America the Troubled in 2011

The world economy has three economic zones which could provide various competing or clashing trends in the next year. This, according to the December 2010 edition of the Economist, means big emerging markets such as China , India and Brazil see projected growth but policies that are anti-inflationary. Europe is likely to stagnate due to austere fiscal measures in response to the sovereign debt crisis. America, on the other hand is likely to see anemic growth at the cost of increased debt, with certain but unpredictable and dire consequences. What is interesting is that the European and American partnership is diverging in their techniques of acheiving common goals, namely growth and stability, while the emerging markets are trying to temper growth and, eventually, reshape the gloabl order. This means that we are enetering a multi-polar economic world and American policy should not be made imperiously as if we are the wind itself. Instead, the US should focus squarely on sound fiscal measures in the medium term with an eye on the storms around the world which could batter us in time.

The Millenial Generation

Baliol College has a quirky list of descriptors for every entering freshman class. I was interested in reading it to discover the post secondary educator's view of the product I help produce, namely 18 year old minds. But it was dissappointing. It was apparently not more than a look at newspaper headlines of 1992, with a description of sundry particulars that this generatuion has "always" known. For example, "The Soviet Union has never existed". I happen to know that most 17 year olds know what the Soviet Union is. It is a video game.

Not quite everything illuminated here

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 2002.

Great Idea. Surprisingly Important. Impossibly celebrated. Fabulously disappointing. I don't read much fiction, so perhaps not knowing better I suffered through this novel. My wife had started to read it, in order to understand my obsessive interest, and she wisely put it down before the end. Then as I sank my eyes into the pages and exuded criticism from behind the cover, she rolled her eyes at me. (I just know she did.)

This is an example of the rare case of the movie being better than the book.

The book is an historical sweep of a fictional Jewish shtetl in Ukraine. One problem is that there are historical inaccuracies and implausibilities, such as 17th century peasants chain smoking cigarettes. Sorry, tobacco was not affordable to the working masses until the wide spread use of the steam ship in the late 1800s and cigarettes were not common until industrialization. Also this holocaust novel depicts a German general directing an einsatzgrup in the extermination of a Jewish village. No. They would be led by lower ranking officers. It is because the history of the holocaust is so important that I make this point. It is not enough to remember, but to remember well. Speaking of which, Foer has a fascinating musing on what he characterizes as the Jewish approach to memory. I am paraphrasing here, but he says Jews have six senses; the normal 5 plus memory. "How does this smell, taste, feel, look like, and how does this remember?" That is an interesting thought. I suppose that this theory of remembering expalins Foer's indifference to historical accuracy. As a literary device, I would be very willing to accept the novel's anachronisms. However, I have a harder time forgiving Foer's use of destructive stereotypes and shallow development of some of his characters. In particular, the pivotal character of "the Gypsy Girl," whose actions over several chapters is formative to the named character Safran, is described as nothing more than the rootless mistress and grass lying sexual servant to the main character's grandfather. As this novel is written, it is important that this "Gypsy Girl" evinces Safran's first orgasm. Her name, however, or family or cultural complexity is not so much as alluded to in the scores of pages she inhabits. I think this is an disgusting and irresponsible dehumanization of a very set upon people in Eastern Europe, who were side by side victims of the holocaust with the Jews. This I don't forgive. JSF, your topic and technique are fascinating, and deserve so much to be written well. Please, at the very least, take an interest in what you youself are writing about.

Cover art to More Sundry Poems

Pencil sketch of Liam, which will be the cover to More Sundry Poems, my newest collection. He isn't really cross eyed.

Let's all go a-Viking!

A surprise in reading A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones is that the facts that debunk the myths are revealed as further myths. Leif Erikson, it turns out, was born in Greenland. His discoery, it turns out, was not more than an inevitable and not too terribly risky jaunt over to the next islands from Greenland to the West. Leif Erikson was not a rebellious visionary and iconoclast cut from the strange cloth of anti-social and prophetic genius. He was simply the next in line to travel west in a centuries hold viking habit of colonization.Greenland was a community of hundreds born from Iceland which was a community of thousands born from Norway. Vinland, in turn, which never exceeded in population several dozen was meant to a colony of the Greenlanders. It failed partly because the Native Americans (Skraenglinger by the Viking term)harassed the newcomers. Vikings, it seemed, preferred or were unable to provide waves of invaders to slaughter native inhabitants of their land. And since the Skraenglinger didn't seem to have gold and silver, the waves of invaders that the Vikings could have supplied were not forthcoming. So they left. A changing climate on Greenland by 1040 also made the Vinland community untenable. What interesting lessons they are for today.

Gwyn Jones's book is peppered with quaint expressions. His love of the subject is palpable and the archaic stylisms make me think of an old-school historian. The book was first published in 1968 and revised in 1984.It is a long read at 415 pages of close text, plus appendices of primary sources in translation. Not a casual read, but one that can challenge the mind of an amatur historian.

The Green and the Blue

A second snow storm within a week. And this is supposed to be spring break! The tulip and the daffodils that cost good money, and required more than one weekend to plant last year, are probably going to droop their cheery heads and die before April comes. How inconvenient! Would global warming just get here already! Yes, it has been said before, and when I hear it my face usually turns red (pink?) from the liberal rage welling within me. And now these same words are on the tip of my tongue, as I stare at that flower bed under a blanket of white, with a snow shovel in my hand.

Of course, they don't cross my lips before my mental governor slaps a gag on my mouth. Instead my mental state is flooded with the images of Bangledesh, New Orleans, and Hondurus of, well, floods. Those are some the real problms of global warming. or climate change. Droughts in Africa and in the American southeast are more of the same. Shouldn't I be ashamed of my petty compalints and interests? I'm just an amatuer flower farmer with a crop of 2 dozen yellow daffodils destined for my own kitchen table (and maybe, if I have the time and inclination, a couple for my neighbor who watches my kinds when child care falls through at the last minute.) That's not a problem.

And yet, This is probably the closest I get to understanding the climate that we all depend on. Maybe instead of chastising myself for self-absorbtion, as I contemplate the dependence of small creatures on the great earth, I could become smarter about the small world I inhabit (this suburb) in relation to the great world I also inhabit with all of you. Shouldn't I take this plot of earth I have, and let it cause me to care even more about the weather, the climate and the environment? After all, I can do things much better. I could split these bulbs this year, instead of always buying new ones. I could find the micro climnate in my yard that will keep my bulbs from blooming prematurely, in relation to the macro-climate of the front range, Colorado. That would save fuel, money and time.

It seems this spring snow storm has taught me to avoid planting the horticlutural gems of Holland at 5000 feet and at the expense of myself and the planet. This summer, I'll plant Columbines.