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**** Eggistential (Or Cosmic Yolk)
Why are eggs "hard" and "soft" when boiled, but "hard" and "easy" when fried?
Even more vexing, why do I like my eggs hard-boiled or over-easy, but I don't like my eggs soft-boiled or over-hard?
**** Moron Wit
This morning's train was so delayed that I read the New York Times all the way to the back of Section A's US Presidential candidate coverage by the time we got to Newton. It was an unheard consumption of world news so early in the morning. As surfeited as if I gorged on a dozen Pop Tarts, my eyes glazed as I gazed at a big picture of Mitt Romney doing the campaign song-and-dance in Iowa (here for 'Romney Hope to Win Straw Poll in Iowa.")
Thoughts thought while staring at Mitt:
* I should write a post about John McCain's dying presidential bid, which was epitomized by last week's report of McCain flying on commercial airlines to save money. "I helped him put his luggage in the overhead bin," bragged one self-important man, which evoked instant pity for the once-mighty Senator. I had the post's punchline: If McCain spent 5 years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, then he'll eventually adjust to commercial airline travel.
* I should write a post about the new heart device that Dick Cheney received this past weekend, a part fantasy, part social commentary piece. Synopsis: Cheney, outfitted with his new 'change of heart' device, invites an unsuspecting Bush to go hunting, resulting in a spectacular murder-suicide. "This is for you, Nancy Pelosi. Please restore democracy to this great land. America: Vote Edwards in 2008!" says the note pinned to Cheney's body.
* I should stop caring. Why do I invest a large amount of my time and energy in caring about world affairs? Look at that lady sitting next to me. She's ripping through a romance paperback and she looks like a happy, stress-free, well-adjusted human. She doesn't hold well-formed opinions about current events that she is powerless to affect. She's not shortening her lifespan by stressing out about the dismal state of this doomed world. Ignorance is mud, and she's a pig.
* I should write a disrespectul, sophomoric poem about Mitt Romney, only because the latent rhyming potential is too great to ignore (Mormon Mitt... boring shit... whore armpit... no-fun twit... four-ton zit... ignoring tit... )
****Beach Invasion
It was a semi-prime beach day, in the low 80s with hazy sunshine. Accordingly, Crane's Beach in Ipswitch was semi-packed.
Next to our umbrella was a brigade of tanned, toned women who could cruelly be identified as middle-aged. They sat in chairs in a single line facing the sun, and only one of them would talk at one time. She'd deliver a long narrative in a lilting drone until someone else roused to take over the vocal duties. When not talking, the women closed their eyes and sipped from cans that I later identified as Tab.
Except for this klatch of lethargic housewives, our spot of beach was quiet. The ebbing low tide waves lulled us into beach comas. And then -
"Wir sitzen hier!" Brash German voices assailed the peace. A group of strapping adults and two blond boys strode onto the patch of sand directly in front of us. Blankets were unfurled, buckets of toys were emptied, and conversation was screamed.
"Gesetzte die Sonnencreme auf deinen Schultern!" the mother screamed at the children before attacking them with a bottle of Neutrogena sunscreen.
"Das wasser ist sehr kalt!" one man screamed to the others as he ventured into the frigid ocean.
"Wo ist die Schaufel?" a child screamed at no one in particular, repeatedly.
"Oo-luh-luh," Mr. Pinault said. "An invasion."
The German youths immediately set upon building a sand castle. Soon, the entire clan pitched in to forge a sand empire that expanded in territory down the shoreline at an alarming rate. Mr. Pinault eyed them warily, like a cat monitoring a pack of dogs.
I decided to take a stroll down to the tidal flats. When I returned some time later, the German family had just finished packing up their things. They nodded to me as we crossed paths in the sand. I stepped past the sand kingdom as it melted into the tide.
"We won," Mr. Pinault said, relaxing in his chair.
"Because the American showed up," I said, kissing his liberated French face.
****Beowulf Does Not Suck
Imagine my surprise when I pulled up Wikipedia's article on Beowulf (here) and saw someone had written that Beowulf "is an epic poem that sucks" (shown below - it has since been "fixed").
I immediately flagged the Beowulf article for inappropriateness. I was appalled. "Sucks" proclaims unpleasantness. Epic poems that suck include The Faerie Queen and Paradise Lost. Beowulf, however, isn't even in the same category as this sucky literature. By virtue of its Old English rhetoric, Norse and pagan roots, and scores of indistinguishable characters, Beowulf undoubtedly blows. It's so unpleasant as to be painful. I would rather crawl on my hands and knees for 100 miles than to ever again read about Beowulf and Hroogar hanging out in the Heorot with Hreoric and Hroomund. God, that blows.
**** Nerd Words
I stopped keeping up with the latest slang. I've reached that point in life where the proportion of slang in my speech is inverse to the quotient of hipness that I am attaining. "Fo-shizzle, that French guy is hella filthy. We're tight." Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, everything's cool, and everything will remain cool as long as I live.
But I don't want my spoken vocabulary to stagnate. What if I made up my own slang, using words from science and technology? Then, no one could accuse me of sounding like a poseur...
* That dress makes her look so polyandrous (Polyandry: The practice of a female having more than one mate at a time, like the queen bee and her acrobatic orgy with her dozen or so doomed male drones. In other words, the lady is a tramp. Here.)
* It's like you're qubitting my mind! (Qubit: Short for "quantum bit," which is the means of digitally recording data about atomical particles using quantum computers. An extremely geeky but more accurate way of saying "reading my mind." Here.)
* He went totally PyroDice. (PyroDice: The username of a Navy man who drove from Virginia to Texas in order to burn down the trailer of a man who called him a "nerd" on an Internet chat site. When someone goes PyroDice, they are embarking on a sustained bout of rage that ends in a fiery inferno. Here.).
* Great Bustard! (Great Bustard: The world's heaviest flying bird who recently laid eggs in Britain for the first time in 175 years after being re-introduced after extinction. The scientists who are working to re-introduce the Great Bustard to Britain are understandably elated. Great Bustard! essentially means Praise God! Here.)
* Wait an attosecond! (Attosecond: A unit of time that has never been observed by humans. The shortest time interval ever observed was 100 attoseconds, which is 100 quintillionths of a second. 100 attoseconds is to one second as one second is to 300 million years. Therefore, when I ask you to "wait an attosecond," I'm essentially telling you to go to hell. Here.)
**** Bugging
I spend a small amount of my job creating bug reports for the software that I document. Most of the bugs that I create involve faulty screen text that the mostly foreign-born software testers and developers don't pick up on. Engineers, bless 'em, just don't see a difference between "Inspected Date" and "Inspection Date." They're not bothered by a single dollar figure called "Total Costs." Email, E-Mail, E-mail, and EMail look exactly the same to them.
Bugs involving user interface nuances are regarded as nit-picky and low priority. My mentality is: how can clients trust our software's core functionality when they're distracted by our wildly inconsistent use of the terms "add" and "create?"
I won't hold back on logging bugs for spelling and grammar mistakes, but inconsistent capitalization is one offense that I've laid off so not as to incur too much wrath. Today's bug of the day - "ID, not Id" - was an exception.
"Bug Description: The ID field is displaying on the user interface as 'Id', not 'ID.' 'ID' is a means of identification. 'Id' is the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression. Which would you rather code?"
**** Nixon Grade School
A study of public school names in 7 states has found that it is increasingly rare for schools to be named for a president or other person, and much more common to choose a natural feature or an animal (here). The researchers recommend further examination of how school names contribute to public education's civic mission.
One startling finding: Of the 3,000 public schools in Florida, 5 honor George Washington, while 11 emulate manatees. Yes, the founding father of our country has been humbled by the sea cow. (Check out Manatee High School, here. You'd think their mascot would be a no-brainer, but they're the Manatee Hurricanes. Brilliant.)
This Washington Post article (here) lists the names of Northern Virginian schools that have opened in the past decade, including Colonial Forge, Forest Park, Mountain View, Riverbend, and Stone Bridge. One citizen committee considered honoring Barbara Bush or former governor Mills E. Godwin, but decided on Forest Park because "Next to the park. Not offending anyone. Not controversial."
Of course "Nixon Grade School" is not an appropriate moniker for anything besides a punk band, and "Clinton High School" insinuates the punch line of a dirty joke, but if all of our public figures are that polemic, then maybe school names that sound suspiously like residential communities are indicative of a larger problem. Is the fabric of our society so porous... are our values and morals so scattered... are we so busy worshipping Paris Hilton that we cannot agree on our children's heroes and role models?
Perhaps branding plays a large part in the trend. Pretty soon public schools will tap into their latent marketing muscle to sound as uncontroversial and bland as possible: Sunny Schoolhouse. Bright Acerage. Ritalin Academy. Brainy Pastures. The Benign School.
Me, I went to Methacton High School in the eponymous school district. Yep, just a good, old-fashioned Indian public school name that has long ceased to look or sound strange to me. Supposedly, "Methacton" is a Lenape word that means "evil hill," which succintly sums up the public school experience for me. In college, a friend didn't believe that my school was called Methacton. "It sounds like a designer drug," he said. "I think I took some methacton last night."
**** Gone Fishing
Or something spiritually-akin to fishing, like sleeping.
Allow me to revise my previous declaration: "Gone Sleeping."
**** London's Flooding
Areas of southern and central England are paralyzed by severe floodwaters after receiving 2 months' worth of rain in one day (here). A number of towns, including parts of London, have flood warnings in effect through tonight as the rivers continue to rise. This is England's second public emergency this summer caused by a deluge of rain. (Boy, I admire those Brits. Note how they use the swanky word "deluge" in news articles, whereas the American media relies on the term "flood" and makes repeated, pointed references to Noah's Arc.)
Hundreds of thousands of residents are currently affected by the loss of services such as tap water and electricity, with officials warning that it could be weeks until the water supply is restored (here). Entire communities are being evacuated, the trains are not running, and individual horror stories are mounting. "I went out yesterday morning for a latte, to be told it couldn't happen as the Wiseman dairy was under water," reports a journalist in Gloucestershire (here). A hotelier reports that rising waters forced people to spend the night at the hotel (here).
Hm. The famous British stiff upper lip can weather bombs and terrorism, but apparently dissolves in water faster than a Wham Bar. How can the country that would not bow to Hitler be humbled by 19th century drainage infrastructure?
**** In 2008, the Smart Money is on the Donkey
Republicans are so despised these days that, according to ABC news, workers for investment banks and brokerages have donated more money to Democratic presidential candidates than Republican candidates (here).
The totally inappropriate analogy that keeps popping in my head is that the Republican party is like a swimsuit model with a personality so odious as to turn even the most macho, greedy pig into a homosexual. (It's not inappropriate because it's a bad analogy, it's inappropriate because it could offend just about every conceivable human that I know.)
Of course, Wall Street is donating money to Democrats because they want to support the party who will be in power, not out of respect for Hillary's naked ambition or because they think "Obama's da bama."
**** Boom Moosilauke Boom!
Actually, what brought us to the White Mountains for the third weekend straight wasn't the opportunity to bag another Four Thousand Footer in prime hiking weather, but NAFTA. Yes, the North America Free Trade Agreement. That NAFTA.
Mr. Pinault, who isn't about to renounce his EU or Canadian citizenships after seeing Sicko, was required to make a pilgrimage to the Quebec/Vermont border to have his visa credentials inspected in anticipation of his new job.
We stopped at Mount Moosilauke (elevation 4802 ft), a popular mountain with excellent trails maintained by Dartmouth College's Outing Club (here for web site).
Mount Moosilauke proved to be the easiest Four Thousand Footer yet (or maybe our hiking muscles are getting honed, toned, and zoned.) The trailhead started way up at 2500 feet, and the rest of the elevation was gained gradually. The luxurious dirt cushion was mostly free of rock slabs, although the trail's popularity was evident from erosion that left tree roots protruding like a New York socialite's clavicles. We finished the loop in under 5 hours despite dawdling over snacks and photos.
Pictured to the right is Mount Moosilauke's exposed summit from about a quarter mile away. Below is Mr. Pinault in his new "Live Free or Die" t-shirt that I bought him in celebration of his visa extension. (Hallmark, take notice! Isn't it time "Visa Extension" be recognized as a greeting card-worthy occasion?)
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**** Quote of the Day, #1
Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood of his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth.
-Mark Twain
**** Quote of the Day, #2
He's a good man. We're gonna get him some new legs.
-George W. Bush (here for video)
**** And a Nice Video
Every July 4, a French organization called "The French Will Never Forget" organizes a symbolic gesture of gratitude and friendship for America. "We cannot, do not, and will not ever forget the ultimate sacrifice American heroes made during the two World Wars to liberate France" (here). This year, a "human chain" of gratitude was organized on Omaha beach (here for video.) A very touching, grassroots tribute that went virtually unreported in the American media.
In 50 years, do you think Iraqis will be gathering to pay tribute to the American soldiers who sacrificed their lives in this war? Do you think Iraqis will be waving American flags, saying "Thank you America, for liberating our country!"
**** Just Wild About Harry
When people ask me if I'm into Harry Potter, I say "No, I'm not a fan of fantasy." Which is absolutely true, but a more complete truth would be "No, I'm too much of a snob. I consider indiscriminate mass-marketing to have a high correlation with crap quality. Media sensations tend to be juvenile, intellectually unstimulating, and devoid of anything offensive. It's just not interesting to me." But I can't say that, because I'm really, really trying to be less of a prick.
I read one Harry Potter book and saw one Harry Potter movie. Coincidentally, it was the same one : Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When I went to go see the movie, I didn't realize at first that it was the same book I had read. Oh, yeah. The Quidditch World Cup. The Triwizard Tournament. Heh.
Since my experience with Harry Potter is limited, I'll take it on faith that it's a worthwhile pursuit. Faith, and the New York Times, who in a generally positive pre-release review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows called the series a "monumental, spellbinding epic... deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas" (here). (I'll suppress the urge to snidely remind adult fans that it's a children book written on a fifth-grade reading level.)
But regardless of any literary merits, it's obvious that what fans love most is the ritualistic hooplah surrounding each book's release.
The anticipation. The speculation. The late-night release. The frenzied, sleepless devouring of its pages. When you're a Harry Potter fan, you're not just some nerd with a book. You're apart of a huge community of nerds with the same book.
It's difficult for me to reconcile this public frenzy with the solitary act of reading. When I read a Washington Post article called 'Harry Potter and the Death of Reading" (here) all my niggling dislike of Harry Potter became crystallized. To me, reading is slinking around a library or book store looking for an interesting book. Reading is curling up under the bed covers with a book propped on my stomach. Reading is a temporary escape to a private world that I like to pretend that I discovered.
**** A Meal Fit for a Bush
Emboldened by the commutation of Scooter Libby's jail term and Bush's evident nonchalance about leaks within his sinking Administration, White House chef Cristeta Comerford revealed to an international gathering of cooks for statesmen and royals that President Bush's favorite meal is... the Cheeseburger Pizza (here).
What the hell is Cheeseburger Pizza? My brain conceptualized all sorts of hybridized foodstuffs: Soft white buns brimming with layers of beef patties and cheese pizza; two pieces of cheese pizza acting as a bun for a beef patty; and, ultimately, half-digested cheeseburgers and pizza mingling together in a puddle of vomit under a roller-coaster.
Comerford sums up the recipe by saying "every ingredient of a cheeseburger is on top of a margherita pizza." That poor woman, with her training, credentials, and glass-ceiling smashing appointment, whipping out the word "margherita" to lend her work an air of sophistication as she struggles to maintain her dignity in front of her male peers and downplay that she spends her days making pizza with ground meat for a freaking grown man.
Some research revealed that the dish was invented in 2005 on the television show The Apprentice, and marketed by Donald Trump and Domino's as the "American Classic Cheeseburger Pizza" (here). Oh yeah, classic. It's a real traditional cuisine. We've been eating that for centuries.
I'm not surprised that Bush's child-like intellect is fueled by Cheeseburger Pizza rather than, say, white fish. A while ago, I had read a book review of former White House chef Walter Scheib's memoir Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen that highlighted how boring the Bush family's culinary tastes were as compared to the Clintons. Just an idea: Perhaps a man whose refuses to eat hummus because it's icky should not be allowed to make historic decisions regarding the Middle East.
**** I Demand Software for the Dumb People with No Budget!
I spent the day researching enterprise document management systems (DMS). I can't decide what is scarier: Reading the system requirements and installation directions for the open source projects on SourceForge, or looking at the stock corporate photos of insanely smiling people on the web sites of proprietary software.
**** I Scream for I Scream
It was one of those days: Under the scorching heat of a mid-summer's haze, I lift a fully-loaded waffle cone of vanilla soft serve above my head and bite off the tip. Smoldered soft-serve drips onto my tongue as steady as an IV. Then, the deluge. My face is covered in my own sugary brazenness. Yes, it was one of those metaphorically silly sticky days.
**** 30 Minute Train Poetry
"She Runs in Heels"
All manners ignored, all poise indiscrete,
a bun-haired corporate valkyrie on Congress Street
Bolts past the midday crowds on hobbled feet.
Her legs pumping as steady as wheels,
Her steps unthrottled as she runs in heels.
Taunt calf muscles clad in panty hose
Clench with each impact of heel and toes,
then a pause for the body to recompose.
Powered by Cosmo-sanctioned 400 calorie meals,
The world stops to watch her running in heels.
Pedestrians scan for the source of sound:
The clack clack, click click feminine pound
That signals a woman perched four inches above ground.
The head of a construction worker reels
to stare at her skirt as she runs in heels.
And her porcelain face yields no clue
About what goal she is propelled to pursue
In the world's most impractical shoe.
The intrigue of it all! I'm dying to feel
The sublime confinement of running in heels.
-MG
**** Peak Pocketing Mount Adams
During the last mile of our 9.5 mile day hike to the summit of Mount Adams, Mr. Pinault turned to me and crowed "Mt. Adams is in the pocket!"
"In the pocket" is one of many French idioms that bares a strong, almost deliberate resemblance to its English counterpart, "in the bag." Normally I would have grabbed a tree branch which which to fashion a switch and whipped Mr. Pinault while shouting "In the bag! Say it, in the bag!" It's the only way he'll learn colloquial English. But it was Bastille Day, so I magnanimously ignored his foible and agreed with his sentiment. "Yes, another Four Thousand Footer has been pocketed!"
Rewind:
Mount Adams (elevation 5774) is the second tallest mountain in the Northeast (its neighbor Mount Washington is the tallest - see last week). The first 2 1/2 hours were a steady climb on the Air Line trail through the woods. When we finally reached the "Stop" sign (shown below), we knew good views lay ahead above the treeline. The weather was kind: blue skies with a few clouds, fresh air, no wind. Mr. Pinault was elated that we were not going to die (shown below).
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About .2 miles from the summit of Mt. Adams, I snapped the following picture of Mr. Pinault and Mt. Washington, which is about 5 miles away. The Mt. Washington Auto Road is very visible.
Shown below is me on the tiny, rocky summit of Mount Adams (in the background is Mount Madison). Before the hike, I had read that the Aetherius Society - a wacky but harmless cult involving aliens and UFOs (here) - considers Mount Adams to be one of the 19 Holy Mountains of the World because its founder climbed and "charged" the mountain with spiritual energy (here). Then again, the group also believes that Jesus lives on the planet Venus.
**** I Feel Happy about We Feel Fine
More than a few months ago, I got an email from a young lady in Illinois about this website. It was very flattering and it ended with a vague request for "Any advice for my blog?" So I checked out her blog, which turned out to be an online diary of anguished emotion and teenaged narcissism. Each day featured no less than 1000 words about how she was feeling. Literally, it was like "I am feeling incredibly sad. I feel sadder today than yesterday. I thought I'd feel better if I talked to Tara. So I called Tara but she made me feel upset. Maybe I will feel happy if I smiled more. I feel scared about how I will feel tomorrow."
And on and on. I wanted to advise her "Don't torture the reader with daily updates on your mundane activities and emotions. Don't write a lot if you're not saying anything." But being blunt to strangers isn't my thing, so I said instead "Wow you're really prolific and sincere. Try re-reading what you write, and imagine how what your readers are feeling."
I never heard back from the young lady and her blog wasn't updated the last time I checked, but I thought of her as I played around with We Feel Fine (here), a Java applet that "harvests human feelings," which sounds creepy in a City of the Lost Children sort of way. We Feel Fine searches millions of blogs for statements containing the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling" and compiles a database of these statements. When you go to the website, you can explore recent feelings, which are rendered as color-coded particles on a series of six aesthetically-pleasing user interfaces.
At first, I admired We Feel Fine more for its technical and artistic coolness than for its mission, which is to "make the world seem a little smaller... help people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life." Yeah, mushy gushy feelings, whatever. But as I played around with We Feel Fine, I gradually saw the strange poignancy in a single statement that declares a feeling. Stripped of context and identity, it suddenly has the potential to be universal. I find myself relating to a surprising number of the feelings that I probably would not have picked up on from reading the entire blog. Here are just a sampling of feelings that I found today (really, go try it yourself)
i feel so conflicted about harry potter because I want it so badly but i dont because then it will be over (from someone)
i feel it is an act of extreme chutzpah for apple to ask me to pay 2200 (from someone)
i cant deny that i feel somewhat nostalgic and sad of those great teenage and college years but i guess thats life and we need to try to get the best out of every age (from someone)
i feel like puking when i see such a stupid talentless asshole advocating social darwinism (from someone)
i feel like a caged bird in this town (from someone in tennessee)
i had some difficulty with my right knee in the beginning but it feels much better since i switched shoes. (from someone)
i feel like garbage (from someone in ontario canada)
i feel like a doll (from somone in warsaw poland when it was sunny)
i feel at ease (from someone)
i feel so alive this morning (from someone)
i feel the drink vouchers were free shots that tasted like christmas (from a 20 year old in bristol england when it was rainy)
i feel like someone punched me in the face (from someone in hightstown new jersey)
i feel like prancing around in the rain barefoot (from someone)
**** I'm Bushed
Picking up the newspaper every morning and reading about the latest news involving the Bush Administration is becoming downright farcical. Surgeon General claims Bush Administration Interference. Homeland Security Secretary has "gut feeling" about threat. Bush still staying the long, bloody, unending course in Iraq.
This presidency is like a sit-com, with every episode a slight variation on an arrogantly stupid, borderline fascist theme. Can't someone make him go away? I know Nancy Pelosi has no interest in impeaching Bush (here), but maybe she'd be willing to euphemistically "cancel the sit-com"?
I just can't muster the energy to rant about Bush today. No, sir. It's July and I'm five months away from my next vacation. I think I'll suck on a beer and feign ignorance about humanity's plight.
**** Professional Help
I just passed the 8-year mark as a technical writer [or, if the Society for Technical Communication (STC) has its way with the US government's Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC), a technical communicator - here]. I'm on the cusp of legitimately dangling that covetable modifier "senior" in front of whatever I am in order to designate my experience as a proven producer of quality technical documentation, my ability to successfully plan, manage, and execute assignments in parallel with software development cycles, and my passion for keeping up with new trends in the ever-evolving world of technical documentation.
Senior! It's incredible. I can distinctly remember when I was a Junior. I couldn't type nearly as fast as I can now, nor could I babble about learnability, usability, and discoverability. My use of bolded and italicized text was frightfully gratuitous. And to think how I've mastered bulleted lists!
I belong to several Yahoo Groups that pertain to my profession, and receive daily digests with the ongoing discussions. On slow days, I'll delve into the digest to gauge the hot topics among technical communicators. A current controversy: What symbols do you use to explain a series of clicks in the software? One meticulous writer has always used arrows (Tools --> Options) but MS Word is turning the arrows into nasty wingdings. So should he use greater-thans (Tools > Option), vertical bars (Tools | Options), or another alternative?
A fervent flurry of responses. The devout greater-thans are outraged at any deviation from the standard greater-than philosophy because it imperils universal user
understanding. Those in the vertical bar minority are likewise disgusted that anyone would call their beloved corporate standards into question. Takeaway lesson: If you ever want to rile a technical communicator, just mention anything related to stylistic standards.
At the first company I ever worked at, way back when I was the Junior on a team of five Seniors, a fellow writer was ready to quit because one of our weekly style meetings chastised him for using "they" to describe a singular person and avoid use of a gender. "I refuse to do the 'he/she,'" he ranted to me afterwards in the kitchenette. "I abhor the 'he/she.' I'd rather be grammatically incorrect than clumsy." I do not think it a coincidence that, two years after the documentation department's gender-neutrality schism, the company went bankrupt.
**** The Chinese Threat
About a year ago, an acquaintance and I engaged in spirited banter about whether or not China was poised to achieve world domination within the next 30 years.
His argument can be summed up in three words: One billion people. "The Chinese are hell-bent on taking over the world and there's one billion of them. They'll gobble up the Earth's resources. They'll surpass the US economically. They'll have an irreproachable military. The US will have no influence over the Chinese government, and we'll have no choice but to bow to their will."
My counter-argument can be summed up in two words: Squat toilets. "The greatness of Chinese civilization cannot be denied. However, I do not accept that a culture of squat toilets can be superior to Western civilization. Squat toilets are squalid, indecent, unhygienic, devoid of etiquette, and symbolic of how China is not only decades behind, they're centuries behind. It'll take decades to modernize their toilet infrastructure, let alone achieve world domination."
But today's announcement of Beijing's new 1000-stall palatial public toilet (here) has me a little apprehensive. Said one Chinese official, "We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV... After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy.'' Chilling.
**** Mount Washington's Alpine Garden
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Mount Washington in NH is the highest peak in the Northeast, at some 6200 feet (here for official website). The mountain is known for severe and volatile weather; treacherous ravine skiing 10 out of 12 months a year; its auto road and 'This car climbed Mount Washington' bumper stickers; and the popular cog railroad that chugs passengers up and down the mountain. Since the summit can be reached by means other than hiking, I've never felt an urge to step foot on Mt. Washington... until yesterday, when we decided to check out the blooming Alpine Garden on the mountain's eastern slope.
We did a 8.5 mile loop (vertical rise 3500 feet) that started on the little-used Old Jackson Road trail, then up, up the rocky Nelson Crag trail, then across the Alpine Garden trail, then down the Lion Head and Tuckerman Ravine trails. On our way down, we encountered many men with labored breath asking "Did you get to the top?" How annoying. I quelled the urge to snottily blurt that peak-bagging was not our objective - we wanted to enjoy Mt. Washington's unique alpine ecology. But in fact, we would have gone the extra mile to the summit had the weather forecast not included thunderstorms, which started right after we finished our hike.
When I say "Alpine Garden," don't you picture lounge chairs, beer, and Italian butlers with platters of Swiss chocolate? Unfortunately, we were forced to take our Alpine Garden tour in the midst of mist, fog, and wind (see picture, below left - typical weather for the mountain). Even though the dizzying views were obscured in the clouds, I dug the Middle Earth mise-en-scene.
My overall impression of Mount Washington: Raw awe. Pleasing fear of nature. Pretty flowers.
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Tiny Flower on Big Mountain
Photo by Mr. Pinault
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Following the cairns through the foggy Alpine Garden, altitude roughly 5200 feet. Maybe you can see Mr. Pinault's ghostly human shape in the fog.
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Before we went into the clouds -
what a view!
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On the Nelson Crag trail - about a mile walk on rocks. Visibility about 50 feet. Very awesome. Photo by Mr. Pinault. |
Winsome blooms on the Alpine Garden trail. Photo by Mr. Pinault. |
**** Preparing for Jehovah's Witnesses
Having never been visited by a Jehovah's Witness, L.L. doesn't believe they exist. He is ready for them, though. He has a plan. When they come to his door, he will welcome them with milk and cookies, and invite them to sit down in his living room. He will deflect their conversion with his own highly-developed Christian theology. They will fall silent as he explains the fallacy of their biblical notions. When he's done, they will be Episcopalians, and then they'll all go see Ratatouille.
Us normal people can sneer all we want at those odd Jehovah's Witnesses, who are infamous for door-to-door proselytizing about how impending Armageddon will result in precisely 144,000 people ascending into heaven while the remaining believers enjoy earthly paradise. But if you love freedom, you gotta love for the Witnesses. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle (here) points out that these odd zealots do serve a secular purpose: Legal experts say Jehovah's Witnesses' lawsuits to protect their beliefs have done more over the past century to protect First Amendment freedoms than any other organization. The right to refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance, the ability to pamphleteer without government monitoring and the expansion of the Bill of Rights into state law are among the many precedents established or strengthened by litigation by Jehovah's Witnesses.
The next time someone knocks on my door all eager to share the teachings of Jehovah, I have a prepared statement that I will read. "I respect that the Supreme Court has ruled that you do not need a permit in order to solicit door-to-door. I appreciate that your crazy beliefs have tested the boundaries of this country's laws to establish our civil liberties. I acknowledge that the First Amendment protects our freedom to think and say pretty much whatever we want (with the exception of fighting words, as Jehovah's Witness Walter Chaplinsky discovered, here). It's all really great, really American. But I could never, ever be a Jehovah's Witness. Your highly-developed doctrines about blood are too much for me. I'm a fainter, you see. Just looking at you, I'm picturing you bleeding to death on principles based on a random bible verse in the book of Acts. It's making me light-headed, so I'm closing the door now."
**** My News Diet: From Feast to Bestiality
I believe in getting news from a variety of media to ensure a well-rounded news diet.
The current staple of my media diet is the New York Times, which provides a nourishing mix of well-written liberal-slanted hard news spiced with cultural filler. I also feast weekly on the Economist - my leafy greens. To complete my recommended allowance of News of Historic Importance, I take supplements of the online versions of the Guardian (here) and the London Times (here).
For my dose of regional news, the Boston Globe is an excellent source of Massachusetts politics and business, and I also dip in to a number of Boston-centered blogs, most notably Bostonist (here). Sometimes I watch the local television news, but this is a once-in-a-while treat that doesn't really satisfy any craving for news. The headlines invariably include a story about an incident of public rage or deep consumer dissatisfaction; a local couple or clergyman who is going to jail for child abuse; a joyous event that has ended in violence or tragedy; and a really special and/or cute animal.
Quite frequently, I nibble on infotainment, like Slate (here), Spiked Online (here), the Obscure Store (here), and BuzzFeed (here).
You'd think I'd be stuffed on news at this point, but then there's super-super local news. Town news, like local ordinance disputes, high school sports, and ordinary people dealing with ordinary life. It's the media equivalent of white bread, with the rare piece of chocolate cake: Yesterday, I go to the Metrowest Daily News online, expecting to read lame stories about local acts of patriotism...
And instead the headline story is "Sherborn teen charged with bestiality" (here). An 18-year old boy was caught having sex with sheep, thanks to a surveillance camera that was installed in the barn after a year of break-ins. The man grabbed a sheep by its hind legs and dragged it to the corner of the stall... The man removed his clothes and appeared to have sexual relations with the sheep. After finishing, the man put his pants back on and left the barn with his shirt in his hand.
Dear lord. You see, some people ignore local news because it is too fluffy or inconsequential, but this story illustrates perfectly why it is important to keep up with local news. Because yes, it's important to know what is happening in Afghanistan, or what Gordon Brown's attitude towards the US is, or how the trial against Charles Taylor is progressing at the Hague. But it's also important to know that there's a sheep effer in Sherborn.
**** Reigning
What crappy weather. The grave-faced weathermen deliver the forecast: 70 degrees, rain, wind. They are solemn, with a tad of joviality thrown in for mercy. Honestly, we don't make the weather, we just report it. We like the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular just as much as anyone! Bad weather reports on the Fourth of July are like the final exam of meteorologist school.
Why is God punishing America like this on her birthday? Why, President Bush, why?
Here we have "Conversation Starters for Your BBQ: 9 off-beat facts about our Founding Fathers" (here.) I can hear it now: "John Adams would have a hard time with this corn on the cob. He refused to wear dentures!" Silence and bewildered stares. "Chilly, isn't it? Never thought I'd be wearing jeans on July 4th. Hey, did you know James Madison was the first President to wear long pants instead of breeches?" Crickets.
**** Rebel Hell
My trip to Charleston, South Carolina made me think: Wow, what a pluralistic nation we are. It's comforting to know that America isn't entirely culturally homogenous because of retail chains with standardized business practices and products that have people from Maine to Texas to California drinking Frappuccino, wearing Crocs, and one-stop shopping at Target.
There are subtle differences. For example, we went to a bakery called "Atlanta Bread" that was exactly like "Panera Bread" except with less emphasis on salad. And there are not-so-subtle differences. For example:
Rock-solid Republican! Proud to be in the party of Bush and Cheney! Red States rule! It's your fault that you're poor and have no social welfare net! Yee-haw!
I imagined that branding oneself a staunch Republican would be slightly taboo given the party's dismal approval ratings these days. But when it comes to Southern politics, rational logic does not apply. In fact, I bet the national backlash against Republicans only increases the party's appeal in South Carolina. They're rebels, after all. They'll rebel against funding for public health and education, and be damn proud when they're ranked near-bottom on nearly every social well-being index. Yee-haw!
I was interested to explore this bizarre psychology of having pride in spectacular defeat.
We visited Fort Sumter, which is where the opening shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861, when Confederate soldiers lay siege on the fort until the Union surrendered it.
On the ferry ride to Fort Sumter, I toyed with the idea of marching through the aisles of Southerners, singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy." But that could have been dangerous. There was no smoking allowed on the boat, so half of the passengers were in the throes of a nicotine fit. And I know someone had a gun. Yee-haw!
The South seems especially obsessed with flags. Pictured below are the flags at Fort Sumter. Note the flag on the right - one of numerous flag iterations for the Confederacy. This short-lived design of the Southern Cross in a field of white was often mistaken for a white flag of surrender. Yee-haw!
**** The Night of Laringo
Last week, I promised to share the most rambunctious collegiate memory that surfaced over the weekend in Charleston. I made this promise for two reasons: 1- I was hanging out with my "good influence" college friends who had limited exposure to my most flagrant lasciviousness. 2- I was fully expecting a particular story to be told, because it's always told. It's an amusing, unique, classic story that sends me into a spiral of red-faced cringing and forehead cradling. We could be at a wedding reception, sipping wine and talking about how beautiful the bride is, and out of nowhere someone will say "Hey, remember Laringo?" And then everyone else jumps on the pile, eager to share their memories of the most embarrassing night of my college life.
But amazingly, an entire weekend went by without mention of Laringo! My friends must be losing it in their old age. Indeed, the untold story left a void. A void that I will now fill...
I met Laringo at a party on Hobart Lane, UMass Amherst's notorious off-campus non-Greek party spot (here for Hobart Lane's website.) I was fed up with the idiots at the party, and noticed a very tall, porcine black kid quietly standing by himself. Right when I said Hi to him, Bizmarkie's "Just a Friend" came on, and he amused me by gently mocking all the white kids dancing to the corny rap. I hung out with Laringo for a bit, then my friends went to another party and I decided to call it a night.
Laringo offered to walk me back to my dorm. I accepted; it was a friendly and normal gesture since we lived in adjacent dorms. When we reached my dorm, he followed me to the security desk and gave the security desk his ID to get "signed in" as my guest. This unhinged me. I was a tittle lipsy. "Um, oh, you want to come in? Um, well, I'm going to sleep. Um, I guess I'll sign you in. Um, bye. Oh, um, you're coming up? My roommates might be sleeping. Well, um, oh."
Once he was legally inside of my dorm, Laringo followed me to my room, a large triple where my roommates were hosting an informal gathering of about a half-dozen neighbors and friends. When we appeared, the room hushed. Laringo ignored everyone and walked directly to my bed. "Help me!" I mouthed to stunned onlookers as a fully-clothed Laringo climbed into my bed. He wordlessly stared at me as I paced near the bed and jabbered about how late it was, and how my roommates wanted to go to sleep, and how he should maybe leave.
Meanwhile, word spread like wildfire down the hallway: There's a gigantic black man laying in Meredith's bed! Within a few minutes, about 20 different people visited our room to gawk at Laringo. It was high entertainment. Finally, after about a half-hour, my roommates made it very clear that we were going to sleep, and Laringo finally got out of my bed and left our room without incident or fuss.
The night of Laringo made me a laughingstock of our entire floor. Even my "bad influence" college friends got in on the fun, leaving messages on my voicemail in their best ebonic accents (Yo baby, whazup, diz Laringo) and playing "Jungle Fever" on the stereo at random times over the next two years. The enduring appeal of the Laringo episode comes from a combination of things: That he was black, huge, and had beached himself on my bed; that I was noticeably distraught and babbling; and that when a group of us went to breakfast the next morning, I talked loudly about how horrible the situation had been before realizing that I had chosen a table right across from Laringo himself.