Safari

"Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner."
--Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child

I've never yet seen the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River (all set about with fever-trees), and I don't know when, if ever, I will.  I learned Kipling's alliterative description of the river as a kid, long before I knew such a river really exists.   (It forms South Africa's boundary with Zimbabwe, and a portion of its boundary with Botswana.)

I've never seen it down at river level, as I say, but in May I'll hop across it a couple of times by plane.  My cousin Craig has pulled together a group of twelve relatives and friends, including his wife, his sister, and me, for a safari in southern Africa.  The actual tour begins in Livingstone, Zambia, and ends in Maun, Botswana, but our transatlantic flights touch down in Johannesburg -- hence a chance to "see" the Limpopo a couple of times, albeit from 30,000 feet or so.

The safari actually duplicates, to a large extent, a similar trip my eldest nephew and I joined in 1986.  That earlier trip was somewhat more spartan -- we slept in tents, hiked, and traveled (mostly) by Landrover.  This time we'll stay in "luxury" lodges and hop from campsite to campsite by bush planes.  It will be interesting to decide which kind of travel I prefer.  I'm keeping an open mind, but sleeping in tents in the bush is an amazing experience -- memories of looking up from my reading while sitting on a camp chair and seeing two giraffes smiling down at me ... waking up in the night as an elephant seemed about to step on our tent ... hearing the distant but incredibly loud roar of lions in the night ... having a black mamba pointed out to us along the side of the trail.

It will also be interesting to determine whether Botswana has degenerated in the past 28 years from the virtual wildlife paradise it seemed my first time around.

Our tour begins in Livingstone, with a day to enjoy Victoria Falls.  Last time, our trip also started at Vic Falls, but from the Zimbabwe side of the river -- political events in the interval have probably determined the change.  (We'll walk across the Zambezi River bridge so we can say we've visited Zimbabwe, just as last time we crossed over into Zambia.)  From the north or the south, Vic Falls is one of the natural wonders of the world.  Only the Grand Canyon has overwhelmed me to the same extent on first sight.

I wish I could reproduce photos from the earlier trip, but they are all in the form of slides -- buried somewhere in my basement. 

More details about this year's trip as departure grows closer. (And, by the way, I already have a good idea of what the Crocodile has for dinner.)

Umberto D.

So you're looking ahead to retirement?  But you're worried?  You're not sure you'll have that $5 million (or whatever) in your 401k account -- that impossible amount your financial adviser keeps insisting is essential?

For a little perspective, you might want to watch Umberto D., Vittorio De Sica's 1952 masterpiece, a film shown last night as part of the Seattle Art Museum's Italian cinema series.

Umberto is a retired civil servant living in post-war Italy.  (The film is worthwhile -- if for nothing else -- for its background documentation of a much poorer, more desperate Italy, with streets filled with pedestrians and streetcars, rather than automobiles.) 

Umberto apparently has no relatives.  He lives alone with his small dog "Flike" in a modest rooming house, whose landlady repeatedly demands overdue past rent.  He exists on a small, inadequate pension.  The film opens with scenes of street demonstrations by retirees demanding increases in their miserably low pensions.  Throughout the movie, Umberto spends his days trying to sell off his few meager possessions in an attempt to stay alive.

Umberto's landlady -- a pretentious, high-strung Signora who hosts absurd soirées in her run-down flat,  entertaining her guests by singing operatic arias  -- has decided to evict Umberto from the room in which he's lived for thirty years. 

Umberto, carefully dressed in respectable coat and tie, wanders about the city, accompanied by Flike, desperately attempting to scrape up enough lire to pay the overdue rent and to postpone the inevitable eviction.  He runs into former employers and younger fellow employees, all of whom are superficially friendly, but clearly uncomfortable -- especially once Umberto begins quietly hinting at how he needs just a bit of money to tide him over.  One by one, it's "great seeing you, hope all goes well," and they're gone.  Gone about their important business, business in which he himself once shared.

As his desperation deepens, he considers joining the ranks of the city's many panhandlers, but he can't force himself to accept the necessary but humiliating  sacrifice of his dignity.  (In desperation, he has clever Flike stand on his hind legs and hold an open hat in his mouth, while Umberto hides behind a post, hoping for coins from amused passers by.)

Bit by bit, Umberto gives up hope -- as do we, his audience.  He packs his bag and surrenders his room. He gives the last of his money to his landlady's unmarried, pregnant maid. He attempts unsuccessfully to find Flike a good home.  He then picks his beloved dog up in his arms and prepares to step in the path of a passing train, a double suicide.  Flike's intelligence and desire for survival exceed those of his master; he wriggles frees and the train-- and the moment -- pass by.  The dog, now somewhat leery of his undependable master, runs off and plays with some children.

Umberto sees the simple pleasures of his dog's life, and joins in the play, tossing pine cones for Flike to fetch.  Having given away all his possessions and money, Umberto is left with only his dog, the clothes on his back, and his life.  Like Flike, he grabs at the simple joys of the moment in the park, ignoring whatever the night and the days to come might bring.

And I guess that's our Guide to a Happy Retirement -- seize the joy of each precious moment, and ignore the uncertainties of tomorrow.  (Or, alternatively, I suppose, devote your life to saving up the five or ten million dollars recommended by your financial adviser.)

World class

Whenever a city describes itself as a "world class city," you can generally assume safely that it isn't.  Therefore, I cringe every time I hear local boosters make that claim for Seattle.

But let's face it.  Whatever our jokes about longing for a "lesser Seattle," whatever our irritation at too many furriners movin' in -- especially furriners from California -- we here in the Northwest Corner do crave recognition and respect from the rest of the nation.  Natives (such as I) grew up feeling isolated from the "real" America.  People "back east" considered us a bunch of loggers and fishermen (which we largely were!), a bit of wilderness still being civilized, still being "liberated" from the "Indians."

And major league sports?  The closest major league baseball team when many of us were kids was in Kansas City!  In the absence of much coverage of major league sports on television, the talk in our barber shops tended to center around the exploits of the local high school basketball team.

So, forgive us if we've seemed childishly excited about our Seahawks these past weeks.  This season's NFL success has been the biggest major league event in Seattle since the SuperSonics (since decamped to Oklahoma City) (Oklahoma City!!!)  won the NBA championship in 1979.

Yesterday we only dreamed of being a conference champion.  And now we are one!  Last night, as (we hope) most the world recognizes, we won the National Football Conference championship from arch-rival San Francisco, landing ourselves in the 2014 Super Bowl against Denver.  (Especially sweet has been the fact that the final players in this drama have all been from the western states.)

It wasn't an easy win.  For most of the game, I doubted that it would be a win at all.  But a stout defense, a reasonably good quarterback performance, and a bit of luck gave us the title.

I've read a lot about the hatred between the Seahawks and the 49ers, and between their respective fans. I don't buy it.  I don't feel that way at all.  I've been proud to back the 49ers when they represented the conference, and will be proud to so again when San Francisco's time inevitably comes again.  I like to consider it a terrific rivalry between similar cities and teams -- a love-hate relationship, if you will.

So, anyway, allow us loggers and fishermen up here in the Northwest Corner a couple of weeks to bask in our unaccustomed glory and fame.  Indulge our illusions of being "world class."

And then bring on Mr. Manning and the Broncos -- in Super Bowl XLVIII!

Italian flicks

Reflecting the destruction and chaos following World War II, as well as the rise of Communism and Socialism, postwar Italian films became known for a movement called "neorealism." 

According to Wikipedia's rather awkwardly written summation, neorealist films

are generally filmed with nonprofessional actors--although, in a number of cases, well known actors were cast in leading roles, playing strongly against their normal character types in front of a background populated by local people rather than extras brought in for the film.

They are shot almost exclusively on location, mostly in run-down cities as well as rural areas due to its forming during the post-war era.

The topic involves the idea of what it is like to live among the poor and the lower working class. The focus is on a simple social order of survival in rural, everyday life.

I first became familiar with these films as an undergraduate attending "foreign film" series.  They contrasted strongly with contemporary American movies by their being filmed in black and white, by their emphasis on their characters' social and economic milieux, and by their general pessimism and lack of romanticism. 

Also, they had subtitles!

Although neorealism was dying out by the early 1950s, the films of the succeeding decade, by directors such as Antonioni and -- especially -- Fellini, still contained some of the elements of neorealism while becoming increasingly surrealistic and decreasingly concerned with social injustices.

For anyone of college age in the 1960s and even 1970s, some familiarity with post-war Italian cinema could be reasonably expected.

And now -- the Seattle Art Museum gives us a chance to revisit nine of the landmark films of that era.  Pat and I have tickets to the entire series, but unfortunately had to miss the showing last night of The Bicycle Thief (1948), probably the film of the neorealist genre most familiar to American audiences.  But on succeeding Thursdays, we will be viewing:

Umberto D
I Vitelloni
Le Amiche
Il Posto
The Organizer
8½
Juliet of the Spirits
Amarcord

I'm looking forward eagerly to revisiting each of these films.  My thoughts concerning  some of them may find their way into this blog in coming weeks.

Sharing coffee

Gregory and I had coffee at Starbucks on Tuesday, lingering over our drinks for a couple of hours as we talked and watched the University District crowds pass by on the sidewalk outside.

I first met Gregory over four years ago, when he was a high school student living in my neighborhood.  Now he's a sophomore at a university in New York City, back home in Seattle for semester break.  His family moved out of my neighborhood shortly after he left for college.  We've kept in touch on Facebook, but this was the first time I'd seen him in person since he first went back East to the Big Apple.

Our conversation was satisfying -- from my point of view -- from several perspectives.  Gregory's doing well, of course, and seems to be making the most of the opportunities that college and life in New York offer him.  But I knew that already, just from following him on Facebook, although of course I loved the chance to talk it all over with him in person.

But our conversation was also reassuring on some level beyond the personal.  It was reassuring to be able to carry on a serious conversation with someone many years my junior without feeling any need to lecture him from the heights of my great wisdom and experience, and without his feeling (so far as I could tell) any need to remind me how totally out of touch I truly was with today's world.

Partly, of course, I could empathize with his excitements and concerns and worries, because I so easily recalled my own identical feelings at his age.  More interesting, even surprising, was sensing how his concerns as a 20-year-old were clearly mirrored in analogous concerns in my own life.  I may not have to worry about choosing a major, but I have to make similar choices about how to best use my own time.  Feelings of insecurity, some degree of shyness, concerns about one's own abilities, bafflement by politics and by the mysteries of the universe itself --  the importance of each of these may fluctuate as an individual passes through life, but their existence is shared by each of us at some level of consciousness, independently of our age or experience.

It's wonderful to go overseas, talk to a native of the country you're visiting, and realize that differences in language and custom are superficial -- you both share the joys and predicaments of the human condition.  In the same way, it's deeply reassuring for someone my age to talk with a university student and be hit with the same realization.  These feelings of community between oneself and students who are much younger must be one of the appeals of the teaching profession, at least for those who really love teaching.

As I think back, I realize that this sense of community between generations has been one of the great pleasures of the many trips I've taken with young nephews, nieces, and family friends:  to see the world, and our travels through that world, through their younger eyes, and to realize that we mainly shared the same perceptions and excitement -- and that where our perceptions differed, we could both learn by understanding and appreciating the other's reactions.

Finally, talking with Gregory gave me -- as did travel with my young relatives -- an intimation of earthbound immortality.  Even if we can't live forever, we in some sense live through the generations who follow us and who recapitulate our own hopes and fears within the context of their own times.  This sense of immortality is most strongly felt between parents and their children, of course, but it's also felt on a grander scale between one entire generation and the ones that follow. 

So, any time I can be assured over a cup of coffee that -- in some sense, at least -- I'll live forever, it's well worth my spending a couple of hours (of very enjoyable conversation) to get that assurance.

Karma

As an insurance lawyer, I've spent much of my career scoffing professionally at "whiplash" injuries (the quotation marks often discernible in the sneering manner with which I pronounce the words).

These "injuries" result in subjective and unverifiable pains that seem to last forever, morphing at times into strange entities like fibromyalgia and chronic pain syndrome, diagnoses requiring questionable (to me) and expensive (to the insurers) "modalities" like chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, and so forth.  The "so forth" descending the scale of credibility into such absurdities as herbal and aroma therapies.

The usual cure was the "green poultice" -- application of  hundred dollar bills to the affected areas -- I sneered.

But -- what goes around, comes around.

In early October, I began developing a mild stiff neck.  The stiffness gradually spread to my shoulders and upper back.  By the beginning of December, I was feeling sharp pains in my left shoulder blade area.  The pain now is fairly constant -- although varying greatly from hour to hour in intensity -- and bounces around from one part of my neck and upper back to another.

A week ago, I had a physical therapy session.  The therapist assured me that there was nothing seriously wrong.  But she didn't seem to know quite what the problem was.  She gave me some home exercises to work on.

The home exercises may help in the long run.  They hurt in the short run.

But my purpose in writing this post isn't to complain about my aches and pains -- as richly satisfying as my so complaining actually proves to be.  I merely reflect on the irony that the mythical complaints of those many whiners whom I've derided over the years have now sprung full-blown into existence within my own body.  The "whiners" at least had an auto accident or a slip and fall on which to pin their troubles.

I can blame nothing but the peculiar sense of humor of the gods. 

Karma.  How amusing!  Not.

Merry Christmas!

The Northwest Corner's recently lackadaisical proprietor is on his way out the door.

No, no -- I don't mean he's quitting, however desirable that might be!  He's headed for another family Christmas in Sonoma, hopping by prop planes from Seattle, to Portland, to the magnificence of Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa.  The airport that's too exclusive to permit jet landings.  Or something like that.

Hope my readers enjoy Happy Holidays, whatever their religious persuasion (if any).  This entire publishing operation will creak back into motion next weekend.  Or if not then, at least after the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

Feliz Navidad!  And Joyeaux Noël!

Couging it

Coug it

Refers to the Washington State University (Cougars) football team:
1. To snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
2. To lose when there is no possible way to do so, and to do it in a particularly spectacular manner

It looked like WSU was going to win the game, but they decided to coug it.

--Urban Dictionary

 

The Northwest Corner has many interests, and covers many aspects of life.  Not generally sports reporting, however.

But when a sports term, from my own state, reaches Urban Dictionary -- my window on the "real world" in which I putatively exist -- it seems worthy of comment.  In fact, it seems worthy of memorialization in this chronicle of all things Northwestern.  Where future generations can ponder the phenomenon, and shake their collective head.

As you might guess, the term "coug it" is based on a consistent level of performance, not on any single episode of incompetence.  Yesterday's performance by WSU, however, may have been definitive.  As one on-line comment noted -- from this point forward, when internet dictionaries define "coug it," they will necessarily include a clip from the 2013 New Mexico Bowl.

The New Mexico Bowl was not high on my list of football priorities for the year, but I turned on the TV when the game had less than three minutes to go.  The Cougars had an eight point lead -- Colorado State had just scored.  Not an impressive lead, but WSU had possession of the ball and their CSU opponents had used up all their time outs.  Then the unthinkable happened.  The Cougars fumbled -- they're couging it! -- but no, they were saved! -- the replay showed that the runner's knee was down before the ball came loose.  Whew!  The Cougs had made a first down.  Less than two minutes to play.

At this point, the obvious strategy was based on simple mathematics.  Three knees to the turf, 45 seconds between plays, plus the time taken by each play.  Possibly time for a punt.  The clock runs out.  The game's over.

But we're talking about the hapless Cougars.  The coach inexplicably -- and he has a lot of explaining to do -- runs a play.  The ball's fumbled, this time for real.   Colorado State scores eight points with just 33 seconds left to play.  Wow!  What a recovery for the Rams!  We're going into overtime.

Ooops!  No, we're not.  The receiver for the Mighty Cougs fumbles the kickoff reception deep in their own territory.  Cougs lose by a field goal.

They've couged it again!

But hold up your heads, Cougars.  Be proud.  Not many college football teams can say that their name has become a verb, defined in one of the most popular dictionaries of our time.  Yesterday, you made the term "coug it" immortal.

Going out with gusto

Merrill Newman, age 85, signed up for a tourist trip to North Korea.  Right away, you know this story's going to have a bad ending, right?

As we all know, of course, it almost did have a bad ending.  They grabbed Mr. Newman as he was about to return home and charged him with all those odd offenses that countries like North Korea charge folks with.  After all, the dude fought against them in 1953, the scoundrel.  Luckily, cooler heads eventually prevailed -- I suppose that's what happened -- and a stilted and bogus apology later, Newman is relaxing in Santa Cruz with stories no doubt to tell.

While Newman was being held by the Democratic People's Republic, on-line comments here at home to reports of his capture and detention, while fairly sympathetic, were also laced with strong strains of sarcasm and exasperation.  Why would anyone travel to North Korea, they groused, and especially why would an 85-year-old do so? 

Why indeed?  Well, sixty years is a long time for grudges to be held; Vietnam veterans return routinely to the scenes of their battles in Vietnam.  And Newman, a retired financial officer, has always had a more adventuresome streak than his occupation might suggest.  He and his wife have spent a lifetime traveling around the world -- and that doesn't mean to resort areas.

One of the trekking companies I've used frequently has offered "adventure" travel to North Korea for several years.  While I wouldn't have anticipated an "adventure" such as that granted to Merrill Newman, I did seriously consider such a trip.  I suppose I wouldn't have been much of a target for North Korean paranoia.  Any aggression toward North Korea in the past could only have been in a game or two of Risk. 

I don't rule out such a trip in the future, if the itinerary appears sufficiently interesting.

What would be the downside?  No one was threatening Newman with execution -- the primary risk to his life came from his lack of medication -- but I suppose ten years of hard labor would be an unpleasant way to spend your waning years.  (As the New York Times points out, Kenneth Bae is serving 15 years of hard labor in North Korea because of his alleged Christian proselytizing -- he was a missionary.)

But when I'm 85, if I have to die I'd love knowing that ninety percent of Americans thought I had my death coming for being such a foolishly foolhardy old codger -- for not staying prudently and safely at home practicing origami at the senior center. And it would cheer me onward on my existential voyage to have the other ten percent saying -- aloud or to themselves -- "Right on, dude! If you gotta go, that's the way to go!" 

If given only the two choices, in other words, I'd choose a fall off a mountain or facing a DPRK firing squad to spending my final six months going quietly psychotic while hooked up to machines in an intensive care ward in Seattle.

Caffeinating my telomeres

Whenever I see a teenager downing a cup of coffee, I recall that I was 23 before lack of sleep -- and perhaps a desire for the semblance of adulthood -- forced me to step up to a fast food stand in Menlo Park, California, and order my first cup of coffee.  Until that day, I had found the taste strangely nauseating, preferring to take my caffeine in tablet form.

Since that first cup, my consumption has increased exponentially.  I can down a pot of coffee a day without blinking my eyes.  It's hot, it's liquid, it perks me up -- in fact, frequent coffee consumption may be all that keeps my heart beating.

From the beginning, I've been nervous about the effect of all that stimulant on my health.  But, in recent years, I've been cheered and reassured by studies that have indicated that the oxidants and other ingredients in coffee actually improve one's health and prolong one's life.  The ultimate American dream -- a vice that's good for you!  I've embraced the dark brown brew wholeheartedly.

It was too good to last, of course.  Now, studies reveal that caffeine shortens the telomeres on one's DNA.

Telomeres are a fashionable topic right now, if you haven't noticed.  They are the caps on the strands of DNA within your body, protecting the DNA -- as the article analogizes -- like the plastic tips on your shoe laces.  Every time your DNA divides, however, the telomeres shorten.  Ultimately, they shorten to nothing, nada, zip, and the cell dies.  Soon, many cells die.  When you run out of critical cells, you -- how to put this gently?  --  you then cash in your chips.

Experiments on the DNA of a yeast (one cultivated to bear certain genetic properties similar to those of humans) have shown that ethanol (the good stuff in beer) lengthens telomeres, but that caffeine shortens them.  In other words, I've spent my life since age 23 in a fool's paradise.  I should have been drinking beer.

Next time I pass a gentleman whose state of intoxication is obviously chronic rather than merely acute sprawled on the sidewalk, I expect him to leer drunkenly at me.  "Dude!" he'll shout!  "Look at me!  See my nice long telomeres?  Hahaha!  I'll soon be dancing on your grave -- me and my bottle, we will! 

"But have a nice day, and go have yourself another nice cuppa Java!" 

And I'll grind my teeth, muttering to myself: "He's right!"  That first cup in Menlo Park started me down the long slippery path of telomere shrinkage.  What a fool I was!

Until I read next month's study refuting today's revelation.
----------------------------------
(12-5-23) Three years after I wrote the above, a study showed that while caffeine itelf shortens telomeres, coffee as a whole substance lengthens telomeres.

The present study, which investigated the relationships between caffeine and coffee intakes and telomere length, shows that as intake of caffeine -- as an isolated substance -- increases, telomeres tend to be shorter in U.S. adults. On the other hand, this investigation indicates that as coffee intake increases, telomeres tend to be longer. Because telomere length is a biomarker of the senescence of cells, the present findings suggest that cell aging may be accelerated in U.S. adults as caffeine intake increases, but may be decelerated as coffee consumption increases. Given the magnitude and importance of these relationships, additional research is warranted.

Drink coffee, avoid No-Doz!

Tucker, L.A. Caffeine consumption and telomere length in men and women of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Nutr Metab (Lond) 14, 10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-017-0162-x

Easter for Neanderthals

Neanderthal burial ceremony
(portrayal)

Reading science fiction will do it to you -- lure you into thinking outside whatever comfortable box you habitually curl up in.  I'm nearing the conclusion of Children of the Mind, the fourth volume in a series by Orson Scott Card, the series that began with Ender's Game.  Mr. Card's interests are extremely broad, and his series delves into -- among many other topics -- microbiology and comparative religion.

But my sci fi reading merely predisposed me to worry about the topic I want to discuss.  The actual trigger was today's MSNBC article discussing gene sequencing performed on the oldest DNA so far discovered -- DNA from well-preserved bones believed to be 400,000 years old.  Analysis of the DNA showed that the bones, discovered in northern Spain in an area well-frequented at one time by Neanderthal populations, were actually more closely related to a pre-human population whose fossil remains were recently uncovered in Siberia.  The MSNBC article discusses the possible implications for the ancestral relationship between "modern" humans, Neanderthals, and other species or subspecies that roamed about Europe and Asia during the past 600,000 years or so.

The discussion was interesting, but what it triggered in my own mind were the theological implications.  Neanderthals themselves were not stupid, and presumably the populations with DNA more closely related to our own were also, like the Neanderthals, tool-makers, artists, users of oral language, and (probably) practitioners of primitive religious rites. Modern man (e.g., Cro Magnon) may or may not have interbred with Neanderthals -- no conclusive evidence is yet available.  What -- to put it bluntly -- is the Christian position on the Neanderthal question?  Did they have souls?  Were they subject to divine judgment?  Will Cro Magnons and Neanderthals, and the early hominids related to them, consort together with us in Heaven?

Putting my trust in Yahoo, whose mighty search engine never fails me, I did a quick search.  I was fairly sure that none of the major churches had developed any definitive doctrine on the subject, but I wanted to test the winds of serious theological discussion.  I was sorely disappointed.  I found a lot of message boards that discussed the issue as a joke, or declared with dogmatic certainty that Neanderthals, if they had even ever existed, existed before Adam and Eve were created, and so were just another form of chimpanzee.

And there are Catholic forums, where you might expect to find some theological analysis, but these forums merely raised the question, allowing equally unqualified laymen to speculate with answers.  The typical response:  Wow, that's a good question!

Likewise, this post proposes no solution to the question, because no one appears to have given it serious consideration.  Or, perhaps wisely, serious theological discussion may have been deferred until we have more scientific data to work with.  For a Christian, the fate of Neanderthal souls is irrelevant to his own life and salvation, I suppose.  But, like the fate of those millions of fully human individuals who lived before Christ's birth, it does perhaps affect how he views the nature of God and his religion. (Or, perhaps, conversely.)

For a Calvinist, I doubt that the question poses much of a problem.  Humanity is such a mess that it's wonderful that God predestined a few of us (Calvinists) for Heaven, just to show that he's a good guy at heart, leaving the rest of us to the horrors that we so richly deserve.  On the other hand, for those Christians who believe that Christ's sacrifice redeemed all of mankind, including those born too early to accept explicitly his redemption, the answer is easier: If, in fact, Neanderthals had souls capable of choosing between right and wrong, the possibility of redemption was provided to them retroactively, and will depend on the nature of their lives and their willingness to worship God in whatever form he appeared to their level of civilization.

Those represent two extremes, perhaps, on the "Neanderthal in Heaven" continuum.  Obviously, theological speculation on such a subject would be grossly speculative.  Nevertheless, it would be interesting to read serious discussion of the issue by theologians who are considered well-qualified by the branch or denomination of Christianity to which they belong.

If no theologians want to discuss the subject, I'm confident that Orson Scott Card would be willing to write science fiction taking it on.  He would suggest solutions that are intelligent, moving, satisfying -- but perhaps not wholly orthodox.

Storming the Bastille

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

--"The Gondoliers"

I hate elitism.

Except, of course, on those rare occasions when I happen to be a member of the elite.  As I believed myself to be, a couple of years ago, when Alaska Airlines first invited me to apply for "Pre-Check" status with TSA.  After a brief background check by the appropriate authorities, during which they apparently overlooked a couple of unexcused absences in junior high school, I was notified of my new status.

I had met the enemy, and he was me.  I was elite.  And, hypocritical liberal that I am, I loved it.

For two years, every time I flew anywhere I was reminded of my elite status.  The riff-raff stood in long, serpentine lines, waiting to go through security.  I walked up to the Pre-Check line -- but there was virtually no line, just a bored TSA attendant waiting for me -- showed my boarding pass and driver's license, put my carry-on bag on the conveyer, and walked through an old-fashioned metal detector.  At a time when the poor sucker waiting in the normal line had moved four feet forward, I had already settled into a bar and ordered a beer.

That was it!  No shoe removal.  No displaying of my under-three-ounce liquid containers.  No emptying of pockets and embarrassing unbuckling of belt.  No display of my x-rayed body to a crew of giggling, lascivious, flight attendants.  (Well, that last sentence was based only on suspicion, not observation.)

But this October, things changed.  I walked to the Pre-Check line and discovered -- horrors! -- a line.  A long line.  Full of passengers whom I can only, in all charity, describe as "riff-raff."  Sub-noble.  Un-elite.  And yet, all believing themselves my equal in the airline aristocracy.  At Thanksgiving, it was even worse.  The Pre-Check lines were longer than the regular lines.  What was going on?

As a story in today's New York Times relates, TSA has opened the floodgates.  No longer are only specially selected members of airlines' mileage programs permitted to apply.  TSA has set a goal of shoving 25 percent of the traveling public into Pre-Check status by the end of the year, a goal that the Times says has already been met.  The "unintended consequence" -- unintended but hardly unpredictable -- being a longer line at the sole Pre-Check check-in point than at the many "normal" check-ins.

As one flyer complained, “If we’re all going to be ‘special,’ we need more security lines devoted to our specialness.”

All I can say is that I enjoyed my two years of specialness.  If I had been the pauper in The Prince and the Pauper, the prince would never have pushed his way back into the palace.  But, like so much that is good in life -- well, enjoyable if not "good" -- my flirtation with elitism has come to an end.  As the Grand Inquisitor points out in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, once we're all noble, no one's noble. 

At least I still get to keep my shoes on as I wend my way through security.

An era's end, in Dallas

It was a chilly, overcast Friday in November.  Already a liberal arts graduate, I had decided to change direction radically, and earn a degree in physics from the University of Washington.  I was living in Lander Hall, a dormitory torn down this past year and rebuilt in a more modern vernacular for the more demanding students of today.

I noted vaguely that a lot of kids seemed to have their radios turned on as I left the dorm and headed out for my 11:30 chemistry class in Bagley Hall.  I became more alert out on the street where I saw other students holding transister radios up to their ears.  Finally, I asked someone what was going on.  The president had been shot, his condition unknown, was the reply.  Stunned, I continued to class, sat down in the large lecture hall, and waited for the professor.  A student walked up to the blackboard and wrote the incredible message that President Kennedy was dead.  Moments later, the professor walked in, saw the message, and asked the class if it was true. 

"I don't feel like talking about chemistry today," he said.  He walked out of the classroom.  Everyone filed silently out of the room.  As I turned north from Bagley, I saw the flagpole across from the Administration Building.  The flag was already at half-mast.

The next couple of days -- the swearing in of LBJ, the flight back to Washington, the unbelievable assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the funeral mass -- were spent in front of small black and white television sets, all over campus living groups and apartment houses.

Looking back, Kennedy now seems but one president in a group -- Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and even Nixon to a degree -- who reflected a general bipartisan consensus regarding foreign policy, and whose differences with respect to domestic policy were ones of degree and emphasis, not of basic principle.  As Milton Friedman said -- and as was later sometimes attributed to President Nixon -- "We are all Keynsians, now."

At the time, however -- for young people at least, with our shorter memories -- Kennedy represented a breath of fresh air after what seemed to us eight stuffy years of life in a musty neo-Victorian town house.  The Eisenhower era -- which in retrospect appears to represent the apogee of American success and affluence -- felt at the time intellectually stultifying, an era of enforced conformity, of McCarthy paranoia, of a fear of the unfettered intellect itself.  The "ticky-tack" houses of Levittown seemed to sum up the American dream.  The black and white morality of the TV Western represented the black and white certainties of the American myth.  To become a member of "middle management" for some corporation was a most praise-worthy ambition for an ambitious young man.

Kennedy and his wife displayed for many of us a formerly unsuspected plane of American life -- aristocratic in taste and behavior, but with a concern, at least professed, for those at the bottom of the heap.  Although Kennedy had accomplished little yet to advance civil rights, we knew ending a century of segregation, formal or otherwise, was his administration's goal.  His plan for a "Peace Corps," proposed during the 1960 campaign, electrified young people -- a government program that advocated public service as a first step for college graduates, rather than jumping into a corporate management training program.

I remember learning that Robert Frost was speaking, and Pablo Casals was playing, at Kennedy's inauguration events.  Today, such participation by cultural icons would be unremarkable.  Then, it represented an unprecedented acceptance of talent previously ignored -- often contemptuously -- into the mainstream of American society and government.

As many writers are commenting, it wasn't so much what Kennedy did as president that made his death so devastating.  It was what we felt he had represented.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

His death signaled, we feared, the nipping in the bud of America's new-found spirit of adventure, courage, curiosity, and intellectual openness.

As one friend told me, a few years later, he felt that the world for which he'd been educated, and the world he understood, seemed to collapse in upon itself on November 22, 1963.  

Our fears weren't entirely unfounded, and my friend's reaction to Kennedy's death has proved prophetic.

Go swing from the trees

Seb Oliver / Getty Images/Cultura RF

USA Today

A childhood buddy and I permitted ourselves to bore our younger Facebook friends this morning, as we reminisced about a playground back in our home town where we'd spent many happy hours as kids. 

The playground had been equipped with unusually high slides, a "jungle gym" that was chronically crowded with young monkeys like myself, doing just about anything but swing from our tails, a "push-it-yourself" turntable or merry-go-round, teeter-totters, rows of trapezes, rings, and chin-up bars, and a number of other devices that encouraged kids to explore the limits of their courage and their muscular abilities.  The playground was enclosed by a perimeter fence, and was entered through a day building that offered vending machines, offices, and a large floor where daily folk dancing lured some kids inside for a short respite from the mayhem occurring outside.

The city provided some supervision -- the law of the jungle prevailed only in part.  My friend remembered adults attempting to keep boys from shooting down the slides on pieces of wax paper for the purpose of increasing the slickness of the surface.  I do vaguely recall such efforts, but if made they were largely ignored.  Parental supervision?  In the years I played there, I don't recall any parents having ever being present.  The "old people" sent their kids to the playground, on foot or by bicycle, and reminded them to be home in time for dinner.

The morning's nostalgic dialogue reminded me of an article I saw yesterday in USA Today, discussing two studies on the present state of child fitness.  An Australian study found that the time in which American children could run a set distance had declined six percent per decade since 1970. The average American child thirty years ago ran a mile about 1.5 minutes faster than his counterpart today. Think of that! Another study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that only half of American adolescents are physically active at least five days a week.

“What we found, and others too, is the average young person is sedentary, has very little physical activity, and low levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity,” says Bruce Simons-Morton [an investigator participating in the J.A.H. study].

I've been back to my hometown in recent years, and have checked out the old playground.  Virtually all the old equipment has been removed.  It's been replaced by "safe and sane" equipment -- low in height, carefully designed to avoid injury, heavy on soft plastic rather than hard metal.  It also would have been viewed as incredibly boring and "kid's stuff" by me and my friends when we were ages 8 to 12 or 13 or so, the years when our response to a suggestion that we head for the playground was met by hopping on bikes and taking off like a posse on horseback in a Western flick.

Why don't kids get similar exercise today.  Partly, as I've just suggested, because cities and insurers are scared to death of lawsuits against the city by any kid injured in the free-wheeling play that used to be considered a normal part of being a kid.  Partly, it's because of changes in the culture of young people themselves:  Kids today have less-strenuous ways to compete and find excitement, most of it involving a computer monitor.  The Australian study blamed "lack of green space, suburbanization, changes in school-based physical education programs, and too much screen time watching TV or playing video games."  

I should also add a pet concern of mine -- the change in culture of American parents themselves.  Parents were once happy to let their little Indians whoop it up in the hours between meals, once satisfied that any homework was done and their music practice was completed.  I suspect, without having personal knowledge, that my mother sighed a sigh of relief once she saw the dust from our bikes as we headed for the park, or even just took off for parts unknown around town.  Parents today have developed a high level of fear regarding the safety of their children.  Many or most middle class parents rarely let their children out of sight, unless the kids are safely involved in a structured activity.

(And don't get me started on the question of "play dates"!)

As one example, I live in a very peaceful and safe neighborhood.  I also happen to live on a designated bicycle route, with streams of bike riders passing in front of my house.  If I had lived in Seattle when I was young, I would have noted that most of those bikers were gangs of kids.  Today, however, I rarely see children on bikes, unless they're out riding with their parents.  This tight family bonding may or may not be a beneficial cultural change, but I doubt that it contributes to the amount of exercise that children and adolescents get on a daily basis. 

Even if increased parental involvement in children's lives contributes to their development in various other ways, I suspect parents would do their kids a favor, physically, if they frequently said, "Get out of the house and give me some peace and quiet.  Be back in time for dinner."  Sure, there are risks awaiting unsupervised kids in today's world.  But so what?  There certainly were similar risks when I was a child; they just weren't as well publicized.

And the increasingly sedentary life of kids today has its own proven risks.  As one of the Australian researchers commented:

Improving fitness also improves self-esteem, improves mood, reduces depression and even improves academic performance. It’s just a little investment that can lead to fantastic changes now and in adulthood.

So go climb a tree, gang.  Ride a bike.  Play pick-up games in the park, games without referees or uniforms or adult coaches.  Fall down, occasionally, and scrape your knees.  Don't let your childhood pass you by with your only physical trauma being development of arthritis in your thumbs from excessive texting.

The dark rises

"The noise from the rookery was louder, even though the daylight was beginning to die.  They could see the dark birds thronging over the treetops, more agitated than before, flapping and turning to and fro."
--Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising

Today marks the midpoint of November.  The sky's been dark all day.  Rain fell all morning.  The rains tapered off a bit after noon -- although the skies dimmed even darker -- and so I decided to go for a nice walk. 

The world often looks strange in mid-November -- the beauties of autumn still linger to some extent, but winter hovers over us, warnng us of what lies ahead.  As I look down the street, I see trees still clothed gracefully in yellow leaves.  About my house, however, the limbs are bare, stretched out to the sky like the arms and fingers of skeletal witches, hurling down curses.  The clouds overhead are dark and threatening.  And above it all shriek the cries of the crows, millions of crows, crows flying singly and in formation, crows circling above me, landing on trees, and on telephone wires, and on the very ground ahead of me -- singly and in unison, daring me to draw closer.

"Fool!" they seem to shout. "You'll be well sorry you didn't stay warm and dry in your cozy little house before this stroll is over."  Crows lie and they exaggerate wildly, of course; nothing untoward occurred.  But the crows, and the skeletal trees, and the churning black clouds above certainly darkened my mood.

Mid-November is still autumn, still lovely in places.  Rows of trees along the ship canal, dividing my neighborhood from the university, still bear foliage with blended colors resembling those of a ripe peach, transitioning from yellow to pale red.  The air grows ever colder, but not yet bitterly so.  The southwest wind blew gently, although it strengthened as I walked, promising to blow ever worse weather up from the distant ocean.  Pumpkins still grin from porches, although closer inspection reveals their grins to have been decaying, day by day.

Nature still shows signs of life.  But death, I know, and the crows don't hesitate to remind me, lies just around the bend.  The days will be growing shorter for five more weeks, before the sun finally turns reluctantly about, and begins inching north again.  But our weather will continue growing colder for at least another month past the solstice.

Surely the crows themselves must dread the coming storms, the bitter cold?  Evidently not.  They caw maliciously, spitefully, hurling their jeers at me as I pass.  Earth herself, who last spring seemed so gracious, so loving, so willing to offer beauty and joy -- Earth herself now seems to have turned upon mankind, daring us to survive the worst she has to offer us in the coming months.

I don't believe all this silly anthropomorphism, of course.  I'm just witnessing the onset of another normal Seattle winter.  But my Norse and Anglo-Saxon ancestors tug at me.  They call  within my soul from the haunted forests and marshes of primeval Europe, warning me that nature chooses her favorites, plays with our lives. Earth is not always a benevolent Mother, they warn me; she often appears as a she-wolf, a merciless predator who  leaps for our throats. 

My walk over, I slip back into my house, chased by the mocking laughter of the crows.  Only two and a half months until Groundhog Day!