Travel Seminar/a

Leo Expands His Vocabulary

2009-08-12T12:10:00.003-05:00

I swear too much, and now my 23 month old son, Leo does too. I should be ashamed, but when I hear the words and see his angelic face, it’s awfully hard not to feel some pride. I’ve tried hard to curb my language in the presence of my son- but some people drive me over the edge. The other day I was on the phone with our health insurance company, Aetna, trying to renew a prescription. Believe me when I tell you that I would rather be a prisoner at Abu Ghraib circa 2004 than deal with Aetna regarding even the most trifling issue, and this instance was no different. The Aetna rep was trying to convince me- with all of the zeal of a Hitler Youth Group member- that my prescription- which is normally a $150 co-pay, should be $525. And 96 cents. At some point during our conversation, she elected to try to pawn me off on someone else. A common tactic for these types of scoundrels.

I listened to Bach for 35 minutes, preparing to battle with one of her colleagues, and then finally silence. Then the loud cacophony of that indescribable noise you hear when you’ve been disconnected. “F**K YOU!” I shouted into the receiver. Leo wasn’t in the room, but I was loud enough for him to hear me, and for the next hour or so, he sauntered around the house saying the same thing, but in a much cuter and provocative way. He’d say the first word like someone from South Boston, faahk, and would drag out the YOOOOOOOUUUUU, and then smile broadly, knowing that he was saying something naughty. Its funny, but when you strip away all of the customary anger from the phrase, and say it with a big smile, the words lose their normal connotation. My wife, Jen, however, was not nearly as amused by this as I was. We had to quarantine the boy in the house until he stopped saying it for fear that we’d lose custody of him when some over-officious soccer mom from our all too busybody neighborhood was told to f’ off by my charming 23 month old son.

On another recent occasion the word for the day was “bullshit.” Everything was “BOOOL-SHEEET!” It was so damn funny, I had to record the moment for posterity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXOFQsEwAbI Even while the camera rolled my wife was telling him it wasn’t a good word to say. His response? “BULLSHIT!” I guess the pride that I feel in him is bizarre- and my poor parenting here is something that could come back to haunt us when he tries to send us his therapy bills as an adult. But for now, I’m OK with letting my son imitate some of my less than truly outstanding character traits. Though I have to admit the one trait of mine he apes which is not amusing is his picky eating. The boy's diet is about as diverse as a Klu Klux Klan meeting in North Dakota. Perhaps though, Leo will inspire me to eat better and clean up my act. But don’t f*!ing count on it.

Patrick bin Laden?

2009-08-12T11:30:00.002-05:00

Sometimes cab drivers deserve a good beating. I don’t know if Jan Radecki- the Buffalo cab driver who was driving without a license after multiple DWI convictions when he was allegedly beaten by Blackhawks star Patrick Kane and his cousin, James- falls in the category of drivers who need beatings, but I do know that the local media here in Chicago has covered this story more aggressively than any major international news event in recent memory. We’re at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet, you’d hardly know it from looking at the Chicago Tribune which ran the story front page above the fold on both the front and sports sections yesterday, with a huge blow up of Kane’s slightly sinister looking mug shot. You would think that young Kane had murdered someone, or at the very least had caused grave bodily injury. I've had my nose broken before (during gym class in 8th grade football) and I've gotten into a tussle with a cab driver, so I'm something of an authority on this topic.

There is no excuse for taking shots at anyone, other than self-defense, and the Kane boys obviously behaved boorishly no matter what the situation was. The truth, however, is that only three people know exactly what happened- the Kane boys and Jan Radecki- and it’s entirely possible that all three of them were intoxicated when the incident occurred. It seems clear that some kind of altercation occurred- but was it a savage beating or was it a scuffle? All we know for sure is that Radecki suffered a broken nose, but did not require hospitalization and seemed to be O.K. when he appeared on television. He obviously had a strong incentive to exaggerate the extent of the “beating” when he learned that Kane was a multimillionaire. His lawyer has now stated that the whole matter has been blown out of proportion, so maybe Radecki has already received or agreed upon the payoff that he wanted all along.

We don’t know Patrick Kane’s side of the story, but we do know that at least he had the good sense not to drive drunk- good sense that has apparently eluded Jan Radecki on multiple occasions. Let me return to my opening thesis that sometimes cab drivers deserve a beating. Once, while in traveling in China’s western Xinjiang region, I nearly got into a wrestling match with a cab driver myself, over what I later realized was over little more than $1. I had negotiated a flat price of 40 Yuan for a ride back to my hotel but when we arrived he tried to charge me 50, and when I balked, he peeled out and sped away from the hotel with me still in the back seat, cursing at me in Mandarin. He owed me 10 Yuan, and, on principal, I wanted it back, especially since giving substantial tips for cab rides is not customary in China.

I didn’t know what to do so I flung open one of the doors while he was driving and that spooked him, so he pulled back in front of the hotel and started yelling at me to get out of the cab from behind a protective cage that separated the front seats from the back ones. By then, I was furious and wanted my change, so I screamed back at him to give me the money and started violently rattling the cage-like barrier that separated us. The driver then began trying to poke me with a sharp pointer through the cage’s openings, and eventually I grabbed it and engaged in a tug of war with him for it. Soon enough someone from the hotel came out and took my side in the argument and got my money back for me.

But I must admit- if that barrier had not been there, I might have choked this guy in the heat of the dispute. True, I didn’t actually punch him, and I’m not a millionaire hockey player, but nonetheless, I can appreciate the fact that sometimes cab drivers are crooks, drunks, or even worse.

Let's face it- Jan Radecki is the luckiest cab driver in Buffalo. He had been operating illegally- no doubt struggling to make ends meet, and now he'll probably be able to retire with his payout. I'd take a broken nose for that. All of this doesn’t mean that Pat Kane is an angel or that he needs our sympathy. He had a few too many drinks and made some bad decisions- something pretty common for 20 year olds. He has already no doubt cost himself a fortune in lost endorsements, and he and his family have already suffered from the shame of this incident, but, from all accounts, Patrick is a good kid and deserves a chance at redemption. Maybe Jan Radecki does too, but you won’t find me getting in his cab anytime soon.

Get Left in Samoa

2009-08-12T11:07:00.004-05:00

Travel warning: probably best to avoid Samoa around September 7th,and possibly for sometime thereafter. The government of Samoa plans to switch the country’s road rules on that day at 6AM from drive on the right, to drive on the left. And you thought the U.S. government was f’ed up, right? Apparently, the Samoans are hoping to cater to Aussie and Kiwi tourists, who are used to driving on the left, and also hope to buy or get for free some of their second hand cars as well. Fair enough, but the problem is that some villages are saying they do not plan to honor the switch. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25918978-12335,00.html

You can imagine the chaos that is likely to ensue. I also wonder what people who are already on the road, around say 5.45 AM on September 7th are supposed to do- start out in the right, and then watch the clock in order to move left at 6? Or perhaps no one is up by 6AM in Samoa? The Samoan government has declared a four day weekend to allow citizens to get used to the new rules- or perhaps to ensure that everyone will be out getting plastered the night before and will be sleeping in late on September 7th. I would honestly like to see Chicago suddenly declare that we too plan to start driving on the left on September 7th- only because a small part of me is an anarchist that would love to view- from afar, perhaps with binoculars or a telescope- the ensuing chaos. We'd market it as an attempt to attrack British tourists, but maybe we'd just encourage them to drive on the left, while the rest of us stay on the right. Just for shits and giggles mate.

Don't Have a Cow

2009-07-27T13:39:00.002-05:00

This weekend I visited two places where living things are born- the Fair Oaks Farms in Fair, Oaks, Indiana and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago- and wanted to share a few observations about birthing experiences. We stumbled across the Fair Oaks Farm (FOF) on our way home from a tennis tournament in Indianapolis. I noticed a brochure for the place while filing up my gas tank in the adjacent gas station, and thought that my son, Leo, who is nearly2, might enjoy the diversion to break the monotony of the long drive from Indy to Chicago. The FOF is actually a big business; tickets for adults are $10 and entitle one to take a bus tour of the facility and to access to the “birthing center.” I was curious, but not curious enough to pay $20 for us to enter, so we kind of just slid in past a traffic signal which was green and said “head”, and in through the exit.

A surreal, only-in-the-Hoosier state moment awaited us: a hushed, darkened auditorium full of (mostly obese) people snacking as though in a cinema with their eyes transfixed on two colossal cows in labor behind a glass enclosure. One of the cows was actually in the process of pushing the calf out, while the other appeared to still be timing her contractions and waiting for her epidural. My wife, Jen, who is 8 months pregnant, remarked that she “was glad she didn’t have to go through labor in front of a crowd of curious onlookers.” Of course, the entire scene was ghastly, and I did not stick around to cut the umbilical cord, but I was fascinated from a sociological perspective about why people would pay good money to witness this kind of spectacle. I was also curious to know why several of the middle aged men in attendance were wearing white Fruit of the Loom-like undershirts, shorts, and dark, knee-high dress socks with black dress shoes, but I never received any insights into either trend.

With this undignified birthing experience still fresh in our minds, we scheduled a tour of the maternity ward at Rush U.H. in Chicago, where our insurance company suggests we bring our second son into this world later this summer. Two summers ago, I took a tour of a different hospital, that a different insurance company “recommended” for us to bring our first son into the world, and was dismayed to be stuck on a tour with a collection of, pardon the vulgarity, dumb asses who dragged the session out with questions like, “should I bring my own slippers?” So on this tour, I was relieved to see that there was only one other couple- who coincidentally shared our due date- ready to “tour” with us. The woman looked to be in her late 30’s, and was dressed for a Phish concert. Her husband/boyfriend/fiancé/sperm donor bore a serious expression and had a haircut like Brüno, circa the Da Ali G Show days. I should have been concerned by the fact that he was carrying pen and paper but I simply failed to see the signs. I knew we were in for an interesting tour though when the woman told Jen that she was “planning a homebirth, but was at the hospital just to check it out.”
Our tour leader was a very kind, matronly young woman- exactly the kind of person you’d want to help you through labor- who took pains to tell us about any potential downsides to giving birth at Rush. Each of these potential downsides- which seemed trifling to us- was a source of major angst for the homebirth couple. Homebirth mama (HM) was outraged when the guide mentioned that it was standard for the baby to be taken perhaps an hour or so after birth, to the nursery for an hour to have a bath and undergo some basic tests, including a hearing test and others. The guide tried to reassure her that she’d have time to bond with the baby first, and that the father could accompany the child to the nursery, but hm wasn’t mollified. It doesn’t make sense, why can’t the mother go? Well, because you’ll still be bleeding, etc, etc, the guide explained quite rationally, but again, this did not seem to sit well, as hm seemed to be convinced that the hospital was involved in some diabolical plot to sell the infant’s organs or put them in a BabyGap ad or something. Once she laid to rest the issue of her accompanying the newborn to the nursery, she wanted to know what tests she was entitled to refuse, once again, the premise being that the doctor’s are testing the child’s hearing and other functions simply to subject them to cruel and unusual punishment.

Husband/boyfriend/fiancé/sperm donor was similarly militant and no-nonsense. He would fire off questions- like, can we get a walking epidural? And then, seemingly, write down every word of the response as though he were a court reporter at a trial. I had the distinct impression that the homebirth couple were preparing a lawsuit, even all the while vowing not to give birth in the place. Hm clucked disapprovingly when she saw that the labor rooms didn’t have “birthing tubs”, but was reassured to know that her doula, and indeed whomever else she wanted in the room with her was welcome. Bring your shrink, I thought. “Are the nurses and doctors open to alternative positions and stuff?” she wanted to know. “Oh yeah, definitely,” the guide replied, “we had a woman recently who gave birth on all fours.” “That’s awesome,” hm commented approvingly, with the clear conviction that non-traditional= good, and traditional = bad.

Now I know that having a healthy degree of skepticism for the medical profession and for the baby-factory approach that many hospitals take these days is warranted, and I’m all for trying to do things the natural/organic way. But when it comes to my wife’s health and the health and well being of my unborn son, I’m not really down with going retro and kicking it old school with towels and bandages in our bedroom. Every birth is different, but my first son, Leo was all about hanging on in the womb until the last possible moment- and he eventually had to be “vaccumed” out of the womb after an exhausting 3 hours of pushing. It was a stressful birth for both mother and child and could not have been predicted based upon a very uneventful pregnancy. There is no way I would have wanted to, as they say in show business, “try this at home.” Nor would I have wanted to try to move to a hospital once the going got tough half-way through. But this is America, and everyone has the right to do as they please. If I had to do it all over again though, I’d certainly prefer to be born in a hospital- not a home, and certainly not in a bail of hay, in front of an auditorium full of hoosiers.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Rumored to be interested in Bristol Palin

2009-05-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure: I am the originator of the aforementioned rumor. But really, is the idea of Silvio Berlusconi and Bristol Palin as a couple really so far fetched? If you think about it, the pairing actually makes a lot of sense. Surely by now you’ve heard that Berlusconi’s wife is divorcing him because she believes he’s been having an affair with an 18-year-old lingerie model, Noemi Letizia from Naples? (His version is that he attended her 18th birthday party and gave her an expensive necklace simply because he happened to be in Naples, and knew her father) No Italian news story- not earthquakes, volcanoes, Italy’s seemingly semi-annual elections, or even the installation of a new pontiff at the Vatican receives as much news coverage as Berlusconi’s alleged affair. And rightfully so- Silvio’s affair with the buxom teenager is a very, very important event. O.K. so maybe its not so important, but it is a great story, isn’t it? Why the hell doesn’t anything this interesting happen in the U.S.? Oh yeah, Lewinsky. Still, Hillary didn’t leave Bill though, so that story is still way behind this one.

According to the Italian newspaper La Republica, Berlusconi first met Letizia at a New Years Eve bash Berlusconi hosted last year. Supposedly Silvio saw her photo in a magazine, found her telephone number and dialed her directly to invite her to the party. Super Silvio supposedly invited 30 other young, attractive single women to this party as well. Good old Silvio. So what about Silvio and Bristol? Bristol is on the cover of this week People magazine wearing her graduation cap and gown and posing with her 5 month old baby, Tripp. (Tripp’s aunts and uncles names are Trigg, Track, Willow and Pipper for those of you scoring along at home) Most of the pronouncements she makes in the interview are only slightly less inane than the kinds of crap Berlusconi comes up with, so they would probably be intellectually compatible. We know Silvio likes 18 year olds. We also know that Silvio is now single, and so is Bristol. (her former fiancé Levi and her split up, in case you don’t follow such things as closely as I do) Berlusconi has a media empire. Bristol likes to pose for photo shoots and give interviews. Then of course there are the right wing political ties. Don’t tell me that they couldn’t form some kind of right wing axis of weasles.

Leo Keeps On Truckin

2009-05-28T21:29:00.001-05:00

We used to hear the words “mama, mama” droning through the tiny speakers of our bedroom baby monitors like clockwork sometime between 6 and 6.30 each morning. Leo is 20 months old now, and more frequently we’ll hear the words, “truck, truck!” The boy has a single-minded obsession with trucks. You know how they say that men think about sex something like once every 12 seconds? Well Leo thinks about trucks just as often. From the moment he wakes up, until bed time when he makes his last desperate pleas to just watch one more truck video, or look at one more book about trucks, the boy lives for trucks.

We got him one particular truck video from the library called “20 Trucks” which he’d be quite content to watch all day if we’d only let him. Leo already knows how to put a DVD in the player, so if we won’t put it in for him after he whines “truuuucccckkk, truuuuuuuuuuuuaaaahcccck”, “get …truck… on” 50 times, he tries to take matters into his own hands. One of the twenty trucks- #18 to be precise-is the most exalted and glorious of all trucks, the monster truck. Leo is mesmerized by scenes of monster truck carnage- he particularly likes a scene where a monster truck named Bigfoot smashes a bunch of parked cars. He likes to say “mons, mons” meaning, go back to the scene with the monster trucks. The DVD has a theme song which haunts me in my sleep……

Can you name 20 trucks? Well I bet you can. Come on and try it now- lets all clap our hands! A tractor-trailer hauls a heavy load, a great big snowplow cleans snow off the road, I see a dump truck, its bed goes up and down! There goes a bus-taking people through the town; The Cee-ment mixers drum spins round, and round and round!

Man, I am such a loser for knowing the words to this song. Welcome to parenthood. No idea why the singer pronounces cement as See-ment, but you realize we are not dealing with a Lenin/McCartney wordsmith here.
Since the boy loves his trucks so much, I’ve resolved to take the boy to a live monster truck race soon. Luckily, we live right near Indiana, so we’re in a monster truck hotbed here in the Midwest.

He’s the proud owner of a huge variety of trucks himself- dump trucks, garbage trucks, pickup trucks, tractors, fire trucks, jeeps, tankers, and forklifts. You name the truck, and Leo’s got one. At least. He’s so proud of his fleet that he loves to walk up to strangers and hand them one of his trucks for their approval.

Recently, he sat in another kids toy car at the playground and wouldn’t get out of it, so we went to one of the most dismal places in the world- Toys R Us- to get him the same one. Toy stores should be fun places- we have a small independent store in nearby Oak Park that is great, they actually have lots of toys out for kids to play with. The only problem with them is that they only have high quality toys that appeal more to adults than to children. Toys R Us, on the other hand, pretty much just has row after row of boxes of crap. All made in China, and yet completely irresistible to a 20 month old. For some reason the Toys R Us near our house is always filled with people who look like they might be carrying some kind of developing-world communicable disease (I swear that the swine flu actually started at this store, but no one believes me), and the people who work there are surly and ignorant. Welcome to Toys R Us; now leave us the fuck alone. We brought Leo to the area of the store with the large sit-in toy cars, and, predictably, he was most taken with the largest and most ostentatious and expensive one- a $399 Hummer! We got him the equivalent of a Yugo for $40 and slunk out, reassuring him that it would get much better gas mileage. What a country we live in.

Leo’s a lot like his dad in many ways- he’s impatient, has a short attention span, is prone to rude or simply irrationally angry outbursts, blunt honesty, impetuous behavior, and likes to demand things he doesn’t need- but, unlike his dad, he still believes in the inherent good nature of humanity. He’s more than happy to amble up to even the most dangerous looking vagrant and say, “hi!” Most adults are quite nice to him, but not all kids are.

We accompany Leo to the playground every day and enjoy observing him with the other kids, most of whom are older than him. Sometimes it breaks our hearts though to see him approach other kids and enthusiastically say, “hi!” only to be ignored, or worse, told to get lost or pushed away. It probably doesn’t help that we live in a high-income neighborhood- don’t ask me what we’re doing here- with a high spoiled brat quotient. Leo is treated like such a prince at home, and by nearly every adult he sees, so he perceives the world to be his oyster and is surprised when he’s rebuffed by other kids. Nonetheless, he takes it in stride, even if he has to pick himself up off the ground after being bowled over by an older or bigger kid. We’re the ones that get our feelings hurt, not him.

Leo’s second obsession after trucks is his mom’s pregnant belly, which has now swelled to a 6-month bulge. “Tummy, tummy,” he’ll say, even if we are in a public place, meaning that he wants my wife, Jen, to lift her shirt and let him cuddle up against her stomach. He used to be obsessed with two body parts right above the tummy, and occasionally he still is, so the tummy kick is a welcome break for his mom.

Everyone knows that I have a penchant for using foul language at times, and Jen has been particularly concerned that Leo would pick up on some bad words. She herself rarely swears, so I took particular pleasure in the fact that she slipped up first, before me, a few weeks back. She said, “shit”, and he repeated it. He doesn’t use the word often, but he does use it judiciously and on appropriate occasions. For example, one afternoon he was watching his beloved truck DVD on a laptop while tapping away at the keyboard randomly. Eventually he pressed a key that stopped his video and we heard him say, “oh shit.” His non-swear word vocabulary has also been growing by leaps and bounds. He likes to say “ no money” and “no candy” even though he really likes both money and candy.

I can’t say that Leo is much of a gourmand, but he does like some unusual dishes for a boy his age: hummus, guacamole, trade joe’s chicken curry sticks, and pasta with pesto sauce are a few of his favorites. One of his favorite tricks is to say, “all done!” as soon as we put him in his chair before he’s even eaten anything. If this doesn’t work he’ll try to demand a Starburst fruit chew, a cookie or an ice cream cone. We used to be able to take Leo out to eat, but these days it’s a bit of a lost cause, because we end up spending most of the meal policing him as he runs rampant around the restaurant. As soon as he’s had enough of whatever he’s eating, he immediately wants out of his hi-chair and will start demanding, “go, go!”

Leo is also an extraordinarily delightful young chap who will gladly come by for a hug, and will occasionally even call us “cute.” We have a nice little mutual admiration society, just the three of us, and Leo gets along with everyone, especially people who can name at least 20 trucks. Can you name 20 trucks? Well I bet you can.

Do you Speak Fluent Hungarian, Macedonian, Dutch, Slovene, Bosnian and Spanish?

2009-03-24T13:03:00.002-05:00

Looking for a job is frustrating, but also, at times, hillarious. Take for example, this advertisement (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wl/jobs/JS_JobSearchDetail?jobid=27889751&jobSummaryIndex=0&agentID=&xfeed=1&tid=244&wpmk=MK0000004&GCID=C17812x033-Other&keyword=no_keyword) for an analyst position at Georgetown University's Imaging Science and Information Center. Did you notice this kicker of a sentence: "Excellent writing skills in Hungarian, Dutch, Macedonian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Spanish, and excellent communication skills, and self-motivation are required." OK, I think I have the communication skills and self-motivation part covered- and i feel fairly confident that anyone that speaks all of those languages is fairly self-motivated and has communication skills- but is there any human being on earth that can speak all of these disparate languages? There are definitely Macedonians who can also speak Bosnian and Slovene, and vice versa- but can those people also speak Dutch, Hungarian and Spanish? And are they looking for a low paying job at Georgetown University?

Warm Tropical Breezes Inside a Mexican Taxi Cab

2009-03-08T20:35:00.003-05:00

This is a story about air-conditioning, or, more broadly, an episode from one day of our recent trip to Mexico that highlights some of the cultural differences that exist between our two nations. It all started with a Martin Lawrence movie. A really bad one (are there any other kind?). My wife, Jen, my 17-month-old son, Leo, and I were on a Primera Plus “first class” bus that had originated in Guanajuato and was heading to San Miguel de Allende. “First Class” in this context meant semi-functional air conditioning, no livestock visible in the cabin, brightly upholstered seats largely free of vomit stains, a free boxed lunch complete with a Frankenstein like mystery meat sandwich on months old knock-off wonder bread, and “entertainment.” By “entertainment” I mean six TV screens placed strategically around the bus so that anyone attempting to read, sleep, think, converse, or simply hide from the onslaught of programming would surely give up in frustration.

The ear-splitting volume of the film on offer was the first thing I noticed when we boarded the bus. The movie- it may have been “Rebound” but I can’t be sure- was already in progress, and yet, despite all the noise, most of the handful of passengers seemed to be either sleeping or trying to sleep. Most American movies are dubbed into Spanish for the Mexican market, and this one was no different. Jen and I were hoping that Leo would be able to nap on the 75 minute ride to San Miguel- we were planning just a day trip and hoped a nap would be just the thing to get him through the experience. I saw our bus driver chatting away with another driver amicably outside- despite the fact that it was already ten minutes past our scheduled departure time- and asked him in broken Spanish if we could lower the volume of the film. He did not say “si” or “no”, he simply looked at me dismissively.

I can’t be sure that the driver actually increased the volume of the film, once he finally deigned to board and commence our trip, but it sure seemed that way as I slumped down in my seat and tried to hide from Martin Lawrence and company. Unable to read, sleep, or hear much of what my wife was saying, I succumbed and watched a bit of the film. My Spanish is quite basic, but I got the gist- Martin was the coach of some kind of youth sports team that, despite low expectations, had overcome obstacles and led his team to an improbable victory over a better opponent. When the closing credits came on, I nearly cried tears of joy- not because I was so happy for Martin’s team, but because I thought that there wouldn’t be enough time left in the journey for the driver to inflict another film on us.

We enjoyed perhaps 60 seconds of blissful silence- by this time my son had fallen asleep but I was too agitated to do anything more than squirm in my seat- before our reverie came to a crashing halt as the sadistic driver treated us to Mexican cartoons at a volume that even the hard of hearing would object to. I appealed to a Mexican businessman who was sitting across from us. “Yes, its too loud,” he conceded, “but the driver is in control- there is nothing we can do!” I had been hoping he’d take the issue up with the driver, but his fatalistic approach to the problem reminded me of the difference between the American approach to nuisances and the approach you encounter in many other countries around the world, Mexico included. Americans think that they can at least endeavor to resolve any problem- be it a minor discomfort or a major irritant, but in many other parts of the world, the attitude is something akin to- let’s just grin and bear it, life is tough and we have no expectation of comfort.

I’ve always disliked bus travel, as I find it confining and rarely comfortable- but being forced to listen to loud Spanish language cartoons elevated my distaste for bus travel to new heights. I resolved to find a different way- any way- to return to Guanajuato later that afternoon.

Our knight in shining armor arrived in the form of a gleaming new VW taxi that took us from the bus station into the center of San Miguel de Allende. By this point in our Mexican adventure, we had traveled in at least a dozen Mexican taxi’s in Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and Guanajuato, and had only been in a cab with A/C on one occasion. Nearly all the cabs we’d been in were the Mexican equivalent of a mid to late 80’s Nissan Sentra, but this was something akin to a brand new VW Jetta. The English-speaking driver (another first), one Senor Gonzalez had his own business card and boasted that he could take us back to Guanajuato- in complete silence- for only about $10 more than the bus tickets would cost us.

San Miguel de Allende has been accused of being essentially an Epcot-center-like pavilion of Mexican culture, long on color and charm but short on authenticity. The very fact that we’d been picked up by an English speaking, air-con using driver in a new car seemed a testament to this notion, but we weren’t complaining. There are so many elderly American snowbirds in San Miguel, that it does rather have the vibe of an American retirement community, albeit one with substantially more Mexican restaurants, souvenir stands and aggressive beggars. It is still a very pleasant place- with interesting churches, good food, and colonial-era architecture.

Leo had seen enough of San Miguel after a few hours, so we asked the waiter at Ten Ten Pie, a nice little taco place near the cathedral, to call Senor Gonzalez to come pick us up in his dream machine. Twenty minutes later a dilapidated old Nissan Sentra came sputtering up to the restaurant. Much to my dismay, he was looking for us. Senor Gonzalez was sick, he claimed. I pointed to the air vents in the car and asked if he had A/C. It was about 90 degrees and the oppressive sun had worn all three of us down. The driver assured us that he had A/C and turned it on full blast to demonstrate. Nothing but an avalanche of very hot air came out. Just wait, it takes time he said.

Five minutes into our trip, we were still broiling. It was clear that our new ride had no A/C. Suddenly the whole notion of paying more to take a taxi back to Guanajuato didn’t seem so ingenious any more. For all of Primera Plus’s faults- and there were many- they did at least have A/C. I tried to calculate what was preferable- a silent, yet sweltering ride in a battered old cab, or a cooler, noiser ride on a bus.
“Call Senor Gonzalez and ask him if you can use his car to drive us,” I asked.

The driver called someone, but claimed this was impossible. Irritated at this obvious bait and switch scam, and with beads of sweat poring down my back, I instructed our driver to take us to the San Miguel bus station. He very grudgingly complied, but when we pulled up, the place seemed deserted, so I instructed Jen and Leo to wait in the car while I jumped out, and determined that the next bus for Guanajuato left in nearly two hours on the dreaded Primera Plus line. So the option was continue on with an angry driver in his sweltering hot car in the middle of the afternoon in the scorching sun, or sit with a crabby, tired 17 month old child in an un-air-conditioned bus station for nearly two hours only to wait for a bus that would no doubt feature blaring, bad American movies dubbed into Spanish, and perhaps Mexican cartoons as well.

It was a no brainer- so I sheepishly told the drive to take us on to Guanajuato. He’d had it with us by that point, but wasn’t about to kick us out of his cab either. As soon as we got outside of town and our driver was able to put the peddle to the metal, I immediately began to question my decision to entrust this man with our lives. A confluence of factors seemed to be working against us- our driver was clearly insane to begin with, he was trying to make up time lost on the bus station detour, and he was obviously angry with us and worn down from my complaints about the lack of A/C and the bait and switch auto scheme.

As unpleasant as the trip to San Miguel had been on Primera Plus, I had not noticed how curvy the road was. I’ve had many bad cab driver in my life- Cairo certainly stands out as one place where I remember particularly risky drivers- but our driver on this afternoon was driving with a vengeance- accelerating into hair raising curves on lonely, high elevation roads with no guard rails. I looked in the back seat and saw that Leo was sleeping on his mother’s lap (no seat belts in the back seat), his hair fluttering in the hot breeze that whipped in through the open windows. I couldn’t help but think of what an irresponsible parent I was, and how miserable it would be to die in a musty old Nissan Sentra on one of Mexico’s forlorn byways. Instead of asking him to slow down- I made a show of clutching onto the hand rests when he’d fly around a dangerous curve at top speed, and occasionally would hold my hands up in front of my chest, as if to brace myself for a trip through the windshield.

Despite how fast the driver was going, and how he’d aggressively pass two or three trucks at a time- often on blind curves and uphill portions of the road- the ride seemed to be taking forever. My t-shirt was soaked with perspiration and no matter which way we turned, I always seemed to have the sun beating right on me. We passed through a dry, mocha colored, desolate landscape- if the car broke down, we’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no garages around for many miles. It looked like the kind of place where one could easily die of thirst.

Miraculously we reached what seemed to be the outskirts of Guanajuato alive, but just as I began to practically taste the comforts of our hotel room, the sounds of a police siren poisoned my brightening mood. The driver pulled to the side of the road and turned off the motor. I was literally baking in the hot sun, and braced myself for a lengthy delay. Even though I was obviously displeased by the turn of events, I felt somewhat vindicated by the police action- our man had been driving like a maniac and richly deserved to be ticketed.

My hombre stepped out of the cab and met two officers just a few feet behind the car. I could see them in the mirror and could make out some of the Spanish language conversation that ensued. The police claimed he was going 90 in a 40 zone, although I think their estimate of his speed was charitable. Our driver unleashed his entire afternoon of frustration on the cops- the word “gringos” was thrown about liberally, and each time he used it, I detected looks of empathy and knowing nods of concern from the officers. I picked up enough of the Spanish to understand the crux of his defense: he had no choice but to speed because the gringos were angry about his non-functioning air conditioning. The whole thing was our fault. After making his closing arguments, the driver jogged back to the cab, grabbed a fistful of pesos ( I couldn’t tell how much) from a secret hiding spot underneath the wheel. The cops were paid, and off we went, not two minutes after the initial stop.

The driver peeled out, squealing tires and all, and zoomed off, leaving the cops in a storm of dust. If he was angry before, now he was livid, and seemed determined to drive us over a cliff, or perhaps into a tree. Somehow we arrived in the city intact, and it was obvious that the driver had no idea how to find our hotel, so I gladly agreed to get out and walk the rest of the way-so relieved was I to be alive and out of his greenhouse like sweatshop of a car. I paid the man and he roared off without comment or thanks. He was so mad he could hardly look us in the eyes. Whatever profit he was to make from the trip, had surely been eroded by the bribe he had to pay to mollify the police. Somehow, despite the fact that our driver had been going at least twice as fast as the bus, it had actually taken us 10 minutes longer to ride in his cab than it had to take the bus. I can only guess that he took a more circuitous route to avoid tolls.

Looking back on the incident- and I began to do so as soon as we left his cab- I couldn’t help but feel compelled by the fact that our disparate cultures and upbringings caused us both to conclude that we were the aggrieved parties. We were angry because we’d negotiated a price to ride in comfort with A/C in a new car, and that wasn’t we got. In his mind, he surely thought- I ride around in this old car without A/C every day, why can’t they just deal with it for an hour or so? The sun also probably did not feel that hot to him- he was used to it, and was not sweating like I was. Because we were on vacation, we felt as though we were entitled to a relaxing, comfortable trip, but certainly his perspective was: what do these rich gringos have to complain about? They are enjoying a nice holiday while I’m stuck here driving in this shitty old cab to make a living. In some ways, we were both right, but what I can definitively conclude from the experience is that comfort is always relative, safety is a state of mind, and silence is golden. Especially when Martin Lawrence is involved.

Israel's Appetite for Destruction

2009-01-12T21:20:00.010-06:00

Israel’s violent assault on the Gaza Strip and the repugnant complicity of the United States in sanctioning Israel’s actions undermines America’s already diminished moral authority in the world, damages the West’s ability to confront international terrorism, and jeopardizes Israel’s long term security interests. The current offensive in Gaza is certainly not the first time Israel has committed atrocities against Palestinian civilians, and the United Stated has long been complicit in condoning and even supporting Israel’s reprehensible response to perceived threats from the Palestinians. Yet the scope and scale of Israel’s current rampage against Gaza a low point in the recent history of both Israel and the United States, particularly vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the wider Arab world.

Murder Incorporated

A comparison of the bloodshed on both sides of the current conflict shows a stunning disparity in the level of casualties and exposes how utterly disproportionate Israel’s response to Hamas’ patchwork rockets has been. Israel has killed nearly twenty times more Palestinians (more than 1,000 and counting with nearly 5,000 injured, including 346 children dead and another 1,709 children wounded according to the United Nations as of January 15, 2009) in just the first fortnight of its assault on the Gaza Strip compared to the last two years worth of Israeli casualties at the hands of Palestinian terror attacks (49 dead in 2007-8 ). Twice as many Palestinians were killed on the very first day of Israel’s rampage (250-300) compared to the number of Israelis killed over the last four years in terror attacks. (116) Thus far, four Israeli civilians have been killed in the conflict, with approximately 78 people wounded . Far more Israelis die each year from traffic accidents than from Hamas rockets. For example, in 2005, the number of Israeli victims of “terror attacks” was less than 10% of the number of traffic fatalities . In 2008 the number of Israeli victims of terror attacks was once again less than 10% of the number killed in traffic accidents, with more than 400 people were killed in road accidents , compared to 36 Israelis killed in terror attacks . Let me be clear- every death is one too many, but it’s important to put the level of violence in context in order to understand how utterly inappropriate Israel’s response is in this situation.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Israel speciously claims that its bloody offensive against the Gaza Strip is a response to rocket fire from Hamas, but even if this were true, which it is not, the response would be wildly disproportionate, as Hamas rocket fire has resulted in less than two dozen Israeli fatalities over the last eight years according to Israeli human rights groups. The truth is that Israel has been planning this attack for more than six months- even as Israel was negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Hamas - and long before the Israelis themselves violated a four month long ceasefire with Hamas on November 4 by assassinating 6 Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip . Note the significance of the date the Israelis chose to break the ceasefire- November 4 was the date of the U.S. Presidential election- certainly the best day of the year to commit acts you don’t want the international community to notice. Just as the timing of the November 4 attack was no accident, the timing of the current offensive- just before the Israeli election and prior to the inauguration of Barrack Obama- is obviously calculated and not a swift reaction to Hamas rocket fire.

Hamas predictably retaliated for the November 4 strike against its members, but its worth noting that Israel assassinated dozens of Palestinians even during the four month period from mid-June to early November when Hamas wasn’t firing any rockets into Israel at all, and it has also assassinated numerous Palestinians on the West Bank- where no rockets have ever been launched from- including, Arafat Al Khawaja, an unarmed 22 year-old that was demonstrating against the assault on Gaza on December 27 . Even the Israeli Foreign Ministry acknowledges that there were virtually no rockets fired into Israel during the ceasefire, prior to their November 4 assault. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Missile+fire+from+Gaza+on+Israeli+civilian+targets+Aug+2007.htm#statistics

The fact that Israel and not the Palestinians violated this most recent ceasefire is part of a pattern of Israel stoking the conflict after periods of dormancy. A study conducted by Tel Aviv University, along with M.I.T. and other academic institutions looked at the last eight years of hostilities and concluded that Israel had unilaterally interrupted 96% of the 25 lulls in violence that lasted a week or more, and 100% of the 14 lulls in violence that lasted for at least 9 days.

What a Fool Believes

Over the last fortnight the Israeli government has served up several dubious claims regarding the background and conduct of the present conflict that need to be dispelled in order to understand the context of what is transpiring in Gaza.

The Song Remains the Same

1) Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip by “disengaging” from the territory three years ago- While it’s true that Israel dismantled its settlements in the Gaza Strip, it routinely enters the territory to conduct assassinations, home demolitions, and other operations. Israel has never truly “disengaged” from the territory or given the Gazans any measure of freedom- it retains control over land and sea borders and airspace, controlling the flow of people and products in and out of the Strip. No one can come or go from the Gaza Strip unless Israel grants them a permit, and Israel often inexplicably denies non-combatants with no criminal history the right to leave Gaza. For example, in July, Israeli officials denied exit permits to three students from Gaza that had won prestigious U.S. government funded Fulbright Scholarships to study in the United States, even after repeated pleas from American diplomats to let them travel to the United States .

This is not an isolated incident, as an article in the International Herald Tribune notes, hundreds of students in Gaza that have won scholarships to study abroad are unable to leave- not because they cannot secure the visas to study in foreign countries- but because Israel prefers to keep them as prisoners in the Gaza Strip. The bottom line is that Gazans have no more control over their lives now than they did prior to Israel’s “disengagement,” and, in fact, Israel has killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since disengagement, prior to the current round of fighting which commenced on December 27, including more than 250 children .

The Hustle

2) Instead of turning Gaza into a Dubai on the Mediterranean, Hamas has used the territory to terrorize Israel- The truth is that ever since Hamas won free and fair legislative elections in January 2006, Israel- behind America’s diplomatic bullying- has imposed collective punishment on the Gazans for voting for Hamas by imposing a harsh blockade that has made it impossible for adequate supplies of food, medicine and electricity to reach the Gaza Strip. Long before the present conflict, human rights groups warned that the blockade was having catastrophic effects on the public health and economy of Gaza, and were urging the Israeli government to halt this form of collective punishment. The group Physicians for Human Rights estimates that at least 200 Palestinians have died because Israel refused to allow them out of the Gaza Strip to seek medical care since the imposition of the blockade of Gaza. Halting the flow of food and medicine to civilians as a tool of war is a war crime and a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention. The U.S., for its part, not content to merely play its part in making life miserable in the Gaza Strip, took matters one step further with an Iran-contra-like plan to fund and arm militias to overthrow Hamas .

Aside from the obvious fact that trying to overturn the result of a democratic election undermines the U.S. claim that it’s trying to create a “New Middle East” where democracies replace dictators, the move didn’t work, and the U.S. attempts to topple Hamas only served to strengthen their popularity in the Gaza Strip and around the Arab World. The notion espoused by Thomas Friedman , and other official and un-official Israeli spokespersons that Gaza could “turn into a Dubai” while Israel strangles its economy and the U.S. cows the rest of the world into boycotting it is plainly absurd .

Blame if on the Rain

3) Israel is taking the utmost care in avoiding civilian casualties- Two weeks into the conflict, Israel has already killed at least 79 women, and 346 children, while wounding 1,709 children and 724 women and has killed an untold number of male non-combatants. Israel has also attacked U.N schools serving as safe-havens- in one case killing 3 and in another case killing 42 , a vegetable market ambulances , hospitals , U.N aid convoys, and the U.N. headquarters in Gaza. Israel initially tried to claim that Hamas was using the U.N protected school as a launching pad for mortar attacks, but after strenuous U.N denials, they eventually retracted their claim. Israel’s claims that Hamas is to blame whenever they commit an atrocity against an obviously civilian target remind one of Serbia’s similarly specious claims during the Balkan wars- claims that no one in the international community believed. The U.N. announced on January 8, that they’d have to suspend aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip due to the risk posed by the Israeli army, after a tank shell struck and killed the driver of a U.N aid convoy.

Aside from killing hundreds of civilians in Gaza, Israel is also guilty of deliberately preventing the Red Cross from assisting injured civilians trapped in the ruble of their demolished homes- in one case denying the Red Cross access for four days while soldiers were just meters away from people trying to get out from the wreckage of their homes. Numerous press reports, including a piece in the Washington Post , described a scene of utter carnage. “Emergency workers said they rescued 100 more trapped survivors Thursday and found between 40 and 50 corpses in a devastated residential block south of Gaza City that the Israeli military had kept off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross for four days…rescue workers found 16 bodies Wednesday in a large room of a house in Zaytoun: seven women, six children and three men, all members of the al-Samuni family. Most had sustained trauma injuries from shelling, but many had gunshot wounds as well... Four children, weak but alive, were found lying under blankets, nestled next to their dead mothers, Abuzaid said. Red Cross officials had said earlier that 12 adult bodies had been found in the house.”

Israel also has a history of using weapons banned under international law for use against civilian populations. For example, Human Rights Watch exhaustively documented Israel’s use of cluster bombs in civilian areas in Lebanon in 2006 in a 131 page report entitled, “Flooding South Lebanon: Israel’s Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006. ” Human Rights watch is now pressing Israel to halt its use of white phosphorus- which can burn down houses and cause horrific burns on human skin. Hamas has, of course, also shown a blatant disregard for Israeli civilians, but fortunately, the arsenal of weapons at their disposal is extremely limited.

Beast of Burden

4) Israel is doing the U.S. a favor by taking on Hamas for us, in another front in the U.S.-led “War on Terror”- this claim has been made by not only the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but also by mainstream U.S. neo-cons like William Kristol in the New York Times- with Kristol going so far as to say that the U.S. should be “thanking Israel” rather than criticizing it. The truth is that Hamas is not part of Al Qaeda’s ideological war against the West-and has not specifically targeted U.S. interests the way Al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups have. The Israeli- Palestinian conflict is, at its heart, a dispute over a piece of land.

The only connection between the Israel- Palestinian conflict and the U.S. led war on terror is that our support for Israel and its violent colonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip fuels anti-Americanism in the Arab world, contributes to the deterioration of our already battered image in the Middle East, and serves as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda and other radical groups. For example, the BBC carried a story on January 12 featuring young Indonesian men that wanted to join the jihad against Israel and the United States in support of Gazans under siege. The story went on to quote an extremist group called the Islamic Defenders Front, which claims to have signed up 5,000 new recruit inspired by the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. In the wake of Barrack Obama’s historic election and the ensuing good feelings toward the United States following this remarkable event, Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and the complicit U.S. response is a windfall for Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. It is, essentially, a reminder to Muslims that while the face of leadership in America may be changing; America’s policies toward the Middle East may not. Rather than thanking Israel for its violent campaigns in the Occupied Territories, we should be condemning it, along with the rest of the world.

It Takes Two

Despite the lopsided disparity in casualty figures and the clear evidence of human rights violations by Israel in the Gaza Strip, most segments of the mainstream U.S. media continue to propagate the myth that both sides are equally to blame while urging a return to a failed peace process- which is really nothing more than a sad farce, whereby Israel goes through the motions while continuing to carve up more and more chunks of the West Bank. These tired pundits that implausibly cling to the two-state solution peace process mirage cannot seem to understand the key reason why Palestinians would support a movement which espouses armed resistance to Israel. Namely the fact that the settler population in the Occupied Territories has more than doubled since the start of the Oslo Peace Process and has continued to grow under successive Israeli governments. If the casualty figures in the present conflict were reversed and Hamas had killed hundreds of Israelis, with the Israelis killing only a handful of Palestinians, no American pundit that hoped to keep his job for long would be claiming that both sides were equally to blame.

Given the mainstream American media’s largely sympathetic pro-Israeli coverage, it’s easy to see how Americans could be confused as to who the victim and who the aggressor is in this conflict. Reports of Palestinian casualties often refer to the victims as “militants” – but its often unclear how the reporter has made this determination- and I suspect that they are often simply parroting whatever the Israeli military has claimed. The New York Times buried coverage of the deadly bombing at the school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for civilians on page 10. Is there any doubt that if a Hamas rocket killed 40 Israelis hiding in a school that the story would have been on the front page? For that matter, can anyone imagine the reaction of U.S. officials and the media if 1,000 Israelis had been killed thus far in this conflict and just a handful of Palestinians? Can anyone doubt that we’d be hearing calls for a U.S. military intervention to stop Hamas? Somehow we are a lot less concerned about 1,000 dead Palestinians whose lives aren’t worth as much as Israelis.

Sympathy for the Devil?

Yesterday I rode home from work on Chicago’s Metra commuter line and sat next to a middle aged woman that seemed visibly distraught by the stories she was reading on her laptop. After several loud, audible sighs, and one episode where she ostentatiously covered her eyes with her hands while tilting her head back to face the heavens, I looked down to see what website she was looking at. It was something called The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) website. My seat- mate was watching a video account of a rabbi’s report from what was billed as “War-Torn Israel.” I couldn’t hear the narrative because she had headphones on, but the images were not of the shattered homes, bodies in the streets and omnipresent rubble of Gaza, but instead scenes of rolling, verdant, bucolic hills in Israel. It looked more like the Sound of Music to me than a war zone. I then watched as she clicked into another page whose headline read, “I Survived a Hamas Rocket Attack!” After more audible sighs, I watched her click into a “Donate Now” page, which asks Americans to donate money- not to the tens of thousands of Gazans that are now homeless and in dire need of food and medicine, not to the Red Cross which is working around the clock to treat the thousands of seriously wounded Palestinians in the most primitively under funded hospitals and medical clinics imaginable, but to the Israeli victims of “Hamas terrorism.” While the IFCJ highlights its support to “victims of Hamas terrorism” it also, by its own admission, provides support to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) which is perpetrating atrocities in Gaza, in the name of “fighting terrorism.”

Even though media reports have indicated that only four Israeli civilians have been killed in this conflict thus far, the IFCJ website reports that “thousands of Israelis have been injured and traumatized.” The United Nations has estimated that some 220 Israeli civilians have been injured, so one can only guess that the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has thrown the word “traumatized” in there to cover what is an obviously misleading appeal. I’ve combed through this website and there is not a word of grief or regret or even a nugget of humanity expressed for the huge numbers of Palestinian dead and injured- and there are absolutely no appeals to help with the dire humanitarian crisis going on in the Gaza Strip.

More than a decade ago, during the devastating siege of Sarajevo, a Jewish friend and colleague of mine at the Chicago Tribune invited me to attend a United Jewish Appeal (UJA) event on the “humanitarian crisis in Bosnia.” My friend knew that I was interested in the situation in the Balkans, and the promotional flyer she forwarded me regarding the event looked interesting. The event turned out to be a 90 minute slideshow and presentation of how the UJA, along with other Jewish charities had helped members of Sarajevo’s tiny Jewish community move to Israel. At the end of the presentation, there was a pitch to donate money to help the remaining Jews in Bosnia. There was absolutely no mention of the genocidal campaign against Bosnian Muslims, or the plight of any other groups in Bosnia other than the Jews there. At the conclusion of the pitch, there was a lengthy question and answer session- and, given the fact that the promotional flyer had not mentioned that the presentation would be focused solely on Bosnia’s small Jewish community, I expected there to be some questions on the big picture situation in Bosnia. Yet, once again, all of the questions and discussion centered on the plight of Bosnia’s Jews.

I retell these stories to demonstrate the kind of dangerous, bunker mentality that can take hold amongst groups of embattled people that become capable of only seeing the suffering of their own kind. Those that focus solely on the suffering of people from their own race, religion or ethnic group aren’t bad people, and many groups are certainly guilty of this, but you have to feel depressed about the prospects for peace in the Holy Land when supporters of Israel can look at this conflict in Gaza and feel motivated to provide material support solely to the war machine that is responsible for committing more than 98% of the casualties. My point is not that fervent supporters of Israel are demonic, or even more hard-hearted than others, or that there are no Israeli victims of Hamas deserve sympathy or support. But when you look at the scale of the killing and the devastation in the already desperately poor Gaza Strip, and compare it with the minimal damage that Israel- a wealthy and advanced country- has suffered, and then conclude that it’s the Israelis who need your help, you are obviously completely immune to the suffering of the Palestinians.

There is no question that the legacy of the Holocaust looms large on the psyche of Israelis and their ardent supporters around the world. In their minds, Israel is the perennial victim no matter the facts of the situation. But at what point will the rest of the world, particularly the United States stop excusing Israel’s conduct and begin to treat it like any other nation that needs to abide by international law? Millions around the world are hoping that Barrack Obama will give Israel the tough love it desperately needs, but his campaign rhetoric is not encouraging on this score.

During a visit to Israel during the campaign, Obama was quoted as saying, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that… And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing,” Mr. Obama did not address how he or his daughters might feel about having their homes attacked by F-16’s, Apache helicopters and tanks. Also no mention of the fact that Israelis that are living in the towns being subjected to Hamas rockets have the freedom to travel to safe locations, whereas Gazans are trapped like prisoners in the Gaza Strip. The implication that somehow that the children of Israel are in more danger from Hamas rockets than the children of Gaza from the Israeli military- this despite the fact that more than 200 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military between 2006 and October 2008, while, during the same time frame, only five Israel children (still obviously 5 too many) were killed in Israel. Of course, if Mr. Obama had to move his family to either Israel or the Gaza Strip, one has to believe he’d take his chances against the Hamas rockets and move them to Israel. I certainly would.

Rocket Men

This conflict is not about Hamas rockets. Hamas has transformed itself from a mere armed resistance group into a political movement, though it still foolishly refuses to recognize Israel and continues to offer Israel the pretext for war it craves by firing its ineffectual homemade rockets into Israel. Israel does not want peace with Hamas no matter what the terms are- it wants to destroy Hamas, not make peace with it. The Israeli leadership believes that by hammering the Gazans they’ll succeed in cowing them into submission and turning them against Hamas. With an election looming on the horizon, Israeli leaders are all trying to slake the electorate’s thirst for vengeance.

But no matter how much force Israel uses in Gaza, they will not succeed in weakening Hamas, and, in fact, the harsher their response, the more likely Hamas will be strengthened. Most Gazans are part of very large, close- knit extended families with very extensive social circles, and nearly every man, woman and child that has been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces has brothers, parents, cousins, uncles and friends whose attitudes towards Israel will harden. The Palestinians are a resilient people, who are capable of enduring grave suffering and injustice. To think that they can be smashed into submission is foolhardy.

When Doves Cry

Two weeks prior to launching the present offensive in Gaza, Israel’s Foreign Minister was quoted as saying, “I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, 'your national solution lies elsewhere. '"
This is an astonishing, yet very calculated statement, in that, no candidate for high office with her level of political experience would make it unless they believed that the sentiment would appeal to a broad spectrum of the electorate. Livni is essentially saying that if the Palestinians get a state on the West Bank, then the Arab citizens of Israel- who make up 20% of the country- should be deported, or ethnically cleansed from the territory. This notion that non-Jewish Arab citizens should be driven out exposes the kind of deeply ingrained racism which allows the Israeli leadership to act as it is in the Gaza Strip at this moment.

Its important to remember that Livni is Israel’s top diplomat- its acting Foreign Minister- and, a leading presidential candidate, whom the international media has called the “dovish” candidate. This is not a far-right, fringe candidate- but rather someone firmly in the center-left spectrum of Israeli politics. Can one imagine the reaction if Condoleeza Rice had opined that American citizens of Hispanic descent (not illegal immigrants, but actual U.S. citizens) should plan their future in Mexico?

Gimme Shelter

As the United States stands by and applauds while Israel stubbornly presses on with its lethal assault in Gaza, in the teeth of a nearly unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire (the U.S. voted “present” after squelching earlier, stronger statements against Israeli aggression), it is difficult to imagine what Israel would have to do in order to draw U.S. condemnation. Perhaps Israel would need to commit a thoroughly comprehensive genocide, effectively “cleansing” the entire Occupied Territories of Palestinians once and for all, in order to rupture the U.S.- Israel alliance. In human history, no nation has ever subjugated its own national interests so as to acquiesce to the perceived interests of another nation in the way the U.S. has with Israel.

Despite this cozy relationship and fawning pro-Israel coverage in the American media, many Americans are waking up to the fact that our one-sided support for Israel is unjust and not in our interests. But American politics is still dominated by special interests, rather than the national interest, and there is no special interest group more powerful than the pro-Israel lobby- even though it only represents the more hawkish segment of America’s Jewish community. Why did the U.S. House of Representatives vote 390-5 “recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza?” Look no further than the power and strength of the Israel lobby.

Get Up, Stand Up

Even as America faces two wars abroad and a catastrophic economic crisis at home, there is no single issue more central to America’s security than to balance America’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the presidential election campaign, one of Barrack Obama’s most frequent talking points was on the need to reduce the influence of special interests in Washington. "The problem we have is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die. They go to die because the lobbyists and special interests have a strangle-hold on the agenda in Washington. They go to die in Washington because too many politicians are interested in scoring political points rather than bridging differences in order to get things done. ”

The world is waiting for Mr. Obama to be a man of his word- the future of Israel and Palestine, and the security of the United States lie in the balance.

Gov. Blago to his wife: Honey Could you Keep it Down? I'm on the Goddamn Phone!

2008-12-12T20:14:00.003-06:00

Most of the focus regarding the Blago-gate scandal that has been the talk of Chicago and much of the nation this week has been on Blago's efforts to sell Obama's senate seat. And while this is obviously noteworthy in its own way, my favorite part of the scandal are the revelations about Patti Blagojevich, Rod's wife. From the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blagojevich_patti_10dec10,0,1460523.story

"She helped her husband hatch a plan to sell President-elect Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat. She angled to trade her husband's power for lucrative spots on corporate boards. And she unleashed an obscenity-filled tirade suggesting Tribune Co. ownership should "just fire" Chicago Tribune editorial writers if the company wanted the state to help it unload Wrigley Field to ease its crushing debt."

Authorities alledge that while her husband was on the phone with a Tribune company executive, Patti could be heard in the background shouting, "hold up that fucking Cubs shit- Fuck them!"

Imagine that you are on the phone with the govenor of Illinois and you hear that in the background? Aside from the obviously profane language, what is it about women trying to talk to their husbands while they are on the phone? My wife would never use that kind of language, but she is prone to trying to tell me things while I'm on the phone with someone else. For example, the other day I was on the phone with Direct TV about a technical problem we were having, and while on the phone with them determined that they were overcharging us. Wouldn't you know it, though, my beloved wife tried to explain to me that we weren't being overcharged, just as I was securing a credit from the representative. Maybe she wanted to set the record straight, but couldn't this have waited?

More on Patti Blago from the Trib:

"The affidavit also alleges she participated in a two-hour conference call last month in which she, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his aides discussed selling Obama's seat in exchange for her placement on paid corporate boards. Patricia Blagojevich suggested she would be qualified for such positions because she has a background in real estate and appraisals, while the governor stated that he hoped she would pull in at least $150,000 annually to alleviate the family's "financial stress," according to the complaint."

Feel pity for the Blago's, they pulled in a mere 214,580 in 2007 according to their taxes, and, given what we know about their ties to corrupt people here in Chicago, that means that they probably only made a million or two dollars that year.

Cubs to Fans: Pay Up Suckers

2008-12-12T19:39:00.002-06:00

On October 5th, after the Cubs went down meekly in ignominious disgrace in the first round of the playoffs, I posted a bitter screed here forecasting the impending destruction of the planet, along with a likely Cubs ticket price increase. Well, so far, I'm right about the ticket price increase- and I'm not ruling out the Armageddon stuff either. The Cubs announced the increase last week- very strategically timed to appear in the Saturday morning newspaper- the least read paper of the week.

Its difficult to calculate the exact scale of the increase- the Cubs are being purposely vague and misleading about it. They've stated that the increase is "only 6% outside of 14 platinum games." So the Cubs have now created a fourth category of ticket prices for "platinum" games- games against the Cardinals, Mets, during holiday weekends, etc. The price hikes for the platinum games are very substantial- for example, a bleacher seat will now go for $60- a 25% increase. So the overall increase is probably something in the range of 15-20%.

So this is a big price increase in the wake of yet another disastrous playoff collapse and, in the teeth, of the country's worst recession in 34 years. Yet the Cubs spun the increases like Karl Rove would spin an indictment against the administration, absurdly claiming that "33% of tickets will remain at the same price." The headline of the article about the ticket price increases on mlb.com was actually, "Cubs freeze 33% of Ticket Prices"! http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081206&content_id=3704406&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb And the Chicago Tribune dutifully covered the story similarly, with the 33% freeze nonsense in the first line of their coverage, http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports_hardball/2008/12/cubs-announce-t.html Even the Chicago Sun Times got in on the act- biting on the Trib's transparent spin job, and swallowing their 33% nonsense hook, line and sinker, which is a little like running a story about a thief who steals $9,999 from someone and leaves $3,333 behind with the headline, "Victim Allowed to Keep 33% of Their Money." http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/1317794,cubs-raise-ticket-prices-2009-120608.article

Are these reporters too dumb or lazy to be able to report beyond what they read in the press release the Cubs sent them? Maybe. But the more likely excuse for their pathetic reporting is the old soft coverage for acess deal. They know that if they portray the Cubs as the band of marauding, unscrupulous highway bandits that they are, they'll find it difficult to secure any interviews with players and those in the front office. But let's be real here- when do players, managers, or front office personnel ever say anything of interest to the press anyways? Is it really so critical to get that interview with so and so where he expounds on how hard he's been working and how he just wants to take it one game at a time and give 110% and so forth? Spare me- i'd rather have a real journalist who tells us the truth and doesn't have access to the prima-donnas who don't say a damn thing of interest anyways.

The Cubs have the second most expensive tickets in baseball- the Red Sox- who have the most expensive seats- announced that they will not hike prices for the first time in 14 years due to the recession. And let's not forget that these folks have taken home 2 trophies recently. And what new players have the Cubs added to their roster in the off-season to justify another price hike? Let's see: a downgrade in the bullpen with Kevin Gregg (3.41 ERA/29 Saves/MLB leading 9 Blown Saves/37 BB/58 K's) replacing Kerry Wood (3.26 ERA/34 Saves/6 Blown Saves/18 BB/ 84 K's) and, drum roll please, Chad Fox. Chad Freaking Fox people- yes- rush out now and get those season tickets, Chad Fox will be taking the mound next year! Can't you see the t-shirt hawkers outside Wrigely now with shirts which say, "I'm a Fox!" And those with the old "We Got Wood" t-shirts, will now need to trade them in for "We Settled For Gregg" ones.

The Cubs raised ticket prices by 23% prior to last season and the public responded by turning out in record numbers- more than 3.3 million fans walked through the turnstiles. (And approximately 2.9 million of them left the ballpark drunk off their asses) The point is that people are desperate to attend Cubs games. No visit to Chicago in the summertime by every dork from Omaha to Arkansas is complete without the obligatory trip to Wrigley. Desperation, ignorance, and too much disposable income or access to credit all feed into the evil and diabolical plans of Cubs management, who would like nothing more than to charge $1,000,000 per ticket if they could get away with it.

Admit it, this is a stinking, rotting, corpse of a franchise. Yes, I know, the ticket brokers (of which the Tribune company owns the largest one) often get far more than face value for Cubs tickets- it's a scam perpetrated on dumb asses who probably deserve to be fleeced anyways. So I come around to this point then to Cubs team management: fine, increase your prices as much as you like- make the tickets so completely unaffordable that only the rich can attend games. Replace the hot dogs and beer at the concession stands with champagne and caviar. Bring in Robin Leach to sing during the 7th inning stretch.

I just don't care any more, because what I'd like more than anything else, is for Cubs fans to just stay away. Let attendance and revenues dwindle. Put Alfonso "Cubs Fans Should Have Patience" Soriano and the other overpaid millionaires on the bread line. Stop signing free agents. What will happen? The team will continue to NOT win the World Series. So what? Perhaps then we can be like the Tampa Rays, and at least have some fun watching young players at more reasonable prices.

Note: I dedicate this column to the most loyal Cubs fan in St. Louis, Mr. Ian "I Still Believe in the Inherit Righteousness of the Cubs" Caso, who wants Cubs ticket prices to be raised as much as possible, because he lives in St. Louis and doesn't attend games anyways, and foolishly believes that the Cubs will use the money to pursue studs like Jake Peavy and Brian Roberts.

Confessions of a New Father: Question: How Big is Leo? Answer: He's Getting Pretty Damn Big

2008-12-12T19:32:00.003-06:00

Leo is now nearly fifteen months old and is already well on his way to being a big boy. How big, you might ask? My son could tell you: “Soooooooooooo Big.” That’s pretty damn big for those of you scoring along at home. Other questions we’ve taken to asking Leo include:
“How smart is Leo?”
“How handsome is Leo?”
“How gifted is Leo?”
The answer, which Leo invariably gives with a raise of both hands over his head as though he were in a sports arena doing the wave, is always, “So _______”
Luckily for him, we haven’t started to resort to trick questions yet like, “How smelly is Leo?” (hint: the answer is “So ____!”)

On November 2nd Leo was christened. Good thing for him too, because the devil was probably starting to wonder if the procrastinating parents were prepared to let him play for the wrong team. Leo was decked out like a little John Travolta circa the Saturday Night Fever era, with a stunning three piece dove white suit and tie, made complete by his curly, long locks (which have since been cut). Like most children, he wasn’t too stoked about being dunked in a cauldron of holy water, though after I lifted him out and the deacon said a few words, he then told the gathered audience to give Leo a little cheer. I hoisted the boy up and down over my head a few times and he delighted in the cries of “Yeah Leo!” that came from the pews. He is nothing if not a sucker for adulation-there are few things he enjoys more than hearing his name accompanied by a good round of applause.

Another significant milestone in Leo’s life was his first trip to the barbershop. We had to wait about an hour to have a private audience with Frank, my Sicilian-American barber from my grandma’s hometown of Villarosa, Sicily. Frank let Leo play on one of the vacant barber chairs and look at himself in the mirror. Leo was cool at the beginning of the cut, though his mood deteriorated rapidly as the cut wore on. Perhaps he wanted to wear his hair longer than Frank had in mind, but we’ll never know. Afterwards, we all repaired to a Greek dinner to split a massive chocolate milkshake- one of Leo’s favorites. The interesting thing about Leo and milkshakes though, is that he’s smart enough to not just want any old shake. One afternoon I brought him home one of those cheapie $1.50 shakes that comes out of a machine at a fast food restaurant and probably contains no actual milk or ice cream, thinking I was giving him a treat. He wanted no part of it. But offer the boy a sip of a $5 milkshake from the Oberweis Dairy, and he will howl with disgust if you try to take it away from him- even if its just you trying to get in a quick sip.

Leo started to walk about a month or so ago, and has actually gotten serious about it in the last couple weeks. The interesting thing about Leo’s walk is that its something of a cross between a drunken stagger and a confident swagger. Maybe we could call it a stwagger. He’s bold in the movement of his hips and in his pace- but he is also sometimes uncertain about whether he’ll careen out of control. Begin cliché’d, yet true, observation. Watching my son walk around the apartment is quite a site- somehow I just look at him and have a hard time believing how quickly he’s growing up. End cliché’d, yet true, observation. (I hope)

Leo’s a man of few, or more accurately, no real words at the moment, though he is fond of stringing together unrelated syllables and sounds. I’m fairly certain his first real, complete word is going to be “cookie.” Like his dad, he loves cookies, and is smart enough to know where we keep them. When he wants one, he points up to the cabinet and says loudly, “COOOH!” When I pull out the package he starts to smile and give himself a small round of applause. Yes, he must think, he’s going to get me a cookie, I’m training this sucker pretty good. Other foods that Leo likes include raspberries- he can eat them by the dozen- strawberries, soft pretzels, toast, jam, and teddy grahams. Boy can he take down the teddy grahams.

Of course, cookies and teddy grahams aren't his only guilty pleasures. He still enjoys breast milk as well- not so much for the milk itself mind you (he won't drink regular milk- only chocolate), but more for the sheer joie de vivre of it. When the chips are down- i.e. he's tired, hungry, bored, or has just had one of us take some item away from him when he was determined to have it- a little breast feeding is just the ticket to bring him down out of the doldrums or put him to sleep. Its also his early morning ritual. Typically sometime around 6.30 a.m. we'll hear some light clucking sounds emanating from his crib and echoing through our monitor system. The clucks become more insistent and louder if we try to ignore them and sleep in. Which we often do. Without success, I might add. When I liberate the boy from his crib and bring him into the bedroom, he reaches for Jen in bed instantaneously. I could easily sink into a pile of quicksand and the boy would not notice- which I'm ok with, given the circumstances.

After a brief and vigorous snack, the boy searches around our king size bed for the remote control, which he knows is the key to getting Sesame Street turned on. He'll snack a bit intermittently throughout the show, as red blooded Americans are wont to do, though rarely during the segments of his favorite characters- Elmo, Cookie Monster or Oscar the Grouch. Throughout the program though, he wants to have one hand on a breast- sometimes letting his little fingers just fish around as though he were reaching into a bowl of popcorn. Jen finds this habit to be most annoying and slightly embarrassing- particularly as he often starts putting his hand down her shirt in public when he wants a snack, though I do not fault the boy in the least. A young man needs something to fiddle with when he's watching telly or simply out in public having a good time, and a breast is just as good as a remote control or anything else. Begin cliché'd, yet true observation. Come to think of it, beyond breasts and remote controls, what else is there for the average American male? End, clichéd observation. (I hope) Whatever his motivations, its clear that the boy likes to breast-feed and weaning him is going to be a chore- though we hope to get it done sometime before he heads off to university. Breast feeding is Leo's way of unwinding after or before a long, stressful day of throwing food and toys and making random unintelligible proclamations, so we aren't ready to deny him the pleasure just yet.

Parents often like to speculate on what their children are going to be when they grow up. Typically that speculation involves lofty, high profile callings like law, medicine, garbage collecting or professional wrestling. I actually think Leo's going to be a demolition crew member. Who knows, maybe even a demolition crew leader. We do dare to dream in this household. The kid likes to destroy stuff. I bought him a whole bunch of elaborate Lego Duplo's a couple weeks ago in the hopes it would inspire him to build. I make him all kinds of elaborate stuff with them to get him interested in them, but all he wants to do is essentially wreck them. I build, he demolishes. The grander my structure, the more his glee as he dismantles it. Try to read the boy a book, he tries to rip the pages. Provide him with an in-flight magazine (we do this only if there is a significant delay) and he'll happily shred it. Ok, so perhaps his destructive tendencies aren't always a bad thing. If the demolition stuff doesn't pan out, he could also be a cable guy, as he loves to play with cords and wires.

Leo's a happy kid though, I must say. His default setting is a mischievous smile and a laugh. His laugh is one of the most pleasant sounds I've ever heard. It's impossible for me to be down about anything at all, when my son is happy. On rare occasions when he is angry- usually when something has been unjustifiably (in his mind) taken away from him- his look of disgust is almost comical, and we try hard not to laugh at him. I feel pride in him in even the oddest things- a particularly loud burp, a prominent fart, his propensity for gobbling cookies, when he throws a piece of food clear across the room! Damn, he's good, I think to myself, or sometimes out loud. I guess that, for a father, there is nothing more gratifying than seeing your son demonstrate your own traits, even if they aren't ones you are really proud of.

NPR: Letting Criminals Walk Free is "Common Sense"

2008-12-12T19:26:00.003-06:00

I know that listening to right-wing nuts rail about the liberal media can be tiresome, but, in many instances they are correct, especially when it comes to the elite media- major newspapers, the news networks, and, the granddaddy of them all, NPR. A story on NPR this morning about poor criminals was a perfect example. The story was about a change to bond procedures for criminals in Cook County Illinois. The lead-in to the story said something along the lines of “a new law in Cook County will make it easier for accused criminals to post bond at their hearings” or something along those lines- and that immediately caught my attention- because I thought it was going to be one of those “outrage” stories you hear where the reason why its news, is because its so outrageous.

But instead, NPR spun this new law as a victory for poor defendants, who are supposedly disadvantaged by high bonds that they can’t possibly post to get out of jail. The story was entirely positive and ended by concluding with a statement referring to the law as a “common-sense solution” to the bail hearing problem! “Common sense solution”? I guess NPR believes that setting accused criminals free asap is common sense. That last phrase, stated seemingly innocuously completely stripped away any sense of objectivity in the report, which was lacking in it anyways. Forgive me, but isn’t it the job of any good journalist to present both sides of any story- can this reporter (whose name I do not remember) honestly tell us that he wasn’t able to find anyone in Chicago that thinks that making it easier for accused criminals to get out of jail might not actually be the greatest thing since sliced bread? Give me a flipping break, NPR.

Palin Speaks to Sarkozy

2008-11-03T09:33:00.000-06:00

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNhA9W9IgFc

Palin takes prank call from fake French president
By CHARMAINE NORONHA – 1 day ago

TORONTO (AP) — Sarah Palin unwittingly took a prank call Saturday from a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and telling her she would make a good president someday.

"Maybe in eight years," replies a laughing Palin.

The Republican vice presidential nominee discusses politics, the perils of hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, and Sarkozy's "beautiful wife," in a recording of the six-minute call released Saturday and set to air Monday on a Quebec radio station.

Palin campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt confirmed she had received the prank call.

"Governor Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy and other celebrities, in being targeted by these pranksters. C'est la vie," she said.

The call was made by a well-known Montreal comedy duo Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel. Known as the Masked Avengers, the two are notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state.

Audette, posing as Sarkozy, speaks in an exaggerated French accent and drops ample hints that the conversation is a joke. But Palin seemingly does not pick up on them.

He tells Palin one of his favorite pastimes is hunting, also a passion of the 44-year-old Alaska governor.

"I just love killing those animals. Mmm, mmm, take away life, that is so fun," the fake Sarkozy says.

He proposes they go hunting together by helicopter, something he says he has never done.

"Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done," Palin counters. "We can kill two birds with one stone that way."

The comedian jokes that they shouldn't bring Cheney along on the hunt, referring to the 2006 incident in which the vice-president shot and injured a friend while hunting quail.

"I'll be a careful shot," responds Palin.

Playing off the governor's much-mocked comment in an early television interview that she had insights into foreign policy because "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," the caller tells her: "You know we have a lot in common also, because ... from my house I can see Belgium."

She replies: "Well, see, we're right next door to different countries that we all need to be working with, yes."

When Audette refers to Canadian singer Steph Carse as Canada's prime minister, Palin replies: "Well, he's doing fine and yeah, when you come into a position underestimated it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder." Canada's prime minister is Stephen Harper.

Palin praises Sarkozy throughout the call and also mentions his wife Carla Bruni, a model-turned-songwriter.

"You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife," Palin says. "Oh my goodness, you've added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours."

The Sarkozy impersonator tells Palin his wife is "so hot in bed" and then informs her that Bruni has written a song for her about Joe the Plumber entitled "Du rouge a levres sur une cochonne" — which translates as "Lipstick on a Pig."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama derided his Republican challenger John McCain's call for change in Washington as "lipstick on a pig," days after Palin made a lipstick joke at the Republican convention. The McCain-Palin campaign then released an ad implying Obama was calling Palin a pig with that remark.

The caller asks Palin if Joe the Plumber is her husband and adds: "We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France. It's called Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpit."

He also tells the Alaska governor that he loved the "documentary" made about her and referred to a pornographic film with a Palin look-alike made by Hustler founder Larry Flynt.

She answers tentatively, "Ohh, good, thank you, yes."

The callers then reveal the prank and identify themselves and their radio station.

"Ohhh, have we been pranked?" Palin asks before handing the phone to an aide who ends the call.

Obama's campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, commenting on the prank, said: "I'm glad we check out our calls before we hand the phone to Barack Obama."

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

2008-10-22T19:41:00.001-05:00

The Republican National Committee has reportedly spent over $150,000 on Sarah Palin’s outfits, hair and nails over the last couple months, according to this story on Politico, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14805.html What was it that Obama was saying a few weeks ago about trying to put lipstick on a pig? Does it really matter how you look when you are making statements this ignorant?

“All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." --Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008
(clip: XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&cdn=entertainment&tm=54&gps=532_406_1276_868&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/sarah-palin-answers-what_n_130706.html)

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending soldiers out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." –Sarah Pailn, on the Iraq war, speaking to students at the Wasilla Assembly of God, June 2008
(clip: http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&cdn=entertainment&tm=161&gps=337_655_1276_868&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D9H-btXPfhGs)

“T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." --Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008

(clip: http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&cdn=entertainment&tm=225&gps=448_840_1276_868&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dl40nrw3V3GA)

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." --Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS's Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008

(clip: http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&cdn=entertainment&tm=317&gps=328_86_1276_868&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/palin-talks-russia-with-k_n_129318.html)

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. ... We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." --Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in Greensoboro, N.C., Oct. 16, 2008

"I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing ... any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that." --Sarah Palin, after an Alaska legislative report found she had broken the state's ethics law and abused her power in the Troopergate scandal, conference call with Alaska reporters, Oct. 12, 2008

Katie Couric: "What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?"
Sarah Palin: "Well, let's see. There's --of course --in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings, there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are -- those issues, again, like Roe v Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know -- going through the history of America, there would be others but--"
Couric: "Can you think of any?"
Palin: "Well, I could think of -- of any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a Vice President, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today." --unable to name any Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v. Wade, CBS News interview, Oct. 1, 2008

"But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy." --Sarah Palin, explaining the $700 billion government bailout of Wall Street to Karie Couric, CBS News interview, Sept. 24, 2008

"Perhaps so." --Sarah Palin, when asked if we may need to go to war with Russia because of the Georgia crisis, ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008

"You'll be there to defend the innocents from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans." --Sarah Palin, linking the Iraq war the 9/11 attacks while addressing U.S. soldiers shipping off to Iraq, Fairbanks, Alaska, Sept. 11, 2008

“I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you." --Sarah Palin, asked by Katie Couric to cite specific examples of how John McCain has pushed for more regulation in his 26 years in the Senate, CBS interview, Sept. 24, 2008

"Absolutely. Yup, yup." --Sarah Palin after being asked by People magazine if she was ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency

“GIBSON: We talk on the anniversary of 9/11. Why do you think those hijackers attacked? Why did they want to hurt us?
PALIN: You know, there is a very small percentage of Islamic believers who are extreme and they are violent and they do not believe in American ideals, and they attacked us and now we are at a point here seven years later, on the anniversary, in this post-9/11 world, where we're able to commit to never again. They see that the only option for them is to become a suicide bomber, to get caught up in this evil, in this terror. They need to be provided the hope that all Americans have instilled in us, because we're a democratic, we are a free, and we are a free-thinking society. "

Work is Overrated

2008-10-17T21:31:00.002-05:00

Having a job gives one a handy response when people ask you "what do you do?" and the biweekly paychecks certainly come in handy, but other than that, isn't gainful employment a bit overrated? First of all, who decided that the ratio of work days to play days should be 5 versus 2? If you were drawing up plans for a perfect world, is this the formula you would use?

Osama to Endorse Obama

2008-10-17T20:58:00.005-05:00

There are only a few possible things that could keep Obama out of the White House at this point.

1. Osama endorses Obama- you know this is coming right? Bin Laden is going to put his scraggly ass back in front of the camera and make some kind of statement where he either bluntly or subtely states some preference for Obama to win the election. Not because Osama actually wants Obama to win, mind you, just the opposite. If we elect a black man whose father was a muslim, that undermines their claim that we are an intolerant country that wants to wage a crusade against Islam. (Never mind the fact that our policies in the Middle East are appaling and the fact that many Americans do fear and hate Islam) No, Osama wants to have another trigger happy cowboy who talks tough and antagonizes the rest of the world. That would be John Sideny "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" McCain.

An Osama tape release of any kind, no matter what the message would be bad for Obama, the man who "pals around with terrorists", according to Sarah Palin and other illiterate fearmongers in the Republican party, your local trailer park experts, and people who travel the NASCAR circuit. For all of the rhetoric about Obama being a terrorist lover, you'd think that Osama was actually on his ticket. Please Osama, don't do it. No tapes please.

2. Obama gets caught on tape balling Joe the Plumber's Wife

3. Lewinsky has another stained dress in her closed with Obama's DNA on it

4. Obama gets caught playing footsie in adjoining bathroom stalls with Bill Ayers

5. Obama announces that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be his choice for Secretary of Homeland Security or would swear him in and sing the national anthem at his inauguration

6. Michelle Obama is caught in a state of undress in the back of Joe the Plumber's van

7. Barrack pulls a Boutrous Boutrous Ghali and changes his first name to Hussein, making him Hussein Hussein Obama

8. Sarah Palin does an interview in which she manages to sound literate

9. The McCain campaign ceases its usage of the following phrases, "my friends", "i know how to...", "we're mavericks", "take on the good old boy network", and "shining city on a hill"

10. Prior to casting his ballot on election day, Obama rolls out a prayer matt and kneels down to pray in the direction of Mecca

The Hazards of Public Transportation in Chicago

2008-10-17T20:48:00.002-05:00

When I used to work in sales, I had no option but to drive to and from work, and I used to dream of a less stressful commute aboard public transportation. I had visions of a nice comfortable seat, perhaps some music or a podcast playing on my ipod, and a morning paper or a good book to brighten my mood on my way into work or home. These days I commute via the “L” , Chicago’s T, tube, subway, whatever you prefer to call it, and I can confirm that my earlier notions of public transport bliss were woefully naïve.

First of all, for those who drive, its easy to forget that there is a reason why the word “public” appears pretty prominently in the phrase “public transportation.” If you aren’t particularly fond of the public I can’t really recommend public transportation, because riding the rails exposes one to the unwashed masses and all of the problems that arise when trying to cope with mankind’s irritating habits. These days, there are a hell of a lot of people using public transportation, and on any one el car you are likely to encounter the following types of people and situations:

1. Cell phone users- I understand the occasional need to make phone calls while riding the L, but when people are crammed into close quarters, is it really necessary to have LENGTHY conversations at a volume so loud, that everyone in the nearby vicinity is unable to concentrate on their book, magazine or newspaper? The other day, I was within about two feet of a woman that was practically screaming in Russian, no less, into her cell phone for the entire length of my ride- 30- minutes. In fact, when we arrived at the final stop on the line, where I got out, she sat still in her seat and continued to scream into her phone. No amount of dirty looks or audible sighs diminished her volume in any way. I imagine that she continued her performance for those boarding the train and heading back into the city. It’s even worse when the offenders- who are usually, though not always women- are speaking English. “She said what?” “that bitch!” “he wasn’t copied on the e-mail? That’s bullshit- she’s always cc’ing my boss whenever I do anything wrong!” I can’t tell you how frequently I am subjected to these kinds of conversations and have to give up on whatever book I am trying to read. Last week I encountered a man, old enough to know better, who was- get this- hollering into his cellphone while it was on speakerphone on a very crowded train. So we were all subjected not only to his inane ramblings, but the equally inspid retorts of the woman he was speaking to.
2. Mobile DJ’s- There was once a time in our history when, if you wanted to inflict your taste in music on others, you had to carry around a massive ghetto blaster, but today all you need is an ipod nano and you can subject half a train car full of people to your horrific taste in music. I notice that people who like to blast music in their headphones like to sit down next to someone like me that has his nose buried in a book, rather than sitting next to the cell phone users. You can give them all the dirty looks you want, you can even cover your ears ostentatiously, but they aren’t going to lower their music.
3. Space invaders- No delicate way to put this- public transport is getting more and more crowded, but people’s asses aren’t getting any less gigantic. But do those with ass cheeks so spacious that they take up 1.5 seats, choose to stand? Hell no.
4. Captive Audiences- There are lots of people on the L in Chicago that are: a) “just trying to get something to eat”, b) “here to tell you that the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior, or c) “trying to raise money for their church/school/drug habit by selling these delicious M & M’s”
5. When the hell will the train leave?- I’ve been studying the pattern of when the L comes and goes in the morning on the green and blue lines each day for the last several weeks, each morning I jot down what time my train actually departs from the station. I can now conclude, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, that there is absolutely no pattern whatsoever.
6. Should I run to catch it or walk?- Each morning that I take the green line into the city, I am faced with a choice as I get up to the platform- should I run, jog, or walk towards the train? For some unknown reason, the train, which starts at my station and is usually sitting idle when I get there, is always parked a very long way down the platform. There is only a very brief chime before the doors close and one never knows when that can happen, so you can be nonchalant and stroll down the platform towards the train, but you might be standing there as the doors shut in your face. Or you can run and look like a jackass when you board the train, out of breath, and then just sit there for 10 minutes while the doors remain wide open. The choice is up to you.
7. We appreciate your patience- CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) is constantly telling you how much they “appreciate your patience” at the most inopportune times. I find that whenever I am cursing the damn, mother&*^&*^&*(^! train, I am usually being thanked for being so patient.

McCain Knows How to Get Bin Laden

2008-10-17T20:43:00.002-05:00

But he's not telling. Not unless you elect him president. What a patriot!

Cubs Clinch Another Early Winter Vacation

2008-10-05T10:26:00.003-05:00

So the Cubs have choked again- getting swept in the first round of the playoffs for the second consecutive season- where is the news story there, you ask? But this year, like so many other years before it, was supposed to be “the year”. “This is the Year” the signs and t-shirts, and endless Ron Santo audio clips on WGN said. This year, however, turned out to be just like the previous 99 years as the underachieving Cubs, who led the National League with 97 wins, went down meekly to a Dodgers team that, had it been in the Cubs division would have finished 5th with 84 wins.

For me, the most disturbing part of this most recent Cubbie collapse is that there will be no consequences for those responsible for this debacle. The Cubs players- nearly all of them multi-millionaires- will retreat to the Sun Belt and Latin America to enjoy the winter in their luxury homes with their trophy wives, far away from their disgusted and disappointed fans that have nothing to look forward to now, other than visions of some other teams fans celebrating a world championship and a long, cold, dark Chicago winter. Does the fact that I hope that all the Cub players catch venereal diseases and become impotent in the offseason make me a bad person?

Why is it that the players sound a lot more upbeat than their fans right now? I wonder if it could be that their only punishment for losing is that they now have the next four months off? If the only consequence you had for failing miserably at your job was that you got to start an already long vacation a few weeks early, you'd be feeling pretty good too, wouldn't you?

Many Cubs fans will now swear off the team- vowing to kick their Cubs habit once and for all, after this latest heartbreak, but its not going to happen. A few weeks from now, Cubs Inc will announce yet another ticket price increase, and everyone will piss and moan, but come February, the same people will be paying through the nose to the scores of ticket brokers who have cornered the market for Cubs tickets. The previous two years of playoff embarrassments, or the other 98 years of playoff futility won’t matter, nor will it matter that the Cubs will stand by and watch idly as the other big market clubs sopp up the best free agents on the market. The more this team loses, the more popular it gets.

Other teams in a similar position would feel the need to hold off on ticket price increases, sign big free agents, and issue mea culpas to placate their angry fans. Not the Cubs- they know that there are no consequences for failure in Cubbieland. Alfonso Soriano, the Cubs left fielder, who made $14,000,000 this year, and was 1-14 in the losing effort, reportedly said that Cubs fans need to” be patient.” This from the man whose idea of patience at the plate is not swinging if the ball is thrown into one of the dugouts.

Still, even if real Cubs fans decided to boycott the Wrigley carnival- even for a day- it wouldn’t matter, because Wrigley is stop number one for every tourist, conventioneer, and businessperson passing through town. Everyone wants a piece of the cliché- the posed photo in front of the Harry Caray statue, the overpriced warm cans of Miller Lite at Murphy’s Bleachers, the drunken sorority girls in the bleachers, and the 7th inning stretch sing along. If they don’t win it’s a shame, but it doesn’t matter much either, does it? So what is to be done about this, to borrow a phrase from the Iranian president, “stinking corpse” of a franchise? I would lobby for the following clauses to be added to Cubs players contracts.

After each losing season, players must do the following:

§ Remain in Chicago to suffer through the bitter winter amongst their angry and frustrated fans.
§ Volunteer as bar-backs in Wrigleyville bars, clearing away the detritus left behind by their embittered fans.
§ Donate a hefty portion of their fat salaries to mental health facilities that treat Cubs fans.

Feel free to add your own suggestions to this list.

Sarah Speaks!

2008-09-12T17:54:00.005-05:00

Sarah Palin is not a foreign policy lightweight; she’s a super-bantamweight. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_weight_classes) She’s not a pig; she’s a horse’s ass. She’s been cramming for weeks (sample question McCain staffers quizzed her with- O.K. who’s in the U.N. Security Council, again?) and finally deigned to be interviewed yesterday by ABC’s Charlie Gibson, and in case you missed it, let me give you the low-lights and some analysis.

GIBSON: When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?

PALIN: But it is about reform of government and it's about putting government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that's with the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.

GIBSON: I know. I'm just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.

PALIN: It is, but I want you to not lose sight of the fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It's that important. It's that significant. END QUOTE

So in other words, she has no experience, but she has been the governor of an oil-producing state for (less than) two years. The idea that foreign policy/national security and oil are essentially the same thing is an interesting idea- and it more or less confirms the rest of the world’s fears that the war in Iraq and our foreign policy writ large is dominated by our thirst for oil.

GIBSON: Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?

PALIN: Canada, Mexico, and then, yes, that trip, that was the trip of a lifetime to visit our troops in Kuwait and stop and visit our injured soldiers in Germany. That was the trip of a lifetime and it changed my life. END QUOTE

Sadly, Gibson did not follow up to ask, “how did visiting troops in the deserts of Kuwait change your life?” So Sarah’s been to Tijuana, and crossed over into Canada to get a better look at Niagara Falls. Doesn’t really matter, because she lives in Alaska, which is so darned close to Russia.

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?

PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.

GIBSON: Exact words.

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said -- first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.
But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.
That's what that comment was all about, Charlie. And I do believe, though, that this war against extreme Islamic terrorists is the right thing. It's an unfortunate thing, because war is hell and I hate war, and, Charlie, today is the day that I send my first born, my son, my teenage son overseas with his Stryker brigade, 4,000 other wonderful American men and women, to fight for our country, for democracy, for our freedoms.
Charlie, those are freedoms that too many of us just take for granted. I hate war and I want to see war ended. We end war when we see victory, and we do see victory in sight in Iraq.

GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it is God's plan."

PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That, in my world view, is a grand -- the grand plan. END QUOTE

Aside from the fact that she used the word, “Charlie” three times within one minute, this is an astonishing exchange. Again much of the Muslim World- suspects that the U.S. is engaged in a holy war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and here Palin’s previous statement confirms this for them. And Palin’s Honest Abe comparison is simply ludicrous- her statement bears more resemblance to the Blues Brothers “mission from God” quote than Lincoln’s.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state (of Alaska) give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along. END QUOTE

Indeed- Palin knows well what is going on in the Caucasus region- 10 time zones away from Alaska- because the western most extreme portion of her state is close to Siberia. Nice one. Also, love the notion of her Rodney King like- ‘can’t we all just get along’ idea- this coming just one question after she had just stated that we needed to “keep our eyes on Russia”, while calling their actions in Georgia “unprovoked” and “unacceptable”. Those statements are sure to improve ties.

After stating that Georgia and Ukraine should be brought into NATO, “Charlie” then asked:

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.
But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.
We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.
PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.
And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.
It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.
His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen. END QUOTE

So essentially, yes she is willing to take actions (i.e. admitting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO) that could drag us into war with Russia, but she’s only willing to offer vague “support” and rhetoric to Georgia with vague notions of some kind of unspecified economic sanctions against Russia. Memo to super-bantamweight Sarah (SBS) :“Being called up on to help” and going to war are two different things.

GIBSON: We talk on the anniversary of 9/11. Why do you think those hijackers attacked? Why did they want to hurt us?

PALIN: You know, there is a very small percentage of Islamic believers who are extreme and they are violent and they do not believe in American ideals, and they attacked us and now we are at a point here seven years later, on the anniversary, in this post-9/11 world, where we're able to commit to never again. They see that the only option for them is to become a suicide bomber, to get caught up in this evil, in this terror. They need to be provided the hope that all Americans have instilled in us, because we're a democratic, we are a free, and we are a free-thinking society. END QUOTE

Keep hope alive! Even for suicide bombers? What is this crap about people having no hope and no options becoming suicide bombers? Most of the 9/11 hijackers were highly educated (delusional and evil, yes, but uneducated and hopeless? Not so much) and from middle class families. It wasn’t like they lost their jobs one day and then went off the rails. Pulllleeeezzzze!

Gibson then asked super-bantamweight Sarah (SBS) about the Bush Doctrine and she had no clue what he was talking about. The segment closed with SBS dodging Gibson’s question about whether she’d support staging attacks on militants in Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government. It was not a pretty performance for America’s favorite pit bull/hockey mom.

Why am I picking on SBS? I don’t care about the fact that her daughter got knocked up, or her trooper- gate scandal, or that she tried to fire the town librarian for objecting to her plan to ban books, and I’m not even that troubled by the fact that she’s only been a governor for a couple of years. Let's also leave aside the fact that she named her children Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper and what that says about her judgement. Obama doesn’t have a wealth of foreign policy experience either- but at least the man sounds intelligent when asked a question- whereas Palin is barely coherent. I’ve overheard more intelligent banter in the urinals of sports bars for God’s sakes. This is a woman that attended five colleges (two of them community colleges, and two others were in Hawaii) before managing to graduate with a degree in sports journalism. She did win “miss congeniality” in a beauty pageant years ago, and last night that was essentially what she sounded like: a beauty pageant contestant that was trying hard to sound intelligent but was completely out of her depths. But will Americans say “she’s a dumb-ass, I’m voting Obama”, or will they say, “she’s a dumb-ass just like me, I think I’ll vote for her!”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5782924&page=1

Michael Phelps Takes a Crap

2008-08-13T21:02:00.004-05:00

We get it already- Michael Phelps can swim. NBC, which paid 14 trillion dollars- or approximately the cost of waging the war in Iraq for one weekend- or, put another way- the dollar value of Dick Cheney's Halliburton shares- is, once again, trying to make the Olympics a soap opera- all about personalities rather than athletics. Not to take anything away from Phelps' achievement, but I keep reading that he's the greatest olympic athlete ever. Hmmmm. Why? Because he has the most gold medals? Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but swimming has a motherload of events- many of them pretty damn similar (someone who is good at swimming 2 laps of a given stroke is pretty darn likely to also be good at swimming 4 or 8 laps of that stroke as well, no?) It really isn't fair to compare swimmers with athlete's that compete in sports that only have a few medal opportunities. Like what about those 4 foot tall midgets who can lift 1,000 pounds? Or how about those Cuban or Venezuelan women's volleyball players that wear those daisy duke like gym shorts?

While we are on the topic of the Olympics, why on earth is NBC spending so much time showing us beach volleyball? Does anyone actually give a damn about beach volleyball? Or are they thinking that people just want to watch women in bikinis? I have seen enough of the following sports to last me a lifetime: rowing, beach volleyball, water polo, badmitton, softball, and cycling. How about a little tennis, NBC? Anyways, what I find far more interesting is Beijing's pollution. Just show me a smog cam and people straining to breath and I'm riveted. Then mix in some interviews with Chinese officials claiming that the air is fine, and I'm happy.

Companion to Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star Part 1

2008-08-03T20:29:00.004-05:00

In the first year of the new millenium I ditched what passed for a job at the Chicago Tribune to take a (mostly) overland trip from Cairo to Shanghai. I wrote what should have been a runaway bestseller about this challenging journey called, Resumegapping- Cairo to Shanghai the hard way. But instead of gracing the bookshelves of your neighborhood Borders, this "book" languished in a dusty binder- a forlorn collection of e-mails that few people ever read. Last week, Paul Theroux released another stellar travel narrative- Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, in which he travels to many of the same places he visited on his Great Railways Bazaar trip in 1973. Theroux travels to some of the same off the map places that I visited, and for those who plan to read his book- and you should- check out what happened to me in some of the same locales. This segment below is about a memorable trip from Turkey into Georgia- the only border in the world where you travel east from Asia into Europe. Enjoy:

Blood Feuds

After three days of heavy rain in Trabzon, I set off for the Georgian border on yet another miserable morning, feeling as though I were sneaking out of town as I walked down the wet empty streets of Trabzon. Small to mid-size otogars (bus stations) in Turkey are highly perplexing places and Trabzon’s was a mess. There was no posted departure board so one must canvass the scores of competing bus company counters to determine which company has buses to your destination, when they leave and what they cost. I looked out onto a big L-shaped row of counters, there must have been 20 different bus companies- where to start? I randomly approached a counter for a company called “Metro”, where 3 men were chatting: two of them behind the counter and one leaning across it’s front. My look of bewilderment must have betrayed me.
“Where you go?” asked the fat, balding man whose belly lazily slumped across the counter.
“Batumi- Georgia” I said to looks of eyebrow crinkling confusion.
I pulled out my map to show them where I wanted to go, yet none of them seemed to understand until I said the name of the border town of Sarp.
The fat man wrote down 5.9 million on a scrap of paper. It was unclear to me if he was qualified to sell me a ticket, but I set my concerns aside since especially since he claimed the bus was leaving in 15 minutes at 9am. 5.9 million seemed like far too high a price ($10) but I had 5 million Turkish Lira left so I was prepared to unload it. I wrote down my offer, and the fat, gap toothed vulture shook his head smiling at me.
“Fixed price” he said. I wondered how people who speak little English somehow always manage to learn phrases like that. I showed gap tooth my wad of crumpled bank notes and he relented, smiling and shaking my hand to seal the transaction. He led me out to the parking lot and pointed for me to board an empty parked bus.
“Where is my ticket?” I asked incredulously. He waved his fat fingers, palm down in a fanning motion, indicating for me to relax or wait I suppose. In any event, he scurried off back into the station as I lingered in the rain.

I grudgingly headed off to what looked to be a new bus, but I smelled a rat. The side of the bus did not bear the “Metro” logo of the counter I’d just been at, it said “Ulusoy”- how could he sell me a ticket for another company? I looked at the sign on the bus window, it said, “Hopa”, not Sarp. Where the fuck was Hopa?? I yanked out my map in the rain and struggled angrily with it, before discovering that Hopa was on the Turkish side of the border- would I have to walk from there to Sarp? It all suddenly fit together, I had solved the puzzle-I was being had. But was it too late? I ran back into the otogar, my backpack ungracefully slapping against my ass to find gap tooth. I looked for him near the Metro booth but his pals would not clue me into his whereabouts, I ran around the corner and our eyes met. He looked alarmed that I was not compliantly sitting on the bus, waiting for my doctored, inflated black market ticket. He was heading towards the Ulusoy counter- that bastard! He was just going to go buy a ticket there and then give it to me! I dashed towards the booth trying to beat him there-I wanted to know the real price of the ticket to Sarp, or Hopa or wherever the fuck they were sending me. Gap tooth grabbed my arm as we collided perhaps 5 feet in front of the Ulusoy counter, he flashed a ticket at me and grabbed my arm trying to pull me in the direction of the bus. “Get off me!” I yelled angrily yanking my arm out of his grip and turning to face the uniformed Ulusoy folks.
“How much is a ticket to Sarp or Hopa?” I demanded to know as gap tooth howled his protests at them, no doubt imploring them not to tell me. A nervous young girl wrote down 2.5 million. “Bastard!” I yelled, staring at gap tooth, who had been caught red handed, right in the eyes. He came over and thrust 2.5 million into my hands and the ticket. “No fucking way” I said, demanding and getting all 5 million before thrusting his ticket back at him. I wanted him to be stuck with it, but sincerely hoped he wouldn’t use it himself. Gap tooth disappeared as I bought a legit ticket, feeling angry and shaken by the experience.

I bought some rock hard bread and cokes with my spare cash and headed out towards the bus. Just before getting on though, I decided that I wanted to teach gap tooth a lesson. I had seen a police office in the station- how could they allow gap tooth to get away with swindling foreigners? I stormed back into the station, approaching a uniformed policeman. My useless list of Turkish phrases did me no good, so I merely motioned for him to come with me, which he did. We walked over to gap tooth, who was by then reminiscing with his friends at the Metro booth. I pointed at him, fingering him as though I were staring down a police line-up. Yep that’s him- lock him up boys. I showed the cop my ticket, and wrote down 2.5 million, pointing at the Ulusoy booth, then I wrote down 5 million pointing at gap tooth, who was now already defending himself in Turkish. A small group of curious Turks formed a circle around us now, as gap tooth loudly defended himself, attracting more attention with his lusty voice. It was now 8.56, 4 minutes till blastoff. I knew that I was being slandered and I wanted to defend myself, yet I had no linguistic means to do so. After gap tooth finished his speech, the crowd and the cop looked at me, as if to say, “So what do you have to say to that?”
In desperation, I began to shout, “Thief” “Criminal” “Bastard” “Crook” “Animal”- pointing at Gap tooth, who in turn began laughing and taunting me. He seemed to be saying to the crowd, which had grown to at least 20, “This stupid American thinks there is something wrong with fleecing tourists! Ha!” His sinister looking crooked smile, his disgusting hairy chest and uni -brow gave him the look of a real parasite. He jabbed one of his fat fingers too close to my face while making some point and I pushed him forcefully away from me. He pushed back and a wave of adrenalin rushed over me, I wanted to end his miserable life, in front of the whole crowd. Alas, though the cop stepped in and shrugged at my protests as if to say, “I’m washing my hands clean of this situation”. Meanwhile gap tooth began taunting me again, and the crowd began laughing- was he mimicking me? I had hoped to, at the very least cause him some embarrassment, to let people know I was on to him. Yet as I was led out to the parking lot by the cop, I realized that Turks probably find nothing wrong with the parasitic behavior of people like Gap. I was out of my element. The cop and I walked past the Ulusoy booth and I addressed the young girl, who seemed to understand some English. “Why do you allow this guy to hawk tickets for your buses- he’s obviously not going anywhere?” But she only shrugged sympathetically. Another clash of civilizations under my belt, I grudgingly boarded the bus feeling bloodied but unbowed.

¨¨¨¨¨¨

Technically, we were driving eastward from Asia into Europe along a muddy path paralleling the Black Sea. The closer we came to the Georgian border, the worse the road became. The distance between Trabzon and Sarp, which looked so utterly insignificant on the map, would take an arduous five hours. We arrived at the dire looking village of Hopa as the rain seemed to intensify. Luckily, there was a mini bus about to leave across the border. Unluckily, it was packed to the hilt with Georgians who looked considerably more 19th century in dress and manner than the Turks. The mini bus slogged its way across a mud track, a sort of no man’s land that neither country had bothered to pave.

A few minutes into our journey we were recklessly cut off by an expensive white sports car that looked highly incongruous on this inauspicious mud path. Our driver, a scruffy, thin, middle-aged man, became enraged, blaring his horn and waving frantically for the offender to pull over. Shockingly, the sports car did just that, pulling over perhaps 30 yards in front of us. There was a buzz of chatter in our van as our driver stopped the car and got out. It was literally poring rain, what the hell was he thinking? There were about a dozen of us on the bus; all watching our driver approach the vehicle with rapt attention. We could see that an animated conversation was taking place. The sports car had put all of us in danger by recklessly passing us on such a narrow shithole of a road, but what was this proving? The concept of revenge and blood feuds has a long history in the Caucasus. Essad Bey in his 1930 tome, Twelve Secrets of the Caucasus, attempted to explain to European readers blood feud etiquette….

“Almost every tenth Caucasian is involved in some affair that has to do with a
blood feud..one should never introduce two Caucasians before finding out
in what feuds they are involved. Killing in self defense, manslaughter and
accidental homicide are not recognized by the justice of the mountains..
Vengeance is taken in the following way: Immediately after the murder,
the injured family arms for the campaign, and the house of the enemy family
is besieged. During the siege the besiegers support themselves at the
expense of the enemy, until the intermediaries are successful in concluding a
treaty according to which the murderers are permitted to move freely about their
own house and courtyard upon payment of certain damages. At this the beleaguerers withdraw, and only the close relatives of the murderer are watched. The moment the
later leaves the house, the hunt begins.”

Essad Bey goes on to note that, “blood vengeance follows not only upon murder, but also upon any other form of loss. For example a substantial theft is a ground for it, as is a love affair with a girl by which her moral value is diminished. Intercourse with animals- an abuse which is very widely practiced in the mountains- also demands blood vengeance. The animal in question is considered polluted, and the miscreant must pay the owner the whole price of the animal if he wants to escape blood vengeance.” Bey concludes that, “the law of the blood feud renders any peaceful government of the mountains an impossibility. No policeman dares arrest anybody, no judge dares punish anybody, because they would instantly be declared blood enemies of the damaged family.”

All hell broke loose, as a man who could only be described as a giant emerged from the passenger side of the sports car and came around to confront our man. The giant had at least a foot on our driver. Sensing our driver was in danger, and that the very pride of our vehicle was at stake, 6 or 7 men jumped out of the van and ran off down the mud track towards the parked sports car. I felt a tinge of guilt for not jumping out with them, I was the lone male left in a van of women and children. I didn’t want to run out in the rain, but I didn’t want to lose face either. I rationalized that by sticking around I was looking after the women and children. The potentially volatile situation seemed to have been defused, as the giant was apparently not enthusiastic about taking on 7 or 8 men at once. The driver of the sports car never did emerge from his perch. Our men returned to the van muddy and wet, smiling triumphantly; we had seemingly won the standoff, or at least taught them a lesson of some kind. Welcome to the Caucasus.

Almost the entire minibus got out at a dire looking village just before the border- only two of us were actually crossing the border: myself and a Turkish student named Aydin, who was heading to Batumi. Although he spoke little English, he seemed to have been through this border many times and would clearly be my patron. I followed him to the first hut, where we stood in the rain, waiting to pay a “3 dollar computer fee” as Aydin called it. Thankfully, we were then sent indoors, into a garage of sorts that resembled an abandoned car wash, to be questioned by an officious looking woman in full dress grays and a cute pointy hat. She spoke fluent English.
“American, my god, well what are you doing here?” she asked smiling almost flirtatiously as she scrutinized my thick blue passport of privilege.
“Just traveling” I said trying to be both vague and non-threatening.
“What do you do?” she persisted in a friendly way, as though we were chatting in a pub, instead of some obscure border crossing in a small ex-Soviet republic.
“I’m a student” I lied hoping to avoid any follow-ups.
“Welcome to Georgia, Welcome, we are lucky to have you here!” she said smiling more broadly now. “Why did you come here?”
“I’ve heard a lot about Georgia, good things about the people, the land, the culture- I wanted to see for myself.”
“Do you want to change money?” she asked in a pretty radical segue. I agreed to change some money with her, although I felt it odd to be conducting such a transaction with a border officer, but by now I surmised that we were becoming friends.
“I’ll give you a good rate- 2 lari to the dollar, better than out there- go look if you don’t believe me.”
“No, no of course not- I believe you” I reassured her as I yanked out a damp wad of American bills. She noticed that I had a few of my trusty two dollar bills.
“You have a two dollar bill?” she inquired snatching it from my hand and setting it on her desk. “THIS” she said holding up the Jeffersonian bill, “is a present for me, OK?” She smiled demurely at me, attempting to be coquettish despite her age, which must have been around 40.
I agreed that yes, the deuce would be for her, and we completed our transaction. As I hoisted my backpack on she said, “You know I’d like to go to America, maybe I’ll see you there some day” smiling broadly at me beneath her funny hat.
“I hope so, that would be nice” I said, wondering if she was fishing for my phone number, which I decided not to relinquish.

Aydin gave me a wry smile as I left the garage; he had been waiting for me and had understood the flirtation and the “present” despite the language barrier. I was like some minor celebrity, perhaps a local newscaster or some other such pseudo celebrity who had not earned their fame. She had not been interested in having any conversation with Aydin. Perhaps the opportunity to chat with a young American in this little traveled post was as close as my interlocutor would get to America. I thought mistakenly that we were free to leave, but alas, we were soon being given the once over at one final shed, which had four soldiers in it. None of them spoke a word of English. A heated argument ensued between Aydin and the soldiers. I assumed that they must have been giving him a hard time for some reason; I shamelessly wondered if his problem was going to hold me up, should I ditch him? Aydin slammed his bad down on the ground and sat on the cement, totally disgusted. We were at a momentary standstill that I did not understand. Rain pored down upon us. The soldiers had our passports. Life was beginning to suck. Royally. I was just about to go summons my new girlfriend but Aydin motioned for me to stay with him. Moments later,
the soldiers seemed to have a change of heart and we were off.
Since we were both heading to Batumi we split the only cab in sight. I felt a bit apprehensive, not knowing or understanding what motives Aydin might possibly have. Yet in the rain at this remote border, there seemed no other option. We hopped into an old white Lada with a cracked windshield. Aydin wrote on a piece of paper that we would each pay 2.5 laris, or a buck and a quarter each to get to Batumi, which was half and hour away. Batumi looked frightening in the rain, there was garbage and muck everywhere, the homes looked to all be in a state of disrepair, like an old disused horror movie set. We arrived at Aydin’s apartment building, which was a tall, ugly Soviet looking gulag.
Another big and incomprehensible (to me) argument ensued between the driver and Aydin. Aydin signaled for me to come with him and I did as I was told.
“You come, my home” was all he said. What the hell was going on? Why was I going to his house- to be beaten and robbed? I decided to put my fate in his hands and go with the flow.

Aydin introduced me to his roommates, three other Turks studying in Batumi- one of whom spoke fluent English. Their apartment was neat and well furnished, especially given the bleak exterior of the building. I was given a pair of slippers to wear and a hot cup of Turkish coffee. Aydin was understandably relieved to finally have a translator. Abdullah, who made extra cash by teaching English, attempted to explain the events of the last hour to me.
“Aydin says that at the border they were demanding you give them ten dollars, the soldiers told him that Americans are rich so they must pay a special tax- he told them you would not pay, that’s why he got so upset.”
So I was the cause of the delay! I immediately felt guilty for considering ditching him at the border-he had saved me ten bucks.
“What about in the taxi- what was that argument about?” I asked curious to know
if I was being subjected to another foreigner “tax”.
“He says that once the driver found out you were American, he insisted that you pay more, so Aydin wanted you to get out with him, because he knew you would be in trouble.”
I thanked Aydin profusely and he seemed genuinely bashful at the accolades he was receiving. Abdullah turned to me and said, “You two have been through much together, you are brothers now.”

I passed around some pictures I had of my girlfriend Jen, my family and also of Chicago and Egypt. The guys passed them around as they sat on the couch looking at them in wonderment. I could almost anticipate the next question, which came from Cendel, the youngest member of the group at 19.
“Where do you find money to travel like this?” he asked.
I had told them I was a student and that I’d saved up for three years for my trip. I tried to impress upon them that I was traveling on a tight budget but I don’t think they could comprehend what I was up to. The idea of traveling around the world was as foreign to them as baseball and apple pie. I told the guys that I was planning on taking the next train to Tbilisi and was told that Cendel would go to the station to get my ticket. It was still poring rain outside, so the very idea of having my ticket delivered to me appealed to me tremendously but I could not allow it. My American suspicion told me that these guys were up to something- would they take a commission? Could it be possible that they were just incredibly kind? I didn’t’ know, but insisted on going with them to the station.
Abdullah and Aydin did not want me to be put out, “Cendel will get the ticket, and we will stay here and watch Braveheart on video!”
The idea of sitting in their cozy apartment and watching Braveheart on a rainy day sounded wonderful but I insisted that we all go the station- what better thing to do then all band together to take an American to the train station in a downpour?

As Cendel, Aydin and I headed to the door I suddenly panicked realizing that I’d taken the lock off my bag to show them my photos. My backpack was sitting, half opened right next to their front door, with over $300 in cash and my camera in it. Abullah and their third roommate, whose name was beyond my comprehension, weren’t coming to the station- would they help themselves to my things? I faced a split second decision: if I bent down and locked my bag up, they would have clearly seen that I didn’t trust them and thus wasn’t an option I decided. I decided to throw the ball in their court,
“Should I bring my bag?” I asked, hoping against hope they’d say yes.
But Cendel said it wasn’t necessary since the train didn’t leave until 10pm. I decided to trust them and headed out with them into the miserable afternoon.

We took two different shared minibuses across town to get to the station, passing along cratered streets that had not been repaired in decades. Aydin insisted on paying for both rides, to my great embarrassment. With the help of Cendel’s translation, they helped me buy a $7.50 first class sleeper ticket to Tbilisi, even going to the trouble of taking me on the train to show me the difference between 1st and second class. The difference in price was modest, but I did not want to reinforce their image of me as a free spending rich American so I asked Aydin which class he would travel in if he were going to Tbilisi. Thankfully, he said if it were up to him, he’d ride first class, which made me feel completely justified in the “splurge”. The first class cabins did look relatively plush given the dinginess of the surroundings.
Cendel, who had a dark complexion and hailed from Izmir, opined that I’d be” riding with Shevernadze (the president of Georgia) on this train”.
Shevernadze they told me, was in fact running for re-election on that very day.

Ticket safely in hand we repaired to aTurkish restaurant near the center of town. The boys were clearly regulars, as they kissed members of the staff upon arrival. Cendel began to tell me their stories over delicious plates of marinated meat and steamed rice. They all came from different parts of Turkey and none of them had wanted to study in Batumi.
“None of us was accepted to the University’s we wanted to go to, so we were forced to come here” he said bluntly.
Cendel had been studying English Language and literature and Aydin engineering.
We chatted on amiably as the rain continued to pour down, and once again they insisted on paying the bill. They made a point of saying that I was their guest and that I’d do the same for them if they were in America. The sad fact was that a) they’d probably never get a visa to enter America and b) if they did, it would be unlikely they’d see this kind of hospitality. In America people are suspicious of outsiders, our curiosities dulled by fear and uncertainty. I became depressed thinking about the Darwinian aspects of our country but I did not disappoint them by cluing them into my opinions.

Back at their apartment, I found an excuse to look in my backpack and was happy to find all of my money and things still there. Their hospitality had been sincere kindness. We spent a few hours looking at photos and chatting- until it was time for me to leave. They insisted on seeing me off, literally escorting me right into my “Shevarnadze compartment”. I felt so touched as they each kissed my cheeks and told me how happy they were to have met me. I would be leaving behind family in Batumi, despite the fact that I’d been there for less than 24 hours.

¨¨¨¨¨

I shared my “Shevardnadze” compartment with Ruslan, a 20 year old Georgian who was on his way back to the capitol. I asked him where he learned to speak such good English.
“I was an exchange student in a small town outside of Winston Salem, North Carolina my senior year of high school” he said speaking in a quiet, measured tone. I cringed to hear what he thought of life in a small town in the south, but couldn’t resist asking.
“It was hard to fit in, I wanted to go home most of the year- my house was far from town and I had no car so it was difficult. By the end of the year I was making more friends, but by then it was time to come back.”
“What kind of things did high school kids do for fun where you lived?” I asked.
“They’d go into the woods to drink, shoot their guns and have sex” he said, kind of embarrassed to break this news to me. “The only thing people were interested to know about my country was that we had no drinking age- they liked that.”
“Did you vote in the election today?” I asked hoping to change the topic.
“Yeah, I voted for Shevardnadze- there is no one else, besides the West likes him for some reason, so we think maybe he can keep the aid flowing in.”
“But there seems to be some opposition to him, wasn’t he almost assassinated recently?” I asked.
“Twice in fact, but they didn’t get him and no one was arrested.”
“Who’s they?” I asked.
“Mafia probably, you see this is a hard time for us, we have lost Abkhazia, S. Ossetia and now also Ajaria, where I am originally from, is seeking more autonomy.”
“Why are there so many regions breaking away?” I asked.
“Well, Ossetians and Abkhazians are not Georgians, they have their own languages and cultures, but they’ve just historically been incorporated onto our land. I’m Ajarian, we are Georgians, we share the Georgian language. My grandmother is Abkhazian, she doesn’t even speak Georgian, you see.”
“How did Georgia lose Abkhazia?” I asked.
“There was a small band of Abkhazian soldiers who wanted independence, but Russia gave them money and weapons…they wanted to weaken us you see, so eventually we gave up- we couldn’t take on the Russians.”
“No one even knows about Abkhazia being a sovereign country, do you think anyone is going to recognize them as independent?” I asked.
“No- I think we are going to get it back eventually, it’s a very rich land, it has a great coastline- people used to vacation in Abkhazia- Shevarnadze is pledging to win it back, but I think this is only an election promise.”

I found Ruslan’s political savvy to be remarkable for a twenty year old, his colleagues in North Carolina would probably be hard pressed to name their own Senators.
“Do you think your clan, the Ajarians will eventually want independence?” I asked.
“No, just some kind of special status- it’s a ploy to get more money from Tbilisi, really.”
Our conversation turned to Tbilisi, I was curious what the impact of foreign investment was on the capitol.
“Lately, there seem to be a lot of foreigners in Tbilisi, but I’m not sure if they are good investors, or just mafia.. but yeah there are Western companies coming in, Westerners think Georgia is cheap, so they run around buying drinks and screwing all the best girls” Ruslan shook his head and laughed a bitter chuckle, I could tell he was rankled.
“You were young during the communist period, but have you seen much benefit from the end of communism?” I asked.
“Not really, in communist times we had jobs and health care and a lot of money, but there was nothing in the stores, nothing to buy. Now we have everything to buy but no money. Local companies cannot compete with Western ones- you’ll see there are Marlboro billboards all over Tbilisi- people have been brainwashed that Western goods are the best and local things are shit, local companies have no chance against all the advertising these Western companies are doing. Everyone thinks they must have snickers now for example, but we have our own chocolate that’s better!”
I tried to tell him that I believed that the hunger for Western goods was more a temporary phase, a reaction to newfound freedom that might subside in another ten years once people learn to invest and spend to support local industries. Ruslan wasn’t buying it though.
“You have to understand something, we have many foreign aid people here already who are supposed to be helping us improve our economy, your USAID is here, but they are doing nothing for Georgian people! They are spending 60K per month living at the Sheraton, but they aren’t helping people. You see, Georgia is important to America, they want to run an oil pipeline here, Caspian oil from Azerbaijan.”

As we continued to speak into the night old ladies and young boys came through the corridors selling “limonota” and other beverages from tattered woolen sacks. Just as we finished the two tall beers Ruslan had bought us, a man from the next compartment came in with two more- toasting us for no apparent reason.
“What was that, do you know him? Why did he just buy us beers?” I asked perplexed but pleased.
“It’s Georgia” Ruslan said with a shrug.
“Sometimes people start buying each other drinks in a bar, because if some people receive two drinks- they send back four- and so on. So if you don’t have much money, you might buy drinks and hope you get more in return.”
“So we need to buy him 4 beers now?” I asked naively.
“Technically yes, but its late now so don’t worry.”

Ruslan and I talked late into the night, he on his bunk and me on mine, laughing and kidding as though we were at a sleep over. Each time there would be a period of silence I wondered if he was asleep, but then conversation would start up again, as if we were testing each other to see who’d fall asleep first.
Oddly, I feel less disoriented waking up on a train than I do in my own bed at home. Perhaps the motion gives me pleasant dreams or maybe it’s only waking up in the same damn place every day that unsettles and disturbs me. As we alighted onto the dark platform, I looked at my watch: it had taken 11 and a half hours to travel 300 miles, at this rate I’d never make it to Shanghai to meet Jen.

Starbucks is Closing: Boo Mother Freaking Hoo

2008-07-19T16:01:00.011-05:00

Am I out of touch with American society or is the media going just a bit overboard with coverage of Starbucks downsizing its number of locations? I was a bit surprised, though not shocked when the Chicago Tribune carried two front page above the fold stories on Starbucks in the business section yesterday (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-space-starbucks-health-cjul18,0,2229765.column) and (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-starbucks-closejul18,0,876488.story). Then this morning, yet another Starbucks story was on the front page of the Trib (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-starbucksjul19,0,7595492.story). I checked the Trib website, and noticed several other stories I hadn't noticed about the Starbucks closures.

The Trib is no doubt playing into the overall trend of the American media to dumb down its "news" to deliver more human interest fluff and less real news. One only need to tune into CNN or FOX any given morning and witness the endless parade of stories about celebrities, miracle diets, tips on raising children, and endless ad-nauseum coverage of whatever the latest: (pick one) weather disaster, cute missing white girl, or celebrity trial happens to be at that time. Local media is even worse. Can anyone in Chicago forget the amount of coverage surrouding the appearance of a cougar in Roscoe Village garnered? Honestly, people who couldn't tell you who the current president of the United States is can definitely tell you all about that cougar that was on the loose in Roscoe Village.

The fact that Starbucks is closing 600 locations is news- after all people will lose their jobs- but can anyone actually be surprised that Starbucks is closing locations? Anyone with half a brain could see what their strategy was- saturate the market with locations everwhere, then contract once people were addicted. The Trib has devoted more coverage to Starbucks this week than they did to the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Istanbul a couple weeks ago that killed three security guards, and far more coverage than what was given when 9 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last week. One can also compare the Starbucks coverage to a tiny little article on page 12 of today's paper which briefly mentions that 3 Afghan's were killed in in explosions and 2 humanitarian aid workers were kiddnapped.

But its not just the volume of Starbucks stories (which will no doubt drive sales at Starbucks locations) but the absurdity of the coverage itself that is most gauling. Two of the three stories mentioned in paragraph one imply that Starbucks is unfairly targeting minority areas with store closures, as though the chain had been taken over by some klansman who just choose stores in black areas to close because he hated the idea of African Americans drinking their beverages, rather than the fact that these are the least profitable stores. In the Barbara Rose/Wailin Wong story, the Trib quotes Phil Jackson associate pastor at Lawndale Community Church, "For Starbucks to look at all the communities that are suffering, and then to close the stores htat they are closing is really kind of hypocritical. They started the store knowing what the community was all about. You come here so you can uplift the community."

Isn't it the job of churches like Mr. Jacksons', rather than Starbucks- a purveyor of mocha latte's- to "uplift" impoverished communities? The truth is that the people hurt the most by the Starbucks closures (other than the employees themselves) are the real estate agents who try to peddle new condo developments in some of the very tough neighborhoods where Starbucks will be closing locations. Real estate agents trying to bring white folks into minority neighborhoods to buy condos try to point to Starbucks locations as a sign of gentrification, and then shuttle the person into the safety of the condo to sell them on the stainless steel appliances, vaulted ceilings, and all the other cookie cutter crap that is put in condos these days. Everbody else that actually needs a Starbucks fix ought to be just fine- after all there are still going to be around 18,000 locations in Chicago that won't close.

Love Thy Neighbor (but Celebrate when they are Evicted)

2008-07-19T10:39:00.010-05:00

We've spent the last year sharing a two flat with a mercurial nutcase that was finally evicted nearly a month ago much to our surprise and delight. Does it make me a bad person that I was happy- no thrilled- to see her ass tossed out on the street? Before you answer, consider some of her (and her sons) transgressions over the past year:

When we moved in, Nancy (her given name is actually Anasthasia but she goes by Nancy) had a huge and unsightly collection of personal belongings in our garage that our landlord promised us would be out before we moved in. The stuff- which included a ratty, stained 1970's sofa, an inoperable lawnmower, garage sale quality paintings, and a broken exercise device that may have been an Ab-Lounger- was, of course, still there when we moved in. Nancy insisted that it would be out by the first weekend we were there. Not surprinsgly, the junk stayed put for several weeks, before I took it upon myself to drag it out to the curb myself. The only snag is that the garbage company won't move furniture for free- you have to go a store and purchase a special tag to affix to it. Nancy promised to get on this right away.

Weeks went by and in the meantime severe rain soaked the already fetid sofa beyond recognition. Our garbage area is in our back alley right next to our garage, so every time we came and went from our apartment we had to look at the filthy beast and wonder when and if it might ever be removed. After repeated pleas to Nancy and the landlord, the landlord eventually bought the tag for it and it was mercifully hauled away- probably about two months after we initially moved in.

Before we move on to Nancy's other sins, it might be helpful for me to paint a physical portrait of her for you. Nancy is, I would guess, about 40 years old, rail thin, and with the empty hollow look of a heroin addict. She has one (very) wandering eye- so when she speaks to you, there is no way to make direct eye contact. Her idea of getting dressed up is putting on her best pajamas. I only saw her wearing anything other than pajamas or sweats on one ocassion. Nancy told us she worked in a law office, but the landlord insists that she is a waitress. Like everything else about her- there was no way to no for sure, because she's a pathological liar.

We shared a washing machine and dryer with Nancy in the basement. Nancy rarely did laundry- despite having a 13 year old son- and neither my wife nor I EVER saw her wash her sheets. But when Nancy did do laundry, she had the maddening habit of putting a load in the machine, but then failing to remove it- sometimes for weeks (yes, weeks!). So we'd have to remove her wet laundry and place it on top of the dryer- where it would sit, untouched for days if not weeks, getting moldy and disgusting. Strange, right? But wait, it gets worse. Sometimes she would leave the one wet and moldy load on top of the dryer for a long time, and then start a new load without putting the original one in the dryer (or moving it someplace else). She would invariably leave that one too, so we'd then have two massive pyramids of her laundry sitting precariously on top of the dryer- which made doing laundry ourselves quite a travail.

My wife, Jen is very dilligent about removing our laundry after its done- yet, nonetheless Nancy would sometimes remove one of our loads to make way for her own, and would put our stuff flush against a dirty wall, where some of our smaller items could slip down into a filthy black hole like crevice between the wall and the dryer- and could only be removed with great effort. Nancy also frequently took the liberty of using our detergent- we know this because she had the same empty bottle of her own detergent sitting down there for months purely for cosmetic purposes. Next to the laundry machines, sat a very small garbage can- which overflowed with various items she had discarded. The full can sat there spilling over until she was evicted just weeks ago.

A couple months after we moved in, Nancy mentioned to us that her sister would be staying with her for "a week or two." A few days after that, a woman who looked just as ghoulish and frightening pulled up in a 18 wheel tractor trailer moving van and began unloading heavy items of furniture and bedding into the apartment. The sister, who ended up staying for a few months, had a yappy dog that barked at odd hours of the day and night, but the dog's owner was even louder- and most of the time it seemed as though the two sisters were on the brink of killing each other, such were the screams and squels we would here coming from downstairs.

Nancy also had a deeply ingrained mail phobia- most likely because she disliked paying- or even opening for that matter the bills she recieved. We had our own mailbox on the porch- but the lazy mailmen would often just see the big mailbasket she had sitting on the porch first and throw our mail and her mail together in a big pile. The problem with this is that Nancy used the mailbin basically like a trash bin. She neglected to pick up her mail for months or weeks at a time, and would sometimes tear open a piece of mail, but then just throw it back into the basket nonetheless. So when our mail wasn't put in our box, we'd have to sift through literally mounds of her unpaid bills (many of which bore threatening final notice stamps) to find what was ours.

Periodically we'd sort out all of her mail, put it in a plastic bad and stick it on her door handle- but it never changed her behavior. After she moved out I saw one piece of opened mail sitting right on top of her mail bin that I could not resist reading. It was her social security statement- which showed that she had claimed taxable income between about 10 and 15k for the last dozen or so years- this despite renting an apartment that itself cost 15k per year. Where on earth is the IRS when you need it, for a good audit? Even by Nancy's standards, I could not believe that she would open such a piece of mail and then just toss it on the top of her mailbin where anyone could read it.

While she didn't want to open her own mail, Jen and I both strongly suspected that she or Peter stole two UPS boxes that were left on our porch for us, and one box that was left for our landlords. All 3 boxes were left by UPS in a part of our covered porch that is not visible from the sidewalk or street- and Nancy's defensive and bizzare responses when I mentioned the thefts to her made me strongly suspicious that she or her son had taken them. One of the boxes contained Jen's Chrismtas gifts from my family, as well as priceless momento's from my childhood- hair from my first haircut, important documents, etc.

Throughout the entire time Nancy lived below us we had a constant battle with her over her smoking habit. The landlord told us that smoking was forbidden in the house- though we frequently smelled smoke that would waft up into our infant son's bedroom. Nancy had told the landlord that she was a nonsmoker- but every time she'd pull up in front of the house, we'd see a cigarette dangling from her lip. She adamantly denied smoking in her house- and claimed that what we smelled was her son "burning smelly incense." Aside from the fact that only a complete moron would confuse the smell of incense with nicotine- how many 13 year old boys do you know that are into burning incense? We tried to catch her "in the act" numerous times, but she just wouldn't answer her door whenver we smelled smoke.

Nancy had a 13 year old son named Peter whom we felt very sorry for, so I tried to be nice to him by giving him Sports Illustrated magazines, baseball cards, and other little trinkets that I thought he might enjoy. We knew his mom was nuts and not much of a mother at all- and his dad only stopped by to pick him up occasionally. Not only that, but we'd hear his insane mother berating him with the worst language you can imagine on a near nightly basis. It was impossible for us to know what he was being yelled at for, but we assumed it was more his mother's stupidity and vile demeanour more than anyting else. But Peter was no saint himself- probably not surprising given the Wal Mart quality upbringing he was recieving. One afternoon a few months ago, we went down into our storage area in the basement- a large area where we have excess furniture, clothing, hundreds of books, files and other things- and saw huge puddles of smelly water and a ceiling that was all wet and had a few large bubbles that were about to burst all over our belongings.

We contacted our landlord who called Nancy on her mobile. Nancy said that her son, Peter, had overflowed their toilet that morning, but thought he had "cleaned it up." Actually, what he did was overflow the toilet and then just left for school without bother to alert anyone to the problem, with the result being that our stuff was literally swimming in their fecal jamboree. I confronted Nancy, and she backed off of her earlier admission when I informed her that she'd need to clean and pay for our damaged stuff. She tried to claim that he hadn't overflowed the toilet, but that it had just been "running" for awhile. Her and her son made an extraodrinarily half hearted effort to clean the basement to no use. We had to toss out most of our stuff and insist that the landlord hire a professional firm to sterilize the room. There was never any apology from mother or son. She could only say, "these things happen, you don't think we did it on purpose do you?"

Several weeks after that unpleasant incident, we came home one afternoon to find Peter and one of his young friends scrubbing the exterior of our garage with a sponge. I gave him a puzzled look before noticing the orange paint he was trying to scub off. "Some of my friends came over and shot up the place with paint ball guns," he explained. I didn't really care much- seeing as though we are renters and a bit of paint didn't bother me too much anyways, until I later noticed that the little bastards had also shot a holt through our (previously) screened-in porch, and had sprayed orange paint all over the interior of our mailbox. Shortly thereafter the next door neighbors came over to ask me about the boy- they had also broken one of their windows (you could see remnants of the same orange paint along the edges of the cracked glass). Nancy claimed that since it wasn't her son that had done the shooting, that they weren't responsible for any of the damages.

These incidents, combined with our constant complaints, combined with the fact that she was consistently behind or completely delinquent on her rent forced the landlords to finally, and mercifully ask her to leave. We believed this to be great news, and it was, only she decided to leave behind a huge amount of filth and detritus when she left. Apparently she already owed the landlords for rent and damages, so she had no incentive to clean the place in order to recoup her security deposit.

Just a couple days before Nancy moved some of her belongings out of her apartment (only what she intended to keep), we noticed that the dryer wasn't working. We contacted the landlord and they resolved to have it fixed- only we later realized that ComED had disconnected her electricity for nonpayment- the dryer had been hooked up through her apartment (with the washing machine connected to ours). The landlord had to pay her huge arrears to have it restored, but since it was a disconnect, we had to wait more nearly two weeks to have it restored- all the while we had to hang dry our wet laundry all over the apartment.

We soon began to smell an unglodly odoring emanenting from Nancy's apartment- not only had she left tons of old furniture and crap in the apartment- she also left a frige full of food that rotted and drew insects after her electricity was disconnected. The landlords left the doors to Nancy's apartment wide open for a few days to air the place out, so Jen and I went in one day to look around the mess, and aside, from the accumulated junk of a pack rat, we found Peter's paint ball gun- still dripping with orange paint.

After the landlord cleaned up the mess, some of the insects began finding their way into our apartment. New tennants moved into Nancy's apartment and had their movers put all of Nancy's junk in our common laundry room- where it remained for weeks, until the landlords gave most of it to charity. Nancy's second car- an old SUV that was inoperable and had sat beached next to our garage for the entire year completely filled to the ceiling with junk, was also mercifully towed away.

Nancy is gone now, but not completely forgotten, we still have a huge old desk of hers that is sitting next to our garage waiting to be hauled away. One day I took a look at it- thinking about whether I should just go and buy the tag so the damn thing could be taken away- I opened one of the drawers and found an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. As the Sundays once crooned, "just a little souvenir from a terrible year."

Osama as a Child

2008-07-11T22:28:00.004-05:00

A few interesting facts about Osama bin Laden's childhood according to the Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright:

+ OBL was the founding member of an a cappella singing group as a teen. The group- which seems to have been something of a babershop quartet minus the barbershop- cut some singles they wrote about jihad, but never cracked the Saudi charts.

+ OBL married for the first time in high school, at age 17. His first bride was a cousin who was 14 at the time. They went on to have 11 children together.

+ OBL's second wife had a PHD in child psycology and was seven years older than him- she bore him one child. His third wife also had a doctorate (in Arabic grammar) and bore him four children. His fourth and wife bore him 4 children. Wikipedia claims that he's had 5 wives and has divorced two of them.

+ Friends and relatives claim that OBL became interested in the plight of Palestinians at age 14, and would sometimes break into tears when hearing about events in Palestine on the news.

Confessions of a New Father: 8 States in 8 Months

2008-06-04T16:38:00.008-05:00

Leo is now eight months old and has already lived a richer, fuller life than most of the people you see on Wife Swap- save for perhaps the family of traveling carnies that was on recently. (I swear I don't watch this show regularly) They had it pretty good. But Leo has been living a bit of la vida loca himself lately. He's already been to two NHL games, two MLB games, and done enough airline travel to know that when the pilot says, "we'll be getting cleared for takeoff shortly," that he needn't rush to secure his seat back or tray table. He's also learned that, if its raining, even sprinkling anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, or Guam, the airlines will claim that the delays you are suffering through are related to "bad weather" rather than their own general ineptitude- even if you are flying from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines, and the bad weather is in the Netherlands Antilles.

Leo has flown to Buffalo, New York, Boston, Albuquerque (might I suggest that this city change its name to someting easier to spell?) and San Jose. He's been a real trooper on each and every flight- and that is saying something in this era of no-frills, hi-cost, delay ridden domestic travel. On our trip home from California, we had to sit on the runway at O'hare for "just a few moments" because our gate was occupied. The "few moments" turned into just under an hour on a sweltering hot plane filled with angry people. Leo was perhaps the most content chap on the plane, however, as we authorized him to shred the in-flight and Sky Mall magazines in his seat. For some reason the boy loves to rip and shred documents. He would probably fit in nicely on Hillary Clinton or Scooter Libby's staff in that regard.

We also had to sit on a hot plane at Logan for 2 hours before our flight took off a few months ago. He was also allowed to shred during that delay as well, so the basic rule of thumb has become: if there is a delay, the boy gets to rip, otherwise he has to make due with crawling around our laps and trying to eat whatever he can get his hands on. Lord knows its not easy to avoid hunger in the air these days- you're lucky if you get a bag of peanuts, even on a long haul flight.

Being a handsome eight month old boy certainly has its advantages. Leo has strangers doting on him wherever he goes, and he lapps up the attention like a hungry dog- returning every smile that comes his way and making friends wherever he goes. Leo is so popular,that when we're in an enclosed space with a stranger that doesn't remark on him, we find ourselves wondering about the deficiencies in that persons character. A small sample size of the people that Leo has charmed lately: a cashier at a health food store in Nederland, Colorado that wanted to hold him, the Mexican waitresses at Nuevo Leon in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago- who like to carry Leo around the restaraunt and speak to him in Spanish, the concierges at the Hyatt in Denver- who remembered Leo by name and wanted to know about his every move in their city, the staff members of several wineries in the Sonoma Valley who no doubt poured us better wine because they liked Leo so much, and a slew of high school girls that played peek a boo with him for half of our flight home from Denver. Someday I aspire to be as popular as my son is now, or as my dog Homer used to be, but I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, the boy's development is pretty astonishing. He can shimmy around the house as though he were a NAVY SEAL stealthily sneaking up a hill along enemy lines. Aside from shimmying and shredding, he also loves to handle cords, wires, remote controls, cable boxes, and/or any other electrical devices he can get his hands on. If he did't have my genes, I'd say he might make a really good electrician when he grows up. He's a damn good traveler-in fact, he probably throws less tantrums than his dad does while on the road. As far as his reading habits go, he's still a bit more into chewing on his literature, which is probably a good thing- the boy's a deep thinker that likes to work through the ideas in his own way. Recently, Leo learned how to use his mom's stomache to make fart noises- and this makes him very happy. He still loves to breast-feed, but he's no longer into the traditional sit down at the table kind of meal anymore. No sir- he likes to feed standing up, or better yet, take ocassional sips while jumping on his mom as though she were a trampoline while intermittently looking at me to see if I'm looking at him.

The most remarkable thing about this age, IMO, is how infectious his smile and laugh are. Leo is one happy little guy- and when he's laughing and smiling and squeling, flashing his two little teeth, you really can't help but feel the warm glow of his charm. Of course, the boy is still not without his peculiarities and phobias. His smile turns to howls of anger when you have to take his shirt on or off. Don't even think about trying to strap him into a car seat, stroller, hi-chair, etc- if he's in a cranky mood, and, don't even think about putting that damn suction thing he hates up his nose to suck boogers out. He hasn't yet learned to throw a tantrum when you take something away from him, though, and we aren't planning on giving him any lessons in this behavior either.

Leo is 3/4 of a year old- and he has improved the quality of our lives immensely- when I'm gone, I miss him within an hour, and when I get home, I practically want to run up the steps to get my hands on him. More experienced parents say it'll just keep getting better. Ummm, right, but only up until a point right? When they start requesting Hannah Montana tickets and iphones- surely that won't be better than the hi-times we are having now?

The Ignorance Files- Ignorant Customer Service

2008-06-04T13:23:00.012-05:00

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #1: 5/16ths of a Pound of Baloney

The other day I asked a deli clerk at my local supermarket for a third of a pound of swiss cheese. The plump young gal taking care of me started slicing away on her machine vigorously. She kept churning and churning and I began to wonder if she might have heard me incorrectly. Sure enough, she plopped a massive stack of swiss cheese slices on her scale- a bit more than 3/4ths of a pound.

"I just wanted a third of a pound," I protested.
She looked at the scale and said, "it is a third."
"But it says .77," I countered, beginning to wonder if she was putting me on.
"Well, its a bit more than a third," she conceeded.
"A bit more?" I asked, "its more than 3/4ths of a pound, I wanted 1/3rd of a pound."

She looked totally confused so I added, "point thirty three on your scale", acknowledging that they friendly, portly young lass must have been absent the day they taught fractions in grammar school. The clerk nodded her head as though she understood. But then she took all of the slices off the scale save for just one, and then said, in all seriousness, "i didn't realize you wanted like just one slice of cheese." I looked at her puzzled until I realized that she was trying to make her scale read .033 instead of .33. After some remedial math tutoring, I eventually got my cheese- and managed to refrain from asking her for anything involving even more complex fractions.

I arrived home eager to tell my wife about my fuzzy math problem at the Jewel deli counter, but she was not sympathetic.

"A third? You asked for 1/3 lb? No one does that- you have to deal in quarters," she said, looking at me like I was the ignorant one, instead of the clerk.
" I wanted 1/3- 1/4 wasn't enough, and 1/2 was too much, i mean, its not like I asked for 5/8ths or something really challenging."

My wife may have had a point, but if I were hiring deli slicers- I'd probably only ask them 3 questions- 1) do you have any communicable diseases? 2) ever accidentally slice off one of your fingers?, and 3) can you do fractions?

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #2: The Customer is Always a Piece of Shit

I arrived at the Budget Rent-A-Car desk in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a long flight from Chicago at nearly 10pm on a wednesday night. My wife Jen, and 8 month old son, Leo, took a seat as I joined the back of a line that was 5 or 6 customers deep. We planned to drive an hour to Santa Fe, check into our hotel and get Leo to sleep, as it was already 3 hours past his bedtime. The line didn't move for what seemed like ages- every single customer in front of me seemed to have some kind of problem, but I coudln't hear exactly what people were saying.

When I'm stuck waiting in a long line, I have the unhealthy habit of trying to speculate on why others are taking so long, while formulating strategies on how I believe the people behind the counter could be doing their jobs more efficiently. In this case, there were three clerks "working" but one of them kept disappearing into the back room for extended periods of time. The other clerk was shadowed by a man who- if i had to speculate on his formal job description- appeared to have no other fuction besides looking over his colleagues shoulder and staring at his computer screen while furrowing his acne covered brow.

By the time I reached the counter, years later, I was nearly elligible for a senior citizens discount on my car, but I tried to let by-gones be by-gones and present a friendly face in the hopes of getting a good car. My wife, Jen, has frequently accused me of demonstating a "Mr. Nice Guy" persona while requesting flight, hotel or rental car upgrades that bears no resemblence to my actual cynical, impatient and mean spirited real self. She may have a point. In any event, i pulled out my best self in the hopes of snagging a good car.

"We only have mini-vans," said the sullen Latina clerk, who had spent most of the previous half-hour plotting the destruction of planet earth from the back room while those of us in line cursed the gods and pondered the meaning of life while wondering what the hell she was up to "back there."
"But I reserved a compact car," I protested, brandishing my priceline.com confirmation e-mail.
"It doesn't matter- all I have is minivans!" she said, before adding, "do you want one or not?"
I had already pre-paid for the car via www.priceline.com, so not taking the car wasn't an option, but with gas at $4 a gallon, the last thing I wanted was a massive gas guzzler.
I asked to speak with the surly Latina's supervisor.
"You'll have to wait," she said.

By this point, I would have rather been granted immediate access to hell rather than join a queue to get into Hugh Hefner's mansion, such was my level of impatience, so I asked my surly friend why there weren't any cars smaller than the size of your average Wall-Mart greeter's ass, or something along those lines.

She went on a lengthy diatribe against priceline.com and those who use it- essentially branding us cheapskates who want the world served to them on a silver platter- while admonishing me to book directly with budget in the future.
"So let me get this straight," I said, in my best prosecutor delivering his final arguments fashion, "if i had booked directly with budget- you would find something other than a minivan for me?"
"Well, no, we only have minivans," she conceeded.
"So then help me out here- what's the relevance of your whole diatribe against priceline customers? Either way I'd get stuck with a minivan, right?"
This query seemed to send her over the edge.
"I've been dealing with angry customers all night, and I'm just sick of it!" she railed, "if you keep yelling at me (note: she was the one yelling, not me) i'm not even going to rent you the car, now do you want the minivan or not?"
"Yessssss, I would love a minivan," I said sarcastically.

So i took the damn minivan, and wouldn't you know it, as we dragged our refugee like mass of belongings across the Budget parking lot, we noticed that there were several regular cars in the lot, and not just minivans. Lacking the strength to tromp back inside to do battle with the surly Latina, I approached a Budget employee sitting in a glass hut in the parking lot.
"I reserved a compact car- why can't I get one of those?" I asked, pointing towards a row of Hyundai Sonata's.
"Oh the Hyundai's- no those are premium cars, you couldn't get one of those!" he said, as though the very notion of me- obviously an unkempt street urchin with a compact car reservation- driving a Hyundai were out of the question. Someday, someday I tell you, I will aspire to drive a Hyundai. (but for now, i'll just drive un-cool minivans or whatever other shit I get foisted upon me at rental counters)

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #3: Commando Style

Later on in this same trip, we arrived at Denver's gleaming international airport, which is conveniently located amidst vast empty fields only 3 hours from downtown Denver. The airport is also conveniently situated only about three hours away from the offsite car rental counters. We were delighted to walk into Thrifty rent-a-car's vast car rental salon and see four counter clerks and not a single customer! Nirvana. The only problem was that with no line, our friendly clerk, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, was in no hurry at all. After nearly 20 minutes- yes- twenty minutes of agonizing questions interspersed between amharic language banter with his Ethiopian colleauges behind the counter, he told us we'd be getting- you guessed it- a Hyundai! My new Ethiopian friend described it to us as "small SUV that is goot on gass". I was thrilled to find a company willing to let me get behind the wheel of some real serious Korean engineering.

We lugged all of our worldly posessions- including Leo's stroller, car seat, food supply, diapers, toys, sippy cups, and what not-out to our designated spot. Only there was no Hyundai, but instead a truly collosal behemoth called the Jeep Commando or some such thing. It looked like it might get about a furlong to the gallon, on a good highway, if you were driving 45mph. "Where the hell is my freaking Hun-dai?" I muttered to no one in particular. I marched back inside while Jen and Leo stood by our belongings, which were stewn about the parking lot.

The Ethiopian man whom I had dealt with previously was nowhere to be found. The hall was still devoid of customers, but now there was just one clerk- an indifferent young man that seemed to be the only non-Ethiopian working there on this day.
He looked at my reservation.
"You reserved a small SUV," he said.
"Right, and your colleague was sorting me out with a Hyundai, but when I got out there it was this huge Commando thing, I don't want a huge SUV," I said, "I noticed that there were several Jeep Laredo's in the parking lot, can I have one of those?"
"The Commander is a better ride than the Lardeo," he said.
"Look- I don't want a huge SUV- just give me something that's going to be more fuel efficient."
The clerk tried to tell me that he couldn't give me any of the cars in the parking lot, other than the monster Commander or Commando or whatever the hell its called, because all the other cars were reserved for "blue chip" members.

"So, since I'm not a blue chip member, I can't get the car I want?" I asked.
"Well, we reserve certain vehicles for our loyal blue chip customers," he said.
"So how much does it cost to become a blue chip member?" I asked.
"Oh, its free," he said.
"So if I sign up for your program, you'll give me the Laredo?" I asked.
"I'm giving you the Commander," he said.
"Look, I don't want to spend a fortune on gas," I said, hoping to appeal to his sense of logic and "thrift".
"I could prove to you that the Commander gets the same gas mileage as the Laredo, but even if I showed you, you still probably wouldn't believe it, would you?" he asked smugly, shaking his head in disgust. (note: i looked it up later and the commander does NOT get the same gas mileage as the Laredo)

I wrote his name down and asked to speak to his supervisor.
"Do you want my employee number too?" he asked, seeing me write his name down.
Nearly an hour after we arrived at their empty office, we drove off in the Laredo. These days, if you want to rent anything smaller than the Titanic, better wear a suit of armor with you to the rental counter and be prepared to fight.

Next Up for Hill: A Spot on VH1's the Surreal Life?

2008-06-04T08:18:00.006-05:00

Even by the Clinton's trailer park standards, last night's non-concession speech was particularly base,self-serving and hypocritcal. Baruch College's gymnasium was packed to the gills with defiant, screaming Clintonistas who were whipped into a frenzy with tunes like Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down", and Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe laughably introduced their hero as "the next president of the United States" despite the fact that every news organization had already called the race for Obama.

The carefully assembled crowd- which included a handful of African Americans strategically placed directly behind Hill- exhorted their leader with cries of "Denver, Denver!" indicating their clear preference for her to refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Clinton, for her part, only vaguely congratulated Obama- delighting her intransigent fans by refusing to concede, despite the fact that- by any count- she had lost the race. "What does Hillary want?" she asked, vainly refering to herself in the 3rd person, before attempting to masquerade her own selfish ambition and thirst for power by answering her own question with an absurd justification for her refusal to concede the race. Hill would have us believe she's staying in because of all the little people- the woman in Sioux Falls with no health insurance, the second shift worker, the single mother, blah, blah, blah. Of course, this is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it. Everyone that is, save for the angry hooligans in the auditorium (and those of their ilk watching from home) who- in a truly surreal spectacle- jumped up and down and whoooped and hollered as though they were celebrating a victory rather than conceeding a defeat. The only thing that was missing from the twilight-zone like presentation was a rendition of "Happy Days are Here Again" and confetti falling from the rafters.

Commentators keep telling us that Clinton has earned the right to go out on her own terms, and that she shouldn't be rushed into conceeding the race. The truth is that its too late for a graceful exit- last night should have been Obama's night- but the Clinton's still cannot come to grips with losing and so they couldn't let the man have his due. Even if she conceedes the race today- which I doubt-its too late- the time to bow out was last night, if not weeks ago.

If Clinton's ultimate goal truly is to advance the policies she espouses rather than just to re-inhabit the White House, she would have conceeded long ago. Instead she and her campaign have duped their core constituency- working class women, white collar feminists, senior citizens uncomfortable with the idea of a black candidate and just plain old rednecks- that the sexist media and the DNC have stolen the election from her by unfairly refusing to count the votes in Michigan and Florida. Never mind the fact that she herself conceeded that those elections weren't going to count back when she didn't know she'd need those votes.

Die-hard Clintonistas want to believe that the nomination has been stolen from them and the facts aren't going to get in the way of that. They are convinced that she is the stronger candiate despite the fact that at least 40% of the country despises her. Years of experience with the Clintons tells us that they aren't going to go quietly from the scene- so now the only question that remains is- will Obama allow himself to be held hostage by Hill's selfish demands? Will she withold support until Obama agrees to put her on the ticket and pay off her campaign debts? No one would put it past her.

I'd like to see Obama put some other woman on the ticket- if for no other reason than to just prove a point- most American men aren't opposed to women in power- they're just opposed to Hillary being in power. Hillary for Veep? Nah, I have another idea- I think Bill and Hill are more well suited for VH1's Surreal Life House ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surreal_Life) than the White House- perhaps the producers could even arrange to have them room with the "scumbag" reporter that wrote this recent Vanity Fair piece on Bill's shady business and personal dealings. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/clinton200807
Check your inbox Hill- you may have missed the memo- you lost- its all over, there won't be any 3AM phone calls for you to answer, no more fake tears to shed, no more vast right wing conspiracies to fend off, no more having to unfairly field the first question at sexist debates. Extinguish your torch and get off the island. The tribe has spoken.

R Kelly: Michaelangelo or Pornographer

2008-05-12T20:37:00.005-05:00

The tribune reports today that R Kelly supporters are outnumbering protesters 10-1 outside his child porn trial which about to begin here in Chicago. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-r-kelly-debate-12may12,0,4763585.story
The Trib sights several so called experts to help explain why R Kelly maitains significant support in the African American community. Two of the experts have particularly interesting theories.

Bakari Kitwana- whom the Trib describes as a "hip-hop scholar" artist in residence at the University of Chicago, says that it would be premature to judge Kelly (who was caught on tape having sex and pissing on a 13 year old girl) before he is tried. The hip hop scholar goes on to say, "At what point is the art separated from the reality? Does it make his art now irrelevant because he's got this other problem going on? If we find out some crazy stuff about Michaelangelo, what do we do about his David? Should we tear it down?" Hmmmmm. This has to be the first time R Kelly and Michaelangelo have ever been mentioned in the same sentence. Why are musicians- even really bad ones like R Kelly- now considered artists? Its not enough to create music any more is it? One must create art! Give me a freaking break.

Not to be outdone by Kitwana, Cynthia Neal Spence, associate professor of sociology at Spellman College in Atlanta, says that, "there's not a lot of difference between what is on the R Kelly (sex) tape and what is on BET (Black Entertainment TV) in people's minds, adding that the sexual nature of images in the music videos makes it more difficult for people to discern what is actual pornography."

Ah yes, it is mighty hard to distinguish between music videos and a graphic sex tape where a grown man has sex with and urinates on a 13 year old. Pull-fucking-eeeze. Music videos might be a bit bawdy, but I haven't seen to many pedophilic golden showers on them any time very recently. Do college professors really think people are that dumb that they can't tell the difference?

Cover Letter

2008-04-07T15:23:00.003-05:00

Here is my cover letter for a job I applied for recently.

Carl Spackler
329 Indigent Oaks Ln.
Intercourse, PA 19654
Tel: (315) 333-4014
E-mail: Carl.Spackler@gmail.com

April 7, 2008

Colorado State University

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please consider this letter as application for the Weed Control Crew Leader position currently available as advertised on the Colorado State website. (http://www.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/cwis202/db.cgi?db=jobs&uid=staff&categories=Professional%3A%20General%2FArts%2FTechnicians&sb=10&so=descend&view_records=1&nh=1&mh=1) While I have no formal training or scholarship in the field of weed control, I have been picking weeds, on an ad hoc basis for nearly thirty years now, with some degree of success. I also watch the Showtime program “Weeds” on a regular basis, and have a copy of the Bob Marley "Legend" disc.

Your ad states that you wanted someone with “three years of technical work experience in controlling the growth and spread of noxious weeds.” As I said before, I have been controlling noxious weeds for years, and have also been cultivating other types of weeds in my garage for recreational purposes. (i.e. smoking) I should mention that I have also seen the movie “Caddyshack” many times, and have studied the weed and gopher control techniques implemented by Bill Murray’s character, the country club groundskeeper.

The ad also states that you want someone that is “willing and able to lift up to 50 lbs”. I can go you one better- I can lift up a woman that weighs up to 200 pounds- and, for the purpose of the this position, I would be willing to lift at least 100 pounds no sweat, assuming I am sober and in an accommodating frame of mind. (I do suffer from extreme mood swings and have been known to get really angry when people tell me to do things, but only really occasionally)

As far as my salary history goes, I used to get about $5 a day for picking weeds for my parents, but that was a long time ago, so with inflation, I’d say that I should be making at least enough to be able to buy a dime bag per day. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss how my weed picking experience, knowledge of noxious and smokable weeds, and willingness to work on the cheap make me an ideal candidate for this job. Please call me and let's talk about weed control.

Sincerely,

Carl Spackler

Happy Birthday Homer

2008-03-17T17:05:00.002-05:00

Our sweet boy Homer, the coolest dog in the world, would have been two years old today had he not passed away last year from a freak illness. Not a day goes by that we don't think about Homie- who was our first baby, and the most loving, loyal and fun dog that anyone could possibly hope to have. God Bless you Homer- happy birthday buddy- we hope you are having a special treat up in dog heaven to celebrate your birthday.

Immigration Article

2008-03-13T14:05:00.002-05:00

Check out this article I wrote on visas and immigration..

http://www.cis.org/whats_new.html

Maybe Spitzer was watching the Shield a Bit Much

2008-03-11T23:07:00.005-05:00

The New York Post has richly characterized the Governer of New York- (who in case you have been on another planet today was linked to a high brow prostitution ring) as a "difficult john", and phone transcripts indicate that Spitzer liked to engage in sex acts that some hookers considered to be "not safe." One cannot help but draw parallels to the David Acevedo character on the Shield (if you aren't familiar with this show, get familiar with it soon), though while Acevedo was driven to seek rough sex with prostitues after he was forced to fellate a gap-toothed drug dealer at gunpoint while his colleague took cellphone photos, its unclear what Spitzer's motives were.

Perhaps there is some connection to his failed bid to hand out drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in New York? Maybe the crushing dissapointment of failing to deliver a state perk to those involved in one type of illegal behavior (illegal immigration) drove him to try to lend some state-sanctioned credibility to another type of illegal behavior (prostitution)? Either way, it sure was a delightful news cycle that brightened up my tuesday, though I did feel sorry for his wife, who was, predictably, trouted out for the obligatory stand-by-your-man press conference, during which, Spitzer characterized the event as a "private matter." This was the least "private" affair since the Lewinsky scandal, so I'm really not sure WTF Spitzer is talking about. Of course, wasn't it just a week or two ago that McCain dragged his wife- who looks about as natural as Barry Bonds' inflated skull and biceps-out to do the same thing? Only McCain wasn't caught on tape, so he had the luxury of denying, and he was apparently getting it for free, whereas Spitzer is alleged to have spent a total of 80k. Anyone care to take a bet that when he drags his tired ass back out for his resignation press conference that he will claim to be stepping down in order to "spend time with his family."

Felix Pie's Twisted Testicle

2008-03-11T22:50:00.005-05:00

Today's Chicago Tribune features an article with the headline, "New Twist in Center Field- Pie has minor Surgery," which informs us that Pie is suffering from a "twisted testicle". Apparently, Pie (pronounced Pee-ay) had surgery which involved, "sewing the outer layer of the testicle to the scrotum wall," to correct the problem. The Trib reports that Pie is likely to miss 3-5 days- presumably so he can rest his testicles. Now I know that Cubs fans have a right to know if one of their players is injured- but honestly- do we really need this level of detail? Personally, I want to read about Pie scaling Wrigley's ivy-adorned walls to catch fly balls, I don't want to read about his scrotum walls.

Why don't the Cubs tell us that Pie has the flu? Do I really need to know about Pie's twisted testicles and his scrotum wall? Honestly, folks, here is a team that consistently has lied to its fan base about critical injuries to its franchise pitching stars- namely Wood and Prior-yet, now, when it comes to a twisted testicle, they want to disclose all the gory details for us? As a Cubs fan, I have enough to worry about what with the weight of 100 years of losing on our collective shoulders, I really cannot concern myself with a minor testicle injury that is only going to cost the guy less than a week.

Note: The Trib might have come to its senses, because this article does not currently appear on the Trib website, despite the fact that it is on page 3 of today's sports section.

Confessions of a New Father Part Four

2008-02-28T10:25:00.003-06:00

Countdown to Armageddon

February 8- the date loomed before me ominously on the calendar. My wife, Jen, needed to travel to Washington, D.C. for a meeting, and I was to be left nominally in charge of my four month old son, Leo, for an intimidating fifteen consecutive hours. I say nominally, because, in fairness, he is always more in control of the situation than I am- he has the power to make life very pleasant or quite miserable, depending on his whims and fancies. The longest I’d ever been in sole custody of my son prior to the dooms-date was about 3-4 hours, so I was fairly worried about how we’d both make it through the day.

My fears intensified in the days leading up to the dooms-date as we practiced bottle-feeding Leo in preparation for the big day. As I’ve noted before, Leo is a big fan of breast-feeding, and will only deign to bottle-feed if he is desperately hungry, and even then, he makes it abundantly clear that he views the whole bottle thing as an affront- an assault, in fact, on his good name. As soon as you pull the damn bottle out, you get a look that says, you expect me to lower myself to this indignity? And our prep feedings in the lead up to dooms-day were worse than ever. Leo would grudgingly allow his mom to bottle-feed him, but wanted nothing to do with me when I’d try to assume the position. Every time I’d get the bottle near his face, he’d swat it away, with a shockingly powerful thrust, almost like Shacquille O’Neil stuffing an opponent in the paint- get that shit outta here!

So I took to employing unusual, coercive tactics on him, as though I were some unethical government operative dealing with an uncooperative detainee at Guantanomo Bay. It was relatively easy to smother one of his arms up against my body and hold it there, but subduing the second arm, in order to prevent him from swatting away his bottle like a meddlesome fly, proved somewhat more difficult. The problem is, that when he’s dealing with me, he’ll only consider eating from the bottle when I’m standing up, and preferably when I’m upright and walking. Please don’t ask me why, but I have the feeling it has something to do with him making sure that I’m as uncomfortable as possible- I guess he figures that if he’s losing the breast, that he’s at least going to make sure I’m not happy either. So one of my arms is occupied holding him, and the other arm is holding the bottle- so subduing Leo’s second arm is something of a challenge. I’ve tried placing something interesting in his hand for him to grasp- but that usually only works momentarily- until he decides he wants to swat the bottle. I can try to reach around and physically restrain his second arm, but that makes him angry and it’s hard to hold him that way anyways. The last thing that entered my mind was handcuffs- but I soon thought better of it, remembering that in this country, you could probably lose custody for employing such a tactic.

A Crisis Averted

Jen left us around 5.30AM on March 8, and even before she was out the door, Leo was crying. Only 15 more hours of this, I told myself, fully expecting the boy to be inconsolable for the entire time his mom was away. At four months, he was already a moma’s boy, and this was going to be his first time without Jen for an extended period. I was certain that we were going to have a miserable time together. I put my head right up against my son- with my forehead flush up against his, and said something to the effect of, “Its just you and me today, tough guy, like or not, I’m all you’ve got.” A couple minutes later he stopped crying and we drifted off back to sleep together. I woke up some time later and was reassured to see the boy lying perpendicular to me on the bed, still asleep. I looked at my watch and was stunned, and frankly thrilled to see that it was 8.15! How on earth had we slept in so late?

Leo woke up a few minutes later, and I brought him on a little tour of our apartment, poking him in and out of every room, pointedly showing him that his mom was nowhere to be found. Everywhere we went, he was sort of craning his neck, looking to see where his mom was. Again, I worried that he’d melt down. But a remarkable thing happened- the boy rolled with it, and we ended up having a great day together. He still wasn’t happy about the whole bottle-feeding arrangement- but he did it with some coaxing- and he behaved like a gentleman for nearly the whole day. Normally, I’m accustomed to being second fiddle around the house- and I’ve come to grips with the fact that Leo would rather usually be with his mom- but on this day, he seemed to understand that I was the only game in town, and he adjusted his behavior to me accordingly, treating me to dozens of smiles and laughs the whole day.

Later in the afternoon, Jen’s mom, Kathy relieved me for a few hours and I was able to run some errands, and Jen ended up coming home on an earlier flight that evening. Leo and I had managed to make it though the day together- he tired me out but was a really good kid-but I was happy to hand him over to Jen when she got home, but part of me was already missing the good times Leo and I had together. “Someone’s happy to see his mom,” I told Leo as I handed him over to his beaming mother. For some reason, we often refer to Leo by the word “someone” instead of Leo, as in, “someone filled up his diaper,” or “someone woke up on the wrong side of his Moses basket today.” Somehow in our weird parental parlance, someone=Leo. “He doesn’t’ seem that happy to see me!” Jen complained as Leo sat content, but not ecstatic in her arms. “Jen, he’s not like a dog that’s going to attack you at the door, and its not like he didn’t have fun with me today,” I told her. The sheriff was back in town, and I knew I was again going to be relegated to deputy, but, as I lay down on the sofa and unfurled my newspaper, I felt pretty good about it.

Elite American Newspapers- Deceptive at Best

2008-02-28T09:40:00.005-06:00

The Washington Post and the New York Times are supposed to be the cream of American print journalism, yet, when it comes to the world's most high profile foreign policy issue- the Israeli/Palestinian conflict- both papers treat Israel to what amounts to "home team" coverage. Israeli casualties are consistently given bigger play than Palestinian ones, and the headlines often only refer to Palestinian "militants" or "gunmen" being killed, even when civilians and even children have also been killed. One can usually find out how many Palestinian civilans and children have died in Israeli attacks only by reading very deep into the article.

Take today's news coverage as an example- 5 Palestinian children,including a six month old baby, four young children out playing in the streets, and more than a dozen other Palestinians were killed yesterday, yet the major American print newspapers barely covered it. The New York Times headline is "Israel continues airstrikes in Gaza" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin, the lead of this article is that one Israeli civilian died, and the second paragraph refers to Israeli killing Palestinian "militants." The Washington Post coverage was even more misleading, with the headline, "Israel Kills 6 Palestinian Militants," http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022700620_2.html?hpid=moreheadlines with the lead refering to Israel targeting "suspected gunmen". The third paragraph briefly refers to a six month old baby dying, but you have to read almost to the very end of the story to read about the other children that were killed in the Israeli airstrikes.

If you look around the world and read how other media outlets covered the story- you see a very different picture. Most other major media outlets logically concluded that children being killed was more newsworthy than "gunmen" being targeted. The BBC ran the headline, " Four Children Die In Gaza Strike", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7269154.stm, and refered to 21 Palestinians killed in the last two days, while noting that 5 Israelis, and more than 200 Palestinians have been killed since the peace talks in Annapolis. China's Xinhua news service ran the headline, "Israeli airstrike on N Gaza kills 3 children", http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/28/content_7689484.htm, while Al-Jazeera went with the headline, "Children killed in new Israeli raid", http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8DFE6441-E6D5-4165-AB32-605D1CDB01BD.htm. The Guardian newspaper in the UK featured a close-in photo of the dead six month old baby lying peacefully on a mosque floor, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/israelandthepalestinians2.

Headlines and photos matter because most people do not read entire articles. If you see a headline refering to "militants" or "gunmen" dying, will you bother to read the article? I mean, let's be serious, is it really very newsworthy when a militant dies? This article is not meant to suggest that the Palestinians are blameless- their rocket attacks are inexcusable, but you have to look at the context. A few of the articles referenced above note that a total of 14 Israeli's have died in the last 7 years from Palestinian rocket attacks. No question that that's 14 too many- but during that same period of time, literally thousands of Palestinians have been killed and many of them have been children and civilians. The Israeli Human Rights Group B'tselem reports that 4,419 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied territories for the time period Sept 29, 2000 until January 31, 2008. During this same time frame, 234 Israeli civilians and 239 Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the occupied territories, and 471 Israeli civilians and 87 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in Israel itself. According to B'tselem, more than half of the Palestinians killed were not "taking part in hostilities" against Israel. http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp Yet despite the wide disparity in casualties- more Israelis have died in car accidents during this time period than at the hands of Palestinians-the elite American news media continues to give short-shrift to Palestinian civilian casualties. Its a shame that papers like the Times and the Post can't just cover the news, and let Americans decide for themselves what's going on in the Occupied Territories.

Amnesty: Coming Soon for an Illegal Immigrant Near You

2008-02-14T12:36:00.005-06:00

All three of the presidential candidates with any chance to become president- McCain, Hillary, and Obama- are planning to grant amnesty to the 12-20 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. Yet none of them are willing to admit it. Here is how they mislead voters:

Amnesty: they all claim that their plans do not constitute amnesty because they involve fines and back taxes, learning english, and joining the "back of the line". We'll tackle each of these points separately, but for now let's focus on the is it or is not amnesty part. The key component that is missing from their plans is the going home part. Under each plan, the illegal immigrant would be allowed to stay in American indefinitely- which is exactly the reward for their illegal behavior that they want.

Fines and Back Taxes: The govenment might have a chance at collecting fines- but the idea that illegal immigrants are going to provide honest estimates of their years of under-the-table earnings is simply ludicrous. When I was in the Foreign Service, I examined that tax returns of hundreds, if not thousands of LEGAl immigrants that were sponsoring relatives to immigrate, and I can honestly tell you that most immigrants that have an opportunity to cheat on taxes (i.e. entrepreneurs, tradeseman that are paid in cash, waiters, etc) do so on a grand scale. They come from countries where only fools pay taxes and bring this same mentality to the U.S.

Learning English: Based upon my experience, many LEGAL immigrants never bother to learn english, despite the fact that its ALREADY supposed to be a requirement for citizenship, so now we are going to hold ILLEGAL immigrants to a higher standard, and expect that they are going to learn english? Some will, undoubtedly, but many will not, yet will be granted amnesty nonetheless. Why? Because is already set up for billingualism in case you haven't noticed. When I voted last week, the first question the touch screen asked me was "English or Espanol", despite the fact that only U.S. citizens can vote, and U.S. citizens are supposed to be able to speak english.

Joining the Back of the Line: Immigrating to America is not simply a matter of lining up, as though you are waiting to get on a ride at an amusement park. Yes, there are waiting periods for various categories of would-be-immigrants- but no, there is no single "line" to enter America, and no, not everyone is elligible to join this "line" that doesn't really exist in the first place. Confused? You should be- but the bottom line is that most qualify to enter as legal immigrants based upon a close family relationship to a U.S. citizen or green card holder, and if you don't have a very close relative- spouse, parent, sibling, child-etc in the States- you are often out of luck. Second, you aren't "in line" at all, if you came illegally and are allowed to stay without returning to your home country.

So, who cares really if illegal immigrants are granted amnesty? Consider the following:

DERIVATIVE EFFECT: Consider the fact that the "average" legal immigrant files between 3-4 petitions to bring relatives to the U.S. This means that if you legalize 12 million illegals, they will file somewhere between 36-48 million additional petitions to bring over their relatives, and then those people, once they arrive, will do the same thing, and on and on. So you aren't really just legalizing the estimated 12 million- within 10-15 years, you'll have an additional 35-50 million people.

RULE OF LAW or NOT SO MUCH? As a former Foreign Service Officer, I issued immigrant visas to scores of immigrants that waited in their home countries LEGALLY for many years. Sibling petitions, for example, are usually a 12-13 year wait! So what message does it send to these people that wait for more than a decade to legalize those that said- the hell with it, I'm going now? It tells them that they were dumb to wait- they could have been in the States with their families years ago. Upholding our laws is essential if we are to be a country that believes in the rule of law.

TRENDING TOWARDS THE THIRD WORLD: According to a Pew Research Center report released this week, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/729/united-states-population-projections, nearly 1 in 5 Americans will be an immigrant by 2050, (right now the figure is 1 in 8) and our population will have mushroomed to 438 million. Nearly all of the population growth will be attributable to immigration from the third world. Consider, also, that this projection does not account for the influx that will arrive if we have a blanket amnesty that allows some 12-20 million illegals to file petitions for their relatives to join them in the U.S.

Here are a few more staggering numbers for you:

Since the late 1980’s legal and illegal immigration to the United States has exploded. More than one third of all immigrants that the U.S has absorbed in its entire history arrived after 1970, with more immigrants arriving during the 1990’s than any prior decade in American history. Legal and illegal immigrants now account for one out of every eight persons living in the U.S. In 1970, the figure was one out of twenty-one, and as recently as 1990, the figure was one out of thirteen.

In 2006, 1,266,264 immigrants were granted legal permanent resident (LPR or “green card” status), and another 1,044,689 immigrants were naturalized as U.S. citizens. To place the later figure in perspective, consider that the high water year for immigrants naturalizing as U.S. citizens prior to World War II was in 1928, when 233,155 immigrants became U.S. citizens. Since 2000, more than 10 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S.- the highest seven-year period of immigration in America’s history. Suffice it to say that we are in the midst of the largest wave of immigration this country has ever seen.

Its also important to understand that its not just the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. but where they are coming from and what socioeconomic groups tend to dominate the immigrant population. Unlike Canada, and other nations that try to recruit highly skilled and educated immigrants, our system gives no preference to the best and the brightest around the world, with the result being that huge numbers of immigrants are unskilled and do not have high school diplomas. The social costs of bringing in huge numbers of unskilled, poorly educated immigrants is collasal. California alone spends more than nine BILLION dollars- or $1,183 per household- just to educate illegal immigrants each year, never mind legal immigrans as well. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersffec

What is the net effect of this huge migration from the Third World? Decling American wages is one factor. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted in the New York Times yesterday that the average median wage for Americans (adjusted for inflation) is barely higher now than it was 30 years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=robert+reich&st=nyt&oref=slogin There are many factors to blame for this, and wide-scale immigration is just one factor in this story, but it is an important part of why wages have stagnated, particularly for unskilled, working class Americans.

What to do about it? Let your elected representatives know that you don't support any amnesty plan that does not require illegal immigrants to return home first. No, we do not need to engage in mass deportations to solve the problem, we simply need to enforce the laws that are already on the books, and many illegals will leave voluntarily. America is a country of immigrants- and immigrants can make great contributions to our society, indeed America is a more interesting place because of immigrants, but we have seen such a massive influx over the last 15 years that right now we need a time-out to assimilate those that have arrived, and to reform our immigration system so that we can manage the flow of who comes in the future, so that we bring in smaller numbers of better educated and skilled immigrants that will require fewer social services and will assimilate more easily into American society.

42mph in a 30 Zone

2008-02-04T11:03:00.001-06:00

Since leaving the Foreign Service and relocating to the Chicago area six months ago, I've accumulted 2 speeding tickets and 4 parking tickets, for an average of one infraction per month. Is it just me or is driving and parking in this country a serious hazzard to one's pocketbook? I'm actually a fairly conservative driver, and I don't just park wherever I want, but you'd think I was a complete scofflaw with all the tickets I'm accumulating lately.

The other day, I got pulled over driving on Austin Blvd- a very busy four lane thoroughfare in Oak Park. There was quite a bit of traffic and I was going basically the same speed as everyone else- I wasn't passing anyone or weaving in and out of traffic. The officer claimed that I was going 42 in a 30, and i wanted to say, "yeah, so what!" but instead, I asked him why he chose me to pull over, and he basically just said that I was the most convenient car to pull over, while acknowledging that he could have pulled over almost anyone on the road.

As we drove away, I started cursing and, truth be told, pounded my fist a couple times on the steering wheel and dashboard. My wife, Jen, made the mistake of trying to rationalize what had just happened.
"Well, you were speeding," she said, "he was just doing his job!"

This is not what you want to hear when you get a ticket- I wanted her to share my outrage, not justify the cop's decision.
"42 in a 30, its bullshit- you think this was justified?" I yelled.
"You just have to be more careful, you can't keep getting tickets," she said.
We drove home in silence.

So far, I've tried to fight all 6 tickets, I've recieved and I've won 4 out of 5 cases so far, with the hearing for my second speeding ticket coming up later this month. Parking and speeding tickets are like a game- if you are willing to invest the time and effort to fight them, you can usually get off. For example, I think I spent a sum total of about 2-3 hours writing letters and then appearing in court to fight a $20 parking ticket I got here in River Forest. Why? Principle. The village apparently has a rule against overnight parking, but posts no signs advertising it. I went to a hearing where there was a room full of people, all there trying to fight parking tickets on the same grounds that I was. The judge dismissed dozens of cases before I took my turn- telling each person- none of whom actually lived in River Forest-that there were signs advertising the ban at the "entrance to the village".

When I got up to the podium to plead my case, the conversation between me and the judge went something like this.

"I've heard you tell several people here that there are signs advertising this parking ban at the entrance to the village, but I'm not sure which entrance you are refering to because there isn't one entrance to River Forest- there are quite a few, and I have actually gone looking for these signs and have never been able to find them."
"Do you have any evidence to support your claim?" he asked.
"Sir- I got the ticket 100 yards away from here, I could walk you over to the street myself and show you- there are no signs!"
"I'm going to give you the opportunity to come back one month from now with photos or evidence to suppport your claim," he began before I cut him off.
"With all due respect- you are asking me to prove a negative- how am i supposed to bring you photographs of something that doesn't exist?"

This stumped him and after a whispered conversation with a cop standing next to him, he dismissed my ticket! I cannot tell you how happy this made me- I was exultant, but I have to admit that I wanted to tell him that he should have dismissed everyone's tickets- not just mine- but instead I just walked out.

The bottom line is that suburban communities make a fortune on speeding and parking tickets- they purposely set speed limits at only 25 or 30mph even on very busy 4 lane road, and they purposely make parking restrictions confusing in order to hand our more tickets. Ah the hazards of life in the suburbs...

UPDATE: 2/28: I won! Free at last, free at last, thank God Almight I'm free at last! Thankfully, I didn't listen to my wife, who told me to just "pay the ticket." I plead not guilty and actually won my speeding ticket defense- not with any rubber gloves that didn't fit, or by alleging that the cop was a racist, but by acting deferential, praising the cop's professionalism and courtesy, and mildly suggesting that since he was shooting radar against 4 lanes of traffic and since I was driving around a 4 month old child and certainly wasn't speeding, that perhaps there was some mistake. The judge said he'd give me, "the benefit of the doubt." Damn it feels good to win in court!

Monica Lewsinsky Should have been the First Lady

2008-02-04T10:53:00.000-06:00

The wedding of French president, Nicolas Sarkozy to Carla Bruni had me thinking the other day- why are our politicians so boring? Sure, we had some fun with the Senator Larry Craig bathroom footsy thing, but in the grand scheme of things, that's pretty tame compared to a standing president getting divorced and then re-marrying someone that's dated a slew of rock stars and celebrities. Can you imagine if Clinton had decided to marry Lewsinsky rather than shunn her after getting a few blowies? Think about it- the right hated Hillary so much- how would they have responded to Monica as our First Lady? I guess I can only dream that if Hillary becomes president, Monica will somehow creep back into Bill's life.

See recent ABC news article on the Lewinsky scandal, where are they now?
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/popup?id=4164980&contentIndex=1&page=1

In Your Face Netflix, Film Critics

2008-01-31T17:30:00.001-06:00

Has anyone else noticed that netflix tends to stack positive reviews of a film on the first page? Jen and I recently rented a film called Shortbus, after seeing several positive reviews from both ordinary people and film critics, including 4 star reviews from the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times. After all the critical raves, you could imagine our surprise when we were assaulted by a truly offensive first scene which features a graphic depiction of a man auto-fellating himself and then blasting off right into his own face. I have to admit that I did not watch the rest of this film- I'm not the Hollywood blockbuster type, I like a good art film as much as the next guy, but really, should 4 star reviews of this film not come with at least some warning? I went back to the Shortbus page on Netflix and started clicking on the customer reviews and realized that if you keep clicking, the majority of reviews of this film are 1 star, yet the majority of the reviews on the first page are 5 stars. Somehow, netflix caculates that the average person rates this film 3.2 stars, but I just don't buy it.

Other films, I've seen recently that I can recommend...

Cautiva (Captive) is a really powerful, accessible movie about a teenage girl in Argentina whose parents were political prisoners during the Dirty War. A judge attempts to remedy a historical injustice, and in the process, the young girl finds out more about her family's past than she wants to know.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Cautiva/70063458?trkid=189530&strkid=155191616_0_0

The Illusionist- what happens when a magician makes a fool out of the Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Bad things, man, bad things. This is an entertaining movie, well worth watching.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Illusionist/70043951?trkid=189530&strkid=100140536_0_0

Gloomy Sunday- A Hungarian composer writes a song so melancholy that nearly everyone that listens to it wants to kill themselves. What the hell kind of premise is this for a film? Surprisingly though, this is a movie worth watching. Two men manage to share the affections of a stunning woman that is also being pursued by a Nazi. Its better than it sounds.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Gloomy_Sunday/60032553?trkid=189530&strkid=393418611_0_0

Going Down in Flames with Hillary

2008-01-31T11:10:00.000-06:00

Being an independent is a lot of fun, because it gives me the right to criticize both the democrats and the republicans, two parties that are utterly beholden to special interests, prone to nominating monstrously bad candidates (see bill clinton, george w. bush, john kerry, etc), and just plain bad at the whole "governance" thing. In presidential election years, I tend to root for candidates from whichever party is out of power, so in 2000, I was so sick of the Clintons, that I hoped a Republican would win- but then watched in horror as Dubya was nominated, and now, I'm so sick of Dubya, that I woudn't mind seeing a Democrat win, but I fear that the democrats are about to make another catastrophic mistake in nominating Hillary Clinton.

Hill supporters claim that brining back the Clintons would mean a return to the good economic times of the 1990's. What's this, you didn't get enough of the Clintons during the eight years they were already in power? So you want to have two families-the Bushes and the Clintons- control the White House from 1988 until 2012 or perhaps 2016? That's 24 to 28 years of two family rule, which wouldn't be unusual in Panama or Lesotho, but in America? Give me a break.

So perhaps nearly three decades of two family rule don't bother you- ok- but what about the woman's personality? The Clintons embody all of the worst stereotypes of both their generation and of politicians in general. They're hypocrites that write preachy books telling us how to raise children (It Takes A Village), how to live (Giving: How each of us can change the world), and even how treat dogs and cats (Dear Socks, Dear Buddy), yet they run scorched-earth campaigns where distorting their opponents records and assasinating their characters are par for the course.

They struggle hard to project we-feel-your-pain authenticity, yet their only real true calling is their unbridled pursuit of power. Many politicians change positions to suit the times, but the Clintons have redefined political expediency. Hillary's a Cubs fan. She's a Yankees fan. She'd root for the Devil himself if he were a swing state voter. Here is a couple that was willing to sell nights in the Lincoln bedroom and pardons to fugitive billionaires, is there any doubt that they would sell their very souls to gain power once again?

Ok, so you may not like her either, and maybe you wouldn't mind some fresh blood, but isn't it time for a woman to be elected president? In this case, no. That is, not unless some other woman runs for president. Our first female president should be someone all women can be proud of- not a charlatan that espouses girl power one moment and then at others tears up for the cameras or hides behind Bill, her new attack dog. In South Carolina, white males voted for Edwards, blacks voted for Obama, and white women voted for Hillary. We're becoming like the Balkans, where elections are often like a national census- everyone just turns out to vote for the person that represents their ethnic group. Its ridiculous people- you shouldn't vote for someone just because they're a woman, or because they're white or black or even because they claim they're a fan of your favorite sports team.

Lastly, Hillary isn't going to win. So if you want to see a democrat in the White House, look elsewhere, because the religious right, and others that hate Hillary are going to turn out in droves to bring her down, should she be the democratic nominee. You might think that Hillary is the best of a weak field of candidates, but, in reality ANYONE would be a better choice. So who should you vote for? Lets save that discussion for another day.

Note: After writing this, I noticed in today's New York Times, that the Clinton's are at it again- conducting shady business deals with foreigners..

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?scp=1&sq=bill+clinton+almaty&st=nyt

Hockey Night in Madison

2008-01-27T18:19:00.000-06:00

This weekend, my wife Jen and I went to Madison to watch the Wisconsin Badger hockey team take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers. This being college hockey- I saw no reason to pony up the $15 extra bucks worth of “convenience” charges they hit you with if you want to buy your tickets in advance on the U-Wisconsin website.

Since it was only about 18 degrees last night, I dropped Jen and my four month old son, Leo, off in front of the Kohl Center about 10 minutes prior to the game, and told them to wait inside while I parked. It took me a half-hour to find a spot, as the entire neighborhood was chock full of people and cars. Jen called on the cell to inform me that the game was sold out, but when it comes to getting tickets, I’m an eternal optimist, so I told her not to worry about it, I’d rustle up tickets from a scalper. Meanwhile, the Kohl Center is a 17,000 plus seat arena, so I was still stunned to think that this game could be a sell-out.

I spent the entire first period outside in the cold trying in vain to find tickets. One student from Minnesota gave me one for free, but I couldn’t seem to find a second. Eventually I went inside and Jen tried to encourage me to go alone, but I would have nothing of it- it was the whole family or no one at all. I asked the ticket collectors if they could rustle up another seat for us.

“Did you try the box office?” they asked.

I had to admit I hadn’t, but there were signs on the doors of the arena announcing a sell out. I stopped by the box office, and, again, on each window there was a sign which said, “Tonight’s Game is SOLD OUT!” I almost didn’t walk up to ask, but decided to ask anyways.

“Do you have tickets?” I asked.
“Sure, how many do you need?” the young woman replied.
“You have tickets?” I asked “Why do all the signs say “SOLD OUT?”
“We don’t have seats together, but I have eight or ten single seats.”

So I bought one, and we all headed to the customer relations desk in the arena. I didn’t want us to have to sit in different sections or stand for the whole game, so I pleaded our case to a nice young guy as little Leo- all bulked up in his little snow suit- did his part by smiling and winning over the hearts of everyone in earshot. The young guy found a nice V.I.P. handicapped area for us to sit in that was right above part of the student section and next to the U-Wisconsin band.

The Wisconsin students really no how to support their team- they stand, jump, dance, and gyrate on their feet for the entire game as the band whips everyone into a frenzy. The band- which is so massive it takes up an entire section- even plays in between periods- and the students have various tribal dances for each song they play. The students also have lots of interesting chants- including one that boldly asserts that the opposing goalie-Alex Kangas- is a fan of taking it in the arse. KANGAS LIKES HIS SOD-O-MEE SOD-O-MEE SOD-O-MEE!!

When Wisconsin tied the score at 2 with just under 7 minutes to play the place erupted into pandemonium and little Leo- who had been sleeping peacefully in his mothers sling contraption- was briefly jolted awake by the cacophony of horns, tubas, beating tribal drums and the screams of delight from the delirious fans. The game went into overtime, and the Badgers failed to convert several point blank chances to win it, and the game ended in a tie.

For some strange reason, college hockey doesn’t have the shootout like the pro’s does- and an overtime hockey game with no shootout in this day and age- is a little like a porno scene with no climax- just a bit pointless. With a few minutes left in the game the students started chanting “STAND UP OLD PEOPLE” over and over, louder and louder. I ignored them at first, as my first instinct was to think I’m not old, they’re not talking about me. But then as the rest of the crowd began to rise, and I looked down at my once again slumbering son, I realized- I am old, they are talking about me. So we stood up, and looked on in admiration at the kids in the student section, who were literally dancing in the aisles with every new tune pumped out by the band. And as I thought again about my little family, I realized that I am old, but I’m OK with it, life is good.

Pizza Hut is now an Italian Bistro? WTF?

2008-01-27T17:50:00.000-06:00

Has anyone noticed that many Pizza Hut’s now refer to themselves as Italian Bistro’s? If they wanted to go upscale, why not Pizza Hut- Italian Ristorante, or Trattoria? So I guess Pizza Hut is now supposed to make us think of the French and the Italians? What’s next- Wendy’s- the Swedish Taverna, or Arby’s the French Taqueria? If my wife hadn’t been with me when we saw the big Pizza Hut Italian Bistro sign in Madison, Wisconsin, I would love to tell her on Valentine’s Day, “honey, I’m going to take you to this really cute, quaint, little bistro, you’re going to love it” and then just wait to see her face as we pulled up in front of Pizza Hut.

These new “Italian Bistro’s” are apparently so high-brow that they even list wine recommendations below the various pizza’s they offer on their menu’s. (http://www.phswbistro.net/docs/menu.pdf) For the record, the Pizza Hut Bistro recommends that you drink either Folonari Pino Grigio or Folonari Pino Noir (each $3.75 a glass) with all of their pizzas. Ok, so I admit it, I’m not wild about the name Pizza Hut- Italian Bistro, so what would I come up with, if Pizza Hut made me their marketing guru?

Pizza Hut- The Only Sit Down Pizza Joint on This Street of Crappy Chain Stores and Restaurants

Pizza Hut- Come and See What Kind of Weird Shit We Have Jammed Into the Crust This Month

Pizza Hut- Remember When You Used to Like us as a Kid?

Pizza Hut- Ask About our New Tuscan Handjob Salad

Friday Night Lights is Crap

2008-01-27T15:19:00.000-06:00

Friday Night Lights used to be a pretty good show. Predictable- yes, forumalic- for sure, but entertaining nonethelss. The last few weeks, however, the show has degenerated into a farce with absurdly dull and illogical plot lines and appalingly aggresive product placements that seem to be driving at least one plot line in the show. Product placement is nothing new- but FNL seems to be taking crass commercialism to new lows.

The trend started a few weeks ago with someone on the show saying something like "hey- let's all go to Applebee's." This past friday night, though, FNL took it to whole new level by having someone suggest a trip to Applebee's, and then actually showing them going to Applebee's and ordering their signature "sizzling apple pie." The epdisode actually featured two scene's shot inside an Applebee's! But wait....it gets worse!

Later in the episode the wheelchair bound, ex-football hero Jason Street takes a job as a salesman at Buddy Garrity's Chevy dealership, and, in one absurdly ridiculous scene sells a Chevy Tahoe to an indecisive customer with a passionate and earnest speech about how "life changes so fast- look at me (in the wheelchair), if you want this truck so badly, you deserve it, you're going to buy this car today!"

If all of this weren't bad enough, at the end of the scene Chevy aired a “commercial” that essentially just reminded us of what we had just scene on the program, airing footage of Street selling the Tahoe, with the narrator saying something like, You just watched Jason Street talking about the new Chevy Tahoe, blah, blah, blah.

Obviously advertisers are getting wise to the fact that many of us are Tivo/DVR’ing programs and fast forwarding through commercials, so they’re inserting their products right into the plot lines of shows, and then re-airing the footage during commercial time, so you’ll stop your fast forward when you see the faces of characters from the show in their commercial. Its all very disgusting, and, unfortunately, very American.

What I’d like to know is: did the NBC sales staff actually allow Chevy to script a portion of the actual show? Did they tell NBC to have Street become a car salesman so he could sell the Tahoe? If so, this is a scandal in the magnitude of Watergate, the JFK assassination, and Monica-Gate. Well, ok, maybe I’m overdoing it, but if the networks continue to commercialize their content to a degree where there is no discernable difference between the show and the commercials, who will be around to watch, or will Americans even notice?

Tribute to Homer- the World's Greatest Dog

2008-01-25T19:37:00.001-06:00

On Sunday, May 13, 2006 our beloved dog Homer died suddenly and unexpectedly while we were entertaining my parents near Lake Balaton in Hungary. Two weeks later and after a complete autopsy, I still only vaguely understand how he died, and I definitely still have not come to accept that our constant companion is now gone. We are told that Homer died because his thymus - a body part that I had never even heard of prior to this nightmare - ruptured suddenly. He went into a state of shock, and in a matter of moments died in our arms in a parking lot outside of the restaurant where we had been having lunch. Our tragedy played out in front of the restaurant staff and other diners - some of whom tried to help us out while others continued to enjoy their meals.

Someone at the restaurant called a vet, but it was futile, he died in a matter of moments. Even though there was no way the vet could have helped, I did not take kindly to the excruciatingly slow pace the vet took in driving into the parking lot, removing his headphones and getting out of his car. This was my boy dying on my lap; could this bastard at least show some urgency?

That Sunday was the one-year anniversary of the day we took Homer home with us from the farm in PA where he was born, and we had just given him a rubber ball on a rope as a little anniversary present. Only minutes before his death, he had been running around and playing with his new ball, looking strong, healthy, and as handsome as ever. We could not believe that just one year ago, to the day, he was sitting on our laps in the car, heading towards his new home with us in DC. We were back in the car together, but this time he was stretched out on our laps, his short but happy life brought to a cruel conclusion after just one short year.

In just one short year, we had had so many cracking good times and had been through so much together. Since Homer’s death, Jen and I have spent every day reminiscing about all the good times we had with him. Homer came into my life just months after I was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis), and, though I’m sure the neurologists would say that the horrific fatigue and lack of energy I suffered from improved due to medicine, I would argue that Homer played a role in my improvement as well. Physical well being and mental well-being are closely intertwined. Being around Homer every day made me happy, and happiness certainly contributes to healthiness.

Homer shared all of our highs and lows. I was not home when Jen took her first pregnancy test, so Homer was the first to share Jen’s news that she was pregnant. Since she was excited, he was too. We envisioned our future child growing up with Homer; he would have made a great big brother. He shared in all our news and could read our moods. Every time he heard me celebrating one of my team’s goals or runs, he would come running over and to share in my excitement. If he heard me yell, throw something or argue with Jen, he would always become anxious and come over with a look of concern. He did not like strife.

Tears flowed as we recounted all of his endearing habits. For example, Homer used to scamper into my bathroom whenever he’d hear me brushing my teeth, because he knew that after I brushed, he would get his teeth brushed with the peanut butter flavored dog toothpaste he liked so much. Of course, it was always a test of wills between us, I’d be trying to brush and he’d be trying to eat the toothbrush, but it was always good fun. After Homer’s teeth were brushed, he’d have his final evening walk, after which, he would drag his fluffy bed upstairs in his teeth and proceed to hump it vigorously for 5-10 minutes before sighing deeply and then collapsing in a heap for his deep evening sleep.

Homer would usually spend most of the night on the floor or on his bed, but after I’d return from my very early morning trip to the bathroom, he’d usually wait until I was tucked back into bed and then prop his two huge front paws up on my side of the bed. The bed was somewhat high for him to get up on his own unless he got a good running start. He quickly learned two things - that I’m a light sleeper in the morning, and Jen is not. So, he’d sit there looking at me, as if to say, you gonna hoist my ass up there or not, pops? I’d hoist him up, and he’d usually nestle himself somewhere at the foot of the bed on Jen’s side, which allowed him more space, due to her diminutive size. But after a little while, he’d usually come up near me on my side of the bed and want to sleep up against me, his head down near my armpit. I would tuck my arm around him and grab a handful of the fur on his 21-inch neck. This was him, not so subtlety, letting me know that he was ready for his breakfast, preferably sooner rather than later. He knew better than to bother his mom before 7am on weekdays, and closer to 8am on weekends.

As his trainer said, he had a strong drive for food and a strong drive for play. If I could describe a perfect day from Homer’s perspective, it would include all of the following: being fed copious amounts of food but also serendipitously finding food on the ground or elsewhere; lying on his back in the bed getting his belly rubbed by both Jen and I at the same time; playing with other dogs and people - especially if they would chase him and try to pry one of his toys or a stick from his mouth; and basking in the adulation of anyone and everyone he met on the street.

People often say that people resemble their dogs. In my case, I could have only dreamed for this to be actually true. From the very first day we had Homer, to his very last, he was like a little celebrity, who basked in attention everywhere he went. Just minutes before he died, the waitresses at the restaurant were making a fuss over him and how nagyon szep (very beautiful) he was. He loved people, he loved dogs, he loved every living thing he encountered, and everyone seemed to gravitate to him. Jennifer and I often felt like members of his entourage, as people would rush up to him, as though they had seen a celebrity. When he was a puppy, it was seriously difficult to take him some places. I recall one busy Saturday afternoon when we left the pier area in Old Town Alexandria because we could not walk more than 10 paces at a time before a crowd would form around him. Of course, Homer always had time for his adoring fans. He absolutely basked in the attention, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. There is something just a bit odd when your dog is rollicking around on his back on the sidewalk getting his stomach rubbed by someone he just met. But we usually rolled with it.

Other than his dislike for having his ears cleaned and his phobia of escalators, he was utterly fearless - trips to the doctor, thunder, and fireworks did not scare him in the least. One of his greatest joys, which we only recently discovered due to Hungary’s extremely mild winter, was snow. He saw snow for the first time on a hike in the Sumava forrest in Bohemia and went nuts, rolling around and frolicking on just a small little patch of it, deliriously happy. All I could think of was, I can’t wait till Homer gets to see his first snow storm. Sadly, we will now never get that chance.

Having Homer actually forced us to interact with people, and, in a way, he made us more sociable and nicer people. Well, in truth, Jen has always been nice, but I was never previously known for making small talk with strangers on the street. We knew no one in our Washington neighborhood before we got him, but within a matter of weeks of having him, people who did not even look familiar to me would ask me on the street, “hey where’s Homer?” if I was walking alone. Hungarians adore dogs, and Homer was very well, and favorably, known in our neighborhood. Homer liked to be out in the yard to greet neighbors and neighbor dogs at the gate as they walked by. If he was not in the yard, people would often call out for him at our front gate. No one, save our immediate next-door neighbors, knows my name, but I would say that at least half of the neighborhood knows Homer’s, and amongst dog owners, the figure is close to 100%. I’m supposed to be the diplomat in the family, but the truth is that the United States could not find a better diplomat to represent our country than Homer. I cannot even estimate how many lives Homer touched in his year on this planet. He brought smiles to people’s faces every single day of his life. People would smile at him and then smile at us, and it would make us feel good.

Though I had a great dog growing up, I was only partially responsible for taking care of her, and I did not have her as a puppy, so Homer brought me my first taste of responsibility. I could never imagined how much work training a puppy would be, especially in the small apartment we used to live in, but I soon realized something surprising about myself - I liked the responsibility that came with having someone that was dependent upon me. Homer changed our lives for the better; with him, we were a family, whereas before we were just a couple.

Like anyone that really loves their dog, we considered Homer to be a part of our family. Whenever Jen and I would give each other a hug or kiss, he would scurry over, jump up on us, and insist on getting in on the action. We loved Homer so much, we took him everywhere with us; he never saw the inside of a kennel. In just one year, Homer traveled more than most Americans do in a lifetime. He lived in Washington DC and Budapest, traveled to Virginia, Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Quebec, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Slovakia, Germany, Czech Republic and all over Hungary. But it wasn’t just the trips and special occasions that we will remember - it’s the fact that he made our boring every day routine infinitely more bright, happy and tolerable.

Homer had more nicknames than all the WWF wrestlers combined. There was Home, Homie, Homes, Homer Lee, Homer Lee Booty, Homercito, Osito Cheese, Pockets, Peanut Butter Boy, Maharaja, Maharishi, Handsome Homer (often times abbreviated HH) and many more that I can’t remember at the moment. We also used to call him the “best dog in the world,” and he was.

Homer loved us as much as we loved him. He was gentle, playful, loyal and, above all, fun. He did not walk; he swaggered, with his whole body kind of gyrating back and forth like a slinky. When he was particularly happy, his tail would wag so mightily that his whole body would sway violently along with it. He was also incredibly adaptable - he was happy to be wherever we were. He liked to stay in hotels and he never once caused any damage. We babied him and protected him as if he was our child. One time in Rock Creek Park in Washington, a dog that was off leash viciously attacked him, and I came close to throttling the dog’s absent minded owner. Homer and I had a ritual in greeting each other when I came home. He would go berserk and I’d get down on the floor and join him, often rolling around with him and playing rough, even if I was in a business suit. Even when I’d come home from work stressed out and with a headache, it did not matter, my boy would always be there with a toy in his mouth, thrilled to see me. How could you not love someone that would get so deliriously happy to see you? His favorite words in life were “breakfast”, “dinner”, and “Dad/Mom’s home.”

There were only a few occasions when Homer was unhappy with me, and they all involved him getting his ears cleaned. The first time it happened, he held a grudge against me for hours, and would not- gasp- accept treats from me. He just kind of glared at me like, dude, stay the hell away from me! I was crushed, but we eventually found a better way to clean his ears and there was never a glitch in our relationship again.

So, you get the point. We loved this dog; too much probably. Now we find ourselves lost and grieving, feeling incomplete and not understanding how or why this could happen. We see homeless people on the street with dogs that barely get fed, who live for years and years, and our dog, who lived like a Prince, dies at age 1, on the one year anniversary of us having him? How can that be? We are filled with grief, and there really are no answers. Losing a great dog is always hard, but at such a young age, the tragedy stings harder and is impossible to swallow. Homer was full of life and energy up until moments before he died.

I would trade all of the material possessions we have in the world to have our Homer back, but tragically, there is no way to make that kind of trade. Happiness can be an elusive concept for many people. Its not easy to define what would make you happy in life- is it your career, is it money, free time, your family? Would a million dollars make you happy? I don’t know- but I know that Homer made happiness a very tangible and real concept for us. We were happier when he was there with us- front paws perched up on the bed looking up at us, sitting by the kitchen counter trying to look pitiful, waiting gleefully for me by the door with a toy in his mouth- and he was always with us, so we were usually happy. There was always something really comforting in just having him around.

If there is only one tiny nugget that consoles me, it is knowing that dogs - unlike humans - live life without regrets. Homer did exactly what he wanted nearly every waking moment of his short life, and he was hardly ever alone. Knowing the way he used to greet us after only a short time away from home, I can only hope and pray that we can meet again in the afterlife, because I would truly love to see the kind of greeting that he has in store for us. God bless Homer, as I used to sing to him many times in happier days, he’s the Best Dog in the World.

Note: If you enjoyed reading this, you would honor Homer by forwarding this message, particularly to any friends, relatives, co-workers, etc, who love dogs, and especially to those that have lost dogs. As we grieve for our lost boy, it would comfort us to know that we are not the only ones that loved our dog(s) this much.

American Men on the Loose in Transylvania

2008-01-25T19:33:00.001-06:00

Male friendship during college and into your post-collegiate single guy hitting the bar scene years is a relatively simple concept. A guy in his “independent” years can just call up one of his mates and, on the spur of the moment and with nary a check of a calendar or blackberry, agree to meet up or even commit to a road trip. As you grow older and take on more responsibility- a better job, a wife, and/or kids being the likeliest suspects- the idea of friendship changes. You lose touch with some friends and spend less time with even your good friends as demands on your time bore in on you from all angles like a fleet of pac-men making their way around a game board. Often times, activities are built around couples’s nights out, or involve work related functions. Spouses are often leery of “guys’ night out” and its often not worth the trade off’s and bargaining most men needed to engage in to even secure quality time with one’s guy friends.

So it was with some degree of surprise and a great measure of delight when my friend Ian called me one day in February from his office in St. Louis and announced his intention to come visit me in Hungary.
“I was thinking about coming out next year,” he said.
My wife, Jennifer, and me had recently lived in Macedonia for two years, working at the American Embassy in Skopje, and half of our friends had claimed that they were going to visit us, but none of them actually did. When we received an assignment in Budapest, even more claimed they would come see us, and given the fact that Budapest is much more squarely ensconced in the realm of tourism possibilities for Americans, we wondered if any would actually turn up this time.
“Next year is too late,” I told him, why don’t you come this spring?”
Ian is married, has three children under the age of five, and has a job in the world of advertising which affords him both a lot of responsibility and stress. I almost felt bad putting him on the spot, but, to my surprise, the prospect of an escape from his busy job appealed to him.
“I could try to come next month,” he offered, and within a week his trip was booked.

In the weeks leading up to Ian’s visit, we spoke several times and tried to decide on some kind of itinerary. Each time he called, I sort of half expected him to bail out on the trip- I suppose I was still surprised that he was “allowed” to travel. Ian is fortunate to have a fabulous, and exceedingly understanding wife, Katie, who is not the sort of clingy spouse that men hate for their friends to marry, for fear they will never see their friend again. No Katie is nothing like that, but, still, she was going to let Ian, who only has a few weeks of vacation per year, to travel alone to Europe for nine days while she stayed at home with three young kids? It did seem too good to be true, but Ian was deadly serious about making the voyage, and he didn’t want the usual Rick Steve’s tour either.

“I was thinking we should go to Romania,” he suggested, about as casually as one might suggest going down to the local shopping center to buy a can of Pringles. I’d been to Romania ten years before and was intrigued by what I’d seen and experienced, but Ian had never been to most of the other more celebrated countries of the region- Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany to name a few.
“Why Romania?” I asked.
“Why not? I’d kind of like to go some place real, a bit off the beaten track, and I feel like I could go to Prague or Vienna with Katie, but when else would I get the chance to see Romania and the Carpathian mountains?”

Ian and I tentatively agreed to spend a few days in Budapest and four or five days in Romania, but I thought that Ian was a bit ambitious in hoping to visit most of Transylvania and Budapest in a single week. I had never driven in Romania, but I had a feeling that the distances on the map were not indicative of how long it would actually take to cover ground in Transylvania.

After a busy weekend in Budapest, Ian and I set off for Romania on a cool but sunny Monday morning in March.
“I cannot believe that its Monday morning, and instead of being on my way to work in St. Louis, I’m here driving through Budapest on my way to Transylvania, I like it!” Ian exclaimed.
We felt an exhilarating sense of freedom and excitement to have five days with no work, and no responsibility. We had no hotel reservations, and only a vague idea of what we planned to see and do.
I remember wondering aloud, “ how often in life do you have a week like this? I mean it’s a shame that there is so much routine and so few adventures like this one is going to be!”

Our excitement though, was quickly dampened by the wretched stop and go traffic that made our escape from my home in a residential part of Buda, on the west bank of the Danube, to the outer fringes of the other side of Budapest a slow and maddening crawl. An hour into the trip, we were still in the Pest suburbs and my driving ankle was already sore from stopping so frequently. Surprisingly, suburban Budapest is just as plagued by soulless office parks, strip malls and big box retailers as any of the blandest suburbs in the States. We had heard that we could make it to Cluj-Napoca in western Transylvania in 4-5 hours, but as we creeped along the one lane road eastwards behind slow moving trucks and a variety of slow older cars and impatient, reckless faster moving cars weaving in and out, I just hoped we could make it to Cluj before sundown.

As we neared the Romanian border, each settlement seemed to be progressively more run down.
“I just can’t believe how these houses have no setback from the road!” Ian said. “You step outside your front door and your feet could get mowed over by oncoming traffic! Where are the kids supposed to play?”
It was a good question- the busy motorway seemed to blow right through the hearts of what had previously been sleepy villages. It was also a thought that I’m sure would not have occurred to Ian before he became a dad.
“It’s amazing how your perspective changes once you have kids,” Ian said, as we rolled on slowly towards the border area. “ I get so angry when cars come flying down our street when my kids are out playing, sometimes I scream at them, ‘slow down you dumb ass!’ but I don’t know if it does any good. If I lived here I think I’d go nuts!”

As we neared the border, we saw a few very haggard looking prostitutes working the side of the road.
“Can’t believe there out on a Monday afternoon, business must be good,” Ian said.
Two married American men in a Toyota with diplomatic plates slowing down to get a better look at roadside prostitutes near the Romania border on a Monday afternoon. Good times.

Romania had just joined the European Union (EU) less than three months before our visit (whereas the elite Brussels gang deemed Hungary worthy back in 2004) and it was still a matter of speculation whether hordes of Romanians would vote with their feet and move to more prosperous countries in the E.U. Some critics who feared allowing Romania and Bulgaria into the EU club feared that public benefits seeking Romas or gypsies would flood into wealthier countries and immediately go on the dole. We could see that Romania had many of the same major European chains lining its streets that one sees in Hungary and points westward, but there was no denying that not everyone was thriving in the post-EU Romania. The road from the border to Oradea was lined with an impossibly contrasting mixture of traffic- loads of old Dacia’s leftover from the communist era shared the road with both supped up Mercedes and BMW’s piloted by kamikaze suicide drivers and farmers with horse drawn carts. An American motorist can experience more brushes with death in a single hour on a two-lane road in Romania, or even Hungary for that matter, than in a lifetime of drag racing in the States.

The heavy commercial and private traffic indicated a certain level of prosperity- with gas prices averaging around the equivalent of $5 per gallon- but the signs of jaw dropping rural poverty where also plain for anyone to see. We would drive through a shabby looking village and then notice a cluster of shacks where Roma children would be playing amidst muck and filth. The Roma have long lived in segregated neighborhoods on the outskirts of villages all over Eastern Europe, but the depths of the poverty could not help but bring down our mood. Meanwhile, Ian and I were listening to podcasts on the car stereo, including several episodes of Cubscast. It was just a few weeks before the start of the baseball season, and yet it seemed absurdly incongruous to be listening to three men stressing over such mundane issues as who would be the Cubs fifth starter and whether the Cubs would resign Carlos Zambrano as we passed through villages where people seemed to be struggling just to survive. Life is definitely good when the struggles of your sports team are the most pressing item on your life’s agenda.
“I do find it comforting to listen to others who waste even more time stressing over the Cubs than I do,” Ian said.

The road leading into Oradea, the first major town we came across in Romania, was lined with the same kind of dilapidated, soul crushing Soviet era apartment blocks one sees all over the former Soviet Union and eastern block countries. Each one had its own horrifying characteristics, but the common threads were filthy exteriors, cheap looking construction, and boxy concrete balconies. After having lived in Macedonia and Hungary, the so called “commie cubes” didn’t faze me too much, but Ian’s mood suffered a bit.
“These things are brutal! I just cannot imagine how depressing it would be to live in one of these boxes.”

The center of Oradea looked more promising, but the streets were clogged with mid-day traffic, and even the attractive, colorful baroque buildings all seemed to be in need of a coat of paint. Neither Ian nor I had any idea what the exchange rate was- and we both were carrying only Hungarian forints, which, despite the large number of ethnic Hungarians in the area, were essentially useless. After scooping out the leu/dollar exchange rate, we grabbed a small pile of colorful leu’s from an ATM. I was immediately struck by memories of my first visit to Romania in 1997. I was on an extended solo trip through Europe and on my first day, in a picturesque town called Sighisoara, was awarded two or three humungous piles of currency in exchange for one $100 traveler’s check. I remember walking out of the bank with my pockets literally bursting with money. Romania was so cheap at that time that I could hardly spend all of the local currency I had. Meals in half way decent restaurants were $1-2, train rides were usually $2-3, and a bed in someone’s house cost $5. We soon realized that Romania was still cheap, but prices had risen dramatically in the last decade.

After living in Hungary for several months, I could understand a fair bit of Hungarian, but neither Ian nor I knew a word of Romanian between us. Oradea had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary until the conclusion of World War 1, when Hungary lost a massive chunk of its territory, and as recently as the 1960’s, there were more ethnic Hungarians than Romanians in Oradea, yet I did not hear a single Hungarian conversation during our time in Oradea. According to Wikipedia, Oradea has at various times been known as both the “City of Yesterday” and the “City of Tomorrow”. The streets were full of people of all ages- most of them appeared not to be unemployed malingerers- and many of the shops and restaurants were new looking, though I don’t know if I would say that Oradea is a city of the future. It looked like its best days were clearly behind it, but the place was atmospheric and it did have potential.

Ian and I asked a few passersby on the street for a lunch place recommendation and were lucky to find English speakers who seemed to agree that we should hit a garish looking Italian restaurant on a side street near the center. It turned out to be the place for Oradea’s movers and shakers, even though that club might be regrettably small, the place was busy on a rainy Monday afternoon. The place was decked out mafia style, lots of mirror, marbles and pillars. Stunning raven haired beauties accompanied cell phone clutching boyfriends, and the menu was not translated into English, cementing my impression that the place catered to wealthy locals instead of foreigners.

On our way out of town, I took a photo of a gypsy man hollering at his recalcitrant son and was rewarded with another photo opp that I couldn’t pass up: the man flipping me off, with Oradea’s grandest cathedral as the backdrop. We briefly considered staying the night in Oradea but decided to press on to Cluj, and it was a good thing we did, because we had a lot of ground to cover and the road to Cluj turned out to pass through less overtly dire poverty, but was clogged with slow moving traffic.

It was dark by the time we reached Cluj-Napoca, a big city once known as the Hungarian capital of Transylvania. We stopped in at a shady looking hotel that was conveniently located right on one of the town’s main squares. A short young man in a vest showed us a cold, depressing room that was outfitted with what looked like prison furniture. We had read in out guidebook that there was an “erotic” show in the hotel’s basement.
“What time does the erotic show start?” I asked.
The young man appeared confused so I re-phrased the question speaking more slowly.
“What time do the girls start dancing?”
He still looked puzzled.
“We read in the guidebook that there is some kind of show in the basement.”
“No, no,” he said, “that was long time ago, we don’t have girls here any more.”

The second place we visited was in a residential neighborhood and seemed even lonelier. The front desk clerk seemed to be engaged in conversation with a cook and a maid when we walked in. The lobby was cold, dark and sparsely furnished. The place was completely bereft of customers, and the room we saw was filled with cheesy plush lazy boy type recliners and ashtrays. Improbably, the desk man told us he wanted 80 euros for the room. Ian wasn’t convinced we’d find anything better but I thought we could do better, so off we went, as the night grew darker.

We finally landed at a surprisingly posh and trendy looking boutique hotel in a residential area near the center, which vaguely claimed to offer some kind of business solutions and consulting, in addition to nice, modern rooms. Our arrival caused the pretty young clerk who checked us in to take a break from her schoolbooks to answer our litany of questions.
“Where can we find the boyhood home of Gheorghe Muresan?” Ian asked.
“What?” she asked, clearly not bargaining for the degree of difficulty the conversation had veered into.
“You know the basketball player, I think he’s from Cluj, Gheorghe Muresan!”
She eventually registered that we were talking about the bizarre looking, 7 foot 7 Romanian giant, who is believed to be the tallest man ever to play- though not well- in the NBA- though she had no idea where to find Muresan’s boyhood home.
“I think he lives in New Jersey,” she said.

Although we had read that Cluj was a happening university town with 70,000 students and a thriving club scene, we did not expect much on a Monday night. The first bar we hit was a stylish place that would not have looked out of place in Berlin or New York. It was about nine o’clock and the place had a smattering of customers.
“What time do you close?” I asked the barkeep.
“Six,” he said.
“Six?” we repeated incredulously, “as in six in the morning?”
He nodded his head.
“And does it get busy on a Monday?”
”It is getting busy all of the days,” he remarked.

After our round of drinks, we headed outside looking for a good place to go.
“Its Monday night and I’m on a pub crawl in Romania, I like it!” Ian said.
We came across a group of young women who looked like they would probably speak English and asked them to recommend a place for a drink. They sent us to another very stylish basement place that was decked out with beautiful furniture and played lounge music. Ian and I were chatting about our respective lives in St. Louis and Budapest, and I was taking mental notes on everything he said about handling kids, as my wife Jennifer was pregnant with what would be our first child. Suddenly a young woman came over to the booth and, before I knew what was happening, kissed us both on both cheeks, greeting us as though we were long lost friends. It took me a moment to register that it was one of the young ladies who had just minutes before recommended the place to us. They had told us that they were headed some place else, but apparently they had a change of heart.

The most outgoing of the group, named Adriana, wanted to know why we were in Cluj. We struggled to communicate above the ever-loudening din of the music something about always wanting to visit Transylvania, but I think the girls thought we were eccentric at best. Why were two thirty-something married American men in a club surrounded by Romanian students on a Monday night? We actually had no perverse intentions, other than to see what Cluj nightlife had to offer.
“In America hardly anyone goes out clubbing on Monday nights, we’re surprised by the crowds!” I said.
Adriana looked puzzled.
“I would think in the States you could party every night- people have more money than here, so I would think you could go out every night!” she said.
“Well, we could go out every night, but we just don’t. I mean…”
I stammered and struggled to find a way to explain that family obligations, work, and the demands of keeping up with all that’s on the two hundred plus channels of cable TV that most Americans have, keeps one from cutting loose too often. I could tell, though, that that kind of person that is out partying on a Monday in Romania, probably couldn’t relate much to the lifestyle of the typical American thirty something male. We offered to buy the girls drinks, but they weren’t ready for them. I looked around and noticed that quite a few young people weren’t drinking- apparently one was free to just hang out and not patronize the club unless they wanted to.

I ended up chatting with Adriana’s quieter friend, Dianna, who studied engineering and wore librarian glasses. Her family lived in a rural area an hour south of Cluj and she was expected to return home to help out every weekend, so the early week was her best time to party and dance.
“Are you planning to leave Romania after you finish your studies?” I asked.
“A lot of my friends are already leaving, especially the guys from my village who didn’t go to college, but I want to stay in Romania, if I can find a good job. Everyone is hoping things will get better now that we are in the EU, I don’t think it’s the time to leave.”

In the light of day, Cluj was an impressive place that was clearly in transition. Sidewalks were being torn up, students and beefy gangsters in sweat suits hung out in trendy looking café’s, and it probably won’t be long before Cluj is covered in one of Rick Steves Back Door to Europe guidebooks. Yet just outside of town, the older generation that still made its living off of the earth could be seen plying their trade with ancient looking farming instruments and horse drawn carts.

We left Cluj feeling hung over and exhausted, but determined to spend some time based in Sibiu in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains before we had to return to Budapest. Ian and I had stayed out until 3 or 4 in the morning- no mean feet for a Monday night- mostly just because we were so stunned that no one else seemed to be going home and we felt that we had to witness first hand what has to be one of the liveliest cities in Europe on a Monday. Numerous bars were still packed and going strong when we finally called it quits several hours past our bedtime.

I never would have believed that Sibiu could possibly be sold out on a Tuesday night in March, but we could barely find a room anywhere in what appeared to be a fabulously restored medieval old town. Trying to penetrate the inner core of streets in the old town in a car seemed fantastically complicated so we ditched the car and wandered around on foot looking for a place to sleep. The first few places we tried were all full, but we finally got the last bed in a motel-like place on the outskirts of town. The only problem was figuring out how to drive the car to the hotel. On foot, it would have been no sweat, but trying to navigate a car took every ounce of our collective sanity. We stayed in Sibiu two nights, but never figured out how to get the car to the hotel without having to go against the grain down a one way street adjacent to the hotel.

Sibiu is a strikingly beautiful town that is set right nearby incredible Alpine scenery. As a European cultural capital in 2007, much of the town’s historic center had just gotten an impressive face lift. The towns streets were a pedestrians dream, and all radiated out from a colossal square that was dotted with handsome and colorful buildings. There were quite a few tourists in Sibiu, yet the place closed down early unlike Cluj, which was fine with us. Each night we strolled around for hours and ended up at the only place that seemed to be 24/7, a little street side kiosk that sold cold drinks and phone cards.

The kiosk was staffed by an enterprising young college student named Elena, who sat bundled up in the cold, working the overnight shift several nights per week. We asked her why, if she were a student, she was working the overnight shift at an outdoor kiosk.
“I work here at night because I’m saving up to buy a computer,” she told us.
“So you work here all night- but when do you sleep?” I asked.
“I go straight from here to class in the morning, and then, if I can, I try to sleep after classes, if I don’t have too much work to do,” she said.
Ian and I were taken aback. In our culture, if you want something, you just go out and buy it. Even people who have no money are often undeterred. The idea of taking an overnight shift job in order to buy something is almost an unheard of concept in 21st Century America, and that really is a shame.

We admired her work ethic and pledged to return the following evening with a small contribution toward her computer purchase, but, alas, Elena had the night off. We thought about leaving the cash with the older woman who was on duty but thought better of it. The woman spoke some English, but we didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about why two American guys were leaving cash for her colleague. Elena probably has her computer by now, and that makes her a perfect metaphor for the country- a place that is making progress but having to work damn hard to get there.

Gangi, Sicily

2008-01-25T19:29:00.001-06:00

To the outside world, Gangi is an obscure hill town tucked away in a remote part of interior Sicily's Nebrodi mountains, but in my family, Gangi is our Jerusalem, our Mecca, our Athens. My grandfather, Carmelo Seminara was born in Gangi and lived there until immigrating to the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. My dad, Carmen, used to talk about Gangi so much during my childhood, that by the time I visited Gangi myself for the first time, I felt like I already knew the place. Italian hill-towns are a well known commodity in traveler's circles, but Gangi is not on the tourist map, and thus, one can visit today a town that really has not changed much since when my grandfather lived there almost a century ago. Old Gangi looks like a town built by people just a bit tired of being constantly invaded. The road that leads up into the ancient center is so steep and intimidating that only those who have either lived in the town, raced the LeMans course before, or who have a death wish should consider driving up into the center. Want to walk up? Better have a damn good pair of shoes, strong calves and a clean pair of lungs. You don't need a map- just keep going up, up, up until you reach the town's heart, the Piazza del Popolo, or collapse in exhaustion trying.

The modern traveler cannot help but notice what isn't in the old town of Gangi- no restaraunts, no internet cafe's, art galleries, hotels, wine shops, tourist information offices, souvenir stands, or any other business that caters to those that don't live in the immediate area. What Gangi does have is a maze of ancient streets and narrow dwellings populated by people that all know each other and still by there bread, milk and veggies from men who drive by in trucks and hawk their wares by broadcasting over makeshift bullhorns attached to the tops of their trucks. Life in ancient Gangi revolves around the picture perfect Piazza del Popolo, which features a remarkable church that contains a few dozens mummified priests in its basement and an attractive town hall building with a clock tower. In the corner of the piazza sits the Seminara Bar, which is owned by Pino and Mimma Seminara, wonderful people who make what may be the world's most perfect homemade gelato in the world, right in the small back room of the bar. The Seminara's are not relatives of ours- in Gangi there are a few hundred Seminara's- but they treated my wife and I like members of the family from the first time we walked in the door and introduced ourselves.

Gangi's streets were definitely not made for cars. The first time I tried to drive up the center, I made it about half way and then chicken out. The streets are fantastically steep and narrow that even when you have the road to yourself, a simple trip is harrowing. But then when a car tries to come at you going in the opposite direction, either you or he needs to back up and come to some kind of agreement regarding how the situation will proceed. Its not for the faint of heart, and if there are pedestrians near you and the car you are dueling with, they know to hop up on someone's stoop- because the roads definitely aren't wide enough for two cars and pedestrians. Driving is scary, but trying to parallel park is death defying.

The weather can change very fast in Gangi, and at night, Gangi can be a very mysterious place. Fog often rolls into the upper town and enshrouds the whole place in a haze of mist so dense that you may not be able to find your car or the place you are staying in. To really appreciate Gangi, you need to stay up in the old town overnight, and that means asking around for a room or apartment to rent. At night, you can trek up and down the quiet, ancient streets amongst medieval churches and old stone dwellings or you can make the passegiata along the town's corso, nodding to the old men who sit in one part of the square and grinning at the teenagers who play with their cell phones and kiss their boyfriends with gusto.

During our stay in Gangi, we got to know Pino and Mimma Seminara, owners of the Seminara Bar, and their children, Santo and Marianna. They wanted to take us on a tour of the town and since I only understand a bit of Italian, I asked Santo and Marianna, who were 18, and 21, respectively if they had any friends that could translate for us. A long discussion ensued, and they concluded that they did not know anyone who could speak English. I was a bit astonished by this. Gangi is not a big place, but it’s a fair size town, and the Seminara’s seemed to know everyone. Marianna, it turns out, actually did know some English, and she was studying Arabic at university in Palermo. Each weekend she commuted back to Gangi to be with her family. Marianna was, like many Italian teenagers, very close to her parents. She thought nothing of affectionately embracing her dad in public, even in front of her friends, in a way that most American teenagers would find appalling. Though I loved being in Gangi, I could imagine how it would seem dull and provincial to an 18 year old. But when I asked Marianna if she planned to move out after her studies were completed, she insisted that she never wanted to leave Gangi. When my grandfather, Carmelo, was a bit older than her he came to an entirely different conclusion about Gangi, and eventually made his way to the States after working briefly at a hotel in Palermo and then as a cook for the exiled Duke of O’rleans on an estate not far from Palermo.

On our last afternoon in Gangi, Pino’s sister, also named Mimma, and Marianna took us to Gangi’s cemetery, which is perched on the side of a hill and affords a nice view of the surrounding valley, which is green and lush in the spring time. Mimma’s father had died only months before, and she broke down in tears as we passed his grave. She was about 40 and had never married. She lived with her mother, who was a remarkably handsome woman in her 70s, with a kind, welcoming face. Mimma pulled herself together and after some fruitless searching for the graves of my great-grandparents, we headed into a small, little office where a young man, who appeared to be some kind of care-taker, sat listening to a soccer game on the radio. Marianna informed me that they were just about to close, but said we could look through their record books if we wanted to. I did not know what year my great grandparents died, so the search was a bit of an exercise in futility, but being able to pore over the massive, dusty books with their fancy handwritten records , was nonetheless quite interesting. There are a lot of Seminara’s buried in Gangi. Carmelo Seminara was born in 1880 in Gangi, so his parents probably died sometime in the early 20th century, although we don’t know for certain.

As we said goodbye to the Seminara’s and to Gangi, I had the feeling that we were no doubt seen as visitors from a far-away place, but I did feel as though we weren’t just outsiders passing through the place, but rather, descendants of Gangitani’s returning home to see the place. I didn’t just want to return to Gangi for a visit, I wanted to learn Italian and to come back and stay in the place for awhile, try to get a feel for what life was like in this remote part of Sicily. Some day, I might achieve that goal, but Carmelo made a choice a bit more than a hundred years ago, and the result of that decision to leave Gangi, is that we could never really fit in there, no matter how long we stayed or how much Italian we learned. Gangi- like many hill-towns all over rural Italy- is a place that does not embrace change or outsiders. Perhaps, this what was precisely what Carmelo didn’t like about the place, but Gangi’s stubborn refusal to change was what

Breakdowns but No TakeDowns Down in Bulgaria and Greece

2008-01-25T19:27:00.000-06:00

Part One

It’s my parent’s first trip to the Balkans, and I am behind the wheel, with both my wife and mother in the backseat barking driving instructions at me as we twist and turn our way towards Bulgaria’s capital. Slow down! Watch this guy, he’s not stopping for you! What does that sign say!

Yet as we thundered down a rare straightaway only miles after crossing from Macedonia into Bulgaria, the backseat drivers, bless them, were strangely quiet. Out of nowhere I saw a huge mound of dirt and rocks laying smack across the entire width of the two-lane road and tried to slam on the brakes, to no avail. The car went flying, literally soaring, Dukes of Hazards Style across the mound. We slammed down hard front first, after being momentarily airborne and everyone’s eyeglasses were jarred off of their heads. All that was missing from the scene was Cooter’s narration. Now I don’t know what them folks got themselves into this time, do you?
The road, as it turns out, had come to an end with no warning. Mind you, this was not some secondary road we were on, but the main road linking two major world capitals, Skopje and Sofia. Ok, so two capitals, at least. We were OK, but the car was making odd noises, and both my mom and wife could not resist taking jabs at my navigational and driving skills. Weren’t you paying attention?
Frightening noises made more frightening by my utter lack of automotive knowledge groaned louder and louder as we puttered in the opposite direction in search of a through road. After several minutes we coasted into a gas station, which was oddly staffed entirely with cute teenage girls as pump attendants. They seemed to think it hilarious that oil was leaking profusely from what I later learned was the transmission fluid pan. Or was it the fact that we were driving a battered ’94 Altima with bald tires and diplomatic plates issued in Macedonia that amused them? Or was it my rudimentary Macedonian language skills? The girls, in their smart one-piece gas station jump suit attendant outfits, pointed us towards another garage up the street, and as we pulled away, two of them had to bury their faces in their hands so as not to keel over from all the laughing and revelry.
By this time, the car had lost too much fluid and refused to allow me to steer it. Luckily the road was straight and we coasted into what seemed to be a deserted mechanic’s garage. A few young people sat huddled around a space heater in a freezing cold café attached to the quiet garage. The café was empty and the group seemed to view our entrance into their lives as a momentary interruption into their quiet, gray day. Lacking any Bulgarian language skills I pointed to the car, which was perched at their entrance and said, PROBLEM. They summoned a young man with blackened mechanics hands from the back.
The young man looked at the car and began asking us questions in Bulgarian, as we stood around looking concerned and cold. Ah, a great moment in the annals of Bulgarian holidaymaking! I tried telling the young man that we didn’t understand him in Macedonian, which Bulgarians claim is essentially a bastardized version of Bulgarian, but Macedonians claim is completely different. He was unfazed though and continued querying me in his native tongue. I had been working at the American Embassy in Skopje, and had been trained in Albanian for six months prior to arriving at my post. My father, who never quite grasped the fact that I’d learned the minority language in Macedonia which is not at all similar to the Cyrillic tongue that Slav Macedonians speak, said to me, only half kidding, “you can’t speak his language? Ah shit, you’re no good!”
After a lengthy game of pointing, gesturing and mutual incomprehension the young man seemed to be saying that the entrance of the garage was around back. Once we had pushed the car around back, another short swarthy man came around and starting poking at the undersides of our leaking car. He looked like the young man’s boss.
“PRO- BLEM”, he said.
To which, I wittily retorted, “GOLEM (Big) PRO BLEM?” Hoping against hope he’d say it wasn’t.
He shook his head yes, but said no, in that funny and counterintuitive way Bulgarians are famous for. We repaired to the icy cold café and my father, whose hearing leaves something to be desired, shouted at the lackadaisical youths huddling around the space heater.
“COFFFFEEEEE???”
He scared the hell out of them, but one of the youths managed to pry himself off of the space heater and got busy.
“This is the best 25 cent cup of coffee in Bulgaria!” my dad claimed excitedly.
As we sat in the empty café looking out onto a tableau of heavy gray skies I silently assessed our situation. We are stuck in a small town, the name of which I do not know, in the Bulgarian countryside. Our car has some unknown malady. None of us know a thing about cars. None of us can speak a word of Bulgarian. We are Americans. Our car has diplomatic plates. We appear to be rich, though we are driving an old battered vehicle. The temperature is below freezing, yet we are all dressed in spring windbreakers since the weather in Macedonia had been considerably balmier. My dad is shouting questions in english at the monolingual staff in his friendly, gregarious way trying to befriend them, but quite possibly also making them angry. Our coffee tastes like gravely mud. We are on vacation. It’s Saturday morning. These men, with their dirty hands and jumpsuits are going to rape us. I can’t afford this. Will they demand my first-born child? My wife? Quarts of my blood?

We ascertained, our more accurately, they ascertained that the pan which holds the transmission fluid had been sliced open in the accident. The swarthy man and his apprentice were welding and pounding it back together with a hammer. In the States, most mechanics would have told you that they had to order the part, which would take 4 weeks, and would gladly charge you $83 for that hour of “labor”. But this plucky crew was actually fixing the damn thing. But would we make it to Sofia?
After a little more than two hours of merciless hammering and welding the man in jumpsuits proclaimed the car done. I followed them to front desk to pay them, butterflies in my stomach. Here it comes, I thought. The elder statesman punched the figure 67 onto a calculator and turned it around for my dad and I to see. He looked at us, as if to determine if we found the figure acceptable. 67, 67 what? Gold bouillon coins? Heads of cattle? Virgins to be sacrificed at the Temple of Bulgarian Mechanics?
This prince of a man broke the suspense by saying “LEVA.” Leva is the Bulgarian currency, which we did not possess nor really know the exact exchange rate of. As if reading my mind, he then did some calculation and came up with the price of 30 euros. This low price was made doubly incredible by the fact that we had seen them put in 4 or 5 containers of transmission fluid, which cost about 3 euros each, by themselves.
My father leaped across the counter and embraced the man, completely ignoring social and cultural etiquette and the fact that the man was wearing a filthy jumpsuit.
“You must be the most honest mechanic in Bulgaria,” he bellowed at the stunned man.
I moved to quickly pay him and escape before he changed his mind.
As we hopped into our car, which started and seemed to work just fine, we were all giddy with excitement as though we’d all dodged some kind of bullet.
“Boy if I were him I would have charged you enough to retire on!” my dad commented.
And he was right. Here we were a bunch of rubes who knew nothing about cars, couldn’t speak the language. You would think a mechanic in a small town in Bulgaria would really try to feast on an American diplomat, who had the misfortune to break down in the vicinity. These men worked hard in a freezing cold garage. Came home at night, stinking and dirty, with probably not too many leva’s to show for their toil. I probably would have shafted me too, if I had been them.

We barely used the car after arriving in Sofia and the weekend passed without further vehicular incident. On Monday morning I went out to dust snow off the car, and prepare it for the trip back home to Skopje, via the Rila Monastery. Much to my dismay, we had two flat tires.
An extraordinarily nice young man from the hotel we were staying in, named Goce, immediately went out into the freezing cold and began putting our spare on one of the flats, despite the fact that we weren’t even parked in the hotel parking lot. We had all gone out to a flea market and bought hats and gloves for a buck apiece, but I was still freezing cold in my windbreaker. The hats and gloves were a godsend, but they made us all look a bit odd. My dad looked like an escaped mental patient with his huge maroon knockoff Addidas ski hat that was two sizes too big for his head. We had been given wide births on the streets and casinos of Sofia. But I was still COLD!
In less than an hour, Goce had the spare on one flat, and the other jacked up. He, my dad and I piled into a tiny, battered old taxi with the two flat tires hanging out of the absurdly inadequate little trunk. There was something wrong with the drivers seat and it literally hung down onto the back seat and in my dad’s lap. My dad tried pushing the driver up off his lap to no avail. The spectacle of my dad trying to push the man back into the front seat allowed me to see the hilarity of our situation: we were out on this crazy Monday morning errand on the snowy streets of Sofia-heading off to another Bulgarian garage on our weekend getaway. HA!
The driver- who did all of the lifting of the tires in and out of his taxi-wanted about a buck for the ride to the garage, and also insisted on sticking around until the tires were fixed. The little garage was busy, but the mechanics dropped everything to deal with our bum tires. As they dipped the first one into a huge vat of awful, sludgy, icy cold water, my dad remarked, presciently, “Godammit, I’m glad I don’t have to dip my hand in that cold, dirty water!”
As we waited for the mechanic’s verdict, we sat in a tiny little makeshift café attached to the garage, watching people with dull, blank expressions drink ebony black coffee from small white plastic cups. I felt certain that the man would tell us we needed new tires. I was wrong. They patched them up, charged us 7 Euros, and we were back in the battered taxi, with the driver on lap this time, heading back to the Hotel Meg.
“Bulgaria is alright!” my dad proclaimed, and I laughed.
“No seriously,” he continued, “you can get things fixed here, this place is wonderful!”
But it wasn’t just the cheap car repairs, coffee, and counterfeit sportswear that made us feel good about Bulgaria, it was also the fact that we had traveled back in time and lived in a place where things weren’t disposable, and spent a weekend in one of the few remaining parts of Europe where fleecing the tourist had not yet reached the level of an art form.
Part Two
Two weekends after our multiple breakdown weekend in Bulgaria, my wife and I were cruising around the beautiful interior of the Greek Cyclades island of Naxos on a rented moped. It was our second day on the rented bike, and my initial apprehension to the idea had given way to comfort and enjoyment behind the wheel. However the stars were not aligned properly as we came around one sharp turn, and slid across some water, tumbling off the bikes and down onto the road. Thankfully, I wasn’t driving fast, so we weren’t seriously hurt. The fall did, however, manage to put holes right through my sweater and thick jacket, and also rendered the bike inoperable.
We were a few kilometers outside a small village, so we just coasted back there, feeling a strange sense of deja vous. My wife, Jen and I squabbled a bit about who would call the rent a moped guy back in Naxos town. I lost the “discussion” and grudgingly trudged up to use the phone at the village’s only taverna. Another accident, and another man in a jumpsuit on the other end of the line. This time, one who spoke English. A Greek one, who was probably more accustomed to soaking tourists than his Bulgarian counterparts.
“If I come to pick you up, it will cost 2 euros per kilometer, just for the transportation fee,” he told me. I felt as though the bullets we’d dodged in Bulgaria were coming back, via some JFK-esque magic bullet theory.
Being the cheapskate I am, I relayed the news to my wife, and suggested that we might save money, and try to just coast all the way back to town, some 15 kilometers.
“Are you crazy! Tell him to bring his damn truck!” my wife barked.
“Fine,” you talk to him, I whined, handing the phone over to her, unable to speak any verbal assent to this creep’s insidious plan to charge us through the nose.
This Terrible Man ™ told Jen he’d be there in an hour or two, which I took to mean 2 or 3. I assessed the damage to the bike, while we waited. My professional analysis was that the mirror was cracked and that otherwise the thing was just plain broken. The contract we’d signed, and given our credit card to back up, stated that we were responsible for any damage done to the bike. We pondered aloud, over a beer in the taverna, how much our little Italian little piece of junk could be worth. A moment for the annals of Greek holidaymaking.
As we waited for the TM to arrive, I tried to clean up and dress wounds on my knee and elbow. I was not too badly hurt, but was walking with a very noticeable limp, which I did not want the moped guy to see, as I was trying to play down the seriousness of the accident at all costs.

The Terrible Man ™ arrived sooner than we had bargained for, and I was in fact, wandering around the pretty stone village taking photos when he arrived. Jen was not so amused when I returned, even though I had caused the two only a momentary delay. But this might be a good time to mention that my wonderful, loving wife had the good sense not to blame me for the accident. If there was one thing we could agree on, it was that the bike that was at fault, not me. Whew.
As soon as we got inside the TM’s old jalopy, he asked not of our physical or mental well being, but instead only commented that, “you are a very bad driver, I was surprised when you brought back the moped yesterday that you had not gotten into an accident.”
I diplomatically resisted the urge to throttle the little creep. After all, we still had the matter of the repairs to haggle over. For the rest of the ride back to his office, an unpleasant silence hung over the car as we zigged and zagged around the island’s beautiful circumference.
Back at Command Central, I was happy to see that there were some customers waiting to rent bikes. I felt as though, in a pinch, if all else went wrong, I could cause a scene, that would, if nothing else, cause the rest of the customers to probably go ahead and rent from the TM anyways. For a few minutes the TM and I held court on some of the great issues of the day, namely, who was to pay for the repairs to the bike, the owner, or the renter. The TM instructed us to come back later in the day, after he had time to assess the damage to the bike, and gauge exactly how much he’d need to charge us in order to retire in comfort.
Jen and I foolishly, shrugged off our wounds and took a long hike outside of town. Partly because we wanted the exercise, but mostly, because, having already spent money to rent a moped for the day, we could not stomach the idea of paying for other modes of transport. By day’s end, my knee was throbbing, and I was hobbling around Naxos town’s mercilessly steep, hilly streets like an old, wounded combat veteran of some old war, kids know nothing about these days. I could not bear the thought of allowing the TM to see me hobble into his little shop, only to be assessed with some astronomical and quite arbitrary repair bill.
I thought about dispatching my chief emissary, and Special Liaison to Greek Moped Rental Guys (SLGMRG), Jen, to tangle with the TM, but thought better of it, figuring that the sexist creep would probably see that as a sign of weakness and/or acquiescence. I was dismayed to see no one else in his petty little shop, which at this time was now filled with what I considered to be his defective mopeds. If things got ugly, there was no one to make a scene in front of. And I was ready; I had mentally prepared myself to battle with this TM, and his dreadful Spartan mentality.
Blessedly though, this clash did not materialize as the TM, proved himself to be not so terrible, charging us only 30 euros, 15 for the broken mirror and 15 for the tow into town. Still, I did not act too grateful for fear that he would have the pleasure of thinking he had done me some kind of favor. I just limped out of the shop, wallet and pride still marginally intact.

Give Me the Chance to Lose 7 Billion Dollars

2008-01-25T18:53:00.000-06:00

By now you must have heard about, Jérôme Kerviel, the 31 year old French banker who tried to conceal some 7.2 BILLION dollars worth of bad trades he made over the course of a year. But does anyone know if his employer, Societe Generale, has started interviewing to fill his job? Because I sure would like to have his job. I mean, think about it, how badly could I fuck it up? If they tried to criticize me, I'd just say, "hey, at least I'm not as bad as Jerome, remember that dipshit?"

I also think it would be great to have an employer that gives its employees so much freedom. Shit, I've heard of empowering one's subordinates, but allowing them to fritter away 7 billion bucks? Damn, sign me up. Jerome might not have been a model employee- but he did manage to conceal his losses for a long time- and while I might not let him balance my checkbook, he might be a pretty clever guy to have around too. In fact, as a Cubs fan, I'd like to see Jerome as the new Cubs GM. Any guy that can spend money like that should be the guy pulling the trigger on possible free agent acquisitions as far as I'm concerned.

Do You Live At Borders?

2008-01-25T17:35:00.000-06:00

I like to browse through the books and magazines as much as the next guy, but, has anyone else noticed that some people take the whole Borders browsing experience just a tad too far? I lived within walking distance of a Borders, and I stop by probably once or twice a week, and have come to notice that there are at least two people that appear to actually LIVE in the store. Of course, I cannot be certain that they are always there, but I have never been to the store at any time of day or night, when these two men AREN'T at the store. Presumably the staff boots them out at closing time, but who knows, the staff members appear to have such a laissez faire attitude that I cannot be entirely sure.

Borders guy #1 has long, greasy gray hair, and appears to carry all of his belongings with him in an army surplus store canvas bag. I won't call him homeless, because, as I said before, he appears to live at Borders. He also wears the same kind of New Balance sneakers that I do- only his are whiter and in better condition than mine. Borders Guy 1 always sits at the far left of a row of four plush comfortable black leather seats. The thing that I like about him is that he always his nose in a book, whereas the homeless guy that lives at our local library does nothing but sleep.

Borders guy #2 is a lot more annoying. He's an older man, overweight but not morbidly obese, and seems to be a pensionier rather than a homeless drifter, so he doesn't carry all of his belongings with him. That said, he takes up more space and always has more stuff with him than guy #1. Guy 2 can almost always be found blocking all of the fiction authors whose name begins with the letter P. If he's not there, he's usually camped out in the cafe with his collection of bags and paraphanalia. Lest you conclude that he is a paying customer that patronizes the cafe- fear not- guy 2 brings his own meals and drinks, and unashamadely unwraps and eats them in the cafe, as though it were a student canteen.

The annoying thing about guy #2 is that if you come near his area he gets visibly annoyed, and often loudly harummphs if you piss him off. One time I was pushing my son Leo through the store and the stroller bumped the upright chair he sits on, and guy 2 audibly tsk'd, as though we had ruined his whole day. Moments later when my son farted, I saw him shaking his head in disgust. Try to look at books behind his fat ass and he grows visibly disturbed.

There are a few basic rules of ettiqete that I think everyone should observe at the big box bookstores...

1. Please don't ever take your filthy shoes off and prop your rank-ass feet anywhere.
2. Do you have to read the local paper? Really, the damn thing is 50 cents, please. Bring your damn cheap ass down to the library if you can't bust out the quarters.
3. At least bring your own damned cutlery if you plan to bring your own meal to the cafe.
4. Feel free to get off that comfy chair every now and again- start with getting off it for important family functions like weddings and funerals and work your way up from there. Remember, there are only like 5 good chairs in the whole store, and lots of assholes like you out there.
5. If you start to notice that you are looking as unkempt as the employees, its time to re-think how much time you are spending at Borders.

All of this chatter about ne'er do wells at Borders, has me thinking about a radical idea. What if municipalities with over-crowded prisons were authorized to drop petty thieves, street hookers, loiterers, low level drug mules and other public nuisances off at Borders each day. Would they become better people if they were allowed to spend their days browsing for books and magazines or would Borders just become a really dangerous and unpleasant place to shop in?

Lets Move Ahead with WW3 Anyways!

2008-01-25T17:32:00.000-06:00

There was a spectacularly entertaining presidential press conference about a month ago that slipped under the radar. In early December, portions of a national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear threat were released to the public, and the report concluded that it is "highly likely" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program more than four years ago. Though parts of the report were only just made public, apparently it was produced some time ago. This is stunningly bad news for the more hawkish members of the administration and for Israel and its more zealous supporters here in the United States who have been clamoring for war, or failing that, air strikes on Iran for the last few years.

You have probably noticed that the Iran threat has been hyped in a similar fashion to the way the war in Iraq was sold, only this time, the public has been more skeptical. What was most interesting about this press conference was how Bush handled the questions on the NIE. Let me paraphrase parts of the press conference for you.

Question from reporter: Mr. President, after you warned of a mushroom cloud if Iraq was not dealt with and then there were no weapons of mass destruction, and now, as recently as October you were warning about a "World War 3" with Iran, even though you, by that time, would have already had this report stating that the Iranians ended their weapons program four years ago, don't you worry that you may begin to lack credibility around the world?

Bush: Well that's not true- because I was told that there was some new intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, but I don't remember….no one told me what the new intelligence was.

Shockingly, the reporter did not follow up by asking, "so, you as the President of the United States, did not ask what this new information was? How could you not ask- given the fact that you have been painting this country as a grave threat to our very survival as a country- what if the new information was that Iran had a nuclear weapon and was about to attack us?"

But the question did not get asked, though the press corps did continue to press him about Iran.

Question from reporter: So given what we know now from this intelligence report, will there be any change in our policy toward Iran?

Bush: I thought Iran was dangerous before I read the report, and I still think Iran is dangerous now. They could re-start their program at any time.

He rambled on for a bit, but his point was clear, there would be no change in our Iran policy.

What is clear is that the only thing that prevented war with Iran was the fiasco in Iraq. If things had gone smoother in Iraq, our troops would already be in Tehran. Why? Because the neo-cons, a loose coalition of hawks both in and out of the administration, have had dreams of remaking the Middle East, and removing threats to Israel in the region for a very long time and 9/11 finally gave them the chance to execute phase one of their dream plan.

The other missed opportunity of the press conference involved Russia and the recent parliamentary elections there, which were widely condemned as fraudulent. After raising the question of Bush's credibility there was some mild question lobbed about Bush's opinion on Russia's election. What the reporter should have asked was,

"Mr. President, in 2001, you said that you looked into Mr. Putin's eyes and were able to see into his soul. After his recent attempts to stay in power for life and yesterday's fraudulent election, if you gazed deeply into his eyes once more, what would you see inside his soul now?"

The bottom line is: forget all that crap we said before, and just listen to us now!

Check Out My New $5 Haircut

2008-01-24T13:09:00.001-06:00

Can I guy get a decent haircut in Chicago for $5? This question haunted me for weeks each time I passed by a place that advertised $5 haircuts on a collapsible board on Harlem Avenue on the western fringe of the city. Sylvia and Mike’s is located right across the street from a grocery store that I frequent, and despite all of the neon signs and low price, it took me a long time to summon up the courage to actually patronize the place.

I’ve gotten haircuts in many different countries around the world, and, on several occasions, I’ve paid far less than $5, and come away relatively unscathed. When I lived in Macedonia, I had a barber named Dime (pronounced DEE-MAY) who gave a pretty mean cut for the equivalent of $2. If I had been willing to part with $4, I could have gone to the kind of place where a pretty girl cuts your hair and washes it to boot. But why toss around that kind of money, when you can get a good cut for $2? I’ve also gotten cuts for less than $5 in Russia, Turkey and China. In each case, there was a language barrier, so even walking in the door was a bit of a leap of faith. When it comes to cheap barbers overseas, I am so trusting, that I once allowed an 11-year-old boy to give me a shave with a straight razor in Turkey. He actually did a damn good job.

But the United States is not the land of $5 haircuts. John Edwards recently received a well-publicized $400 haircut by a guy named Joe Villanueva. The incident was an embarrassment to his campaign, but Villanueva later told the Washington Post that the $400 cut was actually a discount price- he had previously charged Edwards $1250. Not too shabby for a guy who reminds everyone at least 15 times per day that he is the son of a mill worker from North Carolina. (Never mind the fact that he lives in this 28,000 square foot home, (that is when he isn’t at one of his vacation homes), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JohnEdwardsHome.jpg)

The one common theme that I have noticed is that no matter what I spend on haircuts, I pretty much always look the same. If I paid Joe Villanueva $1250 for a haircut, I don’t think I would look much better than I do when I get a $15 cut. In truth, expensive haircuts are probably just a measure of one’s social status, and since I have no social status, what’s the point? So applying that same logic- I wondered- how bad could I possibly look if given a $5 cut? I resolved to find out.

When I walked into Sylvia and Mike’s Family Hair Care on Harlem Avenue one afternoon in late October, I had to resist the urge to confirm that the haircuts were truly $5. Only three of twelve chairs were occupied, and all the customers were middle aged Latinas speaking Spanish. A middle-aged woman doing a crossword puzzle sized me up with a quizzical glance.
“You want haircut?” she said, in a vaguely eastern european accent.
“Umm, I think so,” I said, trying hard not to chicken out as the rumble of salsa music echoed over my head.
“You want haircut, right?” she asked again to confirm.
“Yes, yes, I want a haircut,” I confirmed, eventually convincing both her and me.

The woman disappeared into the backroom and emerged with a skinny Hispanic man in his twenties who was carrying a styrofoam cup which he later used to spit tobacco into. Before I tell you about my haircut, first we need to resolve the issue of what to call the guy who cut my hair. It wasn’t a barbershop, so barber does not fit, and I would hesitate to give someone who gives $5 haircuts the term “stylist”, so why don’t we just call him by his name, David.

“What kind of haircut do you want?” David asked.
I told David what I have told every single person who has ever brandished a pair of scissors in my general vicinity in my lifetime, “just a normal haircut,” but I added the caveat I use only when I am in a particularly distrustful frame of mind, “not too short though.”

The first thing that impressed me about David was the fact that, after our initial exchange, he did not speak to me. There are few things I dislike more than a chatty barber who tries to force conversation on me, especially when they ask me, “so what do you do?” when I have no convenient answer to the question. But I was curious to know more about the man behind the $5 haircuts.

“Do you live around here?” I asked.
“I live in Lincoln Park,” he said.
Lincoln Park is a yuppie-oriented neighborhood located at least a half hour away from Syliva and Mike’s, it’s the kind of place where twenty-something’s jog to Starbucks in sweatshirts from big ten colleges or double park their VW Jetta’s right outside because there are no legal spaces.
I could not fathom why someone would actually commute through Chicago traffic to a place that gives $5 cuts, though I suspected it was because no place that charges more than $5 was willing to take David on. I hoped that he was merely an illegal immigrant who knew how to cut hair, rather than a legal one with no training or skills.

“Did you hear about John Edwards’ $400 haircut?” I ask.
“Somebody paid $400 for a haircut?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Even more, I guess he used to pay $1,250,” I replied.
“That’s fucked up,” he said, “yeah, I think David Beckham spent like $900 on a haircut too, now that I think of it!”
“What kind of person needs to pay that much for a haircut?” I asked, feeling like a righteously indignant member of the proletariat as I enjoyed my five-dollar scalping.
“Only a dumb ass would pay that much!” David said, laughing.
“Absolutely, you could come here and get a cut for $5,” I said.

Somewhere around the middle of my haircut, we came to a point where I thought that if he stopped right then, I would actually look halfway decent. This happens to me all the time. I think my hair looks best about a week or two after its been cut, but I can’t bring myself to: A) get it cut more frequently, or B) let it grow longer. So when he asked, “should I keep cutting?” I answered, “sure, why not?” like the scalped riverboat gambler that I am.

The cut seemed to go all right, save for three small problems. The first was that I told him to just trim the sideburns a bit, but instead he completely lopped them off, leaving me with two patches of skin on my face that I have not seen in years. The second glitch was when he took the straight razor to the back of my neck. It was a really dull blade. The kind of blade that I suppose one should expect at this kind of establishment, but still, a very dull blade nonetheless. As he painfully scraped away at my neck, I almost asked him to cut it out, but decided to just grin and bear it. The third problem, and I hesitate to even mention this one, was that I didn’t look good. But I wasn’t too thrown by this, because I frequently come to this conclusion after spending 15-20 minutes gazing at myself in a mirror, and often times, my haircuts don’t turn out to be as bad as I think they are.

After David was done with me, I paid the eastern european woman the $5 and gave David a $2 tip. He acted as though he was taken aback and it took me a few moments to realize that he was actually very pleased with his tip. David wrote his name, hours and telephone number on the back of a business card and handed it to me. The phone number he wrote on the back was different than the number listed on the front of the card. Was he so thrilled with the $2 tip that he was giving me his personal number? Or did he have some other motive? I resolved not to find out.

Just as it takes the military time to assess the fallout from an aerial carpet bomb campaign, it takes some time to assess the damage from a bad haircut. When I left Sylvia and Mike’s I was reasonably sure that I still looked reasonably presentable. My evidence of this was that I went to the supermarket afterwards, and no one seemed to be looking at me and then covering their children’s eye’s and running in horror in the opposite direction. I arrived home and my wife, Jen studied my head from all angles.
“It doesn’t look much different than when you spend $15,” she said, affirming my initial impression.
Jen never likes any of my haircuts, and if she had her way, I’d have Dog the Bounty Hunter locks resting comfortably on my shoulders.

But in the hours and days that followed, I came to realize that my hair was, for lack of a better phrase, all fucked up. It was kind of like the opposite of a bowl cut, it was a square head Herman Munster cut from hell, but I’ve been wearing hats recently and trying to keep a low profile, so the fallout from the $5 cut has been negligible. So can a guy get a decent haircut in Chicago for $5? Based upon my experience, no, I don’t think so, but now I feel as justified in spending $15 as John Edwards must when he drops $400.

The Ignorance Files- Ignorance on Vacation

2008-01-24T13:08:00.001-06:00

My wife and I recently stayed at perhaps the least restful hotel in the western hemisphere. Imagine the antithesis of those zen like spa/retreat places that you see advertised in the New York Times Sunday magazine that cater to the over-programmed soccer mom that hopes to “re-connect” with her distant husband who watches too much sports and won’t take her see Pride and Prejudice, and wants to be rubbed down by a beefy ethnic guy with strong hands, and given a facial by a less ethnic, less strong guy who watches Will and Grace. No, this was not that kind of place.

This was the place where troops of girl scouts stayed. The place the Red Hat Soceity Ladies held their banquet. The class trip place. The joint that the local fraternity rented a floor at to trash every now and again. All of these groups, and probably more, were at what I came to think of as The Park Bench Inn during our stay. During a three night stay, we switched rooms 3 times in fruitless efforts to try to get some rest. It was a complete 24-hour cycle of annoyance. The scouts/schoolkids/and red hat society ladies took the early morning shifts. The incredibly tardy housekeeping staff took the late afternoon/early evening shift, and the frat boys and their slutty dates picked up the late night slack.

On our first morning at the Park Bench Inn, the school group that dominated the floor we stayed on in room #1 was up and reeking havoc in the hallways at 6AM. The kids were running the halls, playing and generally doing the kinds of things kids do on field trips. Worse, though, were the shrill voices of the chaperones- who gamely tried to chide them at top volume- “Jason!! Come Over here!! Line up!! Where is Brittany?? Has ANYONE SEEN BRITTANY?”

This was early on in our stay, and I had not yet become resigned to getting less sleep than we would have otherwise been able to get at a bus shelter, so I stumbled out of bed, bleary eyed and in boxers and a t-shirt. I focused a deathly stare at the louder and, seemingly more ignorant of the two ditzy chaperones, hand on hips, hoping perhaps she might come to her senses- realize that they were disturbing people and offer an apology w/o me having to say anything. No such luck. This miserable bag of bones smiled at me and almost looked as though she were about to wish me “good morning.”

“It’s 6AM, we’re trying to sleep, can you PLEASE bring the kids down to the lobby?” I asked. (ok, demanded)
“They’re kids- what can you expect from them?” she asked.
“But YOU’RE louder than they are!” I protested.

At this point, chaperone #2 came over and chided me for being “ sooo rude.” I’m up at 6AM, arguing with two functionally illiterate teachers from Bumblefuck County in the hallway of a 2 star hotel on my vacation, and I’m the rude one. Of course, trying to fall back asleep after a heated argument is quite pointless.

We moved rooms, and the next morning I had it out with three old ladies from the red hat society. It was 7AM- on a Saturday no less- and they were gabbing- loudly and for several minutes- directly outside our door, in spite of a hand made sign I had taped up that said, “SILENCE PLEASE!” Jen thought that asking for “silence” instead of “quiet” was unrealistic, but after one really bad night of sleep, I figured I’d shoot for the moon and hope for the stars. I stormed out to confront the offending seniors.

“Excuse me, ladies, would you mind keeping it down, we’re trying to sleep?” I said.
One of the seniors, dressed in a bright red sweatshirt that nearly blinded me in the early morning light, looked at her watch, and then responded, “but its time to get up!” cheerfully, casting a bright toothy dentured smiled at me. I could have strangled her- but instead I just slammed my door and complained to my wife for a long time.

At 7.30, as we lay in bed trying to get back to sleep, a loud leaf blower roared in the parking lot several floors below. We had seen the same moron at the same time the morning before, but were already getting dressed by that point, so we had not stressed over it. It seemed almost cruel- as though the hotel were deliberately trying to disturb its guests, early on a weekend morning no less. I called down to the front desk, absurdly believing that a sympathetic clerk would share my outrage and immediately punish the moron who was out operating loud machinery at this time of the morning. Of course, I was wrong- the front desk clerk responded, “oh, he does that every morning at this time,” as though his activity was the most logical thing imaginable.

And so the three nights passed in this fashion- ignorant, thoughtless people making all kinds of noise in the hallways and common areas at any time they wanted, and then acting completely unapologetic when called on it. And this kind of ignorant behavior is not confined to the Park Bench Inn. I had another not so pleasant early morning “discussion” on thanksgiving with a dad who thought it wise to send his 4 young children into the hallways of the hotel to play at 7AM, rather than to bother he and his wife in their room. “Happy Thanksgiving” he sarcastically told me, instead of apologizing. And a few weeks before that, we had the misfortune of staying in a hotel room next to a complete ignoramus who: a) set his alarm clock to go off at 4.15 AM on a Sunday morning, b) did not respond to said alarm, c) only responded after I repeatedly pounded on his door and cursed he and his ancestors vigorously, d) in actuality, as we discovered 8 minutes later, did not turn the alarm off, but actually hit Snooze, thus re-starting the entire cycle, e) see points A-C all over again

Three Italian Fights

2008-01-24T13:00:00.001-06:00

Travelers like to talk about the friends they make while on the road; less frequently do you hear about the misunderstandings, hurt feelings, fights, and outright international incidents they created along the way. We recently returned from a trip to Italy, and despite the fact that we enjoyed ourselves immensely; we did make a few enemies along the way. Three fights:

Bout #1- Our Opinion

To fully understand the context of our first fight, I need to take you back to the morning that preceded it. We had experienced unseasonably cold and wet weather for most of our trip, but on our about day 10, we hit our Waterloo in Siracusa, on Sicily ’s eastern coast. What did Siracusa have in store for us on a Wednesday morning in early March? 35 degrees, wind, and a hard, driving, penetrating rain. The wind was so fierce, that trying to use an umbrella was futile. We gamely tried to see a few sites on Ortygia island- but it was no use- we had on nearly every article of clothing we packed- and were still wet and cold. My wife, Jennifer had the idea to visit an internet café in the hopes of finding some place in Italy where it wasn’t raining, and Rome was just the ticket. A travel agent booked us on a three o’clock flight later that afternoon on Alitalia. A young woman at our hotel wrote down departure times for a bus that would take us straight to Catania ’s airport. Things seemed to be looking up for us- the forecast for Rome was cold but sunny.

I suggested that we go to Siracusa’s bus station and double check the departure times the hotel had given us- something extremely uncharacteristic for me. I almost never double-check or confirm details while traveling; no matter how many times things go wrong or how often I vow to confirm things in the future. So we set off to the bus station in the wind and rain, dodging cars and mopeds that sent waves of polluted water at the few unfortunate pedestrians who ventured out on this miserable day. Much to our dismay, we learned that the hotel clerk had accidentally written down the arrival times instead of the departure times for the Catania airport bus. The only bus that would get us to the airport in time to make our flight and use our non-refundable tickets was leaving in five minutes. The hotel and our baggage were perhaps a 10-minute round-trip walk from the station, and there were no taxi’s around so running was our only option.

We sprinted out of the station, as I cursed the clerk, cursed the rain, cursed our luck, cursed the wind, cursed Sicily, and cursed the world. On the way to the hotel we ran unencumbered by baggage, sprinting with the wind at our backs. I thought we had a decent chance of making our bus if we did an all out sprint both ways. We arrived at the hotel and dashed up the steps to the lobby to grab our bags. There was no time to scold the girl who had given us the wrong information, but as she sat there reading her magazine, I breathlessly blurted out, “yougaveusthewrongtimesthebusleavesnow!!!weneedourbags!!” She just laughed, as we grabbed the bags and ran back down the marble steps and back out into the downpour. Our sprint back to the station was infinitely worse than the sprint that preceded it for three reasons: by now we were out of breath, the nasty wind was blowing the rain right at our faces, and now we were trying to sprint with suitcases- not a fun exercise even at the best of times, which these clearly were not.

I stumbled into a massive puddle, and one of my jean legs clung to my skin like a bloodsucking leech. We galloped on running recklessly through traffic and against the wind and rain, periodically dropping our rolling suitcases as they hit ruts and puddles in the road. We were soaked. We arrived at the station, drenched and out of breath, almost unable to give voice to the words, “airport?” Our driver laughed at the site of us. The bus was empty and although we were technically 2 or 3 minutes late, the engine of the bus was off, and it didn’t seem as though we were headed anywhere anytime soon. But we made our bus, and we felt a sense of (cold) comfort in that.

Due to the infrequent bus service from Siracusa to Catania ’s airport, the one we were lucky enough to catch got us to the airport more than 2 hours early. We were happy to see that Alitalia had an earlier flight to Rome that had been delayed and was set to leave in about 40 minutes.

“We’d like to go standby on the earlier flight,” I told a well-dressed young Alitalia counter-woman.
“Yes, but you have a very special ticket,” she said, looking at us condescendingly as though we were some kind of charity cases.
“What do you mean special ticket?” I asked, already fearing the snobbish woman’s reply.
“You only paid 45 euros for you ticket!” she gasped, once again, looking at us as though we shouldn’t be asking for favors.
“Alitalia only gets 45 euro” she continued, - “the rest you paid was tax and we don’t see that money, that is for the government, and we cannot allow standby for people who have bought these special tickets, that is our rule! I must follow the rule!”

All of this made no sense to us at all. We had just bought the tickets an hour before- how special could our tickets be? Out travel agent had told us that other discount airlines had much lower priced tickets, but none of them had free seats for that day. Even though our clerk was bent on denying us, I had to ask, just to torture myself, if there were open seats on the earlier flight.

“Yes, there are seats, if you want you could buy one!” the nasty clerk said, in a tone that meant- but cheapskates like you will refuse to pay!
She wanted something like 150 more euros each for new tickets. Instead of just giving in, and checking our bags for our later, scheduled flight, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was pointed to a line of people across the way. Jen appealed to me to give up my quest- pointing out that by the time we waited in the other line, we’d miss the earlier flight anyways. But I was undeterred, there was nothing to do in the Catania airport anyways, and we had time and anger to expel from our systems.

As we stood in a line to speak to a supervisor, I thought about an article I had read earlier that week which said that Alitalia workers were planning one of their very frequent strikes for that Friday. The article also pointed out that the airline loses something like 1 billion dollars per year, or some such absurd figure. I thought about how I would work these items into my speech to the supervisor as my rage built. The supervisor was a middle-aged man with a bushy mustache and the air of a college professor. He seemed bored with life, and bored with me. My preamble was all about how every other airline in the known universe allowed travelers to fly standby- no matter how much they paid for their tickets. What did it matter to Alitalia which flight I took, there were free seats on both flights? The man listened passively; I felt I had made an unimpeachable case. He answered my speech, simply, and arrogantly by asking:

“Why didn’t you just buy a ticket for the flight you wanted to take?”
I had no answer to this question- I was not about to tell him about the rain, the wind, the infrequent buses- so I changed the topic.
“Well, you see,” I began, “it is that kind of customer service which is the reason why your airline is always losing millions of dollars!” I said, eager to hear his response to this.
“Well that is your opinion, but it is only an opinion!” he said, looking at us triumphantly as if he had exposed some flaw in our argument.
“It’s a fact that Alitalia loses money, not an opinion!” I said.
“Yes, and you are American- how many of your airlines go bankrupt- is this because of customer service, I don’t think so!”
He seemed to want us to know that it wasn’t only Italian airlines which failed. He then went into a long soliloquy regarding: a) how incredibly special the tickets that we had were, b) the tickets were so very special, that they could not possibly let us fly standby with them due to Alitalia rules, and c) how these rules must be followed at all cost. What could I say in return?

“Sure, all kinds of airlines, go bankrupt, Italian, American, fine- the point is- all of these airlines allow customers to fly standby! Let us on this flight!”
The supervisor then launched into another long diatribe, taking several sentences to basically assert two things: a) everything I said was all opinion, not fact and was therefore uninteresting to him, and b) Americans have too many opinions, which they share with others too frequently.

I eventually walked away from the desk, wishing the supervisor a pleasant strike as a final salvo. The supervisor continued his diatribe for the benefit of his co-workers and the others standing in line as we left the counter. We walked away, defeated and headed back to the baggage check in counters- resigned to checking in for the later flight. I saw the same nasty, arrogant woman- she could tell from the look on my face that the supervisor had backed her up. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of letting her check us in for the later flight, so I went to a friendlier looking, pretty woman two rows down from her.

“You are checking in for the 3 o’clock flight?” she asked, smiling at us.
“Well, we wanted to take the earlier flight, but Alitalia, for whatever reason, does not want us to,” I whined, and Jen abruptly cut me off, “Dave, please give it a rest!”
“You want the earlier flight?” the clerk asked, and I hesitated before sheepishly saying yes, I was sure she was toying with us for the benefit of her angry colleague.
But a few taps of her keyboard, and moments later her machine spit out boarding passes for the earlier flight! No arguments, no questions asked, no special ticket, no speaking to supervisors, just- you want a ticket- here it is.
As we clutched the boarding passes I almost did not know how to react. I felt like the little boy at the toy store who cries and cries until he finally gets his toy and then doesn’t know how to smile once he gets what he wanted. I wanted to bring the boarding passes over to the supervisor and flaunt them in his face, but thought better of it, and just quietly boarded the earlier flight.

Bout #2- The Hands in the Pasta

The Italians have a wonderful figure of speech- le mani en pasta- having one’s hands in the pasta- which means having a connection. When I noticed a restaurant bearing this catchphrase in Rome, I knew we had to pay it a visit. The place was crowded and the food was excellent, but our waiter seemed shifty and I developed an immediate distrust for him. He seemed disappointed to the point of irritation that we wanted to split one salad, one appetizer, and one entrée. Instead of presenting us with a bill, he laid down on the table a scrap of paper which simply had the numbers 40 scribbled on it. Nothing else. We knew that we had not ordered anywhere near 40 euros worth of food, and he seemed to understand English, so I called him over and told him I wanted an itemized bill.
“No, no, this is the way we do it in Italy - this is the bill!” he insisted.
I told him that this was not our first meal in Italy, and that we wouldn’t pay without an itemized bill. He stormed away from our table, furious, and a busybody American woman at the table behind us called out to me,
“We know these people, you don’t have to ask for a bill here!”
“Well our bill is wrong, and we’re not about to pay more without an accurate bill,” I said. Later on, I cursed myself for not handing her the bill and telling her to pay it if she was so sure it was accurate.

The waiter returned less than a minute later. This time he brought us an actual receipt with the restaurants address and logo on it. But there was still nothing itemized- he had merely just brought us a blank receipt and again written “40” on it. Again, I demanded an itemized bill, and this time the waiter exploded, getting right in my face- menacingly cursing me. Another waiter saw him and rushed over. He had to physically push our waiter away-, as he was ready to punch me. I was much calmer, surprisingly calm, because I knew that he could not justify the bill. I explained the situation to the other waiter, as our waiter cursed and shouted in Italian. Waiter #2 asked us how much we thought we owed, as most of the restaurant looked on to our dispute. I told him I thought it was close to 30 euros, and waiter #2 suggested we pay that amount. Jen interrupted him, “look, this is not a negotiation, we just want to pay what we owe- bring us a real bill!” I happily agreed with her, because I perversely did want to see how they would add up our bill- I knew that they’d have to be very creative to reach the 40 figure and I wanted to test their creative accounting skills for my own amusement.

Both waiters went back into the kitchen for some time-obviously scrambling to put together a bill that would total 40. They finally emerged with a bill in which everything was 1-2 euros more than was advertised on the menu, and they also charged us for 2 pasta appetizers instead of the one we ordered (and split). The two waiters tried, gamely, to explain that: a) the English language menu was old and the prices had gone up but they hadn’t had time to change the menu, b) they thought we ordered 2 pastas, and c) the fish they gave us was extra big so they had to charge us more. We didn’t buy any of it, and waiter #1 continued to curse us. I told waiter #2 that while some restaurants may try to rip you off, most do not employ waiters that physically and verbally threaten you. He apologized and then told us that we should not pay for the meal at all. Suddenly, we felt uncomfortable; we didn’t want a free meal. Jen wanted to leave some money on the table, but I didn’t want to, so we just left with a bad taste in our mouths. It was your classic cross-cultural dispute: we left feeling angry and cheated, and they no doubt were cursing us as ugly Americans.

Bout #3- Sexy Boxy

Our last Italian fight was actually a series of fights we saw on TV, and not one I engaged in personally. The good news is that the combatants were women in thongs and bra’s. The show, which aired on national Italian TV, was called Sexy Boxy, and featured nubile, scantily clad young women boxing in an actual ring, to the delight of the men who stood ringside cheering each kick and punch. I thought that the premise of this fine show was outstanding, but Jen could not help but wonder what kind of men would allow themselves to be seen ringside, enthusiastically cheering these girls on?

Due to the cold and the rain, Jen and I watched more Italian T.V. than we’d care to admit, and one of the nice things about Italian T.V. is that you don’t need to understand Italian to know what is going on. Nearly all shows are variations on the same theme- middle aged men who pontificate about nothing, flanked by either very hot or very made up Italian women in short skirts and cleavage busting tops. All of this, and creative camera angles which would never be allowed on American TV. I remember one variety show where- under God knows what pretext- a very busty woman in a halter-top was put on a treadmill in front of a studio audience. First they turned on some kind of high powered fan which blew at her short skirt, as she stepped away on the treadmill, then they rained down buckets of fake snow on her- all to the hoots and hollers of an adoring studio audience. But, perhaps most provocatively, they kept alternating to a –get this-overhead camera that was aimed straight down at her boobs from high up above the stage. This was on a Sunday evening, on national, prime time TV.

We watched Sexy Boxy and had a good laugh. It wasn’t that sexy, and the boxing was not exactly Thrilla in Manila or Rumble in the Jungle quality, but what was comforting about programs like Sexy Boxy was that they proved to us that we Americans have no monopoly on tastelessness, we did not invent crudity and we are not the only people in the world with a penchant for mindless entertainment. And, after all of our American/Italian disputes- several of which had turned into nationalistic conflicts much to our chagrin- that made us feel pretty darn good. Yes, we are Americans, we fly standby when we want, and we demand itemized bills. But we don’t’ have Sexy Boxy.

Prisoners of the Mountains: A Nearly Lethal Dose of Georgian Family Life

2008-01-24T12:51:00.000-06:00

There is no such thing as a scheduled time of departure in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. I arrived at Tbilisi's Didube bus station/bazaar at10:00 a.m., a little hung over, and asked a driver when the next mini-bus would head north to the Caucasus mountain outpost of Kazbegi.
"Ten minutes," he said not very convincingly.
“Ten minutes” in Georgia actually meant, “as soon as the bus is beyond what any reasonable person would consider hazardously full.” I would have to wait.

Didube, in addition to being a transport terminal, is a thriving marketplace where one can witness firsthand Georgia's entrepreneurial class. Tough looking older people from the countryside sold produce out of the trunks of battered cars, and on top of cardboard boxes, while freelance drivers yelled out the names of various destinations to the general public.

Places like Didube had become quite familiar to me on my quest to travel from Cairo to Shanghai by land and sea in the spring and summer of the year 2000. Prevailing wisdom dictates that globalization has shrunk the planet, and that no place on earth is out of reach for the modern traveler. Indeed, when one flies from one large city to the next, the world can seem to be a pretty small place, but when you stay connected to the earth the world is still pretty staggeringly huge and incomprehensible. Thousands of towns and villages and transport hubs like Didube exist where the onrush of globalization seems to be moving more at a trickle than an avalanche, but you don’t see these places if you fly from one city to the next.

Georgia is a country that many people fly over, but very few actually travel through. I had entered through Turkey crossing the only open frontier in the world (the Turkey-Armenia border is closed) where you can travel east to get from Asia back into Europe. The frontier itself is a true no-man’s land- neither country has bothered to pave the roads near the border, so it is essentially a mud track that passes through a few spectacularly forlorn villages on both sides. My plan was to spend some time in Georgia, before taking a ferry from Batumi into the Ukraine, although in reality, I had no idea if this voyage could still be made.

Our tottering old minibus finally pulled out 80 minutes after the initial ten minutes had expired. Passengers got on and off the minibus at various points on the road, never discussing price with the driver. At first, I found it hard to believe the five-hour ride to Kazbegi was only 6 lari ($3). But the sardine like seating arrangement and the utter disrepair of the road quickly mitigated my conviction that I was getting a bargain. As the snow capped Caucasus loomed on the horizon, the road deteriorated even further, and huge boulders and potholes the size of the road impeded our progress. The road to Kazbegi is closed in the wintertime leaving huge areas of the country cut off from the world for the season. If someone has a serious medical problem in Kazbegi in the winter or had a craving for a pint of Ben and Jerry's, he'd have to wait until spring to reach a hospital and perhaps even longer to get the premium ice cream.

Despite the intimidating mountains surrounding it, Kazbegi did not make much of a first impression. There was a little square with a statue and several outdoor kiosks, all selling an identical array of salami's, cola's and rough looking bread that would require crocodile teeth to penetrate. A little further down the main drag there was a couple of stores with a meager selection of goods, and no restaurants or café's that I could detect. My guidebook, published five years before my arrival, indicated there was a hotel in town; but I could find no sign of it. The village was dead, but for a collection of farm animals that roamed the streets. I approached the only people I could find, three men sitting in a beat-up old sedan.

"Hotel Kazbegi?" I tentatively offered up with a shrug of my shoulders.
"No, No," they all muttered as they shook their heads.
"No?"
They began to extend their hands out like an umpire calling a runner safe, indicating that there was no more Hotel Kazbegi.
"Other hotel, any HOTEL," I said as it began to rain harder.
"No hotel, house, me, come," said an unshaven man named Georgi with black greasy hair who was in the drivers seat.
"OK, your house it is," I said, as the other two men got out and began walking the other way.
"You-Amer-ee-can?"
"Yes."
"Look Ameri-kin moozic," he said, popping in a Bryan Adams cassette, which blared Heaven at an ear- shattering volume. "I'm findin' it hard to believe we're in heaven…."
"You like, American moozic?" he asked reminding me of the Elvis Costello song. (We like all kinds of moozic )
"Actually, Bryan Adams is Canadian," I said, desperate to try to disown one of North America's cheesiest recording stars, whose insidiously catchy melodies had apparently penetrated even this little village deep in the Caucasus mountains.
"American," he said insistently as he held up the tape case for my inspection.
I let it drop as he was in charge of the situation, and luckily we arrived at his home in less than a minute. Kazbegi was a small place.
Georgi did not get out of the car, but instead shouted out to his wife in Georgian, and presumably told her that I'd be staying with them. We agreed on a price of $5 for the evening and I was left with his wife Nonna and two young sons- Gogga and Ruslan.

Georgi's family's home as well as several others in the village, had a little de-facto shop in the front entranceway that had a few items for sale, such as detergent and chocolate bars. Nonna had a thick mane of curly black hair and a pretty dimpled smile; I took her to be in her early thirties. Although she didn’t speak English, she did her best to show warmth and generosity, bringing me tea and an old coffee table book entitled, "Soviet Georgia, 1921-1981". The tattered old tome was filled with photos of smiling factory workers and amusing Soviet takes on Georgian history. "Toward the 18th century when Georgia was under threat of genocide, Russia was there to stave off the danger!" The book also made mention of the legendary tradition of Georgian hospitality, "We can inevitably conclude that history itself has taught the people which suffered much cruelty and ruthlessness to appreciate every sign of friendship and be ready to lend a helping hand."

The rain continued to pour down outside so I resigned myself to spending an afternoon at their home, but what to do? I hadn't been shown to a bedroom so I couldn't very well pull out a book and start reading- the living room was too dark and I saw no lights anywhere. I felt trapped until Gogga's young cousin came over and the three of us began playing a spirited game of keep-away for a good hour. After we'd tired ourselves, I sat down with Nonna to look at some of their family photos and was given a pair of slippers to wear. Nonna showed me one photo of their wedding day in which I could clearly see little Gogga present in the background. I wondered if she was forced to marry Georgi, after all he was not the most handsome or charming individual. Essad Bey's, The Twelve Secrets of the Caucasus, published in 1930, gives us some insight into Caucasian wedding rituals, specifically the kalym or dowry paid to the bride's family.

"The height of the prices has always varied in direct proportion
to the wealth of the man and the beauty of the woman… Girls were divided into several groups: ugly, average, beautiful, very beautiful, and exceptionally beautiful, and also into virgin, semi-virgin, and no longer virgin. The classification of a girl is decided upon by a committee of experts and endorsed by the authorities. The price varies from (the equivalent of) one hundred twenty five dollars to five hundred dollars for virgins to a few cents, nominal charge for those no longer virgins. The lowest price for a virgin is $125…everything above that is considered an extra bonus for beauty. Payment by installations has always been permitted."

Just as I pondered what kind of payment plan Georgi negotiated to marry Nonna, the man barged in. He stood, swaying underneath an archway leading to the living room with glassy, unfocused eyes that strained to recognize my form and face. Georgi was piss drunk and I was a strange man in his home. He came closer and began shouting something at me as Nonna let out an embarrassed laugh. Why the hell was he angry at me? Georgi approached me shouting, stopped about a centimeter from my face and, looked down at the slippers Nonna had given me. Did I have his slippers on? Had I been sitting too close to his wife? He was looking at me and shouting as though he didn't remember picking me up.
"Georgi!" I said loudly as I stood up hoping to remind him of who I was.
He got right up in my face again though and began barking at me, making points with a hard finger into my chest for emphasis. He had obviously drank away the five dollars I had paid him.
"Bryan Adams, remember, no Hotel Kazbegi!" I said, hoping against hope that I wouldn't have to start singing Heaven to jar his memory.
But he seemed to either not remember or not care to as he continued on in an incoherent diatribe. Nonna began to yell back at him, clearly embarrassed but not surprised by his inebriation.
"I'm going for a walk," I announced, hoping that by the time I returned Georgi would either have calmed down or passed out.

It was still raining hard outside and there was nowhere to go. Mind you, I wasn't holding out for a Barnes & Noble superstore to kill time in, but anyplace, a store, a restaurant, a museum, a market, any shelter would do. But there was nothing to do and no one out on the rainy streets. I thought I would amuse myself by shopping for some dinner but all I could find was a stick of some pinkish looking meat, which could have been baloney. I thought about leaving town, but the only minibus out was the one I came in on, and it didn't leave until 4:00 pm the next day. I realized that at least for this one night my fate was intertwined with Nonna and Georgi. There was no escaping them or their little world I'd dropped in on. Bracing myself for another unpleasant confrontation, I walked slowly back towards their small home.

Back at the house Georgi made too strong an attempt at reconciliation.
"Dah-veed come here moozic," he yelled, beckoning for me to come into the TV room to watch, of all things, American gangsta rap videos with him.
"Ah-mare-ee kun moozik goood," he howled as I tried to ignore him.
"Good?" he persisted.
"Yes, American music is good," I said feeling like a schoolboy repeating his lessons.
The whole family stared intently at the screen, which was filled with images of young bejeweled black men surrounded by scantily clad buxom blondes.
"Dah-veed ah-mare-ee kin garells good?"
At first I did not understand him but then he got up, went over to the TV and pointed at the chest of a young girl on the screen to help drive home his point.
"Yes, I like American girls too," Christ get me out of here. I began to walk outside when Georgi, having caught sight of my camera, insisted on dragging his boys outside in the rainstorm for a photo-op. Nonna tried to dissuade him but he pushed her off and insisted I take a shot of him and his boys in the driving rain. He did not take the cigarette out of his mouth for the portrait. Mercifully, Nonna called us into a drafty, dark, little outhouse in the back, which served as their kitchen and dining room.

Georgi began to devour his chicken and potato dinner without benefit of any cutlery or napkin, only occasionally looking up from his meal to pound his fist on the table and make some arcane proclamation. I tried to break the tension in the room by pointing to the boys and indicating what good boys they were.
"Him GOOOD," he said grabbing Ruslans’ head with his greasy paw.
"Him, AAAAghghh," he said, and made a gesture meant to indicate that Gogga was a wimp. Meanwhile little Gogga was sitting right there, obviously not challenging his Neanderthal father.
"GEORGI!" shouted Nonna, obviously disgusted with him. Nonna berated him for a moment until he half jumped up from the table and raised his hand in the air as though he was going to strike her. No one said a word or could bear to look at one another for an excruciatingly long moment. Georgi was trembling as a piece of food fell out of his mouth. I decided that if he hit her, I was going to hit him and it would be an ugly evening in Kazbegi town. Luckily though, he soon left the table where he no doubt passed out in a puddle of his own piss and vomit.

After dinner, Nonna's brother, who surprisingly spoke a little English dropped by. He seemed to revel in the opportunity to talk to an American while Nonna busied herself with the dishes.
"You see Georgi likes to drink, you must ignore him, he is young, he will learn."
"Young? How old is he?" I asked.
"He is 25 and Nonna is only 24."
I was speechless; they were both younger than I was. I had thought they were both much older.
"They were very young when they were married, my sister was only 17."
The look on his face seemed to say, "how could she know what a drunken asshole he'd turnout to be," but it wasn't necessary for him to say it. After Nonna finished washing the dishes she insisted on having me sleep in their "master" bedroom as the whole rest of the family- including the passed out Georgi- slept in one double bed in the front room. No matter how much of a barbarian her husband may have been, they were not about to violate the tradition of Georgian hospitality.

¨¨¨ ¨¨¨

The next morning the sun came out, and Georgi was blessedly nowhere to be found, so I took the opportunity to spend several hours hiking all around the environs of the little town. The natural beauty and the warmth of the sun restored my desire to travel, and I even contemplated staying another night with Nonna and Georgi but soon thought better of it, and returned to say goodbye with some meager gifts for the kids in hand. Nonna seemed disappointed that I was leaving, and I felt bad leaving her too, but that's what happens when you travel to countries like Georgia and stay in people's homes- you become exposed to problems that you cannot begin to solve and the weight of those problems makes your trip seem frivolous and almost perverse. I quit my job in Chicago a few months before and left my girlfriend behind to travel for several months along the Silk Road. It wasn’t a holidaymaker or a businessman, and I knew no one in Georgia prior to my arrival. I was from one of the richest nations on earth, yet I looked a bit rough around the edges and I was staying with a poor family in an obscure village. I left home wanting to visit places like Georgia in the spirit of curiosity and adventure, but there were times when the question of why am I here became almost unbearable to examine.

Before leaving, I slipped Nonna some more American cash, which she accepted without ceremony. My gesture felt inadequate and awkward, but I had nothing else to offer. I sat waiting in the town square for my bus, watching a drunken old man hassle the kiosk owners for some beer. Someone finally gave the old man some change which he tried to parlay into a purchase, yet none of the kiosks would sell to him. I wondered if this form of community policing could be put to work on Georgi. On cue, he came into view walking towards his home. Briefly, I indulged in a fantasy about jumping him from behind, beating him senseless and taking his family back to Tbilisi with me. In the end, I merely contented myself in the knowledge that he would not be able to drink away the cash I'd given Nonna the way he had the five from the day before.

Confessions of a New Father Part Three

2008-01-24T12:47:00.000-06:00

Confessions of a New Father Part Three

Gangsta rappers wax poetic when rhyming about their cribs. They fight, in fact, to get them featured on the MTV Cribs show, and many of their hit singles revolve on brining _______’s back to their cribs. Yet my son, Leo, aka LC, aka LC Hammer, aka Leo the Lip, is no gangsta rapper and thus he has no pride in his crib. In fact, the boy, who is now nearly four months old, has about as much affection for his crib as the religious right has for gay marriage. You would probably catch Pat Robertson at a gay pride parade before you’d see my son sleeping peacefully in his crib. For Leo, the crib is a confining dungeon of tall oak pillars and oscillating mobile detachments, which circle ominously above his head, and nothing more.

So what do the parents of a crib-hater do? We started by trying to pimp out the crib. The first step was to kit the periphery with a funky bumper adorned with animals. But animal prints are cold comfort to a child that prefers the warmth of his mother’s bosom to the cold confines of an all too spacious crib. So we bought a crib mirror, so that the young star could gaze at himself like narcissus, and hopefully lull himself to sleep. The idea of sleeping with a mirror next to you might sound sleazy to some- but we were willing to try just about anything. But the mirror was a bust, and so was the frog named Leap who sings the alphabet and then giggles like an obsequious prostitute, and the organ that has fluorescent animals that light up and sing lullabies. No, there is probably no toy anywhere in the sweatshops and warehouses of Guandong province that can make my son love his crib. But I’m still willing to dream- in fact-I am thisclose to shelling out nearly $100 for a crib vibrator device- again, like the crib mirror, its not as sleazy as it sounds- the thing is supposed to help your infant feel as though his crib were traveling 55 miles per hour.

Since the boy refuses to sleep in the crib, he usually spends part of the night in a little infant bed that lies between my wife Jen and I, and the rest of the night nuzzled right up to his mom’s breast area. I refer to the little bed within a bed as the penalty box- because he doesn’t prefer it, but he will get in there and allow us to keep him in their for brief periods of time. While he doesn’t like the penalty box, it does seem downright posh after a stint of fire and brimstone screaming in the crib. For him, getting sent into the box after being in the crib is like a prisoner being brought up from solitary to share H-block with his cellies, and getting the full upgrade right into his mothers arms, is, well, like stretching out in business class with a fine cabernet and some comfy slippers.

We’ve established that the boy is not a great sleeper, but there are other things that Leo is quite good at. Travel, for example, is definitely something that the boy can do. We flew to Buffalo twice, both times on Southwest, which has an open seating policy. I had nightmare visions of other passengers seeing us come down the aisle and receiving us with all the warmth one might accord a junior level member of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. But the Lip was eerily silent on all four flights, and is similarly unobtrusive while riding in the car. Though his proclivity for motion has its price- sitting down on the couch and examining the evening paper is certainly not high on the child’s agenda. No, the boy can often only cope with the world if his father consents to pace around the apartment holding him aloft like the panchen lama being carried through the streets of Lhasa.

There is no mistaking that Leo is a mama’s boy. He laughs at my jokes and is not above watching sports on TV with me, but when he settles in on his mothers lap for a refreshing splash of breast milk and gazes up at her, star-struck, there is no question that he knows where his bread is buttered. Though I am not without utility as well. The role that I often play is akin to what fluffers do in the pornographic film industry-again not to be perverse- but my job is basically to occupy Leo until the headliner (Jen) is ready to work her magic. And that can sometimes be quite an undertaking.

Leo, like most infants, I suspect, doesn’t cry. People often talk about babies crying, but do they really cry? I have never seen a tear stream down my son’s cheeks, and the emotion he displays isn’t sadness but rather primal anger. He can wail, he can scream, he can whine, he can harrumph, he can fuss, he can hyperventilate, but he doesn’t cry. And when Leo is inconsolable he arches his back, straightens out his legs, closes his eyes, clenches his fists and raises them up by his head as though he were a televangelist summoning the Holy Spirit, and turns beat red as he screams as though he were trying to exercise poisonous demons that are eating out his intestines. It’s not a pretty sight- and, in truth, I am delighted when I can him over in this frenzied state to his mother, whose magic breasts and calm demeanor usually manage to hypnotize the savage beast.

Leo is an eager and enthusiastic eater. He likes a good breast milk buzz early in the morning, long before the drunks on nearby Madison Avenue peel the labels from their bottles of Bud. Leo would breastfeed 24/7 if he could. Of course there are times when he’s hungry and attacks the breasts with the gusto of a little Pac-Man, but there are also many other times when he’s not really hungry, but just wants a little camaraderie and perhaps just an aperitif of breast milk. In this respect, you could liken him to a social drinker. Jen is frequently flummoxed when I suggest that she breast feed Leo.
“He just ate a half-hour ago!” she’ll protest.
“So what, let him eat again!” I’ll counter, because its no skin off of my back, and the very act of breast-feeding makes the boy happy.

Leo is also a serious chick-magnet. The very sight of him smiling and cooing in his stroller can make grown women become all mushy and melty in public places. Sometimes I wish that I could loan him out to single friends, so that his charms could be put to more constructive use. Of course, it takes two to tango, and Leo returns the attention of his admirers tenfold, sometimes reserving his cutest smiles and most blatant flirtation for complete strangers that approach him in café’s restaurants, or on the streets. The little man revels in the spotlight, and is never too busy to make time for adoring fans.

Most importantly, my son is good at reminding us that there is still purity and innocence in the world. All it takes us a little smile, a fart, a good burp, some laughable, incoherent mumbling, or the look of tranquility on his face when he drifts off to sleep to remind us of how lucky we are to have him and how precious these early days of his life are. He may never be on MTV’s Cribs, but he might just be the only person in the world capable of making me feel O.K. after getting a speeding ticket for going 42 in a 30 zone. His dad loves him so much, that pretty soon, he’s going to have a crib that’s even faster than dad’s car.

Confessions of a New Father Part Two

2008-01-24T12:42:00.000-06:00

Confessions of a New Father Part Two

Shortly after I wrote Confessions Part One, which may have left some with the impression that Leo was quite a handful, my wife Jen and I discovered that the real problem wasn’t Leo. It was us. How to explain this sudden revelation? Easy- my mom and dad came for a visit. My mom, Joanne, had six boys from 1960-1966, and then one more, yours truly, in 1972, so she has more than just a touch of experience with babies, and despite the decades that have passed since her days of caring for infants, not much has really changed. The first day or two of their visit, Leo was strangely quiet, but I chalked it up to random luck. But the trend continued for the entire visit, and I soon grew to see that my mom really knew how to handle the boy.

Leo was as fascinated by his grandmother as she was by him. Not only did she place him in oddly comforting holds he had never experienced before, she talked to him. Boy did she talk to him. And the funny thing was he listened. Intently. In fact, I doubt if anyone has hung on my mom’s words so eagerly in many years. Leo was so fascinated by mom’s running commentary and litany of rhetorical questions, I could not help but wonder if, in the future, he might be able to serve as my spokesman since he and my mother clearly communicated so well together. My mom also is like the Grand Wizard of burp inducement. She could induce a burp out of a Sudanese man starving in the desert. Jen and I would beat on Leo’s back like a drum to no avail, but with my mom on the case, beautifully full and throaty burps spewed forth with little or no effort.

But all good things must come to an end, so after the visit we were left to our own devices albeit with a few new tricks learned from Joanne. We’ve been having a blast with Leo, treasuring at least 75% of the moments we have with him, but he had fallen into a pattern of behaving like a psychopath each evening, usually around 11pm. The festivities would usually kick off with an extremely unpleasant and unproductive feeding session. McDonald’s has the Happy Meal; Leo has the Angry Meal™. Angry Meals™ would usually go down like this: the boy acts as though he’s starving, and when given the breast, he at first attacks it with vigor, but only moments later, the slurping turns to fury, as he begins to wail and punch his arms at the offending breast, all the while howling and kicking his legs while his face turns Blackhawk red.

So we take a step back, and here I hover in, offering a concerned look, some rhetorical questions (maybe he wants to….take a walk, burp, savor the feel of a new diaper, read a truly good book, enjoy a particularly fine cabernet sauvignon, or for once in his life see a movie with Ben Stiller in it that doesn’t totally suck) or some moral support. After I take him on a walkabout, during which time I hop around, shake back and forth and talk like a man just let out of a mental ward who hangs around at bus station shelters or in the erotica section at Barnes and Noble. If I succeed in calming him, I then hand him back to Jen, and if I don’t, I hand him back to Jen anyways, and she tries to entice him more subtly to the breast, teasing him with a bit of maternal foreplay before getting on to the main event. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Often times while Jen is bathing or otherwise trying to mollify Leo I play the role of DPH, Designated Pacifier Holder, basically the guy who sticks his finger inside the pacifier and holds it there to make sure it doesn’t fall out. You might think that that sounds like a bit part, but its actually a crucial job, because pacifiers fall out of angry babies mouths about 4 times per minute, on average, when left to their own devices. I asked our pediatrician about the feasibility of inventing a device that straps the pacifier onto the back of the child’s head, but apparently there are some reasons why that can’t be done. Something about breathing or choking if my memory serves me.

When it comes time for Leo to hit the sheets, Jen wraps Leo up like a little pastel taco, in this device called a swaddle me, which actually functions as a straight jacket. (though I think Babies R Us would have a harder time marketing it if it were called a baby straight jacket) When Leo is content, he looks pretty comical in this thing, but when he’s angry he tries to bust out of it like a mental patient being carried away to his cell. One tactic that I read about on the internet for quieting an angry infant seemed to make no sense to me. Why would a baby be soothed by the deafening roar of a vacuum cleaner? We had tried classical music, but the boy can’t be bothered with it. The idea of plugging a vacuum cleaner in late at night seemed insane but we gave it a shot and it delivered immediate results.

The infernal humm of the vacuum is music to Leo’s ears. Our vacuum is just so loud, its like he just can’t compete with it, so he just submits like a chimpanzee who has just been tranquilized on Animal Planet. The only problem is that we hate listening to the vacuum, and I don’t imagine that our downstairs neighbors find it particularly melodic either, especially at three A.M. So we have to calculate, which is more annoying: Leo screaming or the vacuum humming. I can live with the vacuum, but Jen prefers to hear Leo, so we mix it up. The funny thing about it is that if we turn the vacuum off before Leo goes asleep it takes him awhile to realize its off and that he can start crying again. But not nearly as long as we would like.

Thought he may occasionally act like homicidal maniac bent on world destruction, our love for the boy is powerful and unconditional. I can think of no better way to illustrate this than to gross you out with an anecdote that might cause you to question my dear wife’s sanity. The other day, while changing Leo’s diaper Jen approached me with what seemed almost like a confession.
“Do you think Leo’s dirty diapers smell?” she asked.
“Not too bad,” I replied.
“I actually think they smell good,” she said, giggling a bit.
“You’re serious?
“Yeah, maybe I’m crazy but, I actually kind of like it!”

So while we have now established that, at least according to the unbiased opinion of his mother, the boy’s crap doesn’t stink and in fact smells good, let us move on to a story of public flatulence which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Leo was my son, and removed any possibility that I would have to take Jen on Jerry Springer to demand a paternity test. Leo and I were at Borders, which on a weekday afternoon was very quiet but not empty. Leo was sleeping peacefully while me and several other people in the vicinity thumbed through books and magazines which we had no intention of purchasing until all of the sudden Leo uncorked a whopper of a fart which drew all eyes to me. The fart was a long, loud and protracted one, much like an out of tune tuba played by a 9 year old, and it sounded far too grown up to have been from a sleeping infant, so the dirty looks came at me. I just shrugged, feeling like a good dad for not pointing down at my son.

Leo might very well turn out to be an actor when he grows up, if not sooner. The speed with which he can move from one character to the next is simply breathtaking. One moment he is auditioning for the part of “content infant number one”, looking as though he has not a care in the world. He plays the part so convincingly that you, the parent, might feel so bold as to pull out a book or even lie down. But, beware, a split second later, and with no forewarning, he’ll be auditioning for the part of “child being dismembered by an alien” in some kind of macabre horror flick.

If the acting thing doesn’t work out, however, I kind of have the feeling that Leo might grow up to be a boxer. His default setting seems to be clenched fists held up high to protect his face, and he has a scowl that is not unlike the one that Ivan Drago wore before his humiliating loss to Rocky Balboa in Moscow where Balboa succeeded in winning over a hostile crowd of Soviet sports fans, telling them, “if I can change, you can change, we’ze can all change!”

Though I suspect Balboa wasn’t referring to changing diapers, I have to agree that he was right, even I can change, I must say. Not only can I change a mean (not to mention filthy) diaper I have something of a roll. Jen has had the misfortune of being in the direct line of Leo’s fire during several diaper changes, yet I have still somehow managed to avoid the golden shower treatment. Though I have to admit that the streak (for lack of a better term) kind of haunts me- every time I change him I go so fast that the whole procedure is something of a Chinese fire drill- all the while I am thinking can’t let him pee on me. Someday, though, I know, it will happen, because I peed on my parents and siblings, and they peed on their parents and siblings. It’s an ancient ritual, and definitively one of the perks of being an infant, I suppose. People spend their whole lives acquiescing to the demands of others, trying not to piss people off, as it were, but when you are six weeks old, you can just let loose and not worry about the consequences. Leo is six weeks old this week, and so he is free to eat his Angry Meals™, listen to the vacuum, indulge his mother with his sweet smelling diapers and listen to his grandma chatter to his heart’s content. I only hope he’s enjoying all of this as much as I think he is.