We just returned from a dream vacation in Europe—hmmm, that sounds a bit pretentious, doesn't it?  But it's true.  It had all the earmarks of a great vacation—visiting with family and friends, wonderful weather, awesome food, more to see and do than we could take in—plus a view of other countries and cultures from the inside, and a stay at at fairy tale castle to boot!

Li'l Writer Guy went quite crazy, having so much to say and no time nor opportunity to say it.  I trust he will be able to deciper his hastily-scribbled manuscripts and produce both chronological description and commentary while I'm unpacking and trying to catch up with "normal" life.  In the meantime, here are some random thoughts inspired by our trip.  Bear in mind that we only experienced small parts of France and Switzerland (and a minuscule portion of Germany), though I will occasionally use the terms "Europe" and "European" for convenience.

The last time I was in Europe (France, Switzerland, northern Italy, and England) was in 1969.  One of my vivid memories from then was the great variety of toilet paper I encountered, all of it unpleasant:  I catalogued waxed paper, brown paper bag paper, almost anything scratchy and non-absorbant short of corn cobs and banana leaves.  (I was in high school and given to odd amusements.)  This trip, I'm happy to say, was quite a different experience; all the paper was effective and skin-friendly.  Sad to say, there were none of Japan's cool toilet styles, but all were clean and easy to use, though we did encounter quite a variety of flushing mechanisms that were sometimes a bit tricky to discern, from a button on the floor to pull-levers to ones that blended in with the toilet tank to big flush/little flush choices.

I've heard a lot about European rudeness, especially to Americans and especially in Paris, but that was not our experience at all.  We encountered one rude Parisian taxi driver, and one Parisian bus driver was a bit abrupt—he had some excuse, since I later realized I'd asked him, not how long it took the bus to get to the train station, but how often it went there.  Other than that, everyone was exceedingly friendly and helpful, and more than patient in attempting to communicate in French, even though their English was much, much better than my French.  I'd say the same for Janet/Switzerland/German, except that her German is quite good by now.  That reminds me—there was one waitress in Luzern who was impatient even with Janet's German, but we were in a touristy place.  In general we followed this most excellent advice giving by a friend, and had a lovely experience:

Whatever you do, avoid cafes that have big menus in English. This is where tourists get their ideas that Parisians are rude. Parisians are lovely...tourist waiters are rude (same as anywhere). So, if you have an amazing view of a monument, a big menu in English, and the sodas are 6€ each, you're in the wrong cafe.

We were only gone two weeks, but still experienced culture shock upon returning.  I'm not going to go on a Europe is good, America is bad rant.  There are aspects of each culture that enchant, and those that appall.  One thing that saddened me upon our return was how unfriendly America must seem to visitors.  For one thing, when we landed in Chicago, everything was in English except an initial welcome sign.  I'm all for English as the one official language of the United States, but it shouldn't be so hard for visitors to find their way through the confusing maze of entering this country.

A vistor could also be justified in thinking his reception rude.  No smiles from the officials, no small talk, just suspicious looks and gruff, businesslike grunts, single words, and gestures.  "Welcome home," I thought grimly.  After rechecking our bags post-Customs, we lingered to examine the information board for the gate of our connecting flight.  There was a man there whose job was to give out that information, which was good, except that he said it in such a curt way we felt as if all he wanted to accomplish was to get us out of the way.  The trouble was, the gate he told us did not correspond with the gate on the board.  He was not happy when we pointed this out, and rudely informed us that the flight was delayed.  Did I say rudely?  Well, I thought so at the time.  But as we were walking away, I said "Thank you," and the man reached out for my arm, saying in a much softer and friendlier voice, "Thank you.  I was giving out the wrong information."  I don't think he had meant to be rude at all, and probably the other officials didn't either.  It's too bad they came across that way.

There was one encourging sign upon reentering the U.S.  Among the many lines at Passport Control ("U.S. Passport Holders and U.S. Residents," "Visitors," "Wheelchair," "Military," "Flight Crew") was one specifically labelled "Refugees."

Another reentry shock was noise.  Sheer volume.  A bevy of teenage girls talking at shriek-level.  Background music everywhere.  Everything, in general, at high decibels.  No wonder Americans are so stressed.  If Europe (our small glimpse of it, at least) was anything, it was quiet.  Nearly every restaurant in which we ate had no background music, and the patrons were consequently quiet as well, being able to converse without shouting.  Even in the cities, even in Paris, the general volume was much less than in the U.S.  Sheer bliss!

On the other hand, smoke was as pervasive there as noise is here.  In an unpleasant reminder of what eating out was like here 30 years ago, we had difficulty finding restaurants where cigarette smoke did not diminish the pleasure of the meal.  (Come to think of it, this is still true in North Carolina.)  If Europeans are generally more health conscious than Americans, this is a strking exception.

Lawyers have not yet ruined Europe.  We climbed all over the Münster Cathedral tower, a feat that would have insurance companies shrieking "lawsuit" here at home.

Polticians, on the other hand, have done damage that is so pervasive the natives don't even realize it.  Socialism is deeply ingrained.  They speak proudly of their "free" or heavily subsidized social programs, heath care, education, and transportation, while taking for granted punitively high taxes, and not acknowledging that the system is in many ways unravelling, nor counting the heavy cost exacted on freedom of choice.  France's free day care system must sound ideal to some, but to me it screams that families who are already sacrificing so that mothers can be home to rear their own children must pay so that other families can have two incomes.

European food has ruined me!  Specifically, bread.  I used to think we generally ate good bread in our family:  homemade bread, bread from the bakery section of the store, 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.  But I came home to find that the Publix bakery French bread that I thought was so good now tastes like Wonder Bread.  :(  More than that, the texture is wrong.  In France and Switzerland, even the white bread fights back a little when you chew it.  I was excited to find blood oranges at a local specialty store, but this California variety was dry, mealy, and bland compared with what we enjoyed in Basel (which came from either Spain or Israel, I forget which).  Unpasteurized milk is legal to buy in France (though we didn't have any), and organic milk no more expensive than the ordinary kind.  This trip did nothing to diminish my belief that Americans eat too much because we're trying to make up with quantity for lack of quality, searching for the flavor we know should be in our food.

That's enough for this post.  Li'l Writer Guy needs to step aside in favor of Li'l Housekeeper, or some such mythical being....

Joshua T. White, of the Institute for Global Engagment, spent a year in Peshawar, Pakistan, as the guest of the provincial chief minister, a radical Islamist leader. His insights, which he shares in this Christianity Today article, are well worth reading.

We just received a very cool picture in the mail, from Jonathan, and I had to share it with those of you who will appreciate it as much as I do (or nearly so).  He drew it on the 24th of this month.  Click on the preview picture for a better look.

Here is the explanation that came with the picture:

A guy operating a crane.  The line on the bottom is the tread.  The circle on his face is his ear.  The crane is hooking the controls, but it is not driving itself.

He wanted to draw Jesus for you, but said he didn't know how.  So he drew a crane.

Once again, Tim at Random Observations has provided post which I must pass on.  (Warning:  Yes, it's depressing, but worth reading, really.)  First, read his commentary, You're Just Another (Lego) Brick in the Wall... about an after-school program in Seattle, where teachers took over the children's imaginative Lego play and turned it into a chance for socialist indoctrination.  For a more direct view of the teachers' perspective, read their original article, Why We Banned Legos.

To Tim's insightful post I will only add this:  What about the parents?  Where were they when all this was going on?  Were they expecting childcare and maybe some help with math and reading from this afterschool program?  Did they know their children were getting a heavy dose of politics and indoctrination in values—politics and values possibly in direct opposition to the parents' own?  Certainly most parents would have a few issues with this part of the lesson:

[W]e explored questions about how rules are made and enforced, and when they ought to be followed or broken. We aimed to help children see that all rules (including social structures and systems) are made by people with particular perspectives, interests, and experiences that shape their rule-making. And we wanted to encourage them to consider that there are times when rules ought to be questioned or even broken....

The children were between the ages of five and nine, perhaps not the best ages at which to tell them that obeying their parents' rules is optional.  On the other hand, perhaps the teachers will eventually receive due retribution in the form of students who have decided that the school's rules are not worth following.  Alas, it's probably the high school teachers who will bear that cost.

It was the title that struck me:

Study spotlights prenatal beef consumption

I found the image of tiny babies-in-utero chowing down on hamburgers quite amusing.

But the results of a study by researchers at my former employer, the University of Rochester Medical Center, are not funny at all.  Men whose mothers ate a lot of beef during their pregnancy were found to have a risk of fertility problems three times greater than normal, with 25% below normal sperm counts.  If this is due, as many suspect, to the hormones fed to beef cattle, there is good reason to believe that girl babies are adversely affected as well.

I'm no vegetarian, but organic meat is looking more and more to be worth the exorbitant cost.

I was going to e-mail these pictures to Grandpa W., from whose long-ago gift of amarylis bulbs these beauties are descended, but then decided to share them with all who might enjoy them, natsukashii or otherwise.

 

The day care debate would be only of mild interest to me, given that despite my own strong feelings on the matter, I equally strongly believe that circumstances can be complicated and parents are the best ones to make childrearing decisions for their own families—I say it would be only of mild interest were it not for the growing number of people who believe that "free" day care (paid for by taxes, of course) is the hallmark of civilization.

The other reason I present to you this article on the lastest results from the largest and longest-running study of American child care is the final paragraph.

The bad news, for families who avail themselves of day care centers, is that no matter how highly rated the center is, their children are statistically more likely to exhibit disruptive and aggressive behavior, even as late as sixth grade.  The good news is that the effect is small, and as compensation they'll have better vocabularies.

As one might imagine, those for whom any negative news about day care would be as welcome as positive news about smoking were quick to find fault with the study.  I could do so myself, noting that they would likely find even greater differences if they also considered the quality of home care, or the fact that all of the children in the study were consigned to day care centers in the form of school once they reached kindergarten age.  But it was the complaint that the study's measure of day care center quality left out important factors that drew my attention, to wit the last paragraph of the article:

The study did not take into account employee turnover that can have a negative effect on children, said Marci Young of the Center for the Child Care Workforce, which represents day-care workers.

There is no recognition in the article of the lovely irony here, for what is day care but "employee turnover" on a daily basis?

I remember the response, too.

I've written about the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine campaign before.  Now I want to share this excellent article by Gina R. Dalfonzo from Christianity Today, (22 March 07) which begins,

You've probably seen the commercials. Over the last few months, it's been almost impossible not to see them. They parade endlessly across our screens—a multitude of women of all ages, from all backgrounds—and they all have the same urgent message to share: "Tell someone that human papillomavirus causes cervical cancer. Tell someone. Tell someone. Tell someone."

To which I can only respond, "We tried."

Many years ago, members of the Family Research Council, a Christian public policy group in Washington, DC, tried to publicize the connection between HPV and cervical cancer, and the fact that condoms are not an effective protection agains the virus.  They were trashed, bashed, and outshouted by the media and organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), which claimed they were just trying to get people to stop having sex, and anyway the number of people who would actually get cervical cancer from HPV was so small it was not worth worrying about.

The article is quite right, and well worth reading in its entirety.  I remember both the warning and the reaction.

What would be amusing if it weren't so sad is that the same people who once pooh-poohed the HPV-cancer connection are now trumpeting it loudly—but are still bashing the FHC, this time for not jumping on the bandwagon to coerce every girl, not just the small number who would benefit from it, to receive this new and mostly unnecessary vaccine.

In Arizona, the winning team in the kindergarten through sixth grade category of the recent state scholastic chess championship must know that their victory is tainted.

At least I hope so.

The defending champions were not allowed to compete this year, because they are a team of homeschooled students, and this year they were ruled ineligible because they do not all come from the same school.  Well, duh!  It's hard to field a team when your school comprises no more than a handful of students covering a wide age span.

The rule was created, I suppose, to keep teams from being formed across school boundaries, and the one who creates a contest should have the right to set the rules.  However, it does make it clear that the intention is more about promoting schools than about encouraging excellence or chess playing.  Leaving homeschooling out of the question, why shouldn't friends who attend different schools be able to form their own teams and compete?  This isn't Japan, where school is life, and loyalty to one's school a cardinal virtue.

"State Champions" has a hollow ring when you know you've defeated your opponents by legal maneuvering rather than chess prowess. 

I'm posting a link to this U.S. News and World Report short article on Japanese schools, hoping it will provoke commentary from one who can speak firsthand, rather than second, about the realities behind this rosy picture. (Not that she doesn't have dozens of much more important things to do.) Anyone else is welcome to comment as well!

Update:  Here are the pictures from Janet of some of her students in Japan, cleaning the school pool.  (See comments.)

  

Earlier I wrote about Melissa Busekros, the 15-year-old German girl who was taken from her family to a psychiatric ward and thence to foster care because of her desire to be tutored at home in some subjects.  This morning I learned that the five children of a second family have been ordered into state custody by a German court.

The parents reportedly can regain custody of their children only by placing them in public school.

In the order, which was based solely on the parents' decision against sending their children to public school, the family also was told to pay court costs estimated at $4,000.

The judge had concluded that the children were well-educated, but accused the parents of failing to provide their children with an education in a public school. The court noted that one of the daughters expressed the same opinions as her father, showing they have not had the chance to develop "independent" personalities.

The website from which I obtained this news is not the most dispassionate and unbiased of sources, so I would be glad to hear that they have the stories all wrong.  Despite the German consul general's statement that the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole," I know public school is not the only option in Germany, because Janet's experience tells me that private, Christian schools are legal.  Yet the arguments being brought against these homeschooling families could just as easily be used against private schools, especially sectarian ones.

So what is the truth here?

I remember a Reader's Digest article of long ago (I don't know when, but it's been many years since we subscribed) about Osama bin Laden, which was headlined, "Be afraid of this man; be very afraid."  Like everyone else, I read the article and ignored it, figuring (oh so wrongly) that those whose job was to pay attention to such things were on the ball.  I'm not suggesting a parallel between al Qaeda and the German government here, but this news makes me think of that prescient article.  I fear something very bad is going on, and those who ought to be protecting liberty will only awaken when it is too late.

Will someone who really knows Germany please tell me I'm wrong?

Now it's Chinese food that's bad for you!  I'm especially sad that they singled out my family's favorite, General Tso's Chicken.  And how about this:

[E]ating an order of lemon chicken, which is battered and then deep-fried, is like eating three fried McDonald's McChicken sandwiches then washing them down with a 32-oz. Coke.

This report slams Chinese food for both high sodium and high calorie content.  What's critically missing is any mention of portion size.  I don't know anyone who thinks that the plates they serve you at Chinese restaurants were meant to be consumed by one person, and I'm sure both the calorie and the sodium numbers would look much better if analyzed for reasonably-sized portions.  Eating less makes a lot more sense than following this advice:  "[Stay] away from duck sauce, hot mustard, hoisin sauce, and soy sauce."  Could you then still call it Chinese food???

This article on making moral judgments is a good example of the kind of false dilemma that drives me crazy.  It reminds me of those soul-tearing questions sometimes inflicted on schoolchildren—by each other, and even by teachers—such as "If your house were burning and you could only save one parent, which would you choose, your mom or your dad?" I remember teaching my own kids that "I don't answer ridiculous questions" is a perfectly acceptable response.

The dilemma posed in the experiment is this:  "Someone you know has AIDS and plans to infect others, some of whom will die. Your only options are to let it happen or to kill the person. Do you pull the trigger?"  The premise, "your only options are to let it happen or to kill the person" is spurious, since there are always other options.  They could at least have set up a more plausible scenario, such as a sniper shooting steadily into a crowded schoolyard and you having a gun trained on the sniper—do you shoot him?  But even in that case one can shoot to disable, even though there's a chance your shot will end up fatal.

What they discovered about the responses of people with a particular type of brain damage may be important in helping those people and their families, but it's hard to see any general application that can come from false premises.

A friend sent me the following YouTube link.  WARNING:  Parts of the video are offensive, and if you go to YouTube and read the comments, many of them are extremely offensive.  Nonetheless, both are part of the point I want to make.  Since my commentary contains some spoilers, you have to click on the "more" link to read it.

My friend headed the link with "This nation's school system has created a nation of morons."  I couldn't agree more with her statement, but the video does nothing to prove it.  Selective editing can show anything, especially when combined with preconceived notions of what you want to prove.

It's the comments that are truly disturbing.  If the film was no doubt edited to show the stupidest responses, I'm pretty sure the comments are a random sample—though the group of people willing to comment on YouTube is not exactly representative of the world's population.  At least I hope not.  The venomous, virulent disgust and hatred they spew—often in the form of extremely foul language—is more disturbing to me than ignorance, though they display that as well.  Not that I've read all the comments, which numbered over 4000 as of this morning; a hundred or so was all I could stomach.

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens proclaimed Ignorance most to be feared, "for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."  Ignorance of facts about the world is bad enough, but ignorance of other peoples and cultures is appalling, and I find that there's as much ignorance of America in other countries as there is of other countries here.

The only hope I see for either side is more and more cultural exchange programs.  And everyone should read Why the Rest Hates the West, too.

A few comments on the questions and answers:   My first reaction to the challenge of naming a country that begins with "U" was "Uganda."  Most people would say our country begins with "A."  I doubt most of the French, which asked what letter their country's name begins with, would respond, "R" ("Republique francaise").  No matter how official "United States" is, and no matter how frustrating it is to Canadians, Mexicans, and South and Central Americans, "America" is too well entrenched as a name for our country for anyone to expect otherwise.  Though I did think "Yugoslavia" was a cute answer.

I also missed the KFC question, though I maintain that "Utah" as an answer is only partly right.  The first franchise may have been in Utah, but Kentucky really deserves credit as its homeland.

And I totally understand the guy who said Germany was part of the Axis of Evil.  He, perhaps more than anyone, shows that our school system has provided Pope's "a little learning."  He remembers "Axis" vaguely from his studies of World War II, and he knows Germany was our enemy then, so....

Or you can substitute "Conservatives" and "Liberals" for a more general application.

This unfair generalization is based on observations I made over thirty years ago, and it still encapsulates much of what I find incomprehensible and wrong about politics.  It frustrates me that those who apparently care little about concerns that are close to my heart (suffering people, the environment, diversity, families, and freedom of choice) tend to promote policies that advance those causes, while those who speak loudly (and often even sincerely) in favor of these good things support actions that are detrimental, often disastrously so.

So when I awoke to a Random Observations post that expresses my concern better than I ever could, I had to share it with you.