 2 scarves, say. So they have handed over the money and picked up their treasures and are about to leave when the vendor blocks the exit with a flamboyant display of more scarves. It is not clear whether they imagine that every passing tourist aspires to own more scarves than Imelda Marcos has shoes, or if we look so much alike to them they think this is a new person in need of neckwear.
The third technique is popular when there are great numbers of vendors hawking the identical line of junk. In this case, if the tourist manages to fight their way past the first one or two vendors and finds something at the third, the owners of the first two will stand at the elbow of the thoughtless purchaser, tears gathered at the corners of their eyes, pathetically offering whatever it was that had just been bought from the triumphant number 3.
In the more upscale establishments, those prosperous merchants with an actual roof, and doors, the potential buyer is closely followed around by a helpful employee who will try to guilt you into buying stuff by unfolding everything in the place, taking things down from the top shelf, pulling stuff out of drawers and so forth whether or not the customer has shown the slightest interest in any of it.
To add interest to the shopping experience, the local currency, the Dong, is worth about 20,000 to the US dollar. The main problem with this is getting the order of magnitude right. If you offer a 10,000 note for something worth 100,000, it is a sure bet that the shop keeper will point out your error. If your error is in the other direction, however, it may go undetected. Of course, US currency is always welcome and there is almost nothing in the country that cannot be had for One Dolla. It would seem that the vending public imagines that all white tourists arrive in Vietnam with a large suitcase full of small US bills. In any case, keeping track of all those extraneous zeros is monstrously difficult and is responsible for much of the widespread “I can't think what I spent that $100 on” anxiety.
In case I failed to mention it, it is very hot in Saigon. Pay no mind to the residents who will tell you that it is cool and pleasant. 90 degrees is not cool and pleasant.
Further observations anon...
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Emergency Measures
When I hear terms like “crisis management” or “emergency measures,” images leap to mind of miserable, huddled people clustered around sagging tents, surrounded by mud or backlit by the lurid orange light of their house in flames; volcanoes, tidal waves, cities crushed by earthquakes; dislocated throngs living in sports facilities, fleeing murderous paramilitaries, starving while their crops die from drought and their women are raped by armed gangs from the next village over.
For this reason it gives me a jolt when I receive cautionary notes including these terms from organizations responsible for dealing with widespread misfortune. My first panicky thought is that these highly placed functionaries know something that they are not telling us about. That they know that there is a hurricane bearing down on us, a lava dome forming under our feet, a fleet of bombers approaching over the pole, with their sights set on Rutland.
Happily, we have been spared most of these assaults on our placid lives, however, it appears that our ever vigilant watchdogs are leaving nothing to chance as I have been getting more than the average number of messages recently from well-meaning persons and organizations who, having my health and welfare at the forefront of their minds, want to make sure that I do not suffer some horrible fate in the event of catastrophe. Since the sort of dislocation that constitutes a catastrophe seems to cover a larger and more varied list of misfortunes with each passing year, I am not sure whether they mean nuclear strike or road washed out again. Not that it matters much since the measures we are enjoined to take are the same in either case:
1. Make sure there is a lot of tinned food about the place
2. Keep some water handy since your well will not provide when the power is out.
3. Get lots of things that use batteries, like flashlights and stuff. Maybe a radio.
4. A few candles couldn't hurt. Don't leave your toddlers alone with them.
One official went so far as to suggest that sufficient emergency provisions should be laid in for 72 hours. That's 3 days. Presumably after that arduous period spent loafing around the house without even a TV, unless you've got a generator, helicopters would be provided to replenish the victims' dwindling stock of Cheetos. Maybe they could strafe the affected area with frozen chickens which could then be cooked on sticks over a fire on the patio made by breaking up their furniture.
I was disappointed to note that none of these sources of comfort and good sense cautioned the inexperienced not to remain in the house if the toddler managed to get a crackling blaze going in the couch. No mention was made in any of the notices I received of fire extinguishers, so one can only imagine that the average householder would not have one, or know how to use it if they did.
It is not clear what is driving this drift toward trivializing the idea of what constitutes an Official Disaster. It is tempting to imagine that the legal industry plays a starring role. I understand the Corps of Engineers is still coping with lawsuits relating to the Katrina disaster, and the National Weather Service is clearly the target of choice when your house is unexpectedly washed out to sea owing to their failure to predict a 10-inch rainfall. However, it is hard to see how canned goods would improve the aftermath of either of these events.
This is a fundamental evolution of the National Character and may go far to explain why we, as a nation, steadfastly refuse to do anything that might mitigate the environmental apocalypse to which we have so generously contributed. With so many examples of the often rapid progress from the introduction of a good idea to a preposterously extreme application of it, it is understandable that people would be anxious about any reduction in, say, fuel consumption or the use of plastic bottles. The extrapolation of these benign measures would inevitably, in the anxious public mind, result in all of us riding bicycles or carrying water in our hats.
And then how could we live with ourselves?
Happily, we have been spared most of these assaults on our placid lives, however, it appears that our ever vigilant watchdogs are leaving nothing to chance as I have been getting more than the average number of messages recently from well-meaning persons and organizations who, having my health and welfare at the forefront of their minds, want to make sure that I do not suffer some horrible fate in the event of catastrophe. Since the sort of dislocation that constitutes a catastrophe seems to cover a larger and more varied list of misfortunes with each passing year, I am not sure whether they mean nuclear strike or road washed out again. Not that it matters much since the measures we are enjoined to take are the same in either case:
1. Make sure there is a lot of tinned food about the place
2. Keep some water handy since your well will not provide when the power is out.
3. Get lots of things that use batteries, like flashlights and stuff. Maybe a radio.
4. A few candles couldn't hurt. Don't leave your toddlers alone with them.
One official went so far as to suggest that sufficient emergency provisions should be laid in for 72 hours. That's 3 days. Presumably after that arduous period spent loafing around the house without even a TV, unless you've got a generator, helicopters would be provided to replenish the victims' dwindling stock of Cheetos. Maybe they could strafe the affected area with frozen chickens which could then be cooked on sticks over a fire on the patio made by breaking up their furniture.
I was disappointed to note that none of these sources of comfort and good sense cautioned the inexperienced not to remain in the house if the toddler managed to get a crackling blaze going in the couch. No mention was made in any of the notices I received of fire extinguishers, so one can only imagine that the average householder would not have one, or know how to use it if they did.
It is not clear what is driving this drift toward trivializing the idea of what constitutes an Official Disaster. It is tempting to imagine that the legal industry plays a starring role. I understand the Corps of Engineers is still coping with lawsuits relating to the Katrina disaster, and the National Weather Service is clearly the target of choice when your house is unexpectedly washed out to sea owing to their failure to predict a 10-inch rainfall. However, it is hard to see how canned goods would improve the aftermath of either of these events.
This is a fundamental evolution of the National Character and may go far to explain why we, as a nation, steadfastly refuse to do anything that might mitigate the environmental apocalypse to which we have so generously contributed. With so many examples of the often rapid progress from the introduction of a good idea to a preposterously extreme application of it, it is understandable that people would be anxious about any reduction in, say, fuel consumption or the use of plastic bottles. The extrapolation of these benign measures would inevitably, in the anxious public mind, result in all of us riding bicycles or carrying water in our hats.
And then how could we live with ourselves?
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Should We Expect Privacy in the Workplace?
There was a report on public radio the other day about something to do with the workplace. I don't remember what, but at some point the reporter remarked that an employee of the large company under discussion was outraged that the employer dared to read his emails which contained private information that the employer had *no* business looking at. His numerous emails that had been written and sent on company time using the company's computer running the company's software.
I find this mystifying. Not that the company's goods had been used for private purposes – I am guessing that anybody with access to a computer at work will have used it to send personal messages at one time or another. Will, in fact have made private phone calls, filched ball point pens, taken an extra ten minutes for lunch, and taken any of a long and varied list of liberties that the employer might not, strictly speaking, approve of, although it would be naive indeed if the company were truly unaware that such tiny felonies were a daily affair.
What was the eye-opener was that the employee who, having been caught red-handed and asked to spend more time on his actual work, for which he was paid, and less on his private conversations, instead of saying, demurely, “Oh, yes, sir, it won't happen again, sir, I'll get right on that report, sir” and then scurrying off to look busy for a week, tops, before figuring out a way to continue his malfeasance so as not to get caught a second time. Instead of taking this very sensible and mollifying course, this quarter-wit threatened to sue the company for reading the rubbish that he shouldn't have been writing on company time to begin with.
What was he thinking?
This is another example of Our Society's failure to expose the young to reality. Somebody had failed to sit down with this young imbecile and explain what it means to get and, more importantly, to keep a job. Maybe some respectable institution should issue plastic cards to be read to prospective new hires and then given to them to study at their leisure. The card should say something like:
“OK we will hire you. Here's the deal: We are buying from you 40 hours of your time each week excluding holidays. These are our hours and we will do what we like with them. This will not include taking your dog to the vet, picking up furniture from Walmart using the company's truck, or slipping out for a long lunch with your college roommate.
The computer on your desk is not provided so that you can while away an idle morning playing solitaire or forwarding pictures of kittens to your mother.
When your supervisor gives you a task with a deadline of, say, Friday, what is meant is that the task should be completed before Saturday. This Saturday.
Any items under this roof that you did not, yourself, bring here are not yours. The stationary cupboard is not your source for household supplies; those felt-tip markers belong to us, not to you, along with the staplers, post-it notes, and printer paper stacked nearby.
If we catch you stealing our stuff, malingering, texting your friends on our time, using our materiel for purposes unrelated to our needs, we reserve the right to kick your butt.
Do you understand?”
I am reminded of a young man at one of my previous places of employment. This place generated a lot of data and generated endless reports which took up huge chunks of space on the in-house servers. These were very large servers, but every now and then they would approach capacity and the Keepers of the Data would scan through them to find who was taking up the space. Then they would natter at the responsible parties to purge, archive, or move it.
The young man in question was one of these quiet introverted people who never made eye contact and who spent his days alone in a dark windowless room full of computers doing something with data files, so it was not a surprise that his account on the servers very nearly outstripped those of all other users. What was a surprise was that much of the space was taken up with photographs, which he did not work with. This excited the curiosity of one of the Keepers of the Data, who was having a dull day anyway, so he opened one to see what sort of maps or micrographs or field trip records our young man might have accumulated. What he found was hundreds and hundreds of high-resolution pornographic pictures.
What happened next was that probably the most extensive collection of porn in all New England vanished without a trace, and Our Boy got his butt kicked. It could be argued that he was not the brightest star in the firmament, but even so, it is significant that the young ninny did not threaten legal action for invasion of his private fantasy life on company time.
It could be that as jobs become hard to get and good jobs nearly non-existent, the idea that the workplace is merely an extension of our home life will gradually fade as both employer and employee come to understand what each owes the other. However, in the fine American tradition of “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing” there are disquieting symptoms of a movement toward the workplace moving into the home. It is already fairly common for companies to demand that its employees not smoke at all, anywhere. I understand that some are moving toward prohibiting all alcohol use. Next up, what? Overeating? Trampoline use? Using the Lord's name in vain?
I realize that moderation is not a notable feature of the national character, but I dream of a time when our time at work is time for work and then we can go home and forget the buggers.
I find this mystifying. Not that the company's goods had been used for private purposes – I am guessing that anybody with access to a computer at work will have used it to send personal messages at one time or another. Will, in fact have made private phone calls, filched ball point pens, taken an extra ten minutes for lunch, and taken any of a long and varied list of liberties that the employer might not, strictly speaking, approve of, although it would be naive indeed if the company were truly unaware that such tiny felonies were a daily affair.
What was the eye-opener was that the employee who, having been caught red-handed and asked to spend more time on his actual work, for which he was paid, and less on his private conversations, instead of saying, demurely, “Oh, yes, sir, it won't happen again, sir, I'll get right on that report, sir” and then scurrying off to look busy for a week, tops, before figuring out a way to continue his malfeasance so as not to get caught a second time. Instead of taking this very sensible and mollifying course, this quarter-wit threatened to sue the company for reading the rubbish that he shouldn't have been writing on company time to begin with.
What was he thinking?
This is another example of Our Society's failure to expose the young to reality. Somebody had failed to sit down with this young imbecile and explain what it means to get and, more importantly, to keep a job. Maybe some respectable institution should issue plastic cards to be read to prospective new hires and then given to them to study at their leisure. The card should say something like:
“OK we will hire you. Here's the deal: We are buying from you 40 hours of your time each week excluding holidays. These are our hours and we will do what we like with them. This will not include taking your dog to the vet, picking up furniture from Walmart using the company's truck, or slipping out for a long lunch with your college roommate.
The computer on your desk is not provided so that you can while away an idle morning playing solitaire or forwarding pictures of kittens to your mother.
When your supervisor gives you a task with a deadline of, say, Friday, what is meant is that the task should be completed before Saturday. This Saturday.
Any items under this roof that you did not, yourself, bring here are not yours. The stationary cupboard is not your source for household supplies; those felt-tip markers belong to us, not to you, along with the staplers, post-it notes, and printer paper stacked nearby.
If we catch you stealing our stuff, malingering, texting your friends on our time, using our materiel for purposes unrelated to our needs, we reserve the right to kick your butt.
Do you understand?”
I am reminded of a young man at one of my previous places of employment. This place generated a lot of data and generated endless reports which took up huge chunks of space on the in-house servers. These were very large servers, but every now and then they would approach capacity and the Keepers of the Data would scan through them to find who was taking up the space. Then they would natter at the responsible parties to purge, archive, or move it.
The young man in question was one of these quiet introverted people who never made eye contact and who spent his days alone in a dark windowless room full of computers doing something with data files, so it was not a surprise that his account on the servers very nearly outstripped those of all other users. What was a surprise was that much of the space was taken up with photographs, which he did not work with. This excited the curiosity of one of the Keepers of the Data, who was having a dull day anyway, so he opened one to see what sort of maps or micrographs or field trip records our young man might have accumulated. What he found was hundreds and hundreds of high-resolution pornographic pictures.
What happened next was that probably the most extensive collection of porn in all New England vanished without a trace, and Our Boy got his butt kicked. It could be argued that he was not the brightest star in the firmament, but even so, it is significant that the young ninny did not threaten legal action for invasion of his private fantasy life on company time.
It could be that as jobs become hard to get and good jobs nearly non-existent, the idea that the workplace is merely an extension of our home life will gradually fade as both employer and employee come to understand what each owes the other. However, in the fine American tradition of “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing” there are disquieting symptoms of a movement toward the workplace moving into the home. It is already fairly common for companies to demand that its employees not smoke at all, anywhere. I understand that some are moving toward prohibiting all alcohol use. Next up, what? Overeating? Trampoline use? Using the Lord's name in vain?
I realize that moderation is not a notable feature of the national character, but I dream of a time when our time at work is time for work and then we can go home and forget the buggers.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Darien Days
I am sprawled in front of a large fan, giddy with heat, the story of my summer. How can people live in heat like this?
In midwinter, 2008, my friend Bronwyn and I packed up our tropic-weight sportswear, polarized sunglasses, and insect repellant and went to Panama for a romp through the nature preserves with the Vermont Nature Conservancy. The trip lasted only a week, hardly enough time to justify the great length of time in the nightmare grip of the air travel industry, so I softened the blow by finding a side trip down to Darien Province and badgering Bronwyn into coming with me. This is the southernmost tip of the country populated largely by Embera Indians, poisonous snakes, jaguars, and drug smugglers. We were to spend 3 educational days living in an Embera village, living in their houses, eating their food, slapping their flies. We were to leave from Panama City on Sunday, the day after our return from our final Nature Conservancy stop, a very fine, white, virtually unpopulated beach up to the north.
We got back to our hotel around 5 in the evening and I picked up our itinerary for our personal trip extension to Darien. Imagine my dismay upon discovering that what they meant by a Sunday departure was that we were to be picked up a minute past Saturday in the lobby, leaving seven hours in which to unpack, repack, enjoy a festive farewell dinner with our traveling companions of the past week, and get a couple of hours of actual sleep.
I broke the news to Bronwyn and we immediately started the process. Mirabile dictu we did get down to the lobby punctually at midnight, bleary and bad-tempered, and met our guides: Roberto, a lumbering 300# of good cheer, and his silent & wiry sidekick, Mario, who was brought along to carry things. We were loaded in minutes into a Hyundai 4 x 4 with not a nickel’s worth of spare room after our baggage was added to theirs along with 2 giant coolers. And so it was that we set off just as the Panama City night life was getting under way, friction-fitted into the back seat with wistful hopes of a snooze or two before our transfer to The Boat, which was scheduled for about 6AM so as to get to the Mogue River at high tide.
Once we were clear of Panama City the road was bad and narrow and grew worse as the night wore on, finally degenerating to a continuous series of large deep potholes and coarse gravel, effectively ending any hope of naps. The final lap was a long narrow lane lined on both sides by parked vehicles and knee-deep trash. This was Puerto Quimba where we were to meet our boat, but first, the boys sidled up to the edge of the parking lot to relieve themselves while Bronwyn and I sought out a gap between a couple of trucks with the same idea, the first comical moment of our trip being when Bronwyn, standing ankle deep in chips bags, candy wrappers, and pop cans, wondered what to do with her little wad of toilet paper.
There was a little concrete bunker near the water with soldiers in it, some with machine pistols. I would have been a bit more jumpy about them if they hadn’t looked half asleep and also ignored us entirely. Knowing how close we were to Columbia I, as a well-indoctrinated American, assumed they were there to ward off drug smugglers, but Roberto explained that they were on hand to fend off refugees and other illegal alien riff-raff.
By and by our boat arrived- something like a Boston Whaler – and we dumped our stuff in and headed down the river. It wasn’t long before all signs of habitation vanished and we had the sea to ourselves. For about 15 magical minutes we got to watch the velvet dawn grow pink and bright behind the silhouetted mangroves and jungle and then suddenly it was day. And the sea smelled wonderful and there were porpoises and pelicans and frigate birds and terns.
It was an exhilarating ride, and then we got to the Mogue River right at high tide, as promised, and we came to understand why this was important and could not be done at night. We swooped and ducked up the narrow winding river between encroaching mangroves and fallen trees, which I am guessing would have been impassable at low water, for half an hour or so, passing a thatched hut or two and a dugout, but nothing else. Flights of parrots passed overhead on their daily commute somewhere. Egrets ignored us.
Finally we nosed into a concrete protuberance and one of our boatmen jumped out followed by the rest of us. Our welcoming committee comprised one fine-looking fellow named Leonardo, clad only in a bright red scarf and some beads, who, it transpired, was responsible for the care and feeding of all four of us during our stay, a couple of women who apparently had just come to look, and a flock of little boys delegated to carry our stuff. The little boy who got my pack wasn’t much larger than it was, but managed it gamely, and he and the rest of our straggly band trudged up through the banana grove (actually, more likely plantain), through the near side of the village and up the hill to Our House.
The reason we got the house rather than the Downtown Hotel was that another group had the hotel, but were expected to decamp tomorrow at which point we could have it. The advantage of the Hotel was that there was an actual toilet nearby with a door that could be closed along with a sink and a shower, which amenities were not available at our assigned digs.
It was also located right in the center of things so we could gawk at the doings of the neighborhood (and they could gawk at us) which would have been a good bit of fun, but once we got our tents up, our stuff unpacked, our camera clap-trap located, our cooks established in the basement and our hammocks hung, it didn’t seem worth the effort, so we stayed put throughout. I think Roberto was much relieved by this decision.
Our toilet, which Roberto referred to as “the Structure,” was located, mercifully, at a considerable remove from our house across a cleared area that, Leonardo blandly informed us, had snakes at night, so we made sure to do what could be done before dark and toughed it out until first light. What it was was a drainpipe upended above a hole which contained the excrement of the surrounding households enlivened with a boiling mass of maggots the hatchlings of which flew out in great numbers when you lifted off the cover. We used the hotel facility as much as possible. The shower, which adjoined the Structure, was simply a tap mounted about 5’ up. If you took your shower at the end of the day the water would be piping hot from the supply line having been in the broiling sun all day; if you had a morning shower, it would be considerably cooler. Both of these were surrounded on 3 sides only by a pretty sketchy wall not quite as tall as I am, and entirely open on the fourth side and the top. Luckily there was no snow while we were there.
Anyway, the house itself was a thatched affair on stilts with a carving of a Harpy Eagle at the peak. And the living area was about 7’ up. You got there by clambering up a chinked log propped against one end. At night you would lean a board over the chinks so that dogs wouldn’t come up. In the interests of a bit of privacy as well as nocturnal insect control, we had tents set up on the platform, but apart from our tents, a single long table with associated benches, and a few stools, the place was unfurnished.
By 10AM we were Officially Entrenched, and we, having had 2 hours sleep, and Roberto not that much, we were none of us frantic to dash off into the woods. So Bronwyn improved each shining hour by distributing pads of paper and colored pencils among the numerous small children who had followed us up onto our platform. The idea was that they were to draw pictures, but at first they didn’t seem to understand what was wanted. Finally one of them got the idea and our quarters were quickly filled with shapeless drawings of butterflies and cats and flowers. The second greatest thrill for the younger set was to have their picture taken and then view the result. The upshot of this was that the greater part of the photos taken at the Mogue village feature children. The arrival of lunch marked the end of our morning rest period.
We had two cooks who set up a fire or two down under the platform for cooking purposes. They would then clamber up the log carrying pots and plates and spoons in an impressive display of balance and coordination. They always cooked up a huge volume of stuff, and we quickly discovered that the idea was that Bronwyn and I, being the Honored Guests, got first grabs at it, and what we didn’t eat, which left a great deal, was to be offered to anybody else who happened to be around, including Roberto and Mario, of course, and usually Leonardo, and whatever children hadn’t been chased off home, and El Jefe, who came by occasionally, and the cooks, and the local guides, and random people who had come to help fix the hammocks, or who just happened to be in the neighborhood, etc. Mealtimes were always a lively affair, and in the end, there were never leftovers. The protocol was, though, that the food had to be offered. If they were not expressly invited to eat, they would sit stoically on the bench and slowly starve to death. And of course in some cases, like El Jefe, for example, it was desirable that the food be served up and delivered. Not sure we figured out all the niceties of this procedure, but we did our best.
Breakfast was Crema which seemed to be various grain type things boiled up in milk to the consistency of thick soup. It was served in juice glasses. There were also maybe sausages, eggs, plantain, and, of course, coffee grown and roasted locally. Other meals featured chicken, sausages, pork, yuca, plantain, potatoes. There were some bananas once, but we never saw a green vegetable. I have to say our diet was bland, but the process made up for any shortfall.
At some point somebody’s wife clambered up the log with tattoo ingredients and offered to decorate us. We were told that the dye used in this process would not only make us look like cannibals, but would also repel insects. Bronwyn and I both got leggings and bracelets, but Roberto went right to town and got neck-to-butt ornamentation, which, considering his bulk, was quite a lot of tattooing.
After lunch, and feeling somewhat revived, we wobbled down the log and took a stroll downtown to see what there was to see. We found the hotel and its luxurious bathroom. There was a concrete school and ditto health center, but everything else was much the same as our house. And there was a tiny pigling patrolling the town center, oblivious to the perpetual stir of children and dogs. It always seemed to have important business, no time to stop and fool around. And sitting in solitary splendor among all the thatched houses on stilts there was a single phone booth. The urban center contained not only the Hotel, but also a Supermarket which actually did sell things apparently, notably 4 bottles of beer which we obtained one evening after a long hike in the virgin timber and chilled in one of our coolers whose ice was largely gone. The resulting meltwater was an unwholesome brew of dribbled milk and neutrally buoyant cold cuts, but was cooler than the beers. After a day tramping around in blood temperature heat, that was the best beer that ever passed my lips.
The area under the houses was used for various things including miscellaneous storage, pigpens, and chicken coops, in which were raised the ugliest chickens on earth, with bald necks and patchy bottoms, complete with ugly babies. We thought at first it was some dermatological condition, but apparently not.
One day we got the local harpy whistler, who I gather was also the local parson, and tramped off through the steaming jungle in search of adventure and eagles. We didn’t find any harpies, alas, in spite of some very impressive whistling on the part of our guide. The feeling was that the eagles had moved to the next mountain over because of too much disturbance where we were. So we had to content ourselves with Oropendolas, noisy birds that live in bags high up in large trees, which had set up a lively colony surrounding a hornets nest, or the hornets had moved in among them. Who knows?
Our sweaty trudge was not entirely unrewarded, however as there were some very large trees still standing in spite of the snarl of distant chain saws, and a vast assortment of quaint and beautiful insects and bizarre and prickly plants. We stepped over and around countless skeins of leaf-cutter ants streaming across the path. Each swarm focussed on a single task: carrying leaf fragments, carrying yellow petals, deadheading back to the source. They had worn paths around the roots and talks in their way.
We walked down to the village after dark one day, keeping a sharp lookout for snakes, to sample the night life. We quickly discovered there was none. At least one reason for this was that there was a generator down there that came on at about sunset and stayed on for a few hours and this generator provided just enough power to run however many televisions there were in the neighborhood, and so it came to pass that for this electrified period everybody with a television was home up there on their open-sided, thatch-roofed, platforms sitting on the floor watching Three's Company or whatever the single channel might offer.
So that is how people live in heat like this. They wear no clothes worth mentioning, they live in houses with thatched roofs and no walls, they don't do much of anything during the heat of the day, and since there are no clocks in the place, they are never in a hurry.
In midwinter, 2008, my friend Bronwyn and I packed up our tropic-weight sportswear, polarized sunglasses, and insect repellant and went to Panama for a romp through the nature preserves with the Vermont Nature Conservancy. The trip lasted only a week, hardly enough time to justify the great length of time in the nightmare grip of the air travel industry, so I softened the blow by finding a side trip down to Darien Province and badgering Bronwyn into coming with me. This is the southernmost tip of the country populated largely by Embera Indians, poisonous snakes, jaguars, and drug smugglers. We were to spend 3 educational days living in an Embera village, living in their houses, eating their food, slapping their flies. We were to leave from Panama City on Sunday, the day after our return from our final Nature Conservancy stop, a very fine, white, virtually unpopulated beach up to the north.
We got back to our hotel around 5 in the evening and I picked up our itinerary for our personal trip extension to Darien. Imagine my dismay upon discovering that what they meant by a Sunday departure was that we were to be picked up a minute past Saturday in the lobby, leaving seven hours in which to unpack, repack, enjoy a festive farewell dinner with our traveling companions of the past week, and get a couple of hours of actual sleep.
I broke the news to Bronwyn and we immediately started the process. Mirabile dictu we did get down to the lobby punctually at midnight, bleary and bad-tempered, and met our guides: Roberto, a lumbering 300# of good cheer, and his silent & wiry sidekick, Mario, who was brought along to carry things. We were loaded in minutes into a Hyundai 4 x 4 with not a nickel’s worth of spare room after our baggage was added to theirs along with 2 giant coolers. And so it was that we set off just as the Panama City night life was getting under way, friction-fitted into the back seat with wistful hopes of a snooze or two before our transfer to The Boat, which was scheduled for about 6AM so as to get to the Mogue River at high tide.
Once we were clear of Panama City the road was bad and narrow and grew worse as the night wore on, finally degenerating to a continuous series of large deep potholes and coarse gravel, effectively ending any hope of naps. The final lap was a long narrow lane lined on both sides by parked vehicles and knee-deep trash. This was Puerto Quimba where we were to meet our boat, but first, the boys sidled up to the edge of the parking lot to relieve themselves while Bronwyn and I sought out a gap between a couple of trucks with the same idea, the first comical moment of our trip being when Bronwyn, standing ankle deep in chips bags, candy wrappers, and pop cans, wondered what to do with her little wad of toilet paper.
There was a little concrete bunker near the water with soldiers in it, some with machine pistols. I would have been a bit more jumpy about them if they hadn’t looked half asleep and also ignored us entirely. Knowing how close we were to Columbia I, as a well-indoctrinated American, assumed they were there to ward off drug smugglers, but Roberto explained that they were on hand to fend off refugees and other illegal alien riff-raff.
By and by our boat arrived- something like a Boston Whaler – and we dumped our stuff in and headed down the river. It wasn’t long before all signs of habitation vanished and we had the sea to ourselves. For about 15 magical minutes we got to watch the velvet dawn grow pink and bright behind the silhouetted mangroves and jungle and then suddenly it was day. And the sea smelled wonderful and there were porpoises and pelicans and frigate birds and terns.
It was an exhilarating ride, and then we got to the Mogue River right at high tide, as promised, and we came to understand why this was important and could not be done at night. We swooped and ducked up the narrow winding river between encroaching mangroves and fallen trees, which I am guessing would have been impassable at low water, for half an hour or so, passing a thatched hut or two and a dugout, but nothing else. Flights of parrots passed overhead on their daily commute somewhere. Egrets ignored us.
Finally we nosed into a concrete protuberance and one of our boatmen jumped out followed by the rest of us. Our welcoming committee comprised one fine-looking fellow named Leonardo, clad only in a bright red scarf and some beads, who, it transpired, was responsible for the care and feeding of all four of us during our stay, a couple of women who apparently had just come to look, and a flock of little boys delegated to carry our stuff. The little boy who got my pack wasn’t much larger than it was, but managed it gamely, and he and the rest of our straggly band trudged up through the banana grove (actually, more likely plantain), through the near side of the village and up the hill to Our House.
The reason we got the house rather than the Downtown Hotel was that another group had the hotel, but were expected to decamp tomorrow at which point we could have it. The advantage of the Hotel was that there was an actual toilet nearby with a door that could be closed along with a sink and a shower, which amenities were not available at our assigned digs.
It was also located right in the center of things so we could gawk at the doings of the neighborhood (and they could gawk at us) which would have been a good bit of fun, but once we got our tents up, our stuff unpacked, our camera clap-trap located, our cooks established in the basement and our hammocks hung, it didn’t seem worth the effort, so we stayed put throughout. I think Roberto was much relieved by this decision.
Our toilet, which Roberto referred to as “the Structure,” was located, mercifully, at a considerable remove from our house across a cleared area that, Leonardo blandly informed us, had snakes at night, so we made sure to do what could be done before dark and toughed it out until first light. What it was was a drainpipe upended above a hole which contained the excrement of the surrounding households enlivened with a boiling mass of maggots the hatchlings of which flew out in great numbers when you lifted off the cover. We used the hotel facility as much as possible. The shower, which adjoined the Structure, was simply a tap mounted about 5’ up. If you took your shower at the end of the day the water would be piping hot from the supply line having been in the broiling sun all day; if you had a morning shower, it would be considerably cooler. Both of these were surrounded on 3 sides only by a pretty sketchy wall not quite as tall as I am, and entirely open on the fourth side and the top. Luckily there was no snow while we were there.
Anyway, the house itself was a thatched affair on stilts with a carving of a Harpy Eagle at the peak. And the living area was about 7’ up. You got there by clambering up a chinked log propped against one end. At night you would lean a board over the chinks so that dogs wouldn’t come up. In the interests of a bit of privacy as well as nocturnal insect control, we had tents set up on the platform, but apart from our tents, a single long table with associated benches, and a few stools, the place was unfurnished.
By 10AM we were Officially Entrenched, and we, having had 2 hours sleep, and Roberto not that much, we were none of us frantic to dash off into the woods. So Bronwyn improved each shining hour by distributing pads of paper and colored pencils among the numerous small children who had followed us up onto our platform. The idea was that they were to draw pictures, but at first they didn’t seem to understand what was wanted. Finally one of them got the idea and our quarters were quickly filled with shapeless drawings of butterflies and cats and flowers. The second greatest thrill for the younger set was to have their picture taken and then view the result. The upshot of this was that the greater part of the photos taken at the Mogue village feature children. The arrival of lunch marked the end of our morning rest period.
We had two cooks who set up a fire or two down under the platform for cooking purposes. They would then clamber up the log carrying pots and plates and spoons in an impressive display of balance and coordination. They always cooked up a huge volume of stuff, and we quickly discovered that the idea was that Bronwyn and I, being the Honored Guests, got first grabs at it, and what we didn’t eat, which left a great deal, was to be offered to anybody else who happened to be around, including Roberto and Mario, of course, and usually Leonardo, and whatever children hadn’t been chased off home, and El Jefe, who came by occasionally, and the cooks, and the local guides, and random people who had come to help fix the hammocks, or who just happened to be in the neighborhood, etc. Mealtimes were always a lively affair, and in the end, there were never leftovers. The protocol was, though, that the food had to be offered. If they were not expressly invited to eat, they would sit stoically on the bench and slowly starve to death. And of course in some cases, like El Jefe, for example, it was desirable that the food be served up and delivered. Not sure we figured out all the niceties of this procedure, but we did our best.
Breakfast was Crema which seemed to be various grain type things boiled up in milk to the consistency of thick soup. It was served in juice glasses. There were also maybe sausages, eggs, plantain, and, of course, coffee grown and roasted locally. Other meals featured chicken, sausages, pork, yuca, plantain, potatoes. There were some bananas once, but we never saw a green vegetable. I have to say our diet was bland, but the process made up for any shortfall.
At some point somebody’s wife clambered up the log with tattoo ingredients and offered to decorate us. We were told that the dye used in this process would not only make us look like cannibals, but would also repel insects. Bronwyn and I both got leggings and bracelets, but Roberto went right to town and got neck-to-butt ornamentation, which, considering his bulk, was quite a lot of tattooing.
After lunch, and feeling somewhat revived, we wobbled down the log and took a stroll downtown to see what there was to see. We found the hotel and its luxurious bathroom. There was a concrete school and ditto health center, but everything else was much the same as our house. And there was a tiny pigling patrolling the town center, oblivious to the perpetual stir of children and dogs. It always seemed to have important business, no time to stop and fool around. And sitting in solitary splendor among all the thatched houses on stilts there was a single phone booth. The urban center contained not only the Hotel, but also a Supermarket which actually did sell things apparently, notably 4 bottles of beer which we obtained one evening after a long hike in the virgin timber and chilled in one of our coolers whose ice was largely gone. The resulting meltwater was an unwholesome brew of dribbled milk and neutrally buoyant cold cuts, but was cooler than the beers. After a day tramping around in blood temperature heat, that was the best beer that ever passed my lips.
The area under the houses was used for various things including miscellaneous storage, pigpens, and chicken coops, in which were raised the ugliest chickens on earth, with bald necks and patchy bottoms, complete with ugly babies. We thought at first it was some dermatological condition, but apparently not.
One day we got the local harpy whistler, who I gather was also the local parson, and tramped off through the steaming jungle in search of adventure and eagles. We didn’t find any harpies, alas, in spite of some very impressive whistling on the part of our guide. The feeling was that the eagles had moved to the next mountain over because of too much disturbance where we were. So we had to content ourselves with Oropendolas, noisy birds that live in bags high up in large trees, which had set up a lively colony surrounding a hornets nest, or the hornets had moved in among them. Who knows?
Our sweaty trudge was not entirely unrewarded, however as there were some very large trees still standing in spite of the snarl of distant chain saws, and a vast assortment of quaint and beautiful insects and bizarre and prickly plants. We stepped over and around countless skeins of leaf-cutter ants streaming across the path. Each swarm focussed on a single task: carrying leaf fragments, carrying yellow petals, deadheading back to the source. They had worn paths around the roots and talks in their way.
We walked down to the village after dark one day, keeping a sharp lookout for snakes, to sample the night life. We quickly discovered there was none. At least one reason for this was that there was a generator down there that came on at about sunset and stayed on for a few hours and this generator provided just enough power to run however many televisions there were in the neighborhood, and so it came to pass that for this electrified period everybody with a television was home up there on their open-sided, thatch-roofed, platforms sitting on the floor watching Three's Company or whatever the single channel might offer.
So that is how people live in heat like this. They wear no clothes worth mentioning, they live in houses with thatched roofs and no walls, they don't do much of anything during the heat of the day, and since there are no clocks in the place, they are never in a hurry.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
What's in a Name?
The most recently publicized mass murder by a heavily armed lunatic took place in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The murdered murderer, it develops, was known to the FBI as one of these white supremacists who strive to establish their intrinsic superiority by behaving like enraged hyenas with assault weapons. Unsurprisingly, news reports surfaced almost immediately with whatever was known or believed, namely that there had been a shooting in a Sikh temple.
I first heard about this episode on Public Radio. An excitable young man was breathlessly describing the situation in the Sick temple, interviewing members of the Sick community, including a Sick man who briefly outlined Sick beliefs and so forth. As he carried on in this rather long tale, referring to Sick this and Sick that I cringed, wondering if National Public Radio had really sunk so low that there was nobody within earshot of the newsroom who knew how to pronounce the name of this respectably well-known and widespread religion.
It seemed to me, though, that this had all the earmarks of the common practice of expressing contempt through mispronunciation. To refer to these people as Sicks is to dismiss them as insignificant, not worth the minute effort it would take to broaden the “i” into the term they use to describe themselves. I expect that if you suggested to the eager young reporter that the word should be “Seek” rather than “Sick,” he would roll his eyes and reply “What-Ever.”
The same technique is used by certain right-wing windbags who refer to the president as “Obaama.” There is no shortage of broadcast journalists and commentators who speak his name as he does himself, and again it would take no effort worth mentioning to broaden the “a” into “Obahma,” but again, the sneering speakers are making a point which is that President Obama is not worthy of the simple courtesy of remembering his name.
But shortening vowels is not the only way a name can be used as an insult. Just changing it a little will also do the trick.
There is a plumber who comes to clean my furnace once a year. He is a short, dark, Bosnian muslim named Hamdi. Last year when I phoned to get an appointment, the dispatcher named a date and told me Hans would be there first thing. Naturally, I assumed this was Hamdi's replacement, Hamdi himself having been promoted or sacked or relocated. However, it turned out that Hans was actually Hamdi repackaged. The dispatcher was unable to remember or pronounce his actual name so she decided on Hans as a suitable replacement, being, on the one hand, foreign, but at the same time acceptably blond.
I am especially sensitive to this sort of slight since I have spent all of my adult life trying to convince the world at large to call me Deborah rather than Debby which latter I tolerated up through grammar school since it was suitable for that time. The name evokes a cute freckle-faced moppet with pigtails, which fairly well describes me as a very young thing. I was undeniably cute.
At first I thought the rush toward Debby in my later life, well after I had given up pigtails, was a result of everybody and their dog having a niece or a babysitter named Debby and being unable to heave themselves out of that rut. I finally figured out that people who insisted on insulting me with this designation were people who wanted to diminish me for one reason or another. People who saw me as competition, for example, or struggling little junior executives making sure that I knew I was inferior. Or people who just simply disliked me.
Eventually I stopped being irate when this happened and started using it as a sort of litmus test that indicated fairly accurately whom I could or could not trust. In short, Sicks or Obaama or Hans or Debby are just another way of calling the target an asshole without actually offending the public sensibility. It is a deniable way of offending the target while maintaining a “golly, I had no idea!” wide-eyed innocence.
So next time your boss or colleague or some semi-stranger calls you Sweety or Stud or some diminutive of your actual name, sit up and pay attention. This is not your friend. Secure your wallet and run.
I first heard about this episode on Public Radio. An excitable young man was breathlessly describing the situation in the Sick temple, interviewing members of the Sick community, including a Sick man who briefly outlined Sick beliefs and so forth. As he carried on in this rather long tale, referring to Sick this and Sick that I cringed, wondering if National Public Radio had really sunk so low that there was nobody within earshot of the newsroom who knew how to pronounce the name of this respectably well-known and widespread religion.
It seemed to me, though, that this had all the earmarks of the common practice of expressing contempt through mispronunciation. To refer to these people as Sicks is to dismiss them as insignificant, not worth the minute effort it would take to broaden the “i” into the term they use to describe themselves. I expect that if you suggested to the eager young reporter that the word should be “Seek” rather than “Sick,” he would roll his eyes and reply “What-Ever.”
The same technique is used by certain right-wing windbags who refer to the president as “Obaama.” There is no shortage of broadcast journalists and commentators who speak his name as he does himself, and again it would take no effort worth mentioning to broaden the “a” into “Obahma,” but again, the sneering speakers are making a point which is that President Obama is not worthy of the simple courtesy of remembering his name.
But shortening vowels is not the only way a name can be used as an insult. Just changing it a little will also do the trick.
There is a plumber who comes to clean my furnace once a year. He is a short, dark, Bosnian muslim named Hamdi. Last year when I phoned to get an appointment, the dispatcher named a date and told me Hans would be there first thing. Naturally, I assumed this was Hamdi's replacement, Hamdi himself having been promoted or sacked or relocated. However, it turned out that Hans was actually Hamdi repackaged. The dispatcher was unable to remember or pronounce his actual name so she decided on Hans as a suitable replacement, being, on the one hand, foreign, but at the same time acceptably blond.
I am especially sensitive to this sort of slight since I have spent all of my adult life trying to convince the world at large to call me Deborah rather than Debby which latter I tolerated up through grammar school since it was suitable for that time. The name evokes a cute freckle-faced moppet with pigtails, which fairly well describes me as a very young thing. I was undeniably cute.
At first I thought the rush toward Debby in my later life, well after I had given up pigtails, was a result of everybody and their dog having a niece or a babysitter named Debby and being unable to heave themselves out of that rut. I finally figured out that people who insisted on insulting me with this designation were people who wanted to diminish me for one reason or another. People who saw me as competition, for example, or struggling little junior executives making sure that I knew I was inferior. Or people who just simply disliked me.
Eventually I stopped being irate when this happened and started using it as a sort of litmus test that indicated fairly accurately whom I could or could not trust. In short, Sicks or Obaama or Hans or Debby are just another way of calling the target an asshole without actually offending the public sensibility. It is a deniable way of offending the target while maintaining a “golly, I had no idea!” wide-eyed innocence.
So next time your boss or colleague or some semi-stranger calls you Sweety or Stud or some diminutive of your actual name, sit up and pay attention. This is not your friend. Secure your wallet and run.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The Second Amendment Blues
There was a phone-in show on public radio this morning whose main topic was the shooting spree in Colorado by some lunatic who killed or injured something like 70 people in a movie theater. The news reports inexplicably refer to him as “the alleged killer” in spite of the unanimous agreement of living victims, first responders, police, and the fact that he was the only one present with an assault rifle, a shotgun and two handguns. But I am wandering from individual to national lunacy.
The aspect of this sorry affair being scrutinized by guests and callers was “Should we consider regulating guns?” The answer to this difficult question was mulled over by both knee-jerk liberals and freedom-loving conservatives. The former group apologetically suggested that perhaps more care should be taken to prevent assault rifles falling into the hands of known felons, convicted terrorists, and the criminally insane; that, if it isn't too much trouble, maybe purchases of more than a truckload of ammunition and high explosives should be reported to somebody.
This outrageous assault on our personal liberties was stoutly opposed by the conservative side. As one patriot pointed out with some asperity, guns are all around us – making a few more restrictive laws won't make it any safer. Furthermore, he explained, these shooting are a rare occurrence and bound to happen anyway in schools and movie theaters and such since places like this are magnets for violent acts of this sort, and if nut jobs like James Holmes didn't have access to machine guns, well he would have used Molotov Cocktails instead, and just think of the mess that would have made.
At that point I really wished my radio had an instant replay feature so that I could confirm that an actual full-grown human being of presumably average intelligence had really said this.
The conversation then strayed into the area of whether it was wise to allow, not to say encourage, a demonstrably violent, trigger-happy population to carry concealed weapons. I wondered it the Patriot would voice the opinion of another Concerned Conservative that we should all not only be allowed, but required, to carry a firearm at all times. Happily he didn't, but he did argue that if more people carried a Glock, then random shooters would be much less likely to run amok in malls since they would be mowed down by vigilantes before the body count rose past five or six.
Somebody then pointed out that in situations like this, typically the damage caused by the crossfire is greater than whatever was likely without amateur intervention.
We then moved on to the patriotic importance of the Second Amendment, during which debate nobody thought to mention that Thomas Jefferson had never heard of an Uzi.
This entire horrifying exchange took place on National Public Radio, that bastion of liberal thought hated and vilified by the Real Conservative Patriots, those stout-hearted protectors of our Rights and Liberties, or at least the rights and liberties of rich, white, christian, men. I have not sought out any Fox News channels or radio stations that favor Rush Limbaugh, but I am struggling to imagine how a similar conversation might unfold on one of these venues. Would they opine that the mop-headed boy left anyone alive? Would they be outraged that the police had overstepped their authority by arresting an American citizen for simply exercising his second amendment rights? Would they be scornful that not one of the 70 victims shot back?
I'm not sure I want to know, but now I am giving some thought to what model of handgun would go best with my Birkenstocks.
The aspect of this sorry affair being scrutinized by guests and callers was “Should we consider regulating guns?” The answer to this difficult question was mulled over by both knee-jerk liberals and freedom-loving conservatives. The former group apologetically suggested that perhaps more care should be taken to prevent assault rifles falling into the hands of known felons, convicted terrorists, and the criminally insane; that, if it isn't too much trouble, maybe purchases of more than a truckload of ammunition and high explosives should be reported to somebody.
This outrageous assault on our personal liberties was stoutly opposed by the conservative side. As one patriot pointed out with some asperity, guns are all around us – making a few more restrictive laws won't make it any safer. Furthermore, he explained, these shooting are a rare occurrence and bound to happen anyway in schools and movie theaters and such since places like this are magnets for violent acts of this sort, and if nut jobs like James Holmes didn't have access to machine guns, well he would have used Molotov Cocktails instead, and just think of the mess that would have made.
At that point I really wished my radio had an instant replay feature so that I could confirm that an actual full-grown human being of presumably average intelligence had really said this.
The conversation then strayed into the area of whether it was wise to allow, not to say encourage, a demonstrably violent, trigger-happy population to carry concealed weapons. I wondered it the Patriot would voice the opinion of another Concerned Conservative that we should all not only be allowed, but required, to carry a firearm at all times. Happily he didn't, but he did argue that if more people carried a Glock, then random shooters would be much less likely to run amok in malls since they would be mowed down by vigilantes before the body count rose past five or six.
Somebody then pointed out that in situations like this, typically the damage caused by the crossfire is greater than whatever was likely without amateur intervention.
We then moved on to the patriotic importance of the Second Amendment, during which debate nobody thought to mention that Thomas Jefferson had never heard of an Uzi.
This entire horrifying exchange took place on National Public Radio, that bastion of liberal thought hated and vilified by the Real Conservative Patriots, those stout-hearted protectors of our Rights and Liberties, or at least the rights and liberties of rich, white, christian, men. I have not sought out any Fox News channels or radio stations that favor Rush Limbaugh, but I am struggling to imagine how a similar conversation might unfold on one of these venues. Would they opine that the mop-headed boy left anyone alive? Would they be outraged that the police had overstepped their authority by arresting an American citizen for simply exercising his second amendment rights? Would they be scornful that not one of the 70 victims shot back?
I'm not sure I want to know, but now I am giving some thought to what model of handgun would go best with my Birkenstocks.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Ito's Frog
I would never have known the little creature was there if the ever-vigilant Ito had not told me. She often sits on that windowsill looking out over the garden and keeping an eye on the moths that come to beat on the screen perhaps to express their disdain for my taste in Netflix offerings. I do not place much store in the opinions of moths so I let Ito deal with them which she does by fixing them with a laser stare and plucking at the screen with one or two toenails for the duration of her attention span which doesn't last for long.
But it turned out that there were other life forms taking an interest in my Netflix moths and that these were Out There, where the rubber meets the road so to speak, and it was one of these enterprising souls that Ito was attempting to form a bond with a week or two ago. She was doing this by plucking at the screen right at the bottom and also making a funny little noise. This was so interesting I actually got up out of bed and went over to look. What she had found there was a frog that had somehow found its way onto my windowsill which is located 15 feet above the ground, 8 feet below the eaves, and 3 feet from the closest wobbly twig. I stared at it for several minutes trying to imagine this tiny semi-boneless creature leaping these tremendous distances, then, exhausted by this intellectual excess, flopped back down in front of Netflix to rest.
However it got there it was wasting no time lapping down the smorgasbord of multilegged snacks gathered on my screen. I was so impressed by the very presence of this, no doubt, accidental visitor that I looked it up the next morning. Ito's discovery, it seemed, was a Wood Frog.
I had forgotten all about it by bedtime that night when Ito and I went up to bed for the next exciting installment of Netflix. As usual, I poked through the viewing possibilities while Ito paced back and forth across my feet until she had found the exact geometric center of the bed to stake out as her own and then we settled down to, variously, watch or snooze.
Soon the moths started gathering and then suddenly Ito sprang to her feet, took a shortcut to the window across my face, and there, mirabile dictu, was our impossible frog, oblivious to the ravening amphibiophile a mere screen's thickness way, prattling and strumming the screen.
After that, as one hot, oppressive night followed another we came to expect our new friend and Ito no longer even talked to it. And I stopped wondering how it got there.
But as a reminder never to take anything for granted, one night Ito dashed over to the other window and was staring at the sill. This window is at the back of the house where the terrain drops off abruptly and is directly below the peak of the roof, so it is much further to the ground as well as to eaves, and not a twig anywhere. Therefore it really was impossible that this tiny animal could have jumped from anywhere to get to its current perch among the moths.
It was hard to get a good look at it, partly because it was dark, and partly because Ito refused to budge, but in the end, the greater avoirdupois prevailed and Ito resentfully stepped aside so I could have a good look, and was amazed to see that this lumpy little gourmand was not, after all, our Wood Frog, but rather some kind of toad.
So now I am left to conclude that either we have both a magical frog and a magical toad, or that both of them are able to walk around on vertical surfaces for some distance looking for moths or that there is a prankster in the neighborhood with a very silent ladder who spends his days sneaking around among the deer flies catching frogs and his nights clambering up to people's bedroom windowsills to leave them for some experimental purpose.
Really, it's a tough choice, but I am inclined to go for the magical toad theory and next time I see one or the other I plan to sneak the screen off and catch it quick before Ito gets ideas. Not sure what's next. Do I kiss it and hope a prince emerges? Not much chance a prince would be much use – what I need is a prince who can fix the drains.
I'll discuss it with Ito.
But it turned out that there were other life forms taking an interest in my Netflix moths and that these were Out There, where the rubber meets the road so to speak, and it was one of these enterprising souls that Ito was attempting to form a bond with a week or two ago. She was doing this by plucking at the screen right at the bottom and also making a funny little noise. This was so interesting I actually got up out of bed and went over to look. What she had found there was a frog that had somehow found its way onto my windowsill which is located 15 feet above the ground, 8 feet below the eaves, and 3 feet from the closest wobbly twig. I stared at it for several minutes trying to imagine this tiny semi-boneless creature leaping these tremendous distances, then, exhausted by this intellectual excess, flopped back down in front of Netflix to rest.
However it got there it was wasting no time lapping down the smorgasbord of multilegged snacks gathered on my screen. I was so impressed by the very presence of this, no doubt, accidental visitor that I looked it up the next morning. Ito's discovery, it seemed, was a Wood Frog.
I had forgotten all about it by bedtime that night when Ito and I went up to bed for the next exciting installment of Netflix. As usual, I poked through the viewing possibilities while Ito paced back and forth across my feet until she had found the exact geometric center of the bed to stake out as her own and then we settled down to, variously, watch or snooze.
Soon the moths started gathering and then suddenly Ito sprang to her feet, took a shortcut to the window across my face, and there, mirabile dictu, was our impossible frog, oblivious to the ravening amphibiophile a mere screen's thickness way, prattling and strumming the screen.
After that, as one hot, oppressive night followed another we came to expect our new friend and Ito no longer even talked to it. And I stopped wondering how it got there.
But as a reminder never to take anything for granted, one night Ito dashed over to the other window and was staring at the sill. This window is at the back of the house where the terrain drops off abruptly and is directly below the peak of the roof, so it is much further to the ground as well as to eaves, and not a twig anywhere. Therefore it really was impossible that this tiny animal could have jumped from anywhere to get to its current perch among the moths.
It was hard to get a good look at it, partly because it was dark, and partly because Ito refused to budge, but in the end, the greater avoirdupois prevailed and Ito resentfully stepped aside so I could have a good look, and was amazed to see that this lumpy little gourmand was not, after all, our Wood Frog, but rather some kind of toad.
So now I am left to conclude that either we have both a magical frog and a magical toad, or that both of them are able to walk around on vertical surfaces for some distance looking for moths or that there is a prankster in the neighborhood with a very silent ladder who spends his days sneaking around among the deer flies catching frogs and his nights clambering up to people's bedroom windowsills to leave them for some experimental purpose.
Really, it's a tough choice, but I am inclined to go for the magical toad theory and next time I see one or the other I plan to sneak the screen off and catch it quick before Ito gets ideas. Not sure what's next. Do I kiss it and hope a prince emerges? Not much chance a prince would be much use – what I need is a prince who can fix the drains.
I'll discuss it with Ito.
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