Halve Everything

     By now it is obvious that the hope aroused by the candidacy and then the election of President Obama has not caused a sea-change in the hearts and minds of his countrymen/women. Historians may find, fifty years from now, some important change among some young people who were inspired by the President's appeal to pragmatism and decency and reform. Right now, no such transformation is apparent. Why has the rocket fizzled? First, because, although the Republican Party and most of its federal representatives appear insane at best, congressional Democrats appear little better -- a hopeless motley crew of partisan hacks, intellectual light-weights, and visionless place-holders. They simply have no clue about moving forward in a clear, uncompromising direction toward anything. They consider halving every piece of legislation as bold and courageous reform. Secondly, and even worse, President Obama, partly because Congress has forced him to do so,  has decided to halve everything as well:  half a stimulus program; half ownership of GM (actually more); assuming half the costs of an irresponsible banking industry; a half-assed health program that promises very little change; half-way measures in pursuing those responsible for instituting a widespread torture program into American "intelligence" work; a halved promise on closing the Guantanamo Bay "facility"; a half-and-half attitude toward the virtues of unregulated capitalism.

     But these are surface issues, ones that can be changed with the election of a better Congress, and the appointment of better justices to the federal courts, and perhaps evidence of more backbone in the current administration once some victories are posted. Deeper cultural currents and bigger problems cannot be so easily eradicated. Here are my seven deadly sins of American politics and society:

     1. The American public, as responsible citizens, continue to lag behind every democratic, or democratically developing country, in terms of their political acumen and activism. "I am not political" is a phrase worn as a badge of moral honor only in North America. When students began to use this "excuse" with me in Canada in the 1970s, I developed a standard response:  "If you are not political, you are immoral." By political, I mean something more than passively voting. I mean acquainting oneself with the political issues of the day; protesting policies one considers bad or wrong-headed through a variety of means; and, discussing politics with one's acquaintances. These are the minimums. Contributing to a political party or working for a campaign or signing petitions and supporting online political interest groups, is a step further in the right direction.

     2. American journalism is immoral in the news they choose to cover, in the manner in which they report the news, and in ways they choose to analyze the news. Failures of omission and of commission are replete throughout all branches of the media. If we are not being addressed by vacuous air-heads of both sexes, whose hairdos alone tell you where they place their priorities, we are being assaulted and insulted by a parade of right-wing "experts" and subdued moderates in what journalism considers "balance" in analysis. There is no balance, and even if all sides were represented equally in these "debates," halving the views of two extremes does not result in truth and sensibility.

     3. "We live in the grip of the most powerful ideology the world has ever known -- capitalism." These are the words I used for over twenty years in my first year history classes whenever the issue of ideologies of the past became a topic of the course. Most older students thought I was going to end that sentence with the word -- "communism." The rest shrugged this sentence off as irrelevant, set against the power of pop culture (which is itself a partner in maintaining the myth of capitalist inevitability). But the pervasive and destructive influence of capitalism as an ideology seems to continue. And, it has emerged from our financial crisis virtually unscathed -- a remarkable feat for a set of ideas that should have been badly damaged by its advocates and extreme enthusiasts. Indeed, journalists make no objection when commentators -- or the "punditocracy," as Michael Moore correctly calls it -- sweepingly proclaim that the free market system is sacrosanct and must not be impeded. What utter nonsense. Some things must be nationalized (health care, we say today; roads and public utilities, so said Adam Smith in 1776; and why, by the way, don't right-wing ideologists read and cite him). Some things need regulation (uh, savings-and-loans, as proven by the early 1990s fiasco under Bush I, and the banks, as proven today). And, some things need to be driven by the market (our choices in what foods we want in our restaurants and what clothes styles we want to put on our backs).

     4. Paul Krugman, in a recent NY Times opinion piece, identifies the beginning of the current state of economic crisis with the Reagan administration. This is true. I have recently come across a talk I gave when Reagan was re-elected in 1984, and was reminded again that I never could comprehend his election to either term. What were people thinking? He was not even the jolly person most people made him out to be. He was a vicious anti-communist, anti-unionist, and anti-government-activist. He presented himself as some kind of lollypop libertarian; maybe that's why people think he was sweet. And then, just like the New England Puritans of the 17th century, the Republican presidential leadership proceeded to decline. Bush I (a seemingly good hearted and courageous veteran), along with his country-club, pretty boy running mate -- Dan Quayle, stumbled through a term. Newt Gingrich then steered the Republicans of the 1990s into an Alice-in-Wonderland vision of politics and economics and the future. And, then there was Bush II, a man almost as shocked as William Henry Harrison to be inhabiting the White House. We know the rest about the worst president in American history; Bush II was kind of the "Secretariat" (to use a horse-racing analogy unflattering to that great race horse) of bad and evil politics. Thirty years of wrong ideas, of "spend a lot but don 't tax" policies, of anti-democratic politics, has left most of us with no memory of how politics might be practiced correctly.

     5. Only in the impoverished world, do we see a middle and lower class as dispirited as we find them in the U.S. They have been down so long that just keeping one's job, or keeping a pay check that does not rise with inflation, is seen as a victory to be celebrated. Marx was only partly right in calling "religion the opiate of the masses"; sports, pop culture diversions, and, hey, real opiates, are also part of the "opiate[s] of the masses." Some say that ordinary folk have been "dumbed down." It is worse than that; they have been thoroughly anesthetized against hope and planning for the future. No hope and no planning are emblematic of societies of the poor throughout the world.

     6. How long have we put up with fighting the brush fires of idiotic right-wing political and religious groups and advocates. OK, abortion is not a good thing; but given sex education in the U.S. (and many other places) it is at least a necessary "evil." Plus, as a man, I expect to have authority over my body; women should too.  Darwinian evolution is right, insofar as every credible scientific test has been applied against it. Schools are not places over which parents en masse should determine curriculum or how subjects should be taught. Parents must insist on the production of good teachers, and then get out of the way. Being "gay" or "lesbian" is natural; "homosexuality," for want of a better comprehensive word, has existed from ancient times to the present. The only debate is how many people are naturally gay or lesbian; and that, my friends, is a discussion just too, too boring for me to address. Stupid cultural and moral issues are exhausting and diverting from real issues regarding how millions of real people are to live their real lives well.

     7. No one, from teenagers to the enfeebled elderly, are "entitled" to all that they claim. Yes, the young should be educated and protected. Yes, the elderly should be cared for in a humane and caring way. After that, it is all a matter of how far a society wants to go to enhance these protections without extending false expectations. If you are a lazy and not very bright teenager, you should expect the consequences of those twin failings -- one outside your control, the other supposedly within it. If you are a cranky, contentious, and poor senior, you should expect something less than luxury and fawning attention from those around you. There is no historical imperative that any age group should lead a life of sybaritic ease, or that ennui is the correct and expected response to unfulfilled expectations.

    So, with these 7 Deadly Sins still in full play, I am not anticipating seeing anything like the changes to politics and society that, only a few months ago, I thought might be possible in my lifetime.

[For those who think I am being harsh regarding the Obama administration, please read Kevin Baker's article, "Barack Hoover Obama:  The Best and the Brightest Blow It Again," Harper's Magazine, July, 2009]

Sudoku

     This blog posting is written as a response to a challenge by my friend Kathryn to write something on "sudoku." So, like anyone who comes from an academic background, I will pretend to make something out of nothing -- so to speak.

     The name itself -- "sudoku" -- suggests something Japanese and exotic, a game that somehow connects us to a Japanese sense of logic and clarity while not requiring Japanese language to comprehend. The truth is less culturally exciting and more prosaic. In fact, everything about sudoku is prosaic -- that is one reason we like it. "Sudoku" was "invented" by Howard Garns, an Indianapolis architect, in 1979 and given the truly ordinary name of "Number Place." It was picked up in Japan by the Nikoli publishing company, and after being renamed "Sudoku," meaning "single number," it became popular throughout Japan, where it was eventually offered in national newspapers like Asahi Shimbun. The game became really popular, however, when it was picked up by the press in Great Britain in 2004, where it became featured regularly in The Times. From Great Britain, "sudoku" spread rapidly throughout the world, but it has remained most popular in the U. K. and North America.

     "Sudoku" is invariably labelled "addictive," not just on book jackets for advertising purposes, but in every short-hand description of the game. This proves once again our delight in pathologizing every thing in which human beings engage. (The fact 

is that many mundane things -- like eating -- are merely addictive too). Addiction is apparently the normative state of things now, and if you do anything, either occasionally or frequently, that is not "addictive" you must be some kind of a pervert.

     I do not so much think of it as addictive as I see it as a marker in my day. Just as we all use markers in speech (e.g., "so" and "well," and President Obama's now famous "annnnd"), I use sudoku as an interruption or marker in my day. I use it as a way to wake up in the morning, while having a cup or two of coffee. I use it after walking the dog, to catch my breath. I use it after dinner, as dessert. I use it as punctuation between tasks -- especially household ones. "Sudoku" is also handy, in the way that crossword puzzles are handy, in allowing one to ignore the poverty of stimulation one gets in airports or on planes or in any waiting room (it beats reading old "Macleans" and "Car and Driver" at the doctor's office).

     The game is supposedly also useful in keeping your brain active. But I have noticed lately that I don't so much think through the puzzles anymore than look for the 20 odd combinations of number layouts, and just start filling it in. I am not bragging; if you have done as many of these as I have, you would do it too.

     But why is it so popular?  Well, not trusting my own instincts, I looked up a few internet sites on this issue. They say:  First, it is a simple game; single number 1 through 9, and the rules are simple. Secondly, there is only one right answer, and in proceeding through the puzzle you are giving yourself immediate evaluative feedback -- uh, that is, you know how you are doing all of the time. To make it harder, I sometimes do not write little "possible" numbers at the top of every box, but insist that I memorize the combinatorial possibilities. My friend Erin gave me an electronic sudoku player one time which required this tactic; it was difficult and good, until I wore out the machine. Lately I have started timing myself, to add an external challenge to the whole thing.  Thirdly, each puzzle is different from any other you have done. Lately, I have exhausted all of the "difficult," "bizarrely challenging," and "evil" puzzles (they are given many different names), and have found myself buying what appear to be "new" sudoku books that are merely reprints of old puzzles. Believe it or not, my poor feeble brain actually remembers many of these formerly-done-puzzles (I cannot remember the names of people I have known most of my life, but I can recognize old sudoku puzzles; I am to be pitied and censured). The saving factor is that even if it is a puzzle you did before, you start it differently and solve it in a different pattern. Fourthly, some argue that because the puzzle is self-correcting (that is, when you have to do something else after putting the same number in the same column or row or square -- twice), you can go back and try to correct your mistakes. I have now taken a very Calvinist -- unforgiving -- approach to my sudoku. If I have made a mistake, I mark a bold "bar-sinister" line across the whole thing and give it up. I suppose Catholics and Anglicans can do the same sudoku over and over, occasionally saying "oops" everytime they make a mistake; ah, the joys of absolution.

     Now, having said all of this, I leave you with this sudoku happening that I found on the internet:

"In June 2008, an Australian drugs-related jury trial costing over $1 million (AU$) was     aborted when it was discovered that five of the twelve jurors had been playing Sudoku instead of listening to evidence."

Now do you take Sudoku seriously? Next time, think about what your airplane pilot is actually doing.

Opposite Directions: Mexico and the U. S. Respond to Swine Flu

     My friend Jim Ellsworth, a permanent resident in San Miguel de Allende, was the first to introduce me to this old parable about Mexicans. "Two men -- one American, one Mexican -- try unsuccessfully to catch  a departing bus.  The American says: 'Damn, I missed the bus.' The Mexican says: 'The bus left without me.'" This popular portrayal of Mexicans as people who do not take personal responsibility, who do not admit their failings, or do not acknowledge that they need to correct something that has gone wrong, is becoming increasingly inaccurate. But even when it resonates with accuracy, it is just a reflection of a country in which great wealth held by a few overwhelms the great mass of people who have very little. The parable of not being responsible is the parable of a people with limited personal agency. They cannot be the author of their destinies since those are controlled by a system of class and wealth that is nearly closed. So, why should they assume personal responsibility when such a claim of agency (responsibility) can only be taken in the negative -- applied against their failings, and never taken in the positive -- never applied to their advancement and advantage.

     Americans, by contrast, see themselves as possessing nothing but personal agency, from colonial Puritans (ironically) to modern day marketing majors. Each one of us, it is presumed (often inaccurately), are the agents of our own future and of our own success and wealth. Unfortunately, when a sense of agency is exaggerated -- as it invariably is in the United States -- the consequences can be grotesque. First, if someone or some group of people are the necessary human agents behind a turn of events, then when bad things happen on a broad scale, someone has to be responsible for inflicting these bad consequences upon us. Historically, if Americans have not been able to identify the villain(s) clearly, this psychology leads to conspiracy theories. Secondly, if the villain(s) who have inflicted bad things cannot be identified early on, and the bad things persist and grow (e.g., the recent swine flu "pandemic"), Americans react with fear and suspicion. Both of these tendencies were historically revealed most fully and clearly in the Red Scare of 1919, and the Communist Conspiracy scare of the early 1950s.

     I watched with perverse interest, therefore, when the "swine flu" emerged from Mexico last month. I say "perverse" interest because, although I was residing in Mexico at the time, I got almost all of my "news" from CNN (the only English language news channel available in our casita). The grotesque appeal to fear and panic by CNN (an appeal offered in the face of the testimony of the "experts" they interviewed, who counseled calm attentiveness), would have been humorous, if the CNN appeal had not been so cravenly driven by the pretty girls and pretty boys who pose as serious journalists on CNN's broadcasts. After a few days of watching

CNN, we clearly understood only two things:  that we were learning precious little of value about the swine flu, and that 90% of what we heard and saw was the moral equivalent of brainwashing.

     The message was two-fold:  first, there was the thinly veiled accusation

that Mexico and Mexicans were the responsible agents (which fit well into the CNN and Lou Dobbs's vision of the Mexican threat); and, secondly, that Mexico had been and continued to be so irresponsible that the lives of Americans, well, of most of America actually, were threatened, and that we had much to fear.

     Because we watched a lot (too much) of CNN for that first week (April 21-28), it came as a surprise when, overnight, CNN decided this story of responsibility and fear was no longer selling too well, and suddenly pushed it off the headlines. They moved on to evaluating (read "judging") President Obama in his first 100 days -- another comical and exaggerated exercise in applying human agency and responsibility to one person (a person who was not the agent of what he was trying to fix, for that matter).

     In the end, we found out two things about the "swine flu" by living in Mexico:  first, Mexicans did not panic, partly out of a sense of fatalism (there are benefits to not believing that human agents stand behind all things good or bad), and partly out of common sense.  Mexico City alone has more than 20 million people (maybe 22-23 million); if we

triple the number of swine flu cases identified or suspected, from 2,000 to 6,000, we are still left with a very miniscule percentage of cases in Mexico City (you do the math). How much can you do about the spread of "swine flu" in a congested population like Mexico City's in any case? Secondly, Mexico City did respond quickly. They were transparent about the disease. They did get on it right away. Mexico took extraordinary measures to cut down on the spread of the disease (shutting down public events very early on; preaching public caution through hand cleaning, masks, etc.; sharing information readily with WHO and other countries). They punished their economy, especially small businesses in Mexico, probably much more than they should have.

     In short, Mexico shouldered the burden in this matter. They should be applauded for their responsibility. Americans, especially CNN, should be castigated for their fear-mongering and attempt to arouse hysteria. But beyond that, as Mexico shows itself to be an increasingly modern democracy with a sense of global responsibility, the United States continues to be ethnocentric and inward looking. While Americans prefer to wallow in fear (FDR should have said:  "All you have . . . is fear itself"), while they make a psychological hobby out of fearing those things that are beyond human control, Mexico has made the best of its sense that some bad things just happen, and no one is responsible, while at the same time, at an official government level, accommodating the world at large in every way possible to check the disease. Mexico seems to have succeeded in both ways, and they are the better country for it.

To Stay in Mexico

   Because of the death of our friend Carl, part of our stay in Mexico has left us feeling out of place and time. Our grieving has known no locality, and we both often snap back to "reality," puzzled over where we are, and sometimes even wondering what season it is. The little essay that below is not about that part of our "stay" ("holiday" is grossly wrong; "vacation" hardly right; "travel" would be right, if we moved more; "stay" seems more right given the total experience). What I will say here will not be news to many who are familiar with Mexico, or at least with those of you who have seen more than the gated-beach-resort Mexico. Still, many things below bear repeating, to myself if no one else.

1. The Assault on the Senses -

     Color confronts you everywhere in Mexico, from flowers in bloom to the bougainvillea on our garden wall in San Miguel that proves more hardy than the most common weed. 

Not content with nature, Mexicans produce their own riot of color -- in fabrics, in clothing, in buildings, in kid's plastic toys. 

 

Chiapas and Oaxaca

 

    And, while colors often appear to be primary, and therefore easy to imitate, the fact is that they are much more subtle than you first imagine, especially in fabrics and stuccoed walls. We have often stared at exterior and interior walls in Mexico (usually painted in a faux style), and said, we can do that. The fact is -- we cannot. Our friends, Kathleen and Jim Ellsworth of San Miguel de Allende, have painted house interiors for decades (and they can do this kind of painting) but they will readily testify to the nuances in this kind of house painting.

    

Oaxaca

     Ruins (ruinas), cobblestone streets (in old colonial towns like San Miguel) and dust are the second assault on sight and the senses. Ruins like the Mayan complex at Palenque (Chiapas)or the Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban (Oaxaca) are justly shown off with pride.

"Second rank" ruins, like the ex-convento at Cuiapan (construction begun in 1530 and shutdown in 1550 because Philip V thought them too expensive), barely get a glance.

In fact, the whole country often appears to be ruins covered in dust, as were all of the buildings surrounding the gold and silver mines of Minerales de Pozos below.

And, after all, what town, or even village, does not have a church dating to the 1500s (well, almost none, actually).

All of this is to say nothing of rickety, termite-eaten gates (in every city and town) -- behind which may lie a mansion worth millions of dollars or the humble residence of a poor Mexican family. Who is to know.

     Streets are barely navigable in most old towns. The sidewalks are narrow, and the holes, big enough and sometimes deep enough to swallow a whole person, wait uncovered and unmarked for the first "gringo" to make a mistake. Anyone with a propensity to twist their ankle should never come to Mexico. We often walk in the street, dodging whatever car or truck comes along. Those who drive confront "topes" (speed bumps) every little distance. A man who took us by van from San Cristobal de las casas to Palenque (a distance of 200km that took over five hours) shrugged and said to me:  "200 kilometers of road; 350 topes." He was apologizing, not exaggerating.

     Sounds in Mexico are something else. Road traffic, blaring horns, dogs barking and fighting, birds singing, church bells being rung at every imaginable hour (with no apparent reason; often in the middle of the night), fireworks (especially in San Miguel; hey, you have a birthday, "let's fire off major fireworks from 4am to, say, 10am."), people barking their wares. Total disregard for others in making sounds of every sort define the equivalent total lack of privacy in Mexico, just as that privacy is lacking in many traditional societies.

     Smell is another thing. For June, it is the smell of fresh corn tortillas, sold from little shops along the street. For me, it is a bakery two houses away down the street (again, you would have no idea it was a bakery because it is located behind a set of rotting wooden doors -- there are actually people who make rotting wooden doors here -- real nice ones -- I am not kidding you). Every other day of so, we get the sweet smell of bread (Mexicans are really keen on sweet; less on salt). But if you try to guess which day you might get bread (these folks seem to wholesale it for other tiendas - stores), you are likely to be disappointed.

     More likely smells are auto and truck exhaust emissions (forget fighting for clean air emissions; Mexico alone will defeat the world on that score). And, even more, the sweet smell of the sewer. It hits you anywhere, anytime. It may be a big drain on the street; it may be the drains in the house. Despite having the knowledge to know how to handle this in homes, Mexican plumbing continues to develop without using elbow traps, vent stacks, or good closed sewers. My father, a plumber, would be appalled.

     Touch should not be left out. Every surface in Mexico has a texture, even a smooth wall. Stucco, brick, cobblestones, steel fixtures, wooden chairs, thin plate glass, iron-work gates and windows are all ubiquitous, all immediate.

II. Mexico the Mysterious --

     You really don't know what you are going to encounter in Mexico. Last night we went to a restaurant we had eaten at two years ago. The same guitar player was playing. He is just about as good as any jazz guitarist (and classical for that matter) that you are ever going to hear.  He, however, is always going to be eking out a living a "Mama Mias." Kathleen took us on a trip and stopped at a small humble house where the owner builds musical instruments, including the most fantastic drums I have ever seen or heard (people from far away commission him to build them). He also builds beautiful sounding flutes and recorders. But his life is still humble.

On that same trip, while looking at a ruina way out on a nearly impassable dirt road in the middle of a desert, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. I guessed it was a pick-up. It wasn't; it was a fully loaded Coca-Cola truck, lurching and swaying its way across the seemingly empty desert. It had probably been to some very small miscelania or tienda near some houses where the four kids in the neighbourhood needed their daily intact of Coke (bad teeth and diabetes are major afflictions in Mexico now).

   Excursions to towns on their market days always surprise you -- whether it is an old woman carrying an enormous live turkey upside down around the stalls, bargaining hard to sell it, or this goat, being kept cool and safe in a novel way before being sold.

Some mysteries are anticipated, yet they still surprise you. These women are part of the Easter Sunday procession (about two hours and a mile long, including an orchestra and a couple of choirs); maybe it is just seeing middle-aged women carrying heavy platforms with icons for such a long time.

Other things are puzzles of a sort, and gringoes seem to be drawn into these just as much as anyone. Many walls of elegant houses expose the bricks beneath the stucco, as if to suggest that the stucco had fallen off, and the house was a shambles outside. This one, near our home, was weirder yet. The message over the door read, "Cantina of the Dogs," and an accompanying plaque read: "No women. No uniformed people. No minors allowed." And, it pictured dogs fighting -- as if it were Michael Vick's house.  All a bad joke; the house is an ordinary (though rich) residence.

     Not all mysteries are to be seen or smelled or heard. Our "lavanderia" posts hours 8 to 8, Mon. through Fri. But many days they are not open until 10, and then sometimes you see one of the family working there at 10pm at night. It is all a suggestion (much like traffic signs). This is 

not to bad mouth Mexicans. They are hard workers; anyone working a mere 60 hour week is an executive or a slackard. They are polite, often very friendly, and they love their children without reservation.

     In fact, the economy of  the vast majority of semi-poor or poor Mexicans is interesting. Everyone seems to be selling something. Hawkers can be very much in your face. No space is free from someone selling something. Restaurants are assaulted outdoors and often indoors by old women selling trinkets or flower sellers and even sometimes by someone selling food! One day I said to June, "I wonder which of these sellers is allowed to move up and down the corridors of the Mexican Congress." She immediately replied, "Why, all of them, of course."  And, so it seems. Yet, for all of this "selling," most people have no change. "Cambio" is hard to come by in Mexico, and everyone we talk to (meaning native Mexicans) says it is just laziness on the part of sellers:  if you want it, the buyer must have or get the right change. In fact, June and I think we should start a "cambio" business in Mexico; we would make a fortune.

     Well, we probably would not. Hordes of people all selling the same goods, or nearly the same goods, feel some social compunction to try to make a sale just because the culture demands the social gesture. But in the real economy underneath this false entrepreneurship, they all know that the number of buyers is limited. And, if any seller does something special in their peddling, that peddler knows that within days everyone will be doing the same thing. They have learned the hard-knocks side of capitalism. Where there is a void, a need, a want, someone will fill it. But in Mexico, thousands will fill it, and no one will move up. That is the economy here; no one will move up, except the small percentage of elites and the small number of lucky souls who get advanced educations. The social-class order fixes everything, and entrepreneurship is a joke. So, why have "cambio" ready.

     In many ways your heart breaks in Mexico, but in other ways, on reflection, one wonders about our so-called "values" -- including modernization, capitalism, education, and so on.

The Loss of a Close Friend -- from a Great Distance

     Two days ago a very close friend of mine, Carl Granzow, died suddenly of cancer. A year ago he had been treated for bone marrow cancer, and went into remission. I had a good year with him after those treatments, probably better than many we had had in the recent past. He helped me with some design and engineering issues regarding home renovations; I spent time with him in his shop, joked about utterly unimportant things with him, and went "shopping" for trucks (one of his favorite wasting-time pastimes). Our families had some very good times together. It had been much like the early years of our friendship, over twenty-five years ago.

     It was a friendship for which I can express no regrets. Many years ago I told him that I considered him a brother (despite the fact that I have a brother I see too infrequently and who I love). A few years later, quite independent of my declaration, he said the same thing to me (despite the fact that he had a brother he saw too infrequently who he also loved). Over the years, my wife and I became close friends of their family, so close that his wife and their children are like extended family to us. Although my friend and his family had their own large, extended family -- a family about as close as any family ever could be -- they even tried to bring us into their tent. Well, quite literally, since every year they all went camping together in August, and they always tried to get us to go along.

     I think we all made it clear how we felt about each other, and that is the important message of this blog. My generation, at least, is usually too circumspect about telling others exactly how we feel about them. We either think the words are too lavish and inappropriate -- telling a robust, very masculine man that you love him like a brother -- or we worry that the sentiment will not be reciprocated. Both are a foolish caution; we are all fragile human beings who need to tell others how we feel about them; to do less is parsimonious and irresponsible. Years ago, when she was in her later years, my mother-in-law told me that, in the end, all we can do is love one another. I was so pleased to hear her say this (since we did not share religious beliefs), that I did not say: "well, of course, that's all we human beings have."

     In my last blog, I criticized one aspect of the internet -- "Facebook." I don't take back anything I said about "Facebook." But, because we are in Mexico and my friend died in Canada, I will say that the internet has been a benefit beyond description for us. We got a chance to talk to our friend via "Vonage Talk" telephone service, and the reception was clear and good. We have been kept up-to-date by many other very important friends via phone and email. We have remained in touch with a wide community. And, for all of that, we are thankful for modern technology. We are also thankful for having had such a good, generous and loving friend.

Too Much Information? Too Many "Friends"? The Culture of "Facebook"

   The internet is undeniably one of the greatest boons to humankind -- ever. It has democratized information. It has democratized opinion. It has democratized democracy.

   As we are now traveling in Mexico, I can assure you that the internet has made the practicalities of life much easier. You not only can buy airline tickets online, but in Mexico, at least, you can buy bus tickets online as well (buses being essential travel in Mexico) and even many van and taxis services in more remote places. Almost everyone has some kind of wi-fi service here (even if some servers are slow and unpredictable). You can stay in touch with family and friends via "Vonage Talk" or "Skype" or, for Americans, via some small USB connector telephone device -- all with very little cost to the user.

   But in regard to the way we appear to others, the evolution of the internet has taken some peculiar twists, in my humble opinion. (It must be humble because despite being an early user of computers -- from main frame computers in the 1970s to laptops today -- I am NOT, and never can be, part of a cybernetic culture, simply as a consequence of my age and the pre-cybernetic culture that formed my character). The internet has changed discourse, as many people smarter than I have observed. It has supposedly created new "communities," which, if you stretch the definition of community to its breaking point, one might grudgingly admit. But it has also accentuated the most powerful drive among individuals for autonomy, agency, and authority. In everyone's quest to present themselves as they would wish to be seen, it has also become a vehicle of egoism (and sometimes narcissism and exhibitionism).

   Not long ago, I enjoyed sending and receiving e-mails. While not examples of the best writing, e-mails allowed me to send information and ideas and so on to my family and friends, and to receive e-mails, in a private way. Today, I seldom receive personal e-mails, except tiresome marketing ones from my "friends" at Amazon and VRBO and Expedia and Eddie Bauer. Sometimes folks write a short note to me, sometimes with accompanying pictures, etc., but e-mail as an important internet method for anything other than formal business is as dead as the proverbial dodo. The death of personal letters, and now the death of personal e-mails, might be seen as the death of the paragraph and narrative communication in everyday life.

   Most of my family and friends are now members of "Facebook," or some like service. This seemed great at the start, and still is in some ways. You could see how everyone was doing at a glance, including what was on their mind, and how their lives were unfolding daily. You could post your whereabouts, the progress of your work, your very, very latest opinion on politics, links to interesting sites, causes you cared about, etc.

   Then it gradually changed (well, hell, gradually in cybernetic time). In my case, my family actually seldom uses it (except for outgoing mail from my wife and me), despite my having signed my sons on as "friends" and now as "family" ("Facebook has now started encouraging you to categorize folks in a certain way, to compartmentalize your discussion of yourself and with others in the framework they want to lay out). But now I may ditch the whole thing, if one can do that; I understand that no one ever really "leaves" "Facebook"; apparently "Facebook" is much harder to remove than a tattoo. I am getting uneasy as well as unsatisfied.

   Before the "Facebook" people sue me for defamation, let me say that their service, with all of its bells and whistles (comments to post, walls to write on, messages to send, photos to mount, notifications to peruse, etc., etc.) is something I have readily embraced. Now, however, using "Facebook," even opening it up, is beginning to creep me out. Here are the reasons.

   1. Logging into "Facebook" makes me feel like a voyeur. No, I take that back, it literally makes me a voyeur. Before going on, I need to admit that the idea of this blog came from a truly voyeuristic experience we had last week. While lolling away our lives on a small beach in the state of Oaxaca, a group of young people (mid-20s?) arrived. One of them was a woman who enjoyed being topless. Well, I should correct that by saying she enjoyed being topless in front of the rest of us. (Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't object, nor did the other men there). Her exhibitionism -- in the surf, doing exercises on the beach, getting a tan -- was transparently directed at the rest of us -- the audience. Yet, if it were not for a few things she said, that we happened to overhear, we actually would have known little about her; the human anatomy is, after all, a lot more universal, and in most ways, less individually revealing than we often admit. So, in fact, this young woman actually exposed far less of herself by being nude than by identifying herself as a self-centered exhibitionist. In an odd sort of way, the presentation of self on "Facebook" is just as revealing, and revealing to more eyes.

   Despite the fact that I have very narrowly restricted my "friends" list, it is obvious when I read my friends' postings that I am observing a great deal -- maybe a great deal too much -- about their daily lives. But that, as you all know, is only the tip of the iceberg. Most importantly, your "friends" have other "friends," completely unknown to you, who comment on your friends' "statuses." ("Facebook," as you all know, likes words like "status" -- ingenuously twisting the word "status," with its implication of gravity and centeredness, into meaning something enormously fluid -- something moment to moment -- not something permanent and anchored). You see some intimate comments from those friends and, of course, when you make a comment about those, hundreds of pesons you do not know can read that comment as well. It is an incredible and interesting irony, I believe, that generations younger than mine are outspoken on behalf of their "right" to privacy yet they willingly expose much about themselves through "Facebook."

   2. "Facebook" culture has made us all a little more egotistic, at best. OK, I am basing this on the example of one person -- me. We seek out those who will be our "friends," taking comfort and cheer when people agree to be our "friend." Some, well, very many according to what I have heard, collect as many "friends" as possible in some kind of egoistic frenzy. It is all very reminiscent of Valentine's Day in 5th grade. We then post something, and are disappointed if no one comments. We comment on others posts, and are disappointed if no one comments on the comment. We publish a profile with clever or ironic photos of ourselves. We put pictures on "Facebook," often to draw attention to our lives and how we are living them. And, I fear, some people may be actually transferring their egos entirely to "Facebook" as the medium to display their lives. In this regard, it is informative to look at Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a work published sixty years ago. His brilliant discussion of how we dramatize and represent ourselves in front of different audiences could well be applied to our presentation of ourselves on the internet. I hope some scholar will take up applying his theories to things like "Facebook."

   3. Our use of "Facebook" may diminish our capacity to communicate well and to be part of a real community. It does not necessarily lead to this, of course, but the one-sentence-culture of "Facebook" seems more like passing notes to one another in 7th grade (only doing it now in a manner so that ALL of the classes in the school can see it; intimacy shared -- that is, exhibitionism). The recent rise of "twittering" seems a further extension of this mode of "discussion" and "comment." "Twittering" is simply gossiping. And, from what I have read, "twittering" occurs at something like the junior high school level of discourse, moral conduct, and linguistic elegance as well. The difference with "twittering" is that it seems to be a status thing; just which important people will listen to you "twitter" (i.e., which important kids in school will listen and talk to you); who can you get to respond to your "twitter," and so on.

   Altogether, there is little sustained expression or argumentation in using "Facebook" to "communicate." One reason I started to blog (is that a verb?) was as an antidote to having no other way anymore to communicate thoughts and reflections to other people (although, admittedly, I have no idea whether there is anyone reading these or not, despite my having installed a "status counter"; perhaps this makes blogging just a form of intellectual masturbation. It probably is; for now, I will not go there).

   Having been so critical and condemnatory, I must say again that I, as readily as most, like to go to "Facebook" to see how my real friends and family are getting along. But I remain wary -- very wary -- and suspect that I, along with my family and friends, may be stepping over too many lines (as I argue above) in using "Facebook." In the end, I suspect we all communicate with those who matter to us through more intimate and private means -- the telephone, e-mail perhaps, letters, cards, "Skype," and, above all, through face-to-face engagement.

   Hey, if you liked this blog, push the "like" button, or leave a comment on the link below, or send my blog link on to a "friend," or send me a picture, or . . . .  ; - )

Bicycling to Bliss

     Spring is near upon us, and that turns every young-old man's fancy to bicycling (well, not exclusively). We used to call it "biking" in the old days but motorcyclists stole that from us, and you don't take back what "bikers" have stolen -- at least not without doing yourself almost as much harm as getting clipped by an eighteen-wheeler at 60 miles an hour.

     Popular discourse on "cycling" (hey, we still own that word, don't we?) usually centers on one of two things:  1) those who have recently returned to cycling and are now annoying prophets of the past-time, prepared to proselytize as readily as Jehovah's Witnesses (you know, maybe the latter would be more successful if they rode bicycles); and, 2) those who have recently returned to cycling, and discovered that bicycles are legitimate road vehicles, and now want all legal (to say nothing of moral) authorities to take their side in a religious crusade against the automobile. My wife and I once lived in Maastricht, Netherlands, and within a week, we were ready to start a movement on behalf of pedestrians against those swift and silent bicycles that zoomed across our cross-walks. This latter group of complainers on behalf of cyclist rights is not content (nor am I) with bicycle paths or routes (motorists seem to view signs marking bicycle routes with amusement, as if they read:  "you should take this route, there are fewer cars to get in your way." Bad drivers; drivers on cell phones, whose 

peripheral vision narrows to blot out any view of cyclists; drivers with malicious intent; drivers who don't stop when you have the right of way; drivers who do stop and dumbly treat you like you are a pedestrian, even when you are occupying a driving lane -- these are the bane of all cyclists existence. Feel suicidal? Have a death wish? Don't have a thrill park nearby? Take up cycling.

     The  bicycle itself is the Rodney Dangerfield of vehicular traffic.  How can anyone take

seriously a slight machine that is all skeleton with only a few tendons and ligaments attached. Many apparently see bicycles as a fossile remnant of an antique age. Weren't they just a brief, awkward, unsuccessful evolutionary step between the horse and the automobile? Speaking of evolution (or rather its critics), think of William Paley's argument about coming upon a watch, and examining it. One could only conclude, he declared, using the watch as an allegory for the workings of nature, that a purposeful designer was behind its construction. Now, if you are fond of Paley's argument (I am not, nor have been most philosophers), substitute bicycle for watch. What have you got then? A creator with a sense of humor? A creator that doesn't quite have it all together? A creator that isn't infallible?

     The outward appearance of the bicycle itself is only half of the equation. If you watch the "Tour de France," as I do (despite my suspicion that the top ten riders on any given day are using the newest version of designer drugs), you might find some beauty or elegance to the whole thing. After all, these riders are fit athletes with about 0.0% body fat. One would think

this would allow them to wear skin-tight outfits and maintain the sex appeal of Circe de Soleil performers. But it does not. Something about hunching over handlebars on a pretend seat drains away any latent sexiness. Well, sitting on a bicycle does have a profound negative effect on male prowess (but, hey, so do those steroids). I know of few women or gays who find the Tour de France particularly titilating, no matter how fit the body or meager the outfit. In other words, even professional cyclists look a little bit alien on these machines. When creatures from outer space do appear, I have no doubt they will look a lot like Lance Armstrong on a bicycle (you heard it here first!). What is even worse, most of us ordinary cyclists don't have the bodies to look good even standing on a street corner, let alone after swinging our posteriors up on a saddle that seems to promise some clever torture to follow (which it often does). In short, (and by now you are saying, please cut this short), bicyclists are comic figures riding high ona machine that appears too scant and frail to support the adult human body.

     But what a ride! Bicycles are made for the rider, not the observer -- open air, speed, the wind and elements right in your face, gliding along with minimal effort (except up hill; this contrast to gliding largely proves the existence of the devil and evil). Looking out from atop a bicycle (if you can forget how others see you who are not on a bicycle) is a grand way to encounter the world (well, except for encounters with cars, of course, which may explain the popularity of trail biking). Those of you of a certain age will remember Schwinn and other bicycles that figuratively weighed nearly as much as your father's Buick, and which literally did weigh as much as a modern Honda Civic. But the modern bicycle has almost no relationship to the old Schwinn. In fact, the bicycle has evolved more technologically that it has in appearance. In some ways, those who produce modern bicycles (Specialized, Giant, Kona, and several even more elegant brands) are more advanced in engineering than car manufacturers (although, given the state of the auto industry, this may not be claiming too much for them). They are light. An ordinary $500 bicycle today may weigh less than an expensive hand crafted bicycle twenty years ago. They have improved brakes and cranks and pedals and shifters, etc., thanks to Shimano and other companies that can now make quality parts at ordinary prices. And, they roll out on silky smooth bearings and improved wheels and tires. Altogether, riding a good bicycle (not even the top of the line bicycle) is like taking a quality sports car for a drive.

     Wait for a nice spring day, and take one for a test ride.