Lift Up Your Hearts!

Many years ago, Porter attended a course taught by Bill Oncken, which added at least two phrases to his vocabulary:  "Don't be a monkey-picker-upper," and "Feed it, or shoot it, but don't let it starve to death."  The first advises against meddling in tasks (monkeys) that don't belong to you, especially after you've delegated them.  The second requires you to work on tasks, or scrub them, but never let them languish.

I have a backblog of over 100 items about which I want to write—and that's only the ones in my bookmark list, which are less important than those on my mental list.  Flush from success with whacking my e-mail inbox from over 200 down to less than 30, I feel Bill Oncken's ghost hovering over my shoulder and challenging me to take on the backblog.

If these were real monkeys, the ASPCA would have had me arrested months ago.  Some of them have already died of starvation; all I must do is dispose of the bodies.  Some intrigued me at one time, but I now don't find them worth the time and effort; these I will happily execute with a click of the delete key.  Some remain healthy enough to go into a "priority pen" until they can be tended to properly...after I extend Oncken's options a step further:  I intend to take most of these monkeys and turn them loose to forage on their own.

Thus I am reviving my "Casting the Net" series, and you will see, in the coming days, posts with several short comments and associated links.  I hope to put in enough detail to enable readers to decide quickly whether it's a subject worth pursuing or ignoring, but you won't get the detailed commentary and quotations I normally like to include.

It's either that, or declare blog bankruptcy.

You'd think the apprehension of a brazen sex offender would be an unqualified cause for rejoicing, but the Swiss government is already being excoriated for nabbing Roman Polanski and holding him for possible extradition to the U.S.

Elsewhere in Europe, however, reactions to Polanski's arrest were swift and damning. France's minister of culture, Frederic Mittterrand, says he is "stupefied" and is demanding Polanski's immediate release. The country's highest officials are already talking to Swiss and U.S. officials in hopes of ending the detention, it was reported Sunday.

The Swiss Directors Association is also condemning the act, calling the arrest as "a grotesque farce of justice and an immense cultural scandal." Directors and actors worldwide have begun circulating petitions calling for Polanski's release.

I don't care how many film awards the man has won, nothing excuses the rape of a 13-year-old girl.  I don't mean he can't be forgiven, and I don't mean it's not understandable that a man might be driven onto dark paths following the spectacular and much-publicized murder of his wife and son.  There are mitigating circumstances that his lawyer could justifiably raise at his trial.  But why should he be exempt from justice because he is an artist, and famous?  And why should France, a country I love and respect in many ways, and of which Polanski is a citizen, wish to harbor a child molester?  That seems much more worthy of Europe's condemnation than the molester's incarceration.

Too much politics lately.   Time for something lighter.

Here's what looks like a Japanese game show where the contestants must wake up, get ready for school, and be out the door in less than five minutes.  That's just a guess—the only words I understood after "three, two, one, go!" were "bento" and "sandwich."  I love it for the reminders of Japan, and for the really cool lunch the mother makes for her child to take to school.  Note the Japanese way of quick shirt-folding.  Can any of my Japanese-speaking readers (all one and a half of you) tell me what on earth she is doing with the shirt? And why that would be part of a normal morning routine?

I never did understand brushing one's teeth before eating, though.

Until recently, Cairo had a refuse-collection system unlike any you'll find in the United States, but it worked—and might even be commended for its efficiency and environmental responsibility.  Cairo's households enjoyed free or inexpensive garbage collection, right from the door, by the zabaleen ("garbage people"), an impoverished community of Egyptian Christians living in an area of Cairo known as "Garbage City."   The collectors and their families then sorted the trash, reusing, repairing, and recycling what they could, and feeding the organic waste to their livestock, primarily pigs.

Sanitation workers do not generally enjoy high status anywhere, and the zabaleen are despised not only for their jobs, but also for their poverty, their religion, and their willingness to keep pigs as livestock.  However, as even American cities discover during a protracted sanitation strike, we do not do well to devalue other human beings, least of all those responsible for keeping us from suffocating in trash. 

In a misguided effort to stave off a swine flu epidemic, Egypt ordered that all the pigs be killed, even though the disease is not, in fact, spread by pigs.  By the law of unintended consequences, Cairo's citizens are now more vulnerable to disease than before.  The zabaleen no longer collect the trash, and the government's effort to replace them with multinational corporations has largely failed.  The poorest of the poor have lost their only livelihood as well as their source of food, and Cairo's streets overflow with filth.

I don't write this to belittle Egypt or the Egyptian government, but as a warning.  Our country has a problem:  Our healthcare system, once arguably the best in the world, is falling apart.  (We can disagree over the causes, or even the definition, of "falling apart," but that's not the point here.)  There's no shortage of wrangling over what the intended consequences of a federally-imposed health plan might be, but whatever shakes out of that debate, I fervently hope that we will consider the possible unintended consequences before killing off the pigs.

(Sources used for this post included The New York Times and Wikipedia.)

Today marks our Constitution's 222^nd birthday, in honor of which I present another depressing civics quiz.  The questions are drawn from the test prospective U.S. citizens must pass, and if these standards applied to all, apparently 97% of Oklahoma's public high school students would be in danger of losing their citizenship.  I'm sure no one is under any illusions that the problem is limited to Oklahoma.  Here are the questions; for the answers, and what percentage of the students surveyed answered each question correctly, see the original article.

1. What is the supreme law of the land?   
2. What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
3. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
4. How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?   
5. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
6. What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?
7. What are the two major political parties in the United States?
8. We elect a U.S. senator for how many years?
9. Who was the first President of the United States?
10. Who is in charge of the executive branch?

What I find interesting about this quiz is that, although I did get answer every question correctly, I would say few if any of my answers were due primarily to what I learned in school, but rather to merely living life.  When it comes to history and politics, I admit to being abysmally ignorant; I wangled my way out of Pennsylvania's required semester of American Government by taking an extra year of independent study physics.  (Don't ask me why they let me get away with that, but I trust the Statute of Limitations covers it somehow.)  I loathe politics in general and other than voting am shamefully neglectful of my civic duties.  Yet even with my notorious lack of observational skills, I couldn't avoid learning enough to pass the test.  Perhaps my additional years on this planet do count for something.

My Swiss family doesn't let me forget that "universal health care" does not necessarily mean a system like that in the United Kingdom.  For this I am grateful, because of the horror stories that keep emerging from that system, such as the cases of Charlotte Wyatt, Leslie Burke, Linda O'Boyle, Jayden Capewell, and too many others to write about.  It's worth looking at alternatives, and T. R. Reid's The Healing of America does just that.

I haven't read the book; my opinion is based on the New York Times review. There's much I don't agree with in the review, and I'm sure in the book also, but I like the gimmick:  Reid had shoulder problems that were interfering with his golf game, and he decided to present the case to 10 different doctors around the world.  The results?  (More)

I've been avoiding this topic for some time, hoping people would come to their senses and get on with real political debate, but it just won't go away.  President Carter now chimes in:

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man....[The] racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people...that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country....[Responses like comparing Obama to a Nazi] are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care...."

What is so intriguing, and frustrating, about these remarks is that they are held by so many otherwise intelligent, educated, and reasonable people.  What is it in the mental make-up of what I'm loosely calling the American Left that blinds them to two stunningly obvious facts:  (More)

Google Fast Flip seemed like just another gimmick, but having given it a test drive I'm already hooked.  Pick a newspaper, say the New York Times.  Or a topic, such as Health.  You're presented with an eye-catching snapshot of the beginning of the first article.  You can see the headline, the first several paragraphs of text, and probably a graphic, pull-quote, or summary.  Oh, and also some ads—but (shhh, don't tell Google) the ads are blessedly easy to ignore.

If you like what you see in the article, you can click on it to read the rest.  Or you can hit your computer's arrow key and move quickly on to the next article.  Did I say quickly?  That's why I'm so excited about this.  No point-and-click, no waiting for a page to load, just one keystroke and you're there.  In a flash.  It takes me about a second per article to determine whether or not I want to know more—usually not, it doesn't take much time to scan a lot.

This is far more satisfying than scanning news headlines in a feed reader.   The headline itself does not usually give enough detail, and I find myself wasting too much time clicking on links that might have been interesting but are not.  With Fast Flip I can take most stories with a single glance, while for many others I find that reading the first several paragraphs tells me what I want to know without having to bother to click through to the whole article. When I want more detail, it's there—but doesn't intrude unless I seek it out.

What will Google think of next?  I hope this catches on in a big way; as yet there is not a great choice of sources.

Chances are, whatever you got for a high school graduation gift, it wasn't what Steven Perezluha received:  the opportunity to ride his bicycle to Alaska and back.  It was Steven's idea, but if you want that kind of adventure, it certainly helps to have Danny Chew, former Race Across America (RAAM) champion, as your uncle.  Steven's part of the trip began June 8, when he departed Florida for Pittsburgh, where Danny lives.

There the real adventure began.  They biked north, then across Canada's vast spaces until they entered Alaska.  There they met up with Steven's parents and toured the state together for a while before heading homeward on a more southerly course.  The journey's not over yet.

You can read the Orlando Sentinel story about Steven and his trip, at least as long as the link still works. 

And I thought our grandkids had a "long leash."  Must be the Pittsburgh air....

Update  One hundred forty days and 13,769 miles after Steven pedaled out of his driveway, he and Danny returned.  As the follow-up Orlando Sentinel article reports, if the trip to Alaska was exhilarating, the return was excruciating, plagued by accidents, illness, and blizzards.  But thanks to friends; some kindly churches that opened not only their doors but also their pantries to the exhausted travellers; Steven's dad, who relieved them of their heavy trailers for the last leg of the journey; and most of all to their own grit and near-incomprehensible determination, they never gave up.

"It was one of the best feelings in my life. Ever," Perezluha said.

Here are some pictures, and a map of their journey.

Update 22 January 2010  Articles from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Family, Friends not Surprised by Pair's Ride

Million Mile Man Chew Completes an Epic Trip

 

My Google Calendar, into which I've imported the US Holidays collection, has been reminding me for a couple of weeks that tomorrow is Patriot Day.  Something seemed wrong about that, but I put it down to the careless omission of the "s"—and perhaps an apostrophe.  Whether you choose to spell it Patriots' Day, Patriot's Day, or Patriots Day, there's supposed to be an "s" there.  In these hurried days, it seems, no one has time for effective proofreading (moi aussi).

But wait!  There's more wrong than that—Patriots' Day is, of course, in April, commemorating Lexington and Concord and all that flurry that started the American Revolution.  Boston Marathon 2009 (traditionally held on Patriots' Day) has already been run.  So what's with Google Calendar and tomorrow?  Tomorrow?  Ah, September 11. (More)

If you were given an unexpected two weeks in New York City (actually 8.5 weekdays), how would you spend them?  Not the way I did, it's a safe bet.  While I did manage one or two obligatory tourist trips (more on that later), most of my time was spent at the New York Public Library—you know, the place with the magnificent lions out front, where everyone goes who wants to film something in a library because it's so beautiful.  Though in truth I never saw the main part of the building.  I made my home in Room 121, the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy.  One of the best resources in the world, a perfect complement to my beloved New England Historic Genealogical Society Library in Boston.

As with February's research trip to Boston, this was an intense time.  I estimate I spent 40 hours of those eight and a half days in the library itself; it turned out to be more blessing than bother that it didn't open till 11 a.m., as I needed the morning time to prepare.  The library is less than half a mile, a mere eight minute walk, from the Times Square Hilton hotel where we stayed, and what a pleasure it was to sling on my backpack, descend via the Hilton's two elevators to 42nd Street, walk past Bryant Park, and enter the cool, dark research room with its intoxicating smell of old books; then to re-emerge—after gentle prodding by the librarians, who reminded me that the building was about to close—and reverse the trip with a head swimming with new data, and my sweet, hard-working husband and a late dinner to look forward to.

Researching, writing, sitting for hours at a desk poring over books—that which was anathema during my school years gives me such great pleasure now.  Who'd have thought?

(You know who you are.)

It would not be too strong to say that I loathe politics.  I vote, and have done so since I was first able to at age 19, but mostly without enthusiasm; choosing the least objectionable candidate is gritty, unsatisfactory work.  Other than that, I try to ignore politics.  Unfortunately, politics does not return the favor, so I occasionally give in to the prodding of my conscience and attempt to articulate a political opinion in a blog post, or write a letter to an elected official, or attend a political meeting.

The last is rare indeed, but that's what I did the other night.  Our state representative held a health care "town hall meeting."  On my list of preferred activities it was somewhat below scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, but I put on my Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and ventured out into the rain anyway.  Not without a bit of grumbling under my breath, but this was one of the few candidates in memory who actually impressed me in his campaign—or maybe credit goes to the campaign worker who rang my doorbell; those of you who know me know that it takes someone really special to impress me after starting out on such a wrong foot! Anyway, I decided to go because I can't very well complain about what they're doing to health care if I don't express my opinion, and because I think our representative is a good guy and what a shame it would be if he held a meeting to get people's opinions and no one showed up.  I thought I'd at least go and say hi and maybe get to know him better.  (More)

I cogitated upon this video all day before finally deciding to post it.  I'm hiding it behind the "more" tag because it's replete with highly offensive words.  So much so that it's almost not offensive:  nothing is said with anger, or malice; it's as if the man is one of those poor unfortunates who can't speak without using "um" or "like" every other word—only those aren't his filler words of choice.

The reason I decided to bear with the profanity is that this comedy routine is perhaps the neatest expression I've yet seen of Purple Ketchup Syndrome.  When Heinz came out with purple ketchup, I knew the mental disconnect between what we eat and where it comes from was complete.

(If you watch the video, do it here rather than clicking through to the YouTube site; the comments there are worse than the video.)

Here's a contrast for you.

Most folks know by now the story I wrote about in It's Not about Race, of the Harvard professor who got into an altercation with the Cambridge police while breaking into his own home, and ended up with an invitation first to a jail cell and second to the White House.  But here's a more encouraging tale from NPR, about an encounter between the New Jersy police and someone who might have expected more recognition and respect than a university professor.

Cops: You're Bob Dylan? Never Heard Of You

The link takes you to a transcription, but there you'll also have the opportunity to listen to the 2 1/2 minute show, which I recommend, if only for the way the journalist skillfully wove in bits of Bob Dylan's songs. 

Finally, in the end, the three of them all went back to Dylan's hotel where the staff IDed this man, who is arguably one of the most well-known songwriters of all time. The officers thanked Dylan for cooperating and later they said he seemed as kind as could be.

What chance this kindness and cooperation will get Dylan and the officers a beer at the White House?