Around the World Winter 06

Madrid Taxis


I’m finally sorting out the trek notes from my North Africa trip this past fall and thought I'd pass on some of my impressions and pics.

Que Ciudad!

On the way to work in Morocco I had a short layover in the Old World.
Madrid is a striking city. I wish I’d had more than 48 hours to take it in.

I’m a veteran “urban trekker,” though, so two days gave me enough time to get a feel. I covered over 20 miles on foot around town and had a great time. Probably even lost a pound or two.

Anyone traveling in Europe can’t help being impressed with the real affection the locals have for their cities. Madrid is a case in point.

You can see it in the dogged determination to hang on to historically significant buildings and neighborhoods, in the reverence for place that drives meticulous efforts to highlight beauty at every corner, and in the way Europeans actually “live” in their public places. Parks and plazas and streets are always full of people hanging out and enjoying the pleasure of being around other people.









It’s not that we Americans don’t like our cities.

But it seems we’re more ambivalent about our urban scapes.

We sort of like them and are willing to hang out with each other in movie theatres or malls or in stadiums.

At the same time, we’re willing to let cities deteriorate or die if it “makes sense” to do so and--in general--we seem to have a lot less trouble scraping even the most important buildings or sites.

A pretty interesting difference. You can’t help but notice it.

I kicked back in my room after the two day trek and watched a little television the night before heading out.

Didn’t have many choices so I ended up watching a local game show.

Some of it was familiar since it was very loosely based on “Jeopardy.” The production values were current.

The host could have passed for conventionally hip here. Slightly overweight, 30-ish, ironic and pleasant, soul patch, male pattern baldness, stylized 50’s bowling shirt and 60’s IBM ‘scientific management” heavy frame glasses.

The contestants had to answer detailed questions about various neighborhoods around Madrid. It was pop culture stuff along with the most specific questions about history and geography and architecture and current events.

If you didn’t know the city in great detail you got embarrassed.

The people on the show knew their stuff.

I guess that wasn’t so surprising. Any show can find individuals that will make the grade.

What surprised me was that the show is a big hit in Madrid. Again, Europeans may value their cities more than Americans.







If a show like that ever made it in a place like Los Angeles, contestants would have to know who built the Watts Towers or give the exact street corner of the giant stucco doughnut atop Randy’s in west LA.

I can answer both of those questions—even after moving out of town two years ago—so I guess in at least some ways I’m a European at heart.

The Color of White

Many European cities are full of millions of white people.

I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising. But it really is for an American traveling in Europe.

A place like Madrid can feel exotic to a New World citizen because most of our cities are so "racially diverse.”

Even a city like Minneapolis—the frozen home of powder milk biscuits that help Nordic Protestants do what needs to be done—can come across like the capital of the 3rd world compared to some places in Europe.

By nature I tend to look for difference and diversity, but like most Americans, I’m used to a racial and cultural idiom of white, black, brown, red and yellow.

Madrid, where pretty much everybody in the central city is “white” according to that simple “crayola crayon” world view, moves you into distinctions often lost in America.

I saw “white” people with dark brown eyes, light brown eyes, light green eyes, dark green eyes, light blue eyes, and dark blue eyes. Even red eyes post vino.

Every shade and hue of blonde hair, red hair, brown hair, black hair and sometimes blue hair among the grannies. Straight hair, wavy hair and kinked hair. Thin hair and thick.

Dark brown skin, light brown skin, pinkish skin, reddish skin, pale skin and pale skin with freckles.

Then you’ve gotta take the different eye, skin and hair colors and textures and mix ‘em and match ‘em into cool and complicated combinations to do justice to the actual people on the street.

Is there another “racial” group with more physical diversity than “white” people?

Makes you wonder if there’s more to things than the crayola thinkers imagine.

At the very least it makes “white people watching” in Europe pretty entertaining.










Lithping with the Betht of Them

I’ve noticed that people of various Spanish speaking nations are convinced that their version of Spanish is superior to others.

My family and I lived in Guatemala many years ago for a number of months doing intensive language study.

The Guatemalans laughed out loud at the way Mexicans speak Spanish, and some Argentines I met there thought that Guatemalan Spanish barely qualified as “civilized.”

Turns out Castilians are the cockiest of the lot.

My feeble attempts to speak the mother tongue provided amusement for more than a few of the locals I ran across.

They asked me about my “Mexican/American” accent with a knowing smile and encouraged me to soften my ‘c’s.’ In Castilian Spanish a name like “Garcia” is pronounced gar-thee-ya rather than gar-see-ya.

Ath a rethult, everybody thounds like they’ve got a lithp.

By my thecond day I wath lithping with the betht of ‘em.



Place des Nations-Unies










Ramadan at Rick's

Pretty much everybody in the US knows Casablanca in the landscape of our imaginations.

The city is cool 40's snap brim fedoras and foggy airports. Clipped and clever dialogue. Homely anti-heroes and conflicted beauties who love them. World weary wisdom and passionate heroic intensity. Bogart and noir. Rick's Cafe Americain. Mysterious and worldly Arabs.






That last part's the thing.

While I was doing my due diligence I heard about the "worldly Arabs" of Casablanca from a lot of experienced folks in Morocco.

The Moroccans were supposed to be a pretty "user friendly" Islamic people, with the Casablancans the most western of all. I was expecting a toned down take on the kind of Islamic religious zeal that has Americans worked up into a pseudo-religious frenzy.

In some ways that view is pretty true.

Casablanca looks more western than most cities in the Islamic world. And judging by the way some of the fashionable young men and women dress it's not your father's Caliphate. At first glance it's more Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rolla than Wahabi worldview.

I got in country at the start of Ramadan. When in Mecca do as the Meccans. I decided to keep the dawn to dusk fast as best I could while there.

Christians once valued fasting as a way to discipline desire and open a pathway to what might be.

Western believers largely dropped that discipline long ago and put their faith and money on an overflowing marketplace. So spending time in a place where lots of people ritually and socially deny themselves something as basic as food was new for me.

Traditional Shoe Sale



When I'm traveling I normally buy my food at local markets. It's a good way to save money and get a better feel for the place. But shopping at a downtown supermarket in Casa during the fast was even more revealing than usual.

The place was packed out with eager folks getting food for the “break-fast” meal at dusk when everybody chows down after starving all day.

Every city in Morocco has a slightly different official breakfast time, often announced with loudspeakers or sirens. In Casa you can start downing the couscous at 6:30 pm sharp.

Anyway, folks went out of their way to look their best even though I knew they were suffering from hunger pangs and even dizziness since it was about 3 pm. Muslim people consider personal cleanliness of the utmost importance, a fact I learned firsthand a few years ago when--after walking around the hot and dirty streets of Cairo for hours--a good natured young man pointed out my need for “a more effective deodorant.”

Everybody looked sharp and clean, with about half the people wearing more traditional clothes and the other half wearing the west. And nobody seemed noticeably out of sorts, something I observed in most of the people I met during the fasting hours throughout Morocco.

Check out lines in the developing world will normally test the patience of even the Dalai Lama. This market was no different. I was in the “express” lane, which meant I had a chance to get through a ten person line in 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes. But even in lines moving at geologic speeds, folks were positive and unruffled.

Well, except for me. By that point my stomach was grumbling and my glucose stores were pretty much burned up. Feeling dizzy and a little on edge, the last place I wanted to be was squashed among the pious and cheerful in a hot, humid market. By the time I got through the line I secretly wanted to wipe the annoyingly pleasant expressions off a few of their faces :^) I realized at that point that I had a few things to learn from my temporary neighbors.

Beyond people’s dignified and pleasant demeanor, though, the most impressive thing about Ramadan in Casablanca was the simple fact that everyone observed the fast. Or at least, everybody I ran across got with the spiritual diet.

No sign of anybody trying to sneak a mini-chocolate donut on the sly. No restaurant or café open between dawn and dusk (well, with one exception). No sidewalk food peddlers. No smells of food cooking. Nada. For a westerner, it's almost inconceivable to spend all day in a big city without the sights and sounds and smells of food and of people eating.

Human nature being what it is, I'm sure lots of folks in the city were doing potato chips and Snickers bars when nobody else was looking. And I'd guess some families in the high end suburbs got their three squares behind their high walls. But none of that is immediately visible to a person spending a week on the streets among Casablancans.

Hollywood visions of Casablanca aside, and in spite of Casa’s French colonial roots, the reality is the vast majority of folks there are deeply committed Muslims. So much for the “worldly Arab” reputation. Maybe Casa is ‘more western’ than some other cities in Morocco and the Islamic world, but it’s a place of serious faith and practice by any western standards.

I sometimes hear these days about the beginnings of a Muslim “Reformation” or even a Muslim “Enlightenment.” Some people believe that Islam will join Christianity and Judaism as a faith thoroughly modified and re-interpreted to make it more compatible with secular modernity, capitalism and democracy.

Well, maybe. But from my experiences in the Islamic world, I wouldn’t hold my breath that will happen anytime soon.

Hassan II Mosque


I don’t want to give you the impression that I faithfully kept my short-term fasting vows, because I didn't.

On my last day in town, after walking for a few miles along the “Corniche,” the developed water front and beach area in the western part of the city, I got so dizzy by late afternoon that I just had to get some food. But nothing was open. What to do?

I walked north--head hazy and stomach growling--for about another mile until I saw what looked to me at the time like a vision of splendor.

It was The Golden Arches. If there was any restaurant in Casa that would probably ignore Ramadan, McDonald’s was the place.

McMaroc is the local tag for a worldwide franchise that has simply kicked Mohammed's booty. Current score: 99 billion served to 1.3 billion believers.

McRick's


And sure enough, it was open for business. So I knocked down a meal along with some other happy infidels.

Now, I’ve probably eaten at McDonald’s ten times as an adult. Yes, it’s possible for an American to achieve this. I've never liked fast food, even as a kid.

But I’ve never been happier walking through the doors of a restaurant than I was walking into that air-conditioned ka-ching! sanctuary. I’ve never been so grateful to see such disregard for religious values and traditions.

It was a beautiful sight.

I guess hunger can re-arrange the mind wonderfully :^)






New Convert

I've never been much of a picture taker. I've always prefered to replay events in my mind rather than through photos or videos.

Visual memories stored in your mind get layered with emotion and interpretation and all kinds of other good things that turn them into a pretty rich mixture. Photos or videos sometimes seem too literal a medium for satisfying memories.

I'm a medievalist in some ways and I freely admit it.

But I've been getting more into picture taking recently. The only explanations I can give for my change of attitude are my ageing brain and digital cameras.

The problem with rich and layered visual memories as you get older is that they get stuck in some inaccessable corner of your brain where you can't get to them. All you soft lens contact wearers will recognize the experience of one of your dried-out contacts folding up and disappearing somewhere underneath your eyelid and around the corner of your eyeball.

That's pretty much what happens eventually with visual memories. You can't remember what people or places look like anymore. Sometimes--as you get into your 40's--you can hardly remember what you looked like at 20 as you stare into the mirror and wonder who this old guy is standing in the bathroom wearing your clothes. So pictures and videos can be a pretty good reminder that jump starts all that layered good stuff again.

And digital cameras just make the whole thing so easy....

Cross-cultural Pics?

I travel a lot internationally and picture taking in the two-thirds world is a whole different thing.

My work gets me into overseas slum communities. When I'm there I generally avoid taking pictures. Carrying a camera tends to create a certain distance with my hosts. Most people in the developing world associate picture taking with tourists or journalists and that's the last thing I want to communicate. Understandably, too, people living in urban poverty aren't normally thrilled about having folks snapping pictures of their difficult circumstances.

But aside from the connotations of tourism or poor folk's discomfort with photography, people in a lot of cultures just don't like to have their picture taken, period. Not everybody loves the camera as much as Americans do.

Quick Pics

Folks in Morocco frown on taking photos of people. And forget about getting easy pics of religious buildings of any kind.

That's a pain because religious structures are pretty much the only interesting architecture among the miles of butt ugly buildings in most developing world Islamic cities.

Some of those social restrictions are due to current Morrocan culture and some to the long-term influence of Islam which forbids human representation in art.

So if you're going to get some pictures of people (I just avoided religious buildings other than the Hassan II Mosque) you've gotta be stealthy and quick and ready for a lecture or two when you get caught camera in hand.

I've developed my own little idiosyncratic method for just such occasions.

Once you see what you want to photograph, you figure out the shot in your head. Then you turn your back to it with camera concealed under your crossed arms. You get the camera ready and get your finger on the button and ready to shoot. Then you quickly spin clockwise--if you're a right hander--in order to face the object or person and all in one motion bring the camera up to your face. Sort of like the motion you'd use to throw a frisbee except you keep your elbow in a lot closer to your body.

Line it up quick and bam! snap the shot.

Then quickly swing the camera behind your back and move off at a brisk pace.

With a little practice you can do the whole thing with one fluid motion in 3 or 4 seconds.

Yes, I agree. It's pretty embarrassing what a grown man will do sometimes to get a picture.

And like I said, no matter how careful you are to avoid offence, once in a while you'll face the judgment of a local. Just after I took the picture of the vegetable and fruit souk (market) above I headed quickly through the crowds thinking I'd gotten the shot off with no fuss or muss. But an older woman about twenty yards away must have seen me and she gave me her two dirhams worth in Arabic. I'm glad I couldn't understand her, though I'm guessing it had something to do with knuckleheads and Americans....

Strike a Pose

In contrast to the cultural consensus in these places, some locals make a living being photographed. Since it's hard for the average tourist to get good pictures of local people they'll pay a premium to snap one of these "professional voguers."

I really got an introduction to the Moroccan version in Marrakech.

Usually the "peevees" wear some kind of colorful indigenous clothing or do something "exotic." In Egypt these guys dress up like some romantic Bedouin Sheik and ride a camel. In Morocco they wear traditional Moroccan footware--kind of a pointy slipper deal--and "charm" snakes and strike a 1001 Arabian Nights pose.

The snakes are highly venemous cobras, though skilled handlers suture their mouths shut with medical filament just before showtime. Some tourists don't know that and I saw a few fearful and panicky looks on people's faces.

If you whip out your camera these guys are on you in a second speaking good English, Spanish, French, or German and demanding a fee for service. Once you pay up and take your shot, they jump on you again and coax your camera away from you so they can take a shot of you with the snakes in the background. After they snap the shot they double dip you and demand a further fee.

Not a bad joint.

Maybe lean and pacifistic European tourists in the U.S. would pay for pictures of "exotic" American voguers striking a pose with greasy fast food in one hand and a legal assault rifle in the other. I'm surprised nobody at Venice Beach has done that take for cash :^)

Pro Vogueing


The Airport as Destination

Frankfurt Airport


Travel writers do some of the best writing on the market today, but I’ve always been surprised at how little attention they give to airports.

If you do long distance international trips you spend a lot of time on the ground between flights. Ten hour layovers aren't out of the question.

I ended up stuck in Frankfurt Airport for almost 8 hours on the way back home from Morocco.

Seeing the suffering of poor urban slum dwellers is one thing, but experiencing the inconvenience of first world travel is quite another :^)

Privileged Ranting About Airports

International airports tend to bite.

Here’s my shot at a long distance travelers’ hierarchy of wants:

• Food
• Sleep
• Getting clean
• Exercise

Food’s a no-brainer of course.

When you’re trying to catch up on lost sleep or trying to adjust and readjust your body clock to your destination, getting some sleep at the right time can be pretty useful.

Few activities get you stickier than long distance travel.

And when you’ve been jammed in a seat for 12 hours next to a 230 pound fat guy with the seatback in front of you lowered into your knees, moving around and getting some exercise when you get off the plane can be pretty helpful.

How do most airports score in providing for those desires?

• The food sucks but at least it's expensive.

• Very few airports make a place for economy passengers to rest or sleep. Heathrow in London, which is probably the best international hub, provides relatively quiet sleeping lounges with comfortable chairs that will lay back and let you snooze. I can’t think of another major airport with something similar.

• Getting clean? Forget about it. Again, Heathrow provides a shower area where you can get a towel and a shower for a small price, but I know of no other major airport that offers that kind of service.

• If you want to get loose or exercise, you can either do your stretching or yoga on the carpet in front of your gate or walk in circles from terminal to terminal. McCarran Airport in Las Vegas has a 24 Hour Fitness right in the airport that travelers and airport employees use. Haven't seen that before or since.

Given the emphasis on customer satisfaction and the rise in international travel over the past 10 years, you might those kind of innovative services would be the standard around the world, but not so.

Cruel and Usual Punishment

I could have used a snooze for 4 or 5 hours in Frankfurt to begin resetting my body clock back to Mountain Standard Time in the US, so I asked around to see if they had a sleeping area. Happily, I found an official who told me I was in luck and pointed me in the right direction.

The “rest area” turned out to be a series of lounges set up right next to the main walkway between two terminals.

The designers made the walkway out of hard plastic material studded with circular bumps to increase traction. It created a thunderous sound when anybody dragged their luggage on wheels across it. Multiply that sound by crowds and you’ve got some idea of the acoustics of naptime. It was a little like trying to grab z's next to the Santa Monica Freeway during rush hour.

But that wasn’t all. The German engineers responsible for my suffering that day had even more in store.

Along the length of the rest area they installed bright overhead lights and high powered AC ducts in the ceiling, so you got a double whammy of bright light and frigid air blowing directly onto your body.

The lounges themselves may have been the most unkind touch of all.

They looked pretty cool from an aesthetic point of view. Sort of an edgy “Batman” thing with lots of pseudo black leather and sharp angles and an exposed aluminum frame.

They were about as comfortable as that sounds. Rumsfeld probably uses a similar design at Guantanamo.

Laying there exhausted due to sleep deprivation, I tried to block out the noise and light and cold along with the metallic sharp ends jabbing me in the wrong places.

After about an hour I was giggling semi-consciously at my situation.

After about two hours I was ready to confess to pretty much anything.

"Water boarding" or attack dogs couldn't have done more to break a person's spirit than the Frankfurt International Airport Rest Area. I guess being privileged is pretty hard sometimes.

Duty Free Hammer

I was pretty impressed with Teutonic consumer protection laws. The straight talking Germans don't mess around.

All the cigarette cartons in the duty free shops at the airport carried warnings in huge block letters that covered up most of the brand name. A few of the subtle messages:

Smoking Kills!

and

Smoking Destroys You and Those Around You!

and finally, my favorite that didn't quite make it cleanly into English

Smoking Damages the Sperm!

Achtung baby!

Faith, Culture and Politics: Illegals in Narnia Winter 06

Andrew, Jan and Grandma Marge saw “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” this past weekend. I guess the movie is a blockbuster.

Something really bothers me about this Narnia mania, though.

Let's face it. The whole thing is nothing but a celebration of illegal immigration.

"Snow-Backs" Crossing Over

Yes, yes, I know that Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund ended up making a significant contribution to the economy and well being of their new country.

But that doesn’t change the fact that they crossed the border illegally and broke the law. Narnia’s got to be a country of laws or eventually all hell will break loose.

Something needs to be done and done fast. Let’s stop this nonsense about a guest worker program. We all know that would just affirm lawbreaking and would let those humans who have already illegally crossed into Narnia off the hook.

There's only one reasonable and effective response. We must fortify and electrify the wardrobe. That’ll make ‘em think twice about crossing over.

The Border


But if people won't listen to reason, and if the government won’t do anything about it, we’ve got to take matters into our own hands. In that case I'd support legions of “Minute-Dwarfs” who sit in folding lawn chairs with GPS devices and shot guns and guard the frontier along the wardrobe.

So let’s ignore this sentimental silliness about Edmund improving his life in Narnia, blah, blah, blah. Time to get tough and serious about a real problem. If we don’t, you never know what kind of Narnia we might pass on to our children in the years to come.

Faith, Culture and Politics: Bad Names Fall 05

I read the other day about a woman in San Francisco who makes an extravagant living "branding" businesses and products with memorable names that move the merchandise. She specializes in replacing "bad names" that drive customers away.

She recently branded a popular soy milk product. A simple matter of blending the words soy and milk to get Silk. The new name suggests the texture of the liquid too, a professional complexity she made sure to point out during the interview. That name change doubled the sales of that product and made her some serious scratch.

What's in a name? Plenty, apparently, in a market economy. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet but it won't necessarily make a buck.

I guess that's no surprise since names have played a pretty significant role for quite awhile.

Our early ancestors thought that names contained something of the essence of a person or a nation. They thought if you knew the name of somebody you understood them and had a kind of power over them. And they thought a new name might signify a new kind of power and identity or even a rebirth.

In one of my favorite biblical passages the Old Testament patriarch Jacob wrestles with an angel of God all night long. Jacob won't let go until God blesses him. The angel dislocates Jacob's hip but eventually realizes that Jacob is too determined to be denied. So the angel asks Jacob his name. Jacob makes his tag known and then the angel says, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed." In the view of the writers of Genesis, Jacob's new name, Israel, was a critical part of his new identity and power.

Jesus meets a man possessed by demons in some of the gospel accounts. The demoniac is a pretty scary guy who tears chains to pieces and rips his own flesh and howls at the moon.

But rather than cutting his food stamps in order to increase his sense of responsibility or shooting him with an M-16, Jesus wants to know the suffering man's name.

The guy groans the name "Legion" because he's under the power of a whole army of evil spirits. Jesus casts the spirits out of the man and sends them into a herd of swine. A whole lot of the other white meat (patented trade name)then rushes down a hill and drowns in the Sea of Galilee.

Names are obviously important.

Even now we still seem to believe that corporate names should capture the essence of a company or a product.

I'm not sure that's true with individual names. Some parents name their kids with meanings in mind but most just want to please grandpa or create a pleasant sound that will give the little ones a chance to succeed. Individual names are mostly lifetime soundtracks now and a test of good taste and class consciousness.
---------------------------

I've always been particularly fascinated with bad names and why people dislike 'em.

Some names are "bad" because they have such dark connotations.

Few of us in the next century will ever run across a successful guy at work named "Bob Hitler." Not many local pastors or teachers will get by with the first names of "Lucifer" or "Cain" either.

On the other hand, there's a pretty good pro hockey player named Satan. First name Miroslav. He's from the Czech Republic where they implicate the Prince of Darkness with another sound.

Slap Shot Satan's bad name works in his favor since it makes such good headlines in the sports sections around the country. "Satan Torches Chicago" or "Satan Dooms San Jose" definitely gets your attention over the morning cup of coffee.

Satan (number 81 for those without a program) Levels Philadelphia

Clearly, a perfectly acceptable name in one culture can turn into a bad name in another.

When I finished college I had a chance to live in London for about 3 months and for part of that time I crashed at the apartment of a Scottish friend named Ian McGregor. Ian laughed out loud every time I mentioned one of my American friends named Randy.

Turns out that for the British "randy" is the equivalent of the American word "horny." Parents in London would no more name their son "Randy" than an American family would name their boy "Lusty." English Randolphs reliably remain Randolphs to deflect the heavy-breathing connotations.

My son Andrew is studying world geography right now. He cracked up when he found out there was a country in the Horn of Africa called "Djibouti" and pronounced "ja-booty." He now refers to that unfortunate country as "Shake Ja-Booty" and I'm guessing he'll think of it that way and giggle every time he comes across that name for the rest of his life. That probably kills the diplomat-in-East Africa career option.

Other "bad" names are weak cuz they're no longer in fashion. How often do you run across a "Hazel" or an "Ethyl?" Most folks associate those names with a frumpy dustbowl housewife in a smock, though I've noticed that some new Asian immigrants to the US use these kinds of old-timey names for their girls in a way more experienced citizens never would. I still can't get used to meeting the "Ethyl Nguyen's" of this world.

Sometimes "bad" names are the result of differences about "good taste."

Let's face it, how many people outside the Latino community can easily get with the idea of a used car dealer named Jesus?

Similarly, I've always thought that universities and colleges take themselves too seriously with magisterial names like "The Johns Hopkins University," and the "The Massachussetts Institute of Technology."

Why don't some schools have names like "Al's College?" More than a few of us would probably like to tell a corporate headhunter that we graduated from a place with a name like that, but you know the bad taste meter would go off the scale if we did.

Finally, seems that some names are "bad" because nobody can remember 'em and keep 'em straight.

A number of years ago I gave the non-profit organization I work for the name "Servant Partners." I've been regretting it ever since because people garble that name at least as often as they get it right.

Here are some actual samples of the kinds of creative renderings I hear on a regular basis:

Servant Partner-- Some people can't get it into their heads that there are more than one of us working for SP...

Service Parts--We're your auto parts experts...

Service Department--We're your trusty maintenance crew...

Servile Partners--Groveling doormats united to serve you...

Sentient Partners--Conscious, thinking vertebrates that are aware of you...

Shepherd's Parents--Nurturing unreached goat and yak herders everywhere...

Those are just a few of the ways people mess up our corporate name.
You know, come to think of it, I may just get in touch with that woman from San Francisco....

Faith, Culture and Politics: The New Meritocracy and the Poor Fall 05

Day Laborers in New Jersey

Sometimes googling turns up some funny stuff in the "sponsored links" section.

I punched in “day laborers” and got two automated ads, one from ebay and the other from Kadazzle.

The first one read: “Day Laborers for Sale. Low Priced Day Laborers. Huge Selection!” The second read: “Compare Prices on Day Laborers and Save Money!” Somehow appropriate, I guess, for a post on class, culture and poverty.

OK, let’s get back to the aftermath of the hurricane and prophetic responses. This one is a bit longer because the topic is so complicated. Sorry about that. Think of it as a two posts for one deal.

Here are some too simple takes:

• A powerful multi-ethnic and dual gender meritocracy has arisen in the U.S. over the past few decades. A multi-ethnic and dual gender underclass is expanding at the same time. Diversity and a certain kind of priveleged racial reconciliation win but for the poor it may be the same old same old.

• Class and culture currently play a more significant role than race in perpetuating poverty. In fact, when people talk about “race” I think what they usually mean is “class and culture.”

• It's time to shake free of old school racial analyses of the American underclass and get a sharper picture of the importance of class and culture in perpetuating poverty, and a better picture of how the new meritocracy thinks and feels about the poor. Without that shift it could be hard to reduce the number of poor people in the U.S and improve the lives of those who remain in poverty.

The Oppression Model of Poverty

A generation ago most thoughtful people identified with what I'll call the oppression model of poverty. In short, they thought that poor people were poor mostly because people with influence and power did them at most every opportunity.

And during that time a lot of people thought racism was the heart of that abuse of power. In that model the powerful white upper and middle classes justified their systemic oppression on the basis of the supposed inherent biological inferiority of African-Americans or other "non-white" groups.

That's not to say that popular thinking in those days wasn't more subtle than the simple old school model suggests, but I think it gives a fair picture of people's basic 'worldview' of poverty from just after WW2 until the 1980's.

The Centrifuge Model of Poverty

I think a very different new school 'worldview' on poverty began to get up and go in the 80's and became the predominant way people understand poverty and society now. I'll call that new way of perceiving things the centrifuge model of poverty.

Scientists use laboratory centrifuges to separate out substances in test tubes from one another. As a centrifuge spins at high speed, various particles become “segregated” from each other due to their inherently different sizes, shapes and densities.

The centrifuge in this case is a highly competitive, American society built on the idea of meritocracy. As that societal centrifuge spins the winners get loose from the losers and the strong spin safely away from the weak. A natural segregation occurs as those without the “right stuff” remain in or descend into poverty while the others enjoy the economic and social benefits of their natural and social advantages.

As harsh as it can sound to some people, you've got to hand it to this model. It’s got deep roots in American soil because it has some important similarities to the old Puritan idea that God economically blesses the good with abundance and punishes the bad with poverty. But it’s different and even more powerful because it adds the critical elements of meritocracy and competition, both of which are also powerful—even totemic—American values. For all those reasons it packs a serious punch.

Again, most thoughtful people don't see things so simply, but I do think this new intutive "road map" of poverty and society lies behind a lot of the current discussion of poverty and the social policy meant to alleviate it.

The Rise of the New Meritocracy and the Expanding Underclass

Whatever intuitive road map folks might use to understand poverty and the poor, some developments are pretty clear to most fair-minded people right now.

Poverty's gotten worse over the past 4 years in the US in terms of percentages of people in poverty and in real terms. The appalling social situation of so many people in New Orleans didn't surprise any of us who have lived and worked in American inner cities. The hurricane exposed it in a new way.

And the expanding underclass continues to become even more diverse. African-Americans and Latinos are disproportionately represented, but whites make up the majority of the poor. In fact, the expansion in the numbers of the poor in the past 4 years has occured primarily among rural "trailer trash" whites. Women and children make up large percentages of the underclass.

The gaps between the middle class and the poor, and particularly between the well off and the poor have been getting a lot wider. In 1965 the typical CEO made 24 times as much as the average worker. Today that figure is 184 times as much. That would have been considered immoral and even obscene 40 years ago. How has it become acceptable now? Perhaps a change in world view?

Two longer term trends also contribute in a major way to the expanding numbers of the poor. The loss of a manufacturing based economy drove many people who previously worked at better paying jobs into low paying jobs with few benefits in the service industries. A lot of poor people, maybe most of them, work silly hours but still can't make ends meet. And the continuing flow of illegal immigrants swells the numbers of the poor while our government can't figure out what to do with lots of people who are simply looking for a better life.

We've also seen a steady effort on the part of our current political leaders to cut proven and beneficial programs for the poor while getting close and personal with the rear ends of the wealthy through dubious tax cuts for the rich and egregious pork.

Katrina stopped that momentum temporarily because people are now aware of poverty again and political leaders risk voter backlash if they press further cuts at the expense of the poor. But the ideological convictions of the congressional majority haven't changed. Americans have consistently voted over the last ten years for congressional leadership that clearly and obviously favors the "haves" and ignores or even punishes the "have nots" through cuts and the elimination of valuable and proven programs and approaches that help poor people better their lives.

But I think another very important development is making a decisive contribution to the current look of poverty in the U.S. I'll call that young thing The Rise of the New Meritocracy.

I believe the new school/centrifuge thinkers are right that America is far more competitive and meritocratic than ever. Large and thriving African-American, Asian-American, and Latino middle classes and even upper middle classes have arisen in the past 40 years, and woman have far more opportunities than ever before. Those are astonishing American social success stories by any historical standard.

This multi-ethnic wave of men and women, most 50 years old and younger, share a core set of values. They value competition, efficiency, meritocracy, entrepreneurship, education, and family stability. By and large, they're comfortable in an information economy. They're the new economic and cultural bedrock with potentially the greatest political influence of any group beyond the rich. Both major parties are desperately trying to win them over. The conservative Republicans, with their recent and pivotal victories in the entrepreneurial exurbs, got out to an early advantage.

But the new meritocracy has also chosen to segregate itself from the urban and rural underclass. The educated white middle and upper middle class mostly abandoned the poor long ago, and now this new class is following the same pattern. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Latinos who identify with this new "culture" and "class" have largely left the ghetto and the small town in the rear view mirror. The immense creativity and economic resources and social capital of this new class aren't--in most cases--being invested in efforts to shrink the growing American underclass.

Here's something ironic about this new class. Though it's been forged by a greater cultural emphasis on opportunity and meritocracy, the new meritocracy may be creating greater and even more impenetrable class barriers. There are clear signs, outlined in a recent series in the NY Times and in various articles in The Economist, that America is becoming more class stratified. The old American value of upward mobility and the cherished myth of the American Dream may be threatened.

Why? These new meritocrats pass their centrifuge friendly values to their children and concentrate heavily--in a way no previous American generation has done--on the education of their own children, sparing no expense or effort and often placing them in private schools. At the same time the poor struggle in appalling public schools and in contexts where many important values that help bolster career success are simply not modeled. Any successful neighbors who might have modeled those values left the inner city or the small rural town long ago. Hence, a widening gap, and in many ways, a gap that may no longer come with a ladder which the poor can use to climb out.

It's not too late for that new class and culture of movers and shakers to commit in a new way to solidarity with the poor and to a new and updated version of the American Dream, but the signs at this point aren't good. It may be that the ideology of the centrifuge, which most of them embrace on one level or another, gives them reason to view the poor as the inevitable losers that every game requires. I'd guess part of the reason so many people have responded to the poor so differently post-Katrina is that folks knew the poor were not "at fault" in that particular instance. The exception here may prove the usual rule.

Or they may feel the class divide between themselves and the poor is insurmountable when they look at some of the more dysfunctional realities in many poor communities like common teenage pregnancy, high levels of family instability, widespread substance abuse, and a lack of emphasis on education. They may view the poor as "them" rather than "us."

Well, that's enough recap of some key developments that I think are influencing the expansion and persistence of poverty.

What These Developments May Mean

Here are a few glimpses of my own responses to these developments to get the ball rolling:

• Both models of poverty and society tell part of the truth. But while the new school thinkers suggest that the rise of a new meritocrats is an obvious good, I'd argue the development of that emerging class and culture has created a new kind of social division in the U.S. that has serious and potentially troubling ramifications for the poor.

That increasingly large section of society, who often have more in common with each other than they do with poor members of their own ethnic or gender groups, is largely ignoring the poor or in many cases actively working to improve their own situation at the expense of the poor.

The old school oppression model has something pretty eternal and biblical to contribute. The new twist is that a different group of folks gathered more on the basis of meritocracy than skin color is now in a position to ignore or take advantage of the weak and dispossesed.

• Seems to me that dealing with current American poverty will mean exploring the attitudes this new meritocracy has toward the poor. And calling that new and powerful segment of society to accountability to a wider understanding of community, to a deeper committment to distributive justice, and to a energized effort to invest their talents, lives and resources in poor communities. The focus of these efforts has to be true development, not charity. Economic investment, ownership, practical training, entrepreneurship and education have got to be the cornerstones.

This will mean challenging people to respond to the poor not primarily on the basis of race or ethnic identification, but on the basis of fairness and social justice. I think that will mean acknowledging and grappling with class differences in a way Americans usually like to avoid. We've always viewed ourselves as a classless society and we've identified class analysis with Marxists and other "crazies." We'll need more "Class Matters" and perhaps fewer "Race Matters" seminars.

Christian theology and teaching will have to take on class again and the church and other religious movements and institutions will have to take the lead in prophetically calling the new meritocracy to a faithful identification with the poor. In many ways, this kind of broad societal shift will require the kind of major spiritual awakening we experienced during the civil rights movement in the 50's and early 60's.

• Racism—-at least in the way that the old school thinkers understood it—-is a secondary factor in the perpetuation of poverty and the lack of conviction about reducing and ending it. The current social and economic effects of historical racism are still a very significant factor however, something that has to be acknowledged clearly and addressed in policy and action in politics, the business community, and in faith communities like the church. I was pleased and surprised to hear President Bush concede the ongoing impact of historic racism in his speech on rebuilding New Orleans.

• Changing some aspects of the "culture of the underclass" could make a big difference. Reducing teen pregnancy, increasing the stability of families, increasing the value on education, and reducing the incidence of substance abuse are key. Many people rightly believe that unless poor folks can introduce more constructive values into their own midst most of them will be caught in poverty for generations. The "centrifuge" rewards education and stability.

Throughout history spiritual revivals among the poor created the conditions for an escape from poverty. The Methodist movement in England during the 18th century broke the power of despair and alchoholism and helped huge numbers of the poor to break out of poverty, a sea-change that altered English society and the English economy for the better.

• Anybody with a good idea or a proven plan for reducing poverty, no matter what their ideology or politics, should get a hearing. Right now American approaches to poverty are highly ideologically driven and have been for many years. That's part of why they usually don't work very well. Our national genius is pragmatism. I pray for a return of common sense and a concern for outcomes rather than harsh ideological battles.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on race, culture, class and poverty, and any thoughts on practical approaches to make a prophetic difference.

Faith, Culture and Politics: Race and Raising Kids Fall 05

I’ll be out of town and offline for a week so I thought I’d leave a post you can kick around in the comments section while I’m gone.

I’ve mentioned a time or two that I’m not always clear what the concept of “race” means at this point.

Seems to me that the best way to take a look at how people view race is to see how they raise their kids, or in some cases, how they plan to raise their kids.

Economists have long been aware that people’s actual economic decisions reveal a lot more about their attitudes than what they say about those decisions. I guess you could modify the old saying, “Follow the money” and substitute “Follow the moves” if you want to get a better feel for what people really think about race. And what could be more important or revealing than how people raise their children?

I recently reread Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multi-Ethnic World by Paula Harris and Doug Schaupp.

Overall it’s a useful book on race and culture in America.

But they make what I think is a very curious and specific plea for parents to avoid raising their children “color blind.”

They argue that parents of all "races" should raise their kids with a clear commitment to their "racial identity.”

They go to great lengths to explain the specific cultural and behavioral markers that characterize the "white race." In one section they catalogue a long list of ways “white” adults can be spiritually and personally inauthentic by departing from those characteristics. Innovation is one of those characteristics and presumably all 'white' children should be raised to understand that marker of 'whiteness' and be proud of it as a part of their racial identity.

They encourage parents of all 'racial' groups to get clear on the markers of their particular race and make sure their kids embrace those racial distinctives.

To their great credit, Harris and Schaupp make this argument as a way of encouraging a more honest and just society. They believe that the vast majority of European-Americans aren’t aware that they have a specific ethnic culture (or cultures) and believe their culture is just “American” culture.

They also believe most European-Americans are out of touch with the tremendous advantages they have as a “racial” group due to historical racism and racial prejudice and therefore aren’t willing to take actions and support policies that would create a fairer society. They believe the only way to remedy that wrong is to embrace race and ensure that children are not only aware of their racial history and its implications but also committed to their own ongoing “racial identities.”

I haven’t raised my kids along those lines. We’ve tried to make Andrew and Rebecca very aware of their ethnic background (northern and southern European roots, which are quite different, by the way) and keenly aware of historical and present ethnic and racial prejudice and the effect that has on their own opportunities and the opportunities of others. We’ve encouraged them to live now and as adults in a way that helps “make amends” for the damage that has been done by ethnic and racial prejudice and to build strong relationships with people of varying cultural backgrounds.

But we’ve also encouraged them to hold the concept of race lightly.

By race, I mean the idea that biological and physical characteristics and differences are truly meaningful and are somehow determinative of the way people will behave or act. Racial prejudice takes that definition a step further and says that biological and physical characteristics make one group superior to other groups. Racism, as I understand it, takes that second definition a step further still and says that racial superiority entitles the superior group to set up a society and economy that dispossesses the “inferior” group or groups.

Here’s how Jan and I have thought about race and why we’re raising the kids the way we are.

From a biological point of view it’s very clear right now that the physical differences between various ‘races’—in particular skin color, which is at the heart of the concept of race--are so minor as to be virtually meaningless. Basically, we’re talking about different adaptions to getting Vitamin D from the sun. So why make a big deal about race? Culture and ethnicity and history are all pretty solid concepts, but what about race?

And with the mixing of people of different ethnic backgrounds—which has been going on for millennia—what does race mean? Americans have reduced the ethnic and cultural complexity of the world to a 5 crayon crayola pack world view (white, black, brown, red, yellow), but it’s not clear to me that our point of view corresponds to the actual ethnic diversity in the world. Various asian cultures have always thought of themselves as different “races” throughout history and in many ways still do—-it took immigration to the US to learn that they were all one 'race' (“yellow,” I guess). And of course, the whole concept of a ‘brown’ race really creates headaches if you think about it for even a few moments. Does that include both Mexicans and Pakistanis?

And do physical characteristics really strongly influence culture or behavior? Culturally speaking, what does a Somali sheepherder have to do with an African-American banker in Cleveland? Or even a wealthy and 'white' Protestant suit in California and a poor and desperate farmer from a distinctly non-innovative place like Bulgaria?

But I guess my final question is “What good, on the whole, has the concept of race ever done anybody?”

There are physical differences, and people are indeed descended from ancestors coming from different parts of the world. So the concept of race can’t simply be ignored, but why play with fire by emphasizing it? If history has shown anything clearly it’s that whenever race is emphasized prejudice, racism, and injustice soon follow.

That's just our current take. But every parent has to decide whether to embrace race or hold it lightly. I'd enjoy hearing any thoughts.

Faith, Culture and Politics: Race and Raising Kids 2 Fall 05

Got some interesting emails from folks about my recent post "Race and Raising Kids" so I thought I'd get back to that topic one more time.

Some people obviously felt better discussing race privately than on the blog itself. I guess that probably says something significant about our sense of freedom to get into race openly.

Anyway, as a result of those emails, here are a couple of quick clarifications and additions to my original thoughts:

• One person was surprised and thought I sounded a little like many Euro-Ams who deny that racism and racial prejudice are current and relevant.

I’m sympathetic to that comment. Writing or talking about race is pretty complicated. I have fundamental respect for anybody who makes an honest and good faith effort to do so and sometimes clarity is hard to come by.

I think ‘racial’ prejudice and racism are both alive and well. The current effects of historical racism are so obvious that it’s hard to know how to respond to the people—mostly social conservatives--who don’t take it seriously

Unfortunately, there are many Euro-Am folks, mostly conservatives but some progressives too, who truly believe that ‘racial’ bias and racism are a thing of the past. I have some sympathy for that take because so much progress has been made in the past 50 years, but at this point I think they’re wrong. I hope someday they’ll be right.

So, no, I’m not among those who want to deny that current racial prejudice or racism exist or who want to downplay the current effects of historical racism.

I do think, though, that there are lots of folks who take the effects of historical racism seriously but simply disagree about how to deal with them.

I don’t automatically assume that people who reject affirmative action, for example, lack an appreciation of our disgraceful national history of racism and genocide. I support thoughtful affirmative action, but it has to stand on its own merits in an honest discussion of social policy.

Seems best to appreciate our history while also paying attention to the realities of the current moment and planning for something better in the future.

• When I say that racial prejudice and racism still exist, I mean there are still a significant number of people who believe that biological and physical characteristics and differences—-skin color being the most obvious example--are truly meaningful and are somehow determinative of the way people will behave or act.

The traditional concept of race—as Americans understand it--is a fairly recent social construct meant to justify European supremacy on the basis of biological superiority. We’re talking about an idea that is probably no more than 5 or 6 hundred years old. It was one of the most effective weapons of European imperial expansion.

We’ve lived for four centuries here in the US steeped in that kind of thinking and perception, so it’s silly to think that lots of people don’t think in those terms. Some still believe in their heart of hearts that their 'racial' group is somehow "genetically" superior (to use our current biological terminology).

But I’m just not sure that most people in the US really think in terms of biological superiority anymore.

That’s why I say that when people talk about ‘race’ (which is a biological concept) what they usually mean is ‘class’ and ‘culture.’ The prejudices and systemic injustice we’re dealing with in the US right now are based—-in my view—-mostly on class and cultural differences. I go into more detail on this whole thing in a previous post, “The New Meritocracy and the Poor.”

The distinction between race on the one hand and class and culture on the other is important for people who are serious about justice.

Europeans marketed the concept of biological superiority and inferiority so successfully that almost all Americans swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Slavery and Jim Crow and the indigenous genocide were all firmly based on the idea of biological superiority and inferiority.

A turbo-charged version of that same racial ideology led to the killing of 60 million people during WW2. That was just 60 years ago.

I travel a lot around the world. Traditional biological racism is thriving.

If the idea of biological superiority or inferiority (traditional racism) has lost most of its historical hold in the US we should party. People who are serious about justice should lead the celebration.

If what I’m saying is accurate, those who are serious about justice in the US should still work hard for racial reconciliation and should still challenge traditional racial prejudice and racism where they exist.

But perhaps we'll need to pay a lot more attention to prejudice and systemic injustice based on differences in class and culture. I think that’s where the real action is now. A change in language and terminology could help too.

I’m not hopeful for any quick changes along these lines. The ideas of “white” and “black,” etc., etc. are so deeply ingrained that we can hardly think or speak without them. Even though I believe most of us have left behind the substance of traditional "biological" racial ideas we’re still trapped in the old-timey language and categories of traditional race.

• When I say we should consider raising our kids “color blind” I mean we should teach kids that physical characteristics don’t determine character or behavior. I think that’s what Dr. King meant.

Raising kids color blind doesn’t mean raising them to ignore:

--the obvious variety of ethnic backgrounds and cultures in the US
--our collective history
--current forms of traditional racial thinking, racial prejudice and racism
--current prejudice or systemic injustice based on differences in class and culture.

• Here’s something curious. Some of the most outspoken justice-oriented proponents of what I consider to be old-timey racial thinking marry across traditional ‘racial’ lines and raise kids who don’t fit into any traditional ‘racial’ category. I guess sometimes our lives can be more relevant and eloquent than our words.

In a famous film from the civil rights era that most of us have seen at one time or another, an Imperial Wizard of the Klan rails against integration because he thinks it will create a “mongrel nation.” He had the good sense to know that youth and love--given some social leeway--would tend to break down arbitrary ‘racial’ barriers faster than almost anything else by mixing up the gene pool.

Count me among the 'mongrel' lovers. Marriage and family across traditional 'racial' lines might be the most effective tool of all in dealing a final blow to old school racial thinking in the US.

Books, Films, Media Reviews: Grizzly Man Summer 05

Jan, Andrew and I saw "Grizzly Man" today.

GM is a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, an enviromental activist dedicated to protecting wildlife who lived unarmed among grizzly bears in Alaska's grizzly infested Katmai National Park for 13 years. A grizzly killed and ate he and his girlfriend at the end of his final summer there.

Treadwell video taped over 100 hours of his experiences during his last 5 years among the grizzlies. Werner Hertzog, a German director I like who specializes in movies about obsessed heroes, edited Treadwell's footage and adds interviews with his friends, family, co-workers, and critics.

It's truly unique and well worth seeing.

Some brief takes on GM:

It's disturbing yet also pretty hilarious a lot of the time. Hertzog--who appears as himself in the documentary and gives the voice of God narration--is obviously European in his approach. He's ironic and open-minded but also a little pretentious at a few unfortunate moments that take away from the power of the whole thing. His accent reminded me of Mike Meyers' German uber-hip character "Dieter" from SNL. I kept expecting Hertzog to start dancing to techno while offering to let the people he interviewed "touch my pet monkey."

Treadwell comes across as a kind of wierdly funny Pee Wee Herman version of Henry David Thoreau in the midst of a much more violent and dangerous Walden Pond. He hated "civilized" life and was willing to go to almost any lengths to escape it.

Before he went to Alaska he grew up in Florida as an All-American boy and then lived in LA trying to make a career as an actor. He became a drug addict and alcoholic along the way.

Then, like John Newton, a slave ship captain who converted to Christianity and eventually wrote "Amazing Grace," Treadwell left his dissolute life behind in order to devote himself to a higher calling.

He knew, along with Karl Rove, the value of Christian myths. Everybody likes the tale of the drunk frat boy who converts and becomes a crusader for goodness and right.

But in Treadwell's case, it's nature--and grizzly bears in particular--that give him a reason to live rather than God or the glory of American empire.

So he begins living among grizzlies and imagines that he's saving them.

He brought along his video camera and recorded himself and the grizzlies in some of the most astonishing footage I've ever seen.

He lived very directly among the grizzlies and other wildlife with no protection other than a flimsy tent and his own wits and intuition.

But he also recorded his most private thoughts and emotions, some of which are profane and disturbing. He comes across as troubled and obviously self-destructive. Like a lot of addicts and recovering addicts he battled self-absorption and delusional thinking. More than a few people who watch GM will wonder if his whole grizzly adventure was simply a way of taking his own life while going out in a blaze of glory.

In spite of all that, quite a few of his introspective moments and unhinged rants are really funny. One summer very little rain falls, which begins to kill some of the grizzlies and other animals that Treadwell has gotten to know well. He films himself begging God for rain even though he isn't religious and isn't sure exactly who to address. So he covers his bases and asks/demands help from "Christ Man, Buddha Dude, Allah, and That Floaty Hindu Thing."

To be fair, though, he obviously never thought that many of those "private moments" in his footage would end up in a documentary distributed around the world. How would any of us like our private thoughts and worst moments--which we thought we could edit out before the final version--open like a book for the whole world to see?

The effect, though, of those parts of the documentary is reminiscent of the strange attraction of "reality tv" and Oprah culture, but taken to an extreme.

Hertzog demonstrates some restraint and thankfully chooses not to show images of Treadwell's remains or play the audio version of his death. The attached lens cap on Treadwell's still-running camera blocked any visual version of his violent end but the microphone was working fine and picked up every detail. The bizarre county coroner--who would fit right in on the Addams Family--used the sound recording immediately after the deaths to reconstruct what happened.

Speaking of extremes, Treadwell's also a poster boy for "X Games" culture where the more extreme and dangerous it is the more authentic it is. If civilization is all about guard rails, what could be more heroic and edgy than living with grizzlies?

He probably sounds like a whack job by now. He was a whack job. But he was also--in his own way--a courageous visionary.

He did something nobody else has ever done--living for many years succesfully 24/7 among arguably the most powerful predators in the world, mostly alone and without protection of any kind. He knew the risks he was running and had to be careful at every moment. Even one mistake would have killed him. One mistake did kill him.

His critics in the documentary strongly challenge his approach as naive and destructive. They wonder if he did more harm than good to the grizzlies by crossing the ancient dividing line between humans and animals. They--including the director Hertzog--question the fact that he imagined nature as mostly benign rather than "red in tooth and claw." They make good points and I agree with many of them.

But in the end, even if you're put off by aspects of his personality and worry about his sanity, it's hard not to like--or at least respect--somebody who accomplishes the ecological equivalent of landing on the moon for the first time. As truly wierd and deeply troubled as he was, there was something authentically great about Treadwell.

He's already a semi-legend in the outdoor community, but if he'd done what he did 150 years ago I think he might have been remembered along with other great amateur naturalists like John Muir. His life among the grizzlies would have come down to us in more positive generalities along with some colorful stories about his eccentricities. That would only have been possible, though, in an era with no video cameras and no obsession with therepeutic psychology.

Some people may be born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. If so, Treadwell was one of them.

Around Town Denver Small Town Fourth of July Summer 05

For the 4th we all went up to Golden, a little place just 10 minutes up the mountain from here.

This is the first time I've ever participated in a "small town" Independence Day celebration. I'm used to big beach bashes with friends or the kinds of mega-celebrations you tend to get in SoCal.

A few quick observations on this new cross-cultural experience.

---Golden may be small, but the security is tight.

While saving a parking place I momentarily dropped one of our backpacks in the empty slot next to my car. I walked 30 ft. to throw something in a trashcan, and as I headed back to the car two Golden police vehicles screeched up and a couple of cops jumped out and carefully checked out the backpack.

I caught on right away and had to suppress my laughter. They thought I might be an Islamic terrorist ready to blow up the celebration even before the fireworks went off.

Leaving the backpack alone in an empty spot was my big mistake.

Most of us wouldn't think of doing something like that in an airport, but it never crossed my mind that the police in dinky Golden would be concerned. Sheriff Andy and Deputy Barney Fife were definitely ready to thwart the big attack.

They were very cool about it. After I showed 'em my ID I said "Sorry to give you guys a start." The oldest cop replied, "Oh, people sometimes lose things."

Yeah, and I'm sure they normally send multiple squad cars out to retrieve lost and found items.

I thought his comment was unusually kind. What he probably wanted to say was, "What were you thinking, you bonehead?!" While the intense security suggested "large city," the cops' attitude definitely said, "welcome to Mayberry."

---There must be a rule at small town 4th of July celebrations that men should look as silly as possible. A subsidiary rule states that children should look nearly as silly as their fathers. See above.

I thought the guys were pretty funny. Since the 4th of July is mostly a celebration of all the ways America is not like sophisticated and socially oriented European countries like Britain and France, what better way to capture the spirit of the thing than by looking goofy and demonstrating your own very personal bad taste?

To be fair, it's hard to avoid looking dumb on the 4th. As long as people insist on wearing clothes covered with various American flag designs, there really is no escape from the essentially silly look of the star spangled banner.

We're all emotionally intimate with the flag on one level or another. So we may miss how goofy the colors and design really are. I've always thought it looked like it was designed by a clown at Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey.

Why couldn't the Founding Fathers have chosen a cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing look? Take the flag of Botswana, for example:



Now, think of all those people at the 4th of July celebration wearing clothes with variations on that flag design See what I mean? Instant good taste, as far as I'm concerned.

---Golden is dominated by the Coors Brewing Company, the venerable Colorado institution led by the very conservative evangelical Coors family. They market their stuff by associating the beer with big cleavage and extreme sports with an emphasis on the cleavage. I'm sure they paid for most or all of the celebration.

Vendors sold Coors at stands spaced 50 feet apart. This contributed significantly to the silliness index as some folks who were dressed stupidly began to act that way too.

The city supplied 10 Porta-Potties for a crowd of many thousands. When the beer stand to bathroom ratio is one-to-one you've got a pretty uninhibited crowd that's really gotta go.

So the lines for the bathrooms were very long and filled with lots of people crossing their legs and hopping up and down.

Rebecca and I took a dip in Clear Creek, a beautiful river that runs right through Golden. When we went to the Porta-Potties to change our clothes I had the opportunity to get to know one of the Coors family's best customers while waiting in line.

He insisted he'd seen me "riding your kayak" in Clear Creek and told me how cool I was and how much he loved and respected kayakers.

I told him I wasn't in a kayak.

He wasn't having any of it and kept praising my skill and courage.

Colorado lushes may be the only drunks in the country that have delirious delusions of kayaking.

---Overall, I loved the whole thing in spite of the overzealous police and the inordinant chemical influence.

Most people seemed to have a great time--very welcoming and friendly all the way around.

The Golden civic band played through the entire event and they were really good--they did a bunch of pretty sophisticated patriotic stuff by Copeland and George Gerswhin as well as the expected pop standards.

The fireworks were exciting.

And it's pretty hard to beat the natural surroundings in Golden--really striking red mesas under a blue sky on the north horizon and green Mt. Zion to the south.

I think we'll probably do it again next year.