Interesting Times

Well, we live in interesting times, or maybe it’s just that now, with our technology, we can see just how interesting the times are. Peering into CNN this morning, I saw a guy who was totally carried away. Why? For the first time a giant squid has been seen! And we have footage! Wow! He could barely sit in his chair—by comparison, kids on Christmas morning are blasé.

Well, the giant squid is interesting. I didn’t know that it had been the subjects of myths for centuries—a giant sea creature that swarms up and devours boats. They don’t—apparently—but they are big. Until now, they’ve only been seen when they washed ashore, dead. But they can get to be 60 feet; that’s several school buses.

Have a look—not at a giant squid but at the largest squid of all: the colossal squid.

Something to see, right? You’d remember that day of fishing….

Of course, you’d also remember being in Manila yesterday. That’s because nine million people decided to celebrate the procession of the Black Nazarene.

I can hear the question….

The Black Nazarene is a sculpture made in Mexico in the early 1600’s. It was transported to the Philippines by a galleon that, according to legend, caught fire, blackening but not burning the statue. So three times a year, six to eight million people walk barefoot—in honor of you-know-whom—through the streets of Manila. Well, maybe not walk—“jostle” is the word Wikipedia used. Oh, and “trample” as well, at times resulting in death. The deal? Wiping a white towel on the statue—it’s supposed to bring you good luck.

Listen, everybody, I would hate to antagonize my Philippine readership, and you know that I tiptoe on the topic of religion—but is this rationale? Sorry, forgot that the Philippines is also where they nail people up on crosses every Good Friday. So maybe Manila wasn’t the place to be, yesterday.

Of course, where you REALLY didn’t want to be was with the guy in clip below. But how fascinating to watch someone so fascinated and seemingly so fearless.

There is something compelling about a polar bear…..

104,000 Nuts, All Armed

The great thing about not following popular culture is that it’s so relaxing. I walk by the sea with Bach cantatas soaring into my ears, and drink my orange juice…it’s soothing.

It is, however, a bit isolating. Which is why I had to ask, “who’s Piers Morgan,” when Mr. Fernández told me that over 100,000 people want to deport him.

He explained—a British citizen who has a show on television.

Right—so what had he done?

If you watch the clip below, you’ll know. He wants to ban semi-automatic weapons, force background checks on buyers at gun shows, increase funding for mental health.

And if you watch the clip below, you’ll know something else.

We’re in deep trouble.

If I weren’t an atheist, I’d be on my knees. Why? Because the gentleman—though he seems to prefer the term “bud”—behind the petition is completely insane.

Most people in interviews start off reasonably enough, get challenged, become unnerved, and then unravel. Alex Jones unravels within the first fifteen seconds after being presented the question, “why do you want to deport me?”

A single nut is one thing; 104,000 of them—all armed—is another.

Watching the clip is an invitation to emotional highjacking. The fear, rather the paranoia, is contagious. Worse is the realization—no rational dialogue is possible here.

I know people who have guns. A neighbor of my mother has guns. Actually, at least two neighbors. And they’re good people and I trust them and they’re not crazy. But if they want to keep their guns, they’d better do something quick.

Change—or rather start—the dialogue.

Send this to everyone you know who has a gun. Give them this message.

The NRA is making you look completely ridiculous. And it’s pissing people off. So unless you want the rest of us to get down nasty and fight to ban ALL guns—which many nations have done, by the way—you’re gonna have to be reasonable. Nobody has to have an assault weapon. Not checking background at gun shows while requiring it in gun shops is crazy. Speak up, repudiate the NRA, and start a reasonable dialogue.

Why do I feel that ain’t gonna happen?

Chastity of the Ears

Morning radio—it’s a thing in Puerto Rico. Yes, everywhere else has it, but we do it with a special zest, a Latin flare; we’re liberal in the use of absurdity and silliness, scandal and gossip.

And virtually no one can resist it.

Not even Mr. Fernández, who normally is even less prone to swimming with the current than I. At 6:30 in the morning, the clock radio will startle me into life, and neither willy nor nilly will keep me from listening.

Today, according to CNN, the world’s eyes are on Cairo, and the president, Mr. Morsi. Well, news to me, but son of a newspaper guy am I. I did my best, and read two thirds of the article.

Right—and what is Puerto Rico occupying itself with today?

The morning radio gave me the first clues. Prostitución. La Prieta—the dark (female) one. Rubencito.

OK—what’s The New Day, our number one newspaper, serving up today? Escalofriantes Detalles reads the front page of the print edition. Chilling details.

A man disappeared last Thursday. His family was distraught. The press gave the matter a lot of attention, perhaps because he was a publicist, and thus presumably known to journalists. His body was discovered two days ago—and now the story is out.

Well, the family is now facing two deaths. The first being the publicist himself.

The second?

Their image of him.

If the accounts are true, he had a little secret. And no, you won’t find it here.

I believe in the public’s right to know. I think it’s very important, in fact, to know who won the bid to build the highway, at what cost, under what circumstances. I want the press monitoring how the elections are held, what the votes are, and what the shenanigans are.

What I don’t get is why I have to participate in the shredding, posthumously, of a man’s reputation. Or why I have a right to know sordid details that must be agonizing to a family already decimated.

Confession—I read the article. Not the two thirds that I gave to Cairo and Mr. Morsi, but the entire article. The details of which I am—high-mindedly—denying you!

Nor can I be very proud of the fact that I never once was tempted to look at Kate Middleton’s you-know-whats. Pretty easy temptation to avoid. But the day Mr. Fernández announced, “Hey, here’s a picture of Ricky Martin nude?”

Well, I violated then what I violated today—chastity of the eyes. Which I remembered from my days of reading about religious orders. Nuns, in the old days, were told to walk with their eyes cast downwards. Temptation was everywhere.

Also, of course, it was self-discipline. The will was exerting itself, taking control of the body.

It may also have been respect. There are some things I shouldn’t, and therefore don’t, see. It’s enough that your life has been maimed. I won’t pry into the shameful reasons for it.

Of course, the issue for me is chastity of the ears. A man with better control than I would rouse himself at the first mention of prostitution, stride to the cold shower, mortify the flesh. Not lie under the warm and prurient covers….

And is it only I, or does anyone else think that it’s far more easy to practice chastity of the eyes than chastity of the ears? Somehow, you have less control over what you hear than what you see.

Or maybe not. Try googling chastity of the ears and you’ll get surprising little. The first citation is from a Father Hardon (and speaking of which—is there chastity of humor?), who tosses the term off with no discussion. Three or four citations down, you come to this, from Morning Talks, October 30, 1967:

Out of the five outgoing faculties of eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste, three are most powerful. Lust attacks us eighty percent through the eyes, fourteen percent through the ears and the remaining six percent mainly through touch.  

Well, now, that’s an interesting fact to know.

If true.

Which I doubt. I’d argue that there are visual guys, tactile guys, aural guys.  I could and did go to bed with wildly divergent guys, visually speaking. Didn’t matter to me, in those long-gone days.

I could never go to bed with a guy who had an unpleasant voice. 

Well, if I’ve sinned, I must do penance. Here taking the form of an utterly silly cat video.

Enjoy!

Going Native?

CNN reports that the battle is over, and that the digital natives have won over the immigrants.

Which is to say that if you remember a time when you grabbed a piece of paper, put a black oily sheet of flimsier paper under it, then put another sheet under that and inserted around a roller—you’re an immigrant. If you cannot imagine creating a document without the program Word, you are a native.

A simpler test presented itself a few months ago. I learned to type on—well, a typewriter. What else would I have used? And so I continued to insert two spaces after a period.

That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

Wrong.

Anybody learning keyboarding now knows that it’s one space, not two. And if you do do two spaces after terminal punctuation, a couple things will happen:

• the formatting will be completely screwed up if you publish electronically
• publishing houses may not accept your manuscript

It takes a lot of time—in a 250 page manuscript—to painstakingly delete spaces….

OK—so there are people out there whose experience of the world is solely digital. Is it a bad thing?

I think so.

Percy Tannenbaum of the University of California at Berkeley has written: “Among life’s more embarrassing moments have been countless occasions when I am engaged in conversation in a room while a TV set is on, and I cannot for the life of me stop from periodically glancing over to the screen. This occurs not only during dull conversations but during reasonably interesting ones just as well.”

That’s from an article in Scientific American titled “Television Addiction is no Mere Metaphor.” Who doesn’t know the feeling? You’re in somebody’s house, and there’s the TV, to which they are oblivious. You are fighting the urge to go and turn it off, considering the possibility of asking your host to turn it off, and watching helplessly and—you hope—surreptiously.

“Your blood pressure is a little high,” my doctor once said.

“Well, I’ve just seen three rapes, five murders, eight fights, and two high speed chases,” I said.

He was alarmed—where had I been?

“In your waiting room, in front of the TV….”

Which hooks you, by the way, by something called the “orienting response.” Imagine, you are in the jungle, millennia ago, hunting for food. Everything is either still or at least rhythmic—the swaying of trees, the breeze stirring the branches. Suddenly, there’s an unexpected movement—something out of place. An animal has moved, breaking a twig in the process. You turn, you shoot the arrow.

Dinner.

Great—very nice in the jungle. But in the living room?

Because TV is filled with those quick, unexpected movements. Part of the addiction is that we haven’t evolved fast enough not to be hooked by the jumping movements on the screen.

And an addiction it is. I read somewhere that even when promised a substantial amount of money—I think it was a thousand pounds—the great majority of British households could not forego telly for a year.

The article went on to say that the cathode ray tube—the CRT which was prevalent before the LCD—actually stimulates the right side of the brain. Which is, for most of us, non-linear, non-logical, more concerned with emotions than with logic.

Before I post this, I will check and—I hope—weed out typos and grammatical errors. If I printed the document, however, I am sure that I would find many errors that I had overlooked. I’m reading, or editing, with a different part of my brain.

It’s one of the reasons you explode, when the boss sends you a nasty email. Also the reason you say, “dammit, I’m not taking that shit!” and send back a more inflammatory response.

It’s the reason guys get hooked on Internet porn. And probably the reason so many smart guys—David Petraeus does come to mind—do such incredibly dumb things. He didn’t think anybody could trace his email? Of course not—he was thinking in front of a computer, not in a quiet, disconnected corner.

Saying which, I am writing on a computer. I will cruise the Internet, which allows me to tell you what CNN is saying or what the Scientific American published in 2003. I will play Sudoku and Rummikub—both on my iPad. I may well watch TV after dinner with Raf.

Further confession—I can be smug about not watching TV, or needing it much. But when the Internet is down?

Augh!

I also have taken a 40-minute walk by the sea, and heard—yes digitally—the Carmelite Vespers of Handel. I’ve slept alone in a forest. I’ve held a book.

I worry about kids who haven’t….