July 2, continued:
First thing out the door I meet Mustafa, an unhesitatingly outgoing 22-year-old Bedouin who is in Cairo during his final summer off from University. Sometime in the coming weeks, he tells me later, he will marry. Or rather, commit to marry: his father is rich, and so up to $8,000 will be spent on dowry, paraphernalia and ceremony, and between these purchases and the arrangements that must be made by the two fathers, it will be November before the ceremony.
Of course, all of this may be moot. Mustafa takes me back to his shop and, over shisha and tea, tells me in increments of his forbidden British love. He and she fell for each other last year. She invited him to be with her in Britain, but he worried what might happen if things turned sour: "She might throw me out! And then what would I have?" It might not have worked out anyway: Mustafa is deeply Bedouin -- their wives must convert to Islam if they do not already practice it and live with the husband in the family house.
In fact, wives take over responsibility for the family from the aging matriarch. In fact, this is why Mustafa must marry: Western-style bachelorhood or marrying abroad would deprive Mustafa's family of a matriarch (or, depending on how you look at it, of a hand-and-foot servant for the retiring generation). Most of his peers married at seventeen. He is years late to the party -- or, as he unhappily refers to the institution, crossing his wrists dramatically, to "jail".
And no wonder he thinks so: His Bedouin would-be, meticulously vetted in both person and family by Mustafa's father, cannot hold a candle to the knots in his stomach whenever he contemplates the "Together Forever" teddy bear that hangs conspicuously in his perfume shop. Mustafa wants to please his family and his God, but he plainly cannot get excited about wedlock while his sweetheart lies over the ocean. If she hadn't cut off ties when he demanded conversion and relocation, closure might be more attainable. For now, he prepares to walk the plank.
(Side note: As I write this, sweltering in the hostel's stagnant air, the young man behind the front desk is checking his friends' Facebook walls).
To end the incident at the beginning, Mustafa's shop is a model of efficiency. It's located about 3 minutes' walk off Talaat Harb square in Cairo's downtown, a very high-commerce area. A couple of twists and turns through alleyways and you arrive at his shop window which contains rowns on rows of delicately handmade bottles plus, oddly, one mass-produced Western-style cologne called "FAHRENHEIT". Some of the bottles, wrought in gossamer glass, are shaped like peacocks or fantastic animals. To the side is the entryway.
The shop itself is unexpectedly warm and welcoming given its size. Plush red benches run round the edges, and the mirrored walls hold almost as many simple, sturdy bottles of his various wares as they do pictures of his family. Prominently displayed in the center is his heart-wrenching but, to the uninitiated, saccharine teddy bear. The whole shop is just one five by four room.
The wares themselves are supplied by Mustafa's father, who has been making alcohol-less perfume from his own flowers for decades. Mustafa presses samples on me -- quite literally! -- shaking bottle after bottle, removing the flass stoppers and rubbing the collected perfume on my arm. "See?" he asks, pointing to the Arabic label. "Rose. Wehrrd. Wuh -- rrrr -- duh." He sounds it out for me. Roll the "rrr" and you've got your first Arabic word.
(Now two of the hostel staff prepare for evening prayers, aligning their mats with the patterns in the linoleum, which must bast been laid out just so exactly for this purpose. It is 7:20 PM. With gentle synchrony and only one speaker, the three staff stand, kneel, bow, rise and breathe to the slow rhythm of a murmured "Allah-u Akhbar!" Serenity rules the moment. What must it be like to know that you will have the opportunity five times each day to share the most personal and important aspect of your life with anyone you choose? It must lower the stakes on other social enterprises. It must be easy to reckon someone a friend, or at least an equal. Could anyone of your faith ever truly be a stranger?)
The most interesting part of the visit is Mustafa's fuestbook. It must be forty pages long and is full of effusive messages from the sundry tourists that Mustafa has evidently been accosting in Talaat Harb Square for years. He claims he does it to make friends, not to sell his wares, and at least at first glance the evidence supports this assertion. Handwritten testimonial after handwritten testimonial praises his hospitality, his kindness, and, most endearingly, his family -- Mustafa apparently invites nearly everyone to meet his father, two sisters and three brothers, to stay in their guest house, to eat their food. "If you meet 100% of the people in Cairo," he says, "only 2% would want to be friend. The rest are selling. This is why I hate Cairo. I am 2%!"
His words would ring truer if his family didn't arrange all-day cab rides for travelers to Egypt's historic sites or if he weren't so intent on demonstrating the virtues of his wares. Nonetheless I am taken in, writing my own soaring note in his guestbook, permitting him to write in mine (see previous page of journal), and, most tellingly, shelling out for his opium-derived (perhaps he means poppy?) perfume and an admittedly lovely bottle in which to display it. He plays the host impeccably and my guilty American conscience demand these things. I shall have to reflect on this later, especially in light of an admonition I received several days ago that my empathy would make me vulnerable to shysters. The worst thing that happens in this particular instance is that I part with some money, and in fact I have a good time swapping stories and life advice while drinking tea and shisha with my new Bedouin friend. It's possible that this routine isn't designed with a sale or two in mind. But perhaps it is. Food for thought.
I spend the rest of the day walking around Cairo's downtown. The Nile is five minutes from my hostel, and it gleams beneath the setting sun. Huge casino-boats and individual chartered boats ply its waters while children throw fishing lines into its shallower edges. Lovers perch on the rails, posts and benches that line its shores, the young men in the tight-fitting t-shirts and jeans --sometime even the greased hair -- I associate with '80s-era TV, the young women in dresses or long skirts or even jeans, but always with their hair colorfully wrapped. Cars pass by at meteoric speeds when they are not caught in traffic. The bridges across the Nile, from which one can see for miles, are packed with cars; on their footpaths, workaday Cairenes sweat and trudge their respective ways home. Wherever one looks there are crumbling buildings with faded facades nestled up against the glittering glass faces of the newer, more vitally commercial buildings. The roofs of the oldest structures are crowded with satellite dishes producing the effect of plastic-and-metal rooftop gardens, of modernity taking root in antiquity.
In the streets, familiar models surface: the dung and trash and stray animals of the poorer quarters directly across the street from five-star hotels and international buildings; the commuter buses, the streetlights and crowds and on-ramps of any self-respecting metropolis. There are many new facets, though. The air is dusty rather than merely polluted, the heat bone-dry. Many people carry buckets of water in the poorer areas of town. Markets occupy entire streets, with just enough room left in between the rows of clothes and melons to permit the occasional dedicated car to squeeze by. In the back alleyways of the markets, older women sit desultorily next to their produce while boys play pool on a transplanted table across the street. Everywhere the sun beats down.
I make it back to the hostel and head out for dinner with S., E. (both Frenchmen traveling together), D. (Australian) and R. (Brazilian). All are on personal odysseys of five months or more. D. began his trip in Australia and has seen the Philippines, India, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and now Egypt, along with places in between. He will head to Europe before he returns home. When I ask the group what spurred them to take their trips, he is the first to answer: "What, have you never worked in an office?" We all laugh, satisfied. I think of Alex.
S. and E. are headed back to France from India, all overland. They tell wonderful stories of finding, upon finishing many of their meals in Pakistan, that a stranger had paid their bill. They attribute this kindness to strangers to the teachings of the Qur'an.
This is R.'s first stop on a trip that will span what seems like every country in Europe after a brief tour through the Middle East. Though Brazilian, he doesn't care for football; this apparently gets him in hot water with his mother, and my wry inner monologue suggests that self-preservation might be the reason for his travels.
After dinner I mistake D.'s rice pudding for a gratis table treat and eat half of it. I'll get ribbed about this for awhile. But it *was* delicious.
Back to the hotel. I fall instantly asleep.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Alone With the Nile
I wake as we begin the Cairo descent. At first I am confused by the way the land outside disappears into whiteness -- it takes me a second to recognize the bleached, stretching sands. Tiny adamant roads wend through the desert, vast and bright and imperturbable. I've never been awestruck by a landing before.
Shortly thereafter pits appear in the desert, then a clone army of sand-colored buildings, then the city itself, all dancing around the Nile. There must be some sort of ordinance or tradition that governs construction -- literally everything blends in with the desert.
We land. The air is warm and wet, almost perfumed. The sky is clear for a quarter mile or so before it disappears into the same smog I became used to in Addis. According to Lonely Planet, Cairo is in the running for world's most polluted city.
Visa is $15, dispensed cheerfully and without question at a bank branch before customs -- it is nothing more nor less than a tariff on travel. No pretense about regulation here.
Customs is quick. "Sorry, I grew a beard," I joke as he opens my passport. "It's that hair you should be worried about," he counters, then "All done! See? Very quick!"
At the baggage claim, my backpack is a no-show. I wait, in case it's just delayed like they say it might be. If only.
But wait! My faith is rewarded! Bag arrives separately. I flee happily for a cab -- no stand, but a two-fingered man asks, "Taxi?" and I nod. He quotes me $20 US for the trip to my hotel. I laugh, and so does he. But his boss corroborates, and I, feeling my inexperience, acquiesce.
I get a quick second to breathe on the way out of the airport as the driver stops to offer a sip of his bottled water to one of the guards. Then he slaps his gearshift and all hell breaks loose.
Taxi driving in Cairo turns out to be a blood sport. New York City cabbies look like rubes in comparison. Streets are packed to the brim with cars, few of which obey any traffic laws. Lane markers resemble international law: inconsistently delineated and optional even when clear. My driver clucks disapprovingly when I move to don my seatbelt, indicating that I should just spread out and enjoy the ride. I bet it has more to do with the shape the seatbelt is in: when he drapes his own across himself moments later, it lacks a buckle. Its only possible purpose is to forestall police attention -- does Egypt have seatbelt laws?
After a particularly knotted intersection, he grins and makes fish-through water hand motions to indicate that I should be impressed. I am: if we didn't leave any paint behind, it wasn't for lack of opportunity. I clap approvingly, and we share a laugh.
Lonely Planet suggests that any driver is more likely to take me to a hotel run by a friend of his than to the one I requested. This is exactly what happens. I pay him anyway, going so far as to add what must be perceived as a $1 Foolish American bonus, then get directions to my hostel and walk the necessary blocks, backpack in hand.
Along the way I stop for water. "Two pounds", says the man in the street stand. I give him a 100 and he hands me what turns out, after two countings, to be ten pounds less than the requisite c hange. I point this out. He touches his head to indicate that he must be losing his mind and hands me the additional 10.
Finally, I reach the hostel just fine and, after some wrangling, secure one of five beds in a shared room -- $8 US a night, breakfast included. It is noon, my first roommate offers an "I don't speak English but you seem okay" smile, and I am ready for Cairo!
(largely unedited from scribbled journal)
Shortly thereafter pits appear in the desert, then a clone army of sand-colored buildings, then the city itself, all dancing around the Nile. There must be some sort of ordinance or tradition that governs construction -- literally everything blends in with the desert.
We land. The air is warm and wet, almost perfumed. The sky is clear for a quarter mile or so before it disappears into the same smog I became used to in Addis. According to Lonely Planet, Cairo is in the running for world's most polluted city.
Visa is $15, dispensed cheerfully and without question at a bank branch before customs -- it is nothing more nor less than a tariff on travel. No pretense about regulation here.
Customs is quick. "Sorry, I grew a beard," I joke as he opens my passport. "It's that hair you should be worried about," he counters, then "All done! See? Very quick!"
At the baggage claim, my backpack is a no-show. I wait, in case it's just delayed like they say it might be. If only.
But wait! My faith is rewarded! Bag arrives separately. I flee happily for a cab -- no stand, but a two-fingered man asks, "Taxi?" and I nod. He quotes me $20 US for the trip to my hotel. I laugh, and so does he. But his boss corroborates, and I, feeling my inexperience, acquiesce.
I get a quick second to breathe on the way out of the airport as the driver stops to offer a sip of his bottled water to one of the guards. Then he slaps his gearshift and all hell breaks loose.
Taxi driving in Cairo turns out to be a blood sport. New York City cabbies look like rubes in comparison. Streets are packed to the brim with cars, few of which obey any traffic laws. Lane markers resemble international law: inconsistently delineated and optional even when clear. My driver clucks disapprovingly when I move to don my seatbelt, indicating that I should just spread out and enjoy the ride. I bet it has more to do with the shape the seatbelt is in: when he drapes his own across himself moments later, it lacks a buckle. Its only possible purpose is to forestall police attention -- does Egypt have seatbelt laws?
After a particularly knotted intersection, he grins and makes fish-through water hand motions to indicate that I should be impressed. I am: if we didn't leave any paint behind, it wasn't for lack of opportunity. I clap approvingly, and we share a laugh.
Lonely Planet suggests that any driver is more likely to take me to a hotel run by a friend of his than to the one I requested. This is exactly what happens. I pay him anyway, going so far as to add what must be perceived as a $1 Foolish American bonus, then get directions to my hostel and walk the necessary blocks, backpack in hand.
Along the way I stop for water. "Two pounds", says the man in the street stand. I give him a 100 and he hands me what turns out, after two countings, to be ten pounds less than the requisite c hange. I point this out. He touches his head to indicate that he must be losing his mind and hands me the additional 10.
Finally, I reach the hostel just fine and, after some wrangling, secure one of five beds in a shared room -- $8 US a night, breakfast included. It is noon, my first roommate offers an "I don't speak English but you seem okay" smile, and I am ready for Cairo!
(largely unedited from scribbled journal)
Friday, February 6, 2009
A Happy Birthday to the Public Servant
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!"
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Dr. Seuss (The Lorax) (1904 – 1991)
"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.
Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864 - 1912)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Dr. Seuss (The Lorax) (1904 – 1991)
"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.
Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864 - 1912)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Boredom: Is It Catching?
I left an open prompt on gchat today: "Informal poll: When was the last time you were bored?". Sarah responded, and away we went:
Sarah: saturday. but on purpose.
me: heh. tell me more.
Sarah: stressful week, wanted to feel bored. so i did everything i had to do for a while, and then i sat around for a while and felt bored.
when was the last time you felt bored?
me: Hm. Well, here's the backstory:
Someone was complaining to me yesterday about people who got bored.
Sarah: uh huh
me: "What, you can't read a book? Watch a movie! Fucking do push-ups! Who gets bored!"
...
and I realized I can't really remember the last time that happened
to me, anyway
I mean, maybe 20-hour plane flights
Sarah: i can't remember the last time it happened and i didn't do something about it
hahaha TRUE
if i get bored i go do something else, usually
me: Right. I mean, I've never been exposed to boredom long enough that it ground at me
Right.
Sarah: fair
me: (Maybe I have been, but it's been a long while)
You think that's universal?
Sarah: (amen... 5th grade the last time i can really remember)
that cool people don't get bored
and icky people do?
me: I mean, do people just claim boredom to get a sweetheart to come over for a hookup session?
Sarah: haha well here's what im thinking
maybe there's two states of boredom
paralytic boredom and ... proactive boredom
me: I think probably the first ten minutes of the one lead, when unchecked, to the other
right? Or are some people prone to one but not the other?
Sarah: i think some people are prone to paralytic boredom
me: If you're a proactive bore (har har), can you fall into the other after years of neglecting your impulses?
Sarah: thinking of some of my students here
and never do anything to snap out of it
me: If you're the other way, can you be trained to be proactive?
Sarah: well i think people can change, so yes to both
me: (assuming, of course, that proactive's the way to be -- but I think that's an easy case to make)
woot!
Sarah: i think it's the only case to make
who wants to be a paralytic bore
me: truth. My bet is it's addictive, though
much like depression
Sarah: amen
i wonder if it's any different
maybe the boredom is a symptom of depression
me: Hmmm!
Or vice versa.
Sarah: who knows
___________________________
...do you, gentle reader? When was the last time you were bored? And what kind was it?
Sarah: saturday. but on purpose.
me: heh. tell me more.
Sarah: stressful week, wanted to feel bored. so i did everything i had to do for a while, and then i sat around for a while and felt bored.
when was the last time you felt bored?
me: Hm. Well, here's the backstory:
Someone was complaining to me yesterday about people who got bored.
Sarah: uh huh
me: "What, you can't read a book? Watch a movie! Fucking do push-ups! Who gets bored!"
...
and I realized I can't really remember the last time that happened
to me, anyway
I mean, maybe 20-hour plane flights
Sarah: i can't remember the last time it happened and i didn't do something about it
hahaha TRUE
if i get bored i go do something else, usually
me: Right. I mean, I've never been exposed to boredom long enough that it ground at me
Right.
Sarah: fair
me: (Maybe I have been, but it's been a long while)
You think that's universal?
Sarah: (amen... 5th grade the last time i can really remember)
that cool people don't get bored
and icky people do?
me: I mean, do people just claim boredom to get a sweetheart to come over for a hookup session?
Sarah: haha well here's what im thinking
maybe there's two states of boredom
paralytic boredom and ... proactive boredom
me: I think probably the first ten minutes of the one lead, when unchecked, to the other
right? Or are some people prone to one but not the other?
Sarah: i think some people are prone to paralytic boredom
me: If you're a proactive bore (har har), can you fall into the other after years of neglecting your impulses?
Sarah: thinking of some of my students here
and never do anything to snap out of it
me: If you're the other way, can you be trained to be proactive?
Sarah: well i think people can change, so yes to both
me: (assuming, of course, that proactive's the way to be -- but I think that's an easy case to make)
woot!
Sarah: i think it's the only case to make
who wants to be a paralytic bore
me: truth. My bet is it's addictive, though
much like depression
Sarah: amen
i wonder if it's any different
maybe the boredom is a symptom of depression
me: Hmmm!
Or vice versa.
Sarah: who knows
___________________________
...do you, gentle reader? When was the last time you were bored? And what kind was it?
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Security Isn't Free, Either
I once heard a Harvard professor give a talk describing the yumminess vs. safety scale for food regulation. Yummy food (yes, I’m quoting here) is frequently unsafe, and safe food rarely yummy. Head to the Texas border, he said, to see it in action. The same ingredients are used in burritos on either side of the border, but the Mexican version, with its unpasteurized cheese and fresher, unmedicated chicken, bursts with both flavor and, occasionally, Salmonella. The American version is recognizable as a burrito but has little taste in common with its more daring cousin. We’ve sacrificed some deliciousness in favor of safety.
Turn now to the news media, wherein, several times a week, in the midst of debating the war in Iraq, a TV pundit draws an indignant breath and intones, “Freedom isn’t free, you know.” The point, however self-righteously delivered, is well taken: while we’re at home enjoying the myriad privileges afforded us by our open and thriving society, men and women in uniform are giving their lives that this should be so.
The Bush administration daily levies the argument that they need increased power “to secure our freedoms” and “protect innocent lives.” We must have warrantless wiretapping on the instantaneous basis of need; we must allow the search of individual library records – to do anything less would compromise our safety. We put our liquids in 3 oz. containers and raise our hands above our sides and wonder nervously where the line will be drawn.
It turns out that, just like safe food, security isn’t free either. In this case, though, the price is paid in freedom.
Consider also that more than 4,000 American troops have been killed in Iraq, with more than 30,000 wounded and as many as 600,000 Iraqi deaths. We spend $725 million dollars a day to “fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them here”, a plain reference to the security we gain from our efforts. Assuming that that argument is valid, is it worth the price?
How many Americans would live fuller and freer lives if we used that money and effort for freedom rather than security? The opportunities to do so are manifold: schools could be built; tuberculosis cases could be detected; economic stimulus checks could be increased; community centers could be heavily endowed; Pell grants could be funded at record levels; residents of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward could be helped to move back in; veterans could be offered medical care at non-VA hospitals.
All of us want to prevent the next terrorist attack on the United States. Any one of us would sacrifice his or her own life to save thousands. But as a society, would we endanger our children’s educations to prevent 3,000 deaths? Would we compromise the American dream by cracking down on immigration and discouraging foreign visitors? Would we send our sons and daughters to uncertain death? What about to prevent 6,000 American deaths? Or 50,000? Such questions are the stuff of nightmares and of responsible government, and the abilities to humanely understand, resolve and – most of all – explain their nuances are the differences between great leaders and tyrants.
So no, security is not free, but many are the simpletons in power who imply (and maybe even believe) that it is. Our leaders know that every ounce of security we claim is paid for with a tax on our freedoms, but the invocation of sacred, unimpeachable freedom is often too great for them to resist. Beware any politician who would stop at nothing to protect our freedoms, for these are the men and women most likely to trample them underfoot.
Traditionally, we defer to anyone touting an interest in our protection. Protect our bodies and our wealth, he or she likely means, but we would do well to remember that such protections are not without cost, and that that cost is paid in our freedoms – freedoms whose protection, in the end, is up to us.
Turn now to the news media, wherein, several times a week, in the midst of debating the war in Iraq, a TV pundit draws an indignant breath and intones, “Freedom isn’t free, you know.” The point, however self-righteously delivered, is well taken: while we’re at home enjoying the myriad privileges afforded us by our open and thriving society, men and women in uniform are giving their lives that this should be so.
The Bush administration daily levies the argument that they need increased power “to secure our freedoms” and “protect innocent lives.” We must have warrantless wiretapping on the instantaneous basis of need; we must allow the search of individual library records – to do anything less would compromise our safety. We put our liquids in 3 oz. containers and raise our hands above our sides and wonder nervously where the line will be drawn.
It turns out that, just like safe food, security isn’t free either. In this case, though, the price is paid in freedom.
Consider also that more than 4,000 American troops have been killed in Iraq, with more than 30,000 wounded and as many as 600,000 Iraqi deaths. We spend $725 million dollars a day to “fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them here”, a plain reference to the security we gain from our efforts. Assuming that that argument is valid, is it worth the price?
How many Americans would live fuller and freer lives if we used that money and effort for freedom rather than security? The opportunities to do so are manifold: schools could be built; tuberculosis cases could be detected; economic stimulus checks could be increased; community centers could be heavily endowed; Pell grants could be funded at record levels; residents of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward could be helped to move back in; veterans could be offered medical care at non-VA hospitals.
All of us want to prevent the next terrorist attack on the United States. Any one of us would sacrifice his or her own life to save thousands. But as a society, would we endanger our children’s educations to prevent 3,000 deaths? Would we compromise the American dream by cracking down on immigration and discouraging foreign visitors? Would we send our sons and daughters to uncertain death? What about to prevent 6,000 American deaths? Or 50,000? Such questions are the stuff of nightmares and of responsible government, and the abilities to humanely understand, resolve and – most of all – explain their nuances are the differences between great leaders and tyrants.
So no, security is not free, but many are the simpletons in power who imply (and maybe even believe) that it is. Our leaders know that every ounce of security we claim is paid for with a tax on our freedoms, but the invocation of sacred, unimpeachable freedom is often too great for them to resist. Beware any politician who would stop at nothing to protect our freedoms, for these are the men and women most likely to trample them underfoot.
Traditionally, we defer to anyone touting an interest in our protection. Protect our bodies and our wealth, he or she likely means, but we would do well to remember that such protections are not without cost, and that that cost is paid in our freedoms – freedoms whose protection, in the end, is up to us.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Job Satisfaction
Stanley Aronowitz, the Green Party’s choice for Governor of New York in the first years of this decade, once informed my class at Bard that we should not – could not, in fact – live our lives through our jobs. He told us that the day’s labors hadn’t always crept so deeply into home lives as they did now. As a nation, he said, we’d forgotten that we work so that we can come home and be with our families, practice our hobbies and pursue our dreams. In short, we work to live, and not vice versa. In the anti-establishment atmosphere of our tiny (emphasis on) liberal arts college, his words resonated strongly.
On reflection, though, I’m less moved. Should we not derive satisfaction from our work? If we are to enjoy our jobs, if they are to enrich us spiritually as well as monetarily, how can we draw Aronowitz’s line between labor and love? Have we devoted ourselves too fully to our jobs when we arrive late for dinner? When we skip a lunch hour? When we go out more often than not with our friends from work? When we talk shop rather than sports or politics with our colleagues? Is there any opportunity that shouldn’t trump an office obligation?
Or should we look to merge our jobs seamlessly with our lives, each twined around and through the other until we find ourselves asleep every so often on the keyboard at the office? Do we live to succeed?
If so, how can we find time for love? How much can we really be there for our children when we’ve committed ourselves to what is, after all, a righteous and necessary cause that would fall without us? (Is it possible to commit oneself body and soul to a job without convincing oneself that it is a righteous and necessary cause?)
It’s also worth considering whether occupants of different places in the economy might give different answers to these questions of commitment, value and priority. Are there jobs that, by their natures, must be abandoned without compunction when the proverbial whistle blows? Examples include most service jobs – plumber, janitor, bus driver, physical therapist, scribe. There’s a strong argument to be made that the “elite” levels of American culture are composed of jobs that don’t permit such detachment – vocations that cannot be left at work. Perhaps those of us who yearn for labors of love rather than labors of lucre that enable lives of love are tacitly admitting our place in the overworked aristocracy. (Was there ever such a glib phrase as “working Americans”, used largely to refer to the blue-collar middle-class?)
Should that divide exist?
Too, is there not a divide between what we want from our jobs at age 25 and what we’ll want when we hit 60 or 75? Shall we dive in now and live our labors to the exclusion of all else, planning to come up for air in our fertile years to make a family and then, gradually, to relinquish our yoke to the coming generation in favor of creature comforts and membership in our communities? Or would those years dedicated so heavily to vocational work have too high an opportunity cost in neighbors, friends and lovers, in books and in art?
If we decide, as many of us have, to go all-in during the sunniest days of our lives with an eye toward reining in our horses when the evening comes, can we really understand the sacrifice we’re making?
Finally -- and with a tip of the hat to Zac, who kindly reminds me that not all things in life are black and white – is this dichotomy an oversimplification? Surely there is middle ground between a menial job to bring home the bacon and a back-breaker of a job to satisfy even the most sweat-thirsty brow. I don’t doubt that I sold janitorial jobs short by describing them as mindless nine-to-fives, and in fact, I’ve spent some time with mops myself and have taken much pride in a floor well-scrubbed. But the question remains: How much of ourselves shall we invest in our occupation, and how much shall we lay in reserve for after the whistle blows?
Thoughts?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Oh, Mexico
The crashing surf provides mood music for the the hermit crabs scuttling passive-aggressively under banana leaves here at Mar de Jade, some hour’s drive south of
The owner/proprietor/guru/storyteller-in-chief is an MD, MPH from los Estados Unidos who came to this area some decades ago to help build a public health infrastructure for the locals, who were (and still are) sorely in need. The zen retreat at which I stay doubles as housing for volunteers at the clinic that she still runs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, providing free consults from doctors who donate their time. I went with them and found that I wasn’t entirely underfoot: taking blood pressure remains instinctive after my summers at Hopkins, and tough as the language barrier may be, a ready smile still puts most patients at ease while the doctor collects a history.
Still, I was struck by the differences between the “Mar de Jade Clinica Campesina” and the clinics I’ve frequented myself over the years. Few Americans would voluntarily tread into a doctor’s office with an open-air waiting room covered only by a trellis and vines, replete with flies and a noisy children’s program on the other side of the courtyard – certainly it’s not what we imagine as we debate the future of healthcare in this election. White lab coats are a distant myth to us as we usher the next patient into our semi-private exam rooms. The most high-tech tools available in the exam rooms are tiny flashlights for measuring pupil dilation, with reflex hammers a close second. One patient presented with an epidermal infection that we would have lanced but for lack of a scalpel. Women crowd the line outside the room containing the newly installed sonogram, and our OB/GYN, on loan from a Kaiser Permanente hospital in
Our patients are unfazed by the five to six gringos facing them in each examination room. We are frequently introduced by the English-speaking volunteer doctors as “mis collegas” – their colleagues – and are allowed to watch, certainly to speak during, most of the more prosaic procedures.
I am struck by the unwieldiness of the translation process. Though our doctors are conversant in Spanish, the histories are taken slowly for reasons both cultural and linguistic, as the doctors tiptoe their way through unfamiliar medical foliage in asking and then are faced with speedy yet meandering responses from the patients. I’ve been impressed everywhere in
Whether they do or not, the clinic does have more modern techniques available. The lab tech comes in a couple of times each week to collect blood samples for analysis, and we can refer patients for ECGs or X-rays. These are all expensive, though, and even $50 US is an unreasonable sum to expect from the far from well-to-do patients who line the walls of the waiting room. The familiar battery of multi-syllabic medicines is available here as in the
Lunch is hamburgers, known to all of us, in our newfound wry Mexican style, as “the American food.” We munch away and mainline lukewarm fruit punch as we debate the merits of allowing our interpreters to converse with the patients themselves and then relate the gist of the exchange back to the doctor. It’s not HHS-recommended procedure and there’s always the chance that we’re missing important nuances, but it seems to get the job done and it certainly puts the patients at ease, so no one feels too strongly about changing the process.
The line dwindles and our shoulders slump as the day draws to a close. We hop back in the truck to return to Mar de Jade and compare notes: doctors from the
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