Humbug!

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.
--Bill Vaughn

Except for kids still intoxicated by their first drinks and their first kisses, everyone agrees that New Year's Eve is our most overrated holiday. For a while, I was afraid it was just me -- that everyone except, pathetically, myself was having an hilarious time. But I finally looked around and realized that the only folks having an hilarious time were the sorts who also had hilarious times on Arbor Day and John Quincy Adams's Birthday.

But this year, for maybe the first time, I've also wondered if the entire week between Christmas and New Year's is also overrated. Looking around at happy people on the street, however, this time I'm sure it really is just me.

As a kid, the week following Christmas was a riotous exercise in the joys of consumption -- playing with every toy, building with every building set, challenging friends and siblings to play every game -- riding new bikes, blowing myself up with new chemistry sets, causing catastrophic collisions with new electric train sets¹ -- all in the dreamy illusion that vacation from school would last forever. Finally, I'd wake up dazed on New Year's Day, put on the funny hats my folks brought home from a dance or party, gaze around at the demolished remnants of my Christmas presents -- and face the cold reality that school began in the next day or so.

But while it lasted, Christmas week was the veritable Mardi Gras of childhood.

As the years passed, the orgiastic aspects of the week were left behind, but there remained the satisfaction of hanging out with relatives I didn't see the rest of the year, lots of good things to eat, Christmas decorations to enjoy, and general good humor all around.

This year, I had a very enjoyable Christmas with relatives in Sonoma, but unaccountably had made reservations to return to Seattle the night of December 27. I returned home to a quiet, chilly, undecorated house -- a dark and austerely Cromwellian outpost in a dazzling world still celebrating the feasts and festivals of Merry Olde England -- greeted only by my two loving but somewhat prim feline companions.

Where did Christmas disappear to so suddenly? Surely, even Cromwell must have had his moments of doubt, moments when he felt he'd gone too far? That he'd thrown the baby out with the bath?

Anyway, Christmas week ends Friday, after which the festive Yule coach turns back into stale pumpkin pie for everyone, and we can all join together in putting our noses to the workaday grindstone.

At least, before it's over, there'll still be some hella good bowl games to re-warm my icy heart.

But next Christmas, I'm going to plan things out better!

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¹When I got bored creating devastating railway accidents, I found I could amuse myself by connecting my transformer's power pole to the ground pole with a piece of wiring. Observation: (1) Sparks fly; (2) the wire vibrates frantically, making a satisfying buzzing noise; (3) the wire begins to smoke; and (4) the insulation melts and burns off the wire. The short circuit fortunately could not draw enough power through the transformer to blow a fuse out in the garage (which would have resulted in my father's blowing his own fuse).

Merry Christmas!

© The New Yorker

Merry Christmas to my thousands of readers. I'm heading south by Amtrak tomorrow, spending Christmas week with relatives in Sonoma. May your holidays be happy, and every bit as warm as the WPIX-TV Yule log!

Rail to air

At 10:00 a.m. this morning, the final link was added to Seattle's light rail route between downtown and the airport -- the 1.7 mile link between Tukwila station and Sea-Tac Airport. By 11:15 a.m., your roving correspondent and irrationally exuberant rapid transit fanatic was riding the rails. I wouldn't have waited so long, but I wanted to make sure that the first few trains made the trip uneventfully, with no untoward collapses of the elevated tracks en route.

I'm pleased to announce that the trip went smashingly, and all seems in order. I timed the trip at 39 minutes from airport departure to Westlake (downtown) arrival. The fare is $2.50. If you ride out and come back within the two-hour transfer period, your return trip is treated as a free transfer. Because I took the bus downtown from my home ($1.75), the computer subtracted only another 75 cents from my fare card for the light rail ride to the airport, and zero for the return. Gaming the system is cool, even when you love -- with your whole heart and your whole mind -- the system that you're gaming!

My only criticism is that the airport station is not incorporated into the terminal building, as are rail connections at most airports. Instead, you have about a quarter-mile walk, most of it on a dedicated path through the pre-existing parking garage, to reach the transit station. But you could easily walk this same distance at other airports, such as Chicago or San Francisco -- you would just be less aware of the distance because you would be walking within the terminal building.

Lots of sightseers with small kids making the ride on the first day, but also a lot of flyers with their rolling luggage, many of them coming on board at stations along the route. Light rail is going to be a nice amenity for flyers, especially those headed for hotels or business offices downtown.

Next development will be tunneling the route from Westlake to Husky Stadium at the University, with a single intermediate station constructed under Capitol Hill. That extension's already under construction, and due for completion in 2016.

Dark matter

While you and I are obsessing over our Christmas gift list or, on a grander scale, hating Joe Lieberman for his antics in the U.S. Senate, some of our fellow humans are pondering the nature and future of the universe.

News comes this week from the Soudan Mine in the chilly iron mining country of northern Minnesota. After two years of reading sensors located in an old mine 2,000 feet underground, chilled almost to absolute zero (0.01° K.), scientists have observed two tiny blips of heat, which they suspect are the result of the sensors being hit by a couple of WIMPS. No, the WIMPS aren't the scientists; they are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles -- a form of "dark matter." The odds are about 75-80 percent that the detectors have detected WIMPS, rather than simply picking up some form of background radiation. Because of the small possibility of background "noise," however, no claim is being made at this time of a conclusive "dark matter" detection. But scientists are optimistic.

Dark matter particles are dark because -- although heavy -- they do not emit light, they have no electrical charge, and they virtually never interact with other particles. They just hang around space being heavy. Apparently, however, they do interact with the germanium/silicon detectors that the scientists have installed under the Mesabi Range, thus permitting the reported detection.

Dark matter, until now, has been a theoretical construct, hypothesized to explain why the universe, once created in the Big Bang, hasn't flown apart like scraps of an exploded firecracker. The universe is expanding, yes, but in a controlled expansion. The mutual gravitational attraction among all particles is the accepted explanation for the limited speed of expansion, but there's nowhere near enough visible matter to provide the graviational pull that would explain the observed data. Therefore, scientists have for some time suggested the existence of "dark matter" -- matter massive enough to provide the required gravitational tug to keep the stars from flying apart much faster than they do, but matter so "dark" that we can't detect it by our senses and instruments.

Until now. Maybe.

If dark matter exists, there's a lot of it around. Scientists calculate that 25 percent of the mass of the universe is dark matter, as compared with only 4 percent being found in atoms (including visible matter composed of atoms). (The rest of the universe's mass -- an incredible 70 percent or so -- is believed to be "dark energy," mass/energy that the predominant theory suggests is inherent in the nature of space itself).

Other scientific teams are working to confirm the Minnesota identification of dark matter, including an American team working in the Italian Alps, and the CERN team operating the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) near Geneva (the collider I've discussed in earlier posts).

Pretty cool stuff. Pondering these matters should calm us and diminish the usual irritation caused by the elevated mass and energy of frenzied Christmas shoppers at the local Wal-Mart.

GOP hot air

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), has demanded that the clerk read a proposed 767-page amendment to the Health Care Reform bill now being considered by the Senate. The reading of bills and amendments is virtually always waived as a waste of time. No one listens, of course, despite Sen. Coburn's disingenuous claim that the marathon reading will bring "a dose of transparency" to the debate.

Coburn's demand is just one more tactic in the Republican effort ("No, no, a thousand times NO -- whatever you propose, we'll say NO!!") to stall any health care reform bill into oblivion. The Republicans estimate it will take until midnight tonight before the amendment has been completely read.

"If we need to lay [sic] down in traffic to stop the bill we would," according to Republican sources.

The Republicans say that polls show that the Senate bill is not popular, and they are thus justified in filibustering the measure to death.

It wasn't long ago that right-wing bumper strips reminded us that "America is a republic, not a democracy," meaning that the public elects legislative and executive branches, and expects them to use their sound judgment in legislating -- as opposed to enacting legislation directly by some form of polling. But that was then, apparently, and this is now.

President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress were elected barely a year ago on a platform that strongly endorsed health care reform. The issue was discussed repeatedly in the presidential debates. I would think that the only poll that counts was the one taken of the voters in November 2008. Congress and the administration are now attempting to do precisely what they were elected to do.

My advice to the good senator from Oklahoma would be -- were I not such a gentleman -- the same as that once delivered famously to a Democratic senator on the floor of the Senate by Vice President Dick Cheney.

My advice to the Democratic leadership is to keep the Senate in session through Christmas, if necessary, to keep the bill moving. Let Sen. Coburn explain to his family back in Oklahoma that he can't celebrate Christmas with him this year, because he needs to read the phone book into the record on the floor of the Senate.

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1:45 p.m. -- The senator offering the amendment withdrew it after 139 pages had been read, denouncing the Republican maneuver: "People can have honest disagreements, but in this moment of crisis it is wrong to bring the United States government to a halt."

Christmas magic

This afternoon, downtown Seattle was dark and gloomy. No longer freezing, as it's been for the last fortnight, but not much warmer. A typical Seattle drizzle -- wet enough to keep me damp, but not enough to make me run for cover or -- God forbid -- use an umbrella.

I was a man on a mission -- trying to find a Christmas present for the most recent addition to the family. My mission led me deep into Pioneer Square, the area where Seattle all began. An odd district of old stone buildings, none over about three stories high. At Christmas, huddled in the gloom of winter, their exteriors forbidding but lit up warmly from within, it all felt very much like the London of Charles Dickens.

A rusticated stone building contained what appeared -- from the outside -- to be a small toy store. I entered. I was delighted. Although the street entrance was unimpressive and easy to miss, once inside I found myself wandering about in a magic world of children's toys, a maze of small rooms, each brightly lit, with a hidden stairway near the rear leading down to an even richer offering of toys on a lower level.

I looked about me, half expecting to see the jolly toymaker himself, hard at work at his craft.

And the toys were wonderful. Not the kind of toys you see advertised on kids' TV shows. These were the kinds of toys you see in photos from yesteryear. Only better. A whole room of jigsaw puzzles in various shapes and sizes. A room of stuffed animals, from baby teddy bears to giagantic giraffes. Stacks of hardwood blocks and building toys. An entire corner, its shelves filled with wonderful chemistry sets (the best of which was priced at a pricey $269!), telescopes, microscopes, and other encouragements for the young scientist. Games of all types, from this year's most advertised models all the way back to classics such as Risk and Monopoly. Miniature toy cars and trucks --sturdily built from cast metal (not plastic!).

Adding to the magic -- or to the confusion, which may be the same thing -- were plastic balls, balls the size of croquet balls, rolling around the store underfoot, rolling under their own power, untended, changing direction each time they hit an obstacle -- such as my feet. They must have contained batteries and some internal mechanism that made them roll, but the effect on the unsuspecting visitor, already transfixed by the magic of the toys of Christmas, was unnervingly Hogswartian.

This is a child's Christmas as it should be presented, I felt. These are the kinds of presents I want to give. Heck, these are the kinds of presents I want to receive. Does Santa know?

I stumbled, intoxicated, out of the little shop, out into the gloomy, Dickensian drizzle. Now at home, sober, I look back on it all and mull over the cruel reality -- I'll probably get a tie for Christmas.

Progress

The cynics among you -- among whom I'd certainly consider myself, were I in your shoes -- probably suspected, after reading last month's posting about my efforts to master the Pathétique, that in another year I'd shamefacedly stand before you, scuffing the ground with my foot, confessing that once more I'd made little progress.

Well, in the past month I haven't made a lot of progress, perhaps, and I can't seem to force myself to practice anywhere near as much as I should, but I have made progress. (No matter how lazy you are, if you play a piece even a couple of times a day, you're bound to improve!) I still miss notes, I still fumble over fingering on some of the chords, and I definitely have my problems with the trills -- I have no intention of inviting you to a recital! -- but it's getting there, and it's increasingly fun to play.

But the disparity between the recording of the sonata to which I linked you in my November 12 post and the sounds that come out of my own piano is disheartening. Hitting the right notes is only an initial step, as I can hear only too well. But -- the upside of my distance from my goal is that it reinforces my conviction that I need lessons. I'm still planning to look for the proper teacher, once we're into January.

I'm excited at the prospect. Further details as events warrant.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

An autistic boy stares off into the distance when you try to talk to him. A victim of stroke needs constant encouragement to perform exhausting and boring physical exercises. A lonely elderly woman is becoming vegetative through lack of any social ties.

These are just three examples of people who desperately need person-to-person interaction -- not just casual social friends, but someone who will work with them intensely, hour after hour. Someone constantly encouraging, constantly engaged, constantly attentive; someone who never shows boredom, discouragement, frustration. Someone a bit like a saint.

Or maybe a robot.

In a recent New Yorker article, medical professor Jerome Groopman discusses the emerging field -- and developing technology -- of "socially assistive robots." These are machines designed to interface with human beings. Whether the robots move or are stationary, speak or make noises, appear human or remain simply machine-like, they are all designed to work with patients, often tirelessly doing or saying the same thing over and over, giving the patient the non-ending support and encouragement that he or she needs. The robot ideally performs the same tasks that human therapists can do now, but does them indefinitely, beyond normal human endurance.

The simpler robots, such as some used in physical therapy, simply measure the effort exerted by the patient, and offer pre-recorded verbal encouragements. More sophisticated robots, working with children suffering from autism, use their half-machine, half-human characteristics to lure kids -- kids often comfortable with machines but who have difficulty sharing interests and information with other humans -- into child-robot relationships that, it's hoped, will evolve into improved relationships with other children. Similarly, robots working with the elderly are designed to fill a vacuum in their lives, giving them someone with whom to bond, a bonding that may also encourage them to bond among themselves (a function that animal pets often perform as well.)

Dr. Groopman notes that while some of these robots may be fairly simple in their intellectual attributes, others are being designed with the ability to learn from experience and, based on that learning, to modify their own behavior and responses. For example, some who work with recovering stroke victims are able to determine to what extent a particular patient is introverted or extroverted. The more introverted the patient, the more physical distance the robot maintains between robot and patient, the lower the pitch of its "voice," the more slowly it speaks, and the more encouragement it offers.

We have obviously reached in real life the first, halting steps toward the artificial intelligence (A.I.) that we have been reading about in science fiction for decades. In many ways, these developments seem miraculous and wonderful, but science fiction has trained our minds to suspect that it will all go wrong in the end.

Groopman mentions the "uncanny valley" effect: the uneasiness or revulsion people feel when a robot seems too human, but not entirely human. At present, designers avoid this effect by designing deliberately non-human characteristics into their robots. But this effect may not always be a problem. Already, elderly patients have been observed looking forward eagerly to spending time with their robots. One researcher observed a woman who called a robot her "grandchild."

'Others said that they would like to arrange their schedule around singing to the robot ... it's the high point of their day.' ... 'One woman spun quite a yarn,' Mataric said. 'They had whole internal stories about how the robot fit into their lives, however unreal those stories may be.'

Here, the robot is not just a tool that facilitates amused interaction among elderly women; interaction with the robot itself appears to have become their prime social objective. "We were wired through evolution to feel that when something looks us in the eye, then someone is at home in it." These women find their robots better company than their own peers.

And can we blame them? Isn't this really what we all would like? A totally non-judgmental friend who is constantly encouraging and forever patient, who has only our best interests at heart? One to whom we can tell the same story over and over, and get the same appreciative laugh every time? One who always gives, and demands nothing from us in return?

In other words, aren't these robots way too good to be enjoyed only by the disabled, the elderly, the autistic? As they develop further, as they are made ever more human, as they become ever more skilled at being the kind of buddies we always craved, surely -- human nature being what it is -- there will develop black markets in robots, robots obtained without a prescription, dubious claims of a medical need for robots. In the end, doesn't the battle over marijuana shows that sooner or later we'll get what we crave, robots on demand?

Everyone will have his own personal robot or robots. Where the economy demands interpersonal cooperation, cooperation and empathy we no longer have the patience or skills to develop ourselves, we will gladly delegate to our robots the task of working things out among themselves on our behalf.

At the end of his article, Groopman quotes an MIT psychology professor who expresses fear that patients now being helped by robots will find it too easy to limit their social life to interaction with their robots. Look at email, he argues. Has email facilitated human contact, or replaced it? What the professor sees as a threat, however, mankind may well find a blessing. Human relations are messy. Robot relations will be tidy and warm and fulfilling. If there are conflicts between persons, between nations, let the robots sort it out -- we trust them.

Hey, I read sci-fi! I go to movies! I already know the ending to this story!

--------------------------

Jerome Groopman, Robots That Care, The New Yorker (Nov. 2, 2009)

Crime and Punishment

A frosty but sunny day in Seattle. Trees, still yellow-leafed, shine golden against the blue sky as I traipse across the UW campus. The "mountain is out," as we say in our quaint local patois. Excited students, purple-clad, drift toward the stadium, hoping against hope to watch the Golden Bears be vanquished in this afternoon's game. Life is good, and in times like these my fancy lightly turns to thoughts of, well ... murder, punishment, ruined lives.

Three recent news items:

• Item. An Italian court in Perugia has found Amanda Knox, age 22, a former honors student at the University of Washington, guilty of knifing to death a fellow exchange student, and has sentenced her to 26 years in prison.
  
• Item. An Indiana boy, 17, reportedly has admitted that, while wrestling with his 10-year-old brother, he killed him with a chokehold. His brother's last words were, "Andrew, stop." He then further strangled his brother and hit his head against a rock to make sure he was dead. The defendant, a good student and apparently well-liked at school, says he'd been wanting to kill someone ever since eighth grade.
  
• Item. A Missouri girl, 15, a lazy but gifted student, reportedly has admitted killing a 9-year-old neighbor by strangling and stabbing her, and then slitting her throat. The defendant says she killed the girl because "she wanted to know what it felt like."
  

Three promising lives, ended practically before they began. Three more promising lives, essentially ended or soon to be ended by the judicial system.

Assuming all three defendants are, in fact, guilty¹, it's hard to dispute the lengthy sentences they will receive. And yet, whenever I read of a young person sentenced to life imprisonment, or to a term ensuring that they will not be released until late middle age, my mind rebels at the waste involved.

I recall myself at age 17, say, or 15 -- and I remember stupid things I may have done at that age. Nothing that would have brought me into the criminal justice system, thank God, but just dumb decisions that make me wonder now who that dumb kid was and what I could have been thinking of. What would it be like to reach the age of 40, say, having spent over half of your life in jail, and know that you were in prison, and would stay in prison, because of some act committed by a 15-year-old idiot who you could hardly recognize as even being yourself. But that's the fate reserved for these kids.

We learn in law school that criminal punishment has four principal objectives: retribution, protection of society, deterrence, and rehabilitation. As modern Americans, we like to believe that our principal goal is at least to attempt rehabilitation. But in murders as egregious as these three (and especially the latter two), where the murders are so willful and the pain to the survivors so devastating, we recall the original reason the criminal justice system was created: to grant the sovereign the exclusive right of retribution, in order to prevent private retribution and self-perpetuating family feuds.

None of the three defendants will be subject to the death penalty. We are thus spared the spectacle of the state killing in order to deter and punish killing. But the deliberate waste of the obvious gifts and talents these three young people might someday have brought to society may be a price we have to pay to preserve domestic peace and order.

A dark cloud seems to pass over the sun as I continue on my walk across the beautiful campus -- the beautiful campus that Amanda Knox once called home.

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¹Ms. Knox will appeal her conviction. Under Italian law, her appeal apparently results in a de novo trial by a higher court. Her conviction is not considered final until the appeal runs its course.

On your left!

Ok, gang. I'll try to make this post, short and to the point.

First, my disclaimer: (1) Seattle is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the country, and I'm proud of that fact; (2) although I'm no fanatic, I enjoy biking myself, for both fun and exercise.

Now, here's the meat. Too many of you bicyclists are reckless, insane and arrogant. Forget about the messengers downtown, the ones who swerve their way through traffic-congested streets, treating red lights as mere warnings as they dash into the intersection. Not talking about them. They live a different life by different rules, dedicated to a higher cause, and I of course appreciate their prompt deliveries. They risk only their own lives.

No, my concerns are aimed at those riders who choose to share my sidewalk while I'm out in running or walking mode. Look, guys, have fun, ok? Dress up in flashy lycra, colored so you look like a Harlequin at a Venetian masked ball, if you choose. God knows, that's your own business. But here's my request. No, my demand: Seattle has richly supplied you cyclists -- us cyclists -- with bike trails and bike lanes. Seattle also permits you to ride on the sidewalks, asking only that you exercise caution and yield the right of way to pedestrians.

But you gotta do your part.

My point? Let's assume -- just as hypothetical -- that I was out briskly walking across Montlake bridge an hour or so ago, enjoying the late autumn sunshine. And let's suppose that a biker came up behind me on the narrow sidewalk at about 20 mph. Let's suppose he bellows as he begins his pass -- at about the same time that the sonic boom from his approach hits my eardrums -- "On your left!" And finally, let's suppose that, having brushed by me so closely that I'm nearly knocked off my feet, he speeds off obliviously.

I submit that this constitutes neither cautious driving nor yielding the right of way. And yet this happens over and over and over. And over.

Listen up, bikers. "On your left" is a warning to a pedestrian that you are approaching from behind. Its purpose is to avoid undue surprise, so that the pedestrian doesn't suddenly change direction into your bike's path. You, the bicyclist, on whom the law imposes the duty of caution, need not puff yourself up with an attitude of great superiority while calling out the phrase. You need not suppose that you are a magnificent athlete, merely because your little machine allows you to move faster than a runner or walker. Got that?

Call out the phrase early, call it out politely, and ride slowly. And don't pass within inches of me as you go by. I'm no toreador, showing off how close I can stand before a rampaging bull as it charges past me.

Looks of arrogance are unwarranted, it goes without saying. No sneering. No hauteur, no condescension, no disdain -- you're not driving a freaking Porsche, after all, just a simple vehicle that even 7-year-olds own and know how to ride. Nothing about your demeanor should suggest that pedestrians are mere irritants, like ruts in a road, impeding your swift progress on your appointed rounds.

Your "On your left" should not suggest the diesel horn on a 15-axle semi. Nor is it the equivalent of "Make way, knaves!" shouted by a mounted knight, sword in hand, as he thunders through a herd of scattering peasants. The phrase establishes no right of way, no empowerment to commit mayhem. It is a simple courtesy, a warning to help prevent injury to either biker or pedestrian.

I simply bring these basic principles to your attention, dudes, because I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more.

Happy cycling.

Advent

The guests have gone home, the turkey bones have hit the trash, the last of the pumpkin pie has disappeared from the refrigerator. The Christmas catalogs are stacking up precariously on the dining room table. The season is upon us. The countdown has begun.

For kids, the next 25 days are going to be sheer agony. Maybe you and I never actually begged our parents for a "Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model air rifle," but we all begged for something. As we watch the famous Christmas movie, we empathize fully with Ralphie's agonies of uncertainty and anticipation. Whether it was a BB gun or an electric train or a dollhouse or an Xbox or a Wii, most of us, at one time or another, had some Christmas present that we longed for desperately, some dazzling possession without which happiness in this life seemed well nigh impossible.

Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn't. And even when we got it, we later admitted to ourselves that -- once we got it -- it never quite justified all the hopes and fantasies we had invested in it. Such disappointments, we gradually discovered, make up one of the ironic little tragedies of human life -- a childhood disappointment that was to have plenty of adult counterparts.

But our minds nevertheless seem hard-wired to dream and to anticipate, to look beyond the dreary present to a magically joyful future. At times, such bright dreams may seem the only road of escape from the darkness of our present. Just as primitive man, hunkered down in the cold and dark of winter, looked forward with hope to the solstice, to the date when days would once more start growing longer. Just as we in our own time, hunkered down in the throes of a recession, watch hopefully for signs that the economy is reviving, that good times are returning.

And just as men and women in every century, their own lives mired in poverty and hopelessness, have been able to survive the present by dreaming of better lives for their children, better lives that would give meaning to their own suffering.

So we look forward. We await the light, we await better times. We await a child in whom we can place our hopes. Throughout history, not only individuals have longed for a better world, a more meaningful life, but entire nations. And perhaps even all of humanity.

And so, like a bunch of kids ourselves, we eagerly anticipate the coming of Christmas. But, sadder now (and also wiser) than we were as kids, we long for a sturdier form of happiness, something with a lot more legs than the excitement of getting a BB gun. Or of finding a job, or winning a war.

A Christmas gift that gives us a different kind of joy, a gift that won't disappoint us as soon as we receive it. Twenty-five days to ponder such a gift, to ask Santa for it. Twenty-five days to Christmas!

Climbing the "Savage Mountain"

Most of us admire those strong souls whose internal code demands a certain purity of conduct -- those who strive to satisfy their own ideals, rather than seeking the world's admiration or hoping somehow to sell their accomplishments. We admire, for example, the craftsman who makes violins the way he believes they should be made, even though he knows he could make far more money selling mediocre instruments to purchasers who wouldn't know or care about the difference.

Ed Viesturs, the first American to climb all fourteen mountains higher than 8,000 meters -- climbing all fourteen without supplementary oxygen -- is such a purist. A graduate of the University of Washington and of the veterinarian school at WSU, and a resident of a Seattle suburb across the Sound, he first picked up his mountaineering skills on the slopes of Mount Rainier, where he eventually became a professional climbing guide.

Viesturs has just published K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain, co-authored with David Roberts, a professional outdoors writer. In his book, Viesturs tells the story of K2 climbing -- from the first 1902 Crowly attempt, through attempts by Americans and Germans in the 1930s, to the first successful climb by the Italians in 1954, and through later attempts, some successful and many tragic, up until the present. Viesturs examines each climb through the lens of his own experience gained climbing in the Himalayas and Karakorams, especially his own successful climb of K2 with Scott Fischer in 1992.

Although K2, in the Karakoram range on the Pakistan-China border, is second in altitude to Everest, it is second to none in difficulty. Viesturs observes that, over the decades, one person has died for every four who have reached K2's summit. (Eleven died within a 36 hour period in 2008.) Contrast that 1:4 figure with Everest, where the ratio is 1:19¹ and it becomes apparent why experienced climbers consider the climb of K2 a far greater accomplishment than that of Everest.

Statistics aside, simply reading the accounts of climbs over the years makes it obvious that -- even with great physical strength and endurance, psychological perserverance, and a goodly helping of good luck and favorable weather -- only the most technically skillful climbers can venture very far above base camp. Guides using fixed ropes now lead countless numbers of amateurs up Everest. The Everest climb still demands endurance and perserverance, but the fixed ropes eliminate much of the need for technical climbing ability and experience.

There are no permanent fixed ropes on K2.

And Viesturs shows little respect for those climbers who rely on temporary fixed ropes anchored by Sherpa or Hunza staff -- locals who, climbing largely without protection, risk their own lives by struggling up ahead of the "sahibs" in order to ease their way to the top. He has little patience with grandstanding and bragging, and even less with leaders who let others take the risks and do the work while they collect the glory. He dislikes the use of bottled oxygen. He is suspicious of climbers who take imprudent chances, knowing that they can rely on radios or cell phones to summon help when they find themselves in a jam. And he throws up his hands at the increasingly common reliance on helicopters to rescue climbers whose dreams of glory outstrip their skill and experience.

A mountain can be considered climbed only when the climber reaches the summit and returns safely to base camp. The climb down is as critical, and often more dangerous, than the climb up. To Viesturs, it is self-evident that the climber must rely on his own abilities to complete the climb in both directions. Among the climber's requisite set of skills is good judgment. The climber must sacrifice the summit and turn around, Viesturs insists, once he determines that weather conditions or his own physical condition and abilities will make continuing the climb an unreasonable risk to his own safety and that of his companions. Viesturs frankly admits he ignored his own rule and, despite the lateness of the day, failed to turn back during his successful climb of K2 in 1992. He nearly lost his life as a result. He vowed never to take foolish chances again, and stuck with that vow while bagging his 13 remaining over-8000 meter summits.

Ed Viesturs is opinionated, but his opinions demand nothing of other climbers that he doesn't demand of himself. His own accomplishments entitle him to his strong opinions.

Viesturs's ideals demand of climbers more preparation and experience than some climbers may care to demand of themselves. His judgments may, at times, seem harsh. But these same ideals also permit him to see a climb as more than just a physical challenge. He notes how climbers frequently trek the 40 miles to K2's base camp almost heedless of the scenic beauty through which they walk. By focusing only on the physical challenge that lies ahead, he feels, they miss a significant part of the overall climbing experience. He marvels at -- and to some degree envies --the hardy pioneers who made the earliest attempts on K2. Those parties trekked not 40 miles, but hundreds of miles, through roadless countryside. Their members saw themselves as explorers as well as climbers. On their way, they carried art supplies and painted landscapes, did surveying, studied fauna, and collected geological samples.

Readers of Viesturs's book are given exciting and humbling glimpses of what a human being is capable of doing -- the physical and mental extremes that a disciplined person can force himself to endure. Even if your idea of tough physical activity is a five-mile hike on a Forest Service trail, you will finish the book happy that people like Viesturs still exist -- climbers possessing not only physical skill and endurance, but also the education and sensitivity to convey to us lesser mortals some idea of the beauty and the challenge presented by high altitude mountaineering.

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¹K2's death/success ratio is second only to that of Annapurna, which has an incredible 2:3 ratio.

Dying small towns

Heading south on I-5, I can reach the Columbia river in about two hours. Once I reach the Columbia, I've also reached the town where I was born, grew up, and graduated from high school.

To a kid, it was a wonderful town. I assumed all towns of its size -- then, around 25,000 -- were pretty much the same. Looking back now, I realize that in many ways it more closely resembled a mill town in Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvania than it did small towns in California or suburbs in other states.

In fact, it was a mill town. The economy was based on the two largest (reputedly) lumber mills in the world, a locally owned paper mill, an aluminum reduction plant, and a large port . The local mill workers were 100 percent unionized. Most boys went to work for the mills right out of high school, at the age of 18. Wages were great -- so great that you had to really want to go to college before you'd break free of the town and do so -- and employment was steady.

The town was prosperous. Workers' income supported a large commercial downtown, consisting almost entirely of locally owned and managed businesses. The daily newspaper, although biased toward local business interests, was well written and competed successfully with Portland and Seattle dailies. Unlike most mill towns in the Midwest, moreover, the town was (and still is, for that matter) attractive, with nicely maintained houses on tree-lined streets and excellent parks. The schools were also physically attractive, and I always assumed that they were providing me an excellent education -- a belief that I never seriously questioned until I went away to college and competed with students from Eastern prep schools and large suburban high schools.

I tell you all of this only incidentally out of nostalgia for my childhood. Primarily, it's my response to an article that I encountered this week in the on-line version of my hometown's newspaper -- a paper no longer locally-owned, but still apparently well written and well edited. The article described the desperate straits in which the city now finds itself.

One of the two large lumber mills is closed, and the other has drastically reduced its employment. Easily accessible timber is harder to come by, and the cost of union labor makes local lumber less competitive with that from other areas. The aluminum plant, dependent on cheap hydroelectric power, is shut down. The power is no longer so cheap -- or at least apparently not cheap enough to justify the transport of bauxite ore from far off sources such as Jamaica -- and the market for aluminum has weakened. The paper mill has cut its employment. Other smaller manufacturers have closed down, for one reason or another.

The attractive and prosperous town I grew up in now has over 16 percent of its households living below the poverty level. The typical level of education attained by residents makes it difficult for them to find employment in the new economy, and the sort of businesses that now thrive (at least in normal economic times) are not interested in locating in such an environment. The local high schools -- which probably were at least average for Washington when I attended, with virtually all entering students graduating -- are now rated mediocre at best. And only 55 percent of entering freshman graduate.

The downtown commercial area is dead. It was killed first by construction of a shopping mall outside the city, a fate suffered by many Main Streets in small towns across the nation. Now that mall itself is apparently in dire straits.

More depressing to me than the article itself was the tone of the on-line comments written by local residents. They display no optimism that the town will ever recover its former level of relative prosperity. The commentators see the town's work force, and their children, as undereducated and lacking the skills now sought by industry. The town does still contain a significant number of middle to upper middle class families (11 percent of households earn over $100,000); the children of these families will receive good college educations, but few of them will return after graduation.

The comment writers note (and statistics in the article substantiate) that the town is becoming increasingly polarized between a small affluent elite and a large majority of residents who are unemployed or just barely scraping by. The working middle class that formerly dominated the town and drove the local economy is gone.

Most of all, those commenting on the article see a lack of competence both in the local business community and in city government -- a lack of both the ability and the initiative to somehow lead the city into the 21st century. Whether justified or not, this perception itself is demoralizing to local residents. One commentator, writing on Monday, states:

We need to make this a place where people want to be. I have friends who come up from Oregon to go fishing here, but they stay in other cities, they don't even want to get a room here to fish! If this town is going to survive, it needs to be a destination, not just a gas stop along the way to something better.

Everyone sees the problems, but no one suggests plausible solutions. Maybe there are none.

I now realize that when I read about the desperation of citizens in Flint MI or Youngstown OH, I'm not just reading about remote economic disasters, 3,000 miles away. The same problems are endemic in small cities and towns throughout the country -- and not only in my own state, but in the very town where I spent a happy childhood.

We have a national problem, affecting significant parts of our nation, and we don't really know what to do about it.

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Photo above: My high school

None dare call it treason

BEIJING -- President Obama is again receiving harsh criticism from American conservatives, this time for shaking hands with Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China (or "Red China," as these critics refer to it). These latest criticisms follow the recent uproar in response to photographs of the American president extending the courtesy of a bow to the Japanese emperor.

Photographs of the American and Chinese heads of state shaking hands are being posted on Fox News and other conservative journals, accompanied by comments deploring President Obama's gesture.

"The handshake is historically a gesture from one warrior to another, proof that he is bearing no arms. Frankly, I don't believe that is the sort of message we should be sending the murderous cabal in Beijing, bloated as they are with outsourced American jobs and fistfuls of underpriced yuan," exclaimed one Republican source, speaking not for attribution. "I literally vomited. I never thought I'd live to see an American president -- even one possibly not American-born --stand before some foreign potentate so openly confessing that he and his nation are disarmed."

Sailing the Salish Sea

The feds have announced that Washington's "inland marine waterways" will henceforth be known as the "Salish Sea." Huh? What's that again? ("Salish" refers to a group of American Indian --"Native American" -- peoples and languages found along the coastal areas of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.)

Well, I've lived around these here parts virtually all of my life, and I've never heard anyone mention a Salish Sea. It's apparently to be a generic name for waters now known as Puget Sound, the Georgia Strait, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and connected waterways. We are assured that the present names will continue in use, describing specific portions of the newly hatched Salish Sea. Until today, Northwesterners have usually called the entire body of water "Puget Sound," although geographers who keep track of such things assure us that this term applies properly only to the inlet south of Whidbey Island.

Well, cool. I haven't been so excited since they renamed the Gulf of California the "Sea of Cortez." And of course life's been better for us all since Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, Constantinople became Istanbul, and St. Petersburg became Leningrad. Oh, wait -- it's St. Petersburg again, right? -- it all happens so fast, I can't keep track. And whatever happened to the Pillars of Hercules?

Just don't even get me started on what happened to the Stanford "Indians" ... Bah, humbug!

Still plugging away

If you want to quit smoking, tell everyone you're quitting. The humiliation of breaking such a public resolution may be just the incentive you need to stick with it.
--Rainier96 (11-18-08)

Well, so much for that theory!

A year ago, you may recall, I offered you my "public resolution" that I'd teach myself to play the Adagio movement to Beethoven's Pathétique sonata -- an uncommonly beautiful middle movement preceded and followed by movements that are louder, much faster, and significantly beyond my present puny abilities. I'd tried teaching myself to play that movement once before -- as I confessed to you last year -- and hadn't gotten very far, but I was now determined to master it, mechanically at least, by sheer force of determination.

Once I accomplished this goal, proving to myself that I was serious in my endeavor and capable of sustained effort, I would once more place myself under the guidance of a piano instructor.

Those of you who know me, or have even followed this blog from its inception, will hardly be surprised when I tell you that I failed to achieve my goal in the "three or four months" that I contemplated. Travels, movie-making, a fall on my head -- well, gosh, sometimes life just conspires against you, doesn't it?

However, I'm happy to say that I've recently made progress. I can now struggle through the movement without too many embarrassing stops, stumbles, scowls, and swearing. It doesn't flow like it should, I admit. My phrasing is poor. The movement has a number of trills, trills that still don't trip lightly off my fingers without loss of tempo. I'm often unsure of which notes to emphasize. I suspect that I'm not simultaneously presenting both the treble and bass melodies, as Herr Beethoven intended.

But these are all questions of musicality, exactly the sort of questions for which you turn to a teacher for guidance. I'm at least getting close to the point where I hit the correct keys -- more or less reliably. And once I reach that point, as I promised a year ago, I plan to sign up for lessons.

The winter "term" at the music school I've used before starts in January. I think I'll be ready by then. Wish me luck.

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The second movement to Beethoven's Sonata No. 8 in A flat major ("Pathétique"), when played as I'd like some day to play it, is well worth hearing. Here's a nice interpretation, performed by a young pianist on YouTube.

Enough's enough

Last night, the Democratic majority in the House passed its version of health care reform legislation. It now goes to the Senate. "Independent" Senator Joe Lieberman immediately announced that "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote."

It's an odd legislative system where the junior senator from the small state of Connecticut can unilaterally bring the majority party's legislative program to a standstill by threatening a filibuster. Until recently, filibusters and threats of filibusers were reserved for true "matters of conscience," although the "conscience" was usually that of Southerners defending their region's peculiar racial policies. At least, in those cases, an entire geographical region was protecting itself against what it believed to be a tyrannical Northern majority.

Now, it seems, even proposed legislative changes to the nation's system of health care insurance serves as an affront to the conscience of the junior senator from Connecticut.

Joe Lieberman, as we recall, was elected to the Senate as a Democrat, with the support of the Democratic party, in 1988 and 1994. He ran for vice president as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, hedging his bet by, at the same time, also running successfully for relection to the Senate.

In 2006, Democratic voters defeated his bid to run once more for re-election. Refusing to accept the decision of his party's voters, he ran as an Independent, announcing that "For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand." (He failed to add that it was for the sake of his own political ambitions.) He went on to defeat the Democratic nominee. In 2008, he campaigned actively for Republican presidential nominee John McCain. McCain reportedly nearly selected Lieberman as his running mate and was considering naming him Secretary of State if he won.

When the Democrats took the presidency and won control of both houses of Congress, Lieberman hesitated whether to accept an invitation to join the Republican caucus, dithering in his decision until satisfied that the Democrats would allow him to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.

Senator Lieberman's position on many political issues has been commendable. But he won election as -- and called himself -- a Democrat. We have the right to expect commendable positions from a Democratic New England senator. Unfortunately, he often seems to confuse his political self-interest with the demands of his conscience. And he is reported to have received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health insurance industry.

There has always been room in the Democratic party for mavericks. Unlike the Republicans, Democrats do not demand slavish loyalty to the party platform. But when a Democratic U.S. Senator supports the presidential campaign of the Republican nominee, he has gone beyond the realm of being a maverick. Whether Joe Lieberman's present threats to filibuster health insurance reform are based on the imperatives of his conscience, the generous contributions received from opponents of the litigation, or simply his best guess as to what best serves his long term political advantage -- enough is enough.

Lieberman has shown no compunction about using the Democratic party to further his own interests. Just as soon as his now-doubtful vote is of no further use to the Democrats, they should likewise have no qualms about stripping him of his committee chairmanships and any other prerogatives that he now enjoys as a quasi-Democrat.

Let Sen. Lieberman become a Republican. Let's see how well Joe's conscience accepts the unsmiling authority of the Republican whips. And how long the Republicans themselves can tolerate his unpredictable presence in their own caucus.

Welcome, Maury

Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands
Other little children took the volume in their hands;
Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:
Who was little Louis, won’t you tell us, mother, please?


Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,
Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,
Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.


And remember in your playing, as the seafog rolls to you,
Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one. nearly half the world away
Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!
--Robert Louis Stevenson

I returned yesterday from Sonoma. I flew down there for just one reason -- to hold Maury, my two week old great-niece, in my arms and look deep into her wondering, puzzled eyes. Babies are just babies, and to me they all look alike -- except when they arrive in my own family.

Just two weeks out in the open air, Maury still has only a few, very basic behavioral settings: she feeds, sleeps, cries, and poops. But while we adults are being delighted and/or irritated as she scrolls back and forth between these essential activities, we tend to overlook what is going on inside her small little head. Her eyes are darting around and her tiny hands are constantly reaching out for a reason: She is rapidly making mental connections between the outside world and the inner sensations given to her by her eyes, ears and skin. Her brain is multiplying synapses at an unbelievable rate, as she creates a mental map of the world about her.

She is shaping herself into a little person.

I watch her, and I think of the years that lie ahead. The joys and sorrows of childhood, adolescence and adulthood -- those joys and sorrows that may brush up against my own life, the many more that she will share only with others, and those that she will continue to experience after I'm no longer around to watch. This tiny baby reminds me that the appearance in our universe of even the dullest of human lives is an amazing phenomenon. With the kind of parents and background she has, I predict that Maury's life will be a technicolor supernova.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a famous poem in London in honor of Louis Sanchez, his godson, born halfway around the world in Monterey. The best I can manage for Maury is a blog posting. But accept it happily, Maury, and know that your uncle was already dreaming of your life to come -- while you still dreamed only of your next feeding!

Half way to heaven

Here I am, safely home from an exciting trek in Nepal. I still feel a bit jet-lagged, compounded by a cold caught on the long flight home, all of which decreases my enthusiasm for scribbling in my blog. I did write a summary email, that most of you, my readers, received. And fortunately, Pascal copied me in last night on an email he sent to his own friends and family. Relying on a couple of 2007 precedents, when Pascal wrote as a guest blogger from New Zealand and Australia -- and in recognition of the sense of excitement and enthusiasm that he brings to his writing -- I present here excerpts from his trip report, adding some paragraph breaks of my own:

[10/13/09] I just got back to Pokhara a couple hours ago. The trek was fantastic! The group was great too! The trip was very different than I was expecting, but wonderful still.For starters we spent about 75% of the trek in a lush green (and wet) rain forest! I was expecting landscapes more similar to my last trip to the Indian Himalayas: arid, very little vegetation, and a jagged range of mountains. For starters, it was raining off and on for our first day of trekking, something that we got none of in India. Come to think of it, we got at least a little rain every day. We started out trekking through hillside after hillside of rice paddies. I love rice paddies! The spectrum of green they contain is just gorgeous. My favorite color ever. We would hike through tiny villages that consist of a couple houses and their live stock (typically chickens and a water buffalo with the occasional goat). Everyone would offer up a kind "Namaste!" Such gorgeous people.

I guess an average day of hiking would be about 5-6 hours of hiking. Averaging about 8 miles a day. It's incredible to look back and see how much ground you've covered by just walking. We did a lot of vertical too. We'd be up in a village and then have to hike way down to cross a river (all swinging bridges!) and then wayyy back up the other side to continue on to our next destination. Loooots of steps. The trail is very well maintained though, it's a very popular one. You really got the sense of it because you were constantly running into other trekking groups. For most of our nights we would be camping next to little lodges that have extra grass space. So we could use their facilities and such. I had no idea it was so developed here. All along the route there were little lodges where you could stay. You could totally do it with just your backpack and stay in lodges the whole way. I was a little curious why we didn't do that, so I asked and our guide said that REI tries to support the local economy as much as possible wherever they go. So by camping we needed an army of porters, kitchen staff, assistant guides, etc. I think all in all at the beginning of the trek we had about 27 staff for us 9 hikers! Crazy huh?! We cut some porters as we went along, so at the end we had 21 staff.

[10/18/09] The first four days we wouldn't really gain all that much altitude from camp to camp... but we did a lot of vertical to get there. Down to a river and then up the other side. I really enjoyed the swinging bridges though. They gave the trek a little Indiana Jones feeling to it (minus the bad guys cutting the bridge mid-way). Most of them were pretty sturdy, but there was always the occasional missing plank here and hole there.

The camps were all pretty similar up until the fourth day when it rained... a lot. We were soaked for the entire day. It wasn't that cold when we were hiking cause you were constantly climbing stairs, but as soon as we stopped for lunch or something we got pretty chilly pretty fast. So our guide thankfully sent one of the staff ahead and set up accommodation at a little lodge in Dovan. The main idea was so that we could stay dry and maybe dry some of our sopping wet clothes. Everyone greatly appreciated it. It was a cool little place too. A cozy common room where we played Hearts, Gin, Poker (not for money though), and Scrabble. Little did we know we would be spending the whole next day in that cozy little room.

That night it POURED rain all through the night. We got up a little worried and rightfully so. At breakfast our guide, Nima, told us that he and the Sirdar (in charge of most of the staff) had hiked a little ahead and it wasn't looking good. All of the streams that were normally little creeks had over flowed. There were sections where you could normally hop from rock to rock, but now you would have to wade dangerously through. He strongly suggested we not go up that day. I was a little peeved at the time, but later that day as trekkers were returning from Machhapuchre Base Camp (MBC) and told us of their day I was very glad we didn't push through. They said they were wading through fast moving creeks above their knees and pretty much all of them were swept off their feet at some point. Soooo... we played more cards and watch the rain continue to fall... all day long.

I was quickly giving up hope of making it to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). Even if the rain did let up a bit we would make it up there only to see more clouds. That, and it was dangerous because if we went up and then it started to pour again we might be stuck there, not able to cross the creeks. Everyone was starting to give up hope. We came up with a backup plan: we would hike back as we had planned, but make a side route to a well known vista of the mountains. Maybe if the clouds cleared we MIGHT be able to get a view. I wasn't holding my breath. Nima was relatively sure that it would be raining for the next couple of days. But it didn't!

We went to sleep drearily as the rain spattered on our tin roofs. In the morning I awoke to excited whispers of "It's not raining!!" I thought I was still dreaming. I wasn't. I ran outside and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I was PUMPED! I bounced my way through breakfast not able to hold still. The hike up was muddy, but definitely doable. We crossed creek after creek usually over logs that had been made into somewhat sturdy bridges. Rock hopped over the rest of them. But it was so worth it. We finally were able to get good views of the mountains! Machhapuchre (or Fish Tail) is a stupendous peak topping off at 22,942 ft!The clouds rolled in around lunch time, but Nima assured us that it was normal for it cloud up in the afternoon due to the moisture evaporating from the rain forest and drifting up through the valleys.

When we got to our camp at MBC it was completely socked in, but we couldn't be happier to just be there. Later in the evening we were coaxed out of our dining tent by the sounds of "Baaaaa" all around us. Sure enough there was about 100 goats surrounding us! Kids are pretty damn cute. I ended up taking far too many goat pictures. But it was a good thing they got us out there, cause the clouds ended up parting and we got fantastic views of Fishtail Mt. as the sun was setting on it. Gorgeous. A very picturesque peak which would explain my excess of pictures devoted to it.

The next morning we got up at 5 AM to hike up to ABC to catch the morning sun on the peaks. It was bright and sunny! We couldn't be happier! Just about at freezing when we started off to ABC which is about a 2 hour hike up. We were encouraged along the way by the fantastic vistas unfolding directly in front of us. Actually all around us! That's the amazing thing about the Annapurna Sanctuary is that it is absolutely surrounded by 20,000 ft mountains! Unreal. Once we arrived we just couldn't stop taking pictures. We were so in awe of the monumental size of the towering snowy peaks on all sides of us. You realize how very minuscule you really are in this world. Quite a humbling experience. There was an amazing sense of peacefulness as we sat in silence and gazed awestruck at our surroundings. Unfortunately we could only stay about an hour and then we had to start heading back. Originally we had a whole day planned there, but due to our delay in Dovan cause of the rain we had to bypass that day. But we couldn't have cared less. We were all just sooooooo thankful and lucky that we got to see it at all! I think having that rainy day made us appreciate it even more. Every thing happens for a reason, and I couldn't have been happier.

The rest of the trip was just toppings on the cake. We hiked through this very old village called Ghandruk which was just charming. Tiny little stone walkways that zig-zagged through the town in no apparent order. We went out exploring it and would often times all of a sudden find ourselves in someone's back courtyard. I felt like I could have been back in the 17th century or something.

Pascal brings the trek to life. A sampling of my own photos are posted on Facebook.

September beginnings

I just returned from a brisk walk to and around the University of Washington campus, one final limbering up exercise before heading off on my Himalaya trek. While I'm now getting ready for a Tuesday departure, the university is gearing up for tomorrow's first day of classes.

It's a perfect day for a new quarter to begin. The air is cool, the sky is blue, the sun is warm. The campus was a sea of freshmen, most of them dressed in brand new t-shirts or sweat shirts, all in Husky purple -- their school pride obviously unaffected by their football team's drubbing (yes, I said drubbing) last night at the hands of my own alma mater.

The campus is also awash in their proud parents.

The parents are a relatively new wrinkle. As I walked onto the campus from Montlake, I encountered a giant tent filled with kids and their parents seated at tables chattering and eating. Signs announced this to be the President's Picnic, a meal designed to make everyone feel welcome and to let the parents experience being a part of their offspring's expensive education. (See photo above for a similar scene at Stanford -- this year's freshmen accompanied by their parents at "Freshman Convocation.")

I say it's a new wrinkle, because when I was a freshman, I don't recall parents hanging around the campus. They certainly didn't join us at freshman convocation. Those of us from out of state arrived on our own. Freshman living within driving distance of campus were often brought to the school by their parents, but after the old folks had served their primary function of helping carry stuff into the dorm, and after they spent a few minutes looking around and perhaps meeting their son or daughter's scary new roommate, there were awkward hugs, a quick goodby -- and they were gone, probably not to be seen again until at least Thanksgiving.

The university's effort to bring parents, students, and school together in a communal feast is simply an acknowledgement of certain changes in our society. Cell phones, Facebook and emails keep the generations in touch now on virtually a daily basis. Such close communication would have been considered bizarre, a sign of arrested development, when I was in college. I did know of kids who phoned home weekly, but contact of even that frequency certainly wasn't the norm.

As do many school officials, I have my worries that such continued close involvement by parents in the lives of their children may result in a "failure to launch," a delay in the student's ability to stand on his own feet -- intellectually as well as socially and financially. But this concern is probably just another one of those many worries that aren't worth worrying about. "Nothing endures but change," as Heraclitus reminds us. Change in itself is neither good nor bad -- just different. And my memories may be as accurate as my own parents' memories of walking to school barefoot through 12 foot snow drifts.

The kids on the U-Dub campus looked happy and excited. As did their folks. It almost made me wish I were 18 again. But when I shake off the deceptive glow of nostalgia and carefully remember everything about how it felt to be a freshman -- nah, I don't think so.

Being a college freshman is, I suppose, like sky diving -- it's something that's great to do once in your lifetime.

Referendum 71

Readers who vote in Washington: Remember that a vote FOR Referendum 71 is a vote to APPROVE legislation broadening the scope of protection afforded registered domestic partners.

These increased protections include hospital visitation; inheritance; inadmissibility of testimony by one partner against the other; and the applicability of community property rules, property transfer rules, and dissolution procedures. Washington already recognizes domestic partnerships -- the 2009 legislation and Referendum 71 simply broaden their scope to give domestic partners the same security and legal protections that married people take for granted .

Support for Referendum 71 should be a no-brainer. The amendments to the domestic partnership statute are all about treating people fairly. The legislation is sound public policy. It is emblematic of the basic humanity and decency of the people of Washington.

Vote for fairness. Vote FOR Referendum 71.

Local kid comes to town

And then there's Glenn Beck. He's that guy on Fox who ... well, never mind, we all know who he is. Another Fox entertainer who makes millions stoking readers' fears and anger about any fermenting thought that bubbles to the surface of his mind.

Time [magazine] further describes Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of Conservative's discontent ... mining the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us."

--Wikipedia. Beck recently described President Obama as a "racist," bringing to mind images of black kettles and speaking pots.

Anyway, Beck was born and reared in Mount Vernon, Washington, a middling agricultural community lying alongside I-5, about an hour's drive north of Seattle. Mount Vernon until now was known chiefly for an annual tulip festival, and as the point of departure from I-5 when you're heading for the ferries to the San Juan Islands. These claims to fame apparently lacked sufficient drama in the eyes of its ambitious mayor, however.

On Saturday, Mayor Bud Norris will present to Glenn Beck the key to the City of Mount Vernon. As the mayor admits, the key doesn't open a damn thing, but will cost something like $50 to $80 at the kind of shop that throws together bowling trophies. Police officers will work overtime to provide Beck with security, and officers from the county and surrounding communities have been asked for assistance. The key will be presented at a ceremony with a $25 admission charge.

Sixteen thousand persons have signed a petition opposing the honor (the town has a population of around 32,000). The seven-person City Council unanimously passed a resolution stating:

Mount Vernon City Council is in no way sponsoring the Mayor's event on September 26, 2009 and is not connected to the Glenn Beck event in any manner.

Residents of the San Juans and neighboring towns who regularly shop in Mount Vernon are murmuring about a possible boycott.

But the mayor isn't blinking. The show will go on.

Thaw towards Havana

I know I'm dog-paddling in water way over my head, but apparently there is a Latin rock musician, a native of Colombia, known as "Juanes." Juanes, who now lives on Key Biscayne, is scheduled to perform a free concert today in Havana. The New York Times reported yesterday on the divisive impact this concert is having on the Cuban-American population in Florida.

The concert has been approved by the State Department and by the Cuban government. According to Juanes:

Through culture, there is a door, there is a window. Let's go through that door.

The reaction among the Miami Cuban population reveals the expected generational split. But this year is the 50th anniversary of the Castro revolution in Cuba. The United States has had no diplomatic relations with a country just 90 miles off Florida for the last 47 of those 50 years. We have done everything possible to keep Cuba impoverished, so that no claim could be made elsewhere in Latin America that Communism "works."

The Cuban exiles in Florida remind me of the loyalists who fled to Canada after the American Revolution. If fifty years later, in 1826, those loyalists had been still denouncing the American government -- and John Quincy Adams, its president -- as traitors to the Crown, and demanding that British North America have no economic or cultural contact with the rebellious "colonies," their demands would have seemed somewhat peculiar to the rest of the world.

And so has appeared our treatment of Cuba. It's a relief to see that the ice is finally melting, and that our government is supporting today's concert by Juanes.

Slouching towards darkness

I am talking here about finding both your husband and your daugher dead, gone from your life within months of each other. Two such deaths, while improbable and unexpected, are not I suppose a coincidence that one could call impossible. Nevertheless they are a coincidence that I somehow find troubling.

Anyone who has read Joan Didion recognizes her style, a style as tempting to parody (mine above) as the style of another superb writer, Ernest Hemingway. I've long loved both Didion's style and her paranoid ability to see the uncanny, the frightening, the apocalyptic in the trivial details of daily life, in the minor crime and accident reports she happens upon in the daily papers, in the frighteningly banal lives of the men we consider our leaders. Her books of essays -- Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album -- represent, to me at least, some of the best and most evocative writing of its kind of the past half century.

This post, however, is not to be an evaluation of Ms. Didion's writing style or her admittedly neurotic obsessions -- although they would make admirable topics for future posts. Instead, I just want to mention that I saw a dramatic interpretation of her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, at Intiman Theatre last week. I haven't read the best-selling book, but her dramatization of her own work for stage is a powerful reflection on the finality of death, on our inability to accept that finality, and on the secret efforts of our incredulous minds to disregard that finality -- our efforts to reverse death and to restore the dead to life by forcing ourselves to obey invented and self-imposed rules -- efforts similar to those of a kid who thinks he can prevent his mother's back from breaking if he avoids the cracks in the sidewalk.

Of such efforts is magical thinking.

Actor Judith Roberts strides about a sparely but tastefully appointed and sandy stage -- representing Didion's Malibu beach property -- and delivers a stunning monologue -- 1 hour, 45 minutes, without intermission. Before our eyes, she talks her way though the early stages of grief -- denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, reflection. But whereas psychologists see these stages as leading to acceptance and hope, Didion is a control freak. She has never been a woman for whom acceptance has been a normal approach to life. Resolution for her signifies not acceptance and hope, but a bitter concession that the two most important persons -- perhaps the only important persons -- in her life are indeed dead. They are dead, they will stay dead, and they aren't hanging around waiting for her to spring them by posting some form of spiritual bail. There is no action she can take, no threats she can make, no sly bargains she can negotiate, that will ever bring them back.

It's a powerful and devastating play, one that left the audience stunned and deathly silent, a play that demonstrated through the power of the spoken word why Joan Didion is one of the most memorable wielders and stylists of the English language now alive.

Mad as hell

Yesterday, in response to a question, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said:

“Even though from a technical perspective the recession is very likely over at this point, it’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time as many people will still find that their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was.

Today, Warren Buffet has been quoted, offering his opinion that the economy has not gotten worse -- but hasn't gotten better either -- the past three months. In the absence of some "horrible event," he does not see much of a chance for a significant downturn in the near future for the overall economy.

These are very cautious, measured statements. Bernanke emphasizes that, using the technical definition of "recession" -- month to month decrease in the GDP -- the recession is over. This leaves us at the bottom of the hill, hoping for a future rise in GDP, leading in turn to increased employment. Buffet essentially says the same thing, in less technical language.

But read the on-line comments to the news stories reporting both men's statements. Readers call both men liars, ignorant, incompetent, selfish, unable to see what's in front of their face. How can they say the recession is over, writers howl, when times are as tough as they are.

The fault lies partly in the layman's use of "recession" to signify not a receding of the economy, but simply bad times economically. But the bitter on-line comments also demonstrate just how bad life has become for many Americans. When you're out of work and you fear that you will be permanently unemployable in tomorrow's economy, you don't stop to notice fine distinctions in technical terminology. Nor are you interested in secular economic trends, changes in demographics, or evolving life styles in foreign countries as root causes for the decline in the American economy. All you care about is that yesterday was good, and tomorrow looks like it will be bad, very bad. Someone screwed up, and "we want our country back."

Citizens who write comments on-line are not stupid. They are articulate, and they have some technological sophistication. If these writers are "mad as hell," they represent a lot of other people out there, people who may feel even angrier and more hopeless.

If the economy doesn't show definite improvement by November 2010 -- not just technically, not just in the stock market, but at the level that affects the average guy -- it will clearly play a major role in determining the results of the midterm elections. The question is -- which candidates and which party will pay the higher price?

In search of "better angels"

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
--Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Readers may have noted a dramatic decrease in the number of my political postings since the November election. In part, this is the result of Obama's victory -- my constant howls of outrage are no longer necessary. But in part, it's because of my general sense of depression as I watch President Obama's attempts to push a moderate agenda through Congress. It's like watching a kayaker paddling upstream against a strong current.

In today's New York Times, Op-Ed columnist Charles M. Blow suggests that today's America has no room for conciliators -- like Obama.

He's an idealist in an age of cynicism, a conciliator at a time of cleaving. He strives to appeal to a dwindling body of better angels in an increasingly bifurcated country. It's noble and inspirational, but will it be effective?

In some ways, he is a throwback to a gentler time of civility and commonality, when compromising on issues wasn't viewed as compromising on principles.

We need a fighter, Blow suggests. Someone who's not so interested in persuading Republicans. More interested in crushing them.

I don't want to sound bizarrely apocalyptic, but at times the country today reminds me of America in the decade before the Civil War. Conciliation and attempts to compromise were becoming less and less fruitful. Positions were hardening, becoming more idealogical and less negotiable. Political opposition was becoming more personal, less civil.

In retrospect, Abraham Lincoln -- like Obama -- was a moderate whose primary goal was to preserve the Union. The South, consumed with fury, couldn't see it that way. Lincoln was the Devil incarnate. His election precipitated secession beginning with -- no surprise, in view of recent events -- South Carolina.

Despite journalists' tidy division of today's America into red and blue states, I suspect that the majority of Americans across the nation even now are moderate conservatives or moderate liberals -- or are unconcerned with or oblivious to political debates. Most Americans -- I suspect -- still look at health care reform pragmatically, not as an Armageddon between Atheistic Socialism and Inhuman Disdain for the Sufferings of the Poor. But, then, I suspect that in the run-up to the Civil War, political polls -- if they had existed -- would have shown that most (white male) Americans wanted a solution to the slavery issue that would gradually have ended the South's "peculiar institution" at minimal cost to southern economic interests, a solution that they hoped would have kept the nation united.

The moderate middle was unable to prevent the Civil War. The moral issue of slavery and the constitutional issue of the nature of the union were decided by force -- not by reason, not by consensus. Admittedly, attitudes at that time were more sharply defined by geography than they are today, despite the apparent clarity on political maps of the blue state - red state division. Military war between the states today thus seems unthinkable (of course it also seemed unlikely in, say, 1830), but unbending and seemingly irrational Republican idealogues may be pushing their opponents into the political equivalent of military conquest -- reliance on large majorities in Congress to ram through political solutions without bothering to consult across the aisle.

If the hotheads in South Carolina and throughout the South had given Lincoln a chance, he might have mediated a mutually acceptable solution to the political crisis of those days. Instead, they were less interested in defending their region's actual economic interests than they were in going to war over an outdated idealogy of "states rights." They insisted on battle. President Lincoln gave it to them, and they ended up with Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment.

When you insist on a fight to the death, you'd better be damned sure you can win.