Blog holiday

You can hear the linotypes shutting down one by one, and the presses grinding to a stop. The night shift janitors are sweeping lead slugs and scrap paper off the floor.

Yes, the Northwest Corner once again is shutting down (temporarily, I hasten to add), and the staff has been given a couple of weeks off with pay. I'll be off to Iran in mid-week. My plans are to be back in Seattle on April 17. Of course, I don't forget that this is the same Iran that held our embassy staff hostage for 444 days back under the Carter administration. But, hey, I'm sure we're all more mature and grown up now. Right?

I'll be taking plenty of photos, and keeping plenty of notes and journal entries. If, in fact, all goes as planned, you can expect a couple of posts on Iran shortly after my return. One, attempting to describe some of what I saw and heard; the other giving my subjective impressions and interpretation of it all. I usually suspect that most folks aren't all that interested in hearing about what a great trip I had -- although I tell them anyway -- but this destination seems unusual enough that I can pretend I'm a roving reporter (or at least a travel writer) and not just the guy who makes all his friends sit quietly and watch his vacation slide show.

See y'all soon, insh'allah.

Brave new world

As you sit at a sidewalk café in Paris, sipping your coffee and enjoying the views down a broad, tree-lined boulevard, you can offer your thanks to Baron Haussmann.

In the mid-19th century, Haussmann brought urban planning to Paris. He imposed the modern system of diagonal boulevards, open squares, spacious railway stations and restful green spaces on the cramped, irrational street pattern of medieval Paris. In doing so, he also wiped out much that was picturesque about ancient Paris, eliminated low income housing and cheap spaces for small businesses, and caused, indirectly, a greater polarization of the city between areas for the rich and for the poor.

For many low income inhabitants of Paris at the time, the result of Haussmann's demolitions was a disaster. For the city, the changes resulted in a wealthier and more beautiful urban area.

I thought of this example while reading a short piece in the New Yorker entitled "Creative Destruction," inspired by the recent earthquake in Japan. The article makes note of non-intuitive evidence that recoveries from disasters such as earthquakes -- when they occur in advanced economies -- often take less time than predicted, and that the ultimate result is often beneficial to the community. The recovery is fast because the damage is to the physical assets of the society, not so much to its human capital. The damage is often beneficial, because it clears out old capital assets and businesses, replacing them with new physical plant and newer, more productive businesses.

This beneficial result can be considered "accelerated depreciation." Of course, accelerated depreciation has the additional, unfortunate effect of devastating the original inhabitants and businesses while it benefits newcomers and new businesses. It speeds up "gentrification" and "modernization," so that these ordinarily gradual changes occur overnight, rather than over a generation or two.

A few posts ago, I was lamenting the possible fate of my poor house when the "Big One" hits Seattle. I now realize that the earthquake will have a cleansing and productive effect. My old-fashioned (if beautiful) 1922 brick Tudor will be replaced by a modern, clean-lined, energy-efficient, light-filled, open-plan piece of residential architecture. I will be replaced by a happy young couple (employed, most likely, by Microsoft) and their two eager, talented kids with high GPA's.

Seattle will be a better place. Whether I'll be a happier person, however, remains doubtful.

Repeating history

The Libya engagement confuses me, as, I suppose, it does most of us.

We fought the first war in Iraq to defend the sovereignty of Kuwait. We entered Afghanistan purportedly in "hot pursuit" of al-Quaeda, which had just knocked off the World Trade Center towers in New York. At the same time, more or less incidentally, we removed from power the Taliban government that had harbored and refused to surrender bin Laden and his associates. We fought the second Iraq war to effect "regime change" -- whatever the administration's alleged pretexts.

In Libya, we are engaged neither in defense of another nation nor in retribution against persons who have attacked our own country. Nor, as I understand it, do we intend to repeat the errors of Iraq II and seek regime change. Our objective, at least as originally stated, seems to have been to level the playing field between the Kadhafi government forces (many of whom are foreign mercenaries) and the rebels, by depriving the government of the advantage of air superiority. We entered the fray at the behest of the British and French, at the urging of the Arab League, and under the formal auspices of the U.N. Security Council.

The legality of our use of force thus seems much clearer than it did in Iraq II, where we acted, in reality, unilaterally. The wisdom of our involvement seems less clear. But I'm trying to reserve judgment until the smoke clears a bit.

If Iraq and Afghanistan taught us anything, they should have taught us that we -- as a people and as a government -- don't have a very good grasp on the politics and popular emotions of the Middle East, or of the Islamic world in general. Kadhafi is no one's idea of a great national leader. But who are the rebels, and what are their hopes and aspirations? What do all the rebels have in common, other than a desire to eliminate Kadhafi? To what extent is Libya a united people, as opposed to an amalgam of nationalities and tribes (as was Iraq)?

Also, what impact does Western intervention in a Moslem country have on popular opinion in other nations in the region? Within days of urging intervention, the Arab League was backtracking from its approval of the attack. Vladimir Putin, slimy critter that he is, after refraining from a veto in the Security Council, has already declared that Western involvement in Libya looks to him like yet another Western "Crusade" against the Muslim world.

Sometimes it's in the best interests of both the U.S. and the people of another country to permit a strong, disagreeable dictator to stay in power, rather than allow that country to fall into anarchy. As sympathetic as we may feel toward the victims of Kadhafi's rule, we should limit our involvement at this point to our stated objective -- denying the skies to the combatants -- and allow the two sides to fight it out among themselves on the ground.

The unintended consequences of our intervention may be widespread. I'll be delighted if the rebels can win, agree among themselves, and form a stable democratic government.

Experience warns us against expecting such a happy conclusion.

Happy anniversary

Four years ago -- March 20, 2007 -- I published my first post. A photo of myself sitting on a haystack, together with a paragraph wondering what I would ever write about.

Blogs were still a vague concept in my mind. Actually, I now realize, a blog can be almost anything you want. Some are glorified tweets about daily trivia, some are impressive photo displays, some are highly focused analyses concerning a specific topic of interest, some are tearful expressions of a teenager's existential angst.

After 394 posts, my blog has proved to be what I suspected it would be within the first month -- short essays on absolutely any topic that appeals to me. The Northwest Corner has been heavy on book and movie reviews -- because I read a lot, and enjoy certain types of movies. At times, especially during 2008, it's also been heavy on politics. The weather and the seasons seem to get discussed a lot, because, I suppose, I'm introverted, a bit moody, and affected by nature. Beyond those topics -- whatever comes to mind.

After my original "boy on the haystack" post, my next three posts denounced President Bush, admired Bertrand Russell, and contemplated visits by extraterrestial beings. The formula was just about in place.

Four years is a long lifetime for a blog, but I think this blog will be around for a while longer. In fact, I may republish my haystack photo each year on this anniversary -- a sort of tribute to the cover drawing of "Eustace Tilley" by which each year's anniversary is celebrated by the New Yorker.

Yes. Our publications do have much in common.

Taxes

I just finished my tax returns. I need now only walk them to the mailbox. Yes, mailbox. I still take a certain pleasure in filling out hard copies and mailing them -- physically -- to the powers that be.

Although my income is modest, and the amount of money the government is able to extract from me isn't that much, the number of forms that I have to fill out each year to document the process is impressive. My income may not be all that much, but it comes in bits and pieces, each bit and piece requiring a different set of forms. Thirteen pages of forms this year, in fact.

Why does it have to be so complicated? Each session of Congress considers proposals for a simplified form of taxation, taxation so simple that it would require only a simple return. Some such proposals favor the rich, some make an attempt to be fair to all. But none ever comes close to passing.

Which, perversely, is fine with me. My shameful little secret? I actually like doing my taxes each year. Reading the byzantine instructions, cross-referencing the line numbers from form to form, locating and using the intricate work sheets -- it's all a kind of puzzle, the sort of puzzle I loved even as a kid. This year, for the first time, the government was too cheap to mail out the instructions. I have to admit being somewhat irritated at having to scroll up and down through the on-line version, printing out the more incredibly complex parts of the puzzle for my prolonged contemplation. But all in all, as long as it's only once a year, I enjoy it.

I save copies of my returns as a record. All of them. Not just for the seven years most advisers suggest. Forever. My journals and blogs are records of my life's thoughts, dreams, travels, ideas. My tax returns are records of my finances. I find all aspects of my life's history to be utterly fascinating, beyond belief. It's all good.

Although I don't file my returns on-line, I did type them on-line this year before printing the forms out and mailing them in. A concession to the times. And -- I have to admit -- they looked a lot snazzier than my hand-written returns of past years. After all, I don't write my blog out in longhand, right?

You see, I'm no luddite. Just a mite eccentric.

Accosted in the agora

When I see a young guy or girl up ahead, holding a clipboard, I instinctively search frantically for an alternative route.

I walked across campus today, and there they were. Between Frosh Pond and Kane Hall -- not all that long a distance, as many of you know -- there must have been at least eight earnest looking students bearing clipboards, shouting out smiling greetings to all who passed. I felt like a pinball, bouncing off pins, as I wove my way through the obstacle course.

They looked like nice kids, and they were probably backing some worthy political cause, or seeking support for impoverished children abroad. A few are paid solicitors, I suspect; most are freely donating their time. Very few -- Scientologists, mainly -- are actual threats to rational society. But -- to me -- all of them are irritations to be avoided at all costs.

After smiling a fake smile and yelling, "Sorry, not interested" at four or five young people during the course of a three-minute walk, my imagination took on a darkish hue. I pictured with satisfaction legions of university police bearing truncheons, beating these kids into submission and dragging them away in police vans. Are there no trespass laws, I asked? Are there no protections for a simple fellow (like me) who simply wishes to cross campus, daydreaming his way along, unmolested by grinning teenagers?

Then my thoughts turned to Socrates -- aging, wild-haired, poorly dressed, fresh from his stoneyard, asking searching and unwelcome questions of passers-by. "I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think," he would admonish. "Know thyself," he would plead. How fortunate we would have been, we like to believe, to have lived in a day when we could have heard his discourses, could have exchanged thoughts with such an amazing philosopher. In reality, I admit, my heart would have sunk if I'd ever seen him standing before me, begging me to know myself, when I was in a hurry to reach the wine market before it closed.

And don't even get me started on John the Baptist. "Really, dude, and I mean this in the best possible way, if you're going to live on locusts and honey, you've got to brush your teeth before haranguing normal folks like me."

As I laughed at myself -- a necessarily frequent reaction to myself -- I realized that the first amendment doesn't permit free speech only when I'm good and ready to listen. Let's face it -- I'm never in the mood to hear about poverty-stricken kids in Honduras. Tons of mail goes from my mailbox unopened to the recycling bin. Advocates of unpopular causes -- or even just uninteresting causes -- sometimes have to resort to jarring, or at least intrusive, approaches, just to force me to listen. It's all too easy in today's world to surround myself with protective layers of insulation, excluding any thought or voice that makes me in the least bit uncomfortable or intrudes on my precious privacy.

I ought to welcome the recognition that there are young people willing to stand out in the cold on a busy college campus -- during finals week -- responding to repeated rejection with a smile and a "thanks anyway," in support of a cause in which they strongly believe.

And I do. Still, that doesn't mean I won't head in the other direction if I see them in time!

Whole lotta shakin'

For me, the earth last quaked on February 28, 2001. I was at work when the building began swaying. I knew immediately what was happening and dove under my desk. Seconds later, from that undignified vantage, I peeked out the window only to see the building across the street moving back and forth, in a stately manner, across my field of vision. It was not a reassuring sight.

It was a 6.8 earthquake, lasting about 45 seconds.

To me, an earthquake is worse than most other disasters. The experience is hallucinatory. When the earth itself moves, you've lost your fixed frame of reference. You feel you're in free fall until the shaking finally stops. While it lasts, you're not sure when, if ever, it will end. Or how much worse it will get. Or what will be left of your world when you finally make it through to the other side.

Seattle sits on several seismic faults, along which seismic pressure can cause sudden slippage. One, the shallow Seattle fault, passes through town about a mile from my house. That particular fault was responsible for a major earthquake at a shallow depth in about A.D. 900 or so. Indian legends about that quake still circulated a thousand years later. The same earthquake today would be devastating.

The 2001 earthquake that so discombobulated me was not the result of slippage along the shallow east-west Seattle fault. It was caused by the continuing eastward movement of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate as it tries to burrow under ("subduct") the continental plate. It is blocked from movement when it hits the Cascade mountains, causing it to crumple the landscape like the hood of your car running (very slowly) into a brick wall. Eventually, pressure builds up and at some point the plate ruptures at a deep location. In 2001, pressure was released by a rupture at a considerable depth, down near Olympia. Our shaking up here in Seattle was intense, but, because of the distance from the break and the depth at which it occurred, the actual damage was not that great. (Relatively speaking -- estimated costs were $2 billion.)

The quake of the same intensity caused by slippage along the shallow Seattle fault -- again 6.8, but at a shallow depth and underneath Seattle itself -- would cause immensely more damage.

We also may be due for a subduction earthquake, caused by release of pressure where the two plates come into initial contact. This could well be a 9.0 earthquake, similar to Japan's, but it would occur off the coast, a relatively long distance from Seattle and from other major population areas. The last subduction event in this area, a 9.0 earthquake, occurred in about 1700.

From a scientific point of view, this is all quite interesting. But I picture my poor little house -- probably not flattened, but knocked off its foundations with perhaps the loss of its brick facing. Earthquake insurance is prohibitively expensive. I simply roll the dice from year to year, praying each year that the dice won't come up 7.

I should have my house retrofitted, I suppose. I should fill the basement with canned foods and beverages. I should have handy a battery powered radio. Maybe I should sell the house and rent an apartment? Let someone else worry about the damage when the Big One happens?

This week's disaster in Japan has inspired me. I've filled an empty one-gallon milk container with water and stored it in the basement. Well, it's a start.

Behold the cat

And if after reading that last post, you're not quite sure about the difference between a "conservative" and a "reactionary," consider cats. My cats, specifically, but probably your cats as well.

A cat is a natural conservative. A cat has never met a change he liked. His basic mantra is "The best surprise is no surprise."

If a normal human toddler discovers a new toy on the floor when he enters the room, what happens? His eyes light up with interest and excitement. But behold the cat. If either of my cats comes downstairs -- after his postprandial nap of seven or eight hours -- and discovers one small item in the living room that he hadn't noted at the time he retired to his boudoir, he freaks out. He freezes. He moves his head up and down, back and forth, trying to improve his binocular vision. He approaches it in a slow circle. He sniffs. He touches it. He touches it again.

Then he ignores it. The next time he descends the staircase and sweeps into the room, he'll accept the item as an accepted part of the room's furnishings. Maybe, he now suspects, it's a desirable item after all, perhaps even one that he was clever enough to have thought of himself. You never have to tell a cat, "Dude, just get used to it!" Because they do.

What my conservative cats most resemble is the classical Republican conservative, like your rather stuffy but lovable great uncle, the guy who was initially horrified by the idea of Social Security or Medicare, but then quickly became accustomed to it once it was enacted.

A cat's a conservative, but a cat's never reactionary. My cats never pine for the good old days. They don't repeatedly tell you that kittens nowadays are spoiled rotten. They never brood over how great the living room was before I ruined it by introducing that new item. They never grab the item in their teeth and drag it outside, trying to restore the room to its primeval splendor.

My cats never sit before the TV, angrily snarling and agreeing when Fox News warns them that the "nanny state's" introduction of "new" items into one's living room is just the first step down the slippery slope to total chaos, leading step by step to shrinkage of all cat food rations, and -- ultimately -- Dogocratic Tyranny.

And that's why, even though I'm a liberal and my cats are conservatives, we get along just fine.

The hinge of fate

A few posts back, I compared the present upheavals in the Middle East to the dramatic events of October-November 1956 -- both being critical moments in history with future consequences that weren't, or won't be, fully realized until much later. Even better, I now realize, I might have called to mind the brief but critical period between May 24 to 28, 1940.

I've just finished reading Five Days in London, May 1940, by the American historian John Lukacs. Lukacs has views that seem somewhat eccentric -- he is a self-described "reactionary," who describes Hitler as a "populist." A basic premise of most of his books is that the fact that "populist" regimes have replaced governments guided by aristocrats ("elitists") over the past half century is the greatest threat facing civilization today. Nevertheless -- keeping in mind his biases, which help explain his strong attachment to Churchill -- his book is a fascinating read. He relies heavily not only on governmental and diplomatic archives, personal memoirs by officials and other persons living at the time, and newspaper accounts, but also on contemporary assessments from day to day of British public opinion and morale.

Lukacs makes a strong case that those five days in May 1940 were a turning point, more important in certain respects than the dramatic military events that transpired later. Critical decisions were made by the British government, decisions that did not themselves ensure Germany's defeat but that did ensure that Hitler could not achieve his fundamental war aim -- i.e., total domination of continental Europe.

The essential struggle within Britain's five-man War Cabinet was between Churchill, who had just been appointed prime minister, and Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary. Both were Conservatives. But Lukacs describes Churchill as a fellow reactionary, and Halifax as a rational and balanced conservative, an apparently desirable characteristic which, in the context of the world of 1940, resulted in his being an appeaser. Churchill won the argument, helped in great part, surprisingly, by the critical support of the still highly influential Neville Chamberlain, whom he had just replaced and who now served as Lord President of the Council and a member of the War Cabinet.

When the critical five days began, few of the British people outside the government realized the peril that the nation faced. France was on the verge of surrender. Just under a half million British and French troops were rapidly pulling back toward Dunkirk, with no hope of holding back the German forces that were pushing them toward the sea. No one in the British government believed that more than a small fraction could be evacuated before they were captured, along with all their equipment, or killed. Italy was clearly on the verge of declaring war against France, although many in the British government, including Lord Halifax, held to the misguided belief that Mussolini was afraid of German domination in Europe and would assist Britain in negotiating a settlement upholding a balance of power.

Then, during the five ensuing days, King Leopold surrendered Belgium to the Nazis, despite the opposition of his government, making the position of the troops at Dunkirk even more untenable.

Moreover, for years, there had been a general feeling throughout Europe, including within Britain itself, that parliamentary democracy was an old, stale form of government. Hitler seemed to offer the world a new sort of leadership, one that seemed vigorous, dynamic, highly competent. (And absolutely no one questioned the superiority of Germany's military forces and equipment.) Moreover, Naziism was based on a form of populism -- a Führer who embodied and enacted the will of the people (der Volk) -- rather than one based on fusty old aristocratic institutions and interminable parliamentary squabbling.

Lord Halifax weighed all these facts rationally. He came to the conclusion that Britain would be invaded within weeks, and utterly defeated. To him, it appeared clear that Hitler's essential war aim was the domination of continental Europe -- not the securing of colonies overseas or the occupation of England. Britain, by having declared war the prior September and by remaining in the war, was an obstacle to that domination. By temperament and interests, Halifax was not particularly concerned with the European continent; he urged that Britain should come to terms with Hitler, offer him no opposition in Europe, and thus preserve the British Empire.

Churchill was hardly more optimistic about the future. But he was convinced that Hitler would agree to such a settlement only if he secured Britain's surrender of its fleet, obtained possession of certain critical British island possessions, and forced the Kingdom into general disarmament -- in other words, Britain would have to accept a new status as an "independent" state in name only, one that was, in effect, a German vassal. Churchill was a romantic. He was also a student of history. Nations that are utterly defeated often rise again, he noted; nations that surrender without a struggle are doomed forever. Better to go down swinging, even in the face of impossible odds.

Churchill won his argument within the cabinet, and the rest is history -- victory for Britain and the Allies, a victory secured much more easily by the odd failure of Germany in the next couple of weeks to prevent the British evacuation from Dunkirk, and by the subsequent decision of Hitler -- finding himself confronted by Churchill's irritating obstinacy -- to attack the Soviet Union rather than to invade Britain.

Lukacs agrees that there were to be many critical turning points in the years ahead -- but failure at none of those points would necessarily have been fatal to Britain -- and to Western civilization. If Lord Halifax had prevailed during those five days of cabinet meetings, however, we would be living in a far different world. But the triumph was temporary: Lukacs is morosely convinced that Churchill simply won the West another fifty years; he idiosyncratically believes that "populism" finally triumphed about twenty years ago, and that the values for which Britain fought are more or less doomed.

[Churchill] helped to give us -- especially those of us who are no longer young but who were young then -- fifty years. Fifty years before the rise of new kinds of barbarism not incarnated by the armed might of Germans or Russians, before the clouds of a new Dark Age may darken the lives of our children and grandchildren. Fifty years! Perhaps that was enough.

I was chagrined, as I read the book, to realize that essentially I'm a Halifaxian, a damnably rational Halifaxian -- and that had I been a member of the War Cabinet in 1940, I would have made the same arguments as did Lord Halifax. I suspect I would have shared Halifax's opinion that Churchill was mad -- not literally, of course, but with the lunacy of an irrational romantic.

(But I am relieved to read elsewhere that Lukacs strongly opposed George W. Bush's presidency, and his ill-advised invasion of Iraq! Reactionary, Lukacs may be, but not crazy.)

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

By complete coincidence, I went to see The King's Speech on Saturday. A couple of days later, I read in Lukacs's book: "'The King's speech had a steadying but not a deep effect.' (King George VI had broadcast to the nation the previous night; many people commented favourably on his delivery, since the king was known for his habit of stuttering.)"

Writer's block

When I arrived at college -- a scared freshman, hoping only to go unnoticed and unridiculed among my classmates, bright kids who seemed more self-confident than I -- I was informed of a schedule change. Rather than the normal, required three quarters of freshman English, the school instead assigned me -- God knows why -- to three quarters of honors English. This assignment saved me from writing weekly essays designed to discover whether I habitually let my participial phrases dangle, my infinitives split, or my commas splice.

Instead, I was required to write essays that, for example -- and I do recall this one, specifically -- asked me to analyze, compare and contrast two poems about the Nativity: The Magi, by Yeats, and The Oxen, by Thomas Hardy. And to explain which I liked better, and why. In a minimum of 500 words. Until that point, I had never heard of either Yeats or Hardy, had dealt with poems mainly as panicky ordeals of last minute memorization, and had skated through high school fulfilling most of my English requirements by writing for the school paper and yearbook.

I remember all too well reading those two poems over and over, the night before the essay was due, trying to think of one intelligent comment I could make about them. Something that would flesh out a single paragraph, let alone 500 words. I sat at my desk, watching the second hand of the clock tick in circles around the dial.

I tasted, for the first time in my life, I suspect, the melancholy bite of writer's block.

I thought back to my freshman experiences this morning, as I read the entertaining essay by Dan Kois -- "Burn Before Reading" -- in the New York Times book review section. Kois discusses the experiences of well-known American novelists, one or more of whose writings never saw the light of day (or at least the ink of printing), not because they were rejected by a publisher, but because the author just plain gave up. He had written himself into a corner. Or he'd found himself writing on and on, watching his plot become more and more unwieldy, more and more absurd. Or he'd shyly shown a bit of what he'd written to friends, and had been stung by their response. Or by their lack of response: Author Jennifer Egan recalled writing 600 pages of an attempted novel, back when she was 22.

"I would send this book to people," she said, "and they would become unreachable. And that includes my mother."

She abandoned the book.

Once past college, my own writing was limited mostly to legal writing. You don't get writer's block doing legal writing. First of all, you have a deadline looming a few days in the future -- you don't find yourself spending a year or two telling your friends, over a third round of drinks: "Me? Oh, I'm still working away on that appellate brief. It's looking great! I should have it finished soon and off to my publisher."

Second, you have space limitations -- the court looks with disfavor on 600-page briefs, thank you very much; in fact, the judges will never see a 600-page brief. The court clerk bounces back -- unread and unappreciated -- any brief that exceeds page limits by even a sentence. Also, you have a number of specific and vital points that need to be addressed within those page limits. As with a person waiting to be hanged in a fortnight, fitting all your legal arguments into the prescribed page limitation as a deadline rapidly approaches tends to concentrate your mind wonderfully.

Third, no one expects stylistic beauty in legal briefing. (Although sometimes I've tried. A former law school writing instructor, who had moved on to serve as state Supreme Court commissioner, once sent me a personal note after reading one of my briefs: "Egad, Don! Didn't I teach you any self-restraint at all?") The court hopes only -- often futilely -- for a brief that's logical.

And last -- but not necessarily least -- I never have to worry about opening the newspaper one fine morning and finding myself confronted by a snarky review of my appellate brief, exposing my writing to the ridicule of the literary world.

So, although I've churned out an enormous number of words as a lawyer, writer's block hasn't been much of a problem.

And then, four years ago, I began writing this blog. No deadlines. No word limits. No assigned topics. No teacher to impress. Nothing to sell to a publisher. A few anonymous readers, as disclosed by my counter. But rarely a comment published after posts appear, criticizing either my style or my content. I could write a post comparing and contrasting the Hardy and Yeats poems by pointing out, excitedly, that they both seem to be about the first Christmas, and that they both sound kind of cool in different ways, and no one would suggest with disgust that I was being a tad superficial.

And yet. And yet, when it comes to writing for my blog, I do frequently get writer's block. I sometimes will start to write an essay -- like this one, itself, for example -- which, although it starts out well and contains some interesting ideas, leads me eventually to a point where I can't quite figure out where I planned to go with it. Or how to stop. Or how to even think of a graceful exit line that would disguise my embarrassment. And in such cases, I really wish I'd never even begun to write a post on that particular day.

But -- unlike those authors discussed so amusingly in Kois's essay -- I don't always just throw my aborted efforts away and try another story another day.

In today's world, it's all too easy to just throw up your hands, hit the "Publish Post" button, and walk away.

And sometimes that's exactly what I do.

Ash Wednesday

Next week, Christians belonging to churches with a liturgical emphasis (Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, a few others) will mark the beginning of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, ashes will be marked on their foreheads as they are reminded:

Remember, man, that you are dust,
and unto dust you shall return.

Ash Wednesday usually occurs in the depths of winter, a time when all seems hopeless, when the sprouting and flowering of spring is still a distant hope. This year, however, Ash Wednesday arrives on March 9, a time when flowers have been out for weeks. Ash Wednesday hasn't fallen this late in the year since 1943, when it occurred on March 10 -- the latest date possible.

Ash Wednesday's early spring arrival this year detracts a bit from the Lenten symbolism -- from ashes and dust on Ash Wednesday to the beauty of rebirth on Easter -- a symbolism with which we in the northern latitudes have grown accustomed. But, symbolic scenery aside, Ash Wednesday offers the same unsettling warning whether it falls in the darkness of mid-winter or, as it does for Australians, in the heat of mid-summer.

And Ash Wednesday's warning is a universal message, one that goes beyond its Christian origins. Unlike Easter, which assures Christians that life in heaven will be eternal, Ash Wednesday reminds us all -- regardless of religious belief -- that our life on Earth, as we now live it, is short. Very short.

Reading about the Persians and Greeks, as I've been doing recently, reminds me of the hundreds of generations of men and women who lived before I was born, and -- beyond that -- of the eons that passed before humans evolved, eons during which the stars developed, the galaxies formed, the planets including Earth were spun off. Which, in turn, reminds me of the uncountable generations, centuries, eons that will go on flowing past, long after I take my leave of Earth.

We spend our days, months and years keeping ourselves busy, trying to forget that each of our lives is but a tiny burst of consciousness, squeezed in between timeless infinities of darkness. In fact, most adults -- especially in America -- spend much of their energy denying their own mortality. We work hard and play hard -- not just to earn a living and enjoy our spare time, but to keep what looms ahead out of sight and out of mind.

Ash Wednesday tells us to do otherwise. Ash Wednesday asks us to remember -- not forget --that we are dust, and that dust lies ahead in our not so distant future. If life is short, how do we occupy ourselves during its short duration? What is important? What's a waste of our limited time?

The answers will differ from person to person, depending on his religious beliefs, his personality, his interests, his relationships with other people. It's impossible for one person to judge the value of another person's life, except by arbitrarily applying his own criteria to others. But all of us, in the end, will ask ourselves the same questions, and answer them by our own lights: How wisely did we spend our small number of years, and how valuable -- to ourselves and others -- were our lives?

Some may have climbed mountains with highly focused zeal. Some may have lived among the poor, serving their needs. Some may have spent a life in a library, researching and writing. Some may have been noisy politicians, selling their ideas to the public. Some may have spent their adult lives in silence -- in a Trappist monastery or as a Hindu mystic. Some may have devoted their time and love to raising families. Each of these lives may well seem worthwhile and satisfying, when looked back upon from its conclusion.

Others, however, may reach the end of life and look back with disappointment -- they never really thought about what they wanted, or they abandoned for unsatisfying reasons the goals that they had once held dear. Maybe they'll realize at the end that their lives did more harm than good. Or they may have done so little with their time that they wonder whether their lives were ever actually lived. These are the folks who perhaps would have profited most from having spent an occcasional Ash Wednesday, back when they still had the chance, thinking about life and death.

For me, Ash Wednesday is a religious observance. But even if it weren't, its annual occurrence might still cause me to examine my own life, hoping that when my final days arrived I'd feel able to adopt as my own a poem I was forced to memorize as a 10th grader:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill. "¹

And to hope that perhaps, by then, I'd be able to contemplate with some equanimity the humorous but somewhat disturbing epigram: "Life is principally multiple choice, but at the end there's a tough essay question."

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¹Robert Louis Stevenson, Requiem

Eating the seed corn

A high school teacher in Washington state, one who has earned a master's degree and has ten years of teaching experience under his belt, will earn $48,724, under the salary schedule for 2010-11. Throw in a Ph.D., and the same teacher makes $54,390.

A new lawyer, fresh out of law school with no experience whatsoever, hired by the Seattle firm of Perkins Coie, made $100,000 base salary in 2004 (seven years ago), with a first year bonus ranging from $5,000 to $30,000. Perkins Coie is one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms in Seattle, but its salary range was not atypical, and was not the highest, among large downtown firms.

To some extent, admittedly, we're comparing apples and oranges -- Perkins hires students from the top of their law school classes, while the state gives identical pay to all teachers with equal credentials and seniority. But, even so, the disparity in benefits offered to lawyers and to teachers is striking.

I've been critical -- and I am critical now -- of American education. But the educational system can only be improved when we understand who and why any given person is an effective teacher. Punishing some teachers for their students' poor test results is like punishing a trial attorney for losing a case -- it assumes that every teacher has the same group of students with similar backgrounds and motivation, and that the teachers can therefore be ranked among themselves based on those test results. It also assumes the meaningfulness of the test results If we do care about American education -- and not just in cutting costs -- we will do something to narrow the gap between salaries earned by teachers and those earned by other professions.

Few teachers teach because they hope to become rich, but in our society, salary is a partial indicator of respect. And most teachers do want to be respected. Today's New York Times carries an article discussing Americans' quickly growing lack of respect for the teaching profession.

The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. "Oh you pathetic teachers," read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. "You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage."

Ms. Parker is a 30-year-old high school science teacher -- her field of expertise being among the most in demand and most difficult to obtain among new teachers -- whose salary in Madison, Wisconsin, is $36,000.

Supporters of the Wisconsin governor's efforts to strip teachers of their right to bargain collectively have resorted to derogatory name-calling -- name-calling that apparently resonates with many American voters today. According to the article, "education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters."

We can't do this. We certainly can seek -- and are seeking -- more effective teaching techniques. We can work out more effective ways of eliminating teachers who should no longer be teaching. But we can't ridicule the entire profession -- the profession that educates our next generation -- and still hope to attract bright, motivated young people to enter that profession. And we can't pay teachers peanuts, and then wonder why the best and brightest young people decide to become doctors, lawyers, businessmen or architects instead.

Our nation has budgetary problems. But our schools should be among the last institutions to experience cuts in our financial support. Any farmer knows you have to be truly starving -- literally starving -- before you resort to eating your seed corn. Providing an excellent education to our kids is our seed corn.

And this nation is nowhere close to starving.