The Class(Entre les Murs)

Teaching must be the most frustrating, stressful, undervalued, disrespected profession that one could enter (with the possible exception of nursing).

I don't mean teaching in good universities, and I don't mean teaching motivated kids in good suburban schools or selective prep schools. I mean teaching average public high school and middle school students who haven't the slightest interest in the subject matter, who are completely absorbed in the social world of their peer group, and who may find their energy totally exhausted simply in dealing with personal and family issues.

A year and a half ago, I commented on the "mockumentary" film Chalk, a study of the frustrations experienced by a first-year history teacher at a high school in Texas. With a shudder, I pictured myself as the newly-minted teacher, standing before a bored class, trying to engage a room of students who were apathetic, silent, nonresponsive -- students who looked as though they had come to school with no more than three hours of sleep.

The French movie The Class (released in Europe as "Entre les Murs"), now showing in theaters, triggers my same feelings of empathetic horror. The film is based on François Bégaudeau's semi-autobiographical novel, which in turn was based on his own personal experiences teaching French literature to students in the 14-15 age group living in one of Paris's immigrant banlieues. Bégaudeau not only wrote the screenplay, but also plays himself as the teacher. The students, all actual students from Bégaudeau's old school, play themselves. The movie was scripted, but much of the dialogue between teacher and students was improvised as it was filmed.

A few of the students appear to be ethnic French, but the majority are African (either North or sub-Saharan), or natives of France's Caribbean territories. There is one Chinese boy who is bright, self-disciplined, and well-behaved -- the pride and joy of the school. There is another boy, apparently North African, who is deeply interested in science and whose parents push for a more rigorous curriculum.

The remaining students pose a daily challenge to their teacher -- disputing his every statement, arguing the relevancy of the formal French that he is trying to teach, distracting the class with irrelevant questions, and accusing the teacher -- and by implication the society he represents -- of disrespecting their lives and cultures. The demands by students for respect and for an equal footing in class with their instructor are constant themes running through the film.

I walked out of the movie disabused of any preconception that European schools still impose strict discipline on their terrorized students -- kids sitting at attention with their hands folded, reciting their lessons by rote. Times have changed, obviously, at least in the state schools. But my reaction, after having seen Chalk earlier and comparing it now with this movie, is that I would far rather confront a class of disorderly students who challenge my every word and waste the class's time with irrelevant argumentation than face a mass of silent zombies.

With an engaged class, even one that keeps veering off topic, some learning is possible. And the French teacher, despite all obstacles, holds his class of immigrant youngsters to a higher academic standard than would be expected in most American middle school English classes. (The students argue, for example, that learning to differentiate between the imperfect indicative and the imperfect subjunctive is a waste of their time, because no one they know ever uses the subjunctive in daily speech. Learn the rules before you decide whether to ignore them, is Bégaudeau's response.)

Learning is happening, however painfully, in Bégaudeau's classroom. The most disruptive male student, an immigrant from Mali who is ultimately expelled, shows effort, initiative and creativity in mounting a photo essay, for which he is praised by his teacher. The most difficult, irritating and sarcastic young woman in the class admits sheepishly at the end of the year that she read her older sister's copy of Plato's Republic at home, simply out of curiosity. I doubt if any of the older Texas students in Chalk would have even heard of Plato.

Both the immigrants at the French school and the Americans in Texas present serious challenges to their teachers and to their school systems, for many of the same reasons. But Bégaudeau's students display an electricity, a sense of rebellion, a willingness to confront and challenge authority that could, with skill -- in some cases -- be channeled constructively. The American students in Chalk, on the other hand, seem beyond reach. As I suggested in my review, the history teacher's achievement during his first year of teaching seemed limited to having merely survived his first year. If his students ever learned anything at all, it must have occurred off-camera.

Both teachers end the school year with a sigh of relief. But M. Bégaudeau clearly intends to be back again in the fall, facing a new class. Chalk leaves us in doubt whether the teaching career of his demoralized American counterpart will extend beyond the one year.

Bitter Lemons

Israel is again accused of killing and otherwise abusing innocent civilians in its attempt to control the Gaza strip. Israeli commanders, according to today's New York Times, admit that people have been shot and houses destroyed unjustifiably, but claim that overall they have been judicious in their use of force.

Israel's posture in its conflict with the Palestinians calls to mind a book I just finished re-reading: Bitter Lemons, by Lawrence Durell. Durell is best known as the author of the Alexandria Quartet, a series of sensuous, dream-like books about life just before World War II in that coastal Egyptian city. But he also wrote a number of books that can be found in the "Travel" section of your favorite bookstore, as well as a body of poetry.

Bitter Lemons is an account of Durrell's life on Cyprus in the early 1950's, while the Mediterranean island was still a British crown colony. The first part of the book is a hymn to the beauty of the island, where he bought and remodeled a house in the remote village of Bellapaix, as well as a celebration -- both humorous and moving -- of the idiosyncratic villagers, both Greek and Turkish ethnically, whom he met and dealt with daily. The book thus starts off as a mid-twentieth century version of Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, another British writer's account of adapting to life in a different and more laid-back culture.

But unlike Mayes, by the 1950's, Durell was a well-known writer, and a man with wartime experience working for the British government. And in 1953, when Durrell moves to Cyprus, the local demands for Enosis, or union with Greece, are becoming increasingly strident. Durrell is politically conservative, and a supporter of the British Empire -- an empire still largely intact in 1953, despite the recent loss of India. He ultimately becomes the colonial government's Press Adviser, as the demands for Enosis become more violent and the rest of the world watches with increased concern.

He views the increasingly violent campaign for Enosis from a different perspective, perhaps, than would most Americans today. His love for the Cypriot people is clear, but he firmly views them as a rural, somewhat childlike people who are far happier under British rule than they would be under union with an increasingly dynamic and urban Greek nation. Cypriot self-government apart from Greece does not even occur to him as an option. He perceives the Cypriot desire for Enosis as a vague goal the residents love to ponder and discuss, but one stirred into violent ferver only by agitation and arms from political zealots in Greece. He notes, in addition, the strong opposition to Enosis by the island's significant Turkish minority population -- a fault line between the ethnic Greeks and Turks that continues to this day.

And so, the second half of the book becomes increasingly political, as he observes the rise in influence of EOKA, a local terrorist organization whose tactics and goals were similar to those of the IRA in Northern Ireland. Step by step, the people become radicalized in their opposition to the colonial government of Cyprus -- first the students and urban residents, and then the general population, including, ultimately, the friends Durrell had formed in Bellapaix. Meanwhile, the colonial government dreams on, the dreamy inertia of bureaucracy, throwing away its opportunities to defuse the crisis politically by promising to hold an eventual plebiscite on the question ... at some vague future date. The government instead persists in treating the movement as merely the obsession of a few isolated hotheads -- first to be ignored and then, to be put down with force.

When I read today about the Israeli army's resort to killing and destruction in order to control the Palestinians, or our own efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, I recall Durrell's acute observation that the goal of terrorism is to incur these very reprisals:

The slender chain of trust upon which all human relations are based is broken -- and this the terrorist knows and sharpens his claws precisely here; for his primary objective is not battle. It is to bring down upon the community in general a reprisal for his wrongs, in the hope that the fury and resentment roused by punishment meted out to the innocent will gradually swell the ranks of those from whom he will draw further recruits.

Durrell found a great, almost incomprehensible love for the British among Greek Cypriots, who, as did mainland Greeks, viewed the English as the people who had supported the Greek struggle for independence against the Ottomans. Greek Cypriots repeatedly assured him of this love, assured him that their struggle for Enosis in no way represented a hatred of the British. But by the end of Durrell's stay in Cyprus, in 1956, these old bonds between the two peoples were being broken -- tragically and unnecessarily broken in Durrell's opinion.

In that year, the British began a "war on terrorism" -- and lost the traditional affection of the people they governed -- by hanging a quiet, seemingly well behaved young man who had worked in the colonial government's tax department. It was time for Durrell to leave this warm and beautiful land; his neighbors and close friends could no longer look him in the eye.

The eyes which avoided mine, flickering shyly away from my glance "like vernal butterflies" -- I cannot say that they were full of hate. No. It was simply that the sight of me pained them. The sight of an Englishman had become an obscenity on that clear honey-gold spring air.

Lawrence Durrell left his house and village behind -- and his book ends -- in 1956. In 1960, Britain surrendered sovereignty over Cyprus. Fighting between Greeks and Turks broke out in 1974, when a military junta tried to force union with Greece, and the island was effectively partitioned between the two groups. The government to this day has no control over the Turkish area. Enosis never occurred. Instead, Cyprus eventually joined Greece as another EC member, and adopted the Euro as its currency.

So were the events described in Bitter Lemons actually tragic? In the long run, things have more or less worked out. Cyprus, although still ethnically divided, is prosperous -- at least in the ethnically Greek southern portion. I suspect that Bellapaix is still a friendly, sleepy village, and that Lawrence Durrell's hillside home with the wonderful views still exists. The medieval ruins still dot the landscape, the flowers still flower, and the dazzling sun still shines over the cerulean sea.

But, for Durrell, of course, the idyll had ended. He left Cyprus and died in 1990 without returning to Bellapaix. In the "long run," we are all dead.

Trapped in our cave

In his Republic, Plato suggests that we live our lives like cave dwellers who never see the "real world" outside the cave entrance, and who are required (by the hypothesis) to spend their lives facing away from the entrance. All we know of reality is the shadows of outside events that we watch flickering on the walls of our cave. We live our lives trapped in the illusion that those vague, fuzzy shadows are not shadows, but are themselves the true universe in which we live.

Psychologists also remind us that we never experience the "real world" directly. Our eyes detect certain wave lengths of light reflected from "objects." Our ears detect vibrations in the air. Our skin responds to stimuli of its nerve endings. Etc., etc. Our brain receives all these signals, and puts them together to construct a hypothetical picture of some external reality that we believe exists.

Modern physics shows us that even the reality of solid "objects" is an illusion. A solid object, in classical atomic theory, is composed of a relatively few elementary particles flitting around in a huge amount of empty space. Quantum physics shows that even these elementary "particles" are nothing but energy -- whatever "energy" is -- distributed throughout space in probability waves.

Insofar as our senses -- even aided by the finest scientific instruments -- detect anything, they detect only various probabilities of distribution among various energy concentrations. We build our world from these data and our experiences.

I had a health problem develop this past week, one that is probably inconsequential but that reminded me of how thin the ice is on which we all skate through life. Nothing original in that thought -- folks have contemplated for thousands of years how, at times, only an instant of bad luck separates life from death. But I also realized, not for the first time, how silly it is -- from the point of view of scientific method -- to attempt any conclusions regarding the meaning of death, beyond its obvious observable effects on the physical body (or the changing energy distributions for which these effects are a shorthand).

Science deals with observable data, and the conclusions that can be drawn logically from those data. I certainly question any religious attempt to prove scientifically the existence of any form of afterlife -- including reliance on testimony regarding "near death" experiences. But I also distrust any scientist who argues -- again, based on scientific methodology, rather than his own personal intuition or set of personal preferences -- that religious belief in "life after death" has been or can be proven false, or even particularly improbable.

The finest scientists in Plato's cave might have concluded that the universe had come to an end when dusk arrived outside, or the campfire outside the cave burned low, and they observed the shadows inside their cave disappear. But three-dimensional life in the outside world would have continued quite robustly, thank you, even as the walls inside the cave faded to black.

R.I.P.

Some things are just wrong. One of those things is death, especially the death of an old friend.

The Hearst Corporation announced today that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will publish its final edition tomorrow. After tomorrow, the name will refer to nothing more than a trimmed-down, on-line news site. As a long-time subscriber, I will suddenly find my subscription transferred to the P-I's traditional rival, the Seattle Times.

J. R. Watson founded the Seattle Gazette on December 10, 1863. Four years later, a new owner re-named the newspaper the Weekly Intelligencer, becoming the Daily Intelligencer in 1876.. In 1881, the Seattle Post and the Intelligencer merged, forming the Post-Intelligencer. California newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst bought the P-I in 1921.¹

For years, the P-I was Seattle's "liberal" newspaper, and the family owned Times was its more conservative, business-oriented rival. In recent years, as Seattle became an increasingly liberal city relative to the rest of the nation, both papers have become too liberal for the sort of people who consider "too liberal" an intelligible concept.

I began subscribing to the P-I when I started graduate school in Seattle. At that time, the P-I was the only morning paper (with an early edition that appeared on newstands the night before), and the Times came out in the afternoon. The P-I at that time taunted its rival with the slogan: "Read the P-I. Stay ahead of the Times." The P-I's masthead in those days, like the masthead of all the Hearst papers, contained a stylized eagle with wings extended across all eight columns, carrying a banner in its talons reading "America First."

I never had any illusions that the P-I was a great newspaper. It wasn't the New York Times or the Washington Post. For years, the Hearst papers were forced to carry a weekly publisher's message from William Randolph Hearst, Jr., an irritatingly provincial diatribe carried by a newspaper that itself was much more progressive. But for all the P-I's oddities and quirkiness, it was our paper, Seattle's paper, at a time when Seattle itself was perhaps an odder and quirkier place.

I'll miss living in a two newspaper town. I'll miss the P-I. May its inky soul rest in peace, and may whoever ends up with its revolving globe treat it with loving care. It represents another vanished facet of our city's history.

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

¹The Hearst family began its newspaper empire with the purchase of the San Francisco Examiner in 1880. In the 1990's, the Hearst Corporation sold its flagship, the Examiner, so it could it buy the more profitable San Francisco Chronicle, without risk of violating anti-trust laws. The jettisoned Examiner has ended up as a free tabloid, and Hearst now appears to be on the brink of shutting down the recently unprofitable Chronicle. San Francisco, where the Hearst Empire began, will become the largest American city without a daily newspaper. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Late blooming

According to Marmota monax, Seattle will next get some nice weather on, oh, about March 16.
--My Blog (2-2-09)

Hang a gold medal around that clever groundhog's neck, and treat him to extra helpings of berries and grubs. Yesterday and today showed the first true signs that Spring had arrived in Seattle -- blue skies and a bright sun whose rays warm the body, even through the cold air. Finally we draw to the end of a peculiar winter season, one whose outset was marked by an abnormally heavy and prolonged blanket of snow before Christmas, and that ended with nightly snowfalls still dusting the ground several days last week.

Local flora has been irritated and confused. Ornamental fruit trees that often show their first signs of flowering by late January are only now beginning to burst into clouds of pink and white. Crocuses and primroses are displaying their colors, many weeks past their accustomed season. Trees that have often emerged from bud by now stand stark and gray, seemingly unaware that the equinox is at hand. Only college kids (and their younger high school siblings) order their lives by the calendar, rather than by the temperature of the air. It's March, and the students have been out in shorts --even t-shirts -- pretending they'd been admitted to UCLA rather than the UW.

So, yes, the groundhog did us all in this year. But fortunately -- in the long run -- it makes no difference. No matter how long the wait, the trees will always bud, the flowers will always bloom, the grass will always begin growing and demand the services of a lawnmower. In another month, maybe two, no clue will remain that we had to wait an additional six weeks for Spring, all because of the heliophobia of an overgrown rodent.

I walked across a crowded campus today, where spring quarter finals are now creeping up on weary-eyed UW students. Some of these anxiety-ridden young people arrived as freshman knowing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, and the courses they needed to get there. In four years, they'll be looking for jobs as engineers or foresters or architects, or polishing their applications to graduate or professional schools. Others, equally anxious, equally bright, arrived confused and bewildered, having no idea how they wanted to spend their lives, knowing only that they wanted a degree. Some of these latter will find themselves still undecided, even after they've complete their majors and obtained their degrees.

Sometimes the groundhog decrees an early Spring -- other times he squints at the sun and decides he needs to sleep on it for another six weeks. But, in either case, Spring finally arrives, and by May or June, no one remembers or cares whether the leaves came out early or late.

So the silent advice I offered in passing to those students whose stride across campus may have seemed a bit less confident and purposeful than that of some of their peers, was this: Don't worry, it's all going to work out. Now and then, the buds take a little longer to open, but sometimes the most spectacular floral displays are those that took the longest to bloom. Trust in yourselves. Trust in life.

All the news

So you refuse to read Fox News On-line? You consider the site nothing more than a hotbed of right wing extremism? Think again. Fox is a respectable news outlet, not a propaganda machine. Fox clearly collects commentary by such thinkers as Reilly, Hannity, "Greta," and Baier, under the heading of "Opinion." The rest of the site is devoted to the unfiltered news you need to keep abreast of the world, and to put the commentary in its proper context.

For example, today's issue contains the following vital stories:

Irrational Exuberance. Boris Isayev died on stage during Pancake Week celebrations after stuffing himself with 43 banana and cream filled pancakes.

Islamic Civilization. Saudi Arabia sentenced a 75 year old widow to 40 lashes of the whip and four months in jail for "mingling" with two men. The men, one of whom was her late husband's nephew, were bringing her bread.

Gay Activism. In Alabama, a former male stripper was charged with slashing four persons to death while they slept. "It was worse than any horror movie," claimed the police chief.

Defense Policies. Arkansas police killed a man who walked into the station with a hatchet. After being tasered twice, "He was raring back to throw (the hatchet) at the officers and that's when the guys shot him," according to the sheriff.

Corporate Taxation. The so-called Swiss Gigolo was sentenced to prison for defrauding a 46-year-old BMW heiress, reputed to be Germany's richest woman, of $9 million, and for attempted blackmail. He had threatened to release videotapes of their trysts.

Gambler's Folly. Two phony "massage therapists" removed a man's pants and then robbed him of $2,000 in casino winnings. They were apprehended in a near-by convenience store.

Big Dogfight at First and Main. Two girls have been reported missing from a Philadelphia playground.

These seven stories comprise one half of the 14 stories Fox News offers today under its two lead topics: "U.S." and "World." That's ok. If you're one of those readers who just has to learn what's happening in today's world, turn to O'Reilly, Hannity, "Greta," and Baier. That's what they're there for.

Taking the 6 train to Union Square

Walk along a street in downtown Seattle. You see them everywhere. Wild-eyed men and women. Dirty, dishevelled, mumbling to themselves or yelling at the universe. Crazy people, creatures we nervously evade as we see them approach. More like hostile forces of nature than human beings.

Except, of course, they aren't non-human. John Wray's novel Lowboy shows us how much humanity schizophrenics actually share with the rest of us. And a story is perhaps the only way we will ever get inside the head of a schizophrenic and experience that commonality, unless we manage the nerve to sit down and talk to one.

Will Heller, who calls himself "Lowboy," is a highly intelligent, unusually attractive 16-year-old who possesses a detailed knowledge of the New York subway system. He's a man on a mission, a mission to save the planet from global warming, and he has less than 24 hours to do it. To accomplish his mission, it is essential -- for reasons that make a vague sort of sense, given his assumptions -- that he lose his virginity. He is a paranoid schizophrenic, and he is on the loose from his psychiatric facility. He has stopped taking his medications.

It takes us some time to understand even this much about Lowboy, because the story is told primarily from Lowboy's own, confused point of view. Later chapters offer us other aspects of the story from the points of view of his immigrant mother "Violet," who has her own problems, and of police detective Ali Lateef who is working with her to locate the boy.

Lowboy is acutely observant of everything about him. (After finishing the book, I'll never forget that the dual-tone chime you hear on the subway, warning that the doors are about to close, is C-sharp to A.) His illness causes him to find significance in insignificant occurrences, much as Greeks and Romans did in the flights of birds or the appearance of animal entrails. He knows that he is ill. He understands that the voices he hears -- sometimes loud, sometimes as a murmur, sometimes sensed only as the indistinct roaring of a dynamo -- are part of his illness. He realizes that his symptoms increase and decrease over time. In fact, at the age of 12, when his symptoms first began but were still controllable, he read everything he could find in the library on the subject of schizophrenia. But he doesn't -- he can't -- understand enough.

The story reads partly as an adventure. We don't quite understand Lowboy's quest, but we want him to succeed. His quest takes place largely within the dark, subterranean realm of the subway system, itself a metaphor for a certain twisted, noisy, and confusing set of limitations on reality. The book also reads as a detective novel, as Lateef attempts to untangle confusing clues he obtains from Lowboy's mother, psychiatrist, and one-time girlfriend, and to locate and apprehend the boy before he injures either himself or another person. Again the story reads at times as a peculiar story of romance, the same detective finding himself falling in love with the boy's mother, for reasons he doesn't understand.

But mostly, the novel is an immersion in the mind of a young man who is precociously bright and likeable and in a sense idealistic, but whose perspective on the world is far different from our own -- a kid who thinks deeply and observes much that we would miss, but who overlooks simple meanings and conclusions that we would find obvious.

The ending is stunning and unexpected. This book is unquestionably one where you want to learn how it ends yourself -- not hear it from a friend or read it in a review.

Schizophrenia, some psychiatrists (notably, Thomas Szasz) have argued, should be considered not a disease but simply an atypical way of viewing reality. After reading Lowboy, none of us would voluntarily subject ourselves to that experience. But we understand better the peculiar logic -- and even, possibly, strange beauty -- of the thoughts circling within the confused minds of those crazy guys we see on the street.

Beyond drilling

A camel is a horse designed by a committee, as the old saying goes. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law yesterday in Denver by President Obama, is a camel of legislative drafting, the result of balancing various competing interests in an attempt to achieve the President's goals in a form that could be forced through Congress.

But for all its resulting weaknesses and lack of focus, the bill should be praised for its bold tackling of the nation's future energy needs. The bill includes funding of $40.7 billion on energy conservation measures and development of alternative forms of energy, and another $16.3 billion for development of energy-saving rail and rapid transit infrastructure.

These appropriations not only will attack the nation's economic crisis, but will also take a first step in addressing a energy crisis looming on the near horizon. This month's edition of National Geographic is devoted to the world's energy problems. Present forecasts suggest that between now and the end of the century, world production of conventional petroleum will shrink from about 80 million barrels per day to approximately 45 million. In the same period, demand will explode from 80 million to 125 million barrels per day.

This ever increasing gap between supply and demand, if not remedied, not only will lead to a decreased standard of living for Americans, but also to skyrocketing pollution and to worldwide turmoil and explosive hatred of the developed nations. The tacit attitude expressed at present by the United States and other wealthy powers -- that Third World nations must curtail their own development because our own achievement of properity has already increased CO₂ levels to the crisis point -- while true, does not sit well with the workers of China and India at the very moment when they can afford their first automobile.

President Obama pointedly selected the pioneering CEO of a local solar energy company to introduce him to the audience in Denver. The President observed that we have a history in this country of ignoring problems until they become crises. He urges us to tackle the energy problem before it reaches that point. We have almost reached that point already, and the urgency is fully justified.

Remember what the dormouse said

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
--Nietzsche

Your blind date's eyes narrow when she first meets you and looks you over. After chatting for five minutes, glancing several times at her watch, she yawns and says, "Sorry, this isn't going to work," and leaves you sitting at the table, waiting for your drinks to arrive. Yikes! Besides curling up in bed with the electric blanket turned up to "high" and hugging your childhood teddy bear -- how do you recover from that?

Maybe you should take a pill.

Reuters reports a Dutch medical study indicating that one kind of beta-blocker (a medication used to treat high blood pressure) actually helps to weaken "bad" memories. Patients who were afraid of spiders, because of a one-time scary encounter with the little arachnids, were "cured" when the beta-blocker wiped out (or significantly weakened) the memory. The pill seemed to interfere with the old memory once a fresh spider event recalled the memory to consciousness.

Once refined, the possibilities seem endless. For example, at awkward times I'm apt to recall:

1. The time in fourth grade I was invited to a party, and, not realizing it was a birthday party, brought no present. Pop a pill!

2. The time my dad took me to the YMCA for kid's swimming lessons. He told me that it was an old Y custom for all the boys to swim without suits. It wasn't, and no one else did. Pop a pill!

3. The time in college that I took my dad's car to the beach and got stuck in the sand at low tide. Yup, high tide's a memory I'd love to forget. Pop a pill!

4. How about when I stood in front of the class to give a presentation, and found my notes swimming meaninglessly before my eyes, and my mind going blank? Pop a pill!

Once the memory is erased, did the humiliation ever really happen? These pills don't just make you feel better, they change your past. No longer a guy with a nerdy childhood, you suddenly become a confident stud for whom the world has always thrown open its doors. You can now stride down the sidewalk, shoulders thrown back, staring down the lesser mortals who pass by. And we must be only one step away from an even better pill, one that creates positive memories -- perhaps a firm belief that all of your best fantasies actually did occur.

Meanwhile, I may just feign high blood pressure so as to get my hands on some of them there beta-blockers. Or maybe they're available on the street? They're probably better for you than an evening of booze, and, if they do nothing else, they'll keep your doctor happy next time he takes your blood pressure.

Barnyard survival

Once upon a time, there was a Little Blue Rooster who saw that his barnyard had run out of bread and that the farmer had become too tired and penniless, after years of "excessive exuberance," to provide his animals with any more. The Little Blue Rooster knew that all the animals were going to starve to death unless they got together, put aside their differences, and learned to make and bake their own bread, all by themselves. So he and his advisers found some wheat out in the fields and threshed it themselves.

When the wheat was threshed, the Little Blue Rooster said, "Who will help me take this wheat to the mill?"
"Not I," said every single Republican in the House.
"Not I," said 38 out of 41 Republicans in the Senate.
"Not I," said the Limbaugh Bird, and I'll kill any Republican who tries to help.
"We will," said the Little Blue Rooster's fellow Democrats.
"Then it's just us who will do it," said the Little Blue Rooster. And the Democrats did.

They carried the wheat to the mill and had it ground into flour. Then the Little Blue Rooster said, "Who will help me make this flour into bread?"
"Not I," said every single Republican in the House.
"Not I," said 38 out of 41 Republicans in the Senate.
"Not I," said the Limbaugh Bird, and I'll kill any Republican who tries to help.
"We will," said the Little Blue Rooster's fellow Democrats.
"Then it's just us who will do it," said the Little Blue Rooster. And the Democrats did.

They made big loaves of bread and baked the loaves until they were hot and brown and fluffy and wonderful to smell. Then the Little Blue Rooster said, "Who will help me eat this wonderful bread, and join me in taking all the credit for saving the barnyard?"
"Oh! We will," said all the House Republicans.
"And we will," said all the Senate Republicans
"Hrmph, I will;" said the Limbaugh Bird, puffing his feathers up so he looked extra fat and pompous, "actually, it was my idea to begin with."

"No, No!" said the Little Blue Rooster. "Me and my Democrats will also do that all by ourselves."

And they did.

Getting it over with

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
--Benjamin Franklin

The Grim Reaper has to wait his turn, but today I paid my taxes.

Taxes aren't due until April 15, but I concluded, after some quick mental arithmetic, that this year, for a change, the IRS would owe me a tax refund. Nothing like the prospect of a little free money to focus my mind, blowing away my customary inclination to procrastinate. And so, I sat down last night at the dining room table -- tax forms, calculator, and pen at hand.

Alas, as the numbers were crunched, I soon discovered the extent of my illusions. Once again, I end up writing a check to the U. S. Treasury. But am I disheartened? Indeed not.

Among my many other peculiarities, I always get a kick out of filling out my annual tax forms. I actually look forward to it. I'd never pay someone like H&R Block to do it for me. It's a yearly report card, where I, rather than a teacher, write the report. A performance review without the annoying department manager. Even, perhaps, an examination of conscience -- what have I made of my life in the past year?

And when, as this year, the performance review isn't all that favorable, I at least have the consolation that I will pay less -- rather than receive less -- money. In today's economic climate, in fact, it's a privilege to owe any taxes at all. I recall how many people have been reduced to poverty, bankruptcy and foreclosure over the past year.

So I neatly fill out my forms, trying to present myself as a careful, trustworthy citizen, one who certainly doesn't deserve an audit. A guy worthy of Senate confirmation. I write my check, attach my W-2, make a copy for my records, and drop the envelope into the mailbox. All done for another year.

Let's hope that 2009 offers us all more income on which to pay taxes a year from now.

The party of "No!"

Isn't it fun, watching the Senate Republicans fiddle while the nation burns? Doesn't it bring your high school history books alive? Déjà vu -- circa 1931 -- all over again.

I'm no economist. But to me, one thing seems obvious. Businesses and average Joes alike are paralyzed with fear. They can't understand what's happened economically, and they suspect that no one in charge has a clue either. Strong action by the government -- any action -- would attack that fear. Whether the action, from an economist's perspective, actually provides a direct stimulus to the economy is less important -- at this moment -- than its immediate psychological effect in stimulating confidence.

An increase in confidence -- from any source -- will result in freeing up credit and increasing consumer spending, breaking the looming spiral into deflation and depression.

Many Republicans claim to agree. But they are so obsessed with government funding of employment to construct all kinds of projects -- mass transit is just one small but obvious example -- that they're ready to scuttle -- or delay indefinitely -- any stimulus bill at all rather than permit government money to flow in directions they dislike.

The Republican leadership interprets "bipartisanship" to mean that only funding that's agreeable idealogically to both parties should be approved. As frustrated Democrats have reminded them, the GOP did lose the election, and lost it decisively. One issue at stake in the election was whether the nation should stick with Republican "trickle down" economics. That doctrine is no longer on the table.

Bipartisanship, under present conditions, means listening with open minds to Republican complaints about specific projects, and compromising when possible to remove truly non-stimulative spending from the pending bill. It does not mean re-enacting failed Republican economics.

Republican senators should remember history. They are in danger of once again tarring themselves as the party of Hoover -- a party that, in a moment of crisis, says "no" to everything not permitted by their unimaginative idealogy.

Six more weeks

According to Marmota monax, Seattle will next get some nice weather on, oh, about March 16.

Yes, today is February 2, the Feast of the Purification, also known in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions as Candlemas day (when the church blesses candles for use in the coming year). Here in the good old Protestant U. S. of A., Candlemas is much more commonly known as Groundhog Day, or, in recent years, Bill Murray Play-It-Again Day. Groundhogs, also called woodchucks, live in flatlands. Seattle residents are more familiar with their upland cousins, the hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) and the Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus). These dudes are cuter -- in my opinion, of course, "cute" being in the mind of the beholder -- and they whistle seductively at you as you hike through their mountain habitats

The Groundhog Day tradition supposedly began in Celtic times, when blue-faced Fighting proto-Irish allegedly used as their prognosticating mammal either the badger or a "sacred bear." Yeah, right. We have lots of bears around here, but no one would call them "sacred," unless gluttony has become a sacred virtue rather than a deadly sin. Our bears wouldn't give you the time of day, let alone a weather report. And badgers are dandy, nature's civil engineers, but like most engineers are too busy poring over drawings and specs to notice whether the sun is shining.

In any event, in 2009 -- in Seattle -- the outcome was never in doubt. I find the irony devastating: In a city where many children question the actual existence of what the rest of you call "The Sun," today broke clear and bright, not a cloud in the sky. Any obese rodents who emerged from their hobbit holes let out a shriek and popped right back down inside for another six weeks of frightened snoozing.

Showers are forecast starting Wednesday.

To obey the Scout law ...

A Scout is Trustworthy. A Scout tells the truth. He is honest, and he keeps his promises. People can depend on him. --Boy Scout Law (Rule No. 1)

Over the last two days, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has devoted five full pages to an exposé of the manner in which the Boy Scouts of America has managed forest lands that it owns. The articles are based in part on exhaustive research done by the Hearst Newspapers, the P-I's parent organization.
For decades, membership in the Scouts has introduced boys in the Pacific Northwest to the outdoors -- hiking, camping, mountaineering, survival techniques. No one would deny the many benefits that so many kids have obtained from this training, or from the lessons in citizenship, resourcefulness, cooperation with others, and self-confidence that they have learned while working their way up through the various ranks of Scouting. It seems, however, based on the articles in the P-I, that the Scouting organization itself has cut corners in maintaining its solvency, doing so at the expense of the very environment that Boy Scouts are taught to reverence; has paid unusually high salaries to its adult leaders; and could profitably go back and study the implications of its own lessons in trustworthiness. The P-I articles document case after case where property has been clear-cut for its timber, often at the expense of existing scout campsites. Some of the cutting has damaged adjacent streams, lakes, and habitats for salmon, timber wolves, bald eagles and spotted owls. Some timber sales were "sweetheart deals," signed with present or past Boy Scout leaders. A 15-year-old New York scout, after returning last summer year to a 5,000 acre Boy Scout camping area in the Adirondacks, and seeing what had been done to the land since his last visit, lamented: "I just didn't really want to go anymore. It was ruined." A forester who surveyed logging on BSA property near Crater Lake said, "They savagely logged it." Boy Scout leaders defend most of the logging, claiming it was done selectively and was at times necessary to remove dying trees that posed a danger of falling. Even more disturbing than evidence of poor stewardship for the land and disregard for the environment, however, is the fact that much of the land had been donated to the Scouts in the belief that it would thus be preserved from logging or development, that the Scouts would naturally maintain these woodsy areas so that they could be used and enjoyed by scout campers throughout the years to come.

"It's ironic. People work hard to save a piece of property for the Scouts and then (the Scouts) turn around 10 or 15 years later and go sell it to developers."

--Seattle Post-Intelligencer, quoting a former Washington Public Lands Commissioner

Land that is not logged is often sold to developers. Attempts by conservation organizations to purchase the property have often been turned down when the BSA finds it can get more money by selling it to developers. Forest land overnight becomes tract housing.

Boy Scout officials often claim they are simply selling unneeded land to obtain vitally critical money to support their programs. And yet, the CEO's for local scout councils make significantly more than the average CEO for other non-profit organizations in their area. In Houston, the Scouting CEO makes $300,000, compared with an average locally of $150,000. In Fort Worth, the BSA executive makes $275,000, compared with an average $110,000. In Seattle, the CEO of the local council makes about $180,000. As the article points out, boys never see these highly paid executives. What they get out of scouting comes from the training received from, and examples set by, scoutmasters and other volunteer workers -- all of whom freely work without pay.

Scouting provides valuable training to young people. But somehow its leadership has gotten off track. People donate money to scouting and similar organizations in order to help the kids. They don't realize that they are supporting executive salaries high in the area of six-figures.

Even more disturbing is the fate of the land donated for scouting purposes. How many donors have spent lives loving pieces of wilderness, or at least wild property, and have eventually donated the property to protect it from development and to permit young people in the future to share their happy experiences? How many donors would have given the property if they knew what was to become of it? The article quotes one case where the Scouts seemed to wait only until the donor had died before clear-cutting the property.

Being "trustworthy," as the Boy Scout handbook observes, means keeping your promises. It means people can depend on you. In many cases, the present leadership of Scouting has seemed questionably trustworthy in its stewardship of donated forest lands.

Looking forward

Janus was the Roman god of doors -- both sides of doors, front and back -- endings and beginnings. His two faces looked simultaneously into the future and into the past. He gave his name to January, the beginning of the new year, when we ponder both the past and the future.

As this January comes to an end, the Northwest Corner observes its own landmark: this is my 201st post, the beginning of the blog's third "century." Like Janus, I look backward and forward simultaneously.

Looking backward, I'm happy with the diversity of subjects covered this past year. I'm less happy with the overall quality of my writing. One original goal was to practice and improve stylistically. I doubt that I've made much progress in that area. Although I face no deadlines and have all the time I need to write each post, I tend to write quickly and journalistically. I do a significant amount of self-editing after writing my first draft, but the editing tends to be cosmetic. It generally does not attack basic problems of organization. As a result, I suspect that readers often ask, "What was the point of this post? What was the author trying to accomplish?"

This suspicion assumes the existence of a body of readers. This blog does not have a counter, so I have no idea how many hits per week I get, but other evidence suggests not a lot.

When I sample other blogs, I notice much more focus in topic. There are travel blogs, cooking blogs, exercise blogs, model railroad blogs. There are also blogs that commemorate the daily activities of families, or the neurotic obsessions of lonely writers. The writing may often be mediocre at best, but each of these blogs has a natural constituency, and each attracts significantly more readers than mine.

I suspect that my choice of subject matter is too varied, and too idiosycratic, to attract a regular readership. However, I made the original decision that I would discuss topics that were of interest to myself, of sufficient interest to spend some time writing and occasionally researching. Although my vanity -- always present -- longs to attract an enormous readership, that's not why I started my blog. Nor am I a Charles Dickens, feverishly writing stories with mass appeal in order to feed myself and pay the mortgage. Thanks to Google's Blogger, my overhead is nil, and my only investment is my time -- and I find writing these posts an entertaining -- even therapeutic! -- way to spend a few hours weekly.

Therefore, I anticipate writing on a similar diversity of topics in the coming year. I do hope to avoid my native tendency to "rush into print," taking more time in the future to think through the organization of each post. I'd like to be able to skim back through them all next January, experiencing no cringe of embarrassment