"Pictures of pets adorn the façades and menus of restaurants in Nam Dinh,
a city in a part of northern Vietnam where cats and dogs are commonly
consumed."
Now, that is a good sentence. From this week's edition of The Economist.
It catches your attention. And, no matter how you feel about the ethics of eating cat and dog, that short sentence compels you to say: "Tell me more."
Well that is not going to happen if you pick up Oliver Pötzsch's The Ludwig Conspiracy. One of the fun things about my Kindle is its recommendation of books I might find interesting. The list shows up at the bottom of the home page.
After finishing off my electronic magazines earlier this week, I started looking around for something to read. Because I have a history background, I am not usually interested in historical fiction. There is a tendency to re-write the past through the artifice of bodice-ripping prose. Bruce Catton meets Barbara Cartland.
But I have long been fascinated by the death of Ludwig II. And that sentence sums up the basic problem of writing about Bavaria's Fairy Tale King.
He is far more interesting in death than he was in life. I will not bother telling you why, but if you have read that sentence, you essentially know the plot of this plodding piece of pedantic prose. I have saved you a painful read.
I started to say that Pötzsch came up with an interesting idea and then lost it in execution. There is no doubt the idea was lost in execution (and I suspect neither his editor nor his best friends told him that the book stank worse than Ludwig II's corpse.)
But even the idea is not that interesting. We all know people who are simultaneously self-absorbed and just a bit loony. Adding the simple fact that the subject is a monarch (Yeah, I know. But I am leaving it alone.) does not make the person's story any more interesting.
So, let's say you are willing to forgive the author for building his story around one of the world's greatest boors. Isn't it more important to determine if the author can pull it all off by writing an interesting page turner filled with clever prose?
Maybe. But that is not this book. Remember the sentence from The Economist? The one that caught your attention? Compare it with this phrase:
"While the sun rose in the sky, a glowing red globe to the east, ..." Is there anything in that sentence that causes you to react any other way than to ask: "Did you type this on a computer screen, with its glowing white light melting the creativity right out of your head?"
I started to keep a list of the clichés that drain the life out of each paragraph, but I realized that would necessitate copying most of the book. And I do have a life to lead.
Pötzsch comes from that school of historical fiction writers who conjure up a grisly murder to be solved by an amateur through a series of clues that will lead us all to discover a secret of the universe. In other words, a Dan Brown wannabe.
And like Dan Brown, Pötzsch serves up thin gruel tarted up as a banquet, and then slips out through the kitchen just as the bill arrives at the table. We tend to fall for it every time.
The good thing about buying one of these books is the cost. They are the type of fare one once found on the remainder table at Crown Books.
In this case, I wasted $2.99 and about five hours of reading. That seems a bargain. After all, in the bargain, I uncovered lots of material for an essay.
And that is priceless.
Well, yesterday was certainly a day of mixed messages.
Remember citizen steve? When I chirpily told you about rendering unto the Mexican Caesar and related a quaint anecdote about my dad. "My dad once told me: 'It
is an honor to pay taxes. And, then, you need to watch those shifty
politicians like a hawk to make certain they don't squander your
money.' He was a realist."
I am not certain how much I feel like a realist right now. "Cranky" may be the word.
While my brother was out on a computer call, I sat down to complete my federal tax returns for this past year. Filling out the forms is no longer the chore it once was -- when dads locked themselves in the den for hours.
I have been using TurboTax for years. Combined with my rather neurotic record-keeping in Quicken, completing the form portion of the ritual is now a lark.
Well, maybe not a lark. But it is simple.
I was fully prepared for the rather staggering figure that popped up as the amount the treasury expects me to voluntarily pay for the surcharge of being an American citizen. But being prepared for bad news does not sweeten the adjective.
$13,000 -- and change. That, of course, is in addition to the much larger amount that was properly withheld during the year. ("Withheld" is such a gentle word for what it truly represents.)
That amount is certainly not like being told you have one month to live. These things must be put into perspective.
I put myself in this tax pickle by cashing out a deferred income account all in one big gulp -- to assist in the purchase of the house with no name. Here is the sad news. I had federal tax withheld when I withdrew the amount. But, as Harvey Fierstein said -- not enough.
And, for the honor of using my own money for my own purposes, I also owe penalties and interest -- in addition to being bumped back into the land of estimated tax payments. I tried the "but I am only a poor pensioner trying to make his way in a confusing world." TurboTax was not impressed.
To stop the penalty clock running, I decided to pay the full bill today. I know. I know. I am losing interest on what I do not need to pay until 15 April. My answer? What interest?
Here is where I differ from my father's tax philosophy. I long ago parted with the federal government's philosophy on spending. That probably happened somewhere in the early days of the First World War when the Wilson administration bayoneted the notion of a limited federal government in the trenches of Verdun.
I now estimate that around 90% of the federal budget is spent on things I do not believe it should. Inadvertently, I have probably just offered additional proof of Sturgeon's Law.
At least, I am done with my federal tax dilemma this year. My money is no longer mine -- and I will leave it to others to spin arguments for its moral application.
It is one less thing I have to accomplish on this trip north. But several other major projects loom before I return to my courtyard in Barra de Navidad. Where the living is easy and the taxes are easier.
There are three kinds of people: those who feel morally superior to Walmart, those who feel socially superior to people who shop at Walmart, and my people -- those who see Walmart as a shopping haven.
Don't get me wrong. I have found more than a few moments of levity while avoiding cleanups on aisle 27. I have even shared a couple with you -- mostly on my visits to Bend (opposites attract; cultural spills on aisle 1).
But when a shopper needs something (and the other hoity-toity shops cannot help), there is always Walmart. I may not classify Walmart as high in its social value as Homer Simpson rates television ("Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover."), but I can almost always count on it to come through for me.
During my six years in Mexico, I have discovered, when I come north, I buy fewer things to take south to Mexico than I once did. My suitcases once looked as if I were attempting to import some of my worst shopping choices to Mexico.
I no longer need to do that. NAFTA has done it for me. As have some rather enterprising young Mexican men. One, in particular, runs a boutique grocery (Hawaii) in Melaque that caters to the northern crowd in the winter months and to middle class Mexicans in the summer months. My friends in San Miguel de Allende and around Lake Chapala tell me his stock is better than anything available to them.
That means that the type of merchandise I once muled across the border now regularly shows up on the shelves of Hawaii. What I cannot get there, I have learned to do without.
To a degree. Because, if I have some empty space in my bags, I still shop around for those exotic items that will elude the best shopper in Mexico.
It turns out they may elude the best shopper in Oregon. I stopped at several of my usual haunts in hopes of finding something "honorable" (as Auda Abu Tayi put it in Lawrence of Arabia) to haul back to the house with no name.
Costco. Safeway. Whole Foods. Fred Meyer. They all disappointed me. The special items they had once carried was occupied by a vast vacuous void.
In an attempt to convince me all was not lost, Darrel suggested a stop at Walmart. He had spotted two pound loaves of Tillamook 3 year old extra sharp cheddar cheese last week. He had me hooked at "3 year old."
I was a bit surprised that Walmart would carry such an esoteric (and expensive) product. After all, the cultural stereotype is that cheese means Velveeta within the walls of the Walton empire.
It turns out the wise Walmart shoppers had already stripped the shelves of that particular ambrosia (the Tillamook, that is; not Velveeta). So, I went searching for the other items that the High street stores failed to stock.
And I batted almost 1.000. I couldn't find any Carr's roasted garlic and herbs water crackers. But I can learn to live with the pain.
Walmart in Mexico was once one of my favorite shopping stops when I would drive to Manzanillo. I seldom go there now. Not out of any misguided political pique, but because Hawaii has cleverly utilized free market tools to fill that gap and save me a two-hour round trip.
But Walmart in Bend will undoubtedly keep me stocked with the few things I now take back to Mexico.
And what happens when I stop making these trips north -- when Darrel and Christy move south? I will do what everyone else does. Find a substitute or simply learn to deal without.
Until then, I count Walmart as a place to witness a good story and to get a good buy.
I am a man of my promises.
Several of you asked me for a map of my journeys in Mexico with Dan and Patty. After far too much experimentation and trying out software applications that simply did not live up to their billing, I settled on using Google Maps.
I originally rejected it because, it could only deal with 10 destinations on each map -- and we have well over 30 stops during our great loop adventure. But all the alternatives were worse. So, here are the maps of our journey. Where each one leaves off, the next will continue.
Enjoy.
The year was 1968. Movie reviewers were at war with one another. Well, if a war can exist where 95% of the forces are arrayed on one side.
The controversial movie of the day was John Wayne's Green Berets. Wayne was concerned that most of the media were not presenting a positive view of American goals in the Vietnam War. Green Berets was produced to balance the scales.
As far as I could tell, none of the reviewers saw the film with a mind open enough to discard their own views on the war. Reviewers critical of the war were critical of the film. Reviewers supportive of the war spent most of their reviews discussing the difficulties Wayne faced in getting the film to the screen.
I was writing a film column at the time for one libertarian student publication or other. I don't even remember the name. However, I do recall that I was very sympathetic to the aims of the film. What shocked me was just how bad the movie was.
That memory came welling up as I sat with my brother and sister-in-law watching American Sniper last night. Even though most critics have lauded Clint Eastwood's nuanced treatment of an American military hero facing evil against the background of an initially popular Iraqi war that devolved into a morass, they have stumbled over the notion that it was executed by a president most of them did not support. As a result, their reviews take on a rather churlish tone.
Eastwood has become the almost perfect director for the challenges that men face during war -- and when they then bring those challenges home with them. Not to mention how society is often unprepared to deal with the challenges American military heroes face in a society "at peace." (There are those who argue that war simply sensitizes military men to the struggles of daily society the rest of us have learned to ignore.)
That is the story of American Sniper. Bradley Cooper nails his character -- Chris Kyle, the real life hero on which the movie is based. The fact that most of us know how his story turns out only slightly takes away from the story's trajectory.
His obsession with duty personified in the person of an expert Iraqi sniper. His steady decline into his hero archetype that pulls him further and further away from his wife (played by the master of subtlety: Sienna Miller). All played against the subtext of an America that has others things to worry about than the heroes protecting its national interests.
To its credit, the movie does not offer easy answers. Nor does it try to. In that sense, it is a conservative anti-war movie.
And I am not certain how I feel about it. I am glad I saw it because it has given me a lot of questions to ponder. What I do know is that unlike what some critics say, Chris Kyle was an American hero. He did a job on our behalf, and he did it well.
Here is my suggestion. When you see the movie, leave your political notions outside. Then watch it for its moral complexity -- and its technical expertise. I doubt I have sat in any film where the closing credits completely caught the attention of the audience.
That may say it all.
I feel like Zorro.
Two laptops ago, I purchased a virtual private network (VPN) for my computer. VPNs are all the rage amongst certain sets on the internet hghway.
For libertarians and clinical paranoids, a VPN is the first step in trying to mask one's identity in the Pyrrhic pursuit of electronic privacy. For twenty-somethings, it is away to digitally steal copyrighted material without leaving fingerprints on the wheel of the getaway car. It is no coincidence that "pirate" lurks within the second word in its title.
Well, it is about time for me to sign up for another tour of duty on the pirate ship. And like everyone else who uses these services, I have my own justfication for being a law breaker. In my case, I am heading off to Red China for four days.
Three years ago, I visited Red China. Even though I had heard that the Chinese authorities prohibited access to blogs within its boundaries, I was surprised to discover I could not even look at Mexpatriate -- even in the 5-star business hotels where we were housed.
I am returning to Red China at the end of April. (Or, I hope I am. Writing stuff like this probably does not enhance my odds of the Chinese approving my entry visa. We shall see.)
With my new VPN, I thought I might be able to post a few essays for the four days I will be in Shanghai -- a city I really enjoyed on my last trip. At least, I thought that until I read Plugging the Holes in this week's Economist.
Apparently, the Chinese authorities have sniffed out the VPN pirates, and are no longer tolerating the exchange of information on VPN-accessed blogs. I may use "pirate" facetiously. The Chinese government does not.
The authorities have taken the position that offering unregistered VPN services in China is illegal. Even if the VPN company is not stationed in China, and is offering services legally in its home country.
I am not a fan of censorship. But, while I am in China, I intend to avoid using VPN services. I will wait until I leave China before writing any essays. Just as I did three years ago.
The article in The Economist did remind me on one positive consequence of the Chinese policy. Facebook is not available there.
A broken clock can be correct two times a day.
If all has gone well, I should be spending the night in an airport hotel near SEATAC airport.
When I made my flight and hotel reservations, I forgot I would be flying through on the weekend after the Super Bowl. As matters turned out, I suspect there is not going to be a lot of revelry in the streets. I should rest well for my flight to Bend.
Rather than write a full essay, I decided to simply share a favorite photograph I caught this past week in Barra de Navidad. I am not certain what to think of the piece.
The child piñata has an eerie feel to it. But added to the graffiti background, the effect is touching -- in a John Carpenter sort of way. Or maybe Robert Rodriguez. But there would need to be more red. Lots more red.
While I am enjoying the sleep of the just, I will let the rest of you talk amongst yourselves.
There has to be a story here somewhere. Artists are not mute.
