House GOP repeats 1929 performance

Dave Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A penny saved is ... a real bother

As I write this, our nation is contemplating the purchase of $700 billion in bad debt, more money than the entire Iraq fiasco has cost us to date. No one seems interested in discussing where the cash will come from. The Bush administraton has run up a massive debt of its own since taking office in 2001. There is no surplus to fall back on. And no one, it seems, proposes raising taxes to pay for the $700 billion pledge. As a result, do you hear that humming noise coming from Washington, D.C.? That hum comes from the printing presses being warmed up -- to print the money that will pay for this splurge.

And what's that anguished screaming you hear in foreign capitals? It comes from individuals and governments, trying to unload their dollar holdings -- buying euros or gold or other commodities -- as fast as possible, before they're hit by the greenback's further devaluation. For us here at home, expect sharply increased inflation, as we need more and more dollars to pay for the same goods and services.

But let's turn our attention from great matters of global finance, which just makes our head hurt, and look at something related, but closer to home.

On my dresser top is a messy pile of coins, mainly pennies. It has been there for a long time, sometimes growing higher, sometimes shrinking lower-- but, over time, climbing higher and higher, spreading to the edges and falling onto the floor. I also have boxes of pennies stashed away from previous frenzied attempts to clean up my dresser. I try to remember each day to put a few pennies in my pocket, so I can avoid getting more pennies in change, but I usually forget. I'm inundated.

At the same time that the government was taking steps, in effect, to radically devalue the dollar, the U. S. Mint was announcing plans for the humble Lincoln penny. To celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday, the reverse of the penny is being redesigned in four different forms, each with a different scene from Abe's life. This new issue will apparently encourage collectors to seek them out and hold onto them. As if there was any problem with people holding onto pennies.

The real problem is that it now costs more than its face value to make each penny. In 2007, it cost 1.7 cents to mint a penny. As a result, the government had to make it illegal to melt pennies down and sell the metal. Thus the penny is different from the quarter dollar. With quarters, the government makes a profit from every quarter that get socked away in boxes or put into collections, because its face value is substantially more than its cost to produce.

Despite the fact that it loses money on every new penny, the government put 7.4 billion new pennies into circulation in 2007, and now is encouraging collectors to demand even more of them by its commemorative changes in design.

The purchasing value of the dollar in the 1950's was almost ten times what it is today. In other words, a dime bought as much as today's dollar. A penny bought as much as today's dime. Americans got along fine without 1/10 cent pieces in the 1950's; they'd get along fine without pennies today. Even the nickel borders on useless, worth the same as a half penny in the 1950's.

Britain abandoned its half penny coin -- worth roughly the same as our penny -- in 1984. We should stop making pennies today, and certainly not encourage additional demand for a coin that costs more to make than it's worth.

Maybe then, finally, I could once more see the surface of my dresser top.

Pumpkins threaten Russia

Smashing pumpkins! Breaking hearts! Stunning news out of Russia.

The Russian Duma (analogous to our House of Representatives) is considering a bill to ban celebration of Halloween and Valentine's Day as "bad influences on Russian youth," according to a story in USA Today. Not because of religious objections, but because the two holidays represent Western cultural threats to Russian civilization.

Maxim Mishchenko, a Duma member, says he is pushing the bill to guard the "moral and spiritual upbringing" of the nation's youth and to promote traditional Russian culture and values rather than those imported from the West. ...

"If the state won't interfere, they (Russia's youth) will behave like little monkeys, copying what doesn't fit with the soul of our culture," Mishchenko says.

Russian legislative leaders concede that an absolute ban would be counter-productive. Any legislation probably would be designed primarily to prohibit observance of the holidays, including the wearing of costumes, within the schools.

My first reaction is to laugh. Yeah, right, I think, and we should ban observance of St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. I'm sick and tired of Irish and Mexican cultural imperialism. What a joke! But then I remember that even so rational a people as the French have fought for years to protect the purity of the French language from any foreign influence, especially the adoption and adaptation of English words ("Franglais"). (Recent reports suggest the French are gradually giving up this battle, but it still rages on in Quebec.) Fear of losing one's culture appears to be a natural human response.

All of which makes me realize how unique we are in the United States, and how lucky. We have a salad culture, an immigrant culture that is a mixture of ingredients. Plain old lettuce -- the culture of Great Britain -- may still constitute the matrix of the salad, but additional fruits, vegetables and spices are constantly being added from other countries. These new flavors don't "ruin" the salad. To the contrary, they add new interest. We don't "taste" the same now as we did fifty years ago, or even ten. There's no way we can predict how we'll taste in another decade.

When anyone claims that Hispanics or Vietnamese or east Indians are changing America, you have to just shout "duh!" ... and ask which America are they changing? The America of 1950? Or 1980? Or last year? "All is flux, nothing stays still," wrote Heraclitus, 2,500 years ago. He could have been talking about American civilization today.

While various acts are properly illegal in this country, no thought or idea is "un-American," because no prescriptive standard exists for what is "American." We have no "soul of our culture" to protect, other than our willingness to accept and experiment with novelty. This trait makes our lives more complicated, in some ways, than the lives of a Frenchman, or a Russian, or a Thai. But we remain the most cosmopolitan society in the world. That cosmopolitanism makes us innovative and flexible. It's not a weakness, but one of our greatest strengths.

Telling kids they can't celebrate with skeletons and cupids is just another example of an age-old Russian tendency toward isolation, a tendency that's caused them no end of grief in the past. They should get past it.

Benaroya Hall

"Seattle is the cultural dustbin of the nation." Those horrifying words, allegedly spoken in disgust by Sir Thomas Beecham, one of the great British conductors of the twentieth century, after a year of conducting the Seattle Symphony in the early 1940's, left Seattle traumatized and culturally defensive for decades to come.

Those of us who grew up around these parts often saw ourselves as living in an isolated frontier town, less scorned than totally unknown by the rest of the nation. Only gradually have we begun taking heart from high rankings in "best cities" polls, and from frequent laudatory articles in the New York Times. (Gawrsh, that's a real big city newspaper, too!) We still may feel inferior to older cities with more established cultural traditions, such as San Francisco, Cleveland, Philadelphia -- but we sense that the gap with many of these towns is closing, if not already closed.

A major step forward from our cultural adolescence was the construction of Benaroya Hall, whose tenth anniversary we celebrate this month. Until 1998, the Seattle Symphony performed in the Seattle Opera House (now remodeled as McCaw Hall), a venue located out at the Seattle Center (the old 1962 World's Fair grounds) that it shared with the local opera and ballet companies. Benaroya Hall, built specifically for the symphony, was constructed in the center of downtown, across the street from the then recently-built Seattle Art Museum. Re-location of those two institutions accelerated the development of downtown Seattle as a residential, entertainment and dining center, an enjoyable and safe area to be enjoyed in the evening as well as during the day.

Benaroya Hall has an audience capacity of 2,500 in its main auditorium, and 500 in a smaller performance hall. The acoustics are excellent. The symphony plays virtually nightly, from September through June, to full houses in the main auditorium.

Pride in one's city, like pride in one's country, can be either silly and boosterish, or constructive and worthwhile. Benaroya Hall provides a focus for the best sort of civic pride, a city's pride in the accomplishments of its artistic community, and in its own willingness and ability to support the arts, both financially and by attendance.

So happy birthday, Benaroya Hall.

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Sir Thomas left Seattle humiliated, and so it's nice to learn that he in turn had his own bad moments:

The story is told of how, around 1950, Beecham met a lady whom he recognised but whose name he couldn't remember. After some preliminaries about the weather, and desperately racking his memory, he asked how she was.

"Oh, very well, but my brother has been rather ill lately."

"Ah, yes, your brother. I'm sorry to hear that. And, er, what is your brother doing at the moment?"

"Well... he's still  King", replied Princess Mary.

--Wikipedia

Lorsque vous n'avez aucun Bud, vous n'avez pas de bière.

"Hey, Janice! Ya gonna space out by that TV all night, or d'ya think maybe you could spare some time to bring us that pitcher of Bud ya got in yer hand?"

"Don't you mouth off to me, Sam," the barmaid grinned, sliding the full foaming pitcher onto the table. "Save your smartass remarks for your poor wife."

Just another Friday night at Riverside Tavern. The usual gang of ten befuddled beer guzzlers sitting at the back of the room, their elbows wet from beer slopped on the table

"Damn shame about Bud," one sighed, downing his glass in a gulp.

"You mean those Frenchies or whatever buying it up?"

"Yup. Next thing you know the goddam White House will be up for sale."

"And the damn government back in Washington sits around worrying about Canadians sneaking across the border. Couldn't care less about a bunch of frogs buying up our whole damn country!"

"We should sue!" Bill, who usually sat quietly drinking and listening to the others, spoke up loudly, surprising his friends. "Why wait for the damn feds -- let's do it ourselves!"

And I suppose that's how ten self-described beer drinkers ended up bringing suit in St. Louis federal court today, seeking to block the sale of Anheuser-Busch to the Belgian beer maker InBev. Luckily, these ten typical boozers managed to find Joseph Alioto -- one of the nation's most prominent anti-trust lawyers, who has reportedly brought anti-trust lawsuits at one time or another against virtually every major American company -- to be their attorney.

"The famous Clydesdale horses will be put out to pasture and the great American lager will no longer be American," Alioto declared in a statement released to the press.

The lawsuit claims that the combined company would exert an effective monopoly over beer production in the United States, allowing it to dictate prices to the consumer.

St. Louis based Anheuser-Busch produces Budweiser (the country's top selling beer) and Michelob. InBev is best known in this country for its Stella Artois brand, a niche beer most famous for its clever filmed advertisements shown in art theaters, and for its slogan, "Perfection has its price."

The effect of the proposed merger on American consumer prices would be similar to the effect on auto prices if General Motors decided to purchase the Lamborghini division from Volkswagen. Would that affect what you pay for a Chevy?

Sorry, guys, Bud's Belgian now. À la votre!

Just keep whistling ...

On Wednesday, European scientists will flip the switch and turn on their brand new Large Hadron Collider (LHC), smashing protons together at such high speeds that their energy will create conditions similar to those that existed in the first one-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. But on an infinitesimal scale, of course.

The currently accepted "Standard Model" in physics predicts an array of subatomic particles, all of which have been identified experimentally except for one -- the so-called Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a particle that's needed to explain why we all have mass and aren't just clouds of disembodied energy. If it turns out that there's no such animal as the Higgs boson, then it's back to the drawing board to explain why we seem so sure that we're solid

One alternative explanation would be that perhaps ten or twelve additional physical dimensions to the universe exist, beyond the three that our human senses can perceive. This theoretical assumption would fit into the proposed "string theory" of the universe, which I don't really understand and you don't either -- don't try to BS me that you do. Another alternative would be that every elementary particle has a "supersymmetric partner," with various unusual qualities, a partner particle that we haven't been able to detect, but that might explain the nature of "dark matter."

But the truly fascinating question about the LHC start-up on Wednesday is the possibility that it could create a tiny black hole, a black hole that would begin gobbling up everything within reach as it grew bigger and bigger, ultimately sucking you, me and Britney Spears into the perimeter of its event horizon, thereby causing some significant changes in our plans for next weekend.

European scientists scoff at this fear, but a lawsuit has been filed in federal court to block the LHC's start-up. I doubt if the federal judge hearing the matter is going to find she has jurisdiction to issue an injunction preventing European scientists from conducting an experiment in a laboratory located on the French-Swiss border. And beyond jurisdictional issues, the evidence offered to support such an injunction is a lot of complex and controversial -- not to mention speculative -- theoretical physics, evidence she will have difficulty absorbing between now and Wednesday.

Anyway, some scientists foresaw a possibility that the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo would start a chain reaction that would consume the entire world. Ha! We dodged that bullet, right? Anyway, only 18 percent of voters in an MSNBC poll are worried that the experiment might destroy the world. That's a pretty small minority, and I'm sure the rest of the voters polled know what they're talking about.

So flip that switch, dudes! But I'm not bothering to mow my lawn until after Wednesday.

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ILLUSTRATION (J. Pequenão / CERN / ATLAS) Artist's conception of particle tracks expected to be generated if particle collision results in creation of a black hole that instantaneously decays.

A twitch upon the thread

I caught him with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.

--G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

I've been re-reading Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited this week, after finally getting around to watching Hollywood's movie version. The story is probably more commonly known to most of us through the 11 ½-hour mini-series that was televised on PBS, and that can still be rented on DVD.

The mini-series was an opulent re-creation of the period between the world wars, as viewed from the limited and privileged position of the British aristocracy. University life at Oxford, manorial life at Brideshead (filmed at Castle Howard in Yorkshire), and misty scenes of Venice as seen from softly gliding gondolas, pre-Mussolini and pre-mass tourism. If only we could have lived then, we think (assuming, of course, that we were titled nobility)!

Waugh was an unapologetic Tory. He wrote his novel during the hardships and deprivations of World War II. He lamented the democratization of Britain which, as he viewed it, had led to the permanent lowering within Britain of all sorts of cultural and esthetic standards. The novel certainly does wallow in nostalgia, as did the mini-series. But Waugh's nostalgia was incidental. Waugh was a Catholic convert, and his novel expresses primarily his sense of how the same narrative events could be interpreted from opposite directions, depending on whether they were seen through the eyes of the world or through the eyes of faith.

The narrator, Charles Ryder, an intelligent, sensitive artist, and an atheist, interprets what he sees as the world does, and as we no doubt would. He forms a close friendship at Oxford with Sebastian Flyte, the eccentric son of a Catholic aristocratic family headed by Lord and Lady Marchmain, a dynasty whose family seat is the magnificent estate called "Brideshead." To varying degrees, the members of the Flyte family, unlike Charles, interpret the events that so deeply affect their lives through the eyes of faith, and come, as a result, to very different conclusions.

Charles Ryder feels as the story develops, as indeed most of us would, that each member of his friend's family has been ultimately destroyed, tragically, as a result of the family's devotion to its church. The youngest of the Flytes, Lady Cordelia, who was only a funny and engaging child when first met, speaks for her faith when she later insists that the ups and downs of their lives, whether their lives are happy or unhappy, is of little importance. The salvation of their souls is all that really matters; a life of great unhappiness as the world views it is beneficial if it serves as the means for God to pull one back -- like the "twitch upon the thread" in Chesterton's detective story -- to himself.

As Charles narrates the novel, he sees his best friend, who we meet at the outset as a witty and charming young man, develop into an habitual drunk, living in poor health and squalor in Morocco. Lord Marchmain has fled his wife and England and lives in Venice, shunned by his own society because of his mistress. Lady Julia Flyte, Sebastian's sister, with whom Charles ultimately enters into a passionate love affair, refuses to marry him because of her church's refusal to permit a second marriage. Lady Cordelia leaves the convent she once joined, and ends up working alone in Africa, serving the most desperate of the poor. And Lady Marchmain, the matriarch of the family, who loves each of her children and whose faith is the most certain and unyielding, dies a lonely death, separated from them all because of the demands she has placed on them throughout their lives.

In the end, all the family members have either died or wandered away from Brideshead, leaving the mansion empty and available for the billeting of troops during World War II. But each of them has died at peace with God, or is finding his or her way back to God, or, like Sebastian, is living an outwardly degrading life as a "holy fool" for God. Charles returns to Brideshead as a depressed and lonely middle-aged army officer, and recalls the golden, hopeful days of his youth, filled with joy and surrounded by beauty within its walls, in the company of Sebastian and his family.

In a not-quite-convincing conclusion, Charles, while stationed as an army captain at Brideshead, stumbles upon Bridehead's abandoned private chapel. He finds the sanctuary lantern still burning in the darkness, a red beacon upon the altar. Piercing his skepticism, the still flickering candle suggests to him the real and continuing presence of God. Despite the unfortunate events of his life, events that have left him alone and friendless, awkwardly serving in an army for which he is unsuited by his artistic temperament, he feels suddenly happy for the first time in years.

"You're looking unusually cheerful to-day," said the second-in-command. -- These are the final words of Waugh's novel.

The "twitch upon the thread" has apparently begun its work, pulling not only the members of the Flyte family, but Charles Ryder as well, back to the God of their ancestors.

The movie now showing in theaters is just ok. The photography is beautiful. Although the film makes a mess out of portions of Waugh's plot line, its director does seem to acknowledge, at least, that the theme of the novel in some way concerns the consequences of religious faith, faith of a very deep (and today unfashionable) (and to the director, unacceptable) variety.

Brideshead Revisited, the book, is beautifully written, and far more complex in characterization, dialogue, and plot (and much funnier in parts) than this short post can suggest. It is not just a reminiscence, lamenting the loss of happier days in a more golden England. When I first read the book in college, in fact, I did so because it was a required reading in a course called "The Theological Novel in Modern Europe." The story is entertaining, but it engages the mind and spirit as well. You need not agree with Waugh's theology to appreciate his skill in weaving an uncompromising theological position into a story that was, for the 1940's, quite contemporary and even somewhat scandalous.

In short, my usual suggestion: Skip the movie and read the book!

Cow compasses

Next time you get lost while out hiking, look for the nearest cow. Odds are, she'll be facing north, according to a German study reported in this week's Economist magazine.

After studying scads of satellite images from Google Earth, Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Essen reports that herds of cows tend to face north (or maybe south?). This is true, statistically, even controlling for wind direction and warmth from the sun. She hypothesizes that cows, like some smaller animals, may have magnetic receptors in their brain that affect behavior in some unknown way. Interestingly enough, the cows (the article consistently refers to "cows" -- I'm not sure whether this is a sex-related feature) align themselves to the magnetic north pole, not the true pole.

Obviously, the effect is subtle. Cows don't snap automatically into a north-south configuration while they graze. If one cow wants to head for water, the magnetic north pole doesn't drag her back. But, as I read the article, in the absence of any strong external influence or internal desire on the part of the cow to do otherwise (assuming cows have internal desires!), they will more likely than not line up north-south.

Don't depend on the alignment of just one lonely cow to get you safely back home to Dubuque. She may just be staring at that cute young bull on the other side of the fence. But if you see an entire herd lined up, facing the same direction (and not watching an outdoor movie) with their usual expressions of bovine stupidity, you may want to consider them as a compass needle made up of so much prime rib.

For best results, I guess, you'd grab one cow, tie her onto a cork platform, and float her on a motionless pond. After an hour or so, she should eventually swing around to be pointing north.

If you find all this too complicated, the price of GPS units does continue to go down.

Seventy-two year old John McCain chooses Alaska Gov. Palin to be heartbeat away from Presidency

In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest, then finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant, in which she won a college scholarship. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.
--Wikipedia




Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first drives mad.
--Euripides

Au revoir, les éléphants

Democratic and Republican rhetoric this week and next will call our attention to national and international problems that are difficult and complex, and that require tough decisions by the next administration. The politicians will propose their conflicting solutions.

Those are the "feel-good" problems, however. Far more emotionally devastating are the problems that seem to have no solution, problems that will inevitably grow worse as the years pass.

Take Africa and African wildlife, for example.

Despite the ravages of AIDS, which is killing millions of Africans (in Botswana alone, one of Africa's more properous countries, 35 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive), population growth in Africa is the highest in the world. Forty-three percent of the population is younger than 15. African food production per person is now 30 percent less than it was 40 years ago. The population of Africa will rise from 800 million now to 1.8 billion in only 40 years.

Where are all those sick, starving people going to live? Necessarily, in areas now inhabitated by wildlife, from the tiniest gazelle, to the quirky lemurs, to the iconic lions and great apes. Say your good byes. Our grandchildren, if lucky, can see surviving specimens in a zoo somewhere.

Most of these animals will die of starvation, thirst, and human poaching. South Africa is one of the more progressive African nations when it comes to wildlife management, and it has now returned to the culling of elephants in order to reduce those animals' devastating impact on fragile and shrinking habitat. Culling will grant these intelligent mammals a quick death, instead of slow starvation.

But do you know what "culling" an elephant herd really means? Here is a description by Karen E. Lange, from this month's National Geographic.

Toward the cool of evening, the helicopter took off, vultures trailing in its wake. The pilot approached the elephants from behind, coming in low over their backs to give the marksman a clear shot to the brain with his semiautomatic rifle. One bullet was usually enough. First the matriarch -- the group's leader, the repository of collective wisdom -- went down, and then the younger females and calves were picked off as they huddled around her body. Every member of the group was killed; any survivors would be too devastated by the loss of their closest companions to function normally. Immediately after the aerial assault, a ground crew arrived to shoot the rare elephant that was still alive.

Elephants are intelligent, and known for their emotional attachments. These culled elephants were the lucky ones, in today's Africa. Their lives ended quickly.

In a world of global starvation, of ethnic cleansing, it's perhaps perverse to worry about elephants, lions, monkeys, and giraffes -- not to mention trees and forests and jungle habitat -- when so much human suffering calls out for help. But we're all in it together. If we have to choose between the life of an elephant and the life of a man or woman, we of course will sacrifice the elephant. But we have to ask ourselves how we ever reached the point that such choices needed to be made. Why in this vast and often beautiful world, were we unable to find enough room for all species to live together?

Meanwhile, throughout Africa, families of elephants will be shot down one by one, while grieving over the bodies of their mothers. We can only stand by, and watch, and grieve ourselves.

And so does Hillary

Thank you, thank you, Hillary. Fox News thinks you gave Obama a wishy washy endorsement. That's typical of Fox, and follows their party line. MSNBC calls it "a grand slam home run, out of the park and across the street." Which is what it was.

Any Hillary supporter who still sits on his or her hands during this election, after hearing tonight's speech, would have done so no matter what Hillary said. She gave the ticket her full endorsement, and aroused the party faithful to cheers and tears with the first really satisfying attack, during this convention, on the disastrous Bush/Cheney legacy.

In years to come, if Hillary Clinton should again come before the voters, I'll certainly remember with gratitude her performance tonight.

Michelle hits a homer

Is there anything Michelle could have done better last night, at the Democratic convention? Yes, her speech was carefully scripted. Sure, she pulled out every emotional stop. Of course it was hokey to have her beautiful daughters come on stage at the end and joke with their doting father. Gawd, I loved it all, and, like many of the delegates, had tears in my eyes! If some males felt inclined toward George W. in 2000 because he was a guy they'd like to go have a drink with, I feel attracted to the Obamas as a family I'd love having next door, folks to talk over the fence with.

As many of the analysts pointed out, following Michelle's speech, she did nothing to answer the doubts that they, and presumably many Americans, continue to have regarding Obama's political agenda. That's ok. To me, a major concern has been those voters -- the Appalachians, the union workers, the traditional rank and file Democrats (the Hillary voters, to use a shorthand) -- who fully agree with Obama's policies, but have just felt that Obama "isn't one of us." Not just because he's black, but because he seems too foreign, too educated, too exotic, too analytical and detached.

Michelle's speech, and the video presentation that preceded it, were major steps forward in showing that the Obamas are "one of us," that they share the same dreams and hopes for their family and their country as those felt by the average voter.

Compliments also to former Iowa Republican congressman Jim Leach, who told the Democrats in Denver why he is supporting Obama -- because today's Republican party has drifted far from its historic principles. His speech set forth basic beliefs with which both moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats should be able to agree. His speech reminds me that, while driving through Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire a week or so ago, I saw countless Obama bumper strips, yard signs, and campaign buttons, but just one McCain bumper strip. These states formed the traditional heart of the Republican party -- "New England Yankee" and "Republican" were once almost synonymous. Maine and Vermont were the only states to vote for the Republican nominee at the time of FDR's 1936 landslide.

Today's Republicans have kisssed off New England as unimportant and irrelevant, just as they have kissed off Jim Leach's brand of moderate Republicanism, and as they are in the process of kissing off their traditional suburban voters. George W. has limited the appeal of the Republican party to corporations and their lobbyists, and a majority of evangelical voters. It is becoming a regional party of the South and Midwest. Is that enough to win an election? Maybe the presidency, where personality can still trump issues. Not Congress, in my opinion

Steel on steel

Amtrak is often viewed as the poor, down-at-the-heels cousin in the vacation travel family. Republicans hate it -- it provides subsidized travel to the undeserving un-rich. (Forget about who pays for those freeways that their Porsches and BMWs glide along so genteelly.) Average American families ignore it -- they have only two weeks to enjoy a vacation, and Amtrak creaks along slowly on ancient tracks that America's freight trains begrudgingly share with it. Europeans are incredulous -- compared with their own sleek 200-225 mph TGV's and Talgos -- high velocity trains riding on dedicated track -- a trip on Amtrak feels like travel by rail across India or in some other third world country.

Yes, but. But, if you have the time, if getting there is as much fun to you as the destination, if you're sick of gas prices and crowded freeways, not to mention the total insanity of today's airlines and airports -- then Amtrak's the ticket.

As discussed last month, I took Amtrak's Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, connecting with the Lake Shore Limited to Boston, to begin my Maine vacation. Lots of other travelers joined me -- the train was sold out, at least as far as Glacier National Park, where hordes of hikers and backpackers got off with their camping gear. The ride was smooth, food in the diner was decent and the service was excellent, and the company at each meal was interesting and congenial.

We had one unscheduled event which, at least in retrospect, added to the interest of the trip, even though causing some inconvenience. At Libby, Montana, just west of the national park, we learned that a serious derailment by a freight train had torn up the track. After a short period of indecision, we were loaded onto buses and bused around the southern edge of the park to Shelby, where the westbound train arrived and exchanged passengers with us. This caused us to miss the scenic route through Glacier Park itself, which was unfortunate, and delayed our arrival in Chicago by about eight hours. However, it did give us time to relax outside the train, enjoy the Montana air, and watch the trains being reconfigured to reverse direction.

As a result of the delay, I missed my connection at Chicago with the Lake Shore Limited, and other passengers missed other connections. If Amtrak had been an airline, they would have announced to their angry passengers that the delay was the fault of Burlington Northern & Santa Fe, and not of Amtrak, and that they therefore had no responsibility for our inconvenience. Instead, at 1 a.m., Amtrak found a room at the Hyatt Regency, at Amtrak's expense, for each and every passenger who missed a connection, and provided us each with $50 for taxi and meals during our delay.

After years of dealing with with airlines, I was astounded.

Fortunately, I had allowed myself a free day in Boston before meeting up with family members who were flying into town, and I used this free day instead in Chicago. Instead of exploring historic Boston and wandering around the Boston Commons, I explored the Art Institute of Chicago and wandered around the Loop and Grant Park. It was a fair trade-off.

I have nothing but praise for Amtrak's handling of the unfortunate delay, and for the rail experience in general. Let me put this plug in for them: We should be embarrassed as a nation that we have provided so little money to develop a decent rail system, and that we have paid so much to subsidize a highway system that encourages prodigious gasoline consumption. Until the 1950's, we had a superb passenger rail system that was the gold standard for the world. Our love for the auto caused us to toss it away, both by our individual decisions to drive or fly rather than take the train, and by our government's refusal to provide sufficient funding for Amtrak.

The airline system is broken, and our airlines are on the verge of bankruptcy. We are running out of gas for our automobiles. Rail travel -- steel wheels on steel tracks -- is the most energy efficient form of travel. It is also the most pleasant.

Let's rebuild our passenger railroads.

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PHOTOS (top to bottom): (1) Empire Builder ready for boarding at Seattle's King Street Station. (2) Outside station at Libby, Montana. (3) Train waiting at Libby. (4) Train passengers boarding buses. (5) Reversing direction of train in Shelby by repositioning engine. (6) Southern Pacific poster from 1950's.

Fog and Granite

Mount Washington, at 6,288 feet, towers above the other "Presidentials" (Mts. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Eisenhower) in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It is the tallest mountain in New England. And yet, for us Westerners, its elevation appears laughable -- Oregon and Washington are dotted with snowy volcanic cones ranging from 10,000 to 14,000 feet. Colorado alone boasts of fifty (50!) peaks over 14,000 feet.

Nevertheless, the mountain is a challenging, non-technical climb, as I discovered Sunday. After leaving Doug's wedding a week earlier, I spent a number of days driving about Maine, and found myself spending the night just across the state line in Gorham, N.H. I discovered that Gorham was only eleven miles from Pinkham Notch, the Forest Service trailhead for Mt. Washington, where you can also find a large Appalachian Mountain Club lodge that provides accommodations and three meals a day to passing hikers

What the heck, I thought. Who knows when I'll be in Gorham next? I crammed several layers of warm clothes into a daypack, together with a convenience store sandwich and a couple of Snickers. Thus prepared, I set out at 9:00 a.m. for a 4.2 mile hike to the summit, a climb of 4,270 feet.

New Hampshire calls itself the "Granite State." Guess why? The trail for the first two miles was unlike any typical Western dirt trail. It was more like a jeep track heading up a rocky creek bed. I danced my way uphill, from rock to rock. At the two mile mark, the trail became seriously vertical. Portions were what I would call rock scrambles, where both hands and feet were required. At this point, I became somewhat concerned about the descent.

About a mile below the summit, I reached Lion's Head, a rocky outcropping that provided excellent views of surrounding peaks and valleys. Pinkham Notch could be seen far below. Lion's Head marked the end of anything I'd consider a "trail." From that point until the top, I was boulder hopping steeply upward, my route guided only by large (5 or 6 foot high) rock cairns or, occasionally, a splash of paint on a boulder. Lion's Head also marked the end of what I would consider "visibility." Last Sunday, at least, the trail from that point to the summit and back was through a dense fog. I didn't worry about a view. I worried about finding the next cairn through the gloom.

Finally, the summit.

I've climbed Mt. Rainier. At the summit, you feel yourself in a special world, far removed from the lives of non-climbers. I've now climbed Mt. Washington. At the summit, you feel far removed from anything you feel at the summit of Mt. Rainer. First -- suprise -- there is a road to the summit that runs up the other side of the mountain, which is totally invisible until you struggle up the path and into the -- into the parking lot! Second, there is also a cog railroad to the summit, an antique device that has carried tourists to the top since 1869. (Wikipedia claims that hikers have a tradition of "Mooning the Cog." I knew of no such tradition, and the icy wind and dense fog would have eliminated any enthusiasm on my part for such a practice even had I known of it!)

Third, and as a result of numbers one and two, the exhausted climber stumbles upon a large modern lodge at the top, similar to a ski lodge, where he can sit down, exchange stories with fellow hikers, smirk at the tourists, and eat wonderfully hot chili, sandwiches, and coffee. Hmm. In some ways, those effete Easterners aren't so dumb. I tossed aside my 7-Eleven sandwich, and dug into the chili.

The hike down was no anticlimax. I recalled that Everest climbers are warned that the climb isn't over until they get back to base camp. I was wearing light, low-top hiking shoes, which I would never have worn if I'd been planning for such a climb in advance. Every step down onto a damp boulder threatened me with a sprained ankle. From top to bottom, step by step, there was no room for daydreaming -- each step required thought. Even so, I had several painful ankle twists, but no real injuries.

My guide book suggested a round trip time of 8.5 hours. I was back at Pinkham Notch 7.5 hours after I set out, including an hour at the summit.

Coincidentally, I had been reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island, his humorous commentary on life and travel in Britain. He discusses how tiny even the most famous British physical features are, compared with national parks, mountains, etc., in other, larger countries. (The entire Lake District in England, for example, the subject of countless travel essays over the years (not to mention half of Wordsworth's poetry), and the destination of many tours, occupies less area than does Minneapolis-St. Paul.) And yet, a person accustomed to the scale of life in England derives the same pleasure from English scenery as we do from, say, the Grand Canyon. Bryson discusses the struggles he confronted in climbing a 2,960-foot "peak" in the Lake District. His point was that the mountain does not have to be huge to be challenging.

New England is, not surprisingly, like England in some ways. Its mountains are not huge, the distances are not vast, its "wilderness" is not really wild (but beware of moose!). But I know now that I could live in New England and enjoy as many opportunities to hike and climb, to commune with nature, as I would care to take. I met a guy at the summit, with his wife and three children. He has climbed Mount Washington with one or more of his kids every year for 15 years. Every year is a new challenge, every year he tries a different approach. He was a dedicated conservationist, and as enthused about the outdoors as anyone you might run into while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

Adventure is where you look for it. New England is cool. So was Mt. Washington.

Yay, recess!

The Northwest Corner will be in recess until August 21, while its incredibly witty and erudite author vacations in Maine. Enjoy your summer (assuming you live in the northern hemisphere)!